Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

The smaller gathering basket was still on the shelterbark landing when Nia stepped outside after first bell.

Shen had added a folded sample cloth inside its own protective wrap, a portion of root cake wrapped in a clean food cloth inside a separate travel wrap, and a small water flask before Kael left for the north-turn route check. He had done it without changing the basket’s position, so when Nia lifted it, she could still see the faint dry mark where the bottom had rested overnight.

“You packed food,” she said.

Shen looked up from the basin. “You are going uphill with Kael. You will eat it.”

“Probably.”

Nia fitted the carrying strap across her shoulders. Shen came over, adjusted the strap where it crossed too close to one braid, and tugged the basket once to make sure it sat flat against her back.

“Better?”

“Yes.”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

Nia smiled. “You are acting like I am leaving for three days.”

“You came back from the jungle after rain changed half the route.”

“That was different.”

“It was.”

Shen checked the basket strap once more before letting his hand slide down her arm. “This route is Kael’s. Listen when he tells you where not to step.”

“I know. I am not arguing with him on loose stone after what happened in the jungle.”

One corner of Shen’s mouth curved.

Enough people were already moving through Hearthfang that nobody paid much attention to Nia waiting outside. Two men carried split timber toward the lower repair rows. Someone near the water path shouted for a missing coil of cord, and another voice answered from farther uphill that the cord had gone with the roof crew before sunrise. A cart wheel struck stone hard enough to make Nia wince, followed by an irritated male voice telling the driver to slow down before he broke the rim they had repaired yesterday.

Kael came up the path from the north turn.

He had removed the heavier route wrap he wore at dawn, but damp earth still darkened the lower part of his boots. He stopped at the washing side first, cleaned them, and rinsed his hands before coming onto the landing.

“The north turn is clear,” he said.

“Did the deeper stakes work?”

“For now. One side still needs more stone before the next heavy rain.”

Shen glanced toward him. “You are still taking her above it?”

Kael nodded. “We will cross east of the repair line.”

Nia shifted the basket against her back. “I heard both of you.”

Kael looked at her once before turning toward the upper path.

They left the busiest routes after the upper water line. The spring morning was cool without winter’s deeper cold, and the stone underfoot changed from worn household paths to rougher ground marked by old runoff, animal tracks, and the shallow cuts of patrol boots.

At the north turn, three workers were fitting flat stones against the soft edge of the trail. One was crouched near the drainage cut with both hands muddy to the wrist. He looked up when Kael approached.

“The upper side is staying dry.”

“What about the lower seam?” Kael asked.

“Still soft beneath the second stone. We are not putting a cart over it.”

“Good. Keep people on the east edge until the stone settles.”

The worker nodded and went back to pressing gravel beneath the slab.

Nia waited beside the firmer side of the path while Kael checked the repaired edge with one boot. He did not touch the work or take over. He looked at the drainage line, asked one more question about the morning flow, then moved on.

The trail narrowed soon after.

Nia looked uphill. The path climbed between exposed roots and dark stone before bending around a rise thick with new green. She could have walked the first section, but beyond the bend the ground steepened enough that she understood why Kael had said he would carry her.

He stopped beside a broad flat rock and looked back at her.

“Basket secure?”

Nia tugged both straps. “Yes.”

“Keep it tight against you.”

Then he shifted.

Heavy muscle and black fur filled the narrow mountain path. His paws settled over stone with enough weight that Nia felt it beneath her boots. Morning light caught the edges of his dark coat, and his gold eyes stayed unmistakably his when he turned his head toward her.

Nia watched him long enough for one black ear to flick in her direction.

“I am coming.”

Kael lowered himself beside the flat rock.

Nia stepped onto the stone and mounted behind his shoulders, where she had ridden before. The basket settled against her lower back, and her fingers slid into the dense fur along his shoulders.

“This route is steeper than the last one.”

One ear turned toward her.

Kael rose after she settled.

His shoulder-driven stride was familiar, but the steeper upper path required her to adjust differently.

Nia leaned farther forward when he climbed and shifted with him whenever the trail crossed sideways over the mountain. At the first difficult turn, Kael stopped long enough for her to adjust the basket and her weight before continuing.

Below them, Hearthfang began to disappear behind new leaves and stone.

Winter damage was still visible on the upper slope even though the worked paths near their cave had opened again. A narrow runoff channel had cut through one old footpath. Branches stripped by snow lay caught below a rock face. In one shaded hollow, gray ice remained beneath a layer of wet leaves.

