-18 years ago, just at the second year of the great war-

“Dodge!” Jace shouted, alarming Eireen of the upcoming assault. It was a second too late for her to back away, she slipped and fell down while staring at the flying flame flung at her; ready to accept her death. Jace rushed to stand between her and the flames; shielding her.

The sound of the fiery bullets hitting his body was deafening, combined by his groan of pain. He managed to conjure a shield right before they reached him but it only lessens the damage to 50 percent; he still got hurt pretty badly.

“Jace!” Amiera Llana, princes of Marama kingdom also Jace’s fiance quickly chant Holy Light to heal his wound, while Lyall Ursa, Jace’s older brother, and Dietra Stilla his wife were fending of Arcdiu one of the magical Beast from Blazing City dungeon.

“I TOLD YOU TO DODGE!” yelled Jace between his grunts of pain.

“I am sorry, I am too slow,” quickly Eireen stuttering an apology. Her lips trembled between shocked and terrified.

“Tssk, we’ll talk about this later, “ he stood up and flexed his body; ready to continue the battle, “stand back, just-- don’t do anything.”

Amiera gazed at Eireen with her dark jade eyes and gave her a quick cold smile, “you heard him, don’t worry, we got this.”

Eireen stayed back while contemplating on how much hell she would get later from Jace. She just couldn’t understand why he even picked her to be in the special squad. A group of elites that he gathered to prepare for the final battle against Goddess Calliea’s troops.

It was still fresh in her memory the first day Jace introduced her to the team, all eyes were on her; evaluating, sizing her up. It was rare for him to actually pick someone from the commoners, most of the elites were from well… elites. People who were born noble or at least had a high rank and skill in the military. So they were expecting something special from her, in which she has been failing to deliver.

The fact Jace had been personally training her, didn’t make her situation better either. Glares of envy and clicking of tongues followed her every move, some even snickered and mocked her when she made mistake by mistake. Under those pressured times, she quietly wished someone she could call a friend. Amiera was nice to her in the beginning until the rumors of Eireen being Jace’s possible mistress reached her. She started to give her a cold shoulder, despite how much she tried to explain that there was nothing going on between her and Jace.

-Snap!- a playful slap on the back of her head pulled her out from her reverie.

“Did you pay attention to the battle at least?” Jace looked at her; scrutinizing. They have finished dealing with Arcdiu, the magical beast had run away and somehow they decided to not chase it.

“…. Err y-yes…,” Eireen stammered; guilty as charged.

Jace made a face and gave out a long heavy sigh, “What should I do with you? I told you to stay back, not to daydream!”

“I-I am sorry…. I…”

Her words were cut off by his stern gaze, she gulped hard.

“Don’t be too hard on her, Jace. It is her first time joining the group mission, “ Lyall mirthfully calming Jace down, “though I don’t really understand why you insisted on taking her with us from the first place.”

Now Jace turned his attention toward Lyall; agitated by his words, “I wanted her to learn! Tssk, nevermind, let’s just wrap things here up. We are done for the day with a complete failure.”

Amiera softly put her hand on his shoulder trying to calm him down, “we still have time, don’t worry.”

Jace brushed her hand away gently and gave her a subtle smile that barely reached his eyes, “yeah you are right.”

He then turned his attention back to Eireen, “and you… don’t you even dare think you can get some rest tonight! I’ll see you at the training ground as soon as possible, you hear me!”

“Yes, master Jace…”

---

She stood in a defensive stance at the center of the ring in the secluded training ground, waiting for Jace. The place was his personal training ground that only a few allowed to use, not even his fiance allowed to be there without his presence. She had been standing there for more than an hour since they came back from the dungeon. The moon already high above her head, her back trickled with sweat, and her stomach protested with a rumble, yet she didn’t dare to move. The cold night wind brushed her skin, it was piercing and stabbing every tired bone she had and she shivered. It was his way on punishing her, if she even dared to move an inch from the spot, he would notice and added more hours to her punishment.

