Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

Nia kept the step because stopping would make everyone look.

Her boot pressed heel-first into packed snow, ash grit crunching softly under the sole. Her knee bent after the drum, late enough that Sera’s mouth curved at the corner when she passed the edge of the circle. Nia caught the turn anyway. Her shoulder angled toward the nearest fire, heat touched one cheek, and the pause came with her breath caught inside the scarf tucked beneath her braids.

The bone pieces at Sera’s hip clicked after the turn.

No bone pieces clicked at Nia’s hip. She had only mitts dangling from a cord, a family cup warm against her palm, and Shen standing close enough that his sleeve brushed her cloak whenever the wind shifted smoke between them.

“That step landed,” Shen said.

Nia kept her eyes on the snow. “Let it stay small.”

“It is small.”

“One thing can turn into everyone watching.”

“Then I will leave it there.”

She tried the step again and missed the pause because she was smiling.

Darius adjusted the bogaru beneath her stumble, lowering the next beat until her foot found the snow. He did not glance up from the drum. That made it easier. Mari passed behind the fire with a covered crock, looked directly at Nia, and then looked away with such deliberate indifference that Nia nearly laughed into her scarf.

Sera came around the edge of the circle again, breath white in the firelight. “Bend from the knees.”

“I am bending.”

“Your shoulders are doing most of the work.”

Nia bent lower on the next step, and warmth climbed through her thighs.

“There,” Sera said, already moving on.

The circle widened and narrowed with bodies joining for short turns. No one danced long. Winter clothing made every movement heavy, and every few measures someone stepped out to warm hands around a cup or fix a child’s hood. The slow step suited that. It gave people a way to enter without showing off and leave before the cold took their toes.

Nia stayed outside the circle.

That mattered. The circle still belonged to Hearthfang, full of people who had known the sound of the bogaru before she had known this world existed. But the edge had opened enough for her boot to leave a mark beside theirs, and no one had dragged her further than she chose.

Her hand tightened around the cup.

Shen touched the back of her mitten cord where it had slipped too close to the fire and tucked it beneath her sleeve. “Your fingers?”

“Warm.”

“Your grip is too tight for warm.”

She loosened her hand around the cup. The lid had gone sticky where berry drink had spilled over the rim earlier, and Sera’s mouth had touched that same edge. Nia let the cup settle between both palms and kept the step small.

Across the smoke, Kael stood near the dark outer line with Tarek.

Nia did not look at him for long. If she did, he would feel it, and if he felt it, he would look back, and if he looked back, she would stop moving.

She stepped again.

Heel. Bend. Turn. Pause.

The bogaru moved under her boots.

A younger child slipped near the second fire, and three adults reached at once. The child was upright before he had time to cry. Someone laughed softly. Someone else tugged his cap lower. The dance closed around the interruption and kept going.

Rovan came through carrying two covered jars against his chest, cheeks red from cold.

Mari’s voice found him before he crossed the cleared path. “Drink.”

“I did.”

“When?”

Rovan slowed. “Before the last message.”

“You have carried three since then.”

He opened his mouth, saw Shen watching him, and changed direction toward the kitchen worker holding out a cup.

Nia’s laugh escaped this time.

Sera heard it and turned with the rhythm, her eyes warm above her scarf. She completed one more step, then left the circle with the practical firmness of a woman who had decided the dance did not get to keep everyone it warmed.

She came straight to Nia and touched her cheek with the backs of her fingers.

Nia closed her mouth.

“Hot face,” Sera said. Her fingers moved to the edge of Nia’s hood. “Cold ears.”

“I can stay a little longer.”

“You can stay wanting to stay. That is different.”

Shen’s hand shifted near Nia’s elbow. “Her boots are cold through.”

Nia looked down. “You cannot see through boots.”

“I can see how you are standing.”

Sera adjusted Nia’s hood forward around one ear. “And you are starting to trust the drum more than the snow.”

“I am not.”

“You nearly followed the circle.”

Nia had no answer for that because she had.

