Chapter 45: OBVIOUS SOLUTION

The meaning reached Sio without sound, warm and certain against the inside of his thoughts. Papa. For several seconds he forgot about Baron, the crowd and even Rhea, because the tiny creature nestled against his neck as if it had just settled the most obvious fact in the world.

Sio stared sideways at the cluster of little eyes pressed near his cheek. "No. Absolutely not. I’m nineteen." The baby answered with a soft clicking noise and tucked itself closer, which somehow made the situation feel less negotiable rather than more.

Something flickered across Sio’s vision before he could decide whether arguing with a newborn eldritch creature counted as losing his mind. Two lines formed with the same clean certainty as every other System message he had received:

〔 NEW RESPONSIBILITY IDENTIFIED 〕 〔 PROTECT THE OFFSPRING OF YOUR CLAIM 〕

Sio read it twice. Offspring? His eyes dropped toward the creature clinging to him, then lifted toward absolutely nothing in particular as the rest of the sentence caught up. I haven’t even had a girlfriend. How did I skip all the way to being responsible for a child?

Baron did not share his interest in the problem. His hand tightened against the arm of his chair as Rhea failed to reach Sio again, and whatever patience he had been showing finally disappeared. "Enough, Rhea. Finish this."

Rhea stopped moving for one breath. The orange hair around her face lifted as if heat had passed beneath it, and the single tail behind her split through a blur of pale light until nine long tails spread across the platform. Her ears sharpened, her claws lengthened, and the pressure of her Claim rolled outward strongly enough that nearby townspeople stumbled away without being told.

Angle’s expression tightened as the tails opened behind her. "That would have been useful information in the prison." He raised both hands and compressed his fire close to his skin rather than letting it spread toward the crowd, while Arch shifted to Rhea’s other side and quietly told Sio to stay back.

Rhea crossed the platform before Sio could obey. Three tails swept low to block Arch’s approach while another struck toward Angle, and she used the remaining movement to drive herself straight toward Sio with her claws aimed past him at the baby on his shoulder.

The newborn made an angry clicking sound and spread across Sio’s upper body again. Rhea’s claws slid across the dark surface, but one of her tails wrapped around his ankle before the baby could reach it and ripped his footing out from under him.

Sio hit the boards, rolled with the creature still clinging to him and opened a portal beneath his own shoulder before Rhea could land on top of him. He dropped through and shifted the exit behind Baron’s chair, but one of Rhea’s tails snapped through the closing entrance after him and caught the back of his coat.

The fabric tore instead of dragging him back. Sio stumbled out near Baron, close enough to see the ruler’s expression change, but half the surrounding townspeople turned toward him at once and rushed forward before he could take advantage of the distance.

He opened a portal between himself and the first group, shifting the exit toward an empty patch beside the platform so the leading residents tumbled harmlessly away. More came immediately behind them, and Sio felt irritation cut through the panic because none of them seemed to care that Rhea was currently turning the execution ground into splinters.

A burst of fire crossed behind him and forced another group to stop. Angle had managed to get between Rhea and the crowd, but keeping nine tails away from Arch and Sio was taking nearly all his attention. "Whatever you’re doing," he shouted while ducking beneath a tail, "do it faster."

Sio looked toward Baron again. The man wasn’t fighting, yet every resident near him moved the instant Sio came close, and Rhea kept being dragged back into the same order no matter how much of herself briefly surfaced. They had spent two days trying to understand contracts, territory, control and whatever complicated structure Baron had built around his Claim.

Then Sio noticed the broken suppression cuff still lying near the execution block. His eyes stayed on it for a second before moving to Baron’s wrists, and the thought that followed was so stupidly simple that Sio almost became angry at everyone, including himself, for spending this long treating the problem like it required a scholar.

The cuffs had shut down his Claim. They had shut down Angle’s Scar. They had shut down Rhea’s Claim so completely that she had looked entirely human in the prison.

Baron was a Wayfarer.

Sio looked toward Arch. "We’ve been thinking too much."

Arch caught one of Rhea’s tails against the Siphon Aegis and was dragged half a step before he managed to throw it aside. "That sentence worries me more when you say it."

"Those cuffs shut us down." Sio ducked as a resident swung at him, caught the man’s sleeve and used a portal to place him safely behind the crowd instead. "Why are we fighting the whole town when we can just put a pair on Baron?"

Arch’s attention flicked toward the broken restraint on the platform and then toward Baron. His face barely changed, but the pause was enough for Sio to know the idea had landed.