Her legs started to rattle, she bit her lips tried her best to hold on and not crumble to the ground. She started to taste blood when he finally showed up.

“At ease,” he ordered, in which replied by a relieved sigh from Eireen that quickly position herself in a more relaxed pose.

He came closer and looked at her eyes directly, “do you know your mistake?”

“Yes Master Jace!” she quickly answered.

He clicked his tongue, “tsk, I don’t think you know. Either you are too slow or just plain stupid to keep repeating the same mistake over and over again.”

Eireen looked remorseful, she didn’t dare to raise her head and let her gaze lingers to her old shoes. She wished she could ask him to release her from the elite troop duty. It wasn’t like she hasn’t tried to do so, there were many occasions she struggled in bringing the topic up but in the end, she stopped. His wrath was a force to reckon and she still wished to keep her head intact to her neck.

A whimsical nudge poked her forehead, “What are you mopping about with that brain of yours?”

“N-nothing master Jace,” Eireen clumsily shook her head.

“How many times have I told you to just call me Jace when we are alone?” Jace gave her a smile that would make any girl blush at the sight of it.

“But… that’s…”

“No, but! Call me by my name or I will add your punishment !” He playfully threatens her.

This was one of those times that she got confused about how he could be so nice at the same time mean to her. Their private training together so far was onerous, but there’s some random occasion where he was friendly and gentle to her. The thought about those gossips tiptoed into her mind, which she quickly brushed it off. There’s no way he was interested in her in that way, he already has his beautiful Amiera. The princess, he had chosen himself to be his future wife when his father told him to pick a wife to support his reign.

“What are you waiting for?” Jace raised his brows; waiting.

“… J-Ja-Jace,” awkwardly she tried to call his name.

“Again…”

“J-Jace…”

His satisfied smile rose up, “well that’s a start. Now… I am sure you are hungry.” He took out a pack of pepper and shrimp dumplings also a flask of herbal tea. He handed them to Eireen then walked towards the corner of the training ground.

“Come, sit with me. You should take a break and eat,” he patted on a patch of grass next to him, inviting her to sit, ”after that be prepared for some training. I am not going to let you rest till I see significant progress.”

Eireen gulped hard, she knew if those words weren’t just empty words.

---

20 minutes later…

They stood face to face in the middle of the ring; Jace took off his coat revealing his athletic build, which usually was the source of envy and adoration. As he flexed his muscle nonchalantly, the golden-haired king glanced at the girl with pink pigtails, who look so focused on preparing her defensive stance. He tried to find a glint of admiration from her eyes that he often received from many girls.

But there was nothing in her eyes.

He snorted; feeling annoyed.

“I am not going to hold back, be ready!” he warned her, pulling out his red source stone and gathered his fire mage essence aura.

“Yes sir!” she replied.

It’s pretty essential for people to have more than one job skill in this era of war, but not many who was as talented as Jace. At his relatively young age at the early of twenty, he managed to master 3 jobs; a brawler, a fire mage and a rouge. A source stone usually used to make people easily changed the skills they wanted to use. It carries the class’ essence aura, so they didn’t really need to carry too many weapons as their media to engage their skills.

He started to conjure a fireball on his right hand, “Try to avoid it as best as you can and I also want you to try your luck on landing a punch on me with your skill.”

Eireen raised her eyebrows; unsure.

“If you manage to avoid it all and actually hit me, I’ll reward you a week off,” he grinned when he saw the ambition started to set in her eyes, “Good, I see you like that. However if you failed…..”

Her face retorted, she knew that he would give her a grave punishment if she failed.

“… you know what… I’ll decide your punishment later.”

Eireen jaw dropped unconsciously. ‘This is bad, I have a bad feeling about all this. Oh, Goddess please let me win.’

“I’ll start now,” Jace started to throw the fireball in his hand at her. She took a side step to the right easily and the fireball blew up not so far on her left.

