“Cael…”

  “I’m okay.”

  I still hadn’t moved since those three had left. It’d been at least five minutes. I’d just been trying to process everything that was happening to me, to understand the reality of it.

  Cael Soulgrave, the arrogant bastard, had never really thought much of all the money he was borrowing. Money wasn’t a real concept to him. It was infinite.

  And because HE hadn’t thought much of it in all his time merrily spending and borrowing, I hadn’t thought much of it! Because I was stupid! Because Cael Soulgrave had assumed the worst that would come of his irresponsible lending was a strongly worded letter, and that he could get his family to pay it off whenever he wanted, and he’d just ignored the prospect of something like this happening! He didn’t even know something like this could happen.

  “If there’s anything I can do to help—”

  “I said I’m okay.”

  I snapped those words more than I meant to. I just. I didn’t know what to say to her. She’d had to watch all of that just happen to me. She was as powerless to do anything about it as I was.

  Those three were completely and utterly out of our league. That guy commanded elements like it was nothing. He looked young, but who knew how old he was. That guy that was the size of a mountain in his group was terrified of him. He’d manhandled him like he was a child.

  And then they’d taken my finger… what did they want with my finger? Why bother keeping it after? I thought taking body parts was just something mobs did to make you pay up, I didn’t think they held onto them!

  I finally crumpled the ‘receipt’ in my left hand and stuffed it into the pockets of my partially ruined robes.

  I sniffled, blinked away any emotion I could, and looked at Amara.

  “Let’s get back to training.”

  “What?!”

  “I said let’s do it. That last one healed most of my fatigue, so let’s just do it. I need to get back to it.”

  “Cael, you just had something horrible happen to you. You’ve just woken up from almost dying for a second time. You’ve just lost a finger. I don’t think training right now is—”

  “It doesn’t matter!” I finally raised my voice. I couldn’t help it. “I don’t have time to sit around feeling sorry for myself. I need to get this stupid fight out of the way so I can figure out a way to make money and keep the rest of my body parts. Do you understand that?”

  “I know that! I just wish that you’d…” `

  She trailed off. I stared at her.

  “What? What is it that you wish that I would do?”

  “You have a powerful family!” Amara announced, practically begged. “We could leave this place. Travel to your ancestral home. Have your debt written off and forget about all of this—”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No,” I repeated, almost growled. “I don’t want to. All my life, I’ve had to dance to my family’s tune. Do what THEY say or be cut off, be their little puppet or be a disappointment. I came here to get away from all that, and I don’t want to be bailed out. I refuse to be.”

  I turned to face one of the broken stone walls. I punched it as hard as I could. Felt my hand throb as the bricks fell. “Look! I’ve gotten stronger! Way stronger! I’m powerful enough to make it here. I didn’t go through all the shit I’ve been through up until now just to turn tail and run because things got a little bit tough! I won’t!”

  “Cael…”

  “No.”

  “Cael—”

  “I don’t care.”

  Amara watched me with horror in her eyes. She looked as if she might hit me, or cry.

  “You’ve not changed. You’re still the same proud bastard I met months ago, filled with all the same empty promises.”

  That hit me somewhere, reached past the mist that had descended over me.

  I… sounded like Cael Soulgrave. I was projecting all of my feelings about my past life onto this one.

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  She shrugged her shoulders. “Fine. You want to prove yourself, then do it. I can’t sit around and watch you hurt yourself anymore, though. It makes me too sad.”

  She turned and made to leave. I tried to call after her, to apologise, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it.

  Only when she was gone did the tears finally flow. Damn it… I punched the wall again. Harder. I smashed the stupid dull rock until my fist was shaking and numb.

  Fuck... What was I doing? How had I allowed myself to be so stubborn?

  Was this how little I cared about my new life? How much lingering resentment I felt for my old one?

  I’d told myself I wanted to protect Amara. Protecting her was getting her the fuck out of her situation at whatever cost. It wasn’t winning some stupid duel.

  I’d made it about that. About proving myself. She’d suggested she didn’t want to do this anymore earlier and I’d ignored her, assumed it was all out of simple concern for me.

  Now she’d brazenly come out and said we could leave together, and still I’d said no. For what good reason? I didn’t have one.

  Only selfish desire. I’d wanted to be the big man. It was born from simple confidence at first, from the strength I’d recently gained, but that same confidence had brought me to this place. Every scrap of happiness ripped out of me, superseded by the crushing reality of Cael’s mistakes catching up to him.

