Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

By morning, the gold gourd carts were moving.

Nia heard them before she saw them.

The sound came up through the stone in uneven bumps and low wooden creaks, deeper than the smaller jar crates and slower than the cloth carts. Wheels pressed over ash and grit where the east bend had finally taken enough traction to satisfy Kael. Men called to one another in short bursts, and someone laughed once before another voice told him to watch his feet before the gourd paid for his good mood. Below, the passage answered with the scrape of doors, the lift of cloth screens, and the shuffle of workers moving from testing into production because the path had opened and there was no reason to keep festival food waiting in pieces.

Nia sat on the edge of the bed with one boot in her hand and one braid half over her shoulder, listening.

Behind her, Shen worked his fingers through the loosened ends of her waist-length braids. He had already warmed her scarf, set her breakfast where she could reach it, and placed a covered cup of berry tea near the bed. Kael had left before dawn, and Shen had filled the space he left with warmed cloth, food, and quiet attention. When Nia stopped eating to listen to the carts, he nudged the small plate closer until she picked up the root cake again.

Shen returned to the sections of braid that had loosened while she slept. His touch was quieter than usual, careful because last night’s words still sat between them, folded like the private bark-paper note tucked inside his medicine roll: Earth, Vareth, sour fruits, preserved peel, gold gourd seeds, texture, and words not meant for the kitchens.

Kael had stayed. Shen had written only what she allowed. When Nia cried herself empty, both of them had tucked her into bed with the same hands that held her secret.

This morning, Shen had woken before her and made grain with berry syrup. He had not asked anything until she swallowed her first bite. Then he had said, “Gold gourd is the one that reminded you of several foods from your first world?”

Nia had stared at her bowl.

Kael, already at the entrance with his cloak over one shoulder, had said, “Ask after she eats.”

Shen had looked at the bowl, then at Nia. “After she eats.”

Kael had crossed the room, bent to kiss her hair and then her cheek, and left with snowlight behind him.

Now the carts had arrived, and the sound of the wheels pulled at memories she had no room to explain in a busy kitchen.

Shen tied the end of one braid with a narrow strip and smoothed his palm once down the length. “Tell me what can be said below.”

Nia swallowed the rest of her bite. “Gold gourd. Hard-shelled gold gourd if we need to be specific. Mash for the festival. Seeds if Mari allows us to test them.”

“And what is only for us?”

“That it reminds me of foods I knew before,” Nia said. “Not that it is them.”

Shen’s hand paused near the next braid tie.

Nia lowered her attention to the boot in her hand. “I don’t want to rename everything here. I want to learn what it is. I just know some ways to test what it might do.”

“That will do,” Shen said.

Nia pushed her foot into the second boot. “In my first world, some gourds had seeds people roasted with salt, and sometimes with something sweet. The textures were different too. Some were stringy, some smooth, some watery, some dense.”

Shen reached for the bark-paper beside the bed, but Nia caught his sleeve before he could write.

“Breakfast first.”

His mouth curved.

“You too,” she added.

He glanced toward the hearth, where his own bowl waited with barely three bites missing, and sat beside her when she lifted her brows. The morning outside the cave was already pulling him toward the treatment room, the lower kitchens, the drying alcove, the doorway workers, and whatever cracked hands or cold feet had come in with the cart crews, so Nia let herself enjoy three quiet breaths of making him eat before the mountain took him again.

When they left the cave, Shen carried the private note inside his inner wrap and the public kitchen cloth in the basket. Nia carried the empty breakfast plate down with her, grateful for the weight of something ordinary in her hands.

The upper corridors had changed overnight. The same stone walls curved downward from Kael’s home, the same ash gritted the corners, and the same cloth strips hung over colder openings to blunt the wind, but people moved differently now. Shoulders lifted higher, and voices carried farther. Workers who had trudged the day before now walked with purpose even when tired. Children appeared where they had not been allowed during storm cleanup, bundled thickly and kept close to adults, their ears twitching toward every cart wheel and kitchen call. Narrow strips of red-dyed cloth had been tied along the lower passage beams, rough-cut and uneven, but they caught the hearthlight and made the corridor seem as if it had taken a deeper breath.

