Sara’s POV

For some reason that I cannot quite explain or put into words, mornings like this one lately have been filling me with joy and happiness in a way that I have not felt for a very long time.

But it was not the morning itself that was responsible for my smiling so much—the sun rising over the trees, the birds singing their songs, the gentle breeze carrying the scent of flowers.

Those things are pleasant, yes, but they are not the cause of my current delight.

The shifting sounds of my duster hitting my window as I cleaned the wood seemed to be what made me smile, the rhythmic tapping and scraping echoing through my chamber, but it was not the cleaning that brought the expression to my face.

Squeezing water off a rag and wiping down my furniture, cleaning my room from corner to corner, also was not what made me smile, no matter how satisfying a clean space might be.

Though, I suppose folks who saw me right now might mistake my current delight for a love of cleaning up my chamber, so happily was I going about my chores.

It has been two weeks since my beloved came back to me after his worrying absence.

And about a week since he fully evolved into a magnificent demigod, his power and his presence growing beyond anything I had ever seen in a single being.

I was simply so happy to see that he was fine and well, and still as cheerful and playful as he had always been.

Though, I must admit, he seemed almost too cheerful at times—he appeared far more confident than he had been before he was initially abducted.

Mother seems to have gotten on the good side of the beast queen who stole him before, which surprised me at first given how angry she had been about the kidnapping.

But I watched their interactions for a while, studying their faces and their body language, then I realized that whoever Benjamin chooses to spend his time with has to be acceptable.

And I believe that I must respect his choices.

Though I will still keep watching from a distance, just in case someone tries to hurt him again. That is my right as someone who loves him.

Oh?

Someone is suddenly covering my eyes from behind, two warm hands pressing gently against my eyelids, blocking out the light of the morning sun.

"Guess who...?" The person said from behind me, their voice light and playful, obviously trying to disguise their normal tone but not doing a very good job of it.

Haha.

Still as silly as ever, I see.

Even after becoming a demigod and gaining so much power, he still plays games like a child.

I already heard your voice, my love. You cannot hide from me that easily.

However, it was truly amazing that I did not sense any movement in the air when he approached me, no displacement of the space around my body, or shift in the pressure against my skin.

Talk less of the presence of energy or magic, which was completely absent from his movements.

That person was practically invisible to all of my senses, as if he had simply appeared behind me out of nowhere.

Incidentally, for some reason that I do not understand, I have received some new powers and a significant leap in my magical energy reserves during the past few weeks, following Benjamin’s return to Verdant Spire.

The changes came to me without warning or explanation, gifts that I did not ask for but am deeply grateful to have.

One of those gifts is that my "spiritual" senses — my ability to perceive souls and the connections between them — have blossomed beyond anything I believed possible for an Amazon of my age.

This is different from magic, in the sense that magic deals with external forces and elemental energies, while spiritual perception deals with the souls of living beings, and treats them like magic in terms of how they can be sensed and manipulated.

We Amazons train in both spiritual and magical methods from a young age, learning to perceive both types of energy and use them in our combat techniques.

But magic mainly dominates our training, because the soul is completely wrapped in magic in most living beings, making it difficult to perceive directly through all the layers of magical interference.

Others sense magic deeply, and that is enough for most purposes.

But now, after whatever gift I received, I can sense souls deeply as well, and I can even strike at them directly if I needed to.

So... I know who is behind me, even if mildly...

"... Benjamin, is it not too early in the morning for such childish games? The sun has barely risen and you are already sneaking up on me from behind," I held his hand gently and turned to face the slightly shorter person standing behind me.

"Eh?! How could you possibly tell it was me? I was being ultra sneaky!" His beautiful blue eyes went wide with genuine surprise, his eyebrows rising high on his forehead. "And Sys was seriously going full throttle with the stealth abilities too, hiding my presence completely..."

What is a... sis? Seize? Sister?

The word sounds foreign to me.

Well, Benjamin says some strange things all of a sudden sometimes, using words that I do not recognize or understand, but I am very used to it by now.

It is just one of his many quirks, and I have learned to accept it without questioning every little thing.

He is not insane, I believe. He simply has a very wild imagination and a vocabulary that draws from worlds I have never seen.

I embraced him warmly, pulling his body against mine, and his warm face pressed comfortably into my bosoms as I held him close.

"Good morning, my love. I am glad to see you."

He looked up at my eyes, his face nestled against my chest, giggled a little bit, and greeted me back with that soothing voice of his.

That voice that I have come to love so much, that voice that makes my heart flutter and my worries fade away.

If I do not hear that voice for another half a month, I will surely run mad from the silence and loneliness.

"How is the baby doing inside you? Are you sure you should be working at all with a child growing in your belly? Should you not be resting instead of cleaning your chambers?" He asked, putting one of his hands gently on my stomach, his palm pressing flat against the skin of my abdomen.

"I only found out that I was pregnant roughly three weeks ago," I explained to him, my voice calm and reassuring. "I can still fight some battles, in fact, even in my current condition. The baby is well protected inside me, and I am far from fragile. Amazons used to go to war with even a big tummy showing, you know. Our ancestors did not have the luxury of resting just because they were with child."