  I’d crashed to rock bottom, feeling smaller than an ant, and at that point, the prospect of sinking even lower still, of having the same life here that I’d struggled against my entire time on Earth, that had been too much for me.

  And so I’d pushed away the only good thing that had happened to me since I’d gotten here. I’d reminded her of the man who’d hurt and lied to her.

  I needed to apologise. If she wanted to run away with me, I would. I’d go wherever was safe for the both of us. Even in spite of everything, I knew that I’d rather live a boring life than risk hers. It wasn’t fair for me to do so.

  I tried to train on my own for a while, but it was half-hearted. I was constantly distracted by thoughts and worries and spikes of unwanted emotion. I couldn’t bring myself to work properly.

  I felt lonely. Beyond that I felt guilty.

  I didn’t go back to the hospital. Instead I walked my way to Cael’s quarters, which I’d never visited until now. The hut was small and on the outskirts of the guild, flanked by a few other rooms of a similar size.

  As soon as I slid the door open and entered, I found a slumbering form on my bed.

  She jerked awake as soon as I entered, looking flustered and surprised. She illuminated a small space around her with a brush of her fingers.

  …Amara slept here?

  “Wh-what are you—”

  “I’ve been using it while you’ve been in the hospital. I don’t want to deal with the questions when I come home past midnight.”

  “I see…” I walked into the dark little room. Sat on a chair in the corner.

  Maybe that’s why this place looked cleaner than Cael’s memories of it. I’d spied this place once or twice while rooting through them and had expected a complete dump.

  “About earlier, I—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Amara said. “You want to stay. You didn’t travel so far and borrow so much money to run away on my account.”

  “I didn’t, but I’m willing to go with you,” I said, speaking as earnestly as I could. “I want you to be safe.”

  “Just be honest with me,” Amara spoke. “Do you think you have a real chance of beating Damian? That if you stay, you’ll be able to pay off the money you owe?”

  I’d been thinking about both of these things the last couple of hours. Those, the argument, the fight with the enforcer, they’d been all that had been on my mind.

  Thirty thousand gold was what I owed, which from what I could deduce was a lot of fucking money. Maybe not insurmountable, but still a fucking lot.

  Paying that off was gonna take hard work. Dealing with interest possibly even harder.

  Then there was the other elephant in the room, Damian Voss.

  This one was more immediate. It’d been hanging over me since I’d gotten here. It felt like the true test that determined whether I was cut out to be here and live this life, or whether I was a complete pretender that never should’ve woken up in this body.

  And I wanted to settle that question. I wanted to know where I stood.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, and it was the truth. I knew I’d grown far stronger, but my only memories of the last fight with Damian were a single kick and Cael falling unconscious. Compared to how Cael had been then, he was insurmountable.

  “You should find out,” Amara said. “I think you can beat him. I don’t know how it happened, but I can tell you’re so much stronger than you were before.”

  “Why are you saying all of this?” I asked her. “Why not just run away with me like you wanted?”

  “Because,” Amara said, her eyes sharp, her face determined. “I heard what you said to me earlier. And you know what? Fuck your family. Fuck mine, too. We should be allowed to make our own decisions. I’m done lying down and letting people make mine for me.”

  “That’s a sudden change of heart,” I said. I eyed her cautiously. “Are you sure that’s really how you feel?”

  “It’s not sudden at all,” Amara insisted, shaking her head. “You’ve been cocky and arrogant from the day I met you. It annoyed me at times, yes, but it showed me a different path than just taking what life gave you. You took what you wanted instead. Did what you wanted. I wanted to be more like you.

  “Then you changed,” she continued. “But you still had that quality to you. You were still willing to live your own life on your own terms, and… I want that too. I’ve been scared lately. What happened to you earlier terrified me. But still you were brave. For a moment, I thought it was too much for me, but then I considered your words. In so many ways, our situations align, and yet you’re not running, and you’re not accepting it either.”

  She sat up. Wiped a hand across her face.

  “So I’m not running. And I’m not accepting it any more. I’m gonna follow the example you’ve shown me and do what I want. Screw anyone who tries to stop me.”

  “So… the plan’s just to rebel against everything?” I said, the hint of a laugh in my tone. “That’s hardly a plan.”

  “Oh well. You in or you in?”

  She didn’t need to ask.

  Tomorrow, come first light, I was finding Damian Voss and fucking him up.

  Or dying. Either or.