Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

The side passage behind the basket stalls was narrow enough that buyers had to turn sideways when two carrying poles met.

Ayari guided Nia between a stack of empty reed trays and a woman crouched over three bowls of tender shoots. Tovin followed with the lidded basket beneath one arm, while Shen stayed on Nia’s outer side and kept one hand near her back whenever the crowd pressed inward.

No seller called across the passage. Most were already weighing goods for people who had brought their own bowls, cloths, or marked jars. At the first stall, a woman held out a shallow dish without speaking. The gatherer filled it with small red leaves, checked the measure, and added two more before accepting one narrow trade strip.

The buyer stepped away before Nia reached the table.

“Do regular customers arrange their portions before market day?” Nia asked.

“Sometimes.” Ayari moved aside for a man carrying two empty jars. “More often, they know who gathers from which slope and arrive before someone else buys it.”

The gatherer had four baskets in front of her. The two nearest the passage held broad green leaves spread over damp cloth. Smaller, less even bundles sat behind them beside a bowl of broken stems.

Shen touched one of the front leaves, then lifted the edge of the cloth beneath it. “These were washed after gathering.”

“At dawn,” the woman said. “The rear bundles came from higher ground. They are smaller, but they keep longer.”

She tore one of the smaller leaves and handed it to Shen. He smelled the broken stem, checked the underside, and gave Nia a narrow piece.

The flavor was sharper than the greens from the public row, but the stem remained crisp.

Nia looked over the front bundle again. Its cut ends had begun to soften.

“I’ll take the smaller leaves,” she said. “Enough for two meals. I would have to cook all of the wider ones today.”

The gatherer measured the smaller leaves into a clean cloth, then tucked the untasted remainder of the handled leaf into Nia’s portion. She named the same price she had given the woman ahead of them.

Tovin glanced at Ayari. Ayari gave a small nod, and Nia took a trade strip from the pouch tied inside her basket.

Once the wrapped leaves were settled inside, Ayari led them onward.

“She gives the same measure whether the buyer is known to her or not,” Ayari said. “Tovin only argues with her when he is bored.”

“I argued once,” Tovin replied. “She changed the size of her measuring bowl.”

“Because the old one cracked.”

“It was still smaller.”

The gatherer called after them without looking up from her next customer. “And he still bought two.”

Tovin lifted the lidded basket slightly in acknowledgment and kept walking.

The next stall looked better from a distance. Its roots had been scrubbed pale and arranged in straight rows, with the largest pieces laid across the front. A carved sign promised early river roots at a price higher than the gatherer beside him was charging.

Ayari passed without slowing.

Nia waited until the seller was behind them. “Are they not good?”

“The outer pieces are,” Ayari said. “He puts the young roots on top and the old ones underneath. His dried meal is fair. His roots cost more because he spends half the morning polishing them.”

Shen had watched the man cut a sample for another buyer. “The center was woody.”

“He will still sell the front row before the second bell,” Tovin said. “Someone arriving late will take the cleanest-looking roots without checking the middle.”

A shared household stall occupied the next bend. One side held coils of cord, stitched carrying cloths, and three small sacks of oil seed. The other held fresh mushrooms, a covered bowl of pale shoots, and two jars sealed with waxed cloth.

Mara sat between the tables with the household trade tokens in a shallow box on her lap.

Nia knew her from the lower kitchens, where Mara had spent much of the winter checking drying cloths, storage racks, and anyone careless enough to trap moisture near preserved food. Here, one husband bargained with a seed buyer while another weighed mushrooms. Their third mate crossed the passage carrying dyed cord toward the cloth row.

Mara noticed Nia examining the mushrooms.

“Do not let him fill the bag merely because it has space,” she said, pointing toward the husband holding the scoop. “He thinks an empty corner is a personal failure.”

Her husband kept the scoop raised. “Most people want a full measure.”

“Most people are not carrying half the market home before the middle bell.”

Nia leaned closer to the mushroom basket.

Shen lifted several from beneath the upper layer. Their undersides were dry, and none had begun to darken where they touched. He placed the checked mushrooms into Nia’s open cloth bag before Mara’s husband added the rest of the small measure.

When the man reached for a second scoop, Nia covered the mouth of the bag.

“That is enough. We already bought fresh greens, and these will soften if I keep them too long.”

Mara nodded toward her husband. “There. Someone else understands food does not improve because you traded for more of it.”

He returned the extra mushrooms to the basket. “Then someone else can buy them before midday.”

