The first word that forced its way into my mind when I saw Amara was ‘bitch’.

  I didn’t understand that one bit, nor the wave of annoyance I immediately felt at her presence.

  Pushing against it was like fighting nausea. I tried to smile at her, but likely just ended up grimacing instead.

  “You’ve been training in such a condition?” she asked, feigning concern.

  ‘Feigning’? How the hell did I know she was pretending!

  I tried to scan Cael’s thoughts and memories as quickly as I could. Truthfully, in all of this, how Cael felt about Amara had never crossed my mind because I’d just assumed he liked her! Like a normal person does when they get together with someone!

  Apparently not. The more I searched, the more I found that Cael’s opinions on Amara Regis—and women in general—appeared to be overwhelmingly negative.

  Then why was he…

  “I’m fine,” I spurted out after realising I’d been staring into space for about five seconds, and that she was beginning to look genuinely worried. “I…”

  Think. How does this guy talk?

  “I could never be bested by such a paltry foe. If the ground beneath me hadn’t been so uneven, I would never have slipped and had my victory stolen from me.”

  She stared at me for a long time before answering. “You realise you’ve complicated things a lot by surviving, don’t you?”

  Gee, that’s an interesting way of saying you’re happy to see me.

  See Cael. Whatever.

  “Hell, the fact they think we were laying together makes things even worse. I don’t know where they got that idea, but it’s blown everything out of proportion. My family think I’m damaged goods now.”

  I felt too lost to keep up with this. I also felt dizzy from the intense training I’d just been subjecting myself to.

  Those things managed to combine into me stumbling.

  Amara caught me. She was surprisingly strong for her slender frame.

  “Can you stop dying for a moment and be of some reassurance?”

  I stared up at her with lidded eyes, struggling to put my body back on its axis and stand unassisted. Took a few moments, but I got myself there, standing upright and leaning against the wall once more.

  I clutched my side.

  “You’re the one who told me that Damian Voss wasn’t a concern,” she accused, pointing her finger at me. “You’re the one who said that I’d be happier if I chose you,” she continued, jabbing into my chest. “And you are the one who promised me that when our meetings came to light, you’d write to your family and propose we be wed.”

  Her eyes shifted to a glare, piercing me where I stood. “Instead, the moment we were discovered, you challenged Damian to a fucking duel!”

  “Damian actually challenged me,” I said, as if that made anything remotely better.

  She looked like she wanted to hit me. Thankfully, she didn’t. Pretty sure one hit was lights out for me at this point.

  “You made me a thousand promises,” she said. “But it was my fault for believing them. Regardless, if you live, I still have a claim to the marriage you promised me. So my lot is stuck with you for now. Try to survive, dear.”

  It was beginning to hit me just how true her words were. Cael had known she was another guild member’s bride to be, one from a powerful clan who actually lived here, to boot, and yet he’d picked her out himself. Pursued her relentlessly, made many promises and bold claims to win her over.

  “Damian wants to kill me.” I stated the obvious.

  “Well, we need to do something about that. The only reason my family hasn’t exiled me already is that they think there’s a hair’s chance that the Soulgrave clan will accept me. If you die, I’m worried I’ll be next.”

  “Wait, they’d kill you?” I blurted.

  “Not my family, though my uncle might consider it. But no. I imagine they’d kick me out.” She sighed. “I’m not as strong as you, Cael, and my family name isn’t known or feared enough to keep me safe. Tier 1’s at my level get kidnapped, ransomed. Especially girls. When they find out no one’s willing to pay for me…”

  Yeah, I could fill in the blanks myself.

  Fuck.

  “Well, that’s only if people recognised you were an Ascendant, right? If you dressed like a commoner, maybe you could pass off as one?”

  She squinted at me. “Did you hit your head, or something?”

  “I hit my everything.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  She rolled her eyes. “Commoners can sense an Ascendant’s aura just by standing near them. Even a weak one. If I wished to avoid that, I’d have to live as a hermit. Build my own shelter, catch my own food… not much of a life.”

  “Yeah, screw that. Let’s try to avoid things getting quite that drastic, huh?”

  Amara’s eyes narrowed even further. “You sound less obnoxious than usual.”

  “I what?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t be bothered with the pretense anymore. I don’t know if your recent defeat humbled you or if you’re actually suffering from a head injury, but whatever it is, it makes you more tolerable.”

  “I’ve barely said anything…”

  “I know. It’s wonderful.” She grinned, then winced because of the forming bruise on her face. “Usually I can’t get a word in, you’re too busy boasting about your greatness, and your birthright, and blah, blah, blah…”

  She made a face like she was retching. I almost laughed, but that definitely wasn’t a Cael Soulgrave thing to do.

  Ah, screw it, I let myself chuckle.

  “Okay, so the goal is to keep myself alive, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And practically speaking, how do you help me with that?”

