We started part 5 volume 8 with a prologue following Justus. We saw his perspective as Letizia returned his name swearing stone and was told to go. We saw how Justus and Eckhart were able to escape Ahrensbach and make it to Ehrenfest’s tea party room at the Royal Academy. There we witnessed Eckhart and Justus’s loss of hope and their conviction to follow their lord in death after exacting revenge on the Ahrensbach archducal family. However after meeting with Sylvester and learning of Rozemyne’s plan to rescue Ferdinand, their hope is restored. They promise to save Ferdinand no matter what.
In the following chapter we see Rozemyne gathering her retainers to inform them of her impending invasion of Ahrensbach to steal their foundation. She directs various tasks for her retainers to complete and decides who will join her and who will stay in support of Ehrenfest. Rozemyne’s own preparations include copying and pasting maps and magic circles from her Grutrissheit. A reunion with Justus and Eckhart occurs upon their arrival after sixth bell.
Hartmut is happy to extol the miracles of Rozemyne’s growth to an inquisitive Justus as Rozemyne and Eckhart eat dinner and exchange information. Justus mentions that Ferdinand had a message for Rozemyne: “I entrust Eckhart, Justus, and Lasfam to you. Stay in Ehrenfest and do nothing at all. Upon my death, everything I own will become yours. And as promised, both Ehrenfest and Yurgenschmidt will be saved.” Rozemyne refuses Ferdinand’s proposition and vows to rescue him regardless. Justus convinces Rozemyne to accept Ferdinand’s name to envelop him with her mana thus granting more time before he is completely drained. With Justus’s assistance Rozemyne creates a name-stone-enveloping box, puts Quinta’s name stone inside, turns it into a cocoon with her mana, and gives Ferdinand the order to live.
The book’s cover art has some plot spoilers, but there are still lots of predictions to make. Will Rozemyne’s retainers learn the truth about her obtaining the wisdom of Mestionora? What role will Hannelore play? How will the Ahrensbach nobility react to the invasion? What will happen to the Lanzenave envoys? Will Rozemyne encounter resistance or will Dunkelfelger provide enough of a distraction? What will the magic circles she copied from the Grutrissheit do? How will Ferdinand react to being reunited with Rozemyne?
Hannelore willingly charging into battle seems a bit out of character to me. I wouldn’t completely rule out that she might want to do it anyway, but I absolutely can not believe that her mother would ever allow it. So my prediction is, that she’s only going to join the pre-ditter ritual, but remain behind in the Royal Academy. I would not be the least bit surprised however, if she were to pour every last bit of mana she has into the ritual, to give the attackers that little bit of extra boost, and then potentially collapse from the exhaustion Rozemyne style. ^^
With Ahrensbach it all depends on timing. Between the complete surprise of the attack, the silver equipment and their poisons, they will be able to sweep through their unprepared oppositing at breakneck speed. So if they start at dusk, there won’t be many left to join up with Rozemyne & co, when they arrive near midnight. And what’s worse, the knights will be the ones most likely to die instantly, without a chance to flee. They’ll charge in with the schtappe weapons and feystone armour, believeing they stand a chance, only for the silver cloth to block their attacks and the silver weapons to cut right through their defenses in an instant, meaning that it’s only the ones who either have running as their first instinct, or who by chance witness another attack from a distance who might escape the slaughter. So unless Rozemyne’s force arrives with impeccable timing, only minutes after Lanzenave launches their purge, I don’t see many Ahrensbach fighters surviving long enough to join up. They can still get valuable intelligence and maybe some extra rejuvenation potions from the non-combatant nobles, but I don’t see the allied combat potential being much increased with Ahrensbach survivors. Except Strahl. I’m certian that thanks to Letizia’s warning, he will survive and join up with Rozemyne’s force, and with him being the former knight’s commander, he’s bound to be a valuable asset.
The problem with Alstede is, that as far as she knows, it was Trauerqual himself, who came up with the brutal conditions for the civil war purge, that saw even some of his own allies during the war executed, for being related to “traitors.” That might well lead Alstede to conclude that if Georgine loses, her life will be forfeit due to guilt by association anyway, so she might as well fight to the last breath. Or she might take the Gloria way out and blow off her own head, rather than being captured, interrogated and executed later. I also wouldn’t rule out the possibility that she might have been forced to give Georgine her name, which would leave her without a choice either way.
If she were to switch sides, that would have MASSIVE consequences. She knows that Raublut is a traitor and that right now the Lanzenave king is in the Adalgisa villa, with the only way out, being the teleporter to Ahrensbach, so if they shut that down and lock the doors of the Adalgisa villa, they have him in a trap. And it’s precisely for this reason that I find it hard to believe she will switch sides. If she did, it’s game over for Detlinde and Lanzenave and I find it a bit hard to believe that would happen, when there are still three more volumes after this one, so I expect her to either go down fighting or be taken out by some failsafe Georgine put in place.