[ Status Page ]
Mana: 14 / 1,000
Fourteen. Out of a thousand.
He'd burned through nearly everything. The sustained connection with Lilian, the rapid-fire succession of [Mind Influence] casts, the emotional intensity of the encounter amplifying the drain in ways he hadn't anticipated.
I've never cast that many spells in a row, he thought, pressing the heel of his palm against his temple. Not even close. The session with Isabelle through the floorboards spent three hundred. This one must have burned through another five hundred. Maybe more.
His hands were shaking. Not the fine tremor of fatigue, but full, visible tremors that made his fingers rattle against the stone floor.
He closed his eyes. Leaned his head back against the wall.
But it worked. Lilian is mine. Or close enough that the difference doesn't matter. One more session. Maybe two. And she'll—
A sound interrupted him.
Ding.
Then another.
Ding.
Then a cascade.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
His eyes snapped open.
The blue text was multiplying.
The first notification materialized.
[ You have obtained enough experience. ]
[ Your skill Mind Influence has reached LVL 2. ]
[ At LVL 2, your influence will be significantly stronger. Suggestions will integrate more deeply into the target's psyche. Resistance erosion accelerates. Sustained influence over a single target will compound, building psychological dependency over time. ] [ Your mana was fully recovered ]
Alphonse stared at the text. His mana-exhaustion disappeared.
It leveled up.
Sophie had taken months to evolve her [Water Orb] from its base form to [Controlled Orb]. Months of daily practice, of Master Gereon's drills, of meditation and mana exercises. She'd mentioned it like it was a major accomplishment, and it was. Skill evolution was slow. Grinding. The kind of incremental progress that rewarded patience and discipline.
He'd leveled [Mind Influence] in two days.
The emotional intensity, he realized. It's not about repetition. It's about impact. Every cast I made was loaded. Isabelle's orgasm. Lilian's breakdown. The emotional charge of the target amplifies the experience gain.
The amber text shifted. The notifications weren't finished.
[ Your journey has been… fun. ]
Alphonse could almost hear a voice behind them.
The Hidden One.
[ I'll assign your first Quests. ]
Three panels materialized, side by side, floating at eye level.
| New Quest: Obtain Your First Slave | | Obtain the proof of obedience from your first slave. | | A servant serves because they must. A slave serves because they cannot imagine anything else. Break someone's will so completely that they offer themselves to you. Mind, body, and soul. | | Reward: [New Skill] |
| New Quest: Covet What Belongs to Others | | Obtain someone else's woman. | | Desire is the engine of ambition. Take a woman who belongs to another man. Not by force, by seduction. Make her choose you. Make her betray the one she's bound to, willingly, eagerly, with a smile on her lips and his ring still on her finger. | | Reward: [New Skill] |
| New Quest: The Greatest Sin | | What is the greatest sin? | | Discover the answer. | | Reward: [Level Up] |
Alphonse read each quest three times.
The first two were explicit. Clear objectives, clear parameters, clear rewards. The Hidden One wasn't being subtle. Break someone into a slave. Steal another man's woman. These weren't tests of virtue. They were instructions.
The third was different.
What is the greatest sin?
"THUM! THUM! THUM!"
The knocks hit the door like a battering ram.
Alphonse's eyes snapped open, his hands clawed the sheets, his heart slamming against his ribs.
For one disorienting second, he was back in the apartment.
Then the room assembled itself around him. Stone walls. Vaulted ceiling. Embroidered sheets. Sunlight pouring through the tall windows in golden slabs.
Not the apartment. The mansion. I'm in the mansion.
"THUM! THUM! THUM!"
"Coming!" he called, his voice cracked with sleep.
He swung his legs off the bed. His body protested, but it was functional enough. The sleep had done its work.
He crossed the room. The sunlight was bright. Too bright. The angle of the shadows on the floor told him it was well past morning.
Late, he judged. Could be midday. Maybe later.
He opened the door.
A soldier stood in the corridor. Middle-aged, square-jawed, wearing the Hohenberg armor.
"Young master," the soldier said, his voice clipped and flat. "The Baroness summons you to the meeting room."
"Of course. Thank you."
The soldier gave a curt nod and turned on his heel. His boots rang against the stone as he marched away.
Alphonse closed the door. Stood in the silence for a moment.
