“Your hand, Rozemyne,” Ferdinand instructed, reaching out to her.
She accepted it, then took a shaky step forward.
“Fare thee well, Lady Rozemyne,” Gretia said. “I shall make the preparations necessary for you to rest upon your return.”
Rozemyne looked back and gave a weak smile of acknowledgment. Her exhaustion was clear on her face, to no one’s surprise; she had spent the past three days enduring outright torture as her divine power ran rampant. Gretia had served her more closely than anyone else during that time, and she, too, had considered it a torturous experience.
Oh, why must my lady endure such agony?!
Gretia was furious at the gods for being so unreasonable. Still, she hid those emotions and simply smiled at Rozemyne in response, as she always would.
Rozemyne and Ferdinand entered the foundation’s hall and closed the door behind them. Gretia’s vision blurred the moment her lady was out of sight. She wiped the tears from her bluish-green eyes and took deep breaths in an attempt to regain her composure.
“Lord Justus,” she said, “did my smile look normal?”
“Yes, I would say so.”
Gretia had already been told about her lady’s plan. Rozemyne would use the large-scale spell to exhaust her mana and divine power, then return her mana to its previous state. She had no other options; only by reaching the very brink of death could she escape the cause of her torment. The gods’ power swelled and clashed within her, causing more pain than a human could normally survive.
What a mess the gods have made!
Gretia was outraged that her lady needed to go to such extreme lengths just to stay alive, but she took some comfort in knowing that Ferdinand was by her side. He had searched desperately for a means to save Rozemyne and was doing everything in his power to help her.
“Lord Ferdinand said they would use liquid mana made from gold dust and feystones dyed completely with her mana,” Gretia said. “I must admit, I am shocked that such a thing is even possible.”
To make liquid mana, one had to remove the varied mana from water and replace it with one’s own. Anyone who performed the process would invariably channel their own mana into the mix, so Gretia had considered it impossible to make liquid mana in someone else’s stead.
And yet, Ferdinand claimed to have made some using Rozemyne’s mana.
“Is that something all archnobles can do?” Gretia asked.
“It is beyond me,” Justus replied. “There are many things that only Lord Ferdinand can accomplish.”
Many scholars found it suspicious, but the liquid mana had indeed matched the mana inside Rozemyne’s feystones. There were faint variations, of course, but that was to be expected; mana always changed to some degree when it was being manipulated. Hartmut and Justus had concluded that said variations would not impede attempts to redye Rozemyne’s mana.
“It frustrates me how little I can do for Lady Rozemyne...” Gretia muttered.
“Hah. If you mean in comparison to Lord Ferdinand, then of course. Hartmut and Lieseleta have learned enough between themselves to serve as Lady Rozemyne’s doctor, but they bemoan not being able to do any more than Lord Ferdinand has taught them.”
Gretia understood the feeling all too well. She was not the only retainer frustrated with her failure to adapt to Rozemyne’s new circumstances. Ferdinand, on the other hand, appeared to have taken it all in his stride.
“Yes, there is a reason my lady trusts him more than anyone else...” Gretia said. “Even in light of his absence.”
Perhaps because he had already moved to Ahrensbach when she became Rozemyne’s retainer, Gretia found it strange that Ferdinand was by her lady’s side at all times. She also found it hard to believe that not even Hartmut had managed to replace him, considering the former’s attentiveness and everything he had done for her behind the scenes.
Justus chuckled. “It was only a year and a half—not even as long as Lady Rozemyne spent in her jureve. Lord Ferdinand has protected her health and status since she was a frail girl in the temple and educated her so that she could survive as the archduke’s adopted daughter. Finding someone to replace him was always a tremendous task. A husband might have been able to surpass him, but nobody will ever take his place now that they are engaged.”
Gretia understood, but that did not make it any more appealing. Her dissatisfaction must have shown on her face because Justus raised an eyebrow.
“You seem displeased. Do you dislike Lord Ferdinand?”
“Far from it,” Gretia replied at once. Even if she had taken issue with him, she was not so stupid as to complain about him to his name-sworn retainer. Her lady ended up in the most bizarre situations, and Gretia truly believed that Ferdinand was best suited to keep her safe.
“I gave my name to Lady Rozemyne because she saved me,” she continued, casting her eyes down. “My displeasure stems from not being able to repay my debt to her.” There was nothing she could do to rescue her lady from the gods now toying with her life.
“You are your own savior,” Justus replied. “Having the resolve to escape your past treatment—and succeeding in doing so—commands a lot of respect. Take pride in your decision and the fact that you saw it through.”
Gretia could not suppress a gasp. “You... know about me, Lord Justus? How?” There was much she had deliberately kept back from her fellow retainers. How much did the man standing before her know?
Justus shrugged. “Did you expect Lord Ferdinand not to investigate you simply because you are from the same duchy? The playroom, in particular, escapes the attention of many an adult. He looked into the history of every child who would attend with Lady Rozemyne and paid especially close attention to those he thought were likely to give their names. We know everything about you—your first employer, when you developed mana-sensing...”
The daughter of a blue priest and blue shrine maiden of mednoble origin, Gretia had grown up in a side building on her mother’s family estate. Even as a child, she had worried about what her future might hold; her mother had been treated no better than a gray flower bearer ever since being brought back from the temple, and Gretia, a fellow child of the temple, feared she would share the same fate.
Instead, Gretia ended up being taken from the side building and baptized as the daughter of her maternal uncle and his first wife. The decision had come about for several reasons: the scarcity of nobles since the purge, the fact that she had more mana than any of the other children due to become servants, and the house’s desire for a daughter to use in a political marriage.