Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.3 - Chapter SS2

The Blessing at the Graduation Ceremony

Today was the Royal Academy’s graduation ceremony. With the morning’s dedication whirl and sword dance complete, everyone headed to the dining halls for lunch. Most went to the doors to their dormitories, but the women escorted by those of other duchies retired briefly to the tea party rooms used for meetings and departures, since even those of other duchies could enter them. Since Anastasius was escorting me, I went to Klassenberg’s tea party room.

“Welcome back, Lady Eglantine.”

My retainers welcomed me, having returned ahead of time for this express purpose. There were fewer gathered than usual.

“If only I could hold this hand forever, my Goddess of Light,” Anastasius said as he kissed my fingertips, loath to let them go. He had started performing these solicitous acts with regularity since earning my grandfather’s and uncle’s acceptance. I had asked him many times to stop, as I always struggled to remain calm and disguise the reddening of my face, but he refused.

As always, my retainers let out quiet gasps. I could feel their eyes on me, and my cheeks started to heat up with embarrassment. Anastasius often destroyed my composure like this, and it certainly wasn’t helping that his outfit made in the image of the God of Darkness was making him look even more regal than usual. I was, to be frank, completely beside myself.

“You are too bold, Prince Anastasius,” I protested weakly while pulling my hand away, but he just smiled.

“I will come for you again this afternoon,” he said, and then he turned to leave.

It was beyond me to chase and reproach royalty, so I could only watch him go. Perhaps my eyes were a bit more pointed than usual, but there was nothing I could do when faced with his joyful smile. Once again, my protests turned to dust as I found myself entirely unable to stay angry at him.

Once Anastasius had disappeared from sight, my retainers began giggling among themselves as though they could contain themselves no longer. “He must be particularly overjoyed today, considering how hard he worked to earn the aub’s and your grandfather’s permission,” one said. “Prince Anastasius truly is head over heels for you, Lady Eglantine.”

“You really do astound,” added another. “Who could earn such heated courting from royalty but you?”

A third nodded along in agreement. “The two of you are perfect for each other. When you whirled together as the God of Darkness and Goddess of Light, why, I simply couldn’t look away from the sheer beauty of it all.”

Their repeated references to Anastasius’s passionate romance kept my cheeks burning, and I soon found myself getting unbearably restless.

“Let us hurry to the dining hall,” I said. “Grandfather and the others are waiting for us.” I briskly walked over to the door to the dormitory while pressing my hands against my heated cheeks.

Upon entering the dining hall for lunch, I found that my grandfather; the archducal couple; my cousin, the next aub; his wife; and our dormitory supervisor, Professor Primevere, had already started eating. Grandfather gestured me over to the table, and so I moved to sit at the seat between him and Professor Primevere. My attendants served my food, placing a bowl of warm soup before me.

“Eglantine, your dedication whirl today was superb.”

“Thank you ever so much, Grandfather. I thought I whirled particularly well today, so I am pleased to know others thought the same.”

During my dedication whirl upon the stage, I had felt for a brief moment that the mana within me had been accepted by the gods. It was a very strange feeling indeed. Perhaps it was because there had been more onlookers than I was used to at practice? Or maybe it was because the stage was special and made to praise the gods. Either way, it felt as though my whirl had ended much quicker than I was used to. I had completely lost myself in the moment and attained fluidity beyond thought.

If possible, I would like to whirl like that once more in my life.

Preparations for my marriage would begin tomorrow, and once I was wed, I surely wouldn’t have any time for whirling. But even knowing that, my performance had been so blissful that I could not help but wish to experience it again.

“I must say, I feel a bit of sympathy for next year’s Goddess of Light,” my uncle said. “She’s going to be compared to you, after all.”

“That will be the Drewanchel archduke candidate, I suppose?” his wife replied.

I considered which archduke candidates would be graduating next year. It was generally the candidates of the higher-ranking duchies who played the parts of the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Light, so it was as my uncle said—next year’s goddess would most likely be Adolphine.

“Prince Anastasius must have practiced so very hard,” my grandfather remarked. “He managed to whirl without looking that much worse than you.”

“That is a terribly rude thing to say,” I replied.

“It’s true. I doubt anyone has ever practiced as passionately as you have. I had been pitying everyone who would have to whirl near you.”

