The Guiness family was without question the wealthiest family in the kingdom. The marquis was the pillar that held up Harvest’s economy. He could bend and twist the market at will. He had moved beyond making money. It truly was nothing to the man besides a tool.
Much more important was influence. Wealth was a powerful tool, but it could be beaten by might and authority. Gold couldn’t stop a knife and no amount of money could rival the authority of the crown. In his later years, the marquis traded in favors, leaving matters of money to his children.
Marcella very much cared for money. She cared about each and every store, as every crown they earned put her that much closer to inheriting her father’s empire. A goal that wouldn’t be realized for several decades, given the obscene amount her father spent on healers. To go along with his youthful body was a sharp mind, one that didn’t miss any details and operated on cold logic.
He didn’t see his children as family. They were tools and only the most effective could be left to preserve his legacy. His judgments were harsh and his biases strong. One mistake would haunt his potential heirs for years, leading to a harsher judgment on all their actions. It was a hole nearly impossible to climb out of. Better to avoid falling.
A rationale that had Marcella working without sleep while on a likely dangerous dose of stimulants. There was just too much to do and every second counted.
Foremost, she was grateful that Lou had spared the hotel and her warehouses. She wasn’t entirely sure the latter wasn’t just a happy coincidence, as the store hadn’t made it. It was a blow, but of little consequence. The hotel was her seat of power in the city. It was where the Guiness family forces were concentrated. Forces that, in the absence of any authority figures, she had mobilized to take charge of the city guard.
Everyone was paralyzed by indecision in the wake of the destruction. It was a tragedy of unparalleled scale in the history of the kingdom…and unparalleled opportunity. While the rest of the city cowered, Marcella, who was confident in her understanding of Lou’s character, had acted with relative assurance that the worst had passed. The city guard was more afraid than anyone else. It was their job to protect the city and they failed spectacularly. That meant three possible futures for them; either they would be purged, heavily sanctioned, or charged with bringing down Lou. All the options were terrible and one might as well be a death sentence.
With that looming over them, they were more than happy to listen to someone who promised them their lives. It was an empty promise. If Lou decided the city guard or anyone else in the kingdom needed to die, there was nothing Marcella or her family could do to stop her. But the Guiness name had power. It was easier for them to believe that she could protect them, so they chose to believe it.
With several times more manpower, it was relatively easy for Marcella to take control of the city’s ruins. The first thing she did was direct the guard to conduct rescue efforts. Their effectiveness didn’t matter. It was about their image. Most residents of the city considered the guard to be a joke at worst and errand boys at best. One tragedy couldn’t change a perception reinforced over generations, but their efforts did earn the guard a bit of trust from the shattered community.
The second phase of Marcella’s plan was to reinforce that trust by distributing supplies to those that remained in the city, using the guard as her hands. It also served a separate purpose. As always, information was the greatest asset. She needed to know who lived, who didn’t, and who had fled. When an extensive interview was the requirement for several days of rations, water, and blankets, people opened up.
The third part of her plan was to collect. The houses of the dead were raided. Businesses were looted. Troublemakers were encouraged to move on or quietly disposed of. With the competition removed and no one watching her, Marcella opened her wallet and poured.
Whatever she could get her hands on, she bought. Houses, businesses, empty lots, fields, schools, it didn’t matter. People were scared. They needed money to survive or to escape. And while it was practical to act in the present, Marcella cared about the future. The purchases she made wouldn’t see profit for a while. She was prepared for it to be a drain on her personal wealth, as she had long exceeded her operating budget for the city, for years, maybe even decades. But when the dust settled, people would look around and realize that a single woman owned the city, at least from a trade perspective.
She would also control it. With the guilds broken, at least in the short-term, the city guard had a chance to assert itself as the peacekeeping power of Quest, an opportunity the organization hadn’t had for the whole of its existence. An influx of wealth, some training, and a few promotions for the right people and they wouldn’t be easily pushed aside once they sunk their teeth into the people. She had no doubt that the people would want the guilds to have a lot more supervision, which would give her all the excuses she needed to cripple them, ensuring they never returned to their former prominence.
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Quest, one of the largest cities in the kingdom, would be her playground. And there was only one thing that could stop her. One variable that she couldn’t predict and had the potential to ruin everything.
Lou.
She had a reasonable understanding of the events that led to the city’s destruction. Throughout the entire failed negotiation with the guilds, the noblewoman’s actions were always reactionary. That bode well, as Marcella had no intentions of angering the summoner or any of her lovers. However, she didn’t know if the destruction was the end of Lou’s plans.
