Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story - Chapter 12

Traugott — A Worse Punishment than Expected

“Justus, please look after Traugott.”

My mother had entrusted me to my uncle, but I felt so pathetic and embarrassed that I wanted nothing more than to go back to the Royal Academy. For that reason, I was relieved from the bottom of my heart when the family meeting ended and my return could finally be scheduled. I wasn’t in a great position socially due to having resigned from the service of an archducal family member, but I was exhausted from the endless lecturing.

Grandfather is showing a little too much favoritism to Lady Rozemyne. Sure, she’s his only granddaughter, but that was just absurd.

Lord Bonifatius, my grandfather on my father’s side, was famous for his overflowing love for his only granddaughter. If you asked me, his excessive affection for her was clouding his judgment. “How dare you think so lowly of Rozemyne!” he had roared. “Never before have I seen someone be so blind to their inferior status!”

Despite his bold claim, it was an unshakable truth that Lady Rozemyne had the worst blood out of all the archducal family. She couldn’t even be compared to Lord Wilfried or Lady Charlotte, who had archducal blood from a greater duchy. To be honest, she was inferior even to some archnobles.

It was true that Lady Rozemyne and I were both Grandfather’s kin, but looking at our mothers’ sides, I was from a branch of the archducal family, whereas she was just a Leisegang. I was unequivocally superior; nobody could blame me for looking down on her a little.

That wasn’t all that Grandfather got furious about, though. He had flown into a rage upon learning that my decision to become Lady Rozemyne’s retainer was based entirely on a desire to learn her mana compression method, then he had grown even more furious when my refusal to obey her during a ditter game came to light. He had even started threatening to cancel my engagement to Angelica.

I don’t understand why he got so mad...

Rihyarda, my grandmother on my mother’s side, had said that it didn’t matter what reason you had for serving someone, as long as you served them well. By that logic, there was nothing wrong with my motivation. If obtaining her mana compression method hadn’t been on the table, I would have chosen to serve Lord Wilfried instead.

One of my biggest issues with Rozemyne was her weakness—I didn’t want to serve someone so frail that a few measly snowballs could knock her unconscious. There was also the fact that female archduke candidates mainly socialized through tea parties, which were unbearably boring to attend as a guard. I much preferred the idea of serving a male archduke candidate, since then I could go hunting with them or help them practice at gewinnen.

I deserve some praise here. Seriously. I’ve endured serving the absolute worst charge, all for the mana compression method.

Yes, I might have lost my patience with her for a moment and acted a little defiantly when she butted in during our ditter game, but how could someone so delicate know anything of value? I mean, she had so foolishly ordered me to stop attacking. Had she forgotten where we were or something? I was the one being abused.

To make matters worse, my engagement with Angelica had only come to be because Grandfather wanted to get his beloved disciple into the family somehow. She was a strong knight, sure, but she was a mednoble with bad grades and even worse socializing skills. In other words, she wasn’t at all good enough to be my wife. I could imagine that Angelica and her family would suffer from our engagement being canceled, since she was about to graduate, but it wouldn’t impact me in the least.

My parents had scolded me to death for angering Grandfather, since he was a member of the archducal family and all, but I was more than satisfied with my current situation. I was free again. A shiver had run down my spine when Hartmut butted in, but Lady Rozemyne had saved me by being so compassionate... or rather, by being such a weakhearted softie.

I was finally about to learn the mana compression method that had driven me from the onset, and I had resigned instead of getting fired. Grandmother had stopped her constant seething, and my social wounds were fairly shallow.

No matter what my loudmouthed grandmother and parents say, I’ve already quit. I’m not a retainer anymore.

I wouldn’t need to call that weak child who was mocked for looking so young and who needed magic tools just to move “my lady” anymore. She was a tyrant who strove to spend every single day in the library, not showing any consideration for her retainers’ schedules or Professor Solange’s struggles having to host an archduke candidate so regularly. She could have just sent a scholar to fetch books for her, but no, she had to go herself and cause problems for everyone.

Of course, with my whole family mad at me, not even I could deny that I had made a mistake. That mistake wasn’t quitting as a retainer, though—it was serving Lady Rozemyne in the first place.

Well, I’m free now.

That was what I wanted to believe, but it wasn’t entirely true—not yet, anyway. My uncle Justus was going to be serving as my attendant for the second half of the term. It was a roundabout way of saying that he was acting as a spy for my family.

