Temptation

Temptation

Temptation

“Rozemyne, what was that?!” Sylvester asked in a hurry. “You shone with rainbow light and then went completely still.”

That explained why everyone was surrounding me, but we didn’t have time. “Sylvester, Ferdinand needs us!” I cried. “He’s dying in Ahrensbach! Lady Georgine manipulated someone to poison him, then Lady Detlinde threw this powder that made him collapse!”

I stood up and tried to hurry out of the room, but I couldn’t reach the door; everyone was blocking my way. Sylvester was even grabbing my arm.

“Let go of me!” I cried.

“Calm down! Your explanation doesn’t tell us anything!” Sylvester put his hands on my shoulders and urged me to sit down. “How did Ferdinand get poisoned?! Do you have any idea how we can save him?!”

All of a sudden, I was being bombarded with questions about what I’d seen—not just from Sylvester, but from Florencia and Bonifatius too. I pushed down the voices telling me to run and did my very best to oblige them. No matter what I decided to do next, I wouldn’t be able to do it alone.

“So in short, Georgine’s invasion is imminent,” Bonifatius finally said. “We must accelerate our plans.”

“How can you focus on her at a time like this?!” I snapped. “Ferdinand needs our—”

“Give up on him, Rozemyne. He cannot be saved. He was poisoned in another duchy’s Mana Replenishment hall and is already on the verge of death. Right now, our top priority is Ehrenfest’s foundation. Do not forget that.”

“You want me to... give up on him...?” I clenched my fists, feeling my blood start to boil. Bonifatius was watching me through stern blue eyes.

“You need to protect Ehrenfest. You promised to when Ferdinand moved.”

He was right—I really had made that promise. And to Ferdinand, of all people. Ehrenfest was also home to the Gutenbergs, everyone in the temple, and my family in the lower city. I needed to protect them. But at the same time, I’d also promised to protect Ferdinand. I wasn’t about to abandon him.

“In the first place, how do you intend to enter another duchy’s Mana Replenishment hall?” Bonifatius asked. “And do you know how many days it would take us to reach Ahrensbach? Ferdinand only has so much mana; we could depart now and still not arrive in time. Focusing on Georgine is the obvious choice.”

I stroked Ahrensbach’s key. Georgine wanted to steal our foundation, but what was stopping me from taking hers? I could use her own plan against her.

“But say we could get there in time,” I said. “Would we be able to save him?” I could feel the intensity of my stare and the mana coursing through my body.

Everyone around me gasped and started muttering about empty feystones, but I paid them no mind. Instead, I repeated my question.

“Would we be able to save him?”

Bonifatius grimaced and suddenly recoiled. I might have started Crushing him by accident. I tried to be more careful, but I wasn’t going to back down.

“If I can reach Ferdinand before his mana runs out, will you and Sylvester help me?” I asked. “I don’t care if it antagonizes Ahrensbach, the Sovereignty, the Zent, or even Erwaermen. I. Will. Not. Give. Up. On. Him.”

Bonifatius said nothing in response. He merely swallowed.

“I entered the archducal family to protect the people I care about. My old status and authority weren’t enough. In the same sense, I’ve only agreed to join the Sovereignty so that Ferdinand won’t be deemed guilty by association. If we let him die, I won’t have a reason to go along with the adoption.”

As long as the people I cared about were safe, I didn’t care if our entire country collapsed. Ferdinand and my lower-city family meant so much more to me than Yurgenschmidt, so I wasn’t going to let any of them die for its sake.

“Rozemyne, are you... Are you sane? You’d do all this for one man?”

“It doesn’t surprise me that you don’t understand. I care about Ehrenfest more than Yurgenschmidt and about my family more than Ehrenfest.”

At last, someone spoke up in my defense: “Look, she knows what she’s on about. If she has a way to save him, we should support her.”

“Wilfried?!” Bonifatius exclaimed.

“We weren’t even sure she was going to be here during the attack, so she isn’t involved in any of our plans. I don’t see a reason why she can’t take her retainers and go. In fact, if you ask me, keeping her here when her mana’s about to explode poses a much greater threat to Ehrenfest’s security.” He turned to me and pointed at his eyes, indicating that the color of mine was changing.

“Rozemyne might be moving to the Sovereignty, but she’s still an Ehrenfest archduke candidate!” Bonifatius protested, clearly stunned. “This is equivalent to us invading Ahrensbach!”

“So? They’re obviously targeting our foundation, which means we have every right to retaliate. Ahrensbach needs its foundation as much as we need ours, right? I say we crush them before they can crush us.”

Sylvester stroked his chin, amused. “Rozemyne, do you have a plan to save him?”

“I do. I’m the only one who can enact it, but your assistance would make things so much easier. Can I count on you, Sylvester?”

Despite being an archduke, Sylvester had refused to give the order for Ferdinand to assassinate Georgine. He had put his brother’s future above the safety of his duchy. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he would agree to help me.

