As Rowena sat in front of the vanity and looked into the mirror, she could see the eyes of her two trusted maids gleaming.

She was dressed in a white, off-the-shoulder gown, brought from the dresses that had been made for her in Avarinth by a famous tailor.

They had been sitting there for almost an hour. Of course, there was still more than enough time, but the whole thing was getting tiring for the young noblewoman.

"Like this?" Ava asked, holding up her hair, which was twisted together in the middle of the back of her head.

"Why not more like this?" Norina replied, taking the hair out of her colleague's hand and gathering it, allowing it to flow down freely after being fixed up to the center.

"I have never worn my hair up." Rowen didn't know how to do that either.

She loved long hair, but it usually wasn't easy to care for, especially since Celia had waves that were more pronounced, so they looked a little less elegant if they weren't done right.

And Celia had never done anything right when it came to her hair, so she usually kept it short or medium length and let nature take over.

Ava was the one who did the makeup, while Norina took more pride in what she did with the hair, although they couldn't agree on how to present their lady. They finally decided on an updo that would gather her hair loosely in the middle of the back of her head and let it flow freely from there, paired with threads worked into it that were lined with tiny sparkling diamonds to make it shine in accents.

'Well, aren't we fancy today?' she looked at herself and turned her head, feeling a bit lost. "It's very beautiful, you two."

Her two maids looked very proud, as they normally weren't the perfect fit for this task, but they had even gone to Islette for a while, just to ask her for some last minute advice before departing, knowing that a banquet was going to be held. They hadn't made her look like this, not even when they visited the temple, because there she had to look outstanding, but still reasonably casual.

Breathing slowly, she could feel her pulse racing as her thoughts circled around what might happen at the banquet and how she would have to behave flawlessly. It made her nervous to the point of feeling sick, as she had already accumulated an unhealthy amount of problematic situations and couldn't show her bad side any more openly.

With a sigh of worry, she looked at the ticking clock in the room and confirmed that she had about an hour left. As it was, she sat down on the corner of the bed after taking an old wooden instrument out of her luggage.

She had made a promise to practice, after all. Just like she meditated to strengthen her Mana Paths, she did this regularly. So she began to play the same piece she had played before, each movement refreshing her awareness of the individual notes, as if she actually understood them a little.

She lost herself in the music, enjoying the fact that she could at least listen to something after missing her phone and the library on it. Ten minutes passed, thirty minutes, forty... Suddenly, her ears picked up a sound not coming from her tune, and she paused to look up.

"Get the door for me, please," Rowena remarked, getting up to put the violin away.

Her maids, however, exchanged questioning glances, having heard nothing over the very loud classical music in the room, until a soft knock revealed the truth. Hurrying to the door, Norina prepared to apologize for her tardiness as she opened it, but strangely remained silent.

Patting her dress to get rid of any creases that might have been caused by sitting on the bed, Rowena smiled softly as she approached the door herself.

"You are early, brother." Only when she arrived close to Norina did she understand her confusion.

"I thought I would come a little early, so I would have time to explain myself," Lucan said, looking at her with his forest green eyes, as if it was the most normal thing in the Lodden Empire to show up unannounced at a young lady's private room.

'The audacity of this bitch.' She held back a snort, almost crossing her arms over her chest. "In that case, please explain. To what do I owe your presence here today, Sir Lucan?"

"In my defense, I did ask you to accompany me to the banquet."

"That is correct. And I said no."

"Yes," he replied, ruffling his hair with one hand, looking like an apologetic puppy, but little did he know that Rowena was not so easily swayed, "about that, may I come in for a moment?" It wasn't very good to stand around and let other people see him in this situation, so he was the one asking for help in what was essentially his own palace.

She sighed in defeat when he didn't seem to want to just walk away, and she didn't want to cause another scene either. "Come inside," she said curtly.

Technically, she hadn't even really looked at him, since she was standing behind Norina and not right next to her, so when he came into view in all his glory, she was a bit surprised. He had taken this more seriously than she had expected.

'Then again, he's not in a position to show up in a track suit either.'

There he was, a bouquet of flowers in hand, all dressed up in fancy attire. "So you were expecting someone else after all?" he said jokingly as he entered.

"I thought I told you I was coming with someone else."

"Ah, yes, indeed. And I asked your brother if I could escort you instead." She raised an eyebrow at his words. "Well, he politely told me to go away if you didn't like it, so I was sincerely hoping you'd give me a chance." And it hadn't felt to him as if his words had only meant that specific banquet.

Standing in front of the young Grand Duke, he had felt like he was being tested. The nobles he usually had to deal with were a nuisance, but this one would have meant trouble as an opponent.

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As if his eyes were telling him that he would definitely not live to see the next sunrise if he screwed this up, and he boldly accepted the challenge.

She had to laugh at his words, though. "You? Do I even know who you are?" She was sure she had the wrong name for that matter.

"Hmm, well," he said as he finally handed the flowers to Norina, who eyed him warily as he slowly circled the lady at a safe distance, "care for a game? Riddle me this: A men wears Imperial armor, carries a sword, and speaks boldly to a noble lady, though a knight he is not."

Confused by his unexpected nonsense, her eyebrow furrowed even deeper.

"There's an observer attending a political meeting, but a scholar he is not," he continued.

Again, she could hear the words and make the connections, but it was all a bit fishy to her.

"Lastly, a young man escorting a lady to an imperial banquet, but noble he is not. Who are they?"

She rolled her eyes. "A pretentious fool?" An imperial one, at that.

"Ouch," he said, "comments like that could cost you your head. Are you aware of that?"

"How come? I don't know who you are, you still haven't told me," she deflected, shifting her eyes, not being into his games, though he was at least a little creative. 'Somewhat.'

