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.

Despite the political situation remaining mostly unchanged, Aub Ehrenfest eventually relents and agrees to allow the marriage between Aurelia and her beloved Lamprecht, as well as another pair. A major part of the argument that eventually managed to sway Aub Ehrenfest, was that the two brides would both marry into Ehrenfest, a great sacrifice for Ahrensbach during this time of mana shortage.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 5 But with the political situation staying as charged as ever, the two archdukes decided to forgoe the usual ways of inter-duchy marriages and instead hold a ceremony for the two pairs at the border-gate between the two duchies, with both archdukal families being present, officially on account of it being his own niece that is getting married.

While the respective guard knights of both duchies were clearly on edge during the entire affair, the ceremony nevertheless was finished without any incident on site. There was a minor attempt to ambush the arriving grey priests on the road toward the gate by members of the former Veronica faction, but due to everyone from Ehrenfest arriving via highbeast (even the non-nobles were taken through the air in Rozemyne's highbeast) the people at the ceremony didn't even learn of this failed ambush until after the end of proceedings.

So far Aurelia did not have any contact with members of the former Veronica faction and gave her new husband important insights into the source and the specifics of Ahrensbach's current crisis, which seems to indicate that in the struggles between factions she is more on the side of the Florencia faction. Despite these signs, Elvira still keeps Aurelia somewhat at arm's length due to the high stakes.

When Rozemyne and Elvira discuss the dying-technique competition, Elvira agrees to Rozemyne's suggestion to invite Aurelia.

Upon being informed of the invitation, Lamprecht states that if she wished it, he would even be willing to leave his parents estate and join the former Veronica faction for Aurelia, though since he fully believes that once Wilfried and Rozemyne marry, the two competing factions will merge peacefully and thus any falling-out with one or the other is only temporary.

On the way back from the tea party, Elvira's attetude toward Aurelia softens, since she recognizes that unlike Lady Gabriele back in the past, Aurelia's insistence on wearing a veil was not due to looking down on Ehrenfest's culture and thus being unwilling to assimilate. In the privacy of their coach Aurelia confesses that her face looks almost exactly like Gabriele and even shows her face for a moment so Elvira can judge for herself whether the veil really is so important. After seeing Aurelia's face, Elvira stops pressuring her into forgoing a veil and is satisfied with her wearing a veil in an Ehrenfest style.

After her warm interactions with Lady Rozemyne and her mother-in-law warming up to her, Aurelia makes the decision to join the Florencia faction. Once she receives the newly dyed cloth, Aurelia puts her all into embroidering the magic circles onto it, musing that she has nothing but time on her hands anyway. Despite others apparently feeling that she's locked inside her husband's mansion, Aurelia actully enjoys her peaceful reclusive life.

Her much more pleasant life now has led her to regard being forced into a career path she didn't wish for as a blessing in disguise, since it was only because of this that she was able to meet Lamprecht in the first place.

Come next winter socializing, Aurelia wears the new face-veil made in the style of Ehrenfest utilizing the newly re-discovered dyeing techniques of the duchy. This openly displays her association with the Florencia faction and greatly softens the hard stares she up to that point had to endure from many of the local nobles on the few occasions she left her home. Privately she is also quite happy to be able to wear something she considers to be cute, for which she had few opportunities in the past. She is very thankful to Rozemyne for suggesting this change in style.

Despite being mostly confined to a side building of Karstedt's estate and only allowed visitors carefully vetted by her new family, she still feels more freedom than in Ahrensbach, making Rozemyne wonder just how badly she was treated in her former home.

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.