Sylvester’s lips curved into a grin. “We’re on the same page. The problem is that you’re still associated with Ehrenfest. Your decision to steal another duchy won’t be received well, so if you’re going to do this, we’ll need an airtight excuse.” His dark-green eyes said that he would support me as long as I could get everyone on board.

“Won’t it be enough to say that we’re rescuing Uncle?” Wilfried asked. “He’s still registered with Ehrenfest, since his Starbinding hasn’t happened yet. And since he was sent there to marry a temporary aub, won’t his death be in breach of a royal decree?”

Sylvester shook his head, though he kept his eyes firmly on me. “We don’t have enough evidence to sway the Sovereignty or any of the other duchies.”

We need an excuse... Think, Rozemyne! Think!

I racked my brain for ideas. We needed a just cause for invading Ahrensbach. This was the one thing keeping me from rushing to save Ferdinand.

“Ahrensbach is welcoming Lanzenave envoys as part of a scheme to depose the Zent,” I said. “Lady Detlinde has no desire to cooperate in the royals’ search for the Grutrissheit. Instead, she plans to claim it, take the throne, and make Leonzio of Lanzenave her consort.”

In isolation, Detlinde obtaining the Grutrissheit wouldn’t have been a major problem; as was clear from my current situation, there was nothing wrong with an outsider delivering the book to the royal family. I suspected they would have canceled her engagement to Ferdinand and married her to Sigiswald to minimize the risk of any internal strife within Yurgenschmidt.

However, Ahrensbach was making a fatal mistake. To secure the Grutrissheit, it was fraternizing with a foreign country.

“Ahrensbach’s collaboration with Lanzenave is no less heinous than when Eisenreich let Bosgeiz have a word in its ear,” I said, wresting an excuse out of thin air. “Ehrenfest was born from Eisenreich’s fragmentation, so we know better than most the severity of uniting with another country for the sake of stealing the throne. As the Zent’s future daughter, of course I would want to eliminate Ahrensbach. Rather than criticize my actions, the Sovereignty and the rest of the country should praise them.”

Sylvester smirked. “Heh... Not bad. There’s one glaring issue, though: Ehrenfest is no match for Ahrensbach. We don’t even have the manpower to invade them. You and your retainers would need to venture alone into enemy territory.”

Ahrensbach, which oversaw half of Old Werkestock, had an impressive population. Ehrenfest, in contrast, was considered small even for a middle duchy. There was an obvious disparity in strength; we would struggle enough just staying on the defensive and trying to protect our foundation.

“So be it,” I said. “Invading with too great a force would only draw attention to us.”

“No, I can’t let you go to Ahrensbach without proper reinforcement,” Sylvester replied with a frown. “Now that you’re set to be adopted by the Zent, we need to protect you above all else.”

How was I to overcome our blatant disadvantage? I paused in thought; then Otto’s voice reverberated through my mind. “If you’re struggling on your own, hire someone to do the work for you,” he had once said to me. “Find someone capable and guide them into doing whatever it is you want of their own volition.”

If we didn’t have enough strength, we would need to source some from elsewhere. And when it came to strength, there was only one duchy in Yurgenschmidt that immediately came to mind.

“Sylvester,” I said, “please contact Dunkelfelger. I wish to extend to them an invitation to play ditter. They will assist us in saving Ferdinand and smiting Ahrensbach for its treason.”

“Dunkelfelger? You’re dragging other duchies into this?!”

Under normal circumstances, a duchy trying to steal a foundation would never request external assistance. It was unsustainable, for one thing—a duchy that couldn’t seize a foundation on its own stood no chance of maintaining it—and working in collaboration increased the odds of additional wars. But we weren’t fighting to take Ahrensbach; I just wanted to save Ferdinand. Weakening our enemy would simply be a bonus.

“If we want to stand a chance against a greater duchy like Ahrensbach, we’ll need to use everything at our disposal,” I said. “Dunkelfelger is unmatched when it comes to ditter, right? If we don’t make use of that now, we never will. Aub Dunkelfelger and his first wife should agree to lend us their aid as long as we present my excuse, though we could also leverage the royal decree they thrust upon Ferdinand and the Clarissa incident for good measure.”

“Alright, come with me,” Sylvester conceded. “You can do all the negotiating. Florencia, Bonifatius, take over in my absence. Make sure everyone here is sworn to secrecy.”

And so I was taken to the archduke’s office. Sylvester spoke to his scholars, then asked them to prepare the magic tool used to communicate with other aubs during emergencies. It looked entirely like a water mirror. I already knew how it worked as a result of my archduke candidate lessons, but only aubs could actually use them.

Sylvester connected with Dunkelfelger’s tool, and a scholar on the other side summoned the archduke.

“Aub Dunkelfelger,” I said. “Good day to you.”

“Aub Ehrenfest and... Lady Rozemyne?! I thought you were unwell. Just what is going on here...?”