What could my mother want?
He moved to the washbasin. Splashed cold water on his face, scrubbed the sleep from his eyes. The mirror above the basin gave him back his reflection.
He looked better. The bruise around his right eye had faded from livid purple to a sickly yellow-green. The swelling was nearly gone. His face was still too thin, the bones too prominent, but the hollowness that had alarmed him in the first days after waking was retreating. Color was returning to his skin.
His hair had grown. Longer than the original Alphonse had kept it, curling at the nape of his neck and falling across his forehead in dark waves. He pushed it back with his fingers.
I prefer this look, he decided.
He changed quickly. Clean trousers, a linen shirt, a fitted waistcoat of dark wool that the servants had laid out while he slept.
The second-floor corridor was bright with midafternoon light. Dust motes drifted in the sun beams that sliced through the arched windows. Could the Baron be returning?
No. It's been three weeks since he left for the campaign. Mother said months. Sophie said months. Military campaigns don't wrap up in three weeks, especially not ones important enough to pull a Baron from his territory.
But what if something went wrong? What if he was injured? Recalled? What if he's riding home right now, full fury that comes from military failure?
He pushed the thought down. He'd know soon enough.
As he approached the meeting room, the largest room on the second floor outside the master chambers, he saw a familiar figure standing by the double doors.
Sophie.
She stood with her back to him, her golden hair braided into a single plait that hung between her shoulder blades. Her dress was a simple affair in soft green, cinched at the waist, practical for a day of lessons. She was studying the iron handle of the meeting room door.
"Hi, Sophie!" Alphonse called.
"Ah!" She jumped. Physically jumped, both feet leaving the ground by an inch. Her hand flew to her chest.
She spun around, saw him, and her expression cycled through three emotions in rapid succession — surprise, relief, annoyance.
"Al!" She reached out and slapped his arm. "Don't sneak up on me like that! I nearly used [Water Bolt] on you."
"That would've been memorable."
"It would've been your fault." She turned back to face the meeting room door, crossing her arms. Her foot tapped the stone floor in an anxious rhythm. "Where have you been? You slept through breakfast and lunch. Lilian tried to bring you a tray, but your door was locked. She was worried."
Lilian.
"I was exhausted from the Oracle yesterday," he said. Half-truth. "The experience took more out of me than I expected."
"You need to eat more. You're still recovering. Master Gereon says mana recovery is tied to physical condition. If your body is weak, your mana regenerates slower."
"Did Mom call you too?" Sophie asked, lowering her voice.
"Yes. Do you have any idea what it's about?"
"Not yet." She bit her lower lip. Her eyes flicked to the door and back. "But I heard her shouting earlier. At someone. Through the walls."
Before Alphonse could respond, the shouting resumed.
"—what do you mean, Captain, that you still haven't found them?"
His mother's voice. But not the voice of his mother. The voice of the Baroness. The distinction was absolute.
"Every day that passes, every hour your men spend wandering the countryside like drunk goatherds, our people are at risk. Families. Women. Children. Are you hearing me, Captain, or has the incompetence spread to your ears as well?"
A pause. Alphonse imagined the Captain standing at attention, swallowing responses he couldn't afford to voice.
"You will leave this room," the Baroness continued, each word dropped like a stone into still water, "and you will focus on this. I don't want to hear excuses. I don't want to hear about resources or manpower or how difficult the terrain is. I want results. I don't want to see your face until this is solved. Understood?"
A silence that stretched for three heartbeats.
Then, barely audible through the oak: "Yes, ma'am."
The doors flew open.
The Captain of the Guard emerged like a man fleeing a burning building. His face was a battlefield of competing emotions. Shame dominated, but beneath it, barely concealed, fury.
The particular fury of a proud man who had just been dressed down in terms that left marks.
His eyes were hard. His hands, hanging at his sides, were curled into loose fists.
He barely glanced at the two young people standing by the door. A flicker of recognition — the Baroness's children — and then away.
Alphonse watched him go.
Captain of the Guard. Used to taking orders from the Baron, not the Baroness. That's the source of the fury. Not the reprimand itself, though that's part of it. It's being reprimanded by a woman. By the wife of the man he actually respects.
Dangerous. A man like that, humiliated and resentful, with armed men under his command and a Baron he considers his real master currently absent...
