This Beast Tamer Has So Many Questions

It was always the same, with a good meal. People ate, and slowed, and grew quiet and content—and then, inevitably, the questions came. Elias had simply never been on the answering end of so many at once.

It was Iris who started it.

She had been gazing out over the flower field for some time, her plate long since forgotten, and Elias watched the moment understanding arrived in her rainbow eyes. She looked at the endless blossoms—fire and water and frost and a dozen elements besides, all blooming together in defiance of every rule of nature—and then she looked at the vine coiled around Elias’s arm, and her breath caught.

“They’re all… him,” she said. “The whole field. Every flower out here—it’s all Briar.”

“It is,” Elias admitted.

Iris turned to him, and the calm gentleness she usually wore had been entirely replaced by a researcher’s blazing curiosity. “How many attributes does he have? A vine that produces this many different blossoms—three? Four?” She leaned forward. “How many?”

“Eight,” Elias said.

The reactions came all at once.

Iris’s eyes lit up like a flint struck, sparkling brighter than Elias had ever seen them. Rowan, mid-sip, choked on his drink and had to be thumped on the back by a passing Butler Pig. And Cassian—composed, immovable Cassian—raised a single eyebrow, which Elias was beginning to understand was, for him, the equivalent of leaping from his chair.

“Eight,” Iris repeated faintly.

“Briar’s a special case,” Elias said quickly, before anyone could decide he was hoarding miracles. “He’s a Hundred Fragrance Vine. Every vine of that species carries Wood and Life as a matter of course—that’s simply what they are. On top of that, they take on extra elemental attributes: usually just one, two, uncommonly, three only rarely.” He reached over and let the vine wind contentedly around his fingers. “Briar had six. Six favored elements, when most would have one. Add the Wood and Life that every vine shares, and that’s where the eight comes from.” He shook his head fondly. “He was unusual before he’d evolved at all. He’s not really representative of anything. He’s just… Briar.”

At the praise, Briar bloomed three new flowers in rapid succession, entirely unable to help himself.

“But that’s—” Iris pressed a hand to her mouth, visibly restraining herself. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s only that with my talent, a vine like that would be—a fire beast burns hotter beside a wind beast, you understand, and every element I add strengthens the whole—”

“Why don’t you contract one?” Elias asked, genuinely curious now. “Even a rare three-attribute Hundred Fragrance Vine would give you Wood, Life, and three more elements in a single contract. For your talent, that seems… perfect.”

Iris’s excitement softened into something more rueful. “It would,” she agreed. “But it wouldn’t be worth it. A Hundred Fragrance Vine is a beautiful thing, but it’s not a fighter. It nurtures. It grows gardens.” She glanced toward the field, almost regretful. “I could contract one. It would even make me stronger, in a sense. But my contracts are limited, and every one I spend on a beast that can’t fight is a place on my team I can’t give to one that can. It would waste the talent.” Her voice was quiet but certain. “I’m not here to grow gardens. I’m here to protect you. That comes first.”

Elias didn’t quite know what to do with the simple way she said it, so he just nodded and let it lie.

But it had started him thinking, and once Elias started thinking, questions tended to follow.

He looked around the table—really looked—at the five of them. He had assumed, when he first met them, that they simply carried themselves with the youthful vigor that came from contracting powerful beasts; strong companions had a way of keeping their tamers looking far younger than their years. But that wasn’t it. Looking properly, he realized they were not merely youthful.

They were young.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said slowly, “how old are you all? Actually?”

“Twenty,” said Oliver and Iris, nearly together.

“Twenty-two,” said Rowan, raising his glass.

“Twenty-four,” said Seraphina softly.

“Twenty-eight,” said Cassian. “The eldest, for whatever that’s worth.”

Elias stared. “You’re all—you’re barely older than me. Some of you younger.” He couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. “And they sent five people in their twenties to bind their entire lives to a stranger?”

It was Cassian and Oliver who answered, the two of them trading the explanation back and forth with the ease of old friends.

“You’re thinking of it the wrong way,” Oliver said, with that easy smile. “We weren’t chosen in spite of being young. We were chosen because of it—and because of what we’ll become. Every one of us carries a talent the federation considers… significant.”

“It helps,” Cassian said, “to know who you’re dealing with. My family is the Sagittarius line—one of the Twelve Great Military Families. Each of us is entrusted with one of the Zodiac Legions and the frontier it defends.” He said it plainly, without pride; it was simply a fact, the way a mountain is a fact.

“And mine is rather quieter,” Oliver said. “The Locke family. We’re not soldiers—we’re diplomats, advisors, negotiators. Where Cassian’s people protect the federation with armies, mine have spent generations preventing the wars those armies would otherwise have to fight. Different tools. Same federation.” He smiled. “Between the two of us, you’re rather well covered, militarily and politically both.”

“Potential,” Cassian said. “The families and the government do not invest guardians like us in ordinary people. They invest us in futures they intend to protect for a very long time. We are young because you are young. With companions as strong as yours, you may be doing this work for hundreds of years. They wanted protectors who would still be standing at the end of it.”