Everyone around me smiled at Grandfather’s clear favoritism, though I did not. I had received an immense amount of pressure from him growing up, being told not to bring shame to my status as the third prince’s daughter and that my skills would need to be fit for a princess for when I returned to royalty.

“You have come of age and secured an engagement to Prince Anastasius,” he continued. “Your parents are no doubt sighing with relief from where they rest in the distant heights of the gods, atop the towering stairway.”

I had moved to Klassenberg as a pre-baptismal child following the assassination of my parents. On that fateful day, I had eaten dinner in the playroom at my wet nurse’s instruction and then went into the dining hall where everyone else was eating to say goodnight, as was customary. I could remember feeling terribly jealous of my older brother, who had been eating in the playroom with me only seasons prior, and yearned for nothing more than to be baptized just as he had.

Everyone was overjoyed at the sizable war having finally come to a close; my parents and the wet nurses wore bright expressions, and the air in the dining room had been especially peaceful. I said goodnight to my parents and elder siblings, as per usual... Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that would be the last time I ever saw them. To me, tomorrow was nothing more than a continuation of today; I believed that similar days would continue unending and uninterrupted.

But my life had vanished in an instant. My older brother, who had been smiling at me so brightly, suddenly vomited and fell unconscious before me. Those gathered began to scream, and a clamor ran through the dining hall. My older sister was the next to collapse, then the attendants who had tested the food, and then my mother, who had been in the process of telling me to return to the playroom.

The wet nurse picked me up and fled from the dining hall, repeating in a quavering voice that everything would be okay... but I never saw my family again.

The terrifying games of hide-and-seek continued throughout the night. Eventually, I was made to live in a place I knew nothing about with people whom I had never met. I hadn’t understood anything that was going on, and it was only much later that I would learn why I could not greet my father and mother as I usually would, or why my older brother and sister no longer visited the playroom for tea parties.

No matter how proudly Grandfather declared that he had avenged my family’s deaths and defeated our foes, I saw only more and more deaths. I took not a shred of joy in his actions; regardless of whether one was victorious, all that was accomplished through war was the construction of a mountain of corpses. It was burned in my heart that such conflict was to be avoided, no matter the cost.

“You truly are like your mother,” Grandfather said in a pleased tone. “She, too, had a prince desperate for her hand.”

It seemed I wasn’t the only one reminiscing about the past. In all fairness, even I thought that I resembled my mother; to an outside onlooker, we might have even been mistaken for twins.

Grandfather had requested a portrait of my parents to celebrate my mother marrying into royalty. My older sister likewise had a portrait, since she had become old enough for marriage talks to begin. It was incomplete, but it had been brought to Klassenberg, where it remained to this day.

My older brother, however, had no portrait.

His face is already a blur to me... Although he must share my blonde hair, as I recall Father patting our heads and saying that our hair came from our mother.

I had always been treated in Klassenberg as a princess who would one day return to royalty through marriage. Everyone treated me well, but compared to other archduke candidates, I felt more like a guest than anything. It was impossible to deny that I didn’t quite fit in with everyone else.

That, too, is because of Grandfather’s favoritism.

One could not say that the current archducal couple and I were particularly close to one another. They treated me courteously, as a future queen, but they did not interact with me as family like they did with the other archduke candidates. And now, following Anastasius’s strong words that he wished to avoid war with Prince Sigiswald through marrying me, our relationship had become even more uncomfortable than before. Grandfather cared only about my return to royalty, while the aub believed that, without my becoming queen, Klassenberg would soon be outpaced by Drewanchel.

I supposed that it could not be helped, as I was the adopted daughter of the previous rather than the current aub, but upon seeing the close relationship between Lord Wilfried and the adopted Lady Rozemyne of Ehrenfest, I had felt a tinge of envy.

“So, is the archduke candidate from Ehrenfest who made that hairpin which suits you so well absent once again?” the aub asked, which drew all eyes to my hairpin. It was truly beautiful, with an astounding appearance formed through slender, delicately woven threads. Anastasius had gifted it to me in the Royal Academy, and so both Grandfather and Uncle had first seen it on the morning of the Interduchy Tournament.

Lady Rozemyne was receiving much attention in Klassenberg—not only as the Ehrenfest girl producing new trends, but as the one who had changed Anastasius such that he could actually acquire me. The archducal couple had attempted to meet her earlier, but to no avail.