Another piece on the board.
Am I going to have to deal with him?
The answer was probably yes. But not today.
With the doors open, both siblings moved forward and entered the room.
The meeting room was the administrative nerve center of the barony. Where the dining hall served social functions and the parlor served appearances, this room served reality.
It was large, but functional in a way that reflected the mind of the woman who ran it. A long table of dark oak dominated the center, scarred by decades of use. Around it, chairs with worn leather seats. Along the walls, shelves groaned under the weight of ledgers, tax rolls, correspondence bundles, trade agreements, and land surveys.
But the room's true character was in the chaos on the table.
Piles. Mountains. Geological formations of paper, stacked and scattered and spilling across every available inch of surface.
The sheer volume of it told a story. This was a barony being run by one person. Not a team, not a council, not a partnership between husband and wife. One woman, sitting at one table, holding together a territory that generated more revenue than most counties through force of intelligence and will.
Isabelle sat at the head of the table. Not in the Baron's chair, Alphonse noted, but in the chair to its immediate right. Even now, even with the Baron away, she didn't sit in his seat.
She looked tired.
Still, her posture was perfect.
She looked up. The transformation was immediate. The mask of the administrator cracked, and behind it, the mother.
Her eyes found her children standing in the doorway, and everything changed. The tension in her shoulders released by a fraction. The hard line of her mouth softened. Her gaze moved between them — Sophie first, then Alphonse.
On Alphonse, it lingered.
Something else happened. Something subtle enough that Sophie missed it entirely, but Alphonse caught it.
The Baroness blushed.
Not much. A faint warmth that crept up from her collar and spread across her cheekbones.
Alphonse knew exactly what it was.
She's remembering.
The bath. The fantasy. His face in her mind, his imagined cock painting her lips with cum while she came harder than she'd ever come in her life.
She was looking at her son, and she was remembering.
The guilt was there too. He could see it in the way her eyes flicked away from his face. In the barely perceptible tightening of her fingers around the quill she held. She couldn't look at him without the memory intruding.
Perfect.
[Mind Connection]
The spell left him as a thin, controlled stream of mana. The thread spun across the room, invisible, weightless, and attached itself to the surface of Isabelle's consciousness like a spider's silk landing on water.
[ Mind Connection established ]
Target: Isabelle von Hohenberg
Status: Active
Mana drain: 2/sec
Her thoughts flooded in.
'God. How can I be thinking such things when I look at him.'
The thought was saturated with self-loathing. A thick, oily shame that coated everything it touched. Beneath it, something else. The ghost of that pleasure.
'He's my son. My firstborn. The boy I nursed at my breast. What kind of depraved, broken, sick woman fantasizes about her own son while—'
The thought spiraled.
'Focus. They are here. Focus on what matters.'
"How are you, Mom?" Sophie asked, crossing the room with the easy warmth that was her natural state. She rounded the table and planted a kiss on Isabelle's cheek.
Isabelle smiled. It was a good effort. The kind of smile that would have fooled anyone who didn't have a psychic thread buried in her brain.
"I'm fine, dear. Just some problems with the crops, but nothing major."
Through the connection, Alphonse felt the lie. Not just heard it — felt it.
She was drowning.
The crop reports were the least of it. Bandits. That was what the Captain had been reamed about. Attacks on the trade routes. Caravans being hit. Merchants rerouting to avoid Hohenberg territory. Revenue dropping. Beyond that, the border disputes, the labor shortages, the military vacuum left by the Baron's absence, the twenty other fires that needed fighting simultaneously with resources that were stretched past the point of reason.
She was holding all of it together alone.
"Is there anything we can help with?" Alphonse asked. He let his voice carry genuine concern. It wasn't hard. The concern was real, if strategically motivated.
Isabelle's gaze returned to him. Through the connection, he felt the collision. The warm maternal instinct to protect her children from burden, slamming head-on into the memory of his face in her fantasy. The resulting emotional wreck produced a response that was several seconds too late.
"No," she said. Her voice was steady, but the flush had crept higher. She looked down at the papers in front of her. "You don't need to worry about things like that."
Alphonse took a step forward. He approached the table, let his fingers trail along its scarred surface, and stopped within arm's reach of where she sat.
"Mother."
She looked up. Their eyes met. Through the connection, he felt her heartbeat accelerate. Just a few beats per minute, but unmistakable.