“To think I’d need to serve my incompetent nephew like this...” I remembered Uncle saying. “Family order or not, this is a drag.”

It annoyed me that he, of all people, had called me incompetent, especially when he had apparently been removed from Lady Georgine’s potential retainers due to being so obsessed with his hobbies that he couldn’t properly serve anyone. He had only ended up in his current position because the previous aub had ordered him to serve Lord Ferdinand, who was at the time being ostracized by Lady Veronica.

Still, even if my uncle was a little incompetent himself, I was happier to have him as my attendant than Grandmother, who had wanted the position so that she could “beat some sense” back into me or something. Uncle was still working under Ferdinand, having never been relieved of duty, so I was sure he could do at least the most basic stuff.

Lord Karstedt took out a letter and gave it to Uncle. “Lord Ferdinand said this was good timing and agreed to lend you to him,” he said.

“Good timing?” Uncle repeated. He looked at the letter, then nodded to himself. “Alright. Let’s go.”

In an instant, Uncle seemed to take back everything he had said previously. It seemed that he really was loyal when it came to following orders. This was good for me too, since it meant he probably wouldn’t cause any problems as my attendant.

“Mother, stay with Father,” I said. “You haven’t been feeling well, have you?”

“Because of all the trouble you’ve caused, Traugott,” my mother replied, fixing me with a stern glare. “You would do well to learn your place in the Royal Academy. Do you understand me?”

I paid no mind to her words and stepped onto the teleportation circle with Uncle. Once I was back in the Royal Academy, I would finally regain control. Or, that was what I assumed.

“Well, I’m going to the common room,” I said.

“Uh, no, you’re not. Come on.” Uncle grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and unceremoniously dragged me to my room. I was preparing for another lecture, but instead, he simply pointed at my mountain of luggage. “Hurry up and get your room ready.”

“What? Unpacking my things is your responsibility as my attendant.”

“If you don’t unpack, I can’t get you changed, meaning I can’t do my job. Now get a move on.”

He wasn’t making any sense. It was down to him to prepare my room, and there was nothing stopping him from doing it.

“Justus, you—”

“Call me ‘Uncle.’ I’m here as your attendant because the family decided it and Lord Ferdinand ordered it. I haven’t signed an agreement to serve you, and you are not my lord. Don’t forget that.”

“Wh... Wh-Wh...”

He was right that there wasn’t a contract between us, but his coming to the Royal Academy as my attendant meant that I was his lord. I didn’t understand what he was saying at all.

“Lord Ferdinand has ordered me to gather intelligence in the Royal Academy, report on the state of the dormitory, and train the scholars here,” Uncle continued. “Serving you is my lowest priority and will only be done when I have time to waste. Now, don’t get in my way. I’m busy.”

“What?! But in the Royal Academy, I’m your—”

“Lord Ferdinand is my one and only lord. Have you really forgotten that your family is punishing you right now? You truly must have crap for brains. I mean, come on... You’re incompetent, but you must understand this much, surely. Having to explain even the most elementary things is such a pain in the neck.”

To my disbelief, Uncle unpacked only his own belongings, then sat at my desk and started reading through some paperwork. He could at least start helping me now that he was done.

“Uncle, if you’ve finished yours, you could—”

“Can you not even manage this much?” Uncle asked. “Finish what you can while I do my first patrol of the dormitory.” He gave me the very sincere and exasperated expression of someone looking at the biggest idiot they had ever seen, then left my room with his paperwork in hand. Only then did it occur to me that he really wasn’t intending to help me at all. I could only bring one attendant with me, and with Uncle acting as he was, I wouldn’t be able to live a proper noble lifestyle.

I guess my family’s punishment for me actually begins here...

And so, I gritted my teeth in frustration and started putting my luggage away. Uncle returned a short while later, but upon seeing me, he merely said, “Still not done?” before resuming his seat at my desk and writing. He looked entirely like a scholar.

I don’t know what he’s doing... but it can’t be good.

Now that I thought about it, I didn’t know much about Uncle. I remembered Mother and Grandmother bemoaning that he only seemed to love information of the useless kind, but the rest of my knowledge about him was based on the few occasions we had actually met.

“Hm? An ordonnanz?” An ivory bird flew into the room, so I extended my arm for it to land on. Rather than stopping for me, however, it went straight over to Uncle.

“This is Cornelius,” the bird said. “I’ve returned to the Royal Academy. Lady Rozemyne will be arriving momentarily.” It repeated this message twice more, then turned back into a yellow feystone.

