Beatrice broke me on the ninth day.
Not physically—though she'd drawn blood often enough that I'd stopped counting the peck wounds. Mentally. There's something uniquely humiliating about being outsmarted by a chicken.
"You're overthinking again," Marta said, watching me fail for the sixth time that morning. "Chickens don't think. They are. You need to stop trying to understand her and just be present with the chaos."
"I am being present."
"You're being analytical. There's a difference." She tossed grain on the ground. Beatrice immediately mobbed it, pecking with vicious efficiency. "Look at her. She's not worried about yesterday or tomorrow. She's not planning. She's just existing in this exact moment. Food. Pecking. Existing. You need to meet her there."
I watched Beatrice destroy the grain pile.
Then I stopped trying to make sense of her.
I just... opened. Let my mind go quiet. Present. No goals, no plans, no desperate need to succeed. Just awareness.
Just being.
Beatrice's presence rushed in like a flood.
peck peck food shiny PECK threat? no food PECK peck warm sun food PECK—
It was chaos. Complete, beautiful, mindless chaos.
And I just... sat in it. Like sitting in rain. Not fighting, not controlling, just experiencing.
Thirty seconds.
Forty-five.
Sixty.
Beatrice stopped pecking. She turned her head, fixing me with one beady eye.
For a moment, I felt something shift. Not understanding—chickens don't understand. But recognition. Acknowledgment. A sense of you are here, I am here, we exist in the same moment.
Ninety seconds.
The connection drifted away naturally, like a conversation ending.
Beatrice went back to pecking.
I sat there, stunned.
Marta was smiling. "Well. Took you long enough."
"She's pleased with you, you know."
I looked up from my coffee—my tenth cup of the morning, probably. Hans stood in the doorway of my study with his usual portfolio of doom.
"Who?"
"Old Marta. Word from the village is she's been telling people you might actually have potential. For her, that's high praise."
"She called me 'not completely hopeless' yesterday."
"Like I said. High praise." Hans set the portfolio down. "Though I'm afraid the morning's news is less encouraging."
Of course it was.
I opened the portfolio.
The first document was from our grain merchant in the capital. Prices had dropped fifteen percent due to an unexpected surplus from the eastern provinces. Our projected harvest income—already marginal—had just taken another hit.
The second was a letter from the Crown's tax assessor. He'd be arriving in nine weeks instead of eleven. Early. To "ensure accurate evaluation of estate assets."
The third was a bill from our blacksmith. Three of our plow horses had thrown shoes, the forge needed repairs, and we owed him for six months of deferred maintenance.
Seventeen marks.
I set the papers down and did the math.
497 marks in assets.
Minus 17 for the blacksmith: 480.
Projected harvest income, revised: Maybe 300 marks if we were lucky.
780 marks total against a 4,200 mark debt, due in nine weeks instead of eleven.
The numbers didn't work.
They'd never worked, but they were getting worse.
"Options?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"We could sell the timber rights to Merchant Voss. He's indicated he'd pay approximately 800 marks for a twenty-year contract."
"Which would give us 1,580 total. Still short by 2,620 marks, and we'd lose our only valuable asset."
"Yes, my lord."
"What else?"
Hans hesitated. "Lady Clarissa's family has sent another letter. They're... concerned about the wedding timeline. Given the estate's financial situation."
I picked up the letter. It was polite, carefully worded, and absolutely clear: The Rothswald family was getting cold feet. They wanted assurances that the von Klause estate would still exist in six months.
Assurances I couldn't give.
"They want to postpone," I said.
"Not explicitly. But the implication is clear."
If the engagement broke, I'd lose whatever political capital the Rothswald connection provided. More importantly, Elena would lose her only real prospect—Lord Brennan was only interested because of the potential Rothswald alliance.
Everything was connected. Every thread pulled on three others.
"Tell them..." I rubbed my temples. "Tell them I'm pursuing new revenue streams. Give them vague reassurances. Buy me another month."
"My lord, if you can't deliver on those assurances—"
"I know, Hans. I know." I stood, pacing to the window. The Thornwood stretched out in the distance, dark and deep. "But what choice do I have? Roll over and die? Sell everything and run?"
"Some would say that's the pragmatic choice."
"Some would be wrong."