“Also,” Oliver added, lightly, “we’re hardly the only ones watching over you. My family alone keeps a standing detail. The realm itself only opens to those you allow in—so they can’t set foot inside, of course—but out in the world beyond it, around the place your laboratory connects, there are people keeping watch right now. Discreetly. There always are. We five are simply the ones you let through the door.”

Elias blinked. He had not, in fact, known that. He decided not to think too hard about how many people had been quietly keeping watch outside the realm’s entrance on his behalf, in all the months he’d assumed himself alone.

But something Cassian had said earlier was circling back to him now, the way a half-remembered fact will.

Sagittarius. He had heard the name before he’d ever met the man. A frontier—one of the worst of them, if the talk was true—an endless wasteland of Illusion and Mental energy, where demonic beasts were born of hallucination and soldiers lost their minds before they ever lost their lives.

And Elias remembered, suddenly and clearly, an anonymous gift. Months ago, in the middle of the Care Pig research, a quiet delivery of rare mental-attribute materials had arrived through Maeve—no name, no explanation. He had wondered at the time who could possibly have known what he needed.

He looked at Cassian.

“The mental-attribute materials,” he said. “Months ago. Through Maeve. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Cassian inclined his head. “It was. A small thing, in return for a great deal. The Lifebloom honey had already saved more of my soldiers than I could count. It seemed only right.”

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“Thank you,” Elias said. And then, because the breeder in him could never quite stop asking: “Did they help? The Protector Turtles. Your legion received them early—did they… did they actually help?”

Cassian was quiet for a moment. Then he did something Elias had not seen him do once, in any room, before any person.

He stood, and he bowed.

It was not a deep bow. It did not need to be. From a man like Cassian Sagittarius—the heir of a Zodiac Legion, who carried himself as though bending were a foreign concept—the small, precise inclination carried more weight than any speech.

“They did more than enough,” he said, and his voice had lost all of its military flatness. “The frontier I hold takes more men through madness than through wounds. It always has. For generations we have measured our losses not only in the dead but in the broken—soldiers who came home unable to tell memory from nightmare, friend from foe.” He met Elias’s eyes. “Your turtles ended that. A single pendant, and a mind holds. I have watched soldiers walk off that frontier whole who, a year ago, would not have walked off it at all. You will never know their names. They will never know yours. But they are alive, and sane, and home, because of you.” He straightened. “Thank you. Sincerely.”

Beside him, quietly, Seraphina set down her cup.

“I’m from there,” she said. “The Sagittarius frontier. My parents were soldiers on it.” A small pause, carefully held. “They didn’t come home. Not the broken way—the other way. Years ago now.” She looked at Elias, and there was no accusation in it, only a kind of weary gratitude. “If your turtles had existed then, I don’t know that it would have changed anything for them. But it will change it for someone. Some other child’s parents will come home because of what you made. So—thank you. From me too.”

Elias didn’t know what to say.

There was nothing, really, that fit—no response large enough for the soldiers he’d never meet, or small enough for the girl across the table who had lost her parents to the very place his work now guarded. He had only ever wanted to help broken things. He had never let himself think too hard about the size of the help, or the weight of it landing on real people with real names.

So he didn’t try to be eloquent. He just smiled—a small, sad, sincere thing—and said the only words that felt true.

“I’m glad it helped,” he said quietly. “Truly. That’s—that’s all I ever wanted it to do.” He looked around the table, at the soldiers and the orphans and the children of soldiers who had all, in their way, paid for the peace he got to study in. “And thank you. All of you. For everything you’ve given up—for the frontiers you’ve held and the people you’ve lost—so that the rest of us can sit in a field like this and be safe. I don’t think people say that to you nearly enough.”

For a moment the table was very quiet.

Then Rowan, who had clearly decided the mood had grown quite heavy, leaned forward with the air of a man changing the subject on purpose.

“All right, I have to ask,” Rowan said, “because it’s been driving me mad all afternoon. Why are the birds so obsessed with me? I’ve had a raven on my head for an hour. I think one of them is trying to give me a wedding ring.”

Elias put a hand over his face. “Oh—I never explained, did I? I’m sorry. I got distracted by—everything.”

“You did rather skip the part where you have three hundred magic birds.”

“They’re my newest discovery,” Elias said, recovering. “Lucky Ravens. I only finished the evolution a few weeks ago—I haven’t even submitted the method yet. They start as Carrier Ravens. The ordinary delivery kind, the ones people give away by the thousand when they get too old or too hurt to work. Every one of these was broken or elderly when I took them in.” He gestured up at the gleaming flock. “The evolution heals them completely—and gives them the Mystic attribute. Fortune, specifically. They influence luck. Which is why,” he added, “they’ve decided you’re the most fascinating person who has ever lived. Your talent and their instinct are practically singing to each other.”

“That,” Rowan said, “is the best thing anyone has ever told me.”

“They reach Lord Rank potential,” Elias went on, unable to stop himself once the subject was rolling. “Lord Rank Ten, in fact. From a delivery bird.” He glanced around the table. “When the method’s public there’ll be no shortage of them, but—if any of you wanted one, you wouldn’t have to wait. The Mystic attribute would suit your Mystic Body, Seraphina. And Oliver, a Fortune beast, is hardly a poor companion for a negotiator.” He turned to Rowan with a small smile. “And Rowan—well, a Fortune spirit beast is most suited for you of anyone, isn’t it? They love you already. The ravens picked you out the moment you walked in.”