At the first bend, a small boy carrying a stack of cups stopped short when he saw Nia.

“Kitchen?” he asked.

Nia looked around for the adult he had escaped from, and a woman behind him said, “Give them to her if your arms are tired.”

“I’m not tired,” the boy said, though the cups wobbled.

“I can take half,” Nia said, holding out both hands.

He considered this, then surrendered the top stack with great dignity. “Mari said cups to the warm drink table.”

“Then that is where they’ll go.”

Shen took the heavier half from Nia without comment, leaving her with a stack light enough to carry comfortably.

“I could have carried all of them,” she said.

“I know.”

She nudged him with her shoulder, and his tail brushed behind her ankle for one step before the corridor opened into the busier lower passage.

By the time they reached the kitchens, the carts had been unstrapped. Gold gourds sat in rows near the sorting tables, their hard shells dull yellow under flour dust and cold storage marks. Some were large enough that two workers had to lift them together. Others were small enough to fit beneath one arm, though Mari slapped a man’s wrist when he tried to tuck one against his side while carrying a knife in the other hand.

“No carrying like that,” Mari said. “If you drop it, you clean the mess and eat the bruise.”

The worker set it down properly.

Nia stopped near the doorway, cups still in hand. The sight of so many gourds crowded kitchens from another life behind her eyes for a moment: orange flesh on cutting boards, roasted seeds cooling in pans, thick soups, sweet winter dishes, and the kind of spice-warm smell that had once meant home. Then the lower kitchen pulled her back with cold shells, smoke, broth, and the sharp sweetness of berry syrup warming nearby.

Shen stood close enough that his sleeve brushed hers.

“Close enough to use those memories?” he asked quietly.

Workers were unloading gourds, Mari was arguing with a cart strap, and Rovan was already halfway across the room with a strip between his teeth.

“Close enough to give me ideas,” Nia said. “Not close enough to assume.”

Shen’s eyes warmed, and then he turned toward Mari as if they had only been discussing cups.

Mari spotted them from the sorting table. “Cups to the drink table. Then come look at these before someone cuts them wrong.”

Nia set the cups where directed. The warm drink table had changed since yesterday; small syrup jars stood in rows beside larger pots of hot water, one worker stirred a thinner berry mixture for faster serving, and another scraped the last thick syrup from a small jar and rinsed it with hot water so nothing wasted. The smell of berries and sun-sour peel rose in steady waves.

A girl at the table handed Nia a cup without asking. “Sera said if you came through and were not holding a cup, I should give you one.”

Nia turned toward the kitchen entrance. Sera was not there, but the order had clearly come from her.

Shen took the cup from Nia, tasted it, and handed it back. “Not too hot.”

“You are all coordinating,” Nia said.

The girl smiled into her own scarf and went back to stirring.

At the sorting table, Mari had already cut one gold gourd open. The flesh was deep yellow-orange, dense near the rind and wetter around the seed pocket. It was still cold from storage, with no steam rising from the cut face, and the smell was faint, green-sweet and earthy. Nia leaned closer before she could stop herself.

Mari watched her. “Worth the cart trouble?”

Nia touched the cut edge with one clean finger and pressed. It was firm, not dry, and not spoiled. The seed pocket looked stringy but clean.

“Yes.”

Mari grunted. “Good. I hate wasting safe path.”

A worker scooped the seeds and string into a bowl, and Nia spoke before he could carry it away.

“Don’t throw those away.”

The worker glanced from the bowl to Mari, and Mari’s attention moved to Nia.

“The seeds may roast,” Nia said. “I don’t know if these will be good, but we can test a small handful. Washed, dried near heat, then roasted with salt. Maybe herb salt.”