Nia paid from her pouch and tied the bag securely before placing it beside the greens in her basket.

Ayari waited until another buyer had taken Nia’s place at the stall before leading them around the bend.

“Mara controls the household spending,” she said. “Jorel bargains because he enjoys it. Their third mate works with the dye sellers until summer.”

“I knew she managed half the preservation work,” Nia said. “I did not know the seed stall was hers.”

“She joined a household that already had stable trade and dry rooms. Affection came later.”

Nia glanced back.

Mara had reached across the token box to straighten Jorel’s collar while he continued arguing over a seed price. He bent toward her without interrupting himself.

“They seem comfortable now.”

“They have had eight years,” Ayari said. “Mara used to send him back to his own sleeping mat whenever he stayed too late.”

The second bell sounded while the passage curved behind the pottery row.

Aurel waited beside a market-repair post with a folded cover beneath one arm. Dust streaked one side of his dark hair, and the shoulder tie of his work wrap had been retied in a rough knot.

“Tarek released the upper watch,” he told Ayari. “The eastern roof drains are clear. One cover tore near the clay sellers.”

Ayari took the cover, checked the split edge, and pointed toward a deep repair basket marked with Bram’s household sign.

“Put it there. Bram can patch it after the market. Have you eaten?”

“Not since dawn.”

Aurel placed the dusty cover inside the repair basket. Tovin opened the lidded basket and handed him a grain cake wrapped in a clean leaf.

While Aurel ate, he untied a folded carrying net from his belt and shook it open. Nia removed the wrapped greens and mushroom bag from her basket and passed them to him. He settled both inside the clean net and tightened the upper cord before hanging it from his shoulder.

“Keep room in your basket,” he said. “You are not finished buying.”

At the next stall, he dropped the empty cake leaf into the public food-waste bowl beside the passage.

The row widened near a young male standing in front of an herb seller. He held a narrow bone comb wrapped in blue cord.

The female behind the table was speaking to an older buyer and did not reach for it. The male waited until she finished, placed the comb beside her token bowl, and moved away without asking for an answer.

The female continued weighing dried leaves. She neither covered the comb nor placed it with her personal things.

Nia lowered her voice once they had passed. “Has she accepted his courtship?”

“No,” Ayari said. “She has not refused him either. He has brought four gifts since the thaw.”

“Does leaving it there mean something?”

“Keeping it hidden would.” Ayari retied the loose knot at Aurel’s shoulder while they walked. “Leaving it where everyone can see means he is still waiting.”

Aurel adjusted the carrying net once Ayari finished. “Her family expected her to choose a hunter from their old territory.”

“She chose no one before winter,” Ayari continued. “The hunter’s family treated every shared meal as a promise she never made.”

“They stopped sending meat after she returned the third basket,” Aurel said.

“They sent that basket after she had already returned two. That is why people noticed.”

Tovin shifted the lidded basket to his other arm. “The male with the comb keeps asking whether she would let him work beside her after bonding.”

“Work matters to her,” Ayari said. “It is not the only thing she is deciding.”

Nia looked back once. The comb remained beside the token bowl while the female served another customer.

The passage widened near several households selling from shared mats. A silver-braided female sat beside a pile of waxed storage covers while two of her husbands sold smoked fish from a rack behind her. Across the mat, another household offered bundles of narrow sour shoots and small yellow fruits no larger than Nia’s thumb.

One fish seller named a price. His female corrected him without looking up from the cover she was stitching.

“That was the winter price. The lower smokehouse is open again.”

He reduced the price by one strip. The buyer paid and left with two fish.

Ayari selected a bundle of sour shoots from the neighboring mat and handed it to Shen.

He broke one shoot near the base, smelled it, and rubbed a trace of sap between his fingers. After checking the pale inner flesh, he gave Nia a small piece.

The sourness was gentler than the green fruit she had tasted in the larger row. A grassy sharpness remained after she swallowed.

“This would work with cooked greens,” Nia said. “Maybe chopped into the fresh curd Pella let me taste, if the pieces soften enough.”

Shen returned the first bundle to the seller. The seller tucked the remaining piece of the broken shoot beneath its ties rather than returning it to the display.

She poured clean water from a narrow jar over Shen’s fingers and caught the runoff in a basin beneath the table. He dried his hands on a clean cloth from the covered stack and placed the used cloth in her wash bowl.

“How much do you need?” Ayari asked.

