Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

By the time Ayari led Nia behind the pottery row, sellers had begun removing trade tokens from the fronts of their tables.

The shelter there had a stone roof, an open front, and two long benches fixed against the rear wall. Women stood or sat wherever space opened. One remained near the broth pot while another leaned against a post to finish her cup. Two more were already leaving through the side passage with covered baskets on their hips.

Aurel stopped beneath the overhang and lifted the carrying net from his shoulder. Tovin placed Ayari’s lidded basket on the raised shelf beside the entrance.

“The mushrooms should not stay in the market heat while everyone talks,” Shen said.

He checked the joined root bundle tied to the outside of Aurel’s net, then took Nia’s basket. The four yellow fruits and her sour-shoot bundle remained secure beneath the folded cloth.

“I’ll take everything to the upper cave,” he said. “Aurel can leave Ayari’s bundle at their house when we come back down.”

Nia touched his wrist before releasing the basket. “Keep the roots away from anything we might eat uncooked. No one should peel them until we are there.”

“I know.”

Aurel tightened the net around the wrapped greens and tied mushroom bag. Tovin collected Ayari’s lidded basket, and the three males left through the passage together.

Ayari watched them go. “Aurel will look for more food before he reaches home.”

“He already had a grain cake.”

“He has been on upper watch since dawn.”

A woman beside the broth pot laughed into her cup.

Ayari greeted her, then took two clean clay cups from the covered stack. The woman tending the pot filled them with broth containing shredded meat, pale root pieces, and a few dark leaves.

Luma already sat at one end of the rear bench with her measuring cord looped around one wrist. A folded strip of damaged cloth rested across her knees.

“I thought you would return to your stall,” Nia said.

“My husbands can count covers without me for the length of one cup.” Luma shifted the damaged cloth aside so Nia could sit. “They may disagree about the number, but the covers will still be on the table when I return.”

Ayari sat beside Nia rather than across from her.

Women entered and left through both openings while the broth continued to be served. One female stopped only long enough to ask whether the fine weaver had accepted Luma’s test-cloth request. Another returned a borrowed needle, drank while standing, placed her cup in the wash tub, and left before Ayari finished asking why her youngest husband had slept beside the door.

Nia tasted the broth. The meat had softened, and the roots had thickened the liquid slightly. It was warm and filling, but the broth left too much salt on her tongue.

Luma noticed her pause.

“My second husband made a pot like that after Stormbreak,” she said. “He browned the meat because Sera told him you did. Then he added more salt because the broth still tasted dull.”

“Did he add anything sour?”

“No. He added another spoon of salt.”

Ayari lowered her cup. “Then complained that everyone emptied the water jar.”

Luma rubbed the damaged cloth between her fingers. “He said Sera must have forgotten part of the method.”

“She may have told him exactly what she saw.” Nia tasted the shelter broth again. “Browning gives the meat more flavor, but it does not balance the whole pot. A little sourness would help. Sera’s dried red strips could work, or perhaps the shoots from this morning. More salt only makes the broth saltier.”

Luma nodded. “I will tell him before he ruins another pot.”

“Tell him to add a small piece, taste the broth, and then decide. The shoots are milder than the dried strips.”

Luma began winding her measuring cord around the damaged cloth. “He will ask how small.”

“So would I, with something I had not used before.”

Luma paused, then nodded again. She tied the cloth securely, finished her broth, and placed her cup in the wash tub beside the pot. After tucking the bundled cloth beneath her arm, she left to check whether her husbands had agreed on the cover count.

Pella arrived before Luma had cleared the side opening. She carried no eggs or curd, only a clean stall cloth folded over one arm.

“Is there room?”

Ayari shifted closer to Nia and patted the open space. “There is now.”

Pella sat and accepted a cup from the woman tending the pot. She blew across the surface while watching Nia.

“One of my husbands tried to fold leaves around chopped meat last night,” she said. “He heard that some of Sera’s household had done it during the cold months.”

“Which leaves?” Nia asked.

“The wide winter ones. He said the larger leaves would hold more.”

“Did they split?”

“Every one.” Pella drank, then pulled the cup away when the broth burned her lip. “He tied cord around the worst of them and said that would keep the filling inside.”