Professor Primevere looked at them and sighed. “Her sickness is such that she missed even the Interduchy Tournament. She must still be unwell.”

“Hmm. We knew ahead of time that she came first-in-class among the first-years, and so we thought she would have pushed herself to attend the Interduchy Tournament nonetheless. But it seems this was not the case.”

If one was going to force themselves to attend anything despite sickness, it would be the announcement of grades, where all the archducal couples gathered and the king offered his direct praise.

“Lady Rozemyne fell unconscious even during a meeting that Prince Anastasius summoned her to. She was asleep for three days after that, so I imagine she will only now be waking up.”

“Three days?” came dubious voices.

I could not blame them for being suspicious—it would normally be unthinkable for one to continue socializing after falling unconscious for three whole days. The proper procedure was to return to one’s duchy at once, where their personal doctor awaited them. And indeed, Lady Rozemyne had returned to Ehrenfest sooner than planned due to her illness.

“She was sickly to begin with, but sleeping in a jureve for two years could not have done her much good,” I explained. “It seems that it was planned from the start for her to finish her classes quickly and return home. I imagine this plan was to ensure she could attend the Interduchy Tournament despite her poor health. Her collapsing at the tea party was no doubt an unexpected tragedy for Ehrenfest.”

This was just my deduction, but it seemed to me that Lady Rozemyne’s guardians had planned around minimizing the burden on her, only to fail to predict the extent that Ehrenfest’s trends would spread. The load had surely become too much for them to bear.

“I agree with Lady Eglantine,” Professor Primevere said. “If it were normal for her to collapse so abruptly, someone would have expressed concerns about her venturing into the Farthest Hall to acquire her schtappe. However, we received no such warnings from Lady Rozemyne’s retainers or her dorm supervisor, Hirschur, so we had no qualms beforehand. I believe this is a temporary and unusual problem.”

Grandfather exchanged thoughtful glances with the others. “Ehrenfest was swarmed with far more people than usual yesterday, no?” he asked. “This Lady Rozemyne is earning that much attention. I would have liked to meet her sooner rather than later, but I suppose nothing can be done about that.”

“As Father says, it would be best to form a connection before other duchies do, but they could not meet her either. It is not that Klassenberg is falling behind; in fact, considering Eglantine’s relationship with Lady Rozemyne, we are actually ahead of the other duchies,” the aub agreed. He then looked our way for emphasis. “Primevere, Eglantine—I’m told Lady Rozemyne did not socialize much with those from her grade due to her finishing her classes so promptly and returning home, but did that change upon her return? Is Ehrenfest’s other archduke candidate socializing with any other duchy in particular?”

Professor Primevere nodded. “That is all we can say about Lady Rozemyne. Lord Wilfried is socializing with various other duchies, but it gives the impression of width without depth—he has met with each duchy several times, without forming any deeper relationships. If you asked me to put one above the rest, I would perhaps say that he has met with those from Dunkelfelger the most. Aside from that, I have heard from their dormitory supervisor that there was a tea party between cousins attended by Ehrenfest, Ahrensbach, and Frenbeltag.”

“Ahrensbach and Frenbeltag, hm?” the aub repeated. “Blood relationships make deeper bonds easier to form. We should keep an eye on them.”

“Lady Rozemyne was absent at the time, and it seems Lord Wilfried responded to all questions about hairpins and rinsham that he was not involved with them. Professor Fraularm mentioned that nothing of value was learned there,” Professor Primevere said.

If she was correct, then I was undoubtedly the archduke candidate with the deepest relationship with Lady Rozemyne. However, I recalled that there was another archduke candidate with whom she had wanted to socialize.

“Speaking of which, Lady Rozemyne said at the tea party that she wishes to be friends with Lady Hannelore of Dunkelfelger. Although she collapsed moments later, and the tea party came to an immediate end, so I do not know what became of this request.”

“Dunkelfelger, you say...? I suppose they do have a female first-year archduke candidate. We don’t want all the products that received so much attention at this Interduchy Tournament to flow to them rather than us.”

“It is unfortunate that Lady Eglantine, the one closest to her, is already graduating. Are there any other female archduke candidates about to begin attending the Academy?” the aub’s wife asked, thinking seriously alongside her husband about future relationships, but Grandfather just shook his head.

