The old servant's words dropped into the charged atmosphere of the study like stones into a still pond, the ripples spreading outwards, chilling us to the bone.
"A messenger from His Grace, Duke Crimson. He awaits you in the main hall."
The game had escalated. The Duke, having failed to eliminate me with assassins in the dark, was now dragging me into the light. A formal summons, bearing his seal, was not a request. It was a command disguised as a courtesy, a velvet glove on an iron fist. To refuse was to openly declare defiance, an act of political suicide for a house as weak as the Silversteins.
Elizabeth's face, which had been alight with the thrill of our newfound resources, hardened into a mask of glacial fury. "He doesn't wait," she said, her voice a low, dangerous whisper. "He sends his failed assassins, and before their bodies are even cold, he moves his next piece onto the board. He is relentless."
Luna, clutching the precious documents she had found, looked between us, her wide eyes reflecting our tension. The joy of her discovery was gone, replaced by the cold fear that we all felt.
I took a slow, deliberate sip of my wine, the rich liquid doing nothing to calm the storm of calculations in my mind. "Panicking is an inefficient response," I said, my voice steady, echoing ARIA's logic. "It's what he wants. He wants us off-balance, reactive. We will not give him the satisfaction."
I stood up, straightening the fine fabric of my wedding suit. "Let's not keep the man waiting."
Walking into the main hall was like stepping onto a stage. The messenger was a tall, severe-looking man with a hawkish nose and eyes that missed nothing. He was dressed in the impeccable crimson and black livery of House Crimson, and he stood in the center of the hall as if he owned it. My father, Baron Silverstein, was hovering nearby, wringing his hands, his face a pathetic portrait of anxiety.
The messenger's eyes swept over me, taking in my healthy appearance and confident posture. A flicker of surprise registered before being ruthlessly suppressed. He had clearly been expecting the sickly, shuffling boy of rumor.
He gave a crisp, formal bow. "Lord Kazuki von Silverstein. I bring a message from my master, His Grace, Duke Theron von Crimson."
"I am here," I said, my tone neutral.
He produced a sealed scroll of fine parchment, the wax seal bearing the snarling wolf's head of the Crimson duchy. "His Grace extends his warmest congratulations on your marriage to his daughter. To celebrate this joyous union and to formally introduce you to the court, he has arranged for you and your lady wife to be presented at the Royal Summer Banquet, to be held at the palace in the capital city in three days' time. Your presence is, of course, eagerly anticipated by His Majesty the King."
He had boxed us in completely. It wasn't just an invitation from the Duke; it was a royal summons by proxy. To refuse would be a direct insult not just to the most powerful Duke in the kingdom, but to the King himself.
"How... how generous of His Grace," my father stammered, bowing low.
I took the scroll from the messenger, the parchment cool and heavy in my hand. "Please extend my sincerest thanks to my father-in-law for his thoughtfulness," I said, my voice smooth as silk. "My wife and I would be honored to attend."
The messenger's lips curved into a thin, smug smile. He had expected us to be intimidated, to perhaps even try and refuse. My immediate, confident acceptance seemed to unnerve him slightly. "Excellent, my lord. His Grace will be most pleased. A carriage from the Crimson estate will arrive in two days to escort you to the capital."
He bowed again, turned on his heel, and strode out of the hall, his mission accomplished. He had delivered the summons and set the trap.
The moment he was gone, my father collapsed into a nearby chair, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. "The capital! The Royal Banquet! Kazuki, do you know what this means? This is a chance! A chance to restore our family's honor!"
I looked at my father, at his naive, desperate hope, and felt a pang of pity. He saw an opportunity. I saw a battlefield.
"Indeed, Father," I said gently. "It is a great opportunity. Now, if you'll excuse us, Elizabeth and I have much to prepare."
I guided Elizabeth and a still-silent Luna back to the study, closing the heavy oak doors behind us. The moment we were alone, Elizabeth's composure shattered.
"Are you insane?" she hissed, pacing the room like a caged tigress. "You accepted without even consulting me! Do you have any idea what you've just agreed to? This isn't a party, Kazuki! It's an executioner's block!"
"I am aware of that," I said calmly, pouring myself another glass of wine. "He failed to kill me in the dark, so now he's going to try and kill me in the light. It's a logical escalation."
"Logical?" She rounded on me, her eyes blazing. "He is taking you out of your element, away from this manor where you have some measure of control, and placing you in the heart of his power! The capital is his city. The Royal Guard is filled with his men. Half the nobles at that banquet will be his allies, all of them looking for a way to discredit or dispose of you. You will be surrounded, scrutinized, and tested. It's a trap, and you just walked into it with a smile on your face!"