Nia lowered her face toward her own cup.

“The filling probably stayed in the pot.”

“Most of it. The rest had to be scraped from the lid.”

Ayari straightened the stall cloth slipping from Pella’s arm. “Was this the husband who separated the largest eggs?”

“Yes.”

“He does prefer the largest version of everything.”

“For older leaves, soften them first,” Nia said. “Dip them in hot water only until they bend. Cut away the thickest part of the stem, and overlap two leaves if one feels weak. Younger leaves may fold without that, but I would still test one before filling the rest.”

Pella repeated the steps under her breath, counting against her fingers.

“Soften it. Cut the thick stem. Test one.”

“Do not let him fill every leaf before he knows the first one will close.”

“That may be the difficult part.”

Mari entered carrying her narrow count cloth. She greeted the woman at the pot, counted the clean cups remaining beneath the cover, then leaned over the wash tub to count the used ones.

“Sera sent you?” Ayari asked.

“She wants to know how many cups have not returned from the market shelters.” Mari added a charcoal mark to the cloth. “Three are missing from this one.”

“They may still be in someone’s hand,” the woman tending the pot said.

“Then they can return before I finish the lower row.”

Mari folded the count cloth once and looked toward Pella.

“If your husband insists on tying every leaf separately, do not bring the work to the lower kitchens. Sera’s cousins tried that. Six people spent half the morning tying parcels that disappeared in one meal.”

Pella shifted to make room, but Mari remained standing with one shoulder against the rear wall.

“The small parcels were good,” Nia said.

“I did not say they were bad. I said no one was doing that every third day.” Mari accepted a clean cup from the woman at the pot. “Sera changed it. She lined one large pot with softened leaves, put the filling inside, and folded the edges over the top. Fewer ties. One pot to wash.”

“That works too.”

“It works because I refused the first version.”

“Sera probably still said the little parcels looked better.”

“She did.”

“They do.”

Mari looked at Nia over the rim of her cup. “You may make them when you have six spare hands.”

A female passing the open front turned at Mari’s voice. Nia recognized her as the woman who had complained that her mate ate three festival cakes while claiming he disliked sweet food.

“Tessa,” Ayari called. “Did he admit he liked them?”

“He admitted the third one was less unpleasant than the first two.”

Tessa stepped beneath the shelter but did not sit. A ring of market keys hung from her waist, and she kept looking toward the closing stalls.

“The sour red strips sold out before the middle bell,” she said. “Last spring, the seller carried half of them home after every market.”

Mari lowered her cup. “Who bought them?”

“Households asking how much belongs in broth. One woman bought enough for ten pots and had never tasted them.”

Nia set her cup on the bench beside her. “Someone should tell her not to use a full strip in the first pot.”

“I told the seller to make smaller bundles next market,” Tessa said. “If people still want more after they taste the first one, they can return.”

“That may keep the price steadier too,” Ayari said.

Someone called Tessa from the pottery turn. She lifted one hand to show she had heard.

Pella watched her begin to leave. “My husband heard about the folded leaves from Tessa’s second mate.”

“He heard it from one of Sera’s cousins,” Mari said. “No one who tied those parcels told him to make the largest ones possible.”

Pella sighed into her broth.

Another woman stopped at the shelter entrance. She wore a dark green wrap fastened with two polished bone pins. The woman tending the pot reached for a clean cup before being asked.

“Mira,” Ayari said.

Mira accepted the cup and greeted Ayari, Mari, and Pella before looking at Nia.

“You have seen more of the market now.”

“I have seen enough to know I missed half of it while walking through the middle.”

“That is why the regular buyers arrive early.” Mira took a small drink. “Hearthfang has changed quickly around you. People are asking for different foods and new storage work, and husbands carry questions from one household to another. You are still learning which rows open first.”

Nia held her gaze.

“I am.”

“With Kael and Shen beside you, some people may hear more than you intended. A preference from a female with two Level Nine mates can sound like an instruction by the time it reaches another cave.”

Nia looked toward Pella, who was still counting the preparation steps against her fingers.

“Then I need to say when I am testing something and when I am asking someone to make it.”

“Pella’s husband chose his own leaves and his own cord,” Ayari said. “We are trying to stop him from choosing all of them at once. Sit if you want the rest of the story.”

