The New Duke and Duchess Evenhart
Sifu:
I was outside the mansion, in the throne room of the castle. The room was filled with the legacies, soldiers, and nobles residing in our village. Lady Margaery sat on the throne.
"I sent the document to the capital a few days ago. Soon, there will be an official recognition of the heir Nathan Evenhart, and an envoy will come to confirm," the Duchess announced.
The people felt a sense of relief. No one wanted another war, especially one with our own people.
"Are you sure this will calm things down?" asked Legacy Samantha.
"It will... unfortunately, it will," said Lady Katherine, standing beside the throne.
We've just added another heir into the mix. While we've quelled those who doubted having a female heir, we've merely divided the problem further. Who will the line of succession favor now? Will it be young Nathan or young Chloe? Those like the Wolves might still try to force a marriage... and worse. We may have just created another heir that an external family could try to claim, someone even allied with the Wolves.
If someone outside our inner circle manages to marry one of the two, we could face a serious problem since both are in the line of succession. An external family that marries in could want to contest. Without an officially defined heir by the patriarch, the problem grows. Lady Chloe inherited by being the only heir, but the balance of power shifts if the other heir is a male.
None of us would dare attempt to divide ourselves, but the presence of two heirs could even fragment the Wolves' faction... the more divided we are, the worse it will be. The Wolves wanted Chloe to gain power. They intended to marry her to seize the Duke's title, but now there's nothing to stop another family in their faction with a daughter from doing the same and claiming Lord Nathan.
We are weak and still recovering. If we were at our peak, they would never dare attempt such a thing. We've lost our two best warriors, who were also excellent mages. Lord Ethan was a great offensive lightning mage, and Lord Erich was a great defensive earth mage. They complemented each other's weaknesses; they were worth a thousand on the battlefield... even I couldn't defeat them if they used magic.
Our queen may be skilled with a fused ice element, but we still lost two excellent mages, not to mention the other legacy family members... much of our army is gone.
"Sorry to ask, but how does this help us? We've calmed the faction's nerves but added another person to the dispute," I said.
"None of us here would dare to divide our organization; our families have lived in this castle for centuries," said Yusuf.
The others looked at me, not understanding what I meant.
Think more long-term, children...
"He means another Nikolaus Wolves..." said Lady Margaery from the throne.
Everyone turned to her.
"At this moment, I hate to admit it, but we are still weak in numbers despite our power. They stayed out of the war and suffered no losses, while we... lost people we loved... and powerful ones. Sifu fears the Wolves' faction could split," Lady Margaery explained.
The legacies stared at her.
"I don't understand, how can his faction split?" asked Samantha.
"It's simple. Nikolaus's plan has always been to marry Chloe; there always needs to be an Evenhart on the throne. No one is crazy enough to change that. The problem now is we have Nathan, who is a boy. Nikolaus no longer has the excuse of marrying the 'weak' heir to guide the region when there's a male heir. With Nathan in the picture, what do you think will happen to the faction? They used the argument of marrying Chloe to control the heir, but now there could be a division," Lady Margaery explained.
Yusuf seemed to think.
"What do you mean by division?"
"The faction might continue with the same argument, but they could switch from controlling one heir to another," Lady Margaery said.
"I understand... if that happens, Nikolaus is out of the running. He himself created a faction that supports the idea of marrying an heir to gain power... but now he may have created his own enemies," Yusuf said.
"He gathered men who could steal his power. This faction was united in the goal of usurping power by marrying Chloe... but now they might ignore Nikolaus and try to marry Nathan to some heir they control," Lady Katherine added.
The legacies began to ponder.
"There will be a dispute among them. Things will get worse... Nikolaus won't accept being betrayed, and they'll destroy each other, and worse, they'll destroy part of our territory," Hugo said.
Yusuf laughed and said, "Part of me would love to let them kill each other, but they'll do it by forcing their men to fight in our peaceful lands. There will be bloodshed, and such a war will further ruin our territory in crisis. How many roads will be paralyzed? How many crops will be attacked? How many rivers will be polluted? They'll destroy farms, villages, and anything else in their path."
Just as we were beginning to recover from one war... here comes another.
"Do we ask the kingdom for help to intervene? Although I think this faction will blame 'bandits'," Bonnie suggested.
"NO! No intervention from the kingdom! I don't want them on my land!" Margaery shouted.
Everyone fell silent and serious.
She took a deep breath.