I turned back to face him. "How much do we have in the discretionary fund?"
Hans's expression went carefully neutral. "Approximately forty-three marks, my lord. Reserved for emergencies."
"I need to spend some of it."
"On what?"
"Information." I'd been thinking about this since the Beatrice breakthrough. "I need to know what's happening in the Thornwood. How many wolf packs, how many wyverns, what the clan movements are. If I'm going to make this Tame strategy work, I need intelligence."
"My lord, hiring scouts would cost—"
"I'm not hiring scouts." I smiled. "I'm going to breed some."
Marta listened to my proposal with her arms crossed and her expression skeptical.
"You want to use ravens for reconnaissance," she said flatly.
"Yes."
"Ravens."
"They're intelligent, they fly, they can cover territory humans can't. If I can bond with a few and train them to report back—"
"Boy, do you have any idea how hard it is to bond with corvids?"
I paused. "Harder than chickens?"
"Different than chickens. Chickens are chaos, but they're simple chaos. Ravens are smart. They remember. They judge. They hold grudges." She gestured to Grip and Munin on the roof beam. "Those two? I've been working with them for three years. They still don't fully trust me."
"But it's possible."
"Possible and practical are different things. What you're describing would take months. You said you have nine weeks."
"Then I'll compress the timeline."
"You can't compress a relationship, you fool boy. That's the whole point of Tame—it's not a spell you cast, it's a bond you build."
"Then help me build it faster."
Marta stared at me. Then she sighed, long and heavy. "You're going to kill yourself with this stubbornness."
"Probably. But I'm definitely going to die if I do nothing."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she stood, walked to a cabinet, and pulled out a small wooden box.
"There's a nest," she said. "Three miles north, near Blackwater Marsh. A mated pair of ravens with four juveniles. The juveniles are old enough to leave the nest but young enough that they haven't fully bonded with their parents yet."
"You want me to steal baby ravens?"
"I want you to offer them a choice. Go to the nest. Bring food—good food, fresh meat. Leave it as an offering. Come back every day for a week. Let them see you, smell you, learn you're not a threat. Then try to connect."
"A week?"
"You want shortcuts, boy? There aren't any. You want to bond with intelligent creatures? You earn it." She opened the box. Inside were several small silver rings. "If you succeed, if one of them accepts you, put this on their leg. It's a focus—helps maintain the bond over distance."
I took one of the rings. It was surprisingly light, etched with symbols I didn't recognize.
"What are these markings?"
"Old language. From before the kingdoms, when Tame wasn't considered beneath notice." She closed the box. "There were orders once. Tamers who worked with courts, with armies, with cities. They kept the peace, maintained balance between civilization and the wild. Then the knight orders rose, and mages organized, and suddenly anyone who didn't fit their power structure was pushed aside."
"What happened to them? The Tamer orders?"
"Scattered. Forgotten. Killed, some of them, during the Purge."
"The Purge?"
Marta's expression went cold. "Ask your history books. Or don't. Doesn't matter now. Point is, Tame used to matter. Could matter again, if you're smart about it."
She handed me a map marked with the raven nest location.
"One week," she said. "Every day, bring offerings. Be patient. And boy?"
"Yes?"
"If you hurt those juveniles, if you try to force a bond before they're ready, I'll let Beatrice peck your eyes out."
Given what I'd learned about Beatrice, that wasn't an idle threat.
I rode to Blackwater Marsh the next morning with a satchel of fresh rabbit meat—purchased from a village hunter for two marks I couldn't afford.
The marsh was misty, the air thick with the smell of stagnant water and rotting vegetation. The kind of place where you watched your step because one wrong move meant being hip-deep in mud.
The nest was exactly where Marta's map indicated, high in a dead oak that rose from the marsh like a skeletal hand.
Four juveniles. Bigger than I expected, almost full-grown, with glossy black feathers and intelligent eyes that tracked my approach.
I didn't try to climb. Didn't try to get close.
I just laid the meat on a flat rock fifty feet from the tree, stepped back, and waited.
The ravens watched.
I opened myself to Tame, gently, just broadcasting presence. I'm here. I brought food. No threat.
The juveniles shuffled on their branch but didn't flee.
After ten minutes, I left.