“Seed from old gourds can be bitter,” Mari said, already calculating labor.

“Then we test before doing more.”

Shen stepped beside the table and picked up one seed between two fingers. “The shell is thick. It may need longer drying.”

“Can it be cracked?” Mari asked.

“After roasting, maybe.” Nia studied the seed in Shen’s hand, then at the bowl. “Or it may be too much work for the result.”

Shen turned the seed in his fingers, then set it on the edge of the bowl.

“A small test,” he said. “Not a full tray.”

Mari pointed at the worker. “Small test. If it tastes like storage floor, it goes to stock waste.”

The worker marked a small bowl and set it aside.

The next gourd cut open cleaner, its flesh drier and deeper in color, with a smell that made Nia’s stomach tug in recognition. She pressed it with her finger and waited until the flesh gave under her touch.

He moved a half step closer and inspected the rind.

“This one is for mash,” Nia told Mari. “The wetter one can go into stew or be roasted longer.”

Mari nodded to the worker holding the knife. “Mark dry flesh for mash. Wet flesh for stew or long roast.”

“Could roast the wet one cut-side down first,” Nia said. “Let some water cook off.”

“Then mash after?”

“Maybe. It may taste weaker.”

Shen picked up the public cloth and wrote: dry-flesh gourds to mash; wetter gourds roast longer or stew; seed test small; inner pulp taste before broth. He paused at the last note and looked at Nia.

She considered the stringy pulp. “The softer inside may work for broth if it is clean and not bitter. It may add body, but we should taste first.”

Mari snorted. “Everything is taste first with you.”

“Testing first is better than ruining a whole pot.”

A worker near the hearth gave a soft laugh and hid it behind a cough. Mari pointed at him with the knife, and he became very focused on the gourds.

Rovan arrived with a strip in one hand and half a root cake in the other. “Kael says the east bend holds for carts if no one rushes. Tarek says if anyone rushes, he will put them on grit duty.”

Mari held out her hand for the strip. “Tell Tarek he can come threaten them himself.”

“He is threatening someone else right now.”

“With Kael?” Shen asked.

“Near the cold room.” Rovan took another bite, then remembered to swallow before continuing. “Ridge deer bones came in. Elk-beast bones are still patrol-held unless Kael changes the mark.”

“He won’t,” Mari said.

Nia nodded. “Then the elk marrow stew stays limited?”

“Limited if made,” Mari said. “Small pot near the elders, maybe. Patrol share separate.”

Rovan looked pained, but Mari did not look at him. “Do not make that face at me with food in your mouth.”

He closed his mouth.

A sound rolled in from the lower exit, muffled by stone and snow, too deep for a cart wheel and too round for a door closing. The kitchen shifted around it. A woman stirring the boar pot lifted her head, the girl at the drink table glanced toward the passage, and Rovan stopped chewing.

The sound came again, a low test-beat that seemed to press against the soles of Nia’s boots before fading into the kitchen noise.

“What was that?” she asked.

Sera was already behind Rovan, catching the back of his wrap before he could slip away with another message and guiding him toward a stool.

“Sit.”

“I have messages.”

“You have legs that will fold if you keep running on crumbs.” Sera pushed a cup into his hands. “Drink.”

Rovan looked at the cup, then at Nia. “Is this the strong berry one?”

“Probably.”

“Good.” He drank.

Sera’s hand came to Nia’s back, warm and firm. “You too.”

“I have one.”

“You are holding it, not drinking.”

Nia obediently drank as the sound came a third time from outside, joined by a smaller tapping answer.

“They’re testing the drums,” Sera said, fingers pausing at Nia’s scarf.

“Outside?”

“Stormbreak is outside.”

Nia turned toward the gold gourds, the syrup jars, the smoke-dark birds, the sour red strips, and the workers carrying trays. “Stormbreak?”

