Chapter Nine
Unlike the structured halls and vaulted ceilings of Vallemont’s main building, the courtyard where they gathered for their first class in ACS handling felt raw, less curated. Cracked training dummies leaned along one wall, and a few second-years were dragging in crates of equipment.
Overseeing it all, giving orders and pointing, was Fenric Caldane.
Even if he hadn’t made such an impressive introduction on the first day, he would be impossible to miss.
He was thick-armed and weather-worn, his half-buttoned shirt revealing runic burns old enough to have stories, and the twin prosthetic fingers on his right hand clinked softly as he adjusted the strap of his reinforced apron.
A tiny metal beetle perched on his shoulder, wings twitching in a rhythmic stutter.
“Eyes up, first-years,” he barked without turning. “If you were expecting a lecture, you thought wrong,” a few whooping cheers followed before, “this is where you learn how not to die.”
The students formed a loose half-circle around the crates. Cassara kept her arms crossed, gaze steady. Gideon stood across the group from her, alone. Verena wasn’t in this time slot. Julian wasn’t either. For once, the silence wasn’t heavy. It was just hers.
Fenric kicked open a crate with a hiss of steam. From within, a second-year pulled out a crystal on a thick black cord, pale, milky, and faintly pulsing.
“This,” Fenric said, holding it up, “is an Arclight Shard. It is the only reason you won’t get your face bitten off in six weeks’ time.
You will wear it. You will sleep with it.
You will not ‘accidentally’ leave it in your dorm.
Because if it hasn’t attuned to your signature by the time you go hunting for a bond, you’ll be lucky if the beast walks away uninterested.
Unlucky?” He smiled. “Well. That’s why we keep the south wall reinforced. ”
Cassara accepted the shard when it was passed her way, inspecting the smooth, faceted crystal, the way the energy it emitted tingled across her fingertips.
Fenric’s voice cut back in. “Demonstration.”
Two second-years stepped forward. One knelt, placing a circular magitek anchor on the ground while the other activated an embedded ACS panel strapped to his shoulder.
The humming noise rose, arcane threads lashing between beast and tamer as a sleek, feral creature shimmered into view, a projection of a previous bond.
Cassara leaned forward despite herself.
Fenric circled them like a vulture. “The ACS, Arcane Conduit System, connects you and your beast in a feedback loop. It regulates commands, synchronizes positioning, and prevents accidental soul hemorrhage. Unless, of course, you overload the core or forget your bindings. Then it gets, well, messy.”
As if on cue, the projection stuttered. Sparks flared. The second-year swore and yanked his hand back as the projection distorted with a shriek.
Fenric grinned. “Anyone still think this is just gear maintenance?”
Cassara narrowed her eyes. This was new, more complicated than she’d expected, but still intriguing.
Fenric’s grin didn’t fade as he lifted a hand and gestured sharply.
A small group of older students peeled away from the perimeter of the field, second-years in personalized ACS rigs that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight.
The segmented armor fit close to the body, light and maneuverable, and each set shimmered with the faint, liquid pulse of active soul-thread circuits.
“Pair up,” Fenric barked. “Your handlers’ll walk you through the basics, get your preliminary measurements, and start calibration. You won’t get your personal rigs until we have sufficient enough data.”
Cassara’s second-year, a girl with long dark hair and sun-gold skin, offered her a smile. “You’re Cassara, right? I was hoping I’d get you.”
Cassara tilted her head. “Have we met?”
“Not officially,” the girl admitted, holding out a hand. “Reya Lorenta. My cousin was a crestbearer under your mother back in the day.”
Cassara blinked, unsure how to respond to that. Reya didn’t wait.
“Come on,” she said, waving her toward a polished table stacked with fresh ACS components. “Let’s talk armor.”
Reya moved in a whirlwind of technical terms and calibrator wands. “This is the base skeleton of the ACS. Like Instructor Caldane said, you’ll get your full rig before beast pairing, but we fit the framework now so it can begin attuning to your energy signature.”
Cassara studied the curved plating, the sleek copper alloy etched with faint silver tracery. Soul-thread channels ran like veins through the frame, pulsing dimly.
“It syncs with the beast?” she asked.
“More like it syncs with you, and then mirrors that through your beast. The color feedback here,” Reya tapped the glowing bar running down the forearm brace, “tells us how stable your sync is.”
