Chapter 14: The Bloodline Ledger and the Sickbed of Kings
The door to the office hadn't even finished vibrating from Emilia's exit before Julian collapsed back into the leather chair. The silence was deafening. He looked at his hands; they were still shaking. A Ducal marriage proposal. A death sentence at the Benevento border. A sarcastic AI in his head.
"System," Julian whispered, his voice cracking. "Explain. Why me? Why would a Duke—a man who sits at the Emperor's right hand—toss his only daughter at a Baron whose house is one bad harvest away from extinction?"
[System Notification: Historical Context Initialized.]
[Analysis: You are looking at your ledger, Julian, but the Duke is looking at your DNA. Your main branch was purged not because they were weak, but because they were too powerful. You carry the 'Old Blood' of the Merania Ducal line. Even as a demoted Baron, your lineage is older than the Holy Roman Empire itself.]
[System Commentary: The Schwarzbergs are 'New Money' Dukes. They were elevated recently. They have gold, they have steel, but they lack the 'Ancestral Mana' and prestige that only old bloodlines provide. To them, you are a safe-bet investment. You are neutral, you have no existing faction ties, and—surprisingly—you've shown you have a brain. You're a political life-jacket.]
"A safe-bet," Julian muttered, a bitter laugh escaping him. "I'm a political insurance policy. If I marry her, the Schwarzbergs gain an ancient lineage to legitimize their title. If I refuse, I'm just another corpse in Italy."
[System Warning: Survival Probability without a Major Faction Alliance: 12%. Survival Probability with a Ducal Marriage: 65%. Recommendation: Stop thinking about 'Love' and start thinking about 'Longevity.']
Julian sighed, rubbing his face. The weight of the world felt like a physical mountain on his chest. Before he could spiral further into a breakdown, the door opened softly.
Mathilde stepped in, followed by his parents. Baron Maximilian looked older than he had that morning, his usual iron-clad posture sagging. Baroness Elspeth looked as though she had been crying, her hand clutching a handkerchief.
"Julian," his father began, his voice rough. "The rumors from the post-riders... they say the list for the relocation is finalized. We are on it. If we are sent to the border, we lose the Saint's Peak shrine. We lose the villages. We become mercenaries in all but name."
"I know, Father," Julian said, standing up. He felt Mathilde's eyes on him—sharp, possessive, and wary. She knew about the proposal. She had heard every word through the door.
"I will try to stop it," Julian continued, though the words felt hollow in his own ears. "But we have to face reality. Our domain is chaotic. If we are forced out, we leave a power vacuum. If we lose the land before we even reach Italy, we have no bargaining chips left. We'll be thrown to the front lines without a single knight to our name."
Elspeth stepped forward, taking Julian's hand. "My son... you shouldn't have to carry this. You're just a boy."
"In this Empire, Mother, boys are only children until the first time an Elector looks at them," Julian said.
[Affection Check: Mathilde (79/100). Status: Silent Vigilance.]
Mathilde stepped forward, her hand resting on the back of Julian's chair. "We are going to the Diet. We will fight for every village. We will use the 'Philosophical Lad' mask until it bleeds into a Crown. We depart for Munich tonight, then Frankfurt."
The Munich Broadcaster and the Shaking Pillars
The family carriage moved through the night, flanked by the twelve veteran knights. They reached Munich, the capital of the Wittelsbach territories, intending to catch the fast post-imperial relay.
The city was in an uproar. At the central square, near the Great Cathedral, the "Monarch Broadcaster"—a high-level mana-amplified stone used for Imperial decrees—was glowing a deep, warning purple.
A Herald stood atop the dais, his voice booming across the cobblestones, amplified by the stone's resonance.
"Hear ye! Hear ye! By order of the Imperial Chancellery! The Second Session of the Imperial Diet at Frankfurt is hereby postponed!"
The crowd erupted in whispers. Julian leaned out of the carriage window, his heart skipping a beat.
"The Duke of Saxony, Otto IV of House Welf, has fallen into a deep and mysterious slumber! The Royal Physicians of the King of Bohemia, Ottokar of House Luxembourg, report a sudden and violent fever has taken the King!"
Julian's eyes widened. He looked back at Mathilde, who had gone pale.
"Two Electors? Simultaneously?" Julian whispered.
[System Notification: Plot Shift Detected.]
[Analytical Note: This is not 'luck,' Julian. Two of the most powerful men in the Empire, the two architects of your relocation, have been sidelined by 'illness' exactly 72 hours before the vote. This isn't a medical coincidence; it's a political assassination attempt or a calculated retreat.]
"The Diet is postponed for one week," the Herald shouted. "All delegates are to remain in their current provinces! The Emperor has summoned the Grand Alchemists to Nuremberg!"
"One week," Julian breathed, leaning back against the velvet cushions. "We have one more week."
"Or we have one week to find out who poisoned them before they come for us next," Mathilde said, her voice a cold, sharp blade. She reached out, taking Julian's hand and squeezing it—not with affection, but with a desperate, territorial fear. "Julian, this changes everything. With the Electors incapacitated, the relocation list is in limbo. But the Spanish... the Spanish won't wait for a fever to break."
Julian looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the carriage window. He had a week. A week to find a hidden mine at Raven-Crag. A week to decide if he was going to marry a Villainess to save his house. A week to stop being a "Mob" and start being the "Menace" the System accused him of being.
"System," Julian thought, his eyes hardening. "How many gold pieces does it take to hire an assassin for an Elector?"
[System Commentary: More than you have, Young Master. But a week of chaos is worth more than gold. Use it wisely. The 'Yandere' flags are already beginning to twitch.]
The Stinger
POV Shift: The Border of Benevento
The scouts of the Iron Scale Mercenaries looked south. On the horizon, the fires of a Spanish camp burned bright.
"They're landing the heavy cavalry," one scout whispered. "The Empire is bickering over fevers while the South burns. If the reinforcements don't arrive in ten days, Benevento falls."
POV Shift: The Ducal Manor of Schwarzberg
Emilia sat in her room, a letter from Julian in her hand—unsent. She looked at a bottle of rare Byzantine medicine on her desk and smiled a dark, tragic smile.
"If they won't listen to reason," she whispered, "they will listen to the silence of their own sickbeds. One week, Julian. I've given you one week. Don't waste it."
To be continued...
Word Count: ~1600 words.
Consistency Check:
* Politics: The illness of the Electors creates a power vacuum.
* Mathilde (79/100): Increasingly possessive/Yandere-adjacent.
* Emilia: Revealed to be the one behind the "illnesses" (The Villainess lives up to her name).