The End of Winter and the Summoned Merchants

The End of Winter and the Summoned Merchants

The End of Winter and the Summoned Merchants

“Damuel, prepare to leave for the hunt. We will gather in this room when ready and then depart for the training grounds. Rozemyne, wait here!”

Only adult knights could participate in the Lord of Winter hunt, so apprentices were not taken along. Angelica, despite being permitted to accompany me to the temple, was also instructed to remain behind.

Having been told to wait with my apprentice guard knights, I sat back down in my chair and waited for Rihyarda to return with my warmer clothing. Giebe Illgner and the others had long since left the room.

“I think the apprentices in the Royal Academy would learn much if they were allowed to watch,” I mused aloud once Rihyarda had returned.

“Something so dangerous would never be allowed, milady.”

“I suppose so. The knights will already be carrying extra luggage, and it would be dangerous to place even more of a burden on them.” While it was true that the apprentices had much to gain by watching the impressive coordination of the Knight’s Order, it wasn’t wise to bring meddlesome students to such an intense battle.

If only we had video cameras or something...

Ferdinand and Damuel soon returned wearing their armor and capes.

“I see you waited,” Ferdinand said. “Good. We must depart for the training grounds.”

I opened Lessy so that Rihyarda and my guard knights could climb inside; then we raced through the intense blizzard, focusing on the colored capes ahead of us so that we wouldn’t get lost.

When we arrived at the training grounds, the knights were already lined up and waiting. Karstedt, Eckhart, and Lamprecht were among them. I waved, and they looked at me with surprise.

“Apologies for the wait,” Ferdinand said, spurring everyone to kneel. I climbed out of my highbeast and stood next to him. “It seems that the Saint of Ehrenfest wishes to pray to the gods and give everyone a blessing.”

I stepped forward to the kneeling knights and took out my schtappe. I then thrust it up into the air, pouring in enough mana to bless as many people as possible as I prayed to the God of War.

“O God of War Angriff, of the God of Fire Leidenschaft’s exalted twelve, I pray that you grant them your divine protection.”

A familiar blue light shot out of my schtappe and rained down over the gathered members of the Knight’s Order. The prayer had taken more mana than I had expected, presumably because of all the people here, yet I didn’t feel as tired as I had during the previous Schnesturm battle. I absolutely had more mana now that the jureve had melted so many of the mana clumps inside of me.

“We owe our thanks to the saint for her blessing,” Ferdinand said. “Now, do not leave the northern building until the hunt is over. Apprentice knights, keep a close eye on her. Is that understood, Cornelius? Rihyarda, I entrust you in my absence.”

“Yes, sir!”

“I understand, my boy.”

Having been told to head back to the castle first, I once again climbed into Lessy, this time only with Rihyarda. My apprentice guard knights would be taking the lead on our return journey. As I flew up into the air, using their capes as my markers, I heard a shout for the knights to stand at the ready.

Charlotte and I were forbidden from leaving the northern building until the hunt was over. This was because the bulk of the knights had departed, leaving fewer guards, and the northern building had a protective barrier that would keep us safe. That was fine with me, since it meant I could read or have tea with Charlotte. In fact, my time in the northern building was the most relaxed I had been since waking up from my coma.

I was midway through having tea with Charlotte. I certainly couldn’t have refused, given how cute her invitation had been:

“Despite having finally returned from the Royal Academy, you departed for the temple right away. And then you were busy with socializing. I want to have a tea party with just the two of us, dear sister.”

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t had a private tea party with her since the time Wilfried had interrupted us two years ago.

“Both Father and Mother stay in their rooms until the hunt is finished, so I have always looked forward to the Lord of Winter appearing,” Charlotte confided. It seemed these were the precious few days she was able to spend with her parents during winter socializing. She told me a lot about her life, and while she often brought up Melchior, Wilfried basically never came up; he had been raised not here in the northern building, but in the eastern building where Veronica lived.

“It is so sad for siblings to be kept separate,” I said.

“This is all I have ever known, so I have never found it particularly sad. That said, Grandmother was always so kind to Wilfried despite being so harsh with me, and I found myself painfully jealous of that.”

Veronica had apparently been quite harsh to Charlotte, displeased that she resembled Florencia so closely. I didn’t have much to say in that regard, since I had been raised in the temple. The story was that Ferdinand had looked after me at Karstedt’s request, and that I had gone to the temple at such a young age that I didn’t even know what my mother looked like. I answered in as few words as possible, conscious that saying too much would result in me letting something slip, which Charlotte thankfully interpreted as me being hesitant to speak of painful memories. She changed the topic out of consideration.

“Let us speak of the temple another time. More importantly, dear sister, what would you want to do upon becoming archduchess?”

“What a strange question. I am not going to become the archduchess, remember?”

“As an exercise, one of my tutors has asked me how I would rule the duchy were I to become archduchess myself. I am simply curious to know how you would answer.”

Oh, is this like when kids talk about what they want to be when they grow up? Nothing politically serious—just hopes and dreams. Okay. Well, there’s only one answer I can give!

“I would make the duchy a paradise for readers. It would become the capital for books, one filled with printing workshops that would receive and print manuscripts from far and wide. It would be a duchy of joy where every workshop would produce new books every day of every month, and there would be a law that a copy of every book must be donated to the archduchess so that I could read them before anyone else. My library would steadily expand, to the point of additional buildings needing to be constructed. All the people would be taught to read and to love books, and everyone would be able to read as they pleased. Aah, how wonderful! How blissful! That would be my paradise.”