I grabbed the clothes that were lying on the chair to my right. I didn’t feel comfortable showing up dressed only in my shorts.

Standing in front of the door, I held the door handle, breathing in and out slowly. Many thoughts were running through my head. It was time. Now it would begin! Before it was still somehow imaginary, but after I walked through this door, I would officially start my life in this new world. Taking one last moment, I steeled myself mentally than pushed down the handle and walked through.

There was no difference to opening a normal door. Nevertheless, I felt a multitude of feelings wash through me. Excitement, fear, anticipation and wonder were only some of them.

Shaking my head, I forced my billowing emotions to calm down. The boy’s soul influenced me more than I had thought. Concentrate Andrew! Having reigned them in, I took in the new view. I was in a sizeable building. The corridor was over twenty meters long. Accessing my memories, I got an understanding of Brightcloud manor.

The building had three levels and a little tower on its right side. They built it like a T, having the long side and one of the smaller wings looking towards the front and the other small wing towards the back. Around the front side of the building was a vast garden, enclosed by a two meter tall stonewall and a gate for protection and privacy. On the backside existed another courtyard. But this one was only accessible through the second wing, closed off otherwise.

I reached the stairs and slowly walked down. Nearing the ground floor, I could hear words. I deducted that two females were talking, one older and one younger. Having prepared myself, I stepped on the floor and arrived in the living room.

Everything went quiet. My mother and little sister were starring at me. Before I could decide how to breach the ice, I saw a little missile with long hairs suddenly flying in my direction.

“Brother! I’ve missed you!”.

I had only enough time to lift my arms before it crashed into me, embracing me with all its might.

Feeling the love of Aron for his sister burst out of the depths of my body, I couldn’t refrain from embracing her as well. At the beginning I had the urge to separate myself from these feelings as they were not my own, but suddenly I realized that that was wrong.

I let the love for her float through my entire body. I basked in it and smiled happily; I had a sister now.

Lifting my head, I looked my mother into the eyes. She had slowly followed my little sister, arriving at my side. She didn’t have to say anything as I could read it on her face. The next second another pair of hands embraced me.

This was my family! All the doubt and awkwardness I had, vanished like water in a hot summer breeze.

So that was how it felt to have a proper family? It felt wonderful! I swore to myself I would never let anything happen to them! I knew how it was to have no real family, I would tear anyone apart who tried to harm them!

As I realized this, dealing with the devilish wizard cult jumped up another step up on my priority ladder. You may be evil and powerful magicians, but I am a word-traveler and had waged war with a much more evil race. I will erase you from this planet!

I showed nothing of my inner tumult to my new family and let the hug go on for some additional time before we disengaged. Looking at my mum again, she smiled.

“You look much better now, do you still feel any pain?”

“Not really, I feel a bit tired, but aside from that everything is fine.”

“Great, I told our maid Sandra that we wanted to eat in five minutes. Do you want to join us?”

Before I could answer, my stomach decided by itself. With a loud grumble, it notified the surroundings about its needs. Seeing my red face, my sister and mum chuckled.

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We walked towards the dining table. I teased my little sister, she was called Lea. It was easy to play that part of my alter ego as the feelings were begging to be used and felt. I could suppress them, but while being around my new family I had no reason to fight it. Nevertheless, I still planned to slowly change their perception of me. I was now much more mature than a normal sixteen years old.

We sat down when Sandra brought our launch. We ate and talked about miscellaneous matters. As we finished my sister wanted to play with me but mother asked her to play alone for now. She wanted to question me about earlier. I would join my sister later.

We waited until Lea had left the room under protest. Looking seriously at me, Amanda began.

“Aron, now that you are alright I have to ask what you can remember about the assassination attempt. We need to find out who is responsible for it!”

I replayed all my memories of the incident in my mind before I answered, “I am not sure, I was standing in front of the book cabinet. I wanted to take out a children's book for Lea when I suddenly felt an immense pain in my back. I immediately lost control of my body and broke down. I lay on the ground and only saw the shoes and legs of the person who had stabbed me.”

I wouldn’t tell her anything about the hidden cult and the soul eater. For one, she would find out I was not Aron, and even if she knew, she was not powerful enough to do anything against them.

No, I would take care of that problem by myself. It was better to leave her in the dark.

My mother thought through the new information. She didn’t look happy. She had hoped that I would have a clue that gave her a direction to search.

“Okay, no problem, Aron. We will find them! Aside from that, I have decided to assign you and Lea a personal guard who will protect you during day and night.”

Looking at my mother, I was surprised. Our family didn’t have much money as we didn’t cash in a lot of taxes from our lands. Exactly that was the reason why we had only six guards in the mansion. We relied mostly on our status as a noble family and mother and fathers might to govern our lands.

Because of that, we had an excellent relationship with the commoners that were living here. It was not needed to have more, but it made us vulnerable to attacks from outsiders. And now that dad had gone serving in the army as a commander, only my mother was left. It was the opportune time for jealous people to act.

“I know what you think, Aron. We don’t have a lot of money. I have contacted your father. After I had told him about the assassination attempt he immediately agreed to send two people over that would protect you two for the foreseeable future.”

Having heard the reason behind it, I felt happy. It would be much safer to have a protector at my side. I could also use him for sparring matches as I had planned on honing my skills in every way possible. Even though I would hopefully become a mage, it didn’t mean that I didn’t need to know how to use other weapons.

Seeing me so readily agree, my mother was surprised. I had never liked to be under surveillance in the past. But after a brief time she decided that it had to be because of the assassination attempt.

“Good, they should arrive in the late afternoon. I do still have to settle some things so please go play but pay attention to not leave the estate until your guard is here.”

Being dismissed, I went searching for my sister as I had promised her we would play with each other.