“Lady Rozemyne’s old engagement has been out of the question for quite some time now,” I reiterated. “And as it had the king’s permission, it follows that the royal decree would take priority. I can see, now, why Lord Ferdinand has been treating her as his fiancée and why he led Ahrensbach’s troops in her name.”
“Still, for them both to follow the king’s decree to the letter, Rozemyne will need to take an adopted daughter as soon as she is wed, and that daughter will replace her as the next aub. Society will not permit them to pick and choose which parts of the command they obey.”
My brother then pointed at the violet capes marked with blue and yellow crosses. Lady Letizia was the only one sitting in the seats for Ahrensbach’s archducal family. She had not yet enrolled at the Academy, so her being here meant she was still considered an archducal family member.
“Do you believe Lord Ferdinand will respect Lady Letizia’s place in the royal decree?” I asked.
“Who can say? If he and Rozemyne stick to it, then their adopted daughter will sow discord in their new duchy. If they ignore it entirely, their engagement will cease to exist. For now, their safest course of action would be to at least act like they’re following orders.”
There were countless men who wished to be Lady Rozemyne’s husband, considering the influence she would soon have over the new Zent, and many Ahrensbach nobles surely feared that their duchy would turn into a vassal state of Ehrenfest with Lady Rozemyne and Lord Ferdinand in charge. Top-ranking duchies would also be compelled to interfere with the birth of a greater duchy subservient to Ehrenfest.
“These are troubling times, dear brother, but I suspect Lord Ferdinand thought this through at least as much as you did. He considers every outcome and devises schemes for each of them. I shuddered in awe when I saw it with my own eyes.”
I tried to relate the matter to our true ditter match with Ehrenfest, but Lestilaut raised a hand. “No more,” he said. “Enough people have told me already.”
“She is correct, Lestilaut,” Mother interjected, then lowered her voice enough that it would blend in with the buzz of the other nobles. “Though it was probably Lord Ferdinand who proposed the idea, Lady Eglantine agreed to give Lady Rozemyne her name to obtain the Grutrissheit. Obtaining royal decrees from her is going to be trivial, and at no point will Lady Rozemyne need to worry about royal interference.”
Lestilaut scrunched up his face. “Ferdinand used the Grutrissheit as a bargaining chip to force the new Zent to give her name? Once again, I am reminded why we started calling him the Lord of Evil. It is a miracle that his heart has not turned entirely to stone.”
I agree.
It was then that a bell chimed, indicating third bell and the start of the ceremony. The doors were opened wide, and the audience immediately fell silent.
Like during the graduation and coming-of-age ceremonies, the stage and altar were set up in the auditorium. First entered the musicians with their instruments, who would carry out the same role as the graduating students during the Academy’s graduation ceremonies and play songs for the gods. I narrowed my eyes and managed to spot Lady Rozemyne’s auburn-haired personal musician among them; she had played for us during tea parties.
The doors closed, and the next group to come in was the blue priests. They arrived through the same entrance the professors normally used. I recognized some of those taking the lead.
“That is Hartmut at the front,” I said.
“Aah, yes. Clarissa’s fiancé. How strange it feels to recognize Ehrenfest’s High Priest from ceremonies at the Royal Academy.”
We had seen Hartmut more during the Archduke Conference and the Royal Academy’s Dedication Ritual than we had seen those of the Sovereign temple. I could not imagine anyone else leading the Academy’s ceremonies.
Dressed in blue robes, Hartmut passed the stage for dedication whirling and stopped in front of the altar. He looked around, confirming that the blue priests were properly in place, then leisurely regarded the audience and produced a sound-amplifying magic tool.
“Now behold the Zent chosen by the Divine Avatar of Mestionora: Lady Eglantine.”
We turned to the door just in time to see it open, revealing the woman in question. She wore an elegant smile and entered with Prince Anastasius as her escort. The light of a blessing rained down on them out of seemingly nowhere.
“Oh my! A blessing!”
“The gods have blessed her like they did during her graduation!”
Lady Eglantine and Prince Anastasius were both wearing the same clothes they had worn for their graduation, which must have made the parallel even more obvious. The light shimmering around our ruler-to-be was like a window into the past. I recalled the Sovereign High Bishop at the time enthusiastically declaring that it was a blessing from the gods, and indeed, the spectacle convinced us all that they had chosen Lady Eglantine as their new Zent.
Her golden hair tied loosely behind her head, Lady Eglantine strode gracefully through the auditorium as the blessing continued to rain down upon her. Perhaps because she would henceforth serve as the country’s new Zent, her usual gentle demeanor had vanished, replaced with something much sharper. Prince Anastasius’s stern expression likewise conveyed the weight of the role now awaiting his beloved wife.
Lestilaut was impatiently drumming his fingers on the wooden barrier that separated us from the royals below. So majestic was the sight before us that he must have wanted to capture it in a picture.
Only once Lady Eglantine had reached the front of the stage and came to a stop did Hartmut make his next announcement: “Now behold Lady Rozemyne, Divine Avatar of Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom.”
I returned my attention to the door and watched it closely. Mother and Father had described the impact of Lady Rozemyne’s divine power, but this was my chance to see it with my own eyes.
She radiates divinity and authority—that was how my parents described it. I cannot even begin to imagine how that must look. The divine power will apparently fade in time, so I am quite glad to have this chance to see it.
“Oho, so that is the divine avatar...”
“How beautiful!”
Lady Eglantine had wowed us all with the blessing she’d received, but Lady Rozemyne’s entrance was truly breathtaking. She stepped into the auditorium with Lord Ferdinand as her escort, radiating light and a gentle swell of divine power. I could feel it even from the audience seats and was struck with an instinctual impulse to simply stare at her in awe.
I am shocked that Lord Ferdinand can still escort her.
Even if Lady Rozemyne had looked exactly the same as before, standing that close to her would invariably have compelled me to kneel. The same was true of my parents. This was but another way in which Lord Ferdinand stood out as abnormal.
“This is not at all how I remember Lady Rozemyne...”
“I refuse to believe this was all the result of a growth spurt.”
I nodded along with the chattering of the crowd.
Yes, I was speechless the first time I saw her adult form. I thought I would never lose to her in height, but then she suddenly overtook me! My brother retorted that she was far from the first person to tower over me, but that completely missed the point. Someone, please understand my woe!