Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

Nia did not enter the circle when Darius asked again.

She stayed near the fire with the arch at her back and her cup between both hands. Snow had packed dark beneath the boots of dancers and workers, and ash scattered where the wind carried it from the main fire. Her belted cloak held the heat close. Her hood sat high around her ears because Sera had fixed it twice and Shen once, and neither of them had looked sorry.

“I’m still watching,” she said.

Sera stood beside her with her winter wrap pulled close again after dancing. The small bone pieces at her hip had gone quiet, but her feet kept answering the bogaru in tiny shifts.

“You can watch one step from here,” Sera said.

“One step?”

“One slow step.”

Darius lowered his wrapped hands to the drum and struck a low beat beneath the noise of the children near the second fire. The rhythm slowed, leaving space between each sound.

Nia narrowed her eyes at him.

Darius only looked down at the bogaru and gave her another beat.

Shen stood at her other side with a cup in his hands, pale hair tucked beneath his fur-lined hood. His sleeve remained tied higher from salve work, and his attention moved between the dancers, the slicker patches of snow, and the children drifting too close to the musicians.

“You do not have to learn it tonight,” he said.

“I know.”

Sera’s hand settled against Nia’s back. “Then we keep it small.”

At the edge of the circle, children were trying to copy the stamping turn from earlier. The cup boy watched an older girl with fierce concentration, turned too late, and almost collided with a smaller child in a fox-fur cap. Someone slipped onto his backside, froze for one startled breath, then laughed so hard the others lost the pattern with him.

The older girl dragged him up by his sleeve and stamped back into place.

The cup boy’s cap had slid over one eye. Shen stepped away, caught him gently by the shoulder, pulled the cap down over both ears, and sent him back.

The boy kept one mitten on the cap as he tried the turn again. The children laughed louder.

Sera shook her head, smiling. “Too much weight in the front.”

Nia looked at Sera’s boots.

The heel landed first, then the weight shifted. The knee bent, the shoulder turned, and the pause held until the next beat. The bones at Sera’s hip clicked after the turn, marking where the body had landed.

Sera stepped half a pace forward, still outside the circle. Her heel landed first. Her knee bent. Her shoulder turned toward the fire, and after the pause, the bones at her hip clicked once.

Darius gave the beat again, and Sera repeated the step.

Nia watched the heel, the bend, the turn, and the click.

Mari came from the serving table with steam rising around a fresh cup. Her menu cloth was folded over one arm.

“Trade,” she said.

Nia looked into her own cup and found the steam gone. She accepted the warmer one with a grateful breath.

Mari’s gaze dropped once to Sera’s feet. “Slow step.”

“That is what Sera promised.”

“She promised correctly.” Mari turned back toward the serving table before Nia could answer.

Sera took Nia’s cup, drank once, and handed it back.

Nia steadied both palms around the warmth.

“Family cup,” Sera said.

Mari turned back toward the serving table. “That is how they claim you here.”

Nia held the cup closer. “I’m starting to understand that.”

Across the fire, Kael stood with Tarek near the darker edge of the marked ground. Both had their hoods down despite the snow. A patrolman spoke quickly, pointing toward the west line. Kael listened, looked to Tarek, and answered in a short sentence that did not carry.

The dance continued around the fire. Children laughed near the second circle. Adults moved in and out as the cold allowed. No one glanced too long toward the patrol line, but everyone left space for Kael and Tarek to hear what needed hearing.

Kael’s gaze found Nia beside Sera. It dropped to Sera’s feet, then to Nia’s.

His brow lifted, and Nia shook her head before he could mistake her position for bravery.

His mouth curved before Tarek drew his attention back to the west.

The cup in Tarek’s hand had emptied. Kael took it from him and passed it to Rovan as Rovan hurried by with two message strips tucked under his arm. Rovan glanced at the cup, then at Kael, and accepted the order when Kael pointed toward the warm drink table.

Tarek kept facing the dark, jaw set, and did not refuse the cup when Rovan brought it back.

The bogaru deepened, and Sera’s fingers flexed once against Nia’s back.

“You should go,” Nia said.

Sera looked at her.

“You want to.”

Sera squeezed her shoulder and stepped away.

When Sera entered the edge of the circle, people made room. The nearest dancers widened the turn and gave her the line closest to Darius’s drum. Her wrapped skirt moved around her boots. The bones at her hip clicked louder now, each turn landing cleanly with the beat.

Nia watched with both hands around her cup.

Sera danced low and grounded, knees soft, shoulders strong beneath fur and wool. Smoke crossed the circle, and she turned through it. A child stumbled near her skirt, and she shifted wide, guiding him back with the sweep of her arm before his mother reached him.

The child laughed in relief. His friends laughed because he had nearly vanished into Sera’s skirt.

Sera kept the beat, and Darius followed her steps, tightening and softening the rhythm as she moved. The jemra drums brightened around him. Gourds chattered in quick bursts, and the qenri rose clear above the fire before dipping back into the turn. Children near the second fire tried to match the sharper rhythm and lost it almost at once.

Shen returned to Nia’s side with his cup refilled and a folded cloth in his other hand.

“Gold gourd seed,” he said.

