With her bladed staff in hand Tess races towards Arthur. Plants rip free from the ground as roots shoot out from the ceiling. The plants begin closing in on their target. Suddenly three ten foot tall trees emerge from the ground in front of Tess as the roots and other plants start to pass the first. The branches of the first tree reached out and grabbed the incoming roots and plants and began spinning, tangling them up and protecting Tess and the other trees.

Tess' remaining two trees swing their branches forward, sending dozens of razor sharp leaves towards Arthur. His first instinct was to counter with fire magic, but this training was to help with his newly acquired plant magic. A collection of thorny branches shot out of the ground in front of Arthur. The branches formed a wall that effectively blocked the attack as the leaves crashed into it, before shooting towards Tess.

Seeing this she activated the second stage of her beast will. Emerald green mana vines emerged from her body and moved forward to meet Arthur's branches. As the two spells collided Tess' spell wrapped around Arthur's, completely immobilizing each other as a single branch continued towards her. Skidding to a stop Tess raised her left hand and focused on the branch. Arthur saw this and was tempted to stop, but chose to continue and have faith that Tess knew what she was doing.

Tess stood her ground and only a foot away from her hand the branch stopped. Surprised by this Arthur applied a little more mana, but nothing changed. Slowly he increased the amount of mana he used, but nothing happened as Tess remained completely focused on that branch. In an actual fight Arthur would have used a sudden burst of mana to try and get it to move, but seeing as he didn't want to risk seriously hurting his fiance, he decided to do something else.

From the tip of the branch a single rose suddenly bloomed. Tess giggled from the sudden appearance and released her beast will. The thorns on the branch fell off as it gently wrapped around her waist and lifted her up as it formed a seat beneath her, and carried her to Arthur.

"So," Arthur started as he looked at her curiously. "How did you do that?"

"For starters, I couldn't have done that against you without my beast will, you're too strong for that."

"But I'm still stronger when you use your beast will," Arthur pointed out.

"Yes, but my beast will give me better control. However if you grew up a plant mage like me, I wouldn't have been able to stop your plant spells. You treat plant magic like any other affinity, but it's not. You use your mana to control plants, but unlike the other affinities, plants are alive. They have a will of their own, albeit primal and simple, but still their own will. You need to use a gentler hand instead of just making them do what you want. If you do that, I won't ever be able to take over your spells," Tess explained.

"Hmm, sounds similar to aether," Arthur thought out loud. "Well," Arthur gave a mischievous and proud smile. "It seems I still managed to win our match."

"Umm, no. How do you come to that conclusion, you surrendered."

"Did I? All I did was create a flower, and then you allowed the branch to wrap around you and bring you over."

Tess looked down to see the branch still wrapped around her.

"It seems to me that you were the one who surrendered," Arthur said with a smile as Tess pouted.

"No fair."

"Of course it is." Arthur stepped closer. "And now it's time for me to claim my prize."

Arthur gently kissed Tess on the lips. The gentle kiss ended and Arthur went in for another, this time more passionate. By the time the branch released her their hands were all over one another as they were making out.

The sexual tension had been building out of control for Arthur over the past few week, and he felt he was about to loose control. Tess seemed to be having the same trouble, but thanks to a childhood of being told she had to wait till marriage she was enduring better, but not by much.

Their tongues danced inside each other's mouths as one of Arthur's hands went down to her butt and gave it a little squeeze. Tess jumped a little in shock, but didn't pull away. Instead one of her hands made its way up his top, gently going over his well defined abs.

Sadly though, Arthur noticed they were being watched. The Lance training ground was on the far end of the sanctuary, placed as far as possible from where anyone would be working or living in an effort to prevent any accidents by a stray spell. This meant whoever was spying on them was most likely there for them.

Arthur broke the kiss and stopped Tess' hands.

"Sorry, but it looks like we have an audience," Arthur stated with a tone of frustration.

Tess frantically looked around with a bright blush. "I don't see anyone, and I can't feel any mana but ours."