Behind me, I heard the flutter of wings.
I went back every morning for six days.
Each time, I brought food. Each time, I stayed a little longer. Each time, I opened myself to Tame and just... existed in their awareness.
By the third day, the juveniles didn't wait for me to leave before taking the meat.
By the fifth day, one of them—the smallest, with a distinctive white fleck on its beak—landed on a rock ten feet from me.
By the sixth day, White-Fleck hopped to within five feet.
On the seventh day, I brought the best cut of meat I could afford—three marks' worth of venison, stolen from my own dinner stores.
I laid it out and sat down.
White-Fleck landed on the rock beside the meat.
We looked at each other.
I opened to Tame, not reaching, just... offering.
The raven's mind was nothing like Pip or Beatrice. It was sharp. Focused. Aware.
curious shiny food? watching dangerous? food good watching more watching clever?
Not chaos. Intelligence.
I felt the moment of decision. The raven, assessing, weighing risk against reward.
Then, carefully, it hopped closer.
The connection formed.
It was different from anything I'd felt before. With Pip, it had been warm and simple. With Beatrice, chaotic. This was... clear. Like looking through clean glass. I could feel the raven's awareness, its thoughts not as words but as impressions, images, feelings.
It saw me. Really saw me. And it was choosing.
Curious. Clever-hands brings food. Clever-hands patient. Not threat. Maybe... useful?
The raven took the meat.
I slipped the silver ring onto its leg. It didn't resist.
When I rode back to the manor, White-Fleck followed.
Hans stared at the raven perched on my shoulder.
"My lord. You have a bird."
"Astute observation."
"A raven."
"Yes, Hans."
"Why do you have a raven?"
"Because I bonded with it. This is..." I realized I hadn't named it. "Scout. This is Scout."
Scout cawed, a sound that might have been agreement or mockery. Hard to tell.
"My lord, while I appreciate your... progress with the Tame skill, I'm not sure how a single raven addresses our financial crisis."
"It doesn't. Not yet." I walked to my study, Scout still perched on my shoulder. "But it's a start. Scout can fly reconnaissance over the Thornwood, map the wolf pack territories, identify threats and opportunities. That information is valuable."
"To whom?"
"To merchant caravans who want to avoid getting eaten. To the Duke's Rangers who've been trying to clear the road for three years. To anyone who needs to move through that territory safely."
Hans was quiet for a moment. Then: "You're going to sell information."
"Eventually. First, I need to gather it. Scout is the first step."
The raven ruffled its feathers and made a sound that might have been approval.
Over the next three days, I worked with Scout constantly. Teaching it to fly specific routes, to recognize landmarks, to return and show me mental images of what it had seen.
It was exhausting. The bond required constant maintenance, constant attention. And the information came in impressions, not clear reports. I had to learn to interpret what Scout was showing me.
But it worked.
By the end of the third day, I had a rough map of the northern Thornwood. Three wolf pack territories, two wyvern nesting sites, and the Thornwood clan's main encampment.
It wasn't much.
But it was more than anyone else had.
I was in my study, updating the map, when Elena knocked.
She didn't wait for permission before entering. She rarely did anymore.
"I'm accepting Lord Brennan's proposal," she said without preamble.
I set down my pen. "Elena—"
"He's made a formal offer. Conditional on the estate remaining solvent for six months, but formal. If I refuse, I might not get another chance."
"What about the Rothswald alliance? I thought Brennan was only interested because of that connection."
"He was. But apparently, word has spread that you're... different. That you're actually trying to save the estate instead of just bleeding it dry." She looked at Scout, who was preening on his perch. "People are talking, Dietrich. About the mill, about you visiting the village, about your 'experiments' with beasts. Some think you're mad. Others think you might actually have a plan."
"And Brennan?"
"Brennan is cautious. But curious." She sat, uninvited. "He's given me six months to prove the von Klause name isn't worthless. So I need you to succeed."
"No pressure, then."
"I'm serious, brother. If you fail, I'm trapped. If you succeed..." She looked at me properly. "Maybe I have a future."
We sat in silence for a moment.
"I'm trying," I said finally. "I know it doesn't look like much—a raven, some chickens, a fixed mill. But I'm building something. It's going to take time."
"How much time?"