"We don't have a strong enough army to contain this, and our economy is still fragile. After losing so many water and earth mages, we've lost our ability to create fertile soils and manage large-scale crops with artificial rain... without many mages, we're having to do this manually. It's too early to risk an internal war that will only make things worse, and I definitely don't want to involve the kingdom," the queen said.
Everyone looked down, reflecting.
"Then give the order and activate the Evenhart Legacy. Let's kill them," Hugo said.
She raised her hand to stop him from speaking.
"We can't solve things that way. I don't want to become the tyrant who kills anyone who disagrees with me. We'll leave assassinations as a last resort... but don't think it will be easy. They have an army along with those families, and Nikolaus is protected by those soldiers. The problem is, we can't just go around killing him without a reason, or it will attract the kingdom's attention if suddenly all the nobles who disagreed with us died in 'accidents'. Remember, these nobles also evade our choices, and the kingdom controls information on their whereabouts."
"What do we do then? We can't assassinate them due to the big show they've put on, which would draw too much attention, we can't move an army without increasing our crisis, and we can't let a possible dispute over the marriage of these two heirs happen," Hugo said.
Margaery gave a small smile.
"I thought of something that will solve all our problems. It will end the issue of those who think having a female heir is weak, it will end the problem of the marriage war over Chloe, and it will end the future problem of the marriage war over Nathan," Margaery said.
Everyone looked confused.
"And what magical solution is that?" Yusuf asked.
"I will be marrying Chloe... to someone from a great and powerful noble family," she said.
"Marrying? Weren't you against that sort of thing? And who would be worthy of the little princess?"
Margaery smiled and clapped her hands. "I will be marrying our two heirs. Our Chloe and our Nathan will be husband and wife, and from today they will be Duke and Duchess. They will be like a single heir in a union that has never occurred in this family. By marrying the two heirs, I am resolving all the problems of their marriage disputes and silencing any argument for war. With this move, I will calm the lesser nobles outside our organization while we save our precious time recovering the authority of this land and getting us out of the mage loss crisis," the queen said.
Everyone started to think, and some looked at Lady Katherine, who seemed to agree.
"Are you sure? They are cousins..." Bonnie asked.
"And is that forbidden?" Margaery asked.
Samantha let out a small laugh. "So everything was resolved with a marriage? In the end, this whole problem started because of a marriage and ended with one," Samantha said, laughing.
"Why not marry them to some child from the village?" Bonnie asked.
Margaery sighed. "If it was to save our family, I would marry Nathan to you, Bonnie..." Lady Margaery said.
"Margie!" Lady Katherine exclaimed.
Lady Margaery gave a small cough. "It was just a joke..."
She averted her eyes from Lady Katherine.
"But we couldn't just marry the heirs to anyone. We had to marry them to a noble with a name of greater impact. It had to be a noble whose name would silence all our opponents questioning the family marrying them. So I thought... they both have a great surname, why not?" she said, laughing.
The legacies seemed to understand.
Interesting... marrying the boy to the girl. This will strengthen us and ensure that no one from outside comes to harm them in this dispute and still keep our organization hidden.
"And how did the two lovebirds react to this news?" Samantha asked.
"We haven't told them yet, and I'll keep it that way. We have a lot to do, and I'm not ready to deal with my daughter yet... I'd rather torture someone than console a sad child who thinks they're the worst person in the world."
The discussion continued about our next moves.
"I'm happy with this news; I can focus on increasing our treasury and negotiating exports," Lionel said, laughing.
We were getting ready to leave.
"Now that this war will be stopped, I can finally walk around peacefully," Hugo said, remembering when he was captured and tortured.
It seems the little idiot who used to run away from my training has learned to fend for himself.
"It's not official yet. An envoy from the capital will come here to check Nathan's lineage and personally confirm the engagement with Katie and me. After that, the argument for marriage that kept that faction standing will crumble."
We headed towards the exit.
"I can't wait to go out and start killing bandits again. It's been a while since I've had any fun, old man," Yusuf said, patting me on the shoulder.
"I don't know about you, but I've been having a lot of fun," I replied with a smile.
"Really? You spend all day training a child. Aren't you itching to fight against real warriors?" he asked, laughing as he walked away.
If he only knew what that boy is like... a true gem, a unique treasure. I've never seen a child train so hard and have such determination. I'd rather train him until the last day of my life to unlock all the potential in his body.
I left the throne room grinning from ear to ear.
I've given the boy some rest, but I'll think of ways to make the training even tougher. Let's see how he handles it.