Jak's tracking hound was dead.
The rift spawn had killed it three minutes ago. Torn throat. Too much blood. The hound had done its job, given Jak time to put distance between himself and the creature. But now the hound was gone, and Jak was alone in the northern forest with a rift spawn corpse dissolving into purple-blue mist.
Six months. He'd had the hound for six months. Long enough to learn its patterns. Long enough to work contracts efficiently.
Not long enough for it to matter.
Jak knelt beside the body. His hand shook as he touched the hound's head. Still warm. The bond was already fading, that connection in the back of his mind growing thinner with each second.
Then it was gone completely.
No beast. No bond. No guild registration.
Jak stood slowly. His legs felt unsteady. Not from the fight. From understanding what came next.
Without a bonded beast, he wasn't a tamer. Without being a tamer, he had no guild standing. No contracts. No income.
Mira's medicine cost three silver per week. Jak had been making four silver per month on F-rank slime extermination and pest control contracts. Barely enough. Never enough.
Now he had nothing.
The rift spawn's body had dissolved completely. Standard death pattern. They came through tears in reality, killed whatever they found, then returned to void energy when destroyed.
This one had been small. Already wounded when Jak encountered it. Probably why he and the hound had survived long enough for the hound to land a killing blow before dying.
Jak needed to finish the contract. Clear the slimes from the merchant road. Get his five copper payment. Figure out what came next after that.
He turned away from his dead hound and continued deeper into the forest.
♢♢♢♢
The slimes were exactly where the contract specified. Clustered around a section of merchant road, making it impassable. Thirty of them. Maybe forty.
Normally, Jak would have used the hound to herd them into groups. Then killed them systematically with his short blade. Three hours of work. Maybe four.
Now he'd have to do it alone. Six hours. Maybe more.
He started working. Blade out. Movements careful. Conserving energy.
F-rank work. Bottom-tier contracts. The kind experienced tamers wouldn't touch. The kind desperate people took when they had no other options.
Jak had been desperate for six months.
The slimes died easily. No intelligence. No threat. Just acidic bodies that dissolved organic matter on contact. Dangerous to farmers. Annoying to merchants. Simple to kill if you had a blade and knew where to strike.
Jak had killed hundreds of them over the past six months.
He was halfway through the cluster when he heard it.
Growling. Low. Pained.
Not a rift spawn. Something else.
Jak stopped moving. Listened.
The growling came from deeper in the forest. Off the merchant road. Away from the contract area.
He should ignore it. Finish the slimes. Get paid. Go back to the city.
But curiosity pulled him forward. Or maybe desperation. Maybe the understanding that without a beast, he was finished anyway, so what did it matter if he wasted an hour investigating strange sounds in the forest.
He followed the growling.
Fifty feet off the road. Through dense undergrowth. Into a small clearing.
That's where he found it.
A shadow fox. Injured. Bleeding from multiple wounds across its side and legs. Cornered against a rock formation by two more rift spawns.
Jak had seen shadow foxes in guild records. Rare creatures from the northern void wastes. Valuable. Dangerous. Nearly impossible to bond with.
This one was dying.
The rift spawns circled it. Patient. Knowing their prey was too wounded to escape.
Jak didn't think. He charged.
His blade caught the first rift spawn across what might have been its throat. The creature dissolved immediately. Weak. Already wounded from fighting the fox.
The second spawn turned toward Jak. Faster than the first. Stronger.
It lunged.
Jak barely dodged. Felt claws rake across his arm. Shallow cuts. Painful but not fatal.
The shadow fox struck from behind. Even wounded, it moved with precision. Jaws closing on the spawn's neck. Tearing. The creature screamed that glass-shard sound before dissolving.
Silence.
Jak stood in the clearing, breathing hard. His arm bled. Three shallow cuts. They'd heal.
The shadow fox collapsed. Too many wounds. Too much blood loss. It had used its last strength to kill the second spawn.
Now it was dying.
Jak approached slowly. The fox's amber eyes tracked him. Wary. Calculating.
"You're dying," Jak said. Not sure why he was talking. "I'm dying too. Different kind of dying. But same result."
The fox watched him.
"My beast died. Without a beast, I lose everything. My sister needs medicine. Three silver per week. I can't earn that without guild contracts."
The fox's breathing was labored. Shallow. It wouldn't last much longer.
"Emergency bonds are possible," Jak continued. "Technically legal. If both parties consent. If circumstances are extreme enough."
He'd read about emergency bonds in guild records. Desperate tamers who lost their beasts in the field could attempt to bond with wild creatures if the alternative was death. Success rate was low. Very low.
But low wasn't zero.
"You bond with me, maybe we both survive this," Jak said. "Maybe not. But definitely we both die if we don't try."
The shadow fox stared at him for a long moment.
Then, slowly, it moved its head. Pressing against Jak's outstretched hand.
The bond formed instantly.
Not like Jak's previous bond with the hound. That had been gentle. Gradual. This was violent. Immediate.
Something tore through Jak's mind. Foreign consciousness crashing into his own. The fox's awareness. Its pain. Its fury. Its desperate will to survive.
Then something else. Deeper. Wrong.
Void energy. Pouring through the bond. Rewriting something fundamental in Jak's body.
His wounds closed. Not healing. Reforming. Flesh knitting back together in seconds.
The fox's wounds closed too. Same speed. Same impossible regeneration.
The bond settled. Stabilized.
Jak gasped. His body felt different. Lighter. Faster. His senses were sharper. He could hear sounds he'd never noticed before. See details in the shadows that should have been invisible.
The shadow fox stood. No longer wounded. No longer dying.
Through the bond, understanding. They'd saved each other. But they'd also changed each other.
Something had rewritten them both during the bonding process. Something the guild had never documented. Something that shouldn't have been possible.
Jak looked at his hands. They looked the same. But they didn't feel the same.
The shadow fox padded over to him. Sat. Waiting.
Through the bond, a name. Not spoken. Just understood.
Shade.
"Shade," Jak said aloud. Testing it.
The fox's tail flicked once.
Jak stood. His legs didn't feel unsteady anymore. His arm where the rift spawn had cut him showed no scars. No evidence of injury.
He walked back to the merchant road. Shade followed.
The remaining slimes were still there. Forty of them. Maybe more.
Jak drew his blade. Started working.
The slimes died faster than before. Much faster. His movements were quicker. More precise. His blade found killing strikes without conscious thought.
Shade helped. Herding slimes into groups. Making them easier targets.
One hour. The entire cluster cleared in one hour.
Work that should have taken six hours alone. Work that used to take three hours with his tracking hound.
Done in one.
Jak stared at the empty road. At the dissolved slime remains.
Something fundamental had changed during the bond. He didn't understand what. Didn't understand how.
But he understood enough.
He wasn't F-rank anymore.
He needed to get back to the city. Report to the guild. Get re-tested. Find out what he'd become.
Shade walked beside him as he headed south. Through the bond, Jak felt the fox's calm presence. Its certainty.
They were bonded now. Partners. Whatever came next, they'd face it together.
The sun was setting by the time Jak reached the city gates. Guards glanced at him. At Shade. Their expressions shifted. Cautious. Wary.
Shadow foxes were rare. Dangerous. Most people gave them distance.
Jak kept walking. Through the gates. Into the lower quarter. Toward his room where Mira waited.
Tomorrow he'd report to the guild. Get re-tested. Find out his new rank.
Tonight, he'd figure out how to explain to his eight-year-old sister that everything had changed.
That he wasn't F-rank anymore.
That maybe, finally, they had a chance.