Aub Ehrenfest

The Lord of Ehrenfest - or Aub Ehrenfest - governs the duchy of Ehrenfest, where the events of the story take place. The current Lord Ehrenfest is Sylvester. The Aub and his family reside in a castle in a seperated part of the noble's quarter of the duchy's capital, also named Ehrenfest.

Hundreds of years ago, the territory was conquered by a neighboring lord. The noble with the most mana was chosen as the new lord and named the territory Ehrenfest and became the first Lord Ehrenfest.

From there on, the archduke and his first wife choose the successor from among all the Archduke's children, including those of second and third wives and even adopted children. The main deciding factor for which of the children is chosen as successor is their mana capacity, though skills and gender are also taken into account. Males are generally prefered over females due to the negative effects that large usage of mana during pregnancy can have on unborn children.

The Aub must use their mana to keep the protective barriers of the duchy active every few days, so a duchy will have a hard time compensating for an Archduchess not being able to do so for the full the length of her pregnancy, hence the preference of male archduke candidates as successors.

During their time at the Royal Academy Lady Gabriele of Ahrensbach fell deeply in love with one of the son of the fourth's Aub Ehrenfest. Due to her having a rather small mana capacity for an archduke candidate of a greater duchy her prospects of marrying into an archducal family were low, but since Ehrenfest was just a minor duchy with a much lower average in mana capacity among it's nobles, this was not an issue in this case. She used her position to force the marriage through and install herself as her husbands first wife, forcing him to demote his previous wife to second wife, disregarding what her future husband or his family might wish. Since this woman was a daughter of the Leisegang family - one of the most influencial and wealthy families in Ehrenfest - this caused great strife. In an attempt to mitigate this, the fourth Aub granted Gabriele's husband lordship over the province of Groschel, making him the first Count Groschel. The departure of him and his family to their new home had a big negative effect on the duchy's available mana.

Gabriele would later give birth to Veronica and Bezewanst who's behaviour only worsened the split between the pro Ahrensbach nobles and those opposing them who gathered around the Leisegangs.

At some point before any of his children were born, the sixth Aub Ehrenfest fell ill to the point that his life was in jeopardy. Since he had no successor yet, his brother Bonifatius was trained to take over the position and shown all the secrets that usually on the Aub himself was allowed to know. Thanksfully the archduke made a recovery and later had children.

For some time it looked like his daughter Georgine would become the Archduchess and she was groomed for the position for years, until her younger brother Sylvester was born. This caused a fierce competition to break out between the siblings, which was eventually won by Sylvester. Since his older sister showed signs of outright hatred toward her victorious brother, she was quickly married off to the neighboring duchy of Ahrensbach, even though it meant that she would only be the third wife of Aub Ahrensbach.

To avoid a similar falling out from the fight for succession to happen to his own children, Sylvester made his firstborn son Wilfried the successor very early on, rather than relying on the usual competition between the archduke candidates to find the best suited among them.

When the civil war raged in the country, Ehrenfest remained neutral. They were still negatively affected by the purge following the coup, but the duchy took far less damage than any that were directly involved in the war. Due to being spared the worst of the consequences of the war the minor duchy was able to climb in the rankings, become a medium duchy and eventually secure rank thirteen for themselves. But the fact that they only reached this high not because of their own merits, but because other bigger and more powerful duchies had fallen behind makes this position rather precarious with many expecting Ehrenfest to fall in the ranking again, once the other duchies recover from the damage of the coup.

The knowledge that he would become the archduke no matter what, combined with the coddling he got from his grandmother Veronica who leveraged her enormous political influence to wrest the boy's raising away from his mother Florencia caused Wilfried to greatly neglect his education. His retainers and teachers allowed his slacking to continue, some because they didn't see the need for strictness since he was already assured the Aub seat and some out of fear for reprisals by Veronica should they be too harsh on him. Later he was even tricked into committing a crime against the duchy by a faction of Ehrenfest nobles trying to replace Sylvester with Georgine, which nearly cost the boy his position as a noble alltogether.

While thanks to his new adopted sister Rozemyne the worst was averted and Wilfried even remained an archduke candidate, his guaranteed right of succession has since been revoked, meaning in theory any of the Archduke's children, including his adopted daughter Rozemyne, might become the next Aub Ehrenfest, though Rozemyne has vehemently opposed the very idea of becoming archduchess on multiple occasions.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 In no small parts due to being completely free of Ahrensbach blood along with all her other merits, the Leisegang faction spearheaded by the Previous Giebe Leisegang worked hard to lay the groundwork to have Rozemyne become the next Aub, regardless of her own wishes.

After Wilfried and Rozemyne finished their first term at the Royal Academy, Aub Ehrenfest announced the betrothal of the two. With Rozemyne's growing influence this near enough guarantees that Wilfried will become the seventh Aub Ehrenfest, if things remain as they are. This announcement caused most nobles of the budding Rozemyne faction to abondon trying to make her the archduchess, but some keep on fighting doggedly.