“This Lady Rozemyne is still a first-year, so we don’t need to hurry; time will tell just how significant she truly is. The more we know about hairpins and rinsham, the better, but we don’t need to worry about interduchy relations shifting a little.”

A map would show that Klassenberg and Ehrenfest border one another, but maps do not tell all. In truth, the border was buried in snow, and only briefly in the summer could it be traveled through. The result was that the border gate between our duchies remained closed for almost the entire year.

That end of Klassenberg had once been part of a duchy known as Eisenreich, and in the region known as Eisen to this day, there had once been much traffic due to the ore-filled mountains there. But once the ore veins were depleted, the land had nothing of value, and so it became mostly abandoned. The distance between cities was significant, and since it was a location where strong feybeasts appeared easily, even traveling merchants largely avoided it.

“That place is hard to deal with, since it’s so far from our Noble’s Quarter on top of everything...” Grandfather mused aloud.

“But we want to form diplomatic ties with Ehrenfest and make these hairpins within Klassenberg as well, no? Son, what say we probe Lady Rozemyne about getting engaged to you?” the aub asked, turning his attention to his son and future successor.

My cousin and his wife fell into thought with serious expressions. It was inevitable that he would marry a second wife, but still, such an abrupt question warranted some consideration.

“Considering her age and the rank of her duchy, she might be suitable as my second wife—if her mana matches my own, that is,” the future aub eventually said with a meaningful smile.

Everyone nodded knowingly. It was highly unlikely that the archduke candidate of the thirteenth-ranked duchy would ever have enough mana to match an archduke candidate from Klassenberg the First.

“True, it’ll depend on her future growth, but she beat out Drewanchel’s archduke candidate to come first-in-class. I imagine she’ll manage. For now, I’ll probe Ehrenfest at this year’s Archduke Conference,” the aub said.

With Klassenberg’s plans settled, the meal ended, and I received permission to stand. I needed to hurry and prepare for the graduation ceremony this afternoon.

“Please do wait with leisure,” I said as I went to leave.

“Do your best out there—both as a Klassenberg archduke candidate and as the future wife of royalty.”

“I will strive to meet your expectations, Grandfather.”

The moment I was back in my room after leaving the dining hall, I let out a tired sigh. Perhaps due to how enjoyable my recent tea parties with Anastasius had been, that had felt nothing like a celebratory lunch for my graduation; the discussion had been exceedingly dull.

I adjusted my hair and makeup, which had become slightly disheveled from my whirling performance, and changed into my newly made red dress. Grandfather had demanded adjustments to the embroidery several times, and amid the Klassenberg designs were minor flairs that my father, the prince, had used. It seemed to me that having the designs of royalty on my clothes was somewhat disrespectful—I had been baptized as a Klassenberg archduke candidate and thus was not royalty myself—but Grandfather had insisted.

“The hairpin looks wonderful on you, Lady Eglantine. Ehrenfest’s craftsmen are certainly something else. It suits your outfit so well that it almost seems as if they were made together,” my attendants said, praising my appearance.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Because of my makeup and the fact that I was wearing my hair up, I felt much more adult than usual. I could also tell just how well the red koralies suited my dress.

We moved to the tea party room, where I sat on a morbin chair warmed ahead of time by my attendants. Morbin was a stone that excelled at retaining heat, such that sitting upon it filled one with a tingling warmth. I quite liked them; it felt as though my tension melted away as I sat atop them.

“Lady Eglantine, Prince Anastasius is here,” one of my attendants announced.

“Aah, my Goddess of Light truly is beautiful. Your silken hair shines beneath the light like the sun, and with each passing moment, my heart battles with the growing urge to caress each strand. The koralies serve to accentuate your beauty even more. As your God of Darkness, I—”

“That will do, Prince Anastasius. Shall we move to the hall?”

“I believe that even endless praise would not do your fairness justice, but I suppose it is time to go.” Anastasius took my hand with a small grin. His gray eyes were so filled with kindness as he looked upon me that I was struck with both an unusual restlessness and a desire to never leave his side.

We exited the tea party room and stepped into the hall, where we found graduating students lined up with their partners according to their rank. Since Anastasius was going to be entering first as royalty, we walked to the front of the line with all eyes on us.

