Epilogue

Epilogue

Epilogue

Georgine had arrived at the Bindewald estate, a prime location for her to take stock of things. Not only did the province border Ehrenfest’s Gerlach, but it had also been in decline ever since its previous giebe’s imprisonment for attacking Rozemyne. Its residents thus harbored a profound grudge against Ehrenfest and its archducal family—a weakness that made them easy to exploit.

It was during her short stay at the giebe’s estate that Georgine received an ordonnanz from Detlinde. Their plans seemed to be proceeding smoothly.

“Did Lady Detlinde succeed?” asked Seltier, an attendant.

“Yes,” Georgine replied with a nod. “I thought we would need to wait another few days, but Lady Letizia must have reached her limits sooner than I expected.”

Georgine had predicted that Letizia would start to panic when her precious head attendant, Roswitha, disappeared without a trace. She had also guessed that the girl would turn to Ferdinand when her retainers’ search came up empty. Seeking help from Georgine or Detlinde certainly wouldn’t have been an option for her; they were of opposing factions, and she had barely even socialized with them.

But alas, not even Lord Ferdinand would agree to help her.

Ferdinand was a member of Ehrenfest’s archducal family. He was also Georgine’s half-brother, but as she had already been married out of the duchy by the time of his baptism, the two barely had a relationship to speak of. They had exchanged greetings and attended meals and meetings together since his arrival in Ahrensbach, but those were matters of business; they could hardly be described as socializing.

Still, he is much easier to read than Detlinde or Sylvester.

Through her research, Georgine had deduced that Ferdinand was the kind of man who could make exceedingly cold decisions when necessary. It was a trait they shared—maybe because their minds were wired similarly or because they had both grown up having everything they cared about taken from them by Veronica—which was how she had determined that Ferdinand would tell the frantic Letizia to give up on Roswitha. In his shoes, she would have said exactly the same thing.

Georgine had also predicted that being turned away by Ferdinand, the last person she could rely on, would make Letizia desperate enough to use Leonzio’s silver tube under the influence of a trug-infused sweet. To coax her into going along with their scheme, he had needed only say that ordonnanzes were still reaching Roswitha and that Letizia could secure her mentor’s help by using the device he had given her. She would never have given up knowing that her head attendant was still alive.

Head attendants normally started serving their archduke candidate charges before the latter were even baptized. They were seen as a second mother of sorts, especially in the case of someone like Letizia, who had moved to Ahrensbach from Drewanchel. Georgine understood all too well how much an archduke candidate relocated to the northern building would come to rely on her head attendant; she still remembered the crippling terror she had felt when her own one was stolen away from her.

“Things proceeded even more simply than we anticipated,” Grausam said, his brow furrowed as he touched his prosthetic left hand. “Lady Letizia must not have a very keen nose for danger. Or are Lord Ferdinand’s teachings to blame?”

“Her shortcomings were likely the result of being locked away in the northern building so that we could not socialize with her. Bear in mind that her isolation was not her own doing—rather than sensing the threats around her and making an educated decision, she merely followed the instructions given to her. As secluded as she might have felt, it should come as no surprise that she never grew wary.”

“I thought she would resemble you, Lady Georgine, since neither one of you has a mother to rely on, but I see now that I was mistaken. I might have been overestimating her...”

Georgine’s lips curved into a slight grin. “You would do well not to paint with such broad strokes. It seems unwise to compare someone who does not have a mother to someone who does but expects her only to cause harm.”

Even now, Georgine saw her parents as agents of malice who had played a personal and very deliberate role in her misery. She had wished for their deaths on countless occasions. Her retainers and name-sworn were far more reliable.

“Furthermore, it was by a royal decree that Lady Letizia was assigned to become the next Aub Ahrensbach,” Georgine continued. “Her position was unshakable, so why would she have noticed the dangers around her? Do not forget all the work I put into keeping her oblivious.”

They weren’t from the same faction, but Georgine had always shown Letizia respect during social events. She had also fed Detlinde the most indirect, ineffective means of expressing her spite for the girl, preventing any acts of open aggression. Thus, in the eyes of Letizia and her retainers, Georgine had seemed relatively harmless. Only when they were in her presence and their political rivalry became more apparent had they acted cautiously.

Open malice is best saved for when one is about to land the final blow.

By that same logic, Ferdinand was a far more dangerous opponent. Georgine had spent more than a year trying to lower his guard with smiles and other such niceties, but he had never given her an opening. They each knew that the other would go for the jugular as soon as an opportunity arose.

“Lady Letizia is too close to her retainers,” Georgine said. “I sincerely doubt she has the guts to drop them all when the need arises; foolish reluctance is a common theme among coddled archduke candidates.”

Georgine’s thoughts turned to Sylvester and the many ways he had allowed his love for his family to poison his rule. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly beneath her veil.

“Lord Ferdinand is dead, and Lady Letizia is being moved onto a Lanzenavian ship...” she mused. “Still, I never thought this would all take place inside the Mana Replenishment hall.”

As a general rule, bringing unnecessary items into the replenishment hall was forbidden; the fact that only registered archduke candidates could enter had made it the scene of many a tragedy during battles for the archduke’s seat. Georgine had expected Ferdinand and Letizia’s discussion to take place in one of their rooms instead.

My hope was that we could wipe out their retainers at the same time.

Because the silver tube had been used inside the replenishment hall, Ferdinand had been the only victim; Eckhart and Justus weren’t even capable of entering the archduke’s office, so it stood to reason that they hadn’t been poisoned alongside him. To make matters worse, Detlinde was the only one able to confirm and report on the situation. As much as Georgine wanted to hear from someone who could actually be trusted, she had no other options for the time being.

“Still, I must not undermine the death of such a capable opponent,” she concluded. “I expected the overcautious Lord Ferdinand to be our hardest foe to eliminate.”

The man had once served as an assistant to Sylvester and continued to socialize with Ehrenfest even after moving to another duchy. He had been in a prime position to leak Ahrensbach’s intelligence, which had made him a most troublesome figure indeed. He had also come first-in-class each year he attended the Royal Academy and sorted out Ahrensbach’s disastrous administrative situation without a single complaint. Georgine had desperately wanted to get him out of the picture before making her move.

“His troublesome retainers remain, but let us advance to the next stage of our scheme nonetheless,” she said. “I wonder, will Eckhart and Justus reach Sylvester before his foundation ends up in my hands?”

“We have control over the border gate, and neither their letters nor their ordonnanzes will make it into Ehrenfest,” Grausam replied. “Perhaps they could reach him by highbeast, but it would take them two days to journey from Ahrensbach’s castle to the border gate. Then it would take them another day to reach Ehrenfest’s castle—and that doesn’t even account for the fact that our troops would stall them at the gate. There are no other options open to them, as they cannot pass through the barrier without silver cloth. Lord Sylvester will not receive a word about your plans.”