Sera took the cup from her hand, opened the lid, drank once, and closed it before Nia could protest. She pressed it back into Nia’s hands with the warmth still gathered in the wood.

“Go sit inside until Kael can walk you up,” Sera said.

“He is busy.”

“He has eyes.”

The words had barely left her mouth when Kael’s attention lifted from the outer line.

He stood beyond the third fire with snow caught in his curls and dark fur heavy across his shoulders. Tarek held a strip between gloved fingers. Kael listened, marked the strip with a short motion, and handed it back. Tarek read it, glanced toward the north line, and nodded once.

Kael did not leave at once.

He spoke to the patrolman beside Tarek, took another cup from a worker crossing behind him, and drank while still facing the dark beyond the firelight. Only after the patrolman moved into position did Kael turn toward Nia.

Nia kept both hands around the cup until he turned toward her.

Kael crossed between the fires when the path cleared, tall enough that people shifted without looking. His gaze moved over Nia’s hood, scarf, cup, hands, boots, then to Shen and Sera.

“That is enough for tonight,” he said.

Nia lifted her chin. “That was already decided without me.”

His hand came to the back of her cloak, fingers pressing once between her shoulder blades. “Then I agree with them.”

Sera gave a satisfied hum and pulled Nia’s scarf tighter beneath her braid. “Take her home before the wind changes again.”

Kael took the cup from Nia and tested its warmth with his palm before looking at Shen. “Her mitts are still loose.”

“I’ll fix them,” Shen said.

“I thought I was wearing them.”

“Not well.”

Nia looked down at the mitts dangling from their cord.

Shen bent and slid them properly over her hands, one at a time. His fingers checked the cuff seal, then the cord, then the place where damp had gathered near her sleeve. Kael watched the work without impatience.

Mari passed close enough to hand Shen a folded cloth packet. “For the upper hearth. Sera’s bowl is already sent.”

Nia turned. “Sera’s bowl?”

Sera had already gone back toward the edge of the circle, where a child was trying to turn with both feet planted.

Mari’s mouth flattened in a way that was not quite a smile. “Eat it before she comes to ask whether it cooled.”

Rovan, still caught with his cup, added, “The upper corridor is warmer than outside.”

Mari turned toward him.

Rovan lowered his eyes to the cup and drank.

Kael’s hand settled at Nia’s waist. “Come. The upper corridor will hold more heat.”

The first steps away from the fire felt stranger than the dance.

Outside, the snow had given her something to press into. Under the lower arch, the ground became stone wet with tracked-in melt and ash grit. The music followed them through the opening, bright at first, then softened by hide screens and corridor turns. The jemra faded quickly. The seed gourds vanished behind the noise of cups and workers. The bogaru stayed longest, a low pulse traveling through the soles of her cold boots.

Nia’s knees kept wanting to bend.

Kael noticed before she did. His hand tightened at her waist. “Slow. Your knees are still keeping the beat.”

“I know.”

Shen moved ahead to lift a hanging cloth away from her hood. “A little.”

Nia exhaled into her scarf. “The drum is stubborn.”

“It is below us now,” Kael said. “Use the stone.”

She listened to that, because it was practical and because he was right. The corridor floor did not answer like packed snow. It held firm beneath her boots, wet in places, warmer near the walls where people had passed all evening.

The corridor warmed by small degrees as they climbed. Smoke thinned into stone chill, then into wool, broth, cedarwood, and banked hearths. A worker carried empty cups down toward the lower arch. Two elders sat near a side fire with bowls in their hands, their boots stretched toward the heat. A sleeping child hung over a man’s shoulder, cap crooked, mitten cord trailing until Shen caught it and tucked it back without stopping.

Nia watched his hand return to Mari’s folded packet, then to the edge of her sleeve.

“You do that to everyone,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Catch loose things.”

Shen glanced at the child being carried away. “Loose things get lost.”

Kael guided her around a wet patch on the stone. “Watch the floor here.”

They passed the middle homes, where the sound of the festival became a muffled thing beneath stone. Nia’s body finally understood that the fires were behind her. Her cheeks cooled. The damp edge of her hood chilled the skin near her temple. Her calves ached from the careful bend of the step, and her fingers felt stiff now that they had stopped holding the cup.