“Stormbreak Winter Festival, if someone is saying the full name.” Sera tightened Nia’s scarf with quick fingers. “Most of us just call it Stormbreak. The worst storms loosen, the paths open, the fires are built, and people come down to see who made it through the first hard bite of winter.”

Nia’s eyes went back to the food despite herself.

“The kitchens feed it,” Sera said. “They are not the whole of it.”

Before Nia could answer, a group passed the kitchen doorway carrying wrapped instruments toward the lower exit. Two men carried long carved drums between them, the hide heads covered in fur against the snow. A woman walked behind them with smaller waisted drums stacked against her hip, each one tied with dark cord. Another carried a bundle of hollow flutes wrapped in oiled cloth, and a boy followed with seed-filled gourds tied in pairs so they clicked softly every time he stepped.

Someone farther down the corridor called, “Careful with the bogaru. Darius will hear if you crack that rim.”

The man at the rear shifted the long drum higher with a mutter Nia could not catch.

“Bogaru?” Nia repeated under her breath.

Sera’s mouth curved, but she did not stop the instrument carriers to explain. “Darius plays when his fingers stay warm enough.”

“Darius?”

“He pretends he does not like being asked.”

Mari snorted from the menu cloth. “He pretends badly.”

A thin sound rose from the passage, breathy and clear, nothing like the drum. It bent once, found its note, and stopped.

“One of the qenri players is warming his breath too early,” Sera said.

The woman carrying the smaller drums paused at the edge of the kitchen to tighten one strap, and a child near the drink table whispered, “Jemra,” with the soft pride of someone naming something he had been told not to touch.

Nia did not know which drum he meant, and no one stopped long enough to explain. The instruments moved on toward the outside, carrying names with them in fragments: bogaru, qenri, jemra. The seed gourds clicked away behind the boy’s legs, and the deep test-beat came again from the foot of the mountain, rounder this time, as if the cold air had begun learning how to carry it.

Berry steam rose against Nia’s face from the cup still in her hands. She had spent days watching food become possible, and the festival had been growing outside the lower doors the whole time.

Mari tapped the menu cloth. “If everyone is done listening to wood and hide, the gourd will not mash itself.”

The room moved again.

Gold gourds were split, sorted, and carried toward the roasting hearths. Dry-fleshed pieces went into one set of trays for mash, wetter pieces went into deeper pans to roast longer, and seeds sat in their little marked bowl beside the drying cloth. Herb salt came down from Sera’s household in two small jars and one larger crock. Sour red root strips were checked for softness and set beside the boar pot, not inside it. Thick-feather birds came from the smoke racks in dark, glossy pieces, their stronger smell softened by smoke and fat.

Nia moved where people made space for her. A worker handed her a spoon and asked whether the berry sharpener should go on the roots before or after they rested. Another passed her a tray corner without asking, trusting her to hold it steady while he shifted a hot stone. Someone else asked where Shen had put the clean cloth for drying the berry pulp. Nia answered, held, stepped back, tasted, handed the spoon to Mari, accepted the cup Sera put into her fingers, and found herself sitting when a stool appeared behind her knees before she could pretend she had not been standing too long.

Only after she sat did she realize Shen had placed the stool.

He was across the table, tightening the tie on a syrup jar with a strip of cloth. His eyes met hers briefly, and the look held last night without asking her to speak of it.

Nia lifted her cup. He lowered his eyes to hide the small curve of his mouth.

Through the lower arch, she could see movement beyond the kitchens now. The outside had been cleared wider than she expected. Snow still fell softly, settling on shoulders before melting near body heat. Workers packed paths with ash and grit in broad lines leading away from the mountain’s foot. Piles of wood stood under hide coverings. Young men and women carried split logs toward circles marked in the snow, while older workers checked wind direction with bits of ash and moved kindling from one side to another. Near the largest cleared space, someone had already built a low platform of packed snow and flat stone where the long drums were being set under a lean of stretched hide.

