Physically speaking, I wasn’t doing well. The peg was just making the fact that my leg was missing all the more annoying, and on top of that, I had allowed myself to get stabbed just to catch the Roaring Claws’ with undeniable proof.

  And yet, I almost felt like I was on top of the world.

  I had questioned a lot why in the world I needed to get stabbed. Couldn’t we just have caught fake-Khagnio the moment he was within the temple? It turned out Thefris had a certain Aspect that would help make our case in the court much, much better if we allowed the Claws’ and Brasvay’s plan to nearly come to fruition.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the semi-translucent Councillor asked. She didn’t look as see-through as normal, especially her Rakshasa horns, which were basically solid. I wondered why. I also wondered just how much mana something like that cost. “You were summoned much earlier, Ross Moreland. To appear in this manner in the middle of the trial is unseemly.”

  I bowed my head a little. “Apologies, Councillor. It wasn’t my intention.” Well, it mostly hadn’t been my intention. I wasn’t the one who had asked the Roaring Claws to try and assassinate me. “But please allow me to explain what has been going on.”

  “I concur,” Councillor Ghistara said. “We should allow Cultist Moreland to continue. I believe he has the right extenuating circumstances for us to overlook this little transgression.”

  With my eyes wide and alert, I didn’t fail to notice at all how Brasvay’s glance snapped to the Councillor. She was getting looks from the other Councillors too. It was obvious now that whatever had happened, she was in on it too. Not that I had planned to hide her involvement.

  I cleared my throat. “Allow me a little time to explain.”

  I nudged my chin at the Scalekin who lay sprawled in front of me. He hadn’t bothered getting up, not even into a more dignified position. Made sense. After his failure, his life was over. The undercity was supposedly ruthless.

  Even if the city itself didn’t sentence him too severely, Ring Zero wouldn’t tolerate failure.

  “This man,” I said. “Is my would-be assassin.”

  Murmurs and gasps broke out in the entire courtroom. Several people leaned in to take a closer look at the Scalekin. I saw Revayne stiffening. Probably should have told her about the whole thing ahead of time, but well, there hadn’t been any time to do so.

  I went on and relayed the events up to my arrival at the court. Clearly and loudly, I told them all about how I had gone back to the temple before the Councillor could complete my healing, before I could properly settle back into my temple, before I could make preparations to attend the trial.

  All because Brasvay had intended to take me out before the meeting could even occur.

  “A lie!” Lord Brasvay had stood up again. “We would never stoop to such abhorrent means to get what we want.”

  He glared at me. There was the man who had sneered at me on Ring Four, who had tried to turn my friends and my fellow cultists against me too. I tried holding my face into a neutral mask like I had seen so many others do, but it was hard not to break into a growl. What I wouldn’t give to just punch him in the face for a change.

  “Do you have evidence of such a brazen accusation?” the Rakshasa Councillor asked. What was her name again? Ah, right. Githa.

  “I do, Councillor. Or rather, we do.” I cleared my throat. “Captain Revayne, do you happen to have any compliance draughts with you?”

  Revayne’s eyes marginally widened at the surprising question, but she shook her head regretfully. “We do not have them on hand, unfortunately. I could try and acquire them but—”

  Someone else cleared her throat. Someone I wasn’t expecting.

  “I have some.” Guard Commander Trikurag stepped out of the shadows to enter the central lit-up zone. “I assume you want it administered to the Scalekin, yes?”

  I nodded. “If you’d be so kind.”

  Despite the occasionally tenuous meetings I had experienced with the guard commander, we could at least pretend civility in moments like these.

  The Scalekin didn’t resist when the large, muscular Ogre force-fed him the little draught. I wondered if he could act like he had swallowed it without actually doing so, but Trikurag angled his head backwards and made sure the liquid had gone down.

  “All done,” she said.

  I nodded my thanks. “This Scalekin is a member of the Roaring Claws,” I told the gathered congregation. “One of the foremost gangs in the undercity. To be frank, I’ll admit I’ve had run-ins with them before. I’ve fought their members, including their strongest, a few times already. They know me and I know them.”

  “So this assassination could be for vengeance,” Councillor Githa said. “Rather than a ploy spearheaded by House Brasvay.”

  “There is no ploy,” Brasvay insisted. “What need is there for a ploy when we should be able to acquire what we want anyway?”

  “Right,” I said. “On the face of it, there doesn’t look like there’s a connection, does there? But if you query our friend here…”

  I got up close to the Scalekin. He was starting to look somewhat drunk. It felt a little weird to just ask someone something and get the answer, like they had no will in the matter. Compulsion was… wrong. But at the same time, I didn’t know of any other way to get someone to admit something. Asking might have worked if we were happy to silt the truth from the lies.

  “Udarthis,” I said. “That’s what you said your name was, right?”

  He stiffened and straightened as he prepared to answer me. “Yes, I go by Udarthis.”

  “You’re from the Roaring Claws, right? And your leader, on the operations side at least, is a half-Rakshasa, half-Scalekin called Shagor, yes?”

