Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

The gray stone looked cleaner in morning light than Nia trusted it to be.

She stood in front of it after breakfast with her arms folded while Shen carried their bowls away from the hearth.

Yesterday’s loose chips were gone. Selvan and Mari had cleared the construction lane before leaving, and the floor no longer showed the pale trail where the larger stone had crossed the cave. The hot-pot landing itself still carried faint dust along its lower edges and inside the narrow space behind it.

Nia crouched.

Her finger stopped before touching the surface.

“I keep wanting to check it.”

Shen came back with the wash basin.

“Then check it after we clean it.”

“That is less satisfying.”

“It will also keep stone grit out of your breakfast.”

Nia stood and took the folded cleaning cloth he offered.

Kael had left before they finished eating. He no longer needed to remain at the west channel every hour, but two carts had been turned away from the softer edge the day before, and he wanted the new route markers in place before traders began using that passage as if winter damage had never happened.

Outside their cave, Hearthfang had already become noisy.

Someone below was hammering boards into a market cover. Farther along the upper path, a male called twice for a missing coil of cord before another voice answered that the coil had been sent to the drainage workers the previous afternoon. Two females passed the cave carrying empty jars downhill, discussing whether the lower water station would reopen before midday.

Nia looked toward the entrance.

“Spring is loud.”

Shen poured hot water into the basin.

“Winter was loud too.”

“Winter sounded angry.”

“The wind did most of that work.”

Nia smiled and dipped the cloth into the hot water.

They started with the pot stone.

Shen moved the basin close without crossing it into the clean cooking path. Nia wiped the upper surface slowly, turning the cloth as gray dust marked it. Shen took a second cloth and worked around the sides, pushing his fingers through the narrow gap Mari had insisted on keeping between stone and wall.

“You can actually reach behind it,” Nia said.

“Mari would have made Selvan move it again if I could not.”

“She probably would have told him exactly how often she expected to curse his name while cleaning it.”

Shen glanced over his shoulder. “That sounds possible.”

They changed the water after the first wash.

On the second pass, almost no gray came away.

Shen crouched and ran a wet cloth beneath the lower lip where Selvan had cut the shallow seat into the floor.

“We need another pass.”

Nia brought fresh water.

“You really do want to know what remains after the cloth looks clean.”

“Yes.”

“That is why I think you enjoy this.”

He looked up at her briefly before returning to the stone.

On the third pass, the cloth came away clean.

Nia rinsed the stone once more with fresh hot water, catching the runoff in the shallow basin before it could spread toward the hearth.

When Shen finally sat back, the stone looked darker from the water and nothing more.

“There is no grit left,” he said.

Nia rubbed her thumb across one corner and felt no roughness.

She turned toward the entrance landing.

The shelterbark lifted easily from the two low supports. Yesterday’s test water had dried beneath it, and the narrow channel between the stones remained open.

Nia carried the bark outside.

Shen followed with the basin.

They washed the smooth face first, then turned it and rinsed the rougher underside until the water running from the edges stayed clear. Nia paid particular attention to the cut sides Selvan had warned could absorb water if they split.

One edge had begun to roughen slightly.

She pressed her thumb against it.

“It is not failing yet.”

“No, but keep watching that side.”

“If it starts separating, we replace it before water stays inside.”

Shen nodded.

They left the bark propped where air could reach both faces while they scrubbed the two support stones and the floor channel beneath them.

When they finished, Shen carried the dirty water outside. Nia rinsed the basin itself until no stone grit remained, and Shen refilled it with clean water before returning it to the handwashing place beside the entrance. They both washed their hands before handling anything from the clean side of the cave again.

A worker came up the path carrying a stack of narrow slats tied against his back. He slowed when he saw Nia kneeling near the entrance.

“Did Selvan finally start?”

“He started with one part.”

The male looked past her toward the cave.

“Everyone is waiting on long dry boards. These slats are already marked for the market wall.”

Nia followed his glance to the wood. “I know better than to take marked material.”