She didn’t care if Lou wanted to continue her slaughter. She just wanted to make sure that she wasn’t standing in the way of the fireball. Or the purple hill-sized monster that leveled a row of buildings with every swing of its long limbs.
The problem was that Lou was proving hard to get a hold of. Marcella would have preferred to intercept her after watching her for a few days, to have some clue as to her mindset, but for the last several days, the eyes she had in the city reported that no one had left the estate. She had held off on sending someone to knock on their door, but she was left with no other option. Hopefully, the response would be favorable.
The best scenario was that Lou worked with her to develop the city. Marcella would like to be an undisputed ruler, but she would gladly sacrifice that position for the chance to cooperate with Lou. As a Guiness daughter, she could only rule the city from the shadows using discreet means. Her dominion would be shallow, easily overcome by true authority.
She could spend as much gold as she liked buying up the city, but it wouldn’t mean a thing if the crown simply claimed that land using a flimsy excuse. It wasn’t likely, as the king flexing his muscles would irritate her father to no end and there would be blood, literally and metaphorically. But he could. Similarly, if the more powerful hunters banded together and decided to claim the land the old-fashioned way, it would be a long and arduous road combating them.
Things would be entirely different if Lou took over the city. For one, there would be no question of who owned what. There also wouldn’t be anyone challenging her claim, at least not from Quest or the Hall. Marcella was willing to bet her life that once the other powers saw what she was capable of, they would be in no rush to challenge her either. Lest the saints themselves took exception, Lou could plop a circlet on her head and declare Quest’s independence and no one would have the ability to argue, let alone the desire too.
That kind of unrivaled authority paired with her considerable wealth and connections? Marcella could do grand things. Incredible things. Perhaps even something that would finally earn her father’s admiration and approval rather than his acknowledgment. She wanted it, badly, but she tempered her greed with large doses of fear. Whenever her fantasies of the future grew out of hand, she stepped to the closest window and reminded herself exactly what kind of creature she was trying to tie her prosperity to.
Lou was not a variable that could be controlled. The most she could do was latch on and cling for dear life with the hopes that the summoner was headed up rather than down.
It was risky, but Marcella hadn’t gotten to be a forerunner amongst the heirs by playing things safe. The question wasn’t if she would do it. Merely when to make her move.
She would never utter the distasteful comparison, but she likened her actions to that of a scavenger. Something small and sleek that made itself invisible while the predator did the hunting, slinking out when the violence was over to feast on what remained on the carcass. It wasn’t admirable by any means. It was cowardly and perhaps sick to profit off the pain of so many. Unfortunately, a conscience didn’t make money, so she’d discarded hers long ago.
She was in the middle of amending a proposal to a particularly stubborn store owner when a letter rudely interrupted her work. Marcella knew it would be trouble from the moment her fingers brushed the smooth parchment of the small scroll placed on top of the pile of missives delivered to her.
It being a scroll and of a small size meant it was carried by messenger hawk, the fastest method of delivering word and exorbitantly expensive. She guessed it was from the capital immediately but the royal seal on the wax holding it closed surprised her. Rarely did the crown address the Guiness heirs directly, knowing that they made no major decisions without their father’s approval.
As she was sure she had done nothing to warrant a reward, Marcella braced herself for bad news. It was still worse than she could have imagined.
The crown requested the aide of the Guiness knights in securing the Teppin estate and rendering aide to the lord of the city. A simple request on the surface but a field full of burrowing monsters in reality.
The king did not have the power to command the forces of noble families. However, not coming to the crown’s aide during a time of crisis was not looked upon well. In some cases, it was criminal. If it could be proven that the noble in question refused the summons and ignored a threat to the kingdom, then the offender could be charged with treason. The traitor and any member of their immediate family could be detained and investigated at the crown’s leisure. While it would be a drastic option, it would give the king the justification he needed to go after the Guiness family.
On the other hand, if she obeyed the request, she would be making an enemy of Lou. Her father’s orders were to do everything in her power not to antagonize the Tome clan. Even if he hadn’t made his wishes clear, she didn’t want to end up flattened beneath a purple leviathan.
From one direction, the king and all his men. From the other, Lou. It was almost tragic. The only saving grace of the situation was that she had time. She could make the argument that she didn’t have the power to take the estate. But that argument would only last until the first royal envoy arrived, more than likely flanked by several royal knights and a large contingent of the royal army. When they arrived, they would be expecting her cooperation. And if they didn’t get it, she didn’t doubt for a moment that they would be detained.
The question was, which dragon did she side with?