  The Scalekin hesitated.

  “Tell us the truth,” I said. “There’s no point in hiding anything. You know we’ve already found out everything, and we did so without your help. Right now, you’re just repeating it all for everybody’s benefit. So start talking.”

  Udarthis took a deep breath, then hissed out a sigh. “Correct on both counts.”

  It was Thefris’s turn to speak. “Is it also correct that you’ve been accompanied by Zoltan Kalnislaw?”

  Hamsik—who it turned out wasn’t just Thefris’s referrer but her actual, Pits-damned husband—scowled as his half-brother’s name came up. The other nobles, and even members of the Ring Three delegation, all sat up straighter as they paid more attention.

  It was Lord and Lady Kalnislaw who’d had the strongest reactions. Both of them now stared daggers at the Scalekin Claw member.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Another moment of hesitation, but then Udarthis blurted it out. “Yes. Yes, he was with us multiple times. He was last with us at the dungeon.”

  Or what used to be the dungeon, rather.

  “What in the world does Zoltan Kalnislaw’s involvement with these ruffians have anything to do with us?” Lord Brasvay asked hotly.

  “We are all well aware that you and my son are very well connected, Brasvay,” Lady Kalnislaw said scathingly.

  “That proves nothing!” Brasvay’s face had gone flushed. “Many of us knew Zoltan. It’s a right shame that he has disappeared, but don’t take your anger out on me for your son’s poor decisions.”

  “You were one of his poorest decisions, undoubtedly.”

  Well, that at least confirmed the fact that Zoltan and Brasvay were closely linked. I met Lady Kalnislaw’s eyes, wondering if she really was dropping her nobility. She was worried for her wayward son, to the point that she and her husband were abandoning their Great House to go find him. And with that abandonment came abandoning her former “allies” too, it seemed.

  My eyes fell on Lord Kalnislaw, who was looking at Brasvay with undisguised contempt. If he proved to be an ally against Brasvay here, I wasn’t going to turn him down. That said, it was his wife doing all the heavy lifting.

  “Councillors,” Brasvay said. “Surely you will not take this half-baked connection between myself and Zoltan Kalnislaw as some sort of proof against my intention to acquire the temple, will you?”

  That pissed me off.

  “You want to take over the temple you yourself abandoned?” I asked. “You want to rule a place you yourself willingly abdicated at the first sign of danger?”

  “Preposterous! We would never—”

  “I can confirm that,” Revayne said. “House Brasvay was nowhere to be seen at the temple during the Blight Swarm invasion. I was there on Ring Four for certain portions of the battle. I corroborate Ross Moreland’s statement.”

  Brasvay glowered at Revayne so hard, I left myself a mental note to tell her to take care of her noble house.

  I exchanged a quick look with Hamsik. He had confirmed earlier that his parents would end up helping in the trial because of their decision to leave their land, so I could rely on them.

  “For the matter of Zoltan Kalnislaw,” I continued. “The idea was that Zoltan would be the connection between House Brasvay and the Roaring Claws. The funds transferred by Zoltan to the Claws was a small portion of what he himself received from Brasvay. Isn’t that right, Lady and Lord Kalnislaw?”

  They of course wouldn’t be able to confirm whether Zoltans money had come from Brasvay or not, but they could confirm its existence.

  “Poor Zoltan was looking for ways to… to improve our finances,” Lady Kalnislaw said.

  Her husband looked reluctant to speak, but he forced the words out after a squeeze from his wife. “The ledgers revealed that Zoltan had acquired hefty sums from… somewhere.”

  “They were very large sums indeed. Not quite enough to resume normal business operations for us, but large enough that there were only a few entities in all of Zairgon who could afford to part with them.”

  Basically, the amount of money was something only nobles like Brasvay could really consider spending. More proof piling against him.

  Not that he was about to admit as such. “Loans!” Brasvay said, looking at his fellow nobles with an expression that almost pleaded with them to see it that way. “House Kalnislaw is obviously in dire straits, so I thought I’d help a friend with some loans. That’s all there is to it.”

  “And yet,” I said with a shake of my head. “None of the money was used for the Kalnislaw businesses. It’s as if the Kalnislaws not named Zoltan were always suspicious of the money.”

  “We have the financial proof, by the way.” Thefris raised the ledgers she had brought with her. She was proving to be so invaluable. I had no idea why Hamsik had been hell bent on hiding her away. “Acquiring these was a pain in the scales, I’ll tell you.”

  Brasvay was starting to look desperate. Even the other nobles around him were edging away as much as they could while remaining in their seats. The shift was almost palpable.

  Lord Brasvay was rightfully screwed.

  “Councillors!” he pled. “An ancient deed! You cannot nullify my claim, one that was ratified and approved by a Councillor himself!”

  I tutted, though I winced next. That stab wound still hurt despite the healing I had received. “As our last piece of evidence, Thefris here will show us yet another small proof.”