Even though she found it a bit funny, she finally let the words he had just said sink in and wanted to bite her own ass. 'I should have known it was him in that stupid rust bucket uniform. How could I not have recognized him by his voice?'

"You must have figured out my position by now," he said, a little more seriously this time, "I could have forced you to come with me, but I didn't. That is my sincerity."

"Oh, so now I must be grateful that you didn't force me, Your Highness, the Crown Prince?"

"That isn't what I meant to say." He seemed more restless now, as if he hadn't thought enough about what to say when he had already come early to "explain" himself. "Will you give me a chance to talk to you for a while as your partner at the banquet? After that, I will be out of your hair. And it is very beautiful hair, if I may say so."

'What a flirt, huh?' Not that she really knew what she was talking about, but that was beside the point. "Alright. I wouldn't want a Crown Prince to feel like he had to bow down to me." It wasn't as if she hated him.

With a crooked smile, he extended his hand. "Would you like to follow me to the main hall? We can walk very slowly."

She nodded and turned to her maids. "I will leave now."

The banquet was not to be held in the Ivory Palace, as since it was a special occasion, they would gather in the main hall of the White Palace, which was essentially a grand ballroom.

As they walked slowly, they didn't say a word at first, as being alone together made the situation uncomfortable for both of them.

"How did you come to learn the use of Mana?" he finally broke the silence.

"Was that the important thing you wanted to talk to me about?"

"No," he denied on cue, but not hastily, "or you could say it's a part of it, but a smaller part."

After all, she was from the Arlen Empire, from the family best known for their monstrous Mana fighters of all classes, and they didn't have to show Lodden all their cards. It was by no means a stretch for her to know about Mana. It was the fact that no one on her delegation seemed to know either that made him curious.

"I just learned it," was all she said.

"Just like that? Then why are you hiding it?"

"I don't-" She tried to refute his statement, but how could she now? "It's not that I'm hiding it, it's just that there's not much to hide or tell anyway."

It didn't seem like she wanted to talk more about it and he didn't want to pry either, but it piqued his interest.

"I find it more interesting how you learned it, considering the contract with the Church that you weren't allowed to learn from them," Rowena deflected perfectly.

A chuckle could be heard as they wandered through the corridors of the Ivory Palace. "I learned it while studying on the southern continent. The Kingdom of Mustafa invited me for two years after I finished my term at the Academy early."

The concept of academies was still a mystery to Rowena. Young men and women learned about etiquette and society, as well as the use of the sword or how to dance if they wished. There was no set time, even to enter the academy one didn't necessarily have to be a certain age, they simply taught a higher standard of knowledge and then put the students through an exam - even on things they didn't teach, just to prove that one could do it.

The rest was usually taught at home, before they even attended the academy. Some might even say it was just a matter of social connections to be made for the future and lucky challenge to actually attend with someone of influence.

Lucan, on the other hand, had something else on his mind. 'Not much to hide, huh?' he thought.

In his eyes, what she had shown, though a bit unrefined in her methods, was not an effort to be sneezed at. Since the use of Mana relied heavily on the physical foundation of the user, female Mana users had a harder time. While women tended to have a keener sense of the Paths inside their bodies, and thus not only an upper hand in the precision of a Vector, but also in the use of Mana to strengthen their bodies, they still usually couldn't outshine a man in a physical fight.

While priestesses were better at blessing and healing than priests, their bodies were also more easily exhausted from Mana consumption because their stamina wasn't as great as that of a man of the same stature and training. It felt unfair and unrewarding to most, and since a woman could live with her head held high in society, marrying and raising children with dignity or, for example, opening a shop of sorts, they usually didn't choose the path of a High Priest.

And a Holy Knight was another matter entirely. To put that into perspective, there existed a popular calculation, which came up after several studies into the matter.

If a good strengthening technique could increase the natural muscle capacity up to ten times the original amount, and a particularly incompetent Holy Knight could waste half of that, he would end up with an increase of merely five. A woman could get the full ten simply by being more efficient with her Mana, but her starting value is somewhere around two, while the man's would be around six.

With that number, he would still be able to get a total of thirty points, while she might be limited to twenty.

Of course, these numbers would not always add up in the same way, but that was the general rule. And while a woman could train until she dropped and then win against a handful of men who had trained much less than she had, it would be naive to assume that in war the enemy would come unprepared and unequipped.

Sure, this was true for a lot of very small or fragile men as well, but for a female fighter, this was the average condition. And that was exactly why it was so unusual for a noble lady of her status to be interested in learning such a craft.

While some might consider it a very useful thing to do, in order to protect themselves, most noble ladies saw it only as a nuisance. They mostly lived in safe areas, surrounded by knights and guards. And as they had no realistic chance of ever excelling among all the men in the field, unless a miracle happened and a Numbered contracted them, they largely ignored the gift of Mana in them, in case it was found.

'Revealing the capability of using Mana and the will to do so might actually increase her inherent status,' he mused, 'if she didn't want a political bond, why would she not secure her position in Arlen by joining the Vatican as a High Priestess? The reasoning for most women not to do that, aside from how harsh and unrewarding it was, was fear, which was understandable. But she didn't seem particularly afraid, as she killed a Visitor with a charged, flying butter knife.'

He couldn't stop thinking about it, until the two of them had finally arrived at the outer doors of the White Palace, which were already open. The guards got startled as they saw the young man with the girl he was escorting.

As they bowed and prepared to let them pass, Lucan held out his arm for her to grasp. "Are you ready?"

Rowena picked up a single long strand hanging freely next to her bangs, in order to tuck it behind her right ear. "It's not as if I can back out now, Your Highness."

And yet she almost flinched as a man in the hall shouted loud enough to echo through the still-closed doors for everyone to hear as he announced the new arrivals to the crowd inside.