The smile on Eres’s face as he lunged towards the pockmarked leader was nearly feral. He got in close before the man could even get his marred and chipped shortsword out of its sheath and slammed the palm of his right hand into the man's sternum. The rush of air out of the thief’s lungs was quickly cut off as Eres cracked a left hand across the jaw, sending him spinning back into the wall of the alley he had stepped out from.

  Eres looked back and saw that one of the other men was already lying on the floor with blood spilling from his mouth as he groaned unintelligibly. It looked like he had gotten the business end of Freya’s staff before she had moved on to corralling one of the others against a wall, keeping the dagger-wielding man at a distance with her staff and waiting for an opportunity to finish the fight.

  Myla was fighting the other two at the same time, but both of the men had already been disarmed, and their knives lay off in the distance as Myla bobbed and weaved, slamming punches into their midsections whenever they lunged to grab her. Their movements were sloppy and untrained, but fighting multiple opponents is always dangerous, and seeing her in that situation brought a scowl to Eres’s face.

  “Myla, stop playing with your fucking food, now isn’t the time!” Eres shouted. He saw her shoulders slump a little at being caught out, but she quickly darted forward and brought her hands around the back of one of the men's heads. Before they could react, she had brought it down fast, crunching her knee into his nose once, twice, three times before throwing him to one side to land in a bloody, groaning heap. She closed on the next man, teeth bared as Eres turned back to his opponent.

  Scar-face was climbing up off the ground, shortsword now drawn, spitting blood on the floor next to him. As he stood, his left hand flashed from under his cloak, and Eres swayed to the side as a knife cut through the space his head had just occupied. Off balance now, he wasn’t able to completely stop the following thrust towards his stomach, the tip of the blade just barely reaching his shirt.

  The blow didn’t draw blood, but suddenly, Eres felt a panic envelop him. He remembered being Adrian, remembered the knife sticking out of his gut as everything went cold. Remembered worrying about his Mum, the kid that almost got stabbed, and even worrying about what came next. He hadn’t imagined he would get a second chance, let alone in a world like this one, and the idea that it could be ended all over again by some asshole with a knife was something he couldn't accept. Whatever it was inside him that had felt so called to magic and adventure raged against the idea of it being torn away from him, and suddenly he was on the man in front of him.

  He didn’t remember knocking the man's sword out of his hand, nor did he remember tackling him to the ground and mounting him. He didn’t remember the first or second punch that he slammed into the scarred face in front of him, but he did remember the tenth. And the fifteenth. It was only as he was starting to lose count and the face in front of him began to look more like ground beef that he was hauled boldly off the man. He whirled around, hands raised to continue, to channel this burning rage into whoever had stopped him when he saw the wide, blue eyes staring at him.

  Myla had been the one to pull him off, the other assailants already down and in various states of injury. The shock on her face was enough to pull him out of whatever strange state he was in. The fact that he had been ready to fight her, hurt her even, made him feel sick to his stomach.

  “Freya… Heal him, please,” Eres’s voice was barely above a whisper, but she nodded at him and began her prayer, motes of light settling onto the man’s ruined face and body. Both of the girls were looking at him, concern etched on their faces, but he just shook his head. He would try to explain himself later but now wasn’t the time. “Now what? Do we take them to the guards?”

  “We bring the guards here if possible. I will tie all these guys together. Myla, go find the nearest member of the guard and bring him over here. It shouldn’t take long to explain all this.” Freya finished her miracle, and while he was still unconscious, Scar-face looked like he would survive just fine and wouldn’t spend the rest of his life only eating soup.

  Eres looked down at himself and thought that it likely wouldn’t be as quick a conversation with the guards as Freya thought. His hands were covered in blood, and his chest, face and hair were splattered with the red fluid. He felt his stomach twist but just shook the thoughts from his head.

  What will be will be, he thought, teeth worrying into his lip until he could taste metal on his tongue. This conversation will be easier than the one coming up, anyway.

  ***

  The conversation with the guards went nothing like Eres expected.

  Freya took charge of the conversation, quickly explaining what had happened to the squad of guards that came, even going so far as to explain that they had nearly killed one of the men but rendered them aid after the fight was over. Eres was ready to be questioned or at least have to go through a bit of due process, but instead, they walked away five minutes later with a handful of extra silver coins.

  “So wait, they knew what the guy looked like and had a bounty on him and his guys, but no one had found him and claimed it?” Myla asked, bouncing the Leons in her hand before she slid them into her coin purse. They were nearly back to the inn now, and the adrenaline crash had finally worn off. They were all feeling tired, but their hands weren’t shaking anymore and they all had enough energy to speak.

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

  “The bounty was too low for most any actual bounty hunter to bother with,” Freya explained. “It was a pretty recent one too, I gather, so they hadn’t done enough to raise the price and bring professionals in yet. Pretty common in towns, and if the guards catch them, they get the bounty price as a bonus, so it works on all fronts. Just glad we stopped them before they hurt someone.”

  “Huh, I guess that makes sense,” Myla pondered, opening the door to the Lanced Wyvern with her shoulder, eyes scanning the room before she stepped in. Eres hadn’t spoken since they started back towards the inn, but he had noticed all three of them were now being more vigilant after the attack. She raised a hand to the girl behind the desk with a smile as she decided the room looked safe. “Night, Sara! Had a bit of trouble out there, but we are going to bed down. Still good to use the baths in the morning?”