Nia’s hands tightened around her cup.

At the foot of the mountain, Stormbreak was taking shape, and the kitchens were only one part of what would keep people there beneath snow and firelight. The drink mattered because people would stand in the cold. The mash, roots, broth, and bundles were not the festival itself. They were what let people remain there together.

The bonfire wood waited beneath hide covers.

Kael appeared at the doorway while the first tray of roasted gold gourd came out, Tarek beside him, both of them cold at the shoulders and wet at the hems. Kael’s gaze moved through the room, taking in Nia on the stool with a cup in her hand, Shen near the syrup jars, Sera at her back, Mari over the menu cloth, and the gold gourd trays cooling near the hearth.

“Path holds,” he said.

Mari exhaled through her nose. “Good.”

“Carts one way until dark. No return loads after the lower bell.”

Tarek added, “If someone argues, send them to me.”

Mari addressed the workers. “You heard him. Argue with Tarek if you need your pride cracked.”

No one volunteered.

Another drumbeat came from outside. Tarek’s eyes shifted toward the lower exit, then back to the path strip in his hand. He looked once more toward the snow beyond the arch before he returned to Mari’s marks.

Kael crossed to Nia while Tarek and Mari bent over the menu cloth. He bent down enough to kiss her, brief and warm, one hand settling at the back of her neck beneath her braids. He smelled of cold air, ash, leather, and the sharper scent of opened paths.

“You ate?” he asked near her mouth.

“Sera made sure I ate.”

His eyes moved to Sera, who lifted one shoulder as if this required no discussion.

“Good.” Kael’s thumb brushed once along Nia’s jaw.

Nia caught his wrist before he pulled away. “You?”

He gave her the look of a man who had hoped not to answer, and Shen appeared with a folded leaf bundle in a cloth and placed it in Kael’s free hand.

“Mari said chiefs standing in doorways still have to eat,” Shen said.

Mari did not look up from the cloth. “Especially if they expect the rest of us to keep working.”

Kael accepted the bundle and ate it in three bites because someone called for him from the corridor before he had finished the second. Nia rose halfway, but his hand touched her shoulder.

“Stay.”

“I was only—”

“Stay warm.” He kissed her forehead, then looked at Shen. “East bend. Half a turn.”

“I’ll bring bark to the doorway before then,” Shen said.

Kael’s gaze held on him for a beat longer, quieter than chief business. He did not say anything in the kitchen. He only clasped Shen’s shoulder once, then left with Tarek and the cold following them.

Nia sat back down slowly, and Sera’s fingers touched the back of her head, light against her braids.

“Drink.”

Nia drank.

The first mashed gold gourd came together after midday. It was rougher than Nia expected, but good in its own way. Roasting deepened the sweetness, and rough herb salt kept it from turning flat. Mari added rendered fat in small amounts, not enough to waste, just enough to gloss the surface and carry flavor. The first bowl tasted warm, earthy, and almost familiar, and Nia had to look down into it for a moment before speaking.

Shen stood close enough to hear if she whispered. “Good?”

“Very.”

His hand touched the edge of the table near hers. No one looking would see more than two people steadying themselves around hot bowls.

Aloud, Nia said, “It needs a little more salt, but not much. Maybe some roasted hollow stalk if there’s enough?”

Mari considered. “Hollow stalk is for broth packs and stew.”

“Then no. Herb salt only.”

Shen added quietly to the cloth, “Roasted hollow stalk later, household test.”

Nia glanced at him, but he did not look up.

The seed test came back uneven. The first handful had been washed badly and tasted like storage damp, so Mari made the worker who rushed it taste his own mistake. The second had dried better near the old grain-room alcove, then roasted with a little herb salt until the shells crisped. They were not perfect. The outer shell was tougher than Nia hoped, but the inside had a nutty sweetness that made Rovan’s eyes widen when he was allowed exactly two.

