The Alliance, the Kingdom, and the Great Sea

The sun rose high, and birds murmured low. Warm sunlight lit the green mountain forest, adding a few bright strokes to the hot-spring valley. Autumn wind blew in from the woods, carrying the fresh scent of grass and trees, and twining with the steam of the springs until it seemed like an immortal realm on earth.

Xolotl lowered his head and gently kissed the sleeping Alisa, then rose from the grass bed spread with cotton blankets. He walked out of the wooden house beside the hot spring, and brilliant sunlight came straight at him, making him narrow his eyes despite himself.

"To think I slept all the way until noon..."

The young man murmured, stretched his body, and did a little simple warrior training, only to feel his waist and back ache, strength hard to summon. He looked back toward the inner room and could not help a long, faint sigh.

"...Ah! A land of tender charms truly is a hero's grave. However brave a man is, he can't withstand being entangled day and night."

Nashu came over silently with breakfast. Hearing His Highness's low sigh, she could not help blushing and pursed her lips.

A few days earlier, after His Highness had eaten certain nourishing things, he had been rather too brave. The princess had begged bitterly, truly unable to endure it, and had no choice but to order her to resist a few rounds. Though she knew martial arts, it had been her first time taking the field, and she had been slaughtered until blood floated oars, throwing away helmet and armor, sobbing beyond words.

By the next day, when the princess recovered her senses, she was both shy and angry, and deeply regretful. But as His Highness's Shadow Slave, Nashu was not an outsider after all, and