I don't get the punishments. Unless I'm missing something, they're just unfair.
The Viscount was manipulated by sorcery and the Prince was also deceived. No one else knew the woman the Viscount had brought in and their daughter were sorceresses. Sure, the Prince was a jackass, and we don't know what punishment he got, but the suggestion that he should be punished for being engaged to a sorceress is absurd. I mean, the prince may have broken off his engagement and then engaged himself with a sorceress, and you're telling me that no one in the royal family approved of this new engagement nor checked who the prince had been engaged to?
And apparently, he never got punished for that entire debacle, which must have been very shameful for the royal family to be involved in. Instead rumors spread in the royal capital where Marie was the "villainous lady" who interfered with the Prince's pure love, and they thought that was fine?
The royal family was also taking advantage of the Duke and just kept pushing on duties on him. They failed to deal appropriately in the past with the prince's engagement debacle and now they're dishing out punishments when they themselves hadn't noticed they had allowed a sorceress to be engaged to their family? What was the Viscount, or anyone else supposed to do? Even though sorcerers had apparently gone instinct were they supposed to acquire the magic crystals and start on inquisition on everyone they meet?
The perspective of punishment for the prince was really only there to trigger his groveling to Marie to take him back but it was poor writing and unnecessary. We already knew that he was shallow and selfish from his previous actions of switching engagement so we didn't really need to see more of that side of him. Rather, we discovered that he has no self-respect since he, a prince, groveled to a lady he had thrown away to take him back, like he's some pathetic gigolo. What was he expecting his punishment to be to react like that? Execution?
I enjoyed the story but that's nonsense.