"Hopefully, in the distant future, I will inherit this domain," he said. "Perhaps it's time I started helping. At least to understand how things work. Who the vassals are. How the trade routes function. What the tax structure looks like. The things that keep this barony alive."
Sophie glanced at her brother. A flicker of surprise crossed her face. The original Alphonse had never shown the slightest interest in administration. He'd avoided the meeting room like it was a plague ward.
Through the connection, Isabelle's thoughts rippled.
'He's never... since when does he care about the domain? Since when does he talk like this?'
'The beating changed him. Nearly dying changed him. He's not the same boy who went to sleep.'
Then, quieter, more uncertain.
'Or maybe I'm just seeing him differently because of what I...'
She killed the thought before it fully formed.
Isabelle set down her quill. Studied her son's face with the same appraising intensity she brought to trade agreements and tax summaries. Several seconds passed.
"Alright," she said. "But today, the help you'll provide is different."
She stood. Moved to a side table where a sealed letter lay on a silver tray. She picked it up, broke the wax seal with her thumb, and unfolded the paper.
"Both of you need to attend a ball."
Sophie blinked. "A ball?"
"The Montefalco house is hosting an engagement party for their Baron. We've been invited. The invitation arrived yesterday while you were both occupied." She glanced at the letter, skimming the formal language. "The ceremony is this evening. It's a three-hour ride, so you'll need to leave within the hour."
"But Mom," Sophie said, stepping closer, "wouldn't it make more sense for you to go? You're the Baroness. Doesn't protocol—"
"Yes. Under normal circumstances, it would be me." Isabelle set the letter down. "However, with the Baron away, it's critical that I stay close to the territory. There are... situations that require my direct attention. Situations I can't delegate."
The bandits, Alphonse understood through the connection. The Captain is incompetent or unwilling, the soldiers are demoralized without the Baron's command. She can't leave. Not even for a night.
"We just need to attend?" Alphonse asked.
"Attend. Be seen. Represent the Hohenberg name with the dignity it deserves." She looked between them. "Don't cause any trouble. Don't drink excessively. Don't insult anyone, even if they deserve it, and at a Montefalco event, several of them will deserve it. Smile, nod, make polite conversation, and leave before midnight."
"The Montefalco house," Sophie said slowly, pulling from memory. "They're not particularly powerful within the empire, are they?"
"Not politically, no. They're a minor barony with a middling military and no seats on any imperial council." Isabelle paused. "But they sit on the coast. Their port handles a quarter of all maritime trade between the empire and the kingdoms across the sea. Furs, spices, silk, dyes, exotic metals. Their Baron, for all his... personal shortcomings, has built trade relationships with merchant houses on three continents."
She tapped the letter with one finger.
"This ball will be attended by every major commercial player in the region. Merchants, guild leaders, shipping magnates, bankers. Some of the families there control more actual wealth than most of the landed nobility combined."
Sophie's eyes had glazed slightly by the second sentence. Administrative detail was not her strength.
Alphonse, however, was cataloging every word.
Maritime trade. Port access. Commercial relationships with foreign kingdoms. This isn't a social event. It's a market. Mother is sending us because she can't go herself, but she can't afford to miss the opportunity entirely.
"We won't disappoint you," he said.
Through the connection, he felt a surge of warmth from Isabelle. Gratitude, pride, and something else she immediately suppressed.
'He really has changed.'
"Yes, ma'am," Sophie added, straightening her posture in an unconscious echo of her mother.
Isabelle's expression softened. For a moment, she was just a mother looking at her children.
"Be careful on the road," she said. "I'll assign four soldiers to escort you. And Sophie—"
"I know, I know. No magic demonstrations at parties."
"I was going to say take a warm cloak. The coastal road gets cold after sunset."
Sophie had the decency to look sheepish.
Alphonse severed the connection. The psychic thread dissolved.
[ Mind Connection severed ]
Reason: Manually terminated
Mana spent: 46
Forty-six mana. Short session, low emotional intensity. Manageable.
He followed Sophie out of the meeting room. Behind them, Isabelle was already seated again, quill in hand, the administrative machinery grinding back into motion before the door had fully closed.
Preparation was chaos.