Nia took one. The shell cracked cleanly, and the inside was faintly sweet beneath herb salt. She chewed while Sera turned past the firelight.

“It works,” she said.

Shen took one for himself and folded the cloth closed. He did not reach for anything to mark it down. Tonight, the seed only passed from hand to hand beneath the music.

The cup boy appeared again, breathless and red-cheeked above his scarf. His eyes followed Sera. “My mother says she used to make men trip.”

Sera passed close enough to hear. Her eyes cut briefly toward the boy, bright with humor, before she turned back into the rhythm.

The boy clapped both mittens over his mouth. The child behind him laughed into her scarf.

Darius steadied the next beat. Across the fire, Mari pointed at the cup boy’s cap, and he fixed it before she crossed the snow.

A woman came from the serving table with a tray of honey-bark berry pieces, the last of them cut small. She offered them to the elders first, then the children who had finished their bowls, then the workers near the arch. When she reached Nia, only a few sticky pieces remained on the leaf.

“Take one before they disappear.”

Nia took one and held it toward Shen. He shook his head, so she broke it in half and put one piece on his palm.

“Eat it while it is still soft.”

He ate it while honey clung to her fingers. Before she could reach for snow, Shen caught her hand and wiped her fingertips with a damp cloth warmed from inside his sleeve.

Sera’s rhythm moved closer again.

When she passed, her hand flashed out and caught Nia’s wrist. Nia startled, but Sera did not pull her into the circle. She placed Nia’s hand against her forearm for one step, muscle and motion carrying the beat beneath Nia’s palm.

Then Sera released her and moved on.

Nia stood still while Shen’s hand came lightly to the small of her back.

The bogaru landed, and Nia pressed one heel into the packed snow. Her knee bent. Her shoulder turned a little toward the fire, and she held there until the next beat came.

Mari kept working near the drink jars. Darius gave the next beat softer. Sera’s smile changed without her turning around.

Nia did it again, heel first, knee bent, shoulder turning into the warmth.

Her cloak shifted around her legs. Her boot held. Heat touched her face while cold held at her back. She stayed outside the circle, but the step belonged under her foot now.

Kael appeared on the other side of the fire as she finished the third one.

He had come back from the edge with Rovan at his side and a fresh strip in his hand. He stopped for one breath, eyes moving to her boot, her shoulder, Shen’s hand behind her, Sera in the circle, then back to her face.

Nia lifted her chin, and Kael touched two fingers to his chest, low and brief, before Tarek called his name and drew him back toward the dark.

Rovan reached Nia a little later, cheeks red from moving between fires. “Mari says the last warm drink jar for this side is open. She is moving the empty ones.”

Nia glanced toward the serving table, where Mari was already directing two workers through the steam. “Does she need help?”

“She said no unless someone can make another full jar appear.” He tucked the message strips tighter under his arm. “She also said the berry sheets are gone except messenger portions.”

His gaze drifted toward the covered bundle near the table, then snapped back when Shen’s attention settled on him.

“I am not touching the messenger portions,” Rovan said, and Nia let the answer stand.

Sera’s dance curved near him. One of the bone pieces at her hip clicked as she turned, and Rovan stepped back too quickly. His foot caught the edge of the rhythm and carried him half a step toward the circle before Mari caught the back of his cloak.

“Messages first,” she said.

Rovan bowed his head and escaped toward Kael while the children laughed after him.

More adults joined the edge with their shoulders wrapped in fur and their boots striking snow, widening the dance. Children copied from the safer line, bumping shoulders whenever someone turned the wrong way. Elders clapped softly when their hands were warm enough. The fires burned lower and steadier, red at the heart.

Nia kept her small step outside the circle while Shen stayed close. When smoke shifted, he moved with her. When her cup cooled, he traded it for his. When her hood slipped, he fixed it without covering her eyes.

Sera came out of the circle after several turns, breathing hard, face bright from fire and cold. She walked straight to Nia, took her cup, drank once, and handed it back.

Nia accepted it with a smile.

Darius’s hands slowed on the bogaru, and another drummer took the pattern before the music could fall. He wrapped his fingers again as he stood. Sera met him halfway with his mitts already in her hands.

“You left these with me,” she said.

Darius bent his head close to answer. Sera’s mouth softened, and she struck his chest lightly with the back of her fingers before returning to Nia’s side.

Nia turned back to the fire as the main bonfire burned down from its first fierce climb. Logs shifted inward. Snow gathered on dark cloaks, fur hoods, benches, and the shoulders of patrolmen standing where the light thinned. Smoke carried wood, broth, berry, meat, leather, wool, and cold.

Near the second fire, a child shrieked with laughter and was hushed by an adult who sounded close to laughing too.

Kael returned near the edge of the circle when the patrol strip had been handled. He did not come fully in. He remained where he could see Nia and still watch the dark. Tarek stood farther out, hood up, cup in hand again.

Children clapped along whenever they remembered the beat. The qenri held a high note over the snow.

Nia pressed her heel into the packed ground once more. This time, when she turned her shoulder, Sera’s hand came to her back on one side and Shen’s on the other while Nia finished the step herself. She stayed there, warm-faced beneath her hood, boots firm in Hearthfang snow, while the festival carried on around her.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!