The Three Great Knightly Orders

"I don't like the age we lived in. The nobles dwelled in towers that symbolized status and rank. They might never set foot in the places where the poor gathered, treating them as filthy swamps, as though that made them spotless and pure."

Candlelight filled the room, casting Miss Fallow Deer's shadow across the mosaic-tiled walls.

"They pointed at those ragged peasants and said, 'You are free.' Then they brutally drove them from the fields into factories, believing they had generously granted them freedom and that the people ought to be grateful beyond measure."

"The wolf clans weren't like you. Everyone rolled in the mud. Even the head of a generation started out surviving on the streets. At first, it was ordinary street brawls, and later, assassinations."

Celina could not imagine the lives of the tower-dwelling nobles Vivianna had described.

In the Apennine states under wolf clan rule, nobility was merely another identity for the wolves, or their public-facing representatives.

"In any case, it wasn't much better than where you came from."

"That's why I said it was a problem of the era. Lothar said this place would not necessarily be much better either, but we had a chance to create a nation of our own and shape her according to our own will."

"Miss Nia would probably resonate with you on that point."

"I'll visit her later. Nina, what exactly are your wolf clan families?"

Vivianna looked curious. "I imagine they must be different from how we define a family."

Hohenzollern was also a great family, but its members did not interact often, nor did they live together in one or several cities.

Celina pondered for a moment, then said, "Like a pack of wolves in the wilderness, bound by blood and gathered together for survival. They unite and