Sophie vanished into her chambers and emerged thirty minutes later in a state of escalating wardrobe crisis. Alphonse heard her voice through the corridor walls, alternating between Lilian — who had been summoned to assist — and increasingly dramatic monologues about the inadequacy of her entire closet.
"The blue one makes me look too young!"
"The green one has a stain on the hem that won't come out!"
"The silver one... Lilian, when did I last wear the silver one? Does it still fit?"
Alphonse dressed in silence. The servants had prepared his formal attire.
He studied himself in the bronze mirror.
Not bad, he admitted. The body is still rebuilding, but the presentation is workable.
He left his room and found Sophie in the corridor.
She had chosen the silver.
The dress was a masterwork of understated elegance. Silver fabric with a subtle shimmer, cut close through the bodice and waist before flowing into a layered skirt that moved like water when she walked. Her golden hair had been pulled into a half-up arrangement, loose curls framing her face and cascading over bare shoulders. "Well?" She turned in a slow circle, arms slightly extended. "Does it work?"
"You look beautiful, Sophie."
She beamed. The flush on her cheeks deepened, and she looked away, suddenly fascinated by the clasp of her own cloak.
"You don't look terrible yourself," she muttered.
The carriage was already waiting in the courtyard.
The same heavy, four-wheeled affair with the Hohenberg crest. Helmut sat on the driver's bench, reins gathered in his weathered hands. Four soldiers flanked the vehicle on horseback, their armor polished, their cloaks bearing the house colors.
Alphonse climbed in. Sophie followed.
The door closed. The latch clicked. Helmut's whip cracked. The carriage lurched forward.
The road to Montefalco territory was longer and rougher than the road to Hohenberg town.
The first hour traced a familiar path. The estate, the fields, the shallow valley with its stone bridge. But where the Hohenberg road turned north toward their town, the Montefalco route curved south and west, climbing through forested hills before descending toward the coast.
The terrain changed as they moved. Flat agricultural plains gave way to rolling hills thick with forest. The road narrowed, winding between ancient oaks, their canopies filtering the fading sunlight.
Then the trees thinned. The hills crested. The sea appeared.
Alphonse leaned forward in his seat.
The ocean stretched to the horizon. The coastline curved away to the south in a series of rocky headlands and sheltered coves. Fishing boats dotted the water, their sails like white teeth against the blue.
Nestled into the curve of the largest cove, gleaming in the late-afternoon light, was Montefalco.
"Impressive," Alphonse said.
Sophie's eyes were shining. She'd pressed her face against the carriage window, her breath fogging the glass.
The city was nothing like Hohenberg. Where his family's town had grown organically, chaotically, a tangle of timber frames and narrow streets expanding outward like a stain, Montefalco had been designed. The buildings were stone and stucco, painted in warm tones. Their rooftops were clay tiles in shades of red and orange. Balconies draped with flowering vines.
The architecture was Mediterranean. This could have been a town on the Amalfi coast, or a fishing village in southern Spain. The same sun-soaked palette, the same relationship between building and landscape, the same sense that the city had grown from the earth rather than been placed upon it.
"I've heard they have excellent fish and shellfish," Sophie said, her nose still pressed to the glass.
"You've done your research on the food. What about the house itself?"
Sophie pulled back from the window. Thought about it, chewing her lower lip.
"Not much," she admitted. "They aren't a large house. Militarily, they're insignificant. Mother said they maintain a garrison of maybe two hundred men. Their barony is smaller than ours in terms of land. But their commercial influence..." She trailed off, reaching for the memory. "They control the port. All maritime trade in the region flows through their docks. Mother says Baron Montefalco collects a percentage on every cargo that passes through. The volume is enormous."
"Money without military power," Alphonse mused. "That's a vulnerable position."
"Which is probably why they throw parties like this. The more allies they have, the less likely anyone is to try taking their port by force."
Smart girl, he thought. She understood more about power dynamics than she gave herself credit for.
"We'll have to learn the rest on the spot," Alphonse said.
The carriage began its descent toward the city gates.
Montefalco's entrance was theatrical.
The main road approached from the east, climbing through terraced vineyards before curving around a final headland. As the carriage rounded the turn, the Montefalco estate came into view, and Sophie made a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a laugh.
The manor sat on a promontory overlooking the harbor. It was massive. A sprawling two-story mansion of white stone with a red tile roof, flanked by small decorative towers that echoed the style of the surrounding city.
