Chapter 43: GIRL FROM THE CELL

The crowd near the far entrance opened around a familiar face, and Sio recognized Rhea before he understood why she looked so different. Her hair, dark while she had been shackled beneath the mansion, had turned a vivid orange, with two beastlike ears rising through it and a long tail moving behind her. Her fingers ended in sharp claws now, and the absence of the dark restraints around her wrists explained the rest easily enough. Whatever Claim the shackles had suppressed in the prison was active again.

Sio stared at her as she entered the execution ground. The Rhea he remembered had been exhausted, bruised and strangely patient with him, but the woman approaching them carried herself with a quiet predatory balance that made every step feel deliberate. "Rhea? What are you doing here?" he asked, taking a step toward her before Arch’s arm moved across his path.

Rhea gave him no answer. Her eyes rested on him without the curiosity or faint amusement he remembered from beneath the mansion, and her weight shifted almost imperceptibly toward the front of her feet. Arch noticed before Sio did and shoved him sideways just as Rhea exploded forward.

Her claws tore through the space where Sio’s throat had been. Arch stepped between them and caught her redirected strike on the Siphon Aegis, but the impact still drove him several steps across the wooden platform. The gauntlet absorbed the force and trembled around his forearm while Rhea followed him immediately, refusing to give him enough space to decide when to return it.

Angle came at her from the opposite side with heat wrapped tightly around one fist. Instead of throwing the wide attacks he had used earlier, he kept the motion compact and aimed for her shoulder, but Rhea stepped inside his reach before the strike could fully develop. Her tail hooked behind his knee at the same moment her shoulder struck his chest, and Angle’s own forward momentum finished the takedown for her.

Angle hit the boards and rolled before her claws could follow him down. His other leg swept upward with fire burning around the heel, forcing Rhea to release him and twist away, and Arch used that small opening to reach into empty space with his free hand. "Door," he said, but nothing appeared beside him.

Rhea attacked again before Arch could investigate. He turned beneath the swipe, caught her forearm and sent her past his shoulder, then tried the ability a second time while retreating. The air remained empty, making Arch’s expression tighten just enough for Sio to notice.

Sio opened a portal near the edge of the platform while watching him. "Your Door isn’t working?" he asked, and Arch ducked as Rhea’s tail whipped through the space beside his ribs.

"This whole town is inside Baron’s Claim. Same problem as Vise’s domain," Arch answered while shifting back toward Angle. "I can’t place the other side of the Door outside an enclosed territory."

Baron remained near his raised chair, watching without any urge to join the fight. The residents who had begun retreating after Arch revealed himself were no longer backing away either, and several officials had stopped looking for somewhere safer to stand. Whatever Rhea could do, everyone around Baron seemed confident she was enough.

Angle approached her more carefully the next time. He sent a short burst of heat across her left instead of striking directly, trying to close that route and force her toward Arch, while Sio quietly moved the exit of an existing portal behind her.

Rhea noticed Angle’s trap and stepped the opposite way. That put her exactly where Sio wanted her, and Angle drove one burning leg into the portal entrance beside him, sending the kick out behind Rhea with almost no warning.

Her tail snapped around his ankle the instant his foot emerged. Rhea caught his leg with both hands, dragged him farther through Sio’s opening and turned with his momentum, throwing him toward Arch before he could pull himself back.

Arch caught Angle around the chest, though the impact shoved both of them several steps. Sio watched Rhea turn toward him and muttered, "She learned that awfully fast," while Arch pushed Angle upright and told him not to give her the same answer twice.

Sio tried something different. He opened an exit behind Rhea but kept the entrance beside himself, planning to cross through only after Angle forced her attention elsewhere. Rhea glanced once at the opening behind her, then shifted her eyes back to Sio, and something about that look immediately made him regret the idea.

She jumped through his portal first.

Rhea emerged from the entrance directly in front of him and drove her palm into his chest before he could close it. Sio flew backward, hit the boards and rolled across the platform until the injuries he already had reminded him that his body had not agreed to another full fight today.

He pushed himself onto one elbow while Rhea advanced. "Using my own portal against me feels unnecessarily personal," he muttered, but the joke died quickly when she showed absolutely no reaction.

That silence bothered him more than the hit. The Rhea in the prison had smiled, frowned, listened to him ramble and patiently cared for Baron’s mother whenever the older woman needed help. The person walking toward him now had the same face, but none of those small reactions were reaching the surface.

Arch attacked from her left before she reached Sio, and Angle came from the right with fire held close to his hands. Sio kept the same portal pair active and moved only the exit, sliding it around Rhea rather than repeatedly forming new openings she could easily notice.

Arch stepped toward her shoulder without fully committing, making Rhea turn to meet him. Sio shifted the exit beside her knee, and Angle immediately sent a burst of heat through the entrance, forcing her to jump rather than remain where Arch wanted her.

Arch had already prepared for the landing. He drove the Siphon Aegis toward her ribs and released the force stored from her opening strike, but Rhea twisted before both feet touched the platform. The gauntlet only clipped her side, yet the released impact still threw her several meters before she caught herself on one hand and used her tail to steady the landing.

Sio shifted the exit behind her again. Rhea moved before it finished settling, and when he tried placing it lower, she lifted her foot before the opening had fully formed.

He stopped watching the portal and started watching her instead. Rhea’s eyes weren’t following his ability anymore; they were tracking the slight turn of his shoulders, the direction of his attention and the tiny movements he made before shifting an exit.

She’s reading me.