  “Sure, they are open whenever. Breakfast is served until the tenth bell, so make sure you come grab a plate before then!” Sara smiled at them as they walked in but faltered when she saw the state of Eres. “Oh wow, are you all okay?! Do you need me to call a doctor? Or the guards?”

  “Don’t worry, Sara, we already saw the guards, it's all sorted,” Freya said, letting out a long sigh. “I think we just need to wash up, sleep and then wash up again. We will be fine after that.”

  The young girl nodded a little too quickly, eyes still wide and flicking to Eres blood spattered face every few seconds as she said, “Of course. I will get some water heated and brought up to your rooms. The baths themselves are shut this time of night, but no one will mind if it's just a bucket or two.”

  “Oh gods, yes,” Freya nearly moaned, just barely keeping her composure. “I thought we would have to scrub off in cold water. Sara, you are a lifesaver. Bring them up to Eres’ room, please? He needs it first, I think.”

  Sara nodded as they headed off, feet scraping up the stairs wearily. Eres could feel the knot in his stomach coiling and uncoiling like it was a snake. He had spent the entire walk back trying to work out what to say and was coming up empty. He had had a whole plan about a gift and explaining everything, but he had never thought he would need to explain how he died. Gods, he hadn’t even realised that it still affected him.

  Sure, there were nightmares back when he first remembered that life. Those first few years, he hadn’t had a night without remembering how the knife felt going in and how his life felt bleeding out of him. It had faded with time, and now he barely even remembered it. Or so he thought. He thought he was over it, but clearly not.

  He was so preoccupied by his thoughts that he barely even noticed the girls leading him into his room and sitting him at the small table, nor the gentle feeling of them wiping blood off of his face with a warm cloth. It was only when Freya called out to him that he snapped out of it, the world coming back into focus.

  “Eres, love,” Freya said, her voice low and gentle, “Are you okay?”

  It was so unexpected that he nearly burst out laughing. He had almost killed a man for no reason, almost hurt Myla and hadn’t spoken a word to them since the event, not reassuring them or even apologising. Despite all that, the first question they asked was whether or not he was okay. A few tears slipped down his cheeks as he looked up at the pair of them and saw the concern and the care in their eyes.

  “No, not really,” He choked out, forcing a smile onto his face, “but I will be, eventually.” He scrubbed his hands up and down his face. His eyes felt gritty, but his brain was still moving far too fast to even consider sleep. Distantly, he noticed the barest scratch of stubble along his cheeks. He couldn’t grow a proper beard as Adrian, it was a patchy mess at best. He wondered if it would be different this time.

  “Eres… obviously something is wrong, and if you don’t want to talk about it, I don’t think either of us will make you,” Myla spoke in the same soft tone as Freya, almost as if they were afraid of startling him. “But if we can, we want to help or at least hear what is wrong so we can work out how to help.”

  Freya nodded emphatically. “Please let us help. We want to help you, just like you would want to help us.”

  Eres nodded slowly. “Alright. Honestly, this is pretty overdue. It’s just not how I wanted this to go, not at all. You remember all those years ago when I explained about my Blessing and about that… other thing.”

  “The Gods, yeah, I remember.” Freya nodded her head cocked to the side thoughtfully. Myla was slowly nodding in the background, but Freya continued. “Did you lie? Is that what this is about?”

  Eres winced at how close she was to the truth. “No, not directly. But I didn’t tell you the whole story. Have you heard of past lives?” The pair shook their heads. Eres had expected as much; all the research he had done showed it wasn’t a common theory in this world. “The story doesn’t start with me. It starts with a guy named Adrian Holcaster. He lived somewhere else, a world called Earth. There was no magic there, no monsters or dungeons. Instead, there was science and technology. Some buildings stretched thousands of feet into the sky, and some cities contained millions of people, all living together. Just like here, some people were rich and some were poor, and there were wars and conflicts.

  “For Adrian, though, it was a peaceful life. His father left before he was born, but his mother loved him dearly. She raised him on his own, but their life was easy, never wanting for much. He went on to learn at a university, a place where they teach all sorts of things. He was learning about books and writing when something happened.

  “There was this kid and a man threatening him with a knife. Adrian got the stupid idea to get involved. He got the kid out of the way, but not before he got stabbed. He got stabbed trying to save a kid in a moment of stupid heroism, and he died. I died. It wasn’t until I was ten that I remembered all of this. It was almost like I woke up from a dream and suddenly had two sets of memories in my head.

  “I’m not Adrian, not anymore. I’m still Eres. I just… I remember another life, another world. And I have been terrified of telling either of you for years, in case you thought I was crazy or you thought I wasn’t really me. Then time passed, and I was terrified of telling you because I hadn’t for so long, and I had been lying to you, and I just…

  “I had a plan, you know? I was going to buy you guys some gifts and tell you the truth and then see if you wanted to go on travelling with me. That is what I am really scared of, I guess. That this changes everything, and that you will both leave. And I won’t blame you if that is what you choose. I just…”

  Eres finally trailed off, realising he was rambling. He slowly looked up from where he had been picking at his nails, looking for the reactions of the two people he had realised mattered most in the world.