The Beast Tamers Hidden System

CHAPTER 7: THE REGISTRY

Harlan told him almost nothing.

“The Threshold is what the Wardens guarded,” he said, closing the black ledger with both hands, like a man shutting a coffin. “Your father believed something would come through it one day. I never asked what, and he never said. That’s the truth, boy. It’s the whole truth, and it isn’t enough.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No. It’s a door.” Harlan slid the ash-iron collar across the desk. “You can walk through it later. Tomorrow you walk into the Registry, and you put this on your fox, and you say pup every time anyone asks.”

Adrian had wanted to argue. He had held the ledger until his knuckles ached. But the old man’s eyes were so tired that he’d set the book down instead, and picked up the collar.

It was lighter than it looked.

The Registry Office occupied the east wing of Halcyon Academy, a long marble hall with high windows and a queue that wound twice around the room.

Four days had passed. Four days of dull, careful routine: school in the morning, Daily Quests at night, and a patient hunt for a second set of Dusk Moth cores to keep Nyx’s essence from slipping. [ 18% ] had held, barely. But the Crown’s wagon had been parked on Cutler Row each morning, and Adrian had walked past it each time with his face blank and Nyx buried under three layers of lead-wire wool.

Now he stood in line with a fox-shaped lump in his arms, and he could feel the creature’s fury through the bond like heat off a stove.

The collar sat around Nyx’s neck, dull gray and unlovely. It had gone on in the stairwell that morning. Nyx had permitted exactly one buckle’s worth of the process before sinking its teeth into Adrian’s thumb, hard, and holding on until he’d said, quietly, “I know. I know. It’s one hour. I’ll make it up to you.” Then it had let go, glared at him with enormous, wounded dignity, and sat very still while he fastened the strap.

I’ll make it up to you. He hadn’t known what he meant by that. He just knew it was true.

“Cross!” someone called. “Hey, Cross!”

He didn’t need to look. Marcus Thorne came down the line with the swagger of a boy who’d never waited in one, three friends trailing behind him. At his heel padded a wolf pup the color of ash, thick-pawed and bright-eyed, with a collar of braided leather.

“Is that it?” Marcus stopped and stared at the bundle in Adrian’s arms. “I heard you’d found something. Everyone’s been saying. ‘Cross found a monster in the Gate District.’” He grinned. “Let’s see it.”

“It’s a pup.”

“Sure. Show us.”

Adrian shifted his arms, and Nyx’s head emerged. Small black ears flat. Violet eyes narrowed. The collar gleamed dully against its fur.

Marcus laughed.

It started small and grew. He bent over, hands on his knees, wheezing. His friends caught it and passed it on. Even the wolf pup panted happily, tongue lolling, as if sharing the joke.

“That’s it?” Marcus gasped. “That’s the threat? A black rat with a collar?” He wiped his eyes. “I told my father it was nothing. He won’t stop talking about it. The Crown paid him a visit, you know. You should hear what he said about your family.”

“What did he say?” Adrian asked quietly.

“That your old man was the kind to chase ghosts.” Marcus straightened, still grinning. “And look. Now the son’s collecting them.”

Adrian felt the bond snap tight, and under his arm Nyx’s whole body went rigid.

No, he thought, fast and hard. Not here. Not now.

He didn’t know whether it was the thought or the collar or the creature’s own pride that held it. But Nyx went still. Its shadow stayed small and gray against the marble, and its eyes stayed locked on Marcus with a cold, patient, unblinking look that made the boy’s grin falter, just slightly, before he turned away.

“Next!” called the registrar.

Examiner Pryce sat behind a high desk with a leather ledger, a glass assay beam, and an expression of strained neutrality.

“Name of tamer?”

“Adrian Cross.”

“Companion?” He held out a hand without looking. Adrian set Nyx on the desk.

The pup immediately turned around twice, sat, and looked at Pryce as if daring him to speak.

“Species?”

“Unknown. I found it.”

“Hm.” Pryce adjusted the beam. “Please keep it still. This will be uncomfortable for it.”

He thumbed a switch. A beam of pale, cold light fell across Nyx’s body, and the pup flinched.