“More,” Rovan said.

“No,” Mari said.

He held up his little portion as if that made the request official. “For message testing.”

“Still no.”

“For runner strength?”

Mari pointed to a crate. “Carry that.”

He took the crate and looked wounded all the way to the doorway.

Sera tasted one seed, nodded, and tucked the rest of the small bowl away before children found it. “Later food.”

“Later food,” Mari agreed. “Not festival bowl. Too much picking.”

Nia accepted that. Seeds would be household testing, future storage, maybe oil one day if they had the right tools and enough supply. She did not say oil. She made herself drink instead.

Shen leaned in while reaching for a clean cloth. “A later thought?”

“Yes.”

“Should we leave it?”

“For now.”

He marked nothing, only gave her a small nod.

Afternoon thickened into a long sequence of carrying, tasting, redirecting, and being redirected. Hearths were fed until the lower kitchen walls held heat like a living thing. Roasted roots came out in broad trays, some left plain for elders and softer tastes, some finished with herb salt and berry sharpener after resting. The sour red strips softened beside the boar and were served separately in small bowls, sharp enough to cut fat without turning the whole pot sour. Dried berry sheets were peeled from the smooth stone in ragged strips, flexible enough to fold. The cloth version stuck in places and tore, though the torn bits still tasted good.

Mari held up the stone-dried strip. “Messengers.”

Rovan appeared from nowhere, and Shen spoke before he could. “After it is divided.”

Mari broke the strip into small pieces and gave one to Rovan, one to another runner, and one to the boy who had carried cups that morning. The boy chewed solemnly, then nodded as if accepting a serious duty.

“It sticks to teeth,” he said.

“Drink with it,” Nia said.

Rovan had already put the whole piece in his mouth and was trying to pretend it had not glued itself to one side. Sera handed him a cup without comment.

The berry sheet was tart, sweet enough to keep the fruit pleasant, and sturdy enough that Nia could imagine it tucked into runner packs. It needed more drying time and smoother spreading, but it worked. Rovan carried the folded piece away in a scrap of cloth, and Nia had to look down before the feeling reached her face. For once, sweetness did not have to stay beside the hearth.

Outside, a horn sounded once.

The kitchen quieted for less than a breath. It was not alarm. No one ran. Tarek’s voice carried from beyond the lower arch, too distant to catch the words, followed by the reply of two patrolmen.

Past the lower threshold, Tarek stood cloak-dark against the snow, one hand resting near his weapon while a younger patrolman reported to him. Behind him, workers stacked wood around three separate bonfire circles. Children were being kept well inside the marked space, and a group of older beastwomen tamped snow flat near the dance ground with their boots, moving in rhythm only to keep warm.

Shen was called away when a cart worker scraped his palm raw against a frozen strap. He touched Nia’s wrist before leaving.

“I’ll come back.”

“I know.”

His eyes lingered on her face as if checking whether the words had another edge after last night. She let him see that they did not, and he took the salve basket through the doorway, white hair disappearing behind two workers carrying empty gourd shells.

Without Shen beside her, the kitchen did not feel empty. Sera remained near enough to touch her back whenever she passed. Mari handed her tasting spoons and expected answers. Workers asked where trays belonged. Rovan brought strips and took notes back. Kael appeared once more near the lower kitchen arch long enough for Nia to press a cup into his hand and make him drink before someone called him away again.

He took the cup and bent his head close to hers.

“Too much?”

Nia held the cup between them while the lower kitchen moved around her, loud with trays, voices, footfalls, and the steady pull of Stormbreak gathering outside.

“A lot,” she said. “But it’s all right.”

Kael’s eyes searched her face until she touched his wrist.

“I’m all right.”

His hand covered hers briefly. Then he was gone again, carrying berry drink toward Tarek, who seemed as if he would rather chew ice than accept it.

