Aurelia

Aurelia is the betrothed of Lamprecht and a niece of Aub Ahrensbach.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 5 Aurelia has naturally sharp and narrow eyes a shade of deep green, which gives many people the impression of her being evil and scheming and golden hair. Her face is nearly identical to how Lady Gabriele looked when she married into Ehrenfest. She is quite tall for a woman, making her a good fit to stand beside a muscular knight like Lamprecht in Rozemyne's opinion.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 5 Lamprecht described her as "not a bad girl". In her so far only interaction with Rozemyne, right before the wedding ceremony, Aurelia appeared shy and nervous, but also bold enough to play along with Rozemyne's excuse of just "thinking out loud" to enable them to have a short conversation, despite such interactions between the bride and the high bishop right before the ceremony usually being forbidden.

The bullying she was exposed to in her childhood, along with her appearance being near identical to Lady Gabriele, who is very much reviled throughout much of Ehrenfest's current noble society and especially those of the Leisegang and Florencia factions filled her with absolute dread about what she might be treated like should her appearance become known. Thus she is very resolute about showing her face to absolutely no one, except her trusted attendant Riadina and her husband, who already knows her face from their shared time at the Royal Academy.

For these reasons Aurelia never takes off her veil in the presence of anyone other than her husband and Riadina, not even in front of her new mother-in-law.

Because of this fears she also forgoes the sheer veil used by Lady Georgine and instead opted for a magical veil that completely hides most of her face. For an archnoble Aurelia allows a surprising amount of emotion to show on the few areas of her face that are not covered by the veil, sometimes making her appear nerveous and twitchy when thrust into unpleasant or unfamiliar situations.

Aurelia and Lamprecht fell in love with each other during their shared time at the Royal Academy, but due to the strained political relationship between Ahrensbach and Ehrenfest at the time, Aub Ehrenfest refused their requests for a marriage.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 5 Aurelia is the daugther of Aub Ahrensbach's little brother and his third wife. Her mother was born in Frenbeltag. Due to standing on different sides during the civil war, the treatment of her mother and by extension her mother's children worsened considerably and in Aurelia's case this was further exacerbated by her appearance, leading to her being treated very poorly by the majority of her family. Her younger sister managed to avoid the worst of this treatment due to being smart and friendly, to the point even being described as "loved by all".

From early childhood Aurelia was bullied and mocked on account of her appearance. The shape of her eyes led others to say that she always looked like she was scheming something aweful and carried the cruelness of some base villain.

Aurelia wanted to become a scholar or attendant, but due to her precarious social position was denied the chance to choose her own path. With the Aub's first wife having been ill for some time and getting weaker, Aurelia's father expected Lady Georgine to rise in status and thus tried to ingratiade himself with her. Since Georgine's daughter Lady Alstede was lacking in apprentice guard knights at the time, he forced Aurelia to pick the knight's course to become Alstede's knight, even though it was already clear that Alstede would be marrying into another duchy after coming of age and leave the archduke's family two years later at most. Having to lock her future into a career not of her choosing was very frustrating for Aurelia. Furthermore she was unable to fit into the friend-groups of her fellow students and retainers, leading her to spend much time in the knight's building on the excuse of training.

It was there that she met Lamprecht, who initially only wished for the three year younger girl to introduce him to female Ahrensbach students, since Lady Veronica and decreed he was to marry someone from Ahrensbach. At the time Ehrenfest was much lower in rank than Ahrensbach, so Aurelia remarked that she didn't believe anyone would be willing to marry into the lower duchy unless they were willing to escape their homes like her. This caused Lamprecht to ask her if she would be willing to go with him, which Aurelia agreed to. Despite not spending much time together, the two quickly developed feelings for each other.

Initially her father vehemently opposed allowing his daughter to marry into a duchy as low in the rankings as Ehrenfest. After intense negotiations he only allowed Lamprecht to escort Aurelia at her graduation to serve as one last memory before their final farewell. And following an incident at the Ehrenfest temple involving Count Bindewald, Aub Ehrenfest wouldn't let anyone from Ahrensbach marry into Ehrenfest. Furthermore their mana was far enough apart that Lamprecht could not sense Aurelia's mana at their first meeting.

Some years later the political situation and power-dynamic between the two duchies would change to the point of Aub Ahrensbach pressuring Aub Ehrenfest into allowing the marriage to go through, likely leaving Aurelia's father no say in the matter.

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Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 5 Riadina: A former Ahrensbach noble and the only retainer that followed Aurelia to Ehrenfest, who served Aurelia's mother until her death and began serving Aurelia when she was still very young.