Chapter 399: When Love Takes Root
After her drills with the recruits ended and the clang of swords faded into the distance, Kane Mendel slipped into her black training gear and made her way toward the eastern edge of the grounds — a secluded grove bordered by dense rows of cypress and lush shrubs. The rest of the soldiers rarely ventured there. It was a quiet space, and she needed it. That’s where she trained the ones often overlooked by the battlefield — the women.
It had started small. Just a few curious members of the Gabriella Guild — healers, scribes, and messenger girls — eager to learn the sword, the bow, the basics of strategy. But word spread quickly. Within weeks, wives of blacksmiths, sisters of soldiers, daughters of stable hands came, unarmed but not unwilling. Even children — some as young as nine — stood in neat rows with fierce determination in their eyes.
Soon, they were over a thousand.
They wanted to learn to fight so when the time came, they would be of help and not a burden. They wanted to protect their home...their hope...their future.
Lara had split them into two groups — Sandoz trained the children with wooden swords and padded armor. She handled the women. Their training wasn’t as grueling as the men’s; an hour and a half each morning before they returned to their daily duties. But it was enough to spark something fierce in them.
Something that had long been buried.
The wives of the commanders, along with the elder guild women, prepared food during training. It was their way of showing solidarity — their men trained, and they fed the ones who strived to protect them.
That day, Thalia was hauling a steaming pot of rice nearly too large for her frame. Her thin arms strained, but she kept going. The makeshift dining hall was a long stretch of bamboo tables shaded beneath broad-leafed trees, banana leaves lining each surface like emerald table cloth.
A pair of calloused, sun-darkened hands reached out.
"Let me carry that," a voice said, deep and warm.
Thalia almost dropped the pot.
Before she could protest, the man had already taken it from her grasp. She looked up — and met a gaze that froze her breath. Dark brown eyes, calm yet smoldering, met hers with a quiet intensity that made her heartbeat stumble.