[You all should read through the Author's note in the Auxilliary chapter before starting! 🩶]
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The world was Aetheris, a vast realm threaded with ley-veins of mana — the lifeblood of all creation, pulsing beneath every sky and stone. Mana was not merely energy, but essence.
Those born with strong Mana Affinity were revered, while those without it were condemned to live in the shadow of power.
Five continents floated within the endless aether, their positions dictated by their magical weight. From the lowest, where mana ran thin and corrupt, to the highest, where it blazed like starlight, a world built upon a clear, brutal hierarchy of power.
At the near-divine peak was Elysia (Rank 4), the High Continent, where cities floated amidst silver clouds, divine laws were etched into the sky, and celestial blood reigned supreme. Beneath them were the ultra-wealthy, isolated Thalorion (Rank 5), and the vast, wild, Beast Tribe-ruled Orrinth (Rank 3).
Seraphielle belonged to the lower strata. She lived on Valmyr (Rank 2), the cultural and academic heart of the weaker realms—a place of moderate magic density, where noble houses obsessed over bloodlines and Mana Affinity. The only continent lower was Elarion (Rank 1), the barren edge of civilization, a land for exiles.
In Valmyr, the ultimate measure of worth was the Arcane Vein—the awakened channel that marked one's true possession of Mana. Birth mattered. Bloodlines mattered more. But only those whose veins shimmered with mana light could command immense power.
While the ultimate mark of the subservient was to be a Beastman Shifter, a creature capable of shifting between human and beast forms, valued only as a sentient tool of protection.
And this stark truth was the air Seraphielle Caelthorn breathed, a truth she chose to defy the moment she turned seventeen.
The coming-of-age ceremony for a daughter of Marquis Caelthorn was a lavish, stifling affair. The rite required her to select a beast companion, and while other girls her age chose fierce Great Wolves or loyal Gryphon cubs, Seraphielle walked past the cages and the proud, noble beasts, her focus fixed elsewhere.
She chose Kaelen Veyrith, a Fox Shifter whose amber eyes held a gentle intelligence that belied his classification as a 'pet companion.'
For Seraphielle, the choice was simple: her entire life in the Caelthorn mansion was a study in cold neglect. Her father, Marquis Adrast, saw only the lack of a powerful Mana Affinity in her, a bitter disappointment compared to her younger, talented step-sister, Evelaine. Her stepmother viewed her with open disdain. From them, she received only hatred, disdain, and jealousy.
But from the moment she chose Kaelen? She received kindness. She received love, care, and silent devotion. He never judged her weakness, never mocked her lack of magic. In a house of ice, he was the single flame, and over the years, that gratitude curdled into something hotter, more complicated, and infinitely dangerous: love.
A year after she completed her academy studies, the secret relationship she and Kaelen shared became unbearable to her. Seeing the sneers and discrimination Kaelen faced daily—the subtle cruelties of the servants and the casual abuse of the guards—tore at her heart.
One rainy afternoon, as they sat in her private study, she brought it up, her voice tight with pain. "If only there were a way for you to be respected. To be treated like a basic human."
Kaelen, in his human form, had merely chuckled, his fox ears twitching slightly. "Perhaps if we married, Seraphielle, everyone would finally see me as a living being and not an object beneath their feet." It was a joke, a dark piece of humor based on an impossible premise.
But Seraphielle took it as a solemn vow. That night, she stood at the Caelthorn family dinner—a place usually reserved for silence and her stepmother's condescension—and announced that she had been in a loving relationship with Kaelen Veyrith for a year, and she intended to marry him.
The silence was deafening, swiftly followed by a chaos of fury.
"You shameless fool!" her father, Adrast, roared, standing so fast his chair crashed to the floor. "Marry a Beastman? You would disgrace this entire Dukal line for a filthy pet?"
Her stepmother launched into a string of mocking curses. Evelaine simply leaned back, laughing, the sound sharp and scornful. But Seraphielle didn't yield.
"I would rather die than be with anyone else," she retorted, her hands clenched so tightly her nails dug crescent moons into her palms.
"Then go die!" Adrast spat, cursing Kaelen.
The word snapped something vital inside her. Years of suppressed grief and anger burst forth. Seraphielle ripped off the facade of obedience they had all forced her to wear. "Go die? You think I should die? You cheating parasite! You didn't just break Mother's heart—you had a hand in her illness! Don't deny it! And look at Evelaine—you stole what was rightfully mine and handed it to her like a prize! I know things, Father! I know enough to ruin all your life's work if I wanted to! Just try me!"
With that final, earth-shattering threat, she left the room and the mansion, the thunder of the rain matching the storm of the family she left behind.
The news spread far and wide the next day. The kingdom was mesmerized. Seraphielle, previously seen as merely vain and arrogant, was now universally labeled a fool, a bastard, and a lunatic. She was the object of repulsive public insults—tarnishing her relationship with Kaelen, who remained her devoted rock even as every servant in the estate grew distant, insulting her behind her back. For months, the news was the hot gossip of kingdoms.
"Marry a Shifter? A Fox, of all things! The Caelthorn name is ruined. She truly is a bastard, not Liora's daughter at all."
"The Grand Duke will never accept this. She's thrown away her entire status for a pet. What vanity! They say he must have used some kind of charm on her—they're all untrustworthy, those Shifters."
"They say she threatened the Marquis! She's a lunatic! Good thing they'll lock her up before she tarnishes the whole capital."
All the while, Marquis Adrast was constantly traveling to the territory of the Grand Duke of Aurenvale, the lord his house served under. Unknown to Seraphielle, her foolish rebellion had reached the King's ears.
The King had been prepared to order Seraphielle's imprisonment for the scandal, but upon learning she was the Marquis's daughter, he summoned Adrast instead. During that summons, the Queen, a cunning woman, cut off Adrast's pleas for forgiveness.
"Seraphielle is the late Lady Liora's daughter, correct? I hear Liora owned a key to the legendary secret dimension that was lost centuries ago. That key is currently in Seraphielle's hands, is it not?"
Adrast slowly nodded.
The King understood the Queen's unspoken demand.
He declared that the Beastman marriage could be fulfilled, but she had to pay. When the Marquis returned home, he called Seraphielle and told her the sole condition for him to accept the marriage, claiming he had already pleaded on her behalf to the Duke.
Seraphielle said she would think about it. But a few days later, after a nasty incident where townspeople had thrown refuse at Kaelen in the street, her resolve hardened. The love and protective instinct she felt were overwhelming.
She agreed.
She went to her chambers and retrieved the last memento of her mother—the document she didn't know was the key to a secret dimension—and gave it to her father, sacrificing the only thing of value she had left, all for the man she believed loved her, and for a freedom she was desperate to secure.