The Bond Forged in Battle

"Huff, huff, huff. You have great stamina, huh?"

"Ha! It seems so."

Seraphina and Kaela had been training nonstop for the past five hours, and they finally collapsed on the training field next to each other like a pair of best friends.

They lay under the bright full moonlight, which reflected off their sweaty bodies.

By then, most of the spectators had already left, as the castle couldn't be left unattended for so long, but Magnus, Miriel, and Selene remained along with some rotating Shadrow guards.

"What's our score again?"

"Twelve to eight in your favor."

"Hmph, I would have won more if you hadn't started pulling those dirty tricks at the end." Seraphina did her best to remain calm, recalling the earlier scenes.

Frustrated by her growing losses, Kaela resorted to her ultimate weapon against her wife.

She showed her breasts.

Yes…

In front of everyone.

Although she did it from an angle where only Seraphina could see her sacred mountains, it left Seraphina and the crowd utterly stunned.

Hellfoxes apparently have very little shame and take pride in their bodies due to the fact that they spend their whole lives working on them.

Naturally, Seraphina was very flustered, as it was the first time she had seen real breasts in any of her lives, and this brief distraction was all Kaela needed to land a brutal kick to her abdomen.

She won three more times that way!

"If this little rascal had done that in the first round, I would have lost for sure." Seraphina made a mental note to get revenge on her teasing wife later.

"Did my beloved wife not enjoy the show?" She had a mischievous smile that indicated she already knew the answer.

"When did I say that?"

"Hehehe." Kaela chuckled softly before turning to give her wife a small kiss on the cheek.

"You two certainly seem to be getting along better," Selene's melodious voice interrupted the loving atmosphere of the happy couple.

"Now, if you're finished, you both should wash up and get ready for dinner. Or did you forget, my daughter?"

"Of course not," she lied.

After her mother finished telling her the story of her father, before heading off to train with Kaela, she had told her mother she would join them for dinner.

This was a big step, as Seraphina usually avoided her wives and dined alone in her room or even with the servants.

Seraphina slowly got up and extended a hand to her wife to help her up as well, when Kaela gave her a strange look.

"You're… not going to start treating me like I'm fragile, are you?" Kaela asked hesitantly.

Seraphina looked at her as if she were a complete idiot.

Fragile?

Her?

She had never even considered it.

"Maybe I would if there were anything remotely delicate about you. You broke four of my ribs!"

Kaela took her words as the highest compliment, displaying her characteristic crazed smile and accepting her hand.

Miriel had a complicated expression as she watched them interact so closely.

Who would have thought they both had these sides to them?

They looked so comfortable with each other that one might think they had been living a normal married life all this time.

"Would she ever see me like that?" she wondered, but quickly dismissed the thought.

She had no great qualities like Kaela.

She was neither strong, nor charismatic, nor beautiful, nor outgoing.

She was nothing more than a discarded princess.

That was all she would ever be.

It was already an enormous blessing that she was married to Seraphina in name and could provide her people with certain benefits while not being treated harshly every day.

Asking for more would be the height of greed.

As she turned to follow Magnus, who was overseeing the dinner preparations, she suddenly felt a hand grasp her wrist.

"Sorry, would you mind accompanying me for a while?" Seraphina said with a warm smile that made her heart race.

Selene, seeing this, also smiled slightly before turning away.

"She has really grown so well... Valeria, you would be very proud." As for all the secrets she was sure her daughter was keeping, she wasn't too worried.

…Or to hell with that, she was!

She would simply corner her during dinner, where she couldn't run.

Like any good mother, she was planning to interrogate her about her favorite food.

A power like hers never came cheap, and she needed to know exactly what had happened to her daughter.

Miriel's nervousness was evident as she began to panic because Seraphina was touching her.

"E-Eh? W-What do you want from me?"

"I wanted to ask if you'd like to spend some time with me."

Upon hearing the reason for Seraphina's sudden pursuit, Miriel's brain immediately shut down.

Seraphina noticed this and took a deep breath before taking both her hand and Kaela's to begin explaining.

"I'm aware that neither of you wanted to marry me. You were discarded and cast out by your own people in exchange for resources for your clans."

At her words, Kaela lowered her head, and Miriel opened her mouth to protest, but Seraphina wasn't finished.

"Although our meeting wasn't ideal, you never treated me harshly or plotted against me. And I think that's part of why I avoided you both for so long."

"I didn't know how to properly respond to people who didn't openly despise me. And I was ashamed... that two wonderful women were chained to someone as useless as me."

Before either of the women could offer words of protest to the young Shadoni, they were surprised to see a small smile on her beautiful face.

"I have a lot to learn about being a wife, so you'll have to forgive my learning curve, but that being said, I want to do right by both of you, now and until the end of time."

The women who heard this had very different reactions.

Miriel blushed slightly as tears began to well up in her eyes.

Was someone really saying those words to her? She feared it was a dream from which she would soon wake up.

Meanwhile, Kaela hugged her again and gave her a small kiss on the cheek. "I think you'll do just fine, wife."

Seraphina let out a small laugh and waved without looking back.

*

High above, floating among the clouds, a man could be seen watching everything with a neutral gaze.

The man had been there from the beginning and had not moved from his spot for five hours.

Only after seeing the three leave the training field did a small smile spread across his lips.

"The rate at which she and her wife improved… a terrifying duo."

It was worth noting that the first match between Seraphina and Kaela was incomparable to the last.

With such a great training partner, her natural talent shone brightly, and her growth skyrocketed.

"It's about time, isn't it? I'm very excited."

The man's eyes glowed with an intense golden hue before he was engulfed in a pillar of black fire and vanished.