Sio kept his eyes fixed directly on her and moved the exit behind Angle without looking toward it. Angle didn’t notice until the opening appeared beside him, but he understood immediately and punched through the entrance near Sio.

His flaming fist emerged beside Rhea’s face. She reacted a fraction late for the first time, twisting away as the heat grazed the already damaged fabric around her shoulder.

The movement shifted more of her torn clothing than Sio expected.

His eyes betrayed him for less than a second.

Seriously? Right now?

Rhea was already there when his attention returned to her. Her claws dragged across his stomach, and Sio stumbled backward with one hand immediately pressing against the heat spreading through his shirt.

Angle caught the back of his coat and hauled him away before Rhea could strike again. He positioned himself between them with fire tightening around both fists and gave Sio a look that made it clear he had noticed exactly what happened. "You almost got your stomach opened because you were staring."

"I was observing the enemy," Sio said through clenched teeth while checking the blood between his fingers. Angle reminded him that his observation had almost killed him, and Sio grimaced before adding, "It was very detailed observation."

Rhea didn’t give them enough time to continue. She went for Angle, changed direction the moment Arch moved to intercept and caught Arch’s wrist with her tail before the Aegis could reach her. By the time Angle tried to capitalize, she had already released Arch and stepped inside the range where his heat was most awkward to use.

The longer they fought, the less often the same trick worked twice. Arch began varying his timing, sometimes stepping in without attacking and sometimes striking before his weight fully settled, but Rhea gradually stopped reacting to the feints. Angle delayed his heat until the final moment, only for her to start rushing him before the flames could fully gather.

Sio stopped opening portals where she stood and began placing them around the spaces she might choose instead. One appeared near her left foot, another behind Arch and a third beside Angle’s shoulder, gradually narrowing the easy routes around her without any of the portals being an attack by themselves.

Rhea stepped backward.

Exactly where Sio wanted.

For half a second, satisfaction rose in him.

Then Rhea turned and drove Arch directly into Angle.

The two collided hard enough to tear apart their spacing, and Rhea was already heading toward Sio before either man recovered. Her kick struck the wound across his stomach and folded him around the pain before a second blow knocked him flat onto his back.

Sio’s vision blurred around the edges. When it cleared, Arch was down on one knee, Angle had blood running from the corner of his mouth, and none of Baron’s other fighters had even needed to step onto the platform.

Rhea approached again without expression.

Sio forced himself upright while trying to breathe around the pain. "Rhea, you remember the prison, right? You sat there listening to me talk way longer than any reasonable person should have."

Her pace slowed.

Only slightly, but Sio saw it.

He kept moving backward instead of attacking. "You looked after that older woman the whole night. Every time she coughed, you were already helping her before she asked, and you kept moving her blanket away from the water because she couldn’t do it herself."

Rhea’s claws lowered by a fraction. Something shifted behind her eyes, too small to call recognition but enough that Sio saw the woman from the cell trying to surface through whatever held her now.

Baron moved behind her.

Rhea’s head jerked slightly toward him, and the hesitation disappeared.

She struck Sio across the shoulder before he could stabilize another portal, spun him with the impact and swept his legs with her tail. Sio crashed onto his back hard enough that something solid slipped from the inside pocket of his coat.

The sphere bounced against the platform and rolled away.

Sio’s attention snapped toward it immediately. The sphere struck one board, changed direction against a broken piece of wood and kept rolling toward the damaged edge where part of the railing had been destroyed during the earlier fight.

He pushed himself after it despite the wound across his stomach. Rhea moved to intercept, forcing him sideways with a swipe of her claws, and the sphere continued rolling while Sio struggled to regain enough balance to reach it.

He opened a portal beneath the sphere just before it disappeared over the edge. It dropped through the entrance, and Sio dragged the exit across the platform until it opened above his chest.

The sphere fell out.

Sio caught it with both hands and curled around it at the same moment Rhea reached him. Her claws tore through the back of his coat and sent him rolling, but his arms stayed locked around the sphere until Arch arrived and drove her away with the weight of the now-empty Aegis.

Angle moved between Rhea and Sio immediately. He already knew what Sio had been carrying and spared only a quick glance toward the sphere before focusing back on Rhea. "You nearly got yourself gutted protecting that," he said, and Sio pushed himself onto one knee while trying to ignore how accurately that described the last few seconds.

The sphere trembled in his hands.

At first Sio thought the movement came from his own shaking fingers, but the shell jerked again with enough force to shift against his palms. Heat began spreading through it, starting as warmth and rising quickly enough that he almost loosened his grip.

A thin crack appeared across the surface.

Sio stared at it, confused rather than frightened, while another fracture branched away from the first. He had no idea what the sphere was doing or why it had chosen now to start doing it, and another violent tremor gave him no time to think through either question.

Arch noticed while Angle kept Rhea occupied. His gaze flicked toward Sio’s hands for only a moment before Rhea forced his attention back toward the fight, but Baron had a clearer view from beside his chair.

He had watched Sio throw himself through Rhea’s attacks to keep the sphere from falling. Now he watched Sio hold it protectively against his chest while cracks spread across the shell.

A sharp sound cut through the execution ground as the first fracture split wider. Something shifted beneath the opening, and Sio instinctively pulled the sphere closer while trying to see inside.

Baron’s expression hardened at the movement. He raised one hand toward Rhea and pointed directly at the cracking sphere in Sio’s arms. "Rhea, destroy it," he ordered, and Rhea immediately turned toward Sio as her claws lifted again.