The effect was immediate. Adrian felt it down the bond like a hand pressing on a bruise. The light went through the collar, through the lead-wire, through the fur, and somewhere inside the creature a slow, deep tremor began.

[ Warning: Companion under scan. Essence suppressed by collar. ]

[ Bond Strain: +2% ]

Don’t. Don’t fight it.

He couldn’t say it out loud. He pressed his palm flat against Nyx’s back, felt the small hammering heartbeat, and held on.

Pryce frowned at his instruments. The beam flickered. He tilted a lens, rubbed his eyes, and began to write.

“Beast: Shadow Pup. Provisional classification. Rank F.” He paused. “Condition: underweight, recent injury to left hind leg. Essence reading unremarkable.” The pen scratched. “Name?”

“Nyx.”

“Nyx.” Pryce wrote it down. His hand stopped. For a moment, the man’s face did something Adrian couldn’t read: a tightening around the mouth, a flicker in the eyes.

Then it smoothed over, and Pryce stamped the page.

[ DING! ]

MAIN MISSION 2 COMPLETE: REGISTER YOUR COMPANION

Reward: Bond Points x 80. Access to Academy Training Grounds.

“Registration accepted,” Pryce said, not looking up. “Your admission to Halcyon is conditional upon completion of the Entrance Trial, to be held in fourteen days. The Trial is a team exercise. Your instructors will assign you a unit.” He slid a folded paper across the desk. “Read the rules. Read them twice.”

Adrian took it, and his fingers brushed Pryce’s.

The examiner’s hand was ice cold.

“One more thing,” Pryce said, so quietly that Adrian almost missed it. “That collar is ash-iron, E-grade. A real appraiser would know it’s fresh. I’m very tired this week, and I make many errors.” He closed the ledger. “I would not make a habit of relying on tired men.”

Outside the hall, the autumn air was clean and cool. Adrian carried Nyx down the front steps and around the corner, into the shadow of the east colonnade, before he let himself breathe.

The collar came off in his shaking hands. Nyx immediately shook itself, hard, from nose to tail, then turned and bit the strap once, deliberately, before sitting down with its back to him.

“Fair,” Adrian said.

The bond was still hot with indignation, but underneath it was something quieter. He’d felt it through the beam: the cold press of light, the animal terror held in check, the way Nyx had gone still for him.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you. I’m not saying that to be nice. I mean it.”

Nyx didn’t look around. But after a moment its tail swept once across the stone, a slow, deliberate stroke, and came to rest against his shoe.

[ Bond Resonance: 24% ]

“I thought your fox looked unhappy.”

Adrian turned.

Cassian Vale leaned against a pillar at the end of the colonnade with his hands in his pockets, not yet in uniform. Tall, pale, composed, with dark hair brushed back from a face that seemed built for seriousness. He wore a Vale family signet and an expression of polite, unhurried interest, and Adrian realized with a cold flicker that he had no idea how long the boy had been standing there.

“It dislikes being photographed,” Adrian said.

“Mm.” Cassian pushed off the pillar and strolled closer. He didn’t look at Nyx. He looked at Adrian. “Do you know what’s strange about the beam in the Registry? Everything flinches. The strong ones, the weak ones. Even my family’s hounds. You can’t pass through a light like that without your body telling the truth.”

“I wasn’t aware.”

“Mine whimpered.” Cassian’s voice was mild. “Yours trembled. But when the light went over the collar, there was a moment, about two seconds, where it didn’t do either.” He tilted his head. “It held, Cross. It held like something that had decided to.”

Adrian’s pulse went to ice.

“It’s just stubborn.”

“I’m sure it is.” Cassian smiled slightly. “I’m not telling anyone. Your examiner was careless, or sympathetic, and either way it’s not my business.” He turned to go. Then, over his shoulder, quietly: “But whatever you’ve put in front of the Registry, that is not an F-rank pup. And I’m going to find out what it is.”

His footsteps faded down the colonnade, unhurried, and Adrian stood there with a fox at his feet and the autumn light going gold on the stone.

Nyx had turned around. Violet eyes, wide and still, fixed on the empty place where Cassian had been.

The creature’s shadow was growing.