Chapter 116: Duke Gravenberg
Duke Markus Van Gravenberg.
He was the father of the man closest to the Crown Prince Albert Van Skargardia, Julian Van Gravenberg, whom Ulrich had not seen again since Albert’s involvement in the attack on Anna-Maria’s village.
Unlike his foolish son, however, Markus was a far more level-headed man. He was not reckless, not loud, and not the sort to mistake arrogance for strength. Ulrich did not hold any personal grudge against him, nor did he feel any instinctive dislike. Markus was, after all, a provincial noble just as he was. Their positions in the kingdom were not identical, but their interests often ran along the same lines. Men born far from the center of royal power learned early to look at the capital with the same mixture of caution, calculation, and quiet resentment.
And yet that similarity was exactly why Ulrich remained guarded around him.
A fool was easy to read. A clever man who smiled little, spoke carefully, and kept his true thoughts behind a composed face was another matter entirely.
Ulrich had seen Markus often in the past, usually in conversation with his father. Those exchanges had never been casual. Even when the words had stayed polite, Eurich had always held himself differently around the Duke, his posture harder, his answers shorter, as if he had no intention of giving the other man even a finger’s width of advantage. Ulrich had noticed it then. He remembered it now.
So when the Duke approached him first among the gathered great nobles of Skargardia, Ulrich was mildly surprised, though none of it reached his face.
"Lord Gravenberg," Ulrich greeted first.
It was not the sort of encounter he had expected tonight. The hall was filled with old bloodlines, old ambitions, and old masks polished bright for public display. A man like Markus Van Gravenberg could have gone to any number of people before him. That he had chosen Ulrich first was not something to dismiss.
"Lord Rubenhart," Markus replied. "It has been some time. I can now at least finally offer my condolences for Lord Eurich’s death. He was a man of importance in Skargardia."
Four years late.
Still, in the world of nobility, that was hardly unusual.
Their kind did not move according to sentiment. They moved according to opportunity, necessity, and advantage. Two provincial lords could spend years within the same kingdom and never stand in the same room unless politics demanded it. Most remained on their own lands, concerned with borders, levies, harvests, trade routes, retainers, and the thousand burdens that came with ruling what was theirs. There was no reason to meet simply for the sake of meeting.
Even the capital offered no certainty. Ulrich himself had traveled there more often than he had wanted in the last two years. Yet even then, he had not crossed paths with the Duke. A city full of nobles did not mean meaningful encounters came easily. More often, it meant the opposite.
He had, of course, received formal letters of condolence after his father’s death. Every noble of standing had sent one, and Duke Gravenberg had been no exception. Smooth words on expensive paper, sealed with wax and courtesy. This, however, was the first time the man had spoken those condolences to his face.
Ulrich gave a brief nod.
Markus looked much the same as he had five years ago when Ulrich had last seen him. Time had not softened him. His bearing remained straight, his expression composed. There was a certain restraint about him that did not feel natural but trained, hammered into place over many years.
Then Markus’s gaze shifted.
His eyes moved to the three sisters standing near Ulrich. He scanned them for a brief moment, and they returned his look without shrinking from it.
After that, Markus turned slightly toward the girl standing beside him.
Ulrich’s gaze followed.
She was a beautiful girl.
Long hair in bright shades of gold had been drawn into a neat braid that fell over one shoulder, each strand smooth and carefully arranged so that it caught the light in muted gleams instead of wild brilliance. Her eyes were a shade of hazel touched with gold, keen and bright beneath lowered lashes.
Her gown matched her station perfectly. Yellow-gold silk wrapped closely through the waist before falling in clean, elegant lines, the fabric rich without looking gaudy. Fine embroidery traced the edges in a pattern subtle enough to escape notice at first glance and expensive enough to reward the second. The color suited her too well to be accidental. It warmed her pale skin, sharpened the gold in her hair, and made her look like something painted into the center of a royal tapestry.
And she was looking at the three sisters with a kind of sharpness.
Not curiosity. Not interest.
Something more pointed.
"I doubt you have met my daughter yet," Markus said. "Astrid."
At the sound of her name, the girl raised her gaze to Ulrich.
Being faced with him at such close range seemed to agitate her for the briefest instant. It was there only in a tiny pause, in the slight tension that touched her shoulders, in the breath she held a fraction too long before mastering herself again. She recovered quickly, but not so quickly that Ulrich failed to notice.
She lowered her head with proper grace, fingers lightly pinching the fabric of her gown.
"Astrid Van Gravenberg, my lord," she said with a small smile.
Ulrich said nothing.
He only looked at her.
So it really was her.
He had suspected it before hearing the name, but suspicion and certainty were not the same thing. Now there was no room left for doubt.
Astrid Van Gravenberg.
One of the main characters of the novel.
One of the female leads around the protagonist.
She was supposed to accompany Camellia to the academy at Arcadia. At least up to the point Ulrich had read, her role had only grown more prominent with every Chapter. The story had been building something obvious between her and the first protagonist, an attachment not yet fully acknowledged but already present in the small details, in the repeated scenes, and romantic interactions.
