Cornelius had been sitting at his desk, planning his strategy for the upcoming assault, when he was interrupted by a knock on his door. He put down the quill he had been writing with and got up from his chair to open the door. Standing in front of him was an unfamiliar soldier. He stood at attention, straight like a rod.

“Yes?” he asked the soldiers, ‘Hmmn, I wonder what he wants,’ he thought.

“Sir, you have a visitor waiting for you at the canteen,” he said his face not betraying any emotion.

“Who is it?” he asked unsure who it could be.

“She said that she is your fiance, sir,” the soldier replied, ‘well that still did not help much considering he had two but logically it could only be Lady Moon,’ he thought.

“Lead the way,” he said motioning him to move, and so he followed the soldier to the canteen. When he arrived he found Leonidas conversing with Lady Prudence and to his amusement, he was actually trying to court her.

“... Just think of it house Helios and House Moon what a union that would be,” he heard Leonidas say as he made his toward them stopping right behind Leonidas.

“You know it is in poor taste to try and court another man's fiance,” he said an amused smirk marking his face, this caused Leonidas to flinch back in surprise he almost lost his balance as a result but quickly corrected himself.

“And what do you mean by that Captain,” he said the last word dripping with sarcasm it was clear he did not respect the fact that Cornelius had been promoted. Instead of answering Cornelius ignored him and walked closer to Prudence embracing her in a hug and giving her a light kiss, causing Prudence to blush profusely and Leonidas to look extremely confused, he would be lying if he said that was not deliberate.

“Wha.. what is the meaning of this?” Leonidas said with a mixture of shock and outrage, it seemed he had a crush on his fiance but no matter Leonidas never stood a chance anyway.

“What do you mean? What is wrong with a man embracing his fiance?” he asked questioningly he had to admit he was enjoying this more than he should have but he did not care he had been very busy recently and this was a pleasant distraction.

“You..you, you are engaged to him,” he asked Prudence pointing at Cornelius. “Well of course we have been engaged for years, he is actually the reason for my visit. I would have told you if you had actually given me the chance instead of blabbering about yourself,” She said in a polite tone

“Now if you would excuse us, my fiance and I have much to discuss,” She said while taking Cornelius’s hand and motioning him to take her further.

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As they walked away from a shocked Leonidas, Cornelius led her to his room for privacy, when they arrived he closed the door behind them. “So what is it that you wanted to discuss?” he asked curiously.

She let out a breath and sat down on the bed patting next to her so that Cornelius would sit, it seemed this would be a long conversation so he took a seat next to her. “First of I want to thank you for helping me with Leonidas, he has had an obsession with me since we were young,” she stopped collecting her thoughts before continuing “My mother said that you will be going to war soon?” She asked.

Seeing no reason to lie “Yes, we are going to attempt to conquer the Frozen Plain,” he said nonchalantly. This caused her to sigh “That is unfortunate,” it seemed she wanted to say more but her face suddenly became beet red causing Cornelius to become worried “Are you okay?” he asked his voice depicting mild concern.

“Ah…Yes, I am fine but uh, my mother said in the case that you actually were going to war um, we had to how should I put this,” she seemed very nervous which caused Cornelius to worry a bit. “We have to consummate the marriage a bit early,” she finally said her voice reaching quite a high pitch. “Uh, what?” he said not understanding what she was getting at.

She sighed before she said, “My mother is worried that you might die in this war, so she sent me here on the day that I am most fertile…” Now it was Cornelius’s turn to turn beet red.

Two weeks later…

It was time his unit would be setting out within the next two days, he had done everything he could in preparation but there was only so much one could do. He was currently in the dungeon of the fort heading to a specific cell, the one that held the Kalethi woman he had found out her name was Karra Liontusk she had been exiled from her clan which was the reason she was all alone. When he arrived at the cell he walked in and saw that Karra was doing some strange exercise, she had taken off most of her fur clothing and was in a tank top-looking leather shirt exposing her arms and shoulders. This was the first time he had seen her without all of the furs, he noticed she had these strange red tattoos marking her arms stretching all the way to her shoulders and vanishing within her shirt there was probably more but he did not really care.

The tattoos depicted Lions in different actions one was eating a wolf-like creature, while another looked to be hunting. Snapping out of his stupor he approached her and embraced her from behind, in the time he had spent interrogating her they had actually grown close to some degree, it was not like his relationship with Prudence and Abigail was more of a business deal than an actual relationship as was common amongst nobles, no he actually felt something for her.

Of course, no one could know of this it would end up being quite the scandal if it were to get out, so they had been putting up an act in the presence of others. She responded by turning around and giving him a passionate kiss before breaking away from his embrace and looking at him the concern on her face was obvious she made no attempt to hide it. “You are leaving soon,” she said more like a statement than a question.

“Yes,” he sighed “I want you to come with me,” he asked her, he did not trust the people of the fort for she had already served her purpose it was only a matter of time before they killed her and he could not allow that. “It is not safe for you to stay here, we can make it so that you escape while we are out there, you can finally have your freedom,” he said giving her another kiss.

“If that is what you want then I will follow,” she said while looking into his eyes, she was always so considerate. He could not allow her to die.

Two days later…

All the preparations had been made and it was finally time to set off on their mission, Cornelius’s squad consisted of Strom the earth shaper, Halva the healer, Thompson the muscle, and finally Karra. Initially, General Myers wanted Leonidas to be in his squad as well but Cornelius adamantly refused he clearly did not like him so he would only be a liability to his team and he had no illusions that he would not try something when they were so far away from civilization, because, after the whole Prudence situation, Leonidas’s general dislike of him had turned to hate.

Looking at his squad he felt a slither of pride worm its way into his heart, this was only the beginning of his goals but he knew he was on the right path. The squad set out on their journey descending down the mountain it was winter so the snow was thick underneath their feet the cold was extreme but at this point, they had ways of circumventing the cold through the use of mana they could circulate some of it through their channels causing their muscles to heat up.

He knew that the next few months would be long and hard he just hoped they were ready for what was to come.