Dusk came without the lower kitchens becoming quieter. The sounds only changed. Workers who had been chopping all day began clearing tables for festival trays. Children were sent to carry small things and told not to touch knives so many times that the warning became part of the room’s rhythm. More musicians passed outside than through the kitchen now, shapes half-seen beyond the lower arch: a shoulder strap tightened around a drum, a fur wrap pulled from a flute bundle, a woman shaking paired seed gourds near her ear before nodding and tying them to her belt. One old man sat close to the doorway warming his hands over a cup while a flat round drum rested against his knee, and someone called it a tavren while passing him a strip of hide.

Nia caught the word and lost the speaker in the same breath.

Mari stood over the main cloth. The final menu no longer looked like the first hopeful version. It had been written, crossed, darkened, narrowed, and rewritten until the practical shape of Stormbreak sat in layered marks: roasted winter roots, some plain and some herb-salted, with berry sharpener after rest; folded leaf bird bundles, elders and children first; boar and iron-greens pot with sour red strips served beside it; elk marrow stew only if the bones were released after patrol count; confirmed gold gourd mash from the dry-flesh gourds; small hare broth near the side hearth; warm berry drink opened in turns from the syrup jars; honey-bark berry trays if preserved fruit remained after drinks; dried berry sheets kept small for messengers rather than public bowls; and a corner of notes for next winter—salt-pressed leaves, thick syrup jars, berry sheets, dried root slices, herb salt, and fat-sealed gold gourd mash.

Mari stared at the cloth for a long moment, then reached for the dark marking stick and drew one firm line beneath the menu.

“Enough,” she said.

The workers closest to her did not cheer. That would have been too much and too early. But shoulders eased, someone exhaled, and a woman sitting near the root trays rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. Rovan leaned against a crate until Sera looked at him, then straightened so badly that she pushed him back down and put food in his hand.

Nia stood beside Mari and looked at the cloth. It was not a table built to hide hunger beneath display. Every mark showed a decision. Patrol stores had been held back, elders protected, children fed first where portions were small, fruit saved for warmth instead of display, and every dish shaped around carts, ice, fat, bones, smoke, hands, and time.

Outside, the bonfire wood waited beneath hide covers. The wrapped drums had been carried to the mountain’s foot. The marked paths held under ash and grit. Snow fell softly over the cleared ground where Hearthfang would gather when the fires were lit.

Shen returned with salve on his fingers and smoke in his hair. After washing at the side basin, he came to Nia with a small wrapped bundle.

“For you,” he said.

Inside were three roasted gold gourd seeds, better dried than the first test and salted lightly with herb salt. She took one and tasted it. The shell was still a little tough, but the inside was warm and nutty, faintly sweet beneath the salt. It was not the same as what she remembered, but it was good enough to make her smile before the ache could catch.

Shen watched her face.

“We can try again later,” he murmured.

Nia nodded. “Later.”

He sat beside her on the bench near the warm drink table, close enough that his knee touched hers. His tail settled lightly over her boot beneath the bench, hidden from most of the room by the angle of the table. Sera stood behind them with one hand resting briefly at Nia’s shoulder before she moved to intercept Rovan, who had tried to leave with food still in his hand and no second cup.

Kael appeared at the far end of the corridor with Tarek near the path workers, listening to a report, cloak open despite the cold, hair damp from melting snow. People saw him there, straightened a little, and went back to moving trays and wood. He looked toward the kitchens and found Nia on the bench, Shen beside her, Sera near her shoulder, Mari with the marked cloth, and the covered pots waiting to go out.

His gaze held hers across the distance.

Nia lifted her cup.

Kael’s mouth curved just enough for her to see it before Tarek pulled his attention back to the report.

The fires had not been lit yet. The music had not begun properly. Most of Hearthfang was still gathering, still carrying, still checking straps and paths and cups and children’s scarves. But the kitchen trays were filling, the paths were holding, and the mountain had begun moving toward Stormbreak.

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