"Highness, this is Tarrin Kael," the Keeper said. "One of the other Non-human students I mentioned."

"How dare you speak to me so, you, you, whatever you are!" she snapped at him. He watched her mouth closely as she spoke. She had different lips than what would have been on a fox's muzzle, stronger and as prehensile as human lips, which sealed the sides of the mouth and allowed her to direct the sound in the proper manner. Interesting. They were by no means human lips, but they were not animal lips either. "I am Princess Keritanima, and you will address me so!"

Tarrin approached them, looking down the considerable distances between their heights. She came up to his chin. She stared up at him coldly, but he could see the very faint amusement in her eyes. This close to her, he got a good sample of her scent. It was not human, nor was it fox. It wasn't even a mixture of the two. It was a scent uniquely individual, not what he would have expected from the looks of her. If he hadn't scented her, he'd never have identified her scent if he encountered it in the hallways. "Highness, Tarrin is the son of a king's daughter," the Keeper said bluntly. "He is as much a prince as you are a princess. And if you look, you'll see he is wearing the Initiate uniform. I myself am a Duchess. So you see, we're not quite as impressed with your title and rank as you are. Your father sent you here so we could educate you, and we intend to do just that. That means that you will live where we tell you. You will eat with the other Initiates, you will attend classes with the other Initiates, and you will live like the other Initiates. That means that everyone except the one maid we agreed to goes back to your ship. So do the clothes, the jewelry, and the furniture."

"NO!" she shouted. "They are mine, and I'm bringing them!"

"They may be yours, but this is my Tower," the Keeper retorted angrily. "Your father gave custody of you to me, and that means that you do as I say. And unlike your father, I'll make you do what I tell you to do."

"You will not!" she snapped in a loud voice.

Without another word, the Keeper began rolling up her sleeves. "I may be a Duchess, but I was born to a woodcutter and a seamstress," she told the Wikuni in a deadly voice. "And I have never seen in my life a girl in more dire need of being spanked than you."

"You wouldn't dare!" the Wikuni screamed, then she turned and ran into the open door beside them. She closed it, and the sound of the bolt being thrown from the inside was loud and clear.

The Keeper drew herself up, and Tarrin could feel her starting to draw in. "Keeper, please," he said quickly, cutting her off, "allow me."

"By all means," she said with a courteous bow, motioning to the door with both hands.

"How would you like it?"

"Direct, but please go easy on the local geography," she replied. "We do have to fix what you break."

"I can handle that, ma'am," Tarrin said as he stepped up to the door. It was just like the one to his own room. That meant that he knew exactly where the latch was in respect to the door's wood. Balling up a fist, he reared back and punched the door precisely, driving his paw through the solid wood. The Wikuni screamed in fear when Tarrin's paw exploded through the door, and he heard her stumble back and fall down against what sounded like a chair. Unballing his fist, he reached down deftly and grabbed the latch, then lifted it. Then he removed his hand from the door and pushed it open.

The Wikuni was sitting unceremoniously on the floor, an overturned chair laying beside her, and a look of abject terror was in her eyes as the door swung open. Tarrin made a grand sweep of his paw, motioning to the Keeper that the way for her was clear. "Thank you, Tarrin," she said in a crisp, businesslike voice.

"Any time, Keeper," he replied grandly.

"Now if you'll excuse us, I do believe that her Royal Highness would prefer to have her bare backside blistered without an audience." The Keeper marched into the room like a general about to do war.

"Yes ma'am," Tarrin said, closing the door.

The sound that Keritanima-Chan Eram, Jewel of some star, Lady of some sea somewhere, and so on and so on, made after a few seconds was just as loud and high pitched as they were before, but now they were howls of pain and outrage that proceeded a sharp sound of a hand against a fur-clad backside. Tarrin found that this time he found the loud caterwauling to be somewhat pleasant to his ears.

Now that he could hear himself think again, he returned to his room and changed form, then laid back down on the bed.

Tarrin considered what would happen after he got the information, and decided on a course of action. One thing was plain. The Tower would not let him just walk out. He would have to sneak out or flee, one or the other. The fact that they didn't find him the first time was very comforting to him, but he knew that they knew that they couldn't find him. He needed to plan things so that, if he did flee, he would act as if they could track him down. That meant that he needed somewhere to go. He was a Were-cat, and his home was the trackless expanses of forest that humans called the Frontier. He was pretty sure that, if he could make it there, he could simply vanish. The Sorcerers would have to be desperate to send people in after him.

That was if he left. He considered also the possibility that he would stay. He wasn't sure how learning whatever these secrets were would affect his position in the Tower, but if he stayed, he had no doubt that things would be much different for him.

Another thing to consider were the ones he left behind. Allia would not be in a good position if he fled the tower. There was every possibility that Allia's position here had nothing to do with him or this information. Then again, considering the increase in attention she received after Tarrin ran away, he wasn't so sure about that. And there was every possibility that this Wikuni would also have a stake in whatever it was that was going on. She was the last of their very unique three, a Non-human that had the ability to use Sorcery. If that indeed was the reason they were in the Tower, Tarrin's removal from the playing field made them much more important.

He'd have to think about that more, but that was something that he'd have to think about after he got a better idea of what it was he was trying to do. He was trying to walk a maze with a blindfold on as it was, and making only the crudest of plans based on information he had yet to acquire. But it was a start, and it made him feel better knowing that he was preparing for the future.

In the interim, there was one thing that he could do that really didn't require anything, something that he needed to do no matter what happened. Learn. He had to learn as much about Sorcery as he could, as fast as he could. If he fled the Tower again, his power in Sorcery would help him get away. If he stayed, that power was leverage to use against the other Sorcerers. No matter what road he travelled, the ability to use Sorcery loomed large on each of them.

Tarrin already knew that he was powerful. From what the Sorcerers said, what he saw in them, the little hints, and Dolanna's discussions, he knew he was very, very strong. Probably stronger than three average Sorcerers put together. That power was his leverage, and that was what he had to concentrate on for the time being. It did him no good if he couldn't use any of it. And, not forgetting any of the points here, he knew that knowing Sorcery would be a big help the next time this mysterious Kravon decided to send someone to try to kill him. True, he was hard to kill. True, his Were-cat nature made it that much harder. But this Kravon knew what he was, and he knew how to kill him. And he was sneaky, and he had his own magic at his disposal. The invisible Trolls and the Wraith were more than enough evidence of that. Tarrin had been lucky, very lucky, more than once, and that luck had saved his life. But there was going to be a point where he was going to run out of luck. If that happened, then he would need to fall back on something a bit more dependable than wild luck. And Sorcery seemed quite an effective crutch.