“Understood. I’ll see that she arrives safely,” Uncle said in response, setting down his pen. “We have to go greet Lady Rozemyne, and you still haven’t finished unpacking? I don’t understand how it’s possible for someone to be this slow. Are you really my sister’s son? Ah, right... Your father’s an oaf, isn’t he? There’s no helping that you inherited his stupidity.”

“Uncle, what did you ju—”

“I told you to hurry up and finish unpacking.”

Only then did Uncle offer some assistance, and he went through my luggage at such a tremendous speed that I really wished he had just helped to begin with. He was expecting too much from an apprentice knight like me; I was never trained as an attendant.

“Right. Let’s go, Traugott.”

“Go where...?”

“You really don’t listen, do you? I just said that Lady Rozemyne’s about to arrive and we’ll be going to greet her,” Uncle said. Once again, he was looking at me like I was stupid, and I could feel the anger bubbling up inside of me.

“You’re my attendant! Just what do you think you’re doing?!”

“Lord Ferdinand gave me work to do. And you need to apologize to Lady Rozemyne either way. Don’t tell me that nonstop lecturing during the family meeting wasn’t enough for you to figure out what you’ve done wrong.”

I really don’t think it was that big of a deal, though...

I dared not say this out loud, of course; the last thing I wanted was Uncle relaying my comments back home and inspiring another family meeting at the end of the academic term. I agreed to go with him, and off we went. Giving a superficial apology to Lady Rozemyne would probably be good enough.

“It has been too long, Lady Rozemyne.”

Uncle had spoken up before I could even say anything. I assumed that Lady Rozemyne would find it strange to have been greeted by my attendant rather than by me personally... but on the contrary, she responded to him with a smile.

“I have heard you served the Plantin Company well, Justus. They survived the two years I was absent in large part because of you, and for that, I thank you. I look forward to your continued service.”

Uncle helped her out...?

I was surprised to learn that my mysterious, rarely seen uncle was somehow connected to Lady Rozemyne. She had Lord Ferdinand as her guardian, so their knowing each other wasn’t too unusual, but I certainly hadn’t expected that she would be on such good terms with his retainers.

I wonder what work Uncle’s been doing... Grandmother and Mother make it sound as though he’s incompetent, but maybe that’s not the case after all.

“Guh!”

A sharp pain shot through my side, interrupting my thoughts. It was so disorienting that it actually took me a moment to realize that Uncle had elbowed me. I wanted to shout, “What do you think you’re doing?!” but the pain was so great that I couldn’t even speak. It took all of my willpower to not let out another pained grunt.

“Traugott, don’t you have something to say?” Uncle asked in a low voice, staring at me with cold eyes. “What’s wrong with you? Speak up.”

My breath caught in my throat; I could hardly be defiant when he was this furious. I gritted my teeth, rubbed my aching side, and then knelt before Lady Rozemyne. “My shallow thinking led to me being unthinkably rude. I am truly sorry, Lady Rozemyne. I apologize from the bottom of my heart.”

That should do it.

Despite my expectations, the look in Uncle’s eyes only grew colder. He told Lady Rozemyne not to accept my apology and then proceeded to ignore me entirely, instead turning the conversation to the scholars he was going to be training while they headed to the common room. I might as well not have been there.

I followed them into the common room, and straight away, students came to welcome Lady Rozemyne. I went to leave, since I wasn’t her retainer anymore, only for Uncle to strike my side once again.

“Gah!”

“Where do you think you’re going? Don’t leave my side until after my conversation with Lady Rozemyne is over. How do you still not understand your place?” Uncle said, chiding me quietly enough that nobody would overhear him. His lecture ended there, however, as his attention abruptly returned to his conversation with Lady Rozemyne. I couldn’t believe that she was talking to him, not me.

“We have no dorm supervisor to rely on,” she said. “You may speak not as Traugott’s attendant, but as Ferdinand’s scholar.”

His scholar? Not an attendant?

This seemed to be something that Lady Rozemyne and Uncle both understood as a matter of course, but I wasn’t following whatsoever. Uncle went on to question the other students about the current state of affairs, then he started belting out precise instructions one after another. I widened my eyes; the incompetent buffoon I had expected was nowhere to be seen.

The day after I revised my evaluation of my uncle, he told me that somebody else was going to be taking his place as my attendant. “I’m needed at a tea party with the prince today, so Mother will serve you while I’m gone. I need to start my preparations, so you can go wait in the common room if you want.”