“With the blessings of the gods, the adults graduating the Royal Academy shall now enter. Anastasius Sohn Zent Trauerqual, and subsequently, Eglantine Tochter Adotie Klassenberg.”

We entered when our names were called. Before us was a tall, tall stairway dotted with ivory statues of the gods that seemed to continue all the way to the ceiling. Perhaps due to the window by the top level of the stairway, the sunlight streaming in made the feystones and metal divine instruments shine as if they were emitting light. At the bottom of the stairway were offerings to the gods—flowers, fruit, incense, and the like. I didn’t know the meaning of each type, but I could imagine that Lady Rozemyne did.

The Sovereign High Bishop stood in front of the stairway with his bible in hand. His white robes stood out among the blue robes of the surrounding priests. They had my sympathy; we would proceed to line up on the stage before them for the ceremony, but they had to stand before the shrine to the gods for the entire day.

The grand hall was filled with people, and they clapped to greet us graduating students. I lowered my eyes bashfully before looking up at Anastasius. No doubt his heart was filled with a storm of emotions as well. He gazed across the hall with an expression of reminiscence and relief and then looked down at me.

He gave a small nod, and so I stepped forward. We advanced slowly, when suddenly a golden light started to fall before our eyes without warning.

“What?!” Anastasius pulled me to him at once and took out his schtappe. I looked up at the ceiling in search of the falling light’s origin, but unlike those at the top of the staircase shrine, the windows of the hall were along the walls, and there was no place for light to come down from above. I had no idea what was going on; it looked entirely as though it were raining from the ivory ceiling itself.

The light rained for only a matter of moments, but it was more than enough time to steal the eyes and words of all those present in the hall. The cheers and applause that had been celebrating our graduation stopped, and the air was filled with a deafening silence as everyone looked around for the source of the strange occurrence.

“What in the world...? What happened?”

“It looked like the light of a blessing to me.”

Murmurs began to fill the hall. I hadn’t seen the light very well myself, since it had been raining down on me, but it seemed to look like a large-scale blessing from an outside perspective—the sort one gave when greeting another.

“A blessing...?” Anastasius muttered to himself, confused. He lowered his schtappe but continued to scan the area with hard eyes while keeping my body pressed against his.

“If that was a blessing then did the High Bishop do something?” came a voice from somewhere.

The High Bishop of the Sovereign Temple stroked his chin thoughtfully at the accusation. I had seen him from the front, however, and so I knew what few others did—he had been more surprised by the light than any other and had looked across the hall for its source just as everyone else did.

I wonder whether he’ll steal this glory.

As I pondered the situation, the Sovereign High Bishop spoke with the surrounding blue priests and then raised his hands high into the air. It was a signal to be quiet, and so the hall steadily fell silent once again. The Sovereign High Bishop spoke once stillness ruled. His heavy, ponderous voice echoed throughout the hall.

“That was no blessing of mine. Nay, the light was a blessing from the gods! I believe that the gods were blessing Lady Eglantine’s coming-of-age and marriage.”

“Me...? Not Prince Anastasius?” I asked. It was a bold proclamation to make, and not one that I immediately understood. What in the world was the Sovereign High Bishop saying? It was outright irresponsible in that it would almost certainly change how royalty would treat us, despite our deliberate efforts to distance ourselves from the throne.

Despite myself, I looked to where the royals were sitting. I couldn’t make out their expressions from where we were, but I could imagine Prince Sigiswald was extremely disturbed. I clutched Anastasius’s cape before me, unable to hide my anxiety. He, too, looked as though he was deep in thought about something. He must have been as concerned for our future as I was.

Or so I thought. Out of nowhere, he shook his head and muttered, “Did Rozemyne do this...?”

“Lady Rozemyne...? What does she have to do with this?” I asked.

Anastasius hugged me closer and whispered into my ear. “I just recalled that Solange and even Rozemyne herself said she became the master of the library’s magic tools through an abrupt blessing. Could it be...?”

These things seemed so disconnected that I initially couldn’t understand what he was saying at all. It seemed that Lady Rozemyne had told him that she had performed such a blessing at some point in the past.