But what drew the eye, what drew every eye, was the light.
Hundreds of mana-powered lamps lined the facade. They hung from wrought-iron brackets, clustered along the roofline, dangled from the tower parapets.
"Looks like someone wants to flaunt some gold coins," Alphonse said quietly, leaning toward his sister.
Sophie let out a low whistle. "That must cost a fortune. Mana lamps aren't cheap. Two, three gold pieces each, and he's got... hundreds. That's more than our household budget for—"
"For the year."
"For the quarter. But still."
The carriage joined a queue of other vehicles approaching the main entrance.
When their turn came, Alphonse stepped out first.
The evening air hit him. Salt and jasmine and the faintest undercurrent of fish from the harbor below.
He extended a hand to Sophie. She took it, stepping down from the carriage with a grace that drew a few glances from the nearby arrivals. In the silver dress, with the lamplight catching the fabric and her golden hair, she was stunning.
Around them, the four Hohenberg soldiers dismounted and took up positions. Two flanking the siblings, two remaining with the carriage. Their hands rested on sword pommels.
"Ready?" Sophie asked.
He offered his arm. She took it.
They climbed the terrace steps together.
The entrance was a grand arch of white stone, thirty feet high, draped with garlands of flowers and greenery. Through it, a broad passageway led into the estate's interior.
They weren't alone. Nobles streamed in from every direction, a river of silk and velvet and perfume. Alphonse recognized some faces from the original Alphonse's memories. Neighboring lords, distant relatives, families whose names appeared in trade agreements he'd read in his mother's meeting room. He nodded politely where recognition demanded it, exchanged greetings with practiced brevity.
Other faces were foreign. Nobles from distant kingdoms, identifiable by their unfamiliar fashions. Merchants from across the sea, dark-skinned and sharp-eyed, their clothing a riot of color and pattern. An envoy from a Dwarven hold, squat and bearded, his chain of office glittering with gemstones.
The crowd flowed through the entrance arch and into the estate.
Alphonse heard Sophie's breath catch.
Beyond the arch, the Montefalco estate revealed its secret. The mansion wasn't a single building — it was a ring. The structure encircled a vast open courtyard, and at its center lay an artificial lake.
Around the lake's edge, the courtyard was alive with festivity. Dozens of small tents and pavilions had been set up, each one a pocket of light and warmth. Some held food, long tables groaning under the weight of platters and tureens and towers of fruit. Others held musicians. Still others were simply spaces for conversation, furnished with cushioned chairs and low tables bearing wine carafes and crystal glasses.
The smell hit him next. Roasting meat, caramelized onions, garlic, saffron, the rich iodine tang of fresh seafood. Sophie's grip on his arm tightened.
"Focus," he murmured.
"I am focused. On the food."
"Sophie."
"Fine, fine. Politics first. Food later." After hundreds of families had filed through the entrance and found their places in the courtyard, the ambient noise dropped.
"Thum. Thum. Thum."
Three heavy, rhythmic strikes, a staff against stone, silenced the remaining chatter.
"Ahem. Ahem."
An amplified voice filled the courtyard.
"Thank you to all the guests for attending this modest ceremony."
Modest. Alphonse looked at the hundreds of mana lamps, the artificial lake, the floating lanterns, the imported musicians, the dozens of food tents, and the approximately six hundred nobles packed into a courtyard that could have housed a small town.
Modest.
The speaker stood on the central island's pavilion.
"Is that the Baron?" Sophie whispered.
"Yes," Alphonse replied, recognizing the figure from a portrait his mother had shown him.
Vittorio di Montefalco was a spectacle.
He was enormous. Not in the muscular, imposing way of a warrior, but in the soft, spreading way of a man who had spent decades converting vast wealth into food. His body filled a velvet doublet of deep purple. Three chins cascaded below a face that was old, wrinkled, and red. His head was completely bald, gleaming under the lamplight. Small eyes, almost lost in the surrounding flesh.
To his right, almost invisible beside his bulk, stood a figure.
The bride.
Amina di Montefalco — or rather, Amina who would become di Montefalco once the ceremony concluded.