“I see...” I replied with a nod. There was little point in me saying anything else; the decision had clearly already been made. In fact, the news actually came as somewhat of a relief—Grandmother would at least take her job as an attendant seriously, even if she tended to be quick to lecture me.

I went ahead to the common room, where people were eagerly discussing the Interduchy Tournament. Uncle had said that Wilfried’s retainers should take the lead, but when it came to ditter, the words of Cornelius and Leonore carried the most weight.

Everyone had come to realize just how much Lady Rozemyne’s leadership and her guard knights’ involvement had contributed to our previous victory—especially after our ditter rematch in their absence had resulted in a tragic defeat. Leonore was retraining us based on data she had accumulated and fey creature strategies she had studied, focusing in particular on our coordination. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as she repeated time and time again that we should never break formation, and every time I tried to explain that attack power should take priority, she told me to shut up and that I still didn’t understand anything. It was the first time someone had disregarded me so completely.

“Oh...? And who is that?” Lady Rozemyne suddenly asked. An unfamiliar woman had appeared in the common room. She looked a lot like Mother, albeit with broader shoulders. And then it struck me—I recognized exactly who this person was. It was Uncle.

What does he think he’s doing?!

He had said that he needed to prepare for the prince’s tea party, but who would have expected that to include cross-dressing? I glanced over at Grandmother, who was most capable of stopping him. She looked exceptionally displeased but made no attempt to interfere.

Don’t tell me she knew about this!

My mouth hung open; I felt so betrayed that I was at a complete loss for words. In the meantime, Uncle marched up to Lady Rozemyne and then knelt before her. I could tell from the surprise written all over her face that this was new to her as well.

Please, Lady Rozemyne! Knock him down and order him to change immediately!

My silent pleas fell on deaf ears, however, as Lady Rozemyne instead asked Uncle how he could change his voice like that. She was focusing on the wrong thing.

Are you really okay with this?! You’re the one who’s going to have to endure it, not me!

It didn’t make sense, but Lady Rozemyne wasn’t even questioning this strange new development. Hartmut had even started to wonder whether he should adopt Uncle’s technique.

Obviously not! No scholar needs to learn that!

I was finally spurred to protest when Uncle said that he was going to take Mother’s name, but he shot me down without a moment’s hesitation. Everyone in the dormitory was regarding me with sympathetic eyes; if my family was putting me through this on purpose, then it was much too cruel.

“Grandmother, is this all part of my punishment?” I asked upon returning to my room.

“Indeed, and you must resign yourself to it. In truth, it was originally suggested that you be sent to the temple, but milady protested. My boy Ferdinand then asked us to get Justus into the Royal Academy, which led us to where we are now.”

I couldn’t help but gulp. It hadn’t occurred to me that resigning from being a retainer was so serious that it could cost you your whole life as a noble.

“Personally, I am not pleased to have Justus serving milady in these circumstances,” Grandmother continued. “However, this is something that both Ferdinand and Lord Sylvester have asked for. If Lady Rozemyne has accepted it, then I need to as well. Such is the punishment I must endure.”

“Your punishment, Grandmother...?”

“Yes. After all, I am the one who recommended you for Lady Rozemyne’s service,” Grandmother replied, slumping forward and shaking her head.

I thought back to when we had first discussed my becoming Lady Rozemyne’s retainer. At the time, she had still been asleep in her jureve, and I was being questioned about serving Lord Wilfried as a guard knight.

“So, Traugott—you intend to wait for Lady Rozemyne to wake up rather than serve Lord Wilfried?” Grandmother asked.

“I do,” I replied. “I want to learn her mana compression method, so I would very much appreciate you recommending me when she wakes up.”

As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have any other choice. Cornelius’s and Angelica’s mana quantities were growing at such an absurd rate that they were now far ahead of me—an unbearably humiliating realization, considering that we had once been on the same level. I needed to catch up, but the only way I could learn the compression method was by serving Lady Rozemyne.

“There aren’t many potential retainers who are willing to wait for milady now that she has been asleep for over a year,” Grandmother said. “I understand that your motivation is to obtain the mana compression method, but you must assure me that you will serve milady faithfully. Only then can I recommend you.”

I said that I would indeed serve her faithfully—although I made a mental note that this faith would only last until the day I was taught the mana compression method. Grandmother was a retainer herself, and she had changed whom she served again and again according to the times. I was confident that I could do the same and find a new lord after accomplishing my objective.

