Page 83 of Bonded To The Arena Master

Beatrix enters.

Surprise breaches my control.

She wears a simple grey human gown with one repaired cuff. No house clasp or breeder's symbol marks her. Her mouse-brown hair is tied with leather, and her bone-handled knife rests at her waist.

The arena guards move to block her.

She raises the obsidian slate bearing my challenge.

"I claim the challenger's second under the old law," she says.

Her voice cannot fill the arena as mine does. The nearest guard repeats the declaration toward the Council dais.

Zira examines the glowing slate from across the sand.

"The breeding assignment is void," Beatrix adds. "No property restriction prevents my claim."

The legal cruelty that separated us has opened the gate for her.

Zira lowers two claws.

The guards step aside.

Beatrix walks onto the red sand.

Every gallery follows her progress. Some demons jeer. Others watch with the unease reserved for a lower creature that has entered a place rank should forbid. Humans along the upper wall rise as far as their keepers permit.

Korgath's satisfaction disappears.

Beatrix reaches the challenge circle and stops beside me.

Her shoulder barely reaches the lower plates of my chest. She looks small against the arena, the Council, and the storm gathering above us.

She is also the only figure on the sand who came here by choice.

I angle my body toward her. "You should be gathering what you can from the apothecary."

"I gathered people instead."

"For what purpose?"

"The one Korgath will learn soon enough."

She offers no details, and I ask for none before the watching court.

Her presence has already changed the challenge.

The nobles now face the human I described. Guards in the western tier lower their spears. A Soz'garoth merchant leans forward. Humans above us begin whispering beneath the storm.

Beatrix stands without touching me.

No affection is required for the image to carry its force.

I argued that partnership strengthens what ownership weakens. She entered the arena to demonstrate it.

Zira rises from the central throne.

For the first time since the Council hearing began, her staff misses the floor when she lowers it. The metal tip stops above the dais. Her red eyes shift from me to Beatrix, then toward the altered galleries.