“I did not say Nia ordered him.”

Mira finished her broth and returned the cup to the wash tub. “My husband is waiting at the lower turn. We can speak another day.”

She left without hurrying.

Pella looked between Nia and Ayari. Mari folded her count cloth along an old crease but said nothing.

Ayari waited until two women had passed through the shelter before speaking.

“Mira’s family thought Kael might court her,” she said quietly. “He ate at their table during council seasons, accepted winter gifts as chief, and sent hunters when her father was injured. Kael never sent her a personal gift, asked for a private visit, or made a promise.”

“Did Mira believe it?” Nia asked.

“For a time, I think. Her family believed it much longer. They had already begun discussing where she would live and how often Kael would eat at their table.”

Mari tucked the count cloth beneath her arm. “Her mother told half the upper caves before Kael had asked anyone.”

The nearby conversation thinned as a female stopped outside with one husband behind her. He carried a covered jar in both hands.

The jar shifted against his wrist. He apologized before it struck anything. The female turned her head.

He went still, changed his grip, and watched her face until she looked toward the broth pot again.

The woman serving broth placed a cup on the ledge without calling to her. The female drank while standing, returned the cup to the wash tub, and left. Her husband followed with his eyes lowered to the path ahead.

“Vessa,” Ayari said after they were gone.

She waited until the footsteps had faded before continuing.

“Most women do not argue in the middle of a market. If Mira wants distance, she may leave your name off a weaving-day invitation, send a gift to Kael’s work table instead of your home, or let you hear about a seller after the best stock is gone. One missed invitation may be a mistake. Three are not. The same is true of late messages and gifts sent around you.”

Nia thought of the comb beside the herb seller’s token bowl and the gifts that could remain visible without being accepted.

“Then I should not judge from one missed invitation.”

“No. Ask me before you spend a whole morning wondering whether someone forgot your name or left it off.” Ayari finished her broth and placed the cup in the wash tub. “I usually know which happened.”

Mari drank the last of hers. “She usually knows before the person who was left off.”

One of Pella’s husbands called her from the market row. He stood beside their egg stall with one hand holding the loosened cover.

“We are ready to close.”

“I’m coming.”

Pella gathered the clean stall cloth over her arm, stood, and returned her cup to the wash tub.

“Hot water until the leaf bends,” she said. “Cut the thick stem. Test one before filling the rest.”

Tessa crossed the shelter opening again with her market keys in one hand.

“What are you testing?”

Pella followed her toward the pottery turn and began explaining. Her husband waited beside the egg stall, folding the loosened cover while she spoke.

Mari placed her cup in the wash tub, counted it among the returned cups, and added another mark to her cloth.

“I am telling Sera that her cousins are not tying six-person parcels again.”

“You can tell her the large lined pot was a good change,” Nia said.

“I already did. She pretended she thought of it alone.”

Mari folded the count cloth and left through the rear opening to inspect the next shelter.

Nia finished the last warm mouthful in her cup and placed it in the wash tub before rising beside Ayari.

Shen returned carrying Nia’s empty market basket.

“The wrapped greens are on one cool tray, and the tied mushroom bag is on another,” he said. “I left the fruit and your wrapped sour shoots in the shallow holding basket beside them. The roots are still wrapped and tied together inside the empty stone basin near the outer wall, away from the food shelves.”

“And Ayari’s shoots?”

“Aurel took the shoots home. Tovin returned Ayari’s basket to her household and stayed to help him unload.”

Nia checked the inside of her basket before taking it. Only the folded market cloth and her trade pouch remained.

At the pottery turn, Pella was showing Tessa where the thick part of a leaf should be cut. Tessa called to the husband closing their produce stall.

“Do you have one young broad leaf left?”

He searched beneath the damp stall cloth and brought her one that had not softened at the edges. Pella laid it across her palm, bent the sides inward, and showed him where the stem resisted.

“Dip it in hot water first,” she said. “Only until it bends. Then cut this part thinner.”

Pella handed the leaf back to him.

The husband produced two more young leaves from the remaining stock and laid all three beneath a clean damp cloth in a shallow tray.

“For tonight?” Tessa asked.

“One test before we fill the others,” he said.

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