I don’t get why I’m being told off... Grandmother has resigned so many times in the past. This is only my first.

Despite my curiosity, Grandmother looked so withered that it didn’t feel right trying to interrogate her. Instead, I just remained silent.

“I must write a report at once... Traugott, we’re returning to your room,” Uncle said as soon as he returned from wherever he had been with Lady Rozemyne. I wanted to stay in the common room and continue talking about the upcoming Interduchy Tournament, but before I could even protest, everyone started urging me out.

Uncle was speeding through the mountain of work that needed to be done before the Interduchy Tournament, and he had managed to secure the full support of the other students after only two days. My classmates now saw me as his tagalong, when it was supposed to be the other way around. I returned to my room, bemoaning that my punishment never seemed to end.

Talking to Uncle was the last thing I wanted to do, but I managed to force out a “So, what do you need me for?” while he removed his hairpin.

“I don’t have time. Help me take off these clothes,” he said, not even deigning to look at me. He took out some paper and started writing something.

“Okay, first of all, please don’t ever dress like that again. And as for that female voice you were putting on—”

“Don’t even try to lecture me about my work. I did all this to find out what the prince, Klassenberg, and Lady Rozemyne were talking about, and it worked perfectly. Lord Ferdinand is going to be overjoyed.”

Overjoyed...? So, is Lord Ferdinand the one who got him to cross-dress? Is his head on right?

Normally, a retainer like Uncle would immediately be relieved of duty. He wasn’t normal—a fact that had become abundantly clear when he suddenly appeared with brown hair like my mother’s and asked me whether any hairpins were still left.

“Well, I’ve got to admit,” I said, “I’m impressed that you managed to get hold of a female attendant uniform.”

“I took great care to make it look like my mother’s and sister’s uniforms, but this isn’t a uniform itself. Guess you’ve got bad eyes too, huh?”

Once again, I didn’t really understand what he meant, but he maintained that his clothes weren’t the same as those of an actual attendant. This wasn’t an issue, though, as they only needed to look the same from a distance. It was interesting and all, but in terms of shock value, it paled in comparison to something else he had just admitted.

“Wait, so you made that?” I asked, dumbstruck. “Don’t tell me you did it all on your own.”

“Naturally. A traditional seamstress would have made something that could only be worn with assistance from others. I wanted clothes that I could put on without any help, so I did all the modifications myself.”

I really didn’t need that much detail. I’m just surprised that you can sew at all, Uncle!

Just how passionate was he about cross-dressing? The very thought made my head ache. Uncle removed the brown wig he had been wearing, then started untying some strings that were fastened behind his neck. It wasn’t long before he had removed the ornaments used to hide his front buttons.

“The uniforms might look similar,” Uncle continued, “but as I said, I can put this one on by myself. And on top of that, I can hide a bunch of tools inside it. Take a look at this, for example.”

“Uncle! Put your skirt down! Please! I don’t want to see that!”

In the end, I conceded and agreed to help Uncle. I could feel my pride as an apprentice knight getting weaker and weaker as I undid the various strings keeping his outfit in place and started putting away boxes.

To my surprise, Uncle’s cross-dressing was largely accepted in the dormitory—or maybe it was more accurate to say that everyone was averting their eyes, since it didn’t have anything to do with them. At the same time, his poor treatment of me was becoming common knowledge among the other Ehrenfest students, and people were starting to give me sympathetic looks wherever I went. The attendant who was supposed to be supporting my lifestyle was instead doing his own thing and ignoring me entirely. In a way, my quality of life was even lower than that of a laynoble.

For a time, I was convinced that everyone was talking about my tragic circumstances, but when I eventually calmed down and looked around the dormitory with Uncle, I realized that everything was being run by Lady Rozemyne’s retainers. It was starting to become painfully clear who would one day become the most powerful person in Ehrenfest—and it wasn’t Lord Wilfried.

And I could have been there with her...

I regretted my decisions now more than ever—but then I was struck with a genius idea. My punishment and Uncle’s presence here were both the result of my choice to resign as Lady Rozemyne’s guard knight. In other words, I simply needed to rejoin her service. That would calm everyone, including Grandfather, and put an end to my terrible plight.

“Uncle,” I said upon returning to my room, “I’m going to apologize to Lady Rozemyne and return to being her guard knight.”

