Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

Stormbreak began with smoke.

Nia saw it from the lower arch before she stepped outside, pale ribbons rising from the foot of the mountain, bending under falling snow, then pulling sideways where the wind caught them. The first bonfire had not fully taken yet. Men and women crouched around the stacked wood with hide screens angled against the gusts, feeding thin resin bark into the center while children were held back behind a line stamped into the snow.

The kitchens were still loud behind her.

Mari’s voice carried over the scrape of trays. Someone called for more cups. A worker cursed softly when a lid slipped against a pot rim. The warm drink table steamed hard enough to cloud the archway, berry and sun-sour peel cutting through smoke, broth, and roasted gold gourd.

Nia stopped at the arch with a tray of cups in both hands. Behind her, every pot had been counted, tasted, marked, and carried toward the door. Ahead, families stood in the snow around stacks of unlit wood, waiting for the first bonfire to catch.

Shen’s shoulder brushed hers. “Heavy?”

“Yes,” she said.

He took the far side of the tray without taking it away from her, and together they stepped through the arch onto packed snow darkened with ash and grit.

The cold touched Nia’s face at once. It slid under the edge of her hood, found the tips of her ears, and made her fingers tighten around the tray. But the snow was softer than it had been during the storms, falling in small, steady flecks instead of cutting sideways. People moved through it without hunching as much. Their shoulders were wrapped thickly in fur and winter cloth, and many of them were looking toward the fire circles.

The foot of the mountain had been cleared wider than Nia expected. Paths spread from the arch in dark lines toward several marked circles. Bonfire wood waited beneath hides near each one. Stone benches had been dragged out and covered for elders. Near the largest open space, the long drums rested under a lean of stretched hide, their heads still covered against snow. A bundle of hollow flutes lay beside them, wrapped in oiled cloth, while a boy sat on a crate guarding seed-filled gourds with both hands on his knees.

A woman near the arch turned and saw the cups. “Warm drink?”

Nia blinked herself back into motion. “Yes. Berry with sun-sour peel.”

The woman took two cups and passed one to the older man beside her. He held it between both hands for a moment before drinking.

“Good,” he said after a moment. “Hands first.”

Sera’s voice came from behind Nia. “Mouth after.”

Nia turned as Sera stepped through the arch with her scarf wrapped high, a folded cloth over one arm, and a cup already in her other hand. She looked at Nia’s hood, then at her hands, then at Shen’s grip on the tray.

“You are still holding too much.”

“I’m sharing.”

“With Shen?”

“Yes.”

Sera looked at Shen, and Shen said, “She is sharing.”

“That is almost better.”

Nia smiled into the steam of the cup Sera pressed into her hand after taking the tray from both of them and passing it to a waiting worker.

“I had one,” Nia said.

“You were carrying those. This one is yours.”

The drink was hotter than the cups she had helped carry. Tart berry, honey, and sun-sour peel warmed her throat until the cold stopped feeling so sharp.

The first bonfire caught while she drank.

Flame climbed from the resin bark into the split logs in a bright rush. A low sound moved through the gathered people, not quite a cheer. Several children bounced. One older woman closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the heat. Snow vanished at the edge of the fire circle before it touched the ground.

Nia’s breath slowed.

No one called the festival open. Once the flame stayed, people shifted closer, and the space around the first fire began to fill.

A deep drumbeat came from beneath the hide lean.

The sound rolled across the packed snow and reached Nia through her boots. Bogaru, she thought, matching the name to the slow weight of the sound. The long drum was still half-covered, one musician testing the hide with careful hands.

Another beat came, and a smaller, quicker tap answered from somewhere near the second circle, where a woman was tightening the strap on a waisted drum. Children turned toward the sound before the adults did.

“Jemra?” Nia asked softly.

Sera’s mouth curved. “Mm.”

She did not explain further. No one had time to turn Stormbreak into a lesson, and Nia kept the name with the sound as the work moved around her.

A thin flute note rose, wavered, and stopped.

One of the older men near the bench laughed into his cup. “Too cold for qenri fingers.”