“I have seen you looking at every board that passes.”

“That does not mean I am taking them.”

He laughed and adjusted the load before continuing uphill.

Shen rinsed his hands at the clean basin.

“You were looking.”

“I look at everything now.”

“I noticed.”

Nia went back to the shelterbark.

By the time they replaced it, sunlight had reached farther across the entrance stone.

Nia pressed down on each corner.

The landing stayed firm.

She brought the empty gathering basket from its outer storage place and set it down, then removed it again.

“It is not rocking.”

Shen checked the drainage gap beneath the bark.

“Nothing is trapped underneath.”

Nia carried the basket back outside, washed her hands at the basin, and returned to the kitchen side.

She filled one of their heavier cooking pots with water, leaving enough room that the boil would not splash over the sides.

Shen watched the level.

“A little more. The weight should be closer to what you would actually carry.”

Nia added another cup herself.

“That is enough water for the test.”

They put the pot over the hearth.

While it heated, Nia went to the wall and looked directly at the old clean-cloth mark above the new landing.

Shen came to stand beside her.

His finger stopped near the score without touching the wall.

“We test it before changing it.”

“Yes.”

Small bubbles began to rise through the water behind them.

A female voice sounded at the entrance.

“Can I come in?”

Sera stood outside with a covered jar under one arm.

Nia waved her forward, then pointed toward the shelterbark.

“Try that first.”

Sera looked down.

“The new basket place?”

“Yes.”

Sera stepped around it once, then entered normally.

“It does not take much room.”

“That took most of yesterday to achieve.”

“I believe you.”

She lifted the jar.

“I came to return this. Darius used the last of what was in it, washed it, and then decided I should bring it before he put something else inside and forgot whose it was.”

Nia accepted the jar and set it near the basin for another rinse before household use.

“What did he almost put in it?”

“Dried root. He already has three jars of it, so I stopped him before he filled a fourth.”

Shen looked toward the jar. “Then returning this one was probably the better choice.”

Sera gave him a small nod.

Nia washed her hands after setting the jar aside, then checked the heating water.

“What are you doing?” Sera asked.

“Testing the stone with a hot pot. We already know it can take weight. Now I want to see what heat and steam do where we actually placed it.”

Sera looked toward the scored wall.

“And whether the marks still work.”

Nia glanced at her. “You have been listening to Mari.”

“Often enough.”

The water reached a steady boil.

Shen moved first.

He cleared the route between hearth and landing even though nothing remained in it except Nia.

Nia folded two clean, dry pot cloths around the hot handles.

“Stay there.”

Shen did.

She lifted.

The pot was heavy enough to pull at her shoulders, but the turn felt the same as yesterday’s cold test. She stepped away from the hearth, rotated toward the gray stone, and lowered the pot.

The stone did not shift. Water rolled hard inside the vessel as Nia released the handles and watched the steam rise in a thick column. At first it climbed almost straight upward, but the warmer air near the wall pushed part of it inward until the pale stone above the pot darkened where the steam crossed the old clean-cloth mark.

Shen moved beside her.

“There.”

“I see it.”

Sera leaned slightly to get a better angle.

“That is where the clean cloth was going?”

“The winter plan put it there.”

Another wave of steam climbed the wall, and a faint damp sheen spread across the marked area.

Shen touched the stone well away from the steam path, then moved his hand nearer without placing his fingers directly over the rising heat.

“Anything stored there would take moisture every time you opened a steaming pot.”

“And if I reached for a clean cloth while moving the pot, my arm would cross the same space.”

Nia picked up the small marking knife from the clean work shelf, then looked at the boiling vessel and put the knife back down.

“I can change the mark after the steam settles.”

Shen reached toward the hearth cover.

“Do you want the heat lowered?”

“Not yet. Let the test run.”

They watched several more minutes.

The stone landing stayed level.

No crack appeared along the surface. The wall behind it became damp where the steam repeatedly reached it, but the space to the right remained mostly dry.