  I didn’t mean to come off as harsh, but I was genuinely unsure. Was she gonna help me train, or something?

  “Well, for starters, this might help.”

  She pulled open a little drawstring pouch that was hanging on a small leather belt around her midsection. Out of it she pulled a little yellow pill, which she immediately pushed in my direction.

  I eyed it suspiciously.

  “It’s D Grade. From my family’s personal stock. Way better than what they’ll spare on you in the outer guild hospital. They don’t even use healing spells there. Just basic alchemy.”

  Didn’t take much rooting through memories to conclude that this was strong medicine. Cael knew the type, too. Yellow pills like this were mainly for bone repair.

  I swallowed it with a flask of water she passed over and immediately felt a glow come alive within my entire skeleton. It was a dull, throbbing feeling, but not entirely painful.

  Then it was itchy. Itchy on the inside where I couldn’t do anything about it.

  After about ten to fifteen seconds, I heard a crunch, and it was like I’d just popped all of my joints at once.

  I slumped against the wall behind me. Not long after, I realised Amara had already pulled out another pill, this one purple.

  This one dealt with skin and cartilage, and was apparently E Grade.

  I swallowed it down to similar effects, though they were definitely less pronounced. The next twenty minutes involved me going through a whole range and spectrum of pills, every colour of the rainbow crushed into medicine and forced into my body to work on my organs and flush impurities from my body.

  It was a painful process, and by the time I’d been through every pill on offer I also stank like I hadn’t showered for a week. Something to do with removing impurities apparently meant they became manifest as nasty odors.

  Thankfully, Amara had thought of this. She’d brought along a change of clothes for me, presumably from my quarters, and a sponge for me to scrub at myself with.

  Joy. Nothing like stripping down naked in the cold and scrubbing at your aching body that you can barely move in the first place. Not to mention the lack of soap.

  Thankfully, she at least gave me my privacy while I went through this humiliating process. If anything, Amara was rather chilled out through the whole experience, considering how screwed up everything was for her right now.

  I’d only really been planning to work to keep myself alive up until now. Meeting her complicated things. Part of me had wanted to palm Amara off as ‘Cael’s problem’, but hearing her out and giving it even a little thought had led me to realise that wasn’t really possible. The two of us were kinda in it together now, and we had the decisions of my predecessor to thank for that.

  But that didn’t mean that meeting her made me feel more motivated. It was stressful enough having to fight for myself, having someone else be tied up in my fate felt more worrying than anything. If I died I’d probably get reincarnated again, but what about her? Life in exile sounded completely brutal.

  I resolved to consider it a good thing. Having an ally in all of this surely couldn’t hurt. She’d brought me medicine already, and whether she was particularly fond of Cael at this point in time or not, she was obviously invested in my survival. I could definitely use that.

  By the time I’d donned new clothes and stood up again, I felt a bit better about my position in the world.

  Maybe part of it was the medicine flowing through me. Maybe it was being clean. I’d been laid in that hospital bed rotting for god knows how long.

  “Thank you for all of this,” I said to Amara after I told her I was dressed.

  She smiled and nodded. It was a familiar and routine gesture from her.

  “And sorry about all the stuff I’ve put you through.”

  Felt right to say it. She didn’t seem to know how to take it though. She opened her mouth to speak, then faltered.

  Yeah… probably not my best Cael Soulgrave impression. I just couldn’t bring myself to keep it up around her, though. He was such an asshole, and she was already going through so much on his account.

  “It’s fine,” she eventually said. “I made my own decisions.”

  Even still, she sounded far less angry than she had earlier. If anything, that concerned voice was back. It was written all over her face too.

  God, I hoped she didn’t assume Cael was possessed or something. Last thing I need right now are the magic exorcists showing up.

  I tried to focus on more practical things. “So, any chance you can sneak me anything else to make me stronger?”

  “Nothing better than the elixirs you already purchase,” Amara answered. “If I took anything of a higher grade from our personal store, someone would notice it missing immediately, and they’d force a confession from me.”

  “Even if you diluted it after?”

  “Especially if I diluted it. Ever tried putting water in a mana elixir? The two don’t mix. It’d just float there at the bottom.”

  …Cael actually didn’t know that, so for once my lack of memory searching wasn’t labelling me as a bodysnatcher.

  Probably.

  “Besides, it’d have to be one hell of an elixir to bridge the gap between you and Damian. Your current body couldn’t handle something that potent.”

  Honestly, it was a crapshoot of an idea anyways. I already had blocked channels. More elixirs were unlikely to solve my problems.

  “Well, do you have any other suggestions?” I asked her.

  “None that you’re going to like.”

  I mulled it over in my head.

  “...got any books I could read?”

  Amara looked at me like I was an alien.

  What? Those were a thing here, right?