"Of course it's a trap," I agreed. "That's what makes it so interesting. A trap, once recognized, can be avoided. Or, better yet, it can be turned on the one who set it."
She stopped her pacing and stared at me. "You cannot be that arrogant. You have power, yes, I have seen it. But you have no understanding of the game you are about to play. The politics of the court is a subtle, venomous war fought with whispers, glances, and veiled insults. It is a battlefield where your 'Terraforming' skill will be utterly useless."
"Which is why I have you," I said, meeting her gaze. "You said it yourself. You are the expert. I am the blunt instrument. So, it's time for my 'Crash Course in Noble Politics.' Teach me, Elizabeth. Tell me everything. Assume I know nothing."
My sincerity, my willingness to admit my own ignorance and rely on her expertise, seemed to deflate her anger, replacing it with her more familiar, analytical coldness. She took a deep breath, composing herself.
"Very well," she said, sitting down. "The first lesson: never accept a glass of wine from anyone you are not prepared to see die."
She had my full attention.
For the next several hours, Elizabeth and ARIA worked in tandem to paint a terrifyingly clear picture of the political landscape I was about to walk into. Elizabeth provided the human context, the nuance, the personalities. ARIA provided the raw data, the faction breakdowns, the probability analyses.
[The political structure of the Kingdom of Althea is a tripartite system,] ARIA began, displaying a complex flowchart in my mind's eye. [It is currently in a state of high instability due to the declining health of King Theron IV.]
"The King is old and weak," Elizabeth elaborated, her voice crisp and academic. "He has no male heir, only one daughter, Princess Seraphina. His grip on power is failing, and the sharks are circling."
[Faction 1: The Royalists,] ARIA continued. [Comprised of the King's personal guard, a few older, deeply loyal noble houses, and the Church. Their primary goal is to maintain the stability of the crown and ensure a smooth succession. Their preferred candidate for the throne is Princess Seraphina, possibly married to a suitable high noble. They are politically powerful but militarily weak and currently on the defensive.]
"Princess Seraphina is known as the 'Holy Maiden,'" Elizabeth added. "She is said to possess immense healing powers and is beloved by the common folk and the Church. But she is young, politically naive, and has no taste for power."
[Faction 2: The Traditionalists,] ARIA went on. [A loose coalition of ancient, respected noble houses like Valerius and Eisen. They are isolationists, primarily concerned with maintaining their own power and the old ways. They are wary of any major shift in the balance of power. They distrust my father's ambition, but they also see your 'Ancestral Awakening' as a dangerous, destabilizing force. They will be watching you very closely.]
"They are the old money," Elizabeth said. "They play the long game. They will not act openly, but they will pull strings from the shadows to maintain the status quo."
[Faction 3: The Crimson Faction,] ARIA concluded, highlighting a large, aggressive-looking portion of the flowchart in red. [Led by your father-in-law, Duke Theron von Crimson. Comprised of new-money nobles, ambitious military commanders, and a significant portion of the kingdom's merchant guilds who are in his debt. Their goal is absolute power. The Duke intends to be the regent, the power behind the throne. He sees Princess Seraphina as a puppet to be controlled, likely by marrying her to a man of his choosing.]
"He is the single most powerful man in the kingdom," Elizabeth said, her voice tight with a mixture of hatred and grudging respect. "He is charming, ruthless, and brilliant. He has spent twenty years building his network, placing his men in key positions. The capital is his web. And we are the two flies he has just invited to the center of it."
The picture was grim. We were walking into a three-way political cold war, with us as the unpredictable new variable that everyone either wanted to control or eliminate.
"So what is his plan?" I asked. "What does he hope to achieve at this banquet?"
"He has several potential objectives," Elizabeth said, ticking them off on her fingers. "First, to isolate you. He will seat you at a table surrounded by his allies, who will spend the entire night peppering you with subtle insults and trick questions, trying to make you look like an uncultured fool. Second, to test you. He will create a situation, a 'drunken' brawl, a 'magical accident,' something to force you to reveal the nature and extent of your powers in a public setting. Third, to frame you. He could arrange for a high-ranking noble to be poisoned at your table, or for you to be caught in a compromising position with a lady of the court. He wants to either humiliate you into irrelevance or eliminate you under the guise of royal justice."
[Probability of at least one of these scenarios occurring: 97.3%,] ARIA added cheerfully.
It was a minefield. A social, political, and magical minefield.
"This is why we should not go," Elizabeth insisted, her earlier argument resurfacing. "We should use the charter Luna found. Fortify the manor. Develop the mines. Build our own power base here, in secret. Force him to come to us."