“One bundle. I do not know whether Kael will like it yet, and the cut ends are already drying.”

Ayari picked up a second bundle and placed it beside the first. “One for your cave. One for mine.”

“You do not know whether you will like it either.”

“Sareth will want to see what you do with it. If I return with nothing, he will come looking for your leftovers.”

Aurel held out his hand. The seller wrapped both bundles separately, then passed Ayari’s bundle to him. He tied it to the outside of his carrying net, away from Nia’s mushrooms and greens.

The yellow fruits looked firm and unmarked, but Shen found softness near the bottoms of the first two he lifted. The seller placed both in a bowl for damaged fruit.

“They were stacked before they cooled,” she said. “The upper ones are sound.”

Nia chose four from the upper layer instead of buying a full measure. “I only need enough to compare with the green fruit from the larger stall.”

The seller placed them in a leaf cup. Nia paid for her fruit and sour shoots from her pouch, then settled both inside her basket. Ayari paid for the second bundle with household strips Tovin held out to her.

At the far edge of the shared mat, a woman counted roof pegs while one husband discussed the price of a new sleeping platform with a carpenter. Another husband tested the join of a narrow chest.

Ayari greeted her and received a tired smile.

“They are adding another room before summer,” Ayari said after they moved away. “Her household is saving to court a fourth husband from the river-building crews. He will not accept until there is space for his tools and a dry place for his sleeping mat.”

“Does he know they are saving for him?” Nia asked.

“He knows they are building. She will not begin the courtship until the room and tool storage are finished.”

Aurel shifted Ayari’s sour-shoot bundle higher on the net. “He suspects.”

Ayari turned toward him. “Did he tell you?”

“He asked whether the eastern roof timber would be dry by midsummer. He has also asked three workers how long the room will take.”

Ayari looked back toward the woman counting pegs. “Then she may not surprise him, but she will still ask him properly.”

The final group of gatherers had placed their goods beneath the overhang of a storage shed. Most of the morning’s smallest bundles were gone. A few roots remained in a shallow tray, their brown skins streaked with purple near the cut stems.

Nia crouched beside them.

The gatherer picked up a sample root already set beside her knife and sliced away the end. The inside was pale and crisp. Its scent carried wet earth and the same sharp note as one of the plants Shen used in small amounts for medicine.

“These need soaking?” Nia asked.

“From morning until evening,” the gatherer said. “Peel them first and change the water once. We boil them with meat after that.”

She placed the cut slice on a clean dish, then covered the exposed end of the sample root with a spare leaf and returned it to the sample board.

Shen lifted the dish rather than touching the root directly. He smelled the pale flesh, then leaned closer to the purple-streaked skin.

“I have seen a related plant along the wet jungle paths,” he said. “The leaves are broader, but the crushed stem carries a similar scent.”

“Do people eat that one?” Ayari asked.

“I have not seen anyone gather it for food. Healers dry part of the leaf.” Shen returned the dish to the seller’s used-sample area. “I have never examined the root.”

The gatherer tipped the uneaten slice into a food-waste bowl, then set the empty dish in a separate wash basin.

Nia studied the roots still in the tray. “Does this one become bitter if it is not soaked long enough?”

“It numbs the tongue,” the gatherer said. “My mother changed the water twice. I change it once and have not had a problem.”

“We will change it twice,” Nia said. “I’ll peel it, soak it from morning, and cook only a small portion the first time.”

Shen nodded. “Keep the soaking bowl away from the other preparation water.”

Nia bought two roots rather than a full bundle. The gatherer wrapped each root in its own leaf, tied both wrappers shut at the ends, and then bound the two wrapped roots together with a longer cord.

“Do not let the exposed flesh touch greens or anything you plan to taste uncooked,” she warned.

Aurel took the joined bundle by the outer cord and fastened it to the opposite side of his carrying net, separated from the fresh leaves and mushrooms.

Nia paid from the pouch in her basket and stood.

“The jungle plant may need soaking too, or another preparation,” she said to Shen. “It may also stay medicine. I want to see the whole plant before I decide anything from the smell.”

“I will take you to the wet path and dig beside the stem,” Shen said. “We can compare its root and sap with this one. We will not cook it unless I can identify what must be removed and how to prepare it safely.”

Nia nodded.

Beyond the shed overhang, the lower road curved toward the wet green edge of the jungle. Shen looked in that direction, then checked the joined root bundle tied to Aurel’s carrying net before guiding Nia back into the market passage.

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