Kael stepped around all of it without hesitation.

Nia looked down at the old path disappearing under his left side. “That is the route you closed?”

He stopped, and she pointed toward the broken edge below them.

Kael turned his head enough to see where she meant, then gave a low rumble.

“I can see why.”

The old path ended three body lengths ahead where the slope had fallen away into loose stone. Kael moved east instead, climbing through firmer ground between two thick-rooted trees.

A patrol male came downhill several minutes later with a bundle of snapped marker stakes tied across one shoulder. He moved aside before Kael reached him, then paused when he recognized Nia on the tiger’s back.

“Chief.”

Kael stopped.

“The western upper marker split again,” the patrol male said. “Not the stake. The top binding.”

Nia slid down onto the flat stone beside them before Kael shifted back to human form.

“Replace the binding with braided cord,” Kael said. “The old strip has been wet twice.”

“I thought so. I took the broken stakes down too.”

“Leave them with Selvan’s outside pile. He can decide whether the dry sections are worth cutting.”

The male nodded, glanced once at Nia’s gathering basket, and continued downhill without asking why she was there.

Kael watched until the man cleared the narrow bend, then looked at Nia.

“You can walk this section.”

She looked ahead. “Because it is safe?”

“Because you keep turning your head to look at plants.”

Nia smiled. “That too.”

They walked side by side for the next stretch.

The upper slope did not resemble the warm-water route she had explored with Shen. There, moisture and heat had crowded plants into dense overlapping growth. Here the air moved more freely between trees. Sun reached patches of ground long enough to warm the soil, while shaded pockets remained cool and wet.

Nia slowed near the first cluster of broad new leaves.

Kael stopped beside her. “Deer eat those. I have not seen anyone gather them.”

Nia crouched without touching the plant. The leaves smelled faintly bitter when she leaned close, but not in a way that interested her enough to risk a sample.

“Then they can stay with the deer.”

She stood and continued uphill with him.

Dry seed cases still clung beneath the leaves of the next plant. Nia inspected the empty shells scattered on the ground and rubbed one between two fingers.

“There is no scent.”

Kael picked up another shell and turned it over. “Small animals opened these through late winter. I have not seen people carry them home.”

Nia looked at the new growth above them. “Then I am not taking seeds just because something with sharp teeth liked them.”

Kael dropped the shell.

They left the plant where it grew.

Farther uphill, the ground leveled briefly beneath a line of dark-barked trees. Nia stopped because the soil near one trunk had been disturbed.

Something had dug there recently.

Kael crouched first and touched the edge of the broken soil.

“Boar.”

“Was it recent?”

“Last night.”

Nia stayed behind his shoulder while he checked the trees and slope above them. When the tension left his body, she came closer.

The torn soil exposed several pale knuckled roots beneath a plant with narrow green leaves. One root had been broken by whatever animal had dug there, leaving a fresh inner surface exposed.

Nia smelled it before she touched anything.

The scent was warm and bright, with a greener note beneath it that reminded her of crushed stem. It was not sweet like the dried market root or sharp in the same way as mountain onion.

She crouched lower.

Kael looked at her. “You know it?”

“No. The smell reminds me of something, though.”

“Do not taste it.”

“I was not going to taste this one.”

Kael used a short stick to lift the broken section free of the soil without putting sap on either of them. He set it away from their feet.

Nia leaned close enough to smell the exposed flesh. The warmth reached the back of her nose more strongly now. It reminded her of fresh ginger, but the comparison was not exact. This root carried that greener scent underneath.

Nia looked at the plant again, then at the torn place the boar had already opened.

“I do not want to dig up the whole cluster.”

“We do not need to.”

Nia opened the outer layer around the sample cloth without touching the folded inner cloth. Kael rinsed the flask exterior and poured water for her, and she washed the plant residue and route dust from her hands.

With clean hands, Nia opened the inner cloth across her palms.

Using the same stick, Kael loosened two small side roots from the already-disturbed edge and tipped them into the center. He left the main plant in the soil.

Nia tied the inner cloth around the samples, enclosed the packet again in its protective layer, and returned it to the basket.

Kael set the sap-marked stick beside the disturbed soil.

“If you have seen more of this plant, I want to know where before we leave.”

“I have seen it farther north and near the western deer path. I do not know anyone who uses it.”