"Thanks to my mastery of aether my ability to sense mana is sharper, and in an aether rich environment like this, I have an even greater range. I'll be right back."

In a flash of purple aetheric lightning Arthur disappeared.

—————————————————————

At the edge of the sanctuary, on the top floor of one of the last buildings, Aya stood at the edge of the window with a small telescope. It wasn't much, but by enhancing her vision with mana she was able to see all she needed to see. Right now that was Arthur and Tess training.

She was amazed by how strong Tess had become in such a short period of time. She had taken the liberty of reading her recorded level after training with Arthur just the other day, and saw she had already surpassed Bairon, and was nearly on par with her. This was no doubt thanks to her training with Arthur, which unlike with the other lances happened every morning. The only difference was that Tess was going even faster than them.

"A shame the artifacts that gave the six of us so much power is now stunting our growth so much. Although I'm sure that was the asura's intention, otherwise we could one day become strong enough to challenge them," Aya thought to herself. "I wonder what the Asura would do if they ever learned about this ability of his. Of course it will go away when he dies, which would be like the time it takes to take a breath for an Asura. But if their children are capable of this as well, I wonder if the Asura will just leave them alone or ..."

Her mind trailed off as she saw Arthur's branch carrying Tess to him. She could tell they were talking, but at this distance she couldn't read their lips to know what was being said. She watched as soon Arthur held Tess in his arms and the two began making out, forcing her to keep her own desires down so she could keep focus.

She flinched as they broke apart and Tess looked around frantically, and Arthur stared right at her. Then in a flash of lightning he was gone, then she saw a purple flash coming from behind her out of the corner of her eye.

"My," Aya said with a sigh. "Your senses are sharper than Alea's ever could have been."

She turned around and saw Arthur staring at her with his arms crossed.

"Enjoying the view?" Arthur asked.

"Very much so," she replied enthusiastically. "It's the best view in all the sanctuary."

"Really. Were you wanting to join in?"

Aya's face lit up from surprise as a smile formed on her face.

"Really?"

"No," Arthur replied flatly. "I'm just trying to figure out why you're spying on us."

Aya pouted. "You're no fun."

"I can be, just not in the regard you want towards you."

"It's not that I actually want you," she said matter of factly. "It's just my nature in general to want attractive men. I only target you to make sure that you are worthy of becoming King of Elenoir, and deserving of Princess Tessia."

"I see. Well tell gramps or whichever one of her parents that asked you to spy on us that I don't appreciate it," Arthur replied with a grumpy tone.

He knew the mood was ruined now, and with the fact they both had obligations to get there soon but there wasn't enough time to even try.

"And maybe you should be careful. I've heard of your reputation of sleeping around, I'm sure the last thing you want right now is to become pregnant," Arthur commented, sounding like he was lecturing her.

"Oh don't worry about that, I can't get pregnant."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. During my teen years while I was training my skills I was the top disciple. One of the lower disciples didn't like how well I did and challenged me to a duel. He fought me with a real sword disguised as a wooden one. During the duel he shattered the outer wooden portion and ran me through," Aya reminisced as she pulled her top up and pants down enough to show the scar at her uterus. "He claimed that it was an accident, that he just wanted to scare me, but the damage was done, he starilized me."

"I'm so sorry," Arthur replied as he could see the sadness in her eyes.

"Don't be," she said dismissively. "After I recovered I slipped into his room in the middle of the night and removed his genitals," she then smiled brightly. "making everything even between the two of us."

Instinctively Arthur covered his genitals as he shuttered at how cold and ruthless Aya could be despite her outward behavior.

—————————————————————

"Council members, Lances, I am honored to be in your presence, and to be taking on the role as a representative of Sapin," Lunaris' father, Markus Aldwynn said with a bow.