"I don't know."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's honest."
Elena stood. "Six months, Dietrich. That's what I have. Make it count."
She left.
Scout cawed softly.
"I know," I told the bird. "No pressure."
That night, the wolves returned.
Five of them this time. The alpha and four others, standing at the manor's edge.
I watched from my window as they circled, testing boundaries.
Scout was asleep on his perch, but I felt him stir, sensing my agitation through our bond.
I opened to Tame and reached out—not toward the wolves, not yet, but just... broadcasting presence.
I see you. I'm learning. Are you?
The alpha's head turned. Even at this distance, I felt its attention.
Vast. Intelligent. Dangerous.
And interested.
Then they were gone, melting into the darkness like smoke.
I opened Dietrich's journal.
Day Seventeen of Project Taming Ruin:
Successfully bonded with a raven (Scout). First intelligent predator bond. Exhausting but functional. Beginning reconnaissance of Thornwood.
Economic status: Deteriorating. 463 marks remaining. 9 weeks until tax assessor. Rothswald engagement wobbling. Elena has 6 months to secure Brennan match.
Everything is connected. Every thread pulls three others.
Scout gives me eyes in the Thornwood. Need to monetize that information soon. Very soon.
The alpha pack is testing us. Coming closer. More frequent. What does it want?
Marta mentioned a Purge. Tamer orders that were destroyed. Need to ask about that. Could be relevant.
Note: Successfully bonded with intelligent creature. This changes things. If I can bond with ravens, I can bond with wolves. Question is: can I do it in 9 weeks?
Another note: Spent 8 marks this week on meat for bonding. Can't sustain this. Need revenue soon or I'll be broke before the tax man even arrives.
I closed the journal and looked at Scout.
The raven opened one eye, watching me.
"Well," I said. "We've got nine weeks to turn you into a profitable asset. No pressure."
Scout clicked his beak.
I chose to interpret that as confidence.
The next morning, I went to Marta's cottage and found her in the garden with Soot, the fox.
"I bonded with Scout," I said.
"I know. He told Grip and Munin. They're jealous."
"How did he—you know what, never mind." I paused. "I need to move faster. I need to bond with a proper predator. Something that can hunt, fight if necessary."
Marta looked at Soot. The fox looked back.
"You want to bond with her," Marta said. It wasn't a question.
"If she'll have me."
"Why should she? She has everything she needs here. Food, shelter, safety. What can you offer that I can't?"
It was a real question. And I didn't have a good answer.
"Purpose, maybe. Partnership. The chance to be more than just... safe."
Marta studied me. Then she looked at Soot.
"Go on, then. Ask her yourself."
I knelt in the garden mud.
Soot watched me with amber eyes, tail twitching.
I opened to Tame, and this time I didn't just broadcast presence.
I showed her what I was building. The estate, the wolves, the impossible task. The need for allies, for partners, for creatures who could move between the wild and civilization.
I can't force you. Won't try. But I'm offering partnership. Not ownership. Partnership.
Soot's mind was complex—clever, cautious, curious. A predator's mind.
She stood, padded closer.
Sniffed my extended hand.
And then, slowly, the connection formed.
Not submission. Not even really friendship.
Something closer to professional interest.
Curious. Clever-hands offers interesting things. Soot will watch. Will decide later if Soot stays.
It was conditional. Tentative.
But it was a bond.
Marta handed me another silver ring. "She's choosy. If she's chosen you—even temporarily—you must've said something right."
I slipped the ring onto Soot's leg.
The fox yawned, showing sharp teeth, and trotted after me as I stood.
"She'll test you," Marta warned. "Foxes are clever. She'll push boundaries, see what you're really made of. Don't try to control her. Just be worth following."
"Understood."
"And boy? You're moving fast. Too fast, maybe. Don't burn yourself out before you've even started."
"I don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice. The question is whether you can live with the consequences."
I rode back to the manor with Scout on my shoulder and Soot trotting alongside Copper.
Two bonded creatures.
Nine weeks until the tax assessor.
463 marks in the treasury.
The math still didn't work.
But for the first time since waking up in this world, I felt like maybe—maybe—I was building something real.
Something that might actually matter.
Scout cawed.
Soot yipped.
And in the distance, a wolf howled.