The woman with the wrapped flutes said something back that made the people near her smile.

Nia held that name too. Sera had called it a snow-reed flute yesterday. The sound was not ready yet, but the people were listening for it.

Behind her, Mari’s voice cut through the arch. “Main pot moving. Clear the path.”

The boar and iron-greens pot came out first.

Four workers carried it on poles, steam pushing from beneath the lid in rich bursts. Mari walked beside them with a ladle in one hand and enough authority in her posture that even the children moved before being told. Small bowls of sour red strips followed in a separate basket.

“Beside,” Mari told the basket carrier. “Not in.”

The carrier nodded at once.

“Not beside the roots either.”

Another nod, faster.

Nia hid a smile behind her cup.

The pot was set near the first fire, where the heat would keep it from cooling too quickly. People did not rush it. They gathered in loose lines, hands around cups, shoulders turned toward the flame. Hunters took bowls and moved aside. Elders were served near the benches. A kitchen worker pointed children toward the small hare broth instead of the richer boar pot, and only two complained before being handed warm bowls.

Gold gourd mash followed in covered crocks.

Nia watched the first crock open. Steam rose from the golden surface. It held thick and soft in the cold, richer from roasting, glossed with the small amount of rendered fat Mari had allowed. This was gold gourd, carried from Vareth’s storage paths, roasted by Hearthfang hands, served under Stormbreak snow.

Shen’s fingers brushed her wrist once.

She looked at him.

He said nothing, but his eyes warmed before he looked back toward the crocks.

A boy hurried past with folded leaf bundles wrapped in cloth. He slowed when he saw Nia. “Elders first?”

“Yes,” Nia said. “Then children if Mari marked enough.”

He nodded and kept going.

Sera’s hand settled between Nia’s shoulders. “He asked you before he looked for Mari.”

“Only because I was closer.”

Sera hummed into her cup, unconvinced.

Beyond the first fire, more people were coming down.

Families emerged from the lower corridors and side paths, bundled in layers, carrying children or cups or small offerings of kindling. Elders came with help on both sides, some walking slowly, others seated near the benches as soon as they reached the warmth. Kitchen workers moved in pairs, trays between them, faces flushed from hearth heat and winter air. Hunters stood nearer the outer line, eating with one hand while the other stayed free.

Kael stood where the cleared path opened toward darker snow, cloak moving in the wind, black tiger ears angled toward every report. A patrolman spoke to him, and Kael listened with his eyes moving from the fire circles to the west line, then toward the kitchens.

Then his gaze found Nia.

The distance between them was full of smoke, snow, people, and drumbeats, but his gaze held as if he stood close enough to touch her.

Nia lifted her cup.

Kael’s mouth moved, barely a curve, before he turned back to the patrolman.

Tarek stood farther out, half in firelight and half in the blue-gray edge beyond it. He had a cup in one hand and was not drinking from it. A younger patrolman said something, and Tarek’s head turned slightly toward the west dark. He did not look like someone attending a festival. He looked like the reason other people could attend one safely.

Nia watched him for a moment, then looked back toward the fires.

Stormbreak had not made winter gentle. It only gave people a warm place to gather while others kept watch.

Rovan appeared beside Shen with a strip in one hand and a berry sheet folded badly in the other. “Tarek says the west line stays closed. Kael says children stay inside the third fire mark. Mari says if I come back without eating, she will put me on pot scraping.”

Sera took the berry sheet from his hand, unfolded it, and looked at the bite already missing from one corner.

Rovan straightened. “That was before the message.”

“Eat from a bowl,” Sera said.

“I did.”

Nia turned toward him.

He sighed. “Some.”

Shen took a small bowl of gold gourd mash from a passing worker and placed it in Rovan’s free hand. “Three bites before you run.”

“Three?”

“Four,” Nia said.

Rovan looked down at the bowl, then ate four fast bites with the strip still pinched between two fingers.

Sera watched until he swallowed.

Only then did he leave, carrying the message toward Mari and the bowl tucked against his chest.

