The woman floating above the rest of the council members might’ve had the longest hair I’d ever seen. It was a light platinum shade and easily went past her hips, to the point that it draped over and covered parts of the thin sword she sat upon.

  The collar of her robes was loose, enough so that much of her collar was exposed, and the sashes that draped from her arms seemed to house multiple knives with small leather sheaths.

  Her skirt was cut higher than most, though she kept her legs crossed. She lazed upon the weapon as if it were a full sofa cushion, despite the blade being so thin it was barely three dimensional.

  Her eyes were a deep sapphire. They were compelling. Likely dangerous.

  She didn’t speak as I entered the pavilion and sat upon one of the provided cushions at the left side of the room.

  Honestly, I hadn’t considered it until now, but my acting skills were about to be put to the test. Typically, I didn’t really have to worry that much about impersonating Cael properly. Amara seemed to be more than willing to accept a change or two in his behaviour.

  But when it came to these guys, regardless of how many interactions they might’ve had with the previous Cael, I was sure a whole room of them would notice if I sounded especially alien. I needed to get the speech and customs right, or at the very least try.

  Luckily, I’d gotten decent at tapping into Cael’s memories for this. A hundred similar meetings he’d witnessed back home flashed into my brain.

  Once I’d taken my position and bowed to the council, as I knew was expected of me, a man to the girl’s right finally spoke.

  “In the interest of prudence, let the record state that members Janos, Kiro, and Petyr are regrettably absent from this meeting.”

  He motioned to a small group of empty chairs in the far corner. Then continued.

  “Now, we have exactly three matters to get through today, and we wish to handle each of them in order of importance. The first is the one regarding the curious case of Cael Soulgrave.”

  There was a series of murmured agreements as they said my name. The council member speaking, a man with a sharp face who looked to be in his thirties, continued with a more pointed tone.

  “You arrived at Skyreach around six months ago. While with us, in your first two months, you were able to break through to the third stage of Tier 1. Your progress since has been average, and it was not seen as necessary to provide you with any personal tuition, nor to advance your studies.”

  I simply remained bowed and continued to listen patiently. I knew I wasn’t expected to speak here. This was more for the benefit of the others in the room than it was me.

  “Around four weeks ago, you were discovered to be meeting one Amara Regis in secret, despite her being promised to Damian Voss. Following a duel that narrowly skirted abuse of the guild’s laws,” he lingered on that statement for a moment, eyeing Damian, alongside the other four men sat with him that wore his colours, “You were reportedly… almost killed after one kick.”

  Hearing that made my cheeks heat and my chest hurt. It hadn’t even been me when it had happened! It still felt embarrassing to hear recounted so formally.

  “You were then hospitalised for the next two weeks. After reawakening, you began training and moving in and out of the guild in secret, until becoming hospitalised once more following a spirit beast attack.”

  Now it was time for his back to hurt. Did we have to go through all of mine and Cael’s fuck ups one by one?

  “Finally, after another week in the hospital, you awoke again, only to challenge Damian Voss to a duel and fight him to an eventual stalemate.”

  “Elder, I assure you that Damian was the victor,” one of the Voss clansmen began. “He—”

  “Please.” the councilman waved a hand. “You will have your turn to speak.”

  He cleared his throat, waited to ensure quiet, and then continued

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “As I was saying, it is said that you fought Damian Voss to an eventual draw, with your most notable attack during the encounter being… a kick to the nether regions.”

  It was difficult not to snicker at that.

  Floating sword lady seemed to agree. I saw her flash a smile.

  “Does that account sound accurate to you, Cael?”

  Shit. All eyes on me. Time to test my acting skills.

  “Ahem. Yes, honoured elder.”

  “And would you say that a sequence of events such as this one is… typical?” the man asked, his expression unreadable, a sparkle behind his eyes.

  “I…” I gulped. What the fuck did I say to that? “I realise that I employed a rather… irregular fighting method. I understand if I’m to be reprimanded for my disrespect.”

  The councilman laughed. “Oh, heavens, no, boy. If it’s life or death, by all means.” His smile quickly evaporated. Replaced by a face of steel. “No. What me and my fellow coucilmen fail to understand is how exactly it is that you were able to match a fighter who, at the time, was three entire stages above you?”

  I… didn’t say anything. Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell to say. How did I answer that?

  “It’s not that such a thing is completely unheard of,” the man continued. “It’s simply that only a month prior to now, we have it on record and good authority that you were not any match for Damian Voss at all. Would you say that is accurate, Damian?”

  Damian seemed to hesitate for a moment, looking between the councilman and me, but eventually nodded.

  Damn, his eye looked swollen. I’d fucked him up pretty good, and it was on display now for all to see. In fact, considering a lot of my wounds had been on my arms and belly, he currently looked like he’d come off from the fight a lot worse than I did.

  Which… I assumed didn’t help my case.

  “A ponderous situation,” the councilman said. “Naturally, we all are wondering how exactly it is that you’ve managed to gulf such a wide gap in power in the span of a few weeks, most of which you’ve spent in a hospital bed?”

  His eye twinkled with curiosity. His tone was sombre and kind.

  But this was the beginning of an inquisition. I could almost taste the distrust exuding from him.

  “In truth, honoured one, I was recovered far before I left the hospital. I snuck out at night so that I could devote more time to my training. I imagine that must’ve contributed somewhat to the increase in my power.”

  “An increase you managed while injured, in less than a month, that you couldn’t in the five months preceding?”

  “I…”

  “An increase you were unable to make whilst consuming two premium elixirs per week, spending thousands of gold in the process?”

  Shit, they knew about that?! Just how clued up about me were they?

  “Were you able to discover some revolutionary training method to which we have all been blindly ignorant all this time?”

  I caught a dirisive laugh from one of the other elders. He spoke up after.

  “Merrick, you’re torturing the poor boy. Just accuse him and let us get on with it.”

  “I’m sorry, accuse me of what?”

  Shit. Wasn’t supposed to speak out of turn like that.

  The councilman, Elder Merrick, glared down at me as he made to stand.

  “Our first suspicion was one of theft, but all of the guild’s treasures and concoctions have been accounted for. Our remaining suspicion is one of supernatural interference.”

  Of… what?

  “To spell it out plainly, we believe that your body has been in some way possessed or otherwise transformed by a maleficent spirit or demon. That, or that you’ve been changed into a creature of the night, or have possibly made some nefarious deal with a monster in exchange for greater power…”

  He stepped forwards, brandishing a set of round prayer beads in his hand. “We intend to discover just what flavour of evil you are, and then purge it from our mountain forthwith.”

  He flashed a devilish grin. “Well, once we’ve learned all we can from you, that is.”

  I felt fear igniting in my belly as the elder stepped closer.

  I mean, sure, I knew I wasn’t a demon or a ghost or whatever, but how the fuck was I supposed to tell him that! Being a transmigrator is probably worse!

  Whelp, shit. Here’s hoping whatever their testing methods are can’t detect that.

  They probably couldn’t. Hell, maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I was imagining…

  The elder pulled out a silver knife as he walked towards me. Then he lit it on fire.

  Oh. Never mind.