The light was a soft, steady teal. Cassara watched it shift slightly as Reya adjusted the alignment at her wrist.
“Blue to green is what you want. Resting state. Harmony between tamer and beast, if the beast is bonded,” Reya said.
“Yellow is still clear, but it means there is strain or tension, you’ll see it spike in combat.
Red?” She winced. “Red means instability. That’s dangerous territory.
You either calm the bond, or you’re going to be in big trouble. ”
“And purple?” Cassara asked, because it had been whispered more than once already this week.
Reya hesitated. “We don’t talk about purple.”
Cassara arched a brow.
Reya lowered her voice. “It’s misrepresented as a perfect sync. Fifty-fifty. Tamer and beast share full command. In theory? Ultimate trust. But it’s dangerous and the few who have tried it… well… it has always ended poorly. The tamer should always retain higher control. Sixty-forty at least.”
Cassara thought of her Echo trial. Of standing in that hall, alone.
“It’s risky,” Reya continued. “Too easy for a beast to override a human if the bond slips. When it happens… well, that’s how you get names etched into the memorial wall. They say your mother went purple before…” She stopped, eyes widening. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Cassara shook her head. “It’s fine.”
Reya offered a quiet smile, finishing the last adjustments on the brace. “There, all set,” she said. “Remember, don’t try to cheat the link. Genuine connection is an important part of the bond.”
Cassara flexed her fingers.
She had no intention of cheating anything, but if she could master this, master it all? Let the others worry about colors. She was here to win.
Fenric’s voice rose above the din.
“This isn’t a toy. It’s not armor. It’s a living conduit.
Built to amplify your sync rate, channel beast feedback, regulate burst flow, and keep your overconfident ass from detonating mid-charge.
If you forget any one of those functions, congrats.
You’ve just turned yourself into a walking mana grenade. ”
He tapped the schematic again, enlarging a glowing blue core. “These are tuned to your resonance signature. Tamper with that? You fry your own nervous system.”
Liri winced audibly.
Fenric turned, unbothered. “That’s the happy ending. If it syncs wrong and tries to bond with your beast instead… well, best case, the beast rejects it and you black out. Worst case… it doesn’t reject it, and you wake up with half your brain hijacked.”
The class had gone quiet.
“Glad we understand each other.” Fenric’s tone lightened a degree, not much, but enough to be dangerous. “You’ll be partnered today. Each pair gets a broken ACS rig and partial schematic. Your homework is to troubleshoot. Diagnose the issue. Begin repairs.”
He started calling names, pointing with a metal stylus that sparked faintly with residual energy.
“Gideon and Morris. Lirien and Talia. Cassara and Oliver.”
Cassara blinked.
“Oliver?” she asked under her breath, glancing around.
“Here,” came a quiet reply. The boy she had been seeing all day, the one with the short cropped hair and wiry frame.
He wore a pair of round, rune-rimmed glasses and a slightly rumpled shirt which she took notice of when he slipped into the seat beside her.
His sleeves were already rolled up and tools poked from his belt like makeshift armor.
Fenric finished listing off names and set his codex to the side.
“Now,” he said, slapping a sparking conduit into a containment crate, “before I let you all scamper off with your homework, a little light horror story for the road.”
He leaned forward on the bench, oil-streaked hands steepled.
“About six years ago, a pair of students thought they could shortcut the bond. One was a prodigy, top of his year. The other? A tinkerer, not unlike some of you. Thought he could ‘correct’ the link imbalance. Make the ACS respond faster. Stronger. More instinctively.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “They forced the sync. Tamer and beast, equal mental load. Full parity. You know what we call that?”
He tapped a rune on the wall. The projection flared, a shimmering ACS schematic, its link core glowing purple.
“Going violet,” he said quietly. “It looks beautiful and feels euphoric. But it’s a lie. It’s not trust. It’s surrender. The beast takes what you give it, and if you’re not stronger than your instincts, than the beast is, then what you are fades. Fast.”
Cassara thought about what the girl had said, about her mother. Was it true? Was that why she had never come home?
“The prodigy’s name isn’t on the memorial wall,” Fenric added.
“Because we never recovered his body. Anyone caught slipping to violet gets flagged for override review.” He let his eyes sweep the room.
“You think you’re the exception? I’ll tell you right now, you’re not.
You let that pulse hit fifty-fifty, and we pull your rig before your beast pulls your lungs out. ”