The drums strengthened as the second bonfire caught.

The bogaru kept the bottom of the sound slow and steady. The smaller drums answered in short patterns, still testing, still gathering rather than leading. The qenri tried again, a thin breath of sound that held longer this time before fading into the snow. No one danced properly yet, but bodies began to remember. A child stamped once. An older cousin corrected the step. Two women near the second fire shifted their feet in time while passing cups down the bench.

Sera’s foot moved once beside Nia, and Nia hid her smile in her cup before Sera could turn her head.

Darius stood near the long drums, warming his hands over a small brazier. He was speaking with another musician, but his attention kept finding Sera. Each time, her shoulders changed a little, as if she heard the rhythm before anyone else did.

There would be enough night for it.

Mari came out from the arch with the menu cloth tucked under one arm and a cup in her other hand. She surveyed the first fire, the serving tables, the boar pot, the gold gourd crocks, the elder bench, and the separate basket of sour red strips.

No one asked if she was pleased.

An elder near the bench took a bite of folded leaf bundle, chewed slowly, and looked down at it. “Held.”

Mari’s head turned.

The elder took another bite.

Mari adjusted the cloth under her arm, then looked away toward the next tray as if the comment had only confirmed what she already knew.

Nia saw the line of her shoulders ease.

Shen leaned near Nia’s ear. “That was praise.”

“For the bundle or Mari?”

“Both.”

Nia’s smile stayed small and warm.

A cup appeared in her hand before she realized hers had emptied. She looked down, then around. A woman she knew only from the lower kitchens had already moved away, carrying a stack of used cups toward the rinse basket. Someone shifted a serving crate nearer the fire for her without asking. Another worker pressed a wrapped taste of gold gourd seed into Shen’s hand and pointed toward Nia before hurrying back inside.

Kael came close only once before the third fire was laid.

He approached from the side path with snow caught in his hair and a half-empty cup in his hand. His gaze checked Nia’s hood, her hands, Shen beside her, Sera at her back, then the space between her and the fire.

“Cold?” he asked.

“Only my ears.”

Shen said, “They were colder earlier.”

Kael touched the edge of her hood and tucked it more securely around one ear. His fingers were cold from the outer path, but his palm was careful. “Stay near the fires.”

“I am.”

“There are edges.”

“I won’t go to them.”

His eyes held hers until she nodded.

Then Nia caught his wrist before he turned away. “Eat more than one bundle.”

Kael stilled beneath her hand.

Sera, from behind Nia, said, “There is boar and gold gourd near the first table.”

Shen was already reaching for a bowl.

Kael accepted it. He ate standing beside Nia while the drums tested another rhythm and the third fire crew argued softly over wind direction. He finished half before a patrolman called from the west line.

Nia took the bowl before he could set it aside. “One more bite.”

She held the spoon steady.

After a moment, he took the bite. His hand touched her braid once before he gave the bowl back to Shen and left with a jar of thinner berry drink for Tarek, who seemed as if he would rather face the weather than accept being cared for.

The third bonfire did not light before Nia was guided back toward the arch.

She had not realized her feet had gone cold until Shen’s tail brushed behind her ankle and Sera’s hand came to her elbow at nearly the same time.

“I can stay longer,” Nia said.

“You can come back out,” Sera said. “After sitting.”

Shen took the cup from her hand before it tipped. “And eating.”

“I ate.”

“Some,” he said.

Nia turned toward him.

His mouth curved faintly, and she let herself be led without fighting.

At the arch, she turned back.

The first two fires burned bright against the snow. The third stood waiting, wood stacked and sheltered, its kindling not yet lit. Drums spoke in testing phrases. The qenri lifted one clear note and lost it to laughter when someone missed the next. Children hovered near the marked lines. Elders held bowls. Workers carried trays from the kitchens into the cold and returned with empty hands, red cheeks, and steam clinging to their sleeves.

Nia stood just inside the warm arch with Shen at her side and Sera’s hand steady at her back, watching Hearthfang gather around the first flames beneath falling snow.

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