"And how long would that take?" I countered. "A year? Five years? Ten? He won't give us that time. Hiding is a losing strategy, Elizabeth. It cedes the initiative. It allows him to control the narrative. He will paint me as a coward, a monster hiding in the shadows. He will poison the court against me, consolidate his power, and by the time we emerge from our hole, he will be king in all but name, and he will crush us with the full might of the kingdom."
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the dark, sleeping lands of my new home.
"No," I said, my voice filled with a certainty that surprised even myself. "We do not hide. We do not react. We attack. We walk into his web, and we set it on fire. We go to this banquet, and we turn his own stage against him. We will be polite, we will be charming, and we will be utterly, terrifyingly unpredictable. We will make the other factions, the Royalists and the Traditionalists, see that we are not the monsters he claims we are. We will make them see that the Duke is the true threat to the kingdom's stability. We will make them see us as a potential ally, a third option in their desperate game."
My plan was audacious. It was reckless. It was probably insane.
But as I laid it out, I saw the look in Elizabeth's eyes change. Her fear was being replaced by the familiar, sharp gleam of her ambition. She saw the logic in my madness. She saw the potential for a massive, kingdom-shaking power play.
"You want to walk into the lion's den and try to tame the other lions," she breathed, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her face. It was the first genuine smile I had ever seen from her, and it was terrifyingly beautiful. "This is madness."
"This is politics," I corrected her.
"To do this," she said, her mind already working, shifting from opposition to strategic planning, "we will need more than just power. We will need to look the part. Your suit is adequate, but your demeanor is that of a hermit. You will need to learn the etiquette of the court. The proper forms of address, the subtle insults hidden in compliments, the hundred different ways to bow. I will teach you. It will be a painful, grueling two days."
"I'm a fast learner," I said.
"And we need intelligence," she continued. "Luna's discovery of the charter was a stroke of genius, but we need more. We need to know who will be at this banquet. Who is allied with whom. Who has debts, who has secrets. Who can be swayed."
"That's Luna's department," I said. "She has a new mission."
I called for Luna. She entered the study, her eyes bright and eager. I explained the situation, the trip to the capital, the need for information.
"The servants' network is the most powerful intelligence agency in any noble house," I told her. "They see everything, hear everything. I need you to find out what you can. Use the Silverstein name, use the promise of future employment. Find out who we can trust, and who wants to put a knife in our back."
"I will not fail you, my lord!" she said, her voice filled with a fierce determination. She was no longer just a maid; she was a spymaster in training.
The next two days were a blur of intense preparation. Elizabeth was a brutal, relentless teacher. She drilled me on etiquette until my head spun. I learned the difference between a bow for a Baron, a Duke, and the King. I learned how to deliver a compliment that was also a subtle threat, and how to receive an insult with a polite smile that promised bloody retribution. My INT stat made me a quick study, but Elizabeth's standards were impossibly high.
Meanwhile, Luna worked her own magic, disappearing for hours and returning with pages of notes, whispers and rumors gathered from the dregs of our household staff who still had connections in the capital.
On the morning of the second day, the carriage from House Crimson arrived. It was not a simple carriage; it was a war machine disguised as a luxury vehicle. It was built of dark, reinforced wood, emblazoned with the Duke's snarling wolf crest, and pulled by four massive, black warhorses. The driver and footmen were not servants; they were soldiers, their eyes hard and their hands never far from the hilts of their swords. We were not being escorted; we were being transported as prisoners in a gilded cage.
As we prepared to leave, Elizabeth pulled me aside.
"One last lesson," she said, her voice low. She handed me a small, ornate silver pin, shaped like a rose with its thorns showing. "This is the symbol of my mother's house, House Thorne. They were a minor house, but known for their subtlety and their knowledge of poisons. My father... absorbed them. If you are ever offered a drink and you are unsure, discreetly dip the tip of one of the thorns into the liquid. If it is poisoned, the silver will turn black."
It was a tool, but it was also a warning. And, perhaps, the first true gesture of their alliance. An admission that my survival was now linked to hers.
"Thank you," I said, accepting the pin and fastening it to the inside of my cloak.
We stepped out of the manor, into the morning light. Luna stood by the carriage, our bags packed, her face a mixture of excitement and nervousness. She would be traveling with us, in the guise of Elizabeth's handmaiden.
The three of us, the glitched sovereign, the ice queen, and the elf-maid spymaster, stood before the crimson and black carriage.
The door was opened by a stone-faced guard. The interior was plush velvet, but it felt like a tumbrel on its way to the guillotine.
"Well," I said with a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes, looking at my two companions. "The trap is set. The lions are waiting."
I climbed into the carriage, into the heart of the enemy's territory.
"Let's not keep them waiting."