“Funny you should mention it,” Rowan said—and whistled.

Soon something appeared in front of Rowan, and Elias’s eyebrows climbed as it flew up and landed on Rowan’s outstretched arm. It was a Carrier Raven, large and glossy and entirely ordinary in every respect but one.

It had two heads.

“This is Taka,” Rowan said proudly, as both heads inspected Elias with bright, mismatched interest. “Well—this head’s Ta. That one’s Ka. Together, Taka. I found him abandoned when I was ten. Everyone else thought a two-headed hatchling was bad luck.” He grinned. “Joke’s on them. He’s been my partner ever since.”

Elias leaned in, delighted, every other thought briefly evaporating. A mutant Carrier Raven—he had a hundred questions about the shared body, the two minds, the way the heads coordinated.

Watching Rowan and Taka together, Elias couldn't help thinking about Rowan's talent, Lucky Star.

Then Elias realized the absurdity of all the evolutions in the world; the one Elias had stumbled onto was built on luck—a Fortune-attribute path. And of all the guardians the federation could have sent him, one of them happened to be a Lucky Star, a man who bent probability itself, who had raised a Carrier Raven of his own years before either of them knew the other existed. What were the odds of that? It was the sort of coincidence so improbable it stopped looking like a coincidence at all.

Elias looked at Rowan, grinning beneath his two-headed bird, and understood that he was very likely the reason.

“Your fortune really is remarkable,” he murmured, half to himself.

Both of Taka’s heads preened, thoroughly flattered.

Seraphina had gone thoughtful through all of this, watching the gold-veined ravens wheel overhead.

“A Mystic-attribute beast that reaches Lord Ten,” she said slowly. “That I could actually contract.” She was quiet for a moment, weighing something private. Then, softly: “I’d have to think about it. It’s not a small thing, a contract. I wouldn’t want to choose one just because it was offered.”

“Of course,” Elias said at once. “Please don’t feel any pressure. A contract should be a partnership, not a convenience—you should think about it properly, take all the time you want. The offer’s not going anywhere. Neither are the birds.” He smiled. “If one ever does choose you, you’ll both know.”

Seraphina looked at him for a moment, then nodded, something easing slightly in her careful expression. “Thank you. I will.”

“Which reminds me—” Elias said, sitting up, “and please tell me if this is too much to ask. But I’d feel a great deal better if all of you contracted a Protector Turtle, the way my family is doing. For—well, for obvious reasons. You’re going to be near me, and if my work ever makes me a target, the people around me become targets too. A guarded mind is the best protection I can offer against that.”

There was a beat of agreement around the table—and then Elias’s own words caught up with him, and he looked at Seraphina with sudden chagrin.

“Except—oh. Your talent. Mystic Body. You can only contract Mystic beasts, can’t you? A Protector Turtle is Mental-attribute, not Mystic.” He winced. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lumped everyone together like that.”

“It’s all right,” Seraphina said. “I’m used to it. Most things in the world aren’t built for my talent.” She offered the smallest of smiles. “I should be apologizing to you, really. I’m the awkward one in every plan.”

“You’re not—” Elias started.

“No, I’m—” Seraphina said at the same time.

They both stopped. Looked at each other. Each visibly recognized, in the other, the precise affliction of a person who apologized reflexively for taking up space.

“We could be at this a while,” Seraphina noted.

“We really could,” Elias agreed.

It was Oliver who ended it, of course.

He didn’t raise his voice or make a show of it. He simply leaned in at exactly the right moment, warm and unhurried, and laid a few easy words over the awkwardness like a cloth over a stain.

“Then it’s settled,” Oliver said smoothly, as though the two of them had just concluded a treaty rather than a stammering contest. “Both of you are far too courteous for your own good, and we adore you for it, and the matter is now closed with honors even on each side.” He turned the moment before either could object, his smile sliding effortlessly to the rest of the table. “Which leaves only the truly pressing business of the afternoon—namely, whether anyone intends to stop me from having a third helping of that honey bread. I should warn you all now: I am a trained negotiator, and I will win.”

For a moment, no one reacted.

Then Selena barked out a laugh, and Kyle snickered with Rowan, and even Seraphina’s composure cracked into an unmistakable giggle. Elias felt the laughter pull at his own chest until he gave in to it, and across the table, Cassian—watching the whole tangle of them come apart into helpless, easy mirth in a field of flowers—finally, quietly, smiled.

It was, Elias thought, a very good sound. The sound of strangers becoming something else.

And there would be more of it—a great deal more. That was the part still settling into him. These five were not visitors who would eat and laugh and then go home. They were his guardians now, sworn for life; from this day on, they would be beside him through all of it—every day and every hour, guiding him, protecting him, helping him with whatever came. The realm, the work, the danger that might one day arrive with his name—he would not face any of it alone again.

He had asked for guards and somehow been given a family instead.

He hoped there would be a great deal more of this.

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