  Thefris exchanged a quick look with Hamsik, who looked resigned more than anything. I didn’t know what their dynamic was—besides the fact that they were married, fucking Pits—especially since Hamsik had appeared unsure about the whole thing from the start.

  I figured things would become a lot clearer once we actually sat down and talked. Which we hadn’t yet because of all this.

  She stepped forward, kneeling next to the bound Scalekin for a few moments as she pulled out a small pouch. “My Aspect of Inspection has an interesting Affix.” She opened the pouch and poured out a few golden coins in her hand. “It’s called Relation.”

  The names of her Aspect and Affix were kind of strange. I had learned that they were basically investigative Aspects. The power of the Weave sewn into a form that helped Thefris essentially act like a detective.

  “Relation,” she went on saying as light green threads swirled around her hand. “As it says, it finds the connection between any object I touch and anyone else who’s touched it.”

  The threads sank into the coins, turning them green too. Then strands started coming off. The first few slithered through the air to Udarthis, highlighting the Scalekin in a faint green glow.

  Then another batch of threads flew to Brasvay.

  “This is preposterous!” he said, shaking his hand to get the green glow off him, before looking at his whole body in horror as the same viridian light encased his figure. “Are you going to take this nobody’s words at face value? That unnatural Scalekin could be lying through her bloodsucking fangs for all any of us know!”

  Hamsik growled at the insult. Forget him, even I felt a hot jolt of anger at the way he had lashed out at Thefris.

  Councillor Ghistara spoke before any of us could reply. “I can confirm that Thefris’s Aspect is indeed as she says it is.”

  “See lordling,” Thefris said with a very satisfied smirk. “If you don’t have faith in the Weave itself—in the power it can grant you, if nothing else—then how have you even survived here for this long?” She shook her head. “I’m willing to submit my Aspect for…” She grinned toothily. Fang-ily? “For inspection.”

  She laughed at her own pun. I was really having trouble seeing how this lady was married to the eternally dour Hamsik.

  “Enough.” Councillor Githa’s voice landed like the crack of a whip made of lightning. “We need not extend this matter any further. The Council has been provided with ample evidence to make a decision.”

  Right. They were able to telepathically communicate with each other. It wasn’t surprising they had come to a decision without seemingly discussing anything among themselves first.

  “No,” Brasvay said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You cannot. You—”

  “Lord Brasvay,” Councillor Wargrog said with a rumbling thunder of a voice. I hadn’t heard him sound like that before. “The Council is making its decision.”

  I didn’t even need to wait with bated breath. Everything had worked out in the end. There had been a lot of surprises over the last day, but I had been able to get a grip on them all.

  “The Council has decided that the deed stating the Sun Cult temple belongs to House Brasvay is null and void,” Councillor Githa said. “Since the power of deeds resides solely upon the Council of Zairgon, there will be no associated votes.”

  No one protested. Well, save for Brasvay, but even he wasn’t vocalizing his disagreement with the decision, opting to look part enraged and part devastated instead. None of the other nobles were looking that miffed at the decision either.

  I held back a smile. The little mountain of evidence we had gathered was just too damning.

  Thefris grinned back at me and Hamsik, whose stern neutrality was starting to crack too. She didn’t really care for the cult, but from the moment I had met her, it had been pretty obvious she detested the nobles a good deal.

  Mostly though, I just felt relieved. This whole saga of House Brasvay trying to buy the Sun Cult temple had gone on for way too long. Of course, I wasn’t under any illusion that it was truly over. Brasvay hadn’t been shot down by the Council the way Kalnislaw had. He had just been told that the old deed he was trying to cash in wasn’t valid any longer.

  I was legally protected from Brasvay trying to use his deed. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t make use of other means to get what he wanted.

  There were some more formalities about the deed and the temple, which the Council proceeded to lay out. I listened patiently. It was all just laying out the parameters of what Brasvay could no longer attempt to do, even if he did want the temple grounds for whatever reason.

  As they talked, Brasvay seemed to sink deeper and deeper into his seat. Served him right.

  “As to the other matter,” Councillor Githa said, turning away from Brasvay. “We shall announce the decision that House Kalnislaw has intimated to us about the remainder of their properties.”

  My ears perked up. I remembered that the fate of House Kalnislaw was supposed to be on the agenda in today’s meeting too, although I obviously had missed the first part.

  “Lord and Lady Kalnislaw has bequeathed the entirety of their remaining estate, their properties, and all their businesses in the capable hands of their son, Hamsik Kalnislaw. He has not yet received his inheritance, therefore, he remains eligible to take over the remainder of the Kalnislaw estate.”

  “Certain exceptional provisions have been granted due to circumstances,” Councillor Wargrog said, eyeing a surprised Hamsik. “Especially since the estate is vastly diminished from its former state.”

  I gave the half-Scarseeker bastard a friendly punch to his shoulder. “Congratulations, buddy. Now you get the thing you’ve been avoiding all your life.”

  Thefris laughed.

  Hamsik scowled at his wife before turning to me with a bit of a dazed look. “You want it?”