She was small. That was the first thing Alphonse noticed. She couldn't have been older than sixteen, and the elaborate wedding garments she wore — layers of flowing cloth in white and gold, embroidered with patterns from her homeland, a veil that covered the lower half of her face — only emphasized the disparity.
Her skin was a warm, deep brown. Her eyes, visible above the veil, were dark and enormous, rimmed with kohl in the style of the kingdoms across the sea.
"If that's the Baron..." Sophie started, her voice dropping to a horrified whisper, "then she must be the bride?"
She didn't bother hiding her reaction. Her eyes went wide, her mouth fell open, and a look of pure revulsion crossed her features so clearly that Alphonse was grateful no one was watching them closely.
"Yes," he confirmed. "The future Baroness. Amina di Montefalco."
Vittorio's amplified voice was still rolling over the crowd, extolling the virtues of the union, the strengthening of ties between the empire and the kingdoms across the sea, the bright future that awaited the Montefalco line. Standard engagement rhetoric, delivered with the enthusiasm of a man describing his newest and most expensive acquisition.
Which, in a meaningful sense, was exactly what Amina was.
Sophie didn't know what to say. Her jaw worked. Several responses fought for dominance behind her eyes, each one politically dangerous in its own way.
She chose silence. But her face displayed her disgust.
Alphonse watched Vittorio and Amina for a moment longer.
Three wives in ten years. None produced an heir. None survived long enough to explain why. The official records list illness, illness, and a riding accident. The unofficial consensus, whispered in taverns and drawing rooms across the region, is more creative.
Now a girl from across the sea. Young enough to be his granddaughter. From a family that sold her for trade access and a title.
He felt nothing. Not disgust, not pity, not moral outrage. The scene was data. A piece of the regional puzzle that might or might not prove useful.
What I do notice is opportunity. Vittorio is old, obese, and historically lethal to his wives. This marriage will produce instability, regardless of whether Amina survives it. Instability in a house that controls the region's only major port.
Something to watch.
"Sophie," he said, gently placing his hand over hers where it gripped his arm. "I think we should start mingling with the other groups. We just need to make a good impression with a few key nobles, show the Hohenberg flag, and then we can leave the party."
She exhaled. Nodded. The color was returning to her face.
"You're right," she said. "Let's get this over with."
With a clear goal, the two siblings entered the crowd.
The next two hours were a masterclass in social navigation.
Alphonse moved through the party. He introduced himself with the careful humility of a minor noble's heir, smiled at the right moments, asked the right questions, and listened with the particular intensity that made people feel seen.
Sophie held her own. She discussed water magic theory with a visiting scholar from the Imperial Academy, charmed a grain merchant's wife with genuine questions about textile dying techniques, and politely deflected no fewer than three marriage inquiries from minor nobles who'd noticed that the Baroness's daughter was both beautiful and [Mage]-classified.
It was going well. Better than well.
Until—
"Cousin!"
The voice hit Alphonse from behind.
Alphonse closed his eyes. Took one breath.
Of course he's here.
He turned.
Lucius von Hohenberg waddled toward him through the crowd, pushing aside a servant carrying a tray of wine glasses without so much as a glance. He was dressed in formal attire that had clearly been tailored by someone who deserved a medal for engineering.
His face was flushed. The ruddy complexion had deepened to a patchy red that said three glasses of wine minimum and no food to slow the absorption. His small eyes glittered with the joy of a man who had spotted his victim.
"Don't tell me, don't tell me," Lucius said, arriving with a wave of cheap cologne and fermented breath. He raised a stubby finger. "Let me guess your [Profession]."
Several nearby nobles turned, drawn by the volume and the obvious hostility. Alphonse felt eyes on them.
Lucius made a show of studying Alphonse from head to toe. His gaze lingered on the lean frame, the slightly loose doublet, the fading bruise around the eye socket.
"Looking at you..." Lucius tilted his head, pursed his lips, the pantomime of deep thought. "Maybe you got [Shit Cleaner]?"
He said it loud enough for the surrounding nobles to hear. A few chuckled. Most didn't. One woman, elderly, draped in furs, raised an eyebrow and turned away.
Alphonse held his cousin's gaze. His expression didn't change. Not a flicker.
"Lucius," he said, his voice carrying the warm, genuine tone of a host greeting a welcome guest. "It's equally good to see you at this party."
