Prologue

Prologue

Prologue

They say there are many points in one’s life when fate diverges dramatically. It was after finishing his first year in the Royal Academy and upon returning to Ehrenfest that Wilfried experienced one such point for himself.

There were only three people in the archduke’s office: Wilfried, Karstedt, and the archduke himself. The tension in the room was so thick that one could have cut through it with a knife; it was extremely rare for Sylvester to dismiss their retainers and speak to his son not as the aub, but as a father. The purpose of their discussion, Sylvester revealed, was to gauge what Wilfried thought about being engaged to his adopted younger sister, Rozemyne.

“I’ve arranged this talk so I can hear your opinion away from anyone who might try to sway you,” Sylvester said. “So, what do you think about this?”

Wilfried hadn’t the slightest idea why an engagement was being proposed with Rozemyne, of all people. He knew that many other duchies had taken an interest in meeting with and even marrying her, considering the trends she had started in the Royal Academy—he had even replied to many such potential suitors by alluding to the possibility that her marriage prospects would be settled at the upcoming Archduke Conference. Not once, however, had it occurred to him that he might be the one engaged to her.

“Considering that she’s an archduke candidate who came first-in-class and already has powerful friends, I had assumed she was going to marry someone from a high-ranking duchy,” Wilfried replied cautiously.

“You’re right. And if she were a normal archduke candidate, that’s what I would have done. But we can’t risk sending Rozemyne to another duchy.”

A normal archduke candidate...? The peculiar response gave Wilfried pause; Sylvester clearly knew something that he didn’t.

Everyone in the Royal Academy had been talking about how abnormal it was for Rozemyne to have placed first-in-class even after spending two years in a jureve, but this felt like more than that. It was as though Sylvester was referring to something even more abnormal, even more significant... But those concerns faded away as Sylvester started listing off more standard reasons they couldn’t allow her to go.

“As you know, I adopted Rozemyne to spread throughout the duchy the industries she started in the temple. Nobody knows more about them than she does, so we suffered a lot during the two years she was asleep. The new industries haven’t yet taken root in Ehrenfest; in fact, my guess is that we’ll need at least another ten years before they do.”

Perhaps it should have come across as odd to Wilfried that a supposed child was developing industries for personal gain before she had even been baptized or that she knew the most about these industries when Ferdinand was in the temple as her guardian. But he had seen her fount of knowledge and crippling obsession with books firsthand, and so he accepted Sylvester’s words without any particular doubts.

“It does make sense that keeping Rozemyne unmarried for ten years isn’t an option when other duchies are already expressing interest in her...” Wilfried mused. It was one thing to have a man remain unwed, but unmarried women were considered past their prime after entering their twenties. If they intended to marry her to another duchy, it would need to be within the next six or seven years; ten simply wasn’t an option.

“Right. Not to mention, if we were to marry Rozemyne off to a higher-ranking duchy, we can assume it would soon start its own thriving printing industry,” Sylvester said. “And that wouldn’t exactly be good for Ehrenfest.”

Rozemyne’s obsession with books was no laughing matter—anyone could see that she would start spreading printing wherever she went, and if she were married to a prosperous duchy with excessive wealth and manpower, their progress in the industry would surpass Ehrenfest’s in the blink of an eye.

Wilfried immediately came to realize that, as the archduke, his father was making the right decision in stopping Rozemyne from marrying into another duchy.

“Plus, there’s way too much uncertainty with her,” Sylvester continued. “We don’t know if she’s too sickly to bear children, and while Ferdinand says she’s been getting healthier by the day since waking up from the jureve, we’ve got no proof she’ll stay healthy forever.”

Prior to the poisoning incident, Rozemyne had been so weak that running around or getting hit with a snowball was enough to make her collapse. She was showing gradual improvement, but would she recover enough to be fully healthy? Those who married into other duchies as first wives would often find their hold on their position become extremely precarious if they were unable to have children.

“And that’s not all. Rozemyne’s obsession with books makes her painfully shortsighted, and she speaks and acts in ways that are completely inappropriate for a noble. Sure, she’s achieving top grades, but her poor behavior makes her a problem child. She’s caused you a lot of problems in the Royal Academy, right? Imagine the damage she might do if she moved to another duchy.”

Rozemyne’s... a problem child...?

Sylvester had spoken with a wry smile, as though he expected nothing but agreement... but in truth, Wilfried was shocked beyond words. Despite having only recently been baptized herself, Rozemyne had identified the serious gaps in his education and then composed for him a learning schedule centered around resources she had made herself. She had completed her studies as a member of the archducal family while at the same time performing her duties in the temple, somehow managing to learn in a matter of days that which had taken Wilfried an entire month. But most shocking of all, despite having slept for two years after protecting Charlotte, she had still managed to come first-in-class in the Royal Academy, achieving better grades than literally all of her peers.

And yet, Sylvester was calling her a problem child. Wilfried felt a wave of disappointment wash over him; the girl who had set the bar to a seemingly unattainable height was now no better than he was. It was as though something he had considered a paragon of perfection had suddenly been revealed to have been heavily flawed all along.

But, thinking about it, Father is right...

Rozemyne was selfish when it came to books and the library—she never showed restraint, nor did she allow her opinion to be swayed. Furthermore, she was causing major problems during socializing by forming so many bonds with royalty and nobles from the higher-ranking duchies. Things had gotten so bad, in fact, that Sylvester had ordered her to sit out the Interduchy Tournament and the award ceremony. Wilfried now understood that this was because his father had determined that not taking such actions would have caused great harm to the duchy.

I see... She is a problem child.

No longer was Rozemyne the perfect archduke candidate, well above anyone’s reach. She had become a major cause for concern, one who couldn’t risk being married to another duchy.

As Wilfried nodded along in agreement, Sylvester’s expression clouded a little. “Not to mention, Rozemyne will probably want to stay in Ehrenfest forever,” he said. “At the very least, I want to grant her that.”

Rozemyne apparently had some reason for wanting to stay in Ehrenfest. Wilfried wasn’t sure what that reason was, but he wasn’t particularly curious either. If she had instead wanted to marry into another duchy but was being made to stay in Ehrenfest for political reasons, perhaps he would have been more interested... but he was curious about something else.

“I understand why we can’t send Rozemyne to another duchy... but why engage her to me?”

“Because you’re the best man for the job. The only members of the archducal family she can marry are you, Ferdinand, and Melchior.”

Plus Lord Bonifatius and Father himself, but I see the problems there.

“Melchior’s not an option, since he hasn’t been baptized and therefore won’t receive the king’s approval during the Archduke Conference in spring. Ferdinand isn’t an option right now either, since the Leisegangs want him to be the next archduke.”

“For what reason?” Wilfried asked. “Does Uncle have some history or problem stopping him from becoming the archduke?”

As far as Wilfried was concerned, Ferdinand was a skilled member of the archducal family and not someone he could compete with after he came of age. It was his understanding that his grandmother, Veronica, had only hated Ferdinand and taken such extreme precautions to prevent him from becoming the archduke because he wasn’t her blood relative, but there didn’t seem to be any bad blood between Sylvester and Ferdinand. In fact, surely Ferdinand would make a good archduke.