But it was just a start, Jace started to conjure more and more fireballs and threw them at her in a more faster pace. Soon enough Eireen was busy evading them, without a chance to launch an attack.

A fireball passed too close to her left face, she could feel the heat caressing her cheek and burned a bit of her pink hair.

She panicked and rolled to the right when she saw another incoming fireball coming toward her from the sky. It would have hit her if she didn’t manage to jump backward at the last second.

“Come on now, I am waiting,” taunted Jace, “or you are ready to accept your defeat and punishment?”

He still stood on the same spot as before.

“You won’t be able to reach me if u run that far away, “ Jace yawned, “don’t make me wait too long. I am getting bored here.”

Eireen stood, her breathing was rough, her body was covered with dirt and she could smell her burnt hair; tickling her nose. Her eyes swept the area trying to find an opening while still doing her best to avoid his attack. She wanted that one week off more than anything.

Jace was watching the girl as she was jumping, rolling, and sidestepping, trying to avoid all the attack that he threw at her. Her pink pigtails, flew around along with her every move. Making her looked like a butterfly; Pink Swallowtail; dancing under the rain of fire and ray of moonlight.

“Beautiful…” he absentminded whispered, which startled himself.

‘What… am I thinking…?’ Quickly he brushed off the thought and refocused on sending more bullets of fire at the girl.

But he couldn’t help his eyes to be so fixated at her every move, her image slowly blurred with his memory about the first time when she caught his eyes at the battlefield a year ago. She was beautiful and yet fierce. Her skill was below average and yet she survived every enemy attack. Her will to survive and to stay alive actually made her able to overpowering the stronger opponents.

That’s when he decided to have her.

‘Have her as a part of my elite troop of course. She is an unpolished gem after all. I want to make her shine with the right training,’he reasoned himself.

His mind trailed off and accidentally he conjured Fire Tornado at her instead of Fireball.

He saw her body flew vertically for a few seconds before dropped and rolled a few meters away from him, then stop moving.

Jace stood there shocked and didn’t really knew what to react. The next thing he knew, his body automatically rushed toward her; panic.

“Eireeen! I am sorry, are you okay?” He quickly turned her body to check on her. The entire worst possible thing he could think of rush in his mind like a typhoon. For once in his life, he actually worried about someone.

Suddenly a weak punch hit his jaw; it wasn’t strong enough to actually hurt him but enough to give him a jolt.

“There I got you~~, “Eireen weakly made a cheeky smile, “please keep your promise?’

Jace was stunned for a few seconds, to realize that she somehow managed to avoid that attack and tricked him to come closer and be defenseless for once.

His thunderous laugh roared, “Who says that you can trick me?”

“You didn’t say I can’t either, Master,” Eireen protested as she tried to sit back; feeling uncomfortable on their closeness.

A few moments ago she realized something was off when he took longer in conjuring the fireball, so she took a few steps backward for preparation and when she saw it was Fire Tornado, she managed to back flipped the attack, but the strength of the wind that came from it made her lost her balance, pushed and sent her up, then next thing she knew she had rolled on the ground .

It took her a few minutes to chase away her dizziness when she realized Jace already on top of her, rolled her to her back and cradled her with a concerned face. That’s when she decided to take the chance to land a punch on him.

“What did you just say?” Jace held her body down, stopping her from sitting back. He could see a confused look on her eyes,

“Say that again and I will cancel your win,” He added with a serious tone.

She gulped, didn’t want to lose her one week off; unsure on what she about to say was the right thing to do or not she timidly said, “Sorry… err I mean… J-Jace.”

“Smart girl, “ he smiled, “repeat that once more.”

“J-Jace..”

“Again”

“Ja…” before she managed to finish her word, his lips were on hers.

Her eyes widened, shocked and stunned for a few seconds before she started to push him away frantically but he was so much stronger than her.

“Jace Ursa! What are you doing?!” a cold voice broke his kiss.

There stood near the entrance of the training ground a girl with long icy blue hair looked extremely furious; Amiera Llana.