The non-response was more effective than any insult. Lucius's smirk faltered. He'd expected a flinch, a stammer, the familiar capitulation of the old Alphonse. The absence of it threw off his rhythm.
He recovered by pushing harder.
"Ah! Don't respond like that, cousin. I know your result must've been crap." He reached behind him and snatched two cups of wine from a passing servant's tray, shoving one toward Alphonse. "But celebrate with me!"
Alphonse took the cup. Didn't drink from it.
"I passed the Imperial Academy exam," Lucius announced, loud enough for the surrounding cluster of nobles to hear. He puffed his chest. "Not everyone in our family is useless like you. Look on the bright side, at least one Hohenberg brings honor to the name."
The Imperial Academy. Alphonse's borrowed memories supplied the context. The empire's premier military institution. A [Profession] in a combat class was the minimum requirement for admission. Graduation virtually guaranteed a commission in the imperial army, along with the political connections that came from training alongside the sons of counts, dukes, and occasionally princes.
Lucius had the [Axe Specialist] classification and, presumably, enough raw stats to pass the entrance tests. His intelligence wasn't the qualifying factor. But the Academy admitted by combat aptitude, not intellectual merit, and raw physical power was something Lucius had in abundance beneath the layers of fat.
It was, Alphonse admitted, a genuine accomplishment. The kind of thing that would make Uncle Heinrich happy. A Hohenberg at the Academy meant a Hohenberg building connections to the imperial military hierarchy. Connections that could be leveraged if, say, a succession dispute arose within the family.
Dangerous.
But Alphonse kept that thought off his face. Instead, he leaned in. Close enough that only Lucius could hear.
"Lucius, Lucius," he said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. The warmth was gone. What replaced it was something flat and hard. "You should learn your place. Someday, I'll have to beat that fat ass of yours to teach you not to cross the line."
Lucius's face went from ruddy to white in the space of a heartbeat. Not from fear. From sheer, blinding rage. The sudden, animal fury of a bully who'd been challenged in the one arena where he felt invulnerable.
His hands curled into fists. His jaw clenched. The veins in his temples bulged.
"Fat!" he sputtered, loud enough that the whisper agreement was already broken. "FAT?! These are muscles, you — you worthless, classless, beaten-down little — "
"Lucius!"
The name cracked through the air like a whip.
Lucius froze. The color drained from his face for an entirely different reason now. His fists uncurled. His shoulders dropped. The transformation from raging bull to chastened animal was so immediate and so complete that it would have been funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
He didn't turn around. He didn't need to. He already knew who it was. He also knew that every word of his outburst had carried.
"Damn it," he muttered, barely moving his lips.
He ran.
Not walked. Ran. He turned on his heel and pushed into the crowd of nobles with a speed that his build shouldn't have allowed.
Alphonse watched him go. Already arranging his features into the appropriate expression. Slightly bemused, pleasantly surprised.
Madeleine Clairmont stood three paces behind where Lucius had been.
She looked different from the last time he'd seen her, outside the bakery in Hohenberg. The modest grey wool was gone. In its place, a gown of deep sapphire blue that someone with actual taste had chosen. The fabric was cut closer than her usual preference, following the generous curves of her figure rather than hiding them. The neckline was lower, revealing a swell of cleavage. Her dark hair had been released from its practical braid and arranged in loose curls that framed her round, freckled face.
She looked like someone had told her to make an effort, and she'd done so with the resigned competence.
She also looked furious.
"Hello, Madeleine," Alphonse said. "Looking for your fiancé?"
"Yes," she said, her jaw tight. Her brown eyes tracked the direction Lucius had fled, as if considering whether the chase was worth the effort. "Trying to stop him from doing something stupid."
She said it at normal volume. The nearest nobles had already turned away, the entertainment apparently over.
"That's an impossible mission," Alphonse said, letting a small smile reach his eyes.
Madeleine exhaled through her nose. A long, controlled exhalation that carried the weight of months of accumulated frustration.
"Tell me about it."
She met his eyes. Held them for a beat longer than social convention required.
Alphonse studied her. The tiredness behind the cosmetics. The intelligence in her gaze. The way her fingers kept fidgeting with the seam of her glove. She was sharp, this one.
| Covet What Belongs to Others |
| Obtain someone else's woman. |
I think it's time to complete my first quest, Alphonse thought.