Angle heard it too. He blocked one of Rhea’s tails with both forearms, flames bending around the impact, and grunted, "Please tell me there’s an intact pair somewhere before I get beaten to death by a fox."

Sio scanned the guards near Baron. One of the men who had escorted them from the prison still had a second set of dark restraints clipped at the back of his belt, probably brought in case one of the prisoners’ cuffs needed replacing before the execution.

Sio pointed. "There."

The guard saw all three of them notice him and immediately grabbed for the cuffs. That was enough confirmation.

Sio opened a portal under the man’s hand. His fingers disappeared through the entrance, and Sio shifted the exit beside himself before the guard could pull back, catching the wrist as it emerged. The baby hissed at the stranger and wrapped a tiny tentacle around his sleeve while Sio yanked the intact restraints through the portal.

The guard lost his grip. Sio caught the cuffs with both hands and nearly laughed at how ordinary they felt considering the amount of trouble everyone had gone through to reach this point.

Baron understood a moment later. "Stop him."

The reaction spread through the square with frightening speed. Townspeople who had been hanging back surged toward Sio, the silver-ring woman forced herself upright again, and the blue-scarred Riven raised one shaking hand as compressed air began gathering in her palm.

Arch stepped directly into their path. "Angle, Rhea. I’ll keep the others off him."

Angle looked toward his father as nine orange tails opened around Rhea again. "You say that like this part is easier."

"It isn’t." Arch drove the Aegis into the platform and shoved himself between two advancing groups anyway. "Do it."

Rhea lunged for Sio, but Angle hit her path with a wall of controlled heat rather than aiming at her body. She vaulted over it, and Angle followed by sending a second burst above her, forcing her to twist sideways in the air instead of landing where she wanted.

Sio ran.

The silver-ring woman sent one ring spinning toward him, and invisible pressure closed around his left wrist before he reached the first portal. Sio didn’t fight it. He opened the entrance directly beside the trapped arm, stepped through with the pull and shifted the exit several meters forward, using her own restraint to drag him into the portal faster than he could have moved alone.

The pressure vanished when her concentration broke behind him. Sio came out running, and the baby spread over the side of his neck when a compressed-air blast struck from the right, turning just enough of the force that he spun instead of being thrown off the platform.

Baron backed toward his chair. "You think suppressing my Claim will save you? These people chose this town."

"Maybe," Sio said, breathing hard as he opened another portal. "I’d still like to see how they act when you aren’t inside their heads."

Two residents blocked the direct route. Sio opened an entrance in front of himself as though he intended to go through them, waited until they braced for him to emerge behind Baron, then shifted the exit sideways at the last moment and stepped out beside the chair instead.

Baron swung at him.

Sio had expected a Wayfarer ruler to do something more impressive. He leaned away from the punch, caught Baron’s sleeve and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest.

Baron was heavier than he looked and fought back hard enough to force Sio toward the edge of the platform, but there were no tails, rings or compressed-air blasts to solve this time. There was only a man trying very hard not to have his wrists caught.

Sio grinned despite the blood drying across his stomach. "This part I understand."

Baron tore one arm free and struck Sio across the face. The baby reacted with an offended screech and stretched a tentacle around Baron’s elbow, not because Sio asked it to, but because it had apparently decided nobody was allowed to hit its father without consequences.

That tiny interruption was enough. Sio caught Baron’s free wrist, opened a portal beneath both of them and let gravity pull their balance sideways for half a step before closing it again.

Baron stumbled.

Sio snapped one side of the suppression restraints around his wrist.

The entire town seemed to react at once. Rhea threw Angle away and turned toward them, nine tails carving through the air behind her, while the ring-user abandoned Arch and the blue-scarred woman released the pressure she had been gathering.

Dozens of residents rushed the platform as though the same alarm had gone off inside all of them. Sio dragged Baron toward himself and fought for the second wrist, but Baron planted his feet, twisted his arm behind his back and nearly tore free.

The baby reached from Sio’s shoulder and wrapped two little tentacles around the loose cuff. It pulled without understanding the plan, simply because Sio was struggling with something and it had apparently decided that meant he needed help.

The cuff swung toward Baron’s hand.

Sio caught it.

Rhea was almost on them.

Angle’s fire struck the boards between her and Sio, but she ran straight through the heat this time, nine tails shielding her long enough to cross it. Arch shouted something from behind the crowd, but Sio couldn’t hear the words over the pounding in his ears.

He forced Baron’s wrist inward.

The metal closed with a clean click.

Across the execution ground, Rhea stopped in the middle of her next step. All nine tails froze behind her at the exact same moment, and the crowd’s charge broke as if everyone had suddenly forgotten where they were going.