But things had not unfolded nearly so smoothly with the protagonist’s sister.
No, with her, Astrid had been different.
The second protagonist, deuteragonist was the more accurate word, Ulrich corrected inwardly, had clashed with Astrid from the beginning. There had been tension in nearly every exchange between them.
And now she was here.
Not in some distant future Chapter. Not on a page he could close when it became inconvenient.
Here, beneath the lights of the hall, standing before him in gold silk with a polite smile on her lips and sharpness in her eyes.
She was exactly as she had been written.
Ulrich kept his eyes on her. If he had closed his eyes and conjured the Astrid from the novel’s pages, she would have looked identically to the girl standing before him. It was almost shocking how perfectly reality matched the text.
She was another piece on the board, and a powerful one at that. In the story, Astrid had been vital. Her strength and influence had shaped arcs. If he was calculating correctly, and Ulrich rarely moved without calculating, it would also be an advantage for the three sisters to pull her into their orbit. A strong relationship with Astrid Van Gravenberg could serve as both a shield and a blade in the academy’s halls but overall would strengthen the sisters’ position within the Kingdom.
As he thought that, his silence stretched on a moment too long.
Under his unblinking scrutiny, the confidence of the Duke’s daughter finally faltered. Astrid broke eye contact first, her gaze dropping to the floor, her shoulders tensing beneath the yellow-gold silk. She clearly had not expected Lord Rubenhart to inspect her like a weapon laid out on a table.
Behind Ulrich, Hermione let out a sharp, barely audible breath.
He didn’t need to turn around to know she had crossed her arms. Her annoyance was visible, radiating into the space between his shoulder blades. She was holding back from calling his name out loud, but the irritation was clear: He hadn’t even looked at them this long when they had come down in their new gowns.
"Lord Rubenhart," Markus said quietly, breaking the silence before it could curdle into offense.
Ulrich pulled his attention away from the girl and met the Duke’s eyes.
"It is the first time I am meeting her," Ulrich said.
"Hm." Markus tipped his head slightly, his expression giving nothing away. "She is around the same age as the three girls you have adopted. Hopefully, they will find some common ground."
Astrid took her father’s cue instantly. She took a half-step forward.
"I would be glad to help them familiarize themselves with the gathering," she offered, looking toward Ulrich not as a peer, but as a lesser seeking permission from a greater lord.
Ulrich did not hesitate.
He wanted to keep the girls close; he knew exactly what kind of vipers occupied these halls, but keeping them shadowed under his cloak would only stunt them. They needed to learn how to walk this world on their own feet, and an introduction brokered by a girl their own age was the safest shallow water they could wade into.
He turned his head slightly, looking back at the three sisters. He gave them a single, subtle nod.
Esther stepped forward first. "Thank you," she said to Astrid, her smile small and nervous.
Astrid smiled back, though it did not quite reach the sharp gold of her eyes. "Please," she said, gesturing toward the main floor of the hall.
Ulrich watched as the four girls walked away, tracking their progress until they merged with the edge of the crowd.
"That is surprising."
The Duke’s voice pulled Ulrich’s focus back to the immediate present.
Ulrich turned, his brow rising in a silent question.
"You treat them very well, Lord Rubenhart," Markus observed. "Especially given how witches destroyed your family."
"They had nothing to do with it," Ulrich answered immediately.
Markus watched him for a beat, then nodded slowly. "I have my own apprehensions toward their kind. But watching them just now... they only seemed like normal girls my daughter’s age, if such a word even applies here. Only a fool would harbor hatred for children."
"Unfortunately, there are many in our circles doing far worse than harboring hatred," Ulrich replied coldly.
It was not a secret. Across the kingdom, witches were hunted, chained, abused, and broken by nobles who saw them as nothing more than livestock or kindling. They were stripped of their humanity long before they were stripped of their lives.
"You saved them from a gruesome fate, then," Markus said, his tone shifting into something more probing. "The order to destroy their village came directly from His Majesty. Am I to assume you were not keen on carrying it out, but found yourself forced to respect the King’s demand to accompany the Crown Prince?"
It was a dangerous question.
Markus was fishing. The Duke was not just making conversation; he was assessing the man standing in front of him. He was trying to measure the distance between the ruthless Lord Eurich Van Rubenhart of the past and the son who now held his titles.
But it was also a trap. Ulrich could not simply dismiss or insult the crown in the middle of a crowded hall, no matter how deeply he loathed both the King and the Crown Prince.
"The King’s word is absolute," Ulrich said curtly.
A small smile finally broke through the Duke’s stern composure.
"I do wish my son grows to be a man more like you eventually, Lord Rubenhart," Markus said.
Ulrich looked at the older man.
The smile was honest. Despite his sharp edges and calculating mind, Markus Van Gravenberg was a good man. Ulrich knew it from the text, and he saw it now in the flesh.
He was a good man.
And he was going to die.
Ulrich remembered the Chapters perfectly. Just like Kaliantha, Duke Gravenberg was marked for death in the timeline ahead. And after they both fell, this proud kingdom, supposedly descended from the elves, would rot from the inside out until nothing of its former glory remained.