Nia walked to that side and stretched her arm toward the basin, then toward the future preparation area.

She repeated the reach.

“This side works better.”

Shen joined her.

“It is farther from the steam but still close to washing, and you do not have to reach across the preparation surface.”

Sera looked between them.

“So the shelf changes before anyone builds it.”

“Yes,” Nia said. “It is much easier to move it now than after someone builds it.”

Nia waited until the water settled below a boil, then used the two pot cloths to carry the vessel back to the hearth. She set the cloths on a clean dry spot beside the hearth where they would remain available for the rest of the heat testing.

Shen checked the gray stone immediately.

The top had warmed beneath the vessel, but there was no visible change.

He waited until the stone had begun losing heat before pouring a little cool water onto a separate corner.

Nia watched him.

“What are you checking?”

“I want to know whether a cooler spill near a hot pot will damage it.”

Sera moved farther back while he watched the surface.

The stone remained unchanged. The cooling water caused no cracking, flaking, or movement.

When it cooled further, Nia wiped it clean once more.

Only then did she return to the wall.

She scored a short line through the old clean-cloth mark.

She kept the cut shallow so the old mark remained visible, while the crossing line showed that it was no longer current.

She moved to the drier section nearer the washing side and tested the reach again.

Shen stood where the future preparation surface would begin.

“You clear me.”

Nia stretched toward the mark.

“You are taller than the table.”

“Yes, so if you clear me, the table will not be the problem.”

Sera laughed softly.

Nia waited until Shen stepped aside, then cut a new shallow score into the wall.

Sera looked at the crossed winter mark.

“You are leaving the old one?”

“Yes. Selvan can see exactly what changed when he comes back.”

“That will save you explaining the whole test.”

“I appreciate not having to explain the whole test twice.”

Shen took the marking knife outside, rinsed the blade with fresh water over the drainage side of the entrance, and dried it before returning it to the clean shelf. He washed his hands at the clean basin afterward.

Sera stayed through the next part of the test mostly because, as she admitted, she wanted to see whether anything else went wrong.

Nia heated the water again and used the same two pot cloths when she moved the vessel a second time. She approached the stone from the side as if Shen were using the future preparation area beside her, and the change in angle did not interfere with the landing.

For the final test, Shen took the pot cloths and carried the vessel himself while Nia stood where she expected to work. His longer reach changed the angle slightly, but not the landing position.

The new cloth mark remained outside the main steam path.

A runner passed outside calling for Kael, and Nia heard him answer from farther down the mountain. His voice and the runner’s moved away together toward the west route without Kael coming home.

Sera glanced toward the entrance.

“He has been everywhere this week.”

“He is enjoying having enough open road to manage again.”

Shen looked at Nia.

She smiled. “And enough people using it badly that he can tell them where not to put their carts.”

Sera laughed.

She eventually left with a message for Darius that Nia wanted one of her smaller jars returned whenever he finished borrowing that too.

After Sera left, Nia rinsed the returned jar and set it to dry with the other clean vessels.

She took a fresh clean cloth from the temporary hand-cloth stack and gave the hot-pot landing its final food-ready wipe, then placed that cloth with the other used washing.

She and Shen washed the two pot cloths and all of the used cleaning cloths from the stone and shelterbark, hanging them separately to dry. They emptied the basin, rinsed it once more, refilled it with clean water, and returned it to its usual place beside the entrance. Both of them washed their hands in the fresh water before returning to normal household work.

By midday, the test water had been carried away for washing use rather than wasted.

The shelterbark at the entrance had already dried after its morning wash. The two low supports beneath it stayed clean, the drainage channel remained open, and the surface lifted easily with one hand.

Shen returned the remaining clean hand-cloth stack to its temporary place near the basin. The new wall mark remained bare.

Nia picked up the empty cooking pot and crossed from the hearth without stopping to adjust her path. The pot landed flat on the gray stone, and Shen looked at her as she rested both hands on the cool handles.

“Now we can use it.”

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