Three days ago Blaine announced to the council that he was stepping down due to health problems, although everyone knew about the altercation with Curtis and had noticed his erratic behavior as of late, so they assumed there was more to it than that. He gave them a list of several nobles from Sapin as his suggestions, one being Markus. It actually wasn't very hard to come to this conclusion. Seeing as they were at war they all agreed someone with a distinguished military history would be best, narrowing the selection down to two, Markus Aldwynn and Otis Wykes.

After that it wasn't a very hard decision at all. Despite Otis Wykes having been of a higher status and having a more extensive military background, being the father of a Lance left the possibility of him abusing his position in favor of Bairon. If that wasn't enough, the fact that Arthur had killed Lucas created a whole new level of potential problems no one wanted to risk having to deal with. No one would have admitted it, but the latter reason was the main reason he was not being considered.

"And we are honored to have you join us," Alduin replied with a small bow of his head.

"Now," Virion said as he gestured for Markus to take his seat. "How much of the provided information have you been able to read through?"

"About half," Markus said with a tired tone. "I knew a lot was happening behind the scenes that most of us didn't know about, but I had no idea it was to such a degree."

"It's impressive that you were even able to get through that much," Pasta commented. "It took me that long just to bring myself up to speed on current events."

"Do you have any questions about what you've read so far?" Priscilla asked.

"Hmm, I'm sure they'll be answered in later reports, but I was curious, we captured so many ships from the attack on Etistin, and are fully capable of building more of our own, why isn't there even any discussion on the possibility of launching an attack against Alacrya?"

"Because it's suicide," Buhnd replied as he took a puff of his pipe.

"Excuse me? Can you please elaborate?"

"You're right that answer is further in the reports," Arthur said from his seat between Virion and Alduin. "But I'll just tell you. Their version of our adventurers, Ascenders, are on a completely different level compared to most of our mages. They are mostly formally trained mages who can operate with complete strangers while using effective strategies, they have to be in the yellow core range just to undergo ascender training, and there are thousands of veteran ascenders who are in the mid and light silver stages."

"If they're so powerful why haven't we seen them?"

"We probably have seen a few who volunteered, but for the most part they want to stay in the relic tombs where they can make more money than they would know what to do with. Agrona won't force them to fight, he needs them in the relic tombs gathering information and relics for him to aid in his research into Aether. That said, if we were to try and invade them, he wouldn't have to order them out to fight us, they would all come out on their own to meet us, and we wouldn't even stand a chance."

"So in other words this war will never end," Markus concluded, sounding defeated. "Even if we keep defeating them they'll just escalate the war more and more until either we're defeated, or this continent is in ruins."

"Not necessarily," Arthur said matter of factly. "Our hopes are that after our own relic tomb dive we'll have what we need to bring this war to an end."

"Well what about the Asura?" Markus asked. "Surely they would help us if we were to go to them. I read you are even capable of creating portals of your own. Maybe you could create one to their home and ask for their help."

Arthur instantly scoffed, catching everyone's attention. Arthur never spoke of the Asura to them when he spoke of turning back time, only that one of them gave him the tools he needed to escape captivity. Viron of course knew more, but even he didn't know why. However with not only his experience as a leader, and his knowledge of Arthur, he theorized that the Asura did something, something that Arthur felt was unforgivable. Seeing that he knew Arthur could put his personal feelings aside for the greater good, Virion could only shutter at the thoughts of what could have happened.

"The Asura made their choice the second they attacked Agrona the last time. They don't have faith that we can win this war, and if they wanted to they could have still sent someone in secret with artifacts and elixirs to help us. We can't count on them, not now or ever again."

—————————————————————-

The day's training was done. Tess stepped out of her and Arthur's bedroom after having just taken a shower and changed into a white and light blue dress before heading to Alice and Ellie's apartment for a family dinner. However Due to this being Markus' first day in the council, the meeting was taking longer than normal so that he could be completely brought up to speed on the necessary topics. This meant Arthur, her parents, and grandfather were going to be a bit late.

