"Ambition," Katarina said, "is the single most important force in any civilization."
The wind off the southern ocean whipped her hair sideways. She stood at the cliff’s edge with her hands behind her back and her chin tilted up.
"Every trade route, every great house that ever rose to prominence did so because someone wanted more than what they had. Not need. Want. Need is survival. Ambition is what turns survival into civilization. The Valdari didn’t build port cities because they needed shelter from the rain. They built them because someone looked at a coastline and thought, ’I could own that.’"
She paused for effect.
"Understand?" She looked back at her audience.
Behind her, Vessa was sitting on a rock, kicking her legs and eating a dried fig.
"You’re weird," Vessa said.
[... Some right-hand woman you are.]
She’d been doing that for the entire speech, which was rude, but also entirely predictable, because Vessa Talori had attached herself to Katarina’s life with the tenacity of a barnacle and approximately the same level of reverence.
It had been a few weeks since they’d met.
Katarina had tried ignoring her. She’d tried being cold. She’d tried being boring on purpose, which was genuinely difficult for someone with a photographic memory and opinions about everything.
Nothing worked.
So Katarina had accepted the arrangement. Vessa was now her associate. After all, every CEO needed someone who followed them around and agreed with their schizophrenic ramblings.
The fact that Vessa agreed with almost nothing and spent most of their time together asking questions Katarina didn’t want to answer was a personnel issue she’d address later.
"Come on," Katarina said. "Let’s go waddle in the ravine."
The ravine cut inland from the cliffs, a narrow channel of red rock with scrub growing out of the walls and a thin stream at the bottom. Katarina had been cataloguing the local geography in her head.
"Ooooh, what is that?" Vessa said, pointing at something clinging to the rock face about ten feet up. It had six legs, a shell the color of rust, and what appeared to be two sets of eyes arranged vertically on its head.
"I don’t know."
"It’s looking at me."
"It has four eyes. It has to look at something."
Vessa threw a pebble near it. Not at it, just near it. The thing didn’t move. It sat on the rock with the calm certainty of a creature that had never once been bothered by anything and wasn’t about to start now.
They walked along the stream. Katarina decided to try explaining market theory.
"So the basic principle is supply and demand. When supply exceeds demand, prices drop. When demand exceeds supply, prices rise. The goal of any merchant house is to control enough of the supply to influence the price without triggering a demand collapse."
"Uh huh."
"The Brevaine house, for example, controls about forty percent of the regional wine distribution. That gives them pricing power, but it also makes them vulnerable to supply disruption, because if their vineyards have a bad season, they can’t meet their contracts and the penalty clauses—"
Vessa kicked water at her.
It hit Katarina’s shins and soaked through her shoes, cold as mountain runoff.
She stopped talking.
"Sorry," Vessa said, grinning. "You started talking like a textbook. I could tell you weren’t actually talking to me anymore, you were just talking."
"You insolent..."
Katarina kicked water back. Harder. It caught Vessa across the front of her shirt and she yelped, and then it was over.
The diplomatic channel collapsed. Both nations sprinted at each other. The war started.
Vessa lunged and Katarina dodged and within thirty seconds they were both standing in the stream, soaked to the waist, splashing each other with the furious dedication of two nine-year-olds who had decided this was a life-or-death struggle.
They were still damp when they walked back to the estate, and Katarina was still picking river weed out of her collar when she saw the carriage.
It was parked in the courtyard, and it wasn’t local. The construction was different: lighter frame, lacquered wood instead of raw timber, with a team of horses rather than the draft animals the Valdari used. Human make.
[We have a visitor.]
She found them in Seris’s study.
The man sitting across from Seris was human, mid-forties, with a neatly trimmed beard, and clothes that were expensive without being loud about it.
Good fabric, clean lines, the kind of outfit that said "I have money" to people who knew what money looked like and said nothing to people who didn’t. He was sitting with one ankle crossed over his knee and a smile that Katarina recognized on sight.
It was the smile of a person who was used to being the smartest one in the room.
[I know that smile. I wore it for ten years.]
"Ah," the man said, glancing at Katarina as she walked in. His eyes flicked to her wet clothes and river-weedy collar and his smile didn’t change, which told her more about him than anything he’d said so far. A man who doesn’t react to the unexpected is a man who plans for it. "And this must be the young Montecardi."
"Katarina," Seris said. "This is Signore Cabrian. Marseo Cabrian. He’s a merchant from the central kingdoms."
"A pleasure," Cabrian said, and inclined his head.
Katarina gave him a small nod and sat down next to Seris.
"I like learning about the family business," she said, which was the excuse she always used, and Seris let her, because Seris had gotten used to Katarina being in the room during meetings the way you get used to a piece of furniture that turned out to be load-bearing.
Brynn was in the corner, arms folded. She’d already sized Cabrian up and decided he was fine, because Brynn decided everyone was fine until they gave her a reason to punch them.
"I like him," Brynn whispered to Katarina as she sat down. "Good handshake."
[Brynn, this man could sell you a bridge and you’d thank him for the view.]
"As I was saying, Signora," Cabrian continued, turning back to Seris, "the Cabrian Trading Company has been expanding into the southern markets over the past two years. We see real potential in the Valdari coastal region, and we’re looking to establish long-term partnerships with houses that share our outlook."
[Generic pitch. "Real potential." "Shared outlook." He’s selling a feeling, not a product. That means the product is the trap.]
"We’re prepared to offer a five-year supply contract. Guaranteed goods, below-market pricing, stable delivery schedules. Everything your house needs to grow without the risk of market volatility."
Seris leaned forward. Katarina could see the interest in her eyes. Stable supply at below-market prices was exactly what the Montecardi needed right now. They’d spent the last four years patching holes, and a five-year contract would give them the kind of predictability that made long-term planning possible.
[Don’t bite. Not yet. Let me see the paper.]
"I’ve brought a preliminary draft," Cabrian said, and produced a leather folder from his bag. The good kind of leather.
He placed it on the desk. Seris opened it and started reading. Katarina leaned over and read along, which Cabrian glanced at with faint amusement, the way adults do when children pretend to read things they couldn’t possibly understand.
[Keep underestimating me. Please.]
The first page was boilerplate. Terms, durations, delivery specifications, all standard. Katarina scanned it, filed it, and turned the page in her head while Seris was still on the second paragraph.
The second page had the pricing. Below market, as promised, fifteen percent below, which was generous. Too generous. Nobody offered fifteen percent below market on a five-year deal unless they were planning to make it back somewhere else.
The third page had the renewal terms.
There it was.
[Oh, you son of a bitch.]
The renewal clause gave the Cabrian Trading Company first right of refusal on all Montecardi supply contracts at the end of the five-year term. If the Montecardi wanted to switch suppliers, they’d have to pay a termination fee equal to three years of contract value.
Three years of contract value. On a five-year deal with below-market pricing that the Montecardi would build their entire supply chain around.
[This isn’t a partnership. This is a leveraged buyout.]
She’d seen this exact structure in her old life.
A larger company offers a smaller one an incredible deal, too good to pass up. The smaller company takes it, restructures around it, becomes dependent on it. And then, when the contract comes up for renewal, the larger company raises the prices to whatever they want, because the termination fee makes leaving impossible and the smaller company has already dismantled their alternative supply lines.
Lock in, squeeze, acquire.
Cabrian was still smiling. Seris was still reading page two, and Brynn was still in the corner, completely at ease.
[The question is... Who sent you?]