He blinked at me several times and then gave a derisive snort. “Are you really too stupid to realize that Lady Rozemyne cut you off completely? I’ve seen some idiots in my time, but wow, you take the cake.”

“What?! But...”

Lady Rozemyne is a weakhearted softie. As long as I shed a few tears and show her that I regret what I did, she’ll probably forgive me.

I wasn’t stupid enough to voice my intentions, but Uncle must have read my thoughts. The pit of my stomach was suddenly racked with pain so overwhelming that I couldn’t even draw a breath. Uncle had flung me up into the air, then violently slammed me against the floor. Now, his fingers were clenched around my throat.

“Nn... Guh...”

Uncle wasn’t even a knight, yet I couldn’t throw him off no matter how much I tried. My pride as an apprentice knight had already been in tatters, and now it was reduced to nothing.

“Lady Rozemyne has cut you off. Completely,” Uncle spat. “Yes, she asked Mother not to send you to the temple, but that was only because she doesn’t want you near her. She doesn’t want to waste even the briefest moment thinking about or dealing with you. Do you understand that? You mean less to her than an orphan in the temple.”

That can’t be true...

Grandmother had similarly told me that Lady Rozemyne had argued against me being sent to the temple. Hearing this news had only further convinced me that Lady Rozemyne was too soft for her own good, but I was evidently mistaken.

My surroundings had started to fade when Uncle loosened his grip around my throat just enough to allow me a gasp of air. He had my life in his hands, and he was looking down at me with utter exasperation.

“I can’t believe you’re still so blind, and after all that scolding at the family meeting...” Uncle said. “Everyone at the Royal Academy knows that while you technically resigned, you might as well have been relieved of duty. The archducal couple knows this as well, of course, since they receive reports from Mother and Karstedt.”

“So what?” I choked in response. “I’m going to be a knight commander and not have any lord or lady. Like Grandfather. I’ll never serve. Lady Rozemyne understood my wish.”

Uncle watched me with a flat expression, then a cold smile played on his lips. “Only members of the archducal family can become the knight commander without serving anyone. You’re just an archnoble. You really don’t know your place, do you?”

“That can’t be right... Lady Rozemyne said—”

“Did she actually say that you could become a knight commander who doesn’t serve anyone? Or did she just say that she understood your wish?”

The blood drained from my face. Uncle was right; Lady Rozemyne had said that she understood my wish and nothing more. In fact, now that I thought back on our conversation, I seemed to remember her saying that it wasn’t possible for me to become the knight commander without serving anyone. I assumed that she meant I wasn’t strong enough and needed to train harder, but maybe she was actually saying that I wasn’t of a high enough status.

“And anyway, you already ruined the one chance you had at becoming the knight commander,” Uncle continued. “You’ve ruined your reputation just like Lord Wilfried ruined his when he went into the Ivory Tower. Get some self-awareness and accept that you’ve committed the grave sin of ignorance. Your father’s only talent is his ability to brag about his house being linked to the archduke—and to most people, you lot are just regular archnobles anyway. Your slipup has cost your family dearly, and they’re so worried about you bringing more shame upon them that they’ll never let you leave for another duchy. Your future has already been decided—you’ll stay here in Ehrenfest as nothing more than a regular knight.”

Uncle was making my future seem dark and bleak, so I fought back, desperate to save myself. If serving the archduke was necessary for me to become the knight commander, then I could just serve someone else. Grandmother certainly hadn’t stayed with the same charge her entire life.

“That can’t be right,” I said. “You’re wrong. There’s still a way for me to become the knight commander. After I get another lord or lady, like Grandmother always does, then—”

“Shut up.”

Uncle’s eyes flashed with murderous intent, and he tightened his grip around my throat again. I couldn’t breathe; he really was trying to kill me.

“Mother is from an archducal branch family that has sworn loyalty to the archduke,” Uncle snarled. “She is not given a choice in whom she serves; she obeys Aub Ehrenfest’s orders and works beneath whatever member of the archducal family is least able to acquire retainers. I will not allow you to defile her life with your words.”

I hadn’t known that about Grandmother. Her work as a retainer had come up before, but only now did I understand what it really entailed. I tried to speak, but I was so starved for air that the words wouldn’t come out. Tears welled in my eyes and my vision started to blur, but Uncle showed no mercy.

“If you don’t stop being such an idiot and start doing better, I won’t let go next time.”

It was with this chilling threat that Uncle finally released my neck. I desperately tried to remain conscious, but a moment later, the world around me faded into darkness.