She looked around the apartment with a look of satisfaction, as it really looked like a home. Not long after arriving in the sanctuary Tess began requesting other items like dressers, a mirror, a couch, proper cooking and eating utensils, and various other items for decor. From how things sounded, even after the relic tomb dive they weren't going to be returning to the floating castle, meaning this would ultimately be their home till some time after the end of the war.

"I should probably throw our dirty clothes into the laundry artifact," Tess thought out loud.

She threw all of their dirty clothes into the artifact and closed it as water started to fill. She then started to look around for something else that needed to be done before Arthur got back. Suddenly she froze as she looked into a mirror hanging from the wall. She just stared at herself, clean and neat with a little makeup on. She had looked at herself in the mirror earlier, but only now did she not recognize the person staring back at her. It was her face, but it also didn't feel like her. This didn't make sense, and she found herself blaming Arthur for it, making her now feel guilty.

"Hey Tess," Ellie called from the doorway. "Can you come give us a hand getting dinner ready?"

"Y-yeah sure," Tess replied and followed Ellie to her apartment.

In the kitchen Alice was cooking up a storm, the smells of the meal filling the entire apartment with delicious smells. Despite the weeks they all lived together in the sanctuary, this was the first meal the two families were having together. Tess' parents had originally suggested having the cooks prepare a meal for them, but Alice insisted, mostly because she had absolutely nothing else to do down there.

"Do you need my help?" Tess asked as she walked in.

"Yes thank you. Can you help with dessert? I nearly forgot about it, and Ellie seems to be too busy to help."

Ellie just ignored the comment as she worked on some maintenance on her bow.

Tess began mixing ingredients to make cookies as her thoughts from earlier swirled through her head. She wanted to talk to someone, but felt her family wouldn't be of much help seeing as they were royals and probably wouldn't understand since they've always lived like this. She then remembered her family would soon be growing and looked over at Alice.

"She's been an adventurer, a housewife, mother, lived both poor and rich. Maybe she can help," Tess thought to herself.

"Umm Alice, can I talk to you about something?"

"Of course," Alice replied without looking over as she cooked.

"After you got married, did you feel negative towards Reynolds about quitting being an adventurer?"

Alice paused for a second.

"Well, I didn't quit being an adventurer right away. We kept at it for a few months after. Actually we didn't quit until after I learned I was pregnant with Arthur. After that I was too busy to feel negative toward Rey, outside of normal pregnancy mood swings."

"I see," Tess replied, sounding disappointed.

"But a little while after Arthur was born, I did start feeling like my life was being wasted there, and I blamed both of them."

"Really?"

Alice nodded with a shameful expression.

"I missed the thrills of diving into a dungeon with everyone, my friends. I did my best to hide it, but I guess Rey noticed. He got one of the wife of one of the farmers he worked for to watch Arthur for the night and gave us a romantic night in." A smile formed on her face as a few tears escaped her eyes. "That night he told me something I never expected, and will never forget. He said, "Alice, thank you for being on this adventure with me." She whipped away the tears. "Rey always did have a special way of looking at the world. He saw this new stage of our life as an all new adventure. I was so focused on what I lost, that I didn't see what I had. Life in itself is an adventure, it's not like dungeon diving, but it's still an adventure. New unexpected things will pop up out of nowhere and leave you panicking on what to do, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll form new memories you'll treasure forever."

"I take it that you're feeling similar?" Alice asked as she turned to look at her future daughter-in-law.

Tess nodded. "I feel like I'm being domesticated and treated like a glass sculpture. I've practically lived in the beast glades for most of the war, only coming to the castle every couple months, and only for a few days. But now after I've been back for so long, I'm feeling like I don't belong here, that I need to be out there instead, with my capabilities I believe I'm more suited out there."

Alice placed a hand on her shoulder. "It'll pass. It's normal to feel this way, but this, being surrounded by people who care for you, in the middle of civilization not out in the bush, this is where we are meant to be, regardless of race. Just as that became normal for you and I, this will too."