Shen saw her flex them inside the mitts.

“We are close.”

“I know.”

Kael’s hand shifted from her waist to the small of her back. “Lean on me. You can still walk.”

“I can walk.”

“I know.”

She leaned because he did not make it sound like surrender.

By the time they reached the entrance stones, her feet felt heavy and the drum had become something she felt more in memory than through the floor. Kael opened the seal and let her enter first.

Warmth met her in a low, steady wash.

The hearth had been banked higher than when they left. Two covered bowls waited near the side stones, and a folded scarf lay over the tray with Sera’s knot tied at one corner. Steam curled faintly from the bath passage beyond the inner curtain.

Nia stopped just inside the door.

Shen came around her to set Mari’s packet on the counter. “Boots first.”

Kael closed the door and dropped the seal. The outside sounds narrowed at once. The festival remained below them, but the cave held its own quiet around the distant drum.

Nia reached for her cloak tie before either of them could.

Kael’s hands paused near her shoulders.

“I have it,” she said.

He let her work the knot loose.

The tie had tightened with damp and cold. Her mitts made the task clumsy, so she pulled one off with her teeth and tried again. Shen watched for two breaths before holding out his hand for the mitten. Nia gave it to him without looking. The knot came free, and the heavy cloak opened from her chest.

Smoke rose from the wool.

Kael took the cloak when she pushed it back. He hung it near the drip stone, then returned for the scarf tucked beneath her braids. Shen knelt at her feet and began loosening her boots.

“I can sit,” Nia said.

“Yes,” Shen answered, and guided one boot off anyway before she finished lowering herself to the bench.

The air touched her socked foot, and she shivered.

Kael’s hand stilled at her scarf. “You were cold before we came in.”

“Only now.”

He touched the damp edge near her nape. “Longer than now.”

She had no good argument, so she watched Shen set her boot near the hearth and cup her ankle through the thick sock, rubbing warmth back into it with both hands. His touch was practical and careful and entirely too intimate for someone still wearing his outdoor cloak.

Nia touched his shoulder. “You too.”

Shen looked up.

“Your sleeves are wet,” she said. “Take the cloak off.”

Kael’s mouth curved faintly above her.

Shen rose and obeyed. He unfastened his cloak and hung it beside hers, then returned to her second boot. Kael unwound the scarf from beneath Nia’s braids, lifting the heavy length carefully so no strand caught in the wool. Damp had gathered near the nape of her neck. When air touched it, she shivered again.

Kael’s thumb passed over the chilled skin.

Nia’s breath changed before she could stop it.

Shen looked up from her boot.

The distant bogaru sounded once below the mountain, muted by stone.

Nia’s foot moved inside Shen’s hand, heel pressing down as if the snow were still there.

Kael’s fingers spread at the back of her neck. Shen’s hold warmed around her ankle. Neither of them spoke for a moment, and the silence made the hearth sound louder.

Then Shen set her second boot beside the first. “Bath.”

Nia looked toward the passage where steam curled against the curtain. “Sera sent food.”

“The food will keep near the hearth,” Kael said.

“Sera does not like waiting.”

“Sera sent the bowl because she knew we would feed you after.”

Nia narrowed her eyes. “Sera knew that too?”

Shen took the damp scarf from Kael and folded it over the warming rail. “Yes.”

Kael bent, slid one arm beneath her knees, and lifted her from the bench before she could decide whether to argue.

Nia caught his shoulder. “Kael.”

“You walked home.”

“I did.”

“Now let me carry you.”

Shen pulled the bath curtain aside, and heat rolled out with cedarwood steam.

Nia looked from the waiting water to Shen’s damp hair, then to Kael’s face close above hers, tired from patrol and lit by the hearth he had brought her back to.

The drum sounded again, far below.

This time her feet stayed still.

Kael carried her into the bath chamber, and Shen followed with dry cloths, Mari’s packet left warming by the hearth and Sera’s covered bowls waiting for after.

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