“She is supposed to be bedridden, but if she has spoken of such blessings before, I suppose it is a more likely explanation than it being a blessing from the gods, as the Sovereign High Bishop wishes us to believe...” I replied.

I had previously considered entering the temple to avoid marriage, so I had read documents related to the temple in the castle’s book room. Klassenberg was a rather old duchy, so one might naturally assume it had an enormous quantity of documents related to the temple... but in reality, there were almost none. They were all apparently in the temple.

Still, the few documents that could be found in the castle said that the divine light of blessings would fall following holy ceremonies. I had thought it was little more than a metaphor, but perhaps blessings such as these had been normal in the past.

“I see that creature causes chaos even when not present herself,” Anastasius said. “Aub Ehrenfest has my sympathy; I can only imagine how he felt receiving reports of this manner while unable to interfere with Academy affairs.”

One did not learn to perform such large-scale blessings during Royal Academy lectures. Perhaps Ehrenfest continued to pass on these ancient ceremonies in the same way that it maintained the ancient custom of archduke candidates entering the temple. If so, it would be plausible for Aub Ehrenfest to know these things.

The audience did not believe the Sovereign High Bishop’s words wholesale, but the air shifted for the graduation ceremony to continue as everyone concluded it likely was a blessing from the gods—that is, everyone except Aub Ehrenfest, who caught my eye with how he alone was crossing his arms with a difficult frown.

“I knew it—you’re a royal princess with the blessing of the gods themselves, Eglantine. Excellent. I am proud to have protected you to the end,” Grandfather said, chugging wine and speaking in proud terms of the blessing when I returned to the dormitory.

“Grandfather, what are you saying?!”

“We all saw it,” he replied. “The blessing clearly favored you.”

It was as though ice-cold water had been poured over my head. I had thought the Sovereign High Bishop was just irresponsibly causing conflict with his words, but if even those in the audience had thought the blessing was for me and shared Grandfather’s conclusions, then the circumstances would change yet again.

“There is no denying that the blessing favored you,” the aub said. “It seemed quite clear that Prince Anastasius was only blessed on the side as the one you chose.”

I was suddenly struck by a wave of dizziness. I had thought I had successfully forestalled a war over the throne after Anastasius announced that he would relinquish the kingship to Prince Sigiswald, but at this rate, things would likely regress to a state even worse than before.

Although, no matter what Grandfather says now, neither the king nor Prince Sigiswald can overturn what Anastasius declared...

There was no doubt that Klassenberg was an enormous power as a greater duchy supporting the king, but we were still placed below royalty. If my grandfather seemed at all disloyal in his attempts to prop me up, then Dunkelfelger, the birthplace of the king’s third wife, and Drewanchel, the greater duchy planning to marry Lady Adolphine to Prince Sigiswald, would surely push back.

And Yurgenschmidt has no need for any further wars.

Just how many nobles had been lost in the civil war just a few years prior? Surely no one was oblivious to how much it had weakened our country.

“Grandfather, I am not a royal princess. I am a Klassenberg archduke candidate.”

“You would say that after the gods themselves have made their support of you clear? You are unmistakably a princess. Are you not the late third prince’s daughter? I am glad beyond words that you’ll be regaining your royal status through marriage.”

No matter how many times he called me a royal princess, I had moved to Klassenberg before my baptism and was educated not as royalty but as an archduke candidate. I recalled feeling confused in the distant past when I had moved to Klassenberg from the villa, and suddenly my life and education were entirely unlike what I had been used to. Royalty and archduke candidates were simply raised differently.

I would likely receive some royal education due to my marriage to a prince, but nothing good would come from expecting natural royalty from someone raised as an archduke candidate such as myself. I was not on the level of Prince Sigiswald or Anastasius, who were raised as royalty from birth.

However, the Sovereign High Bishop declared outright that the blessing was from the gods... This could be problematic.

It would be best for Anastasius and me to get married out of the spotlight, while Prince Sigiswald ascended to the throne after marrying Lady Adolphine with the support of a greater duchy... but I had the terrible feeling that the blessing today would prevent things from going so smoothly. Perhaps it would even be a catalyst of great discord.

And I wonder if Lady Rozemyne won’t be at the center of that discord...

Anastasius’s suspicion that Lady Rozemyne was the source of the blessing was not guaranteed to be correct. However, even without evidence, I was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was.