“So it grows in more than one place.” Nia looked back at the plant. “We can leave the rest until Shen checks these.”

Kael rose beside her. She brushed soil from her knees, and his hand came to her waist before they continued uphill.

Nia looked up at him. “I am trying not to get excited until we know what it is.”

“You are excited.”

“A little.”

His thumb moved once against her side.

Nia smiled and leaned into him for a moment before they continued.

They saw nothing useful along the next stretch. Nia inspected a low flowering shrub that smelled good until she bruised one fallen leaf and released a bitter resinous scent strong enough to make her nose wrinkle. Kael recognized the shrub only as something goats avoided.

They passed young nut trees with no mature fruit, a patch of mushrooms Nia refused to touch without Shen, and a slope full of tiny white flowers that were pretty but carried no useful scent.

After nearly an hour, Nia stopped pretending they needed to fill the basket.

“I am hungry.”

Kael glanced at the basket.

Nia laughed. “Shen was right to pack the root cake.”

Kael led her up another short rise and off the main route to a flat overlook sheltered by three broad trees. The ground there was dry.

Nia opened the outer travel wrap around the root cake, leaving the clean inner food cloth untouched. They rinsed the flask exterior and washed their hands before Nia opened the inner cloth.

From the edge, she could see Hearthfang below them in pieces between branches: smoke rising from the lower cooking areas, people moving along the reopened paths, pale cloth spread over one drying frame, and two carts waiting near a turn that still looked soft from above.

She sat with her back against the trunk of the largest tree. Kael sat beside her.

Nia broke the cake in half.

“You have your own food.”

“I know.”

She offered him half anyway, and he took it.

They ate without talking for a while.

When they finished, Nia folded the empty inner food cloth, wrapped the travel layer around it, and put both back into the gathering basket.

The quiet above Hearthfang was different from their cave. There was no basin water, no tool scrape, and no one calling Kael from the entrance. Wind moved through the leaves above them, and somewhere farther downslope a bird made the same three-note call until another answered from across the valley.

Nia stretched her legs out.

“I like this.”

Kael looked toward her.

“Not just because of the root.”

He put an arm around her waist when she rested her head against his shoulder.

For a while, they watched the territory below. Nia could pick out the lower water route, part of the market line, and the darker cut where the road bent toward the east crossing.

When she had first arrived, Hearthfang had seemed enormous because she did not know where anything was. Now she could recognize pieces of it from above, while the ridges and paths beyond the settlement still disappeared farther than she could follow.

Kael’s fingers moved slowly against her side.

“You are tired.”

“A little.”

“We can go back.”

“I do not want to yet. I like sitting here.”

He stayed beside her.

Nia closed her eyes with her cheek against his shoulder.

A few minutes later, Kael eased his arm from around her and guided her upright before standing. He stepped far enough away to give his larger body room, shifted into his tiger form, then settled on the dry ground beside her.

Nia moved closer when his black fur pressed warm against her side and sank her fingers into it.

“You are much warmer like this.”

Kael rumbled beneath her cheek.

She rested against his shoulder and upper side.

Nia meant to close her eyes for only a few minutes.

She woke when one of his ears moved against her arm.

The sun had shifted enough that the light no longer reached her boots.

Nia blinked and pushed herself upright. “You let me sleep longer than I meant to.”

Kael rose and stretched, front paws extending over the dry soil before his back arched beneath the black fur.

Nia rubbed one eye. “All right. We can go back.”

Kael turned toward a narrower path on the east side of the overlook instead.

Nia frowned and picked up the basket.

“You want to show me something?”

He started walking, and she followed.

The narrow path curved around the shoulder of the hill and opened onto a sunlit patch of stone where low thorny shrubs grew between cracks.

Several small green-gold fruits clung beneath the leaves.

Nia stopped.

Kael shifted to human form.

“Ridge-sours,” he said. “Patrols eat them when they are ripe. A few households use them with dried meat. This patch is small, and birds take most of the fruit once the color deepens.”

Nia looked from him to the shrubs. “You brought me here because I asked about sour food yesterday.”

“Yes.”

Kael picked two intact fruits before either of them began tasting.

They rinsed the flask exterior, their hands, and both fruits.

“How sour are they?”

Kael bit into his.

Nia watched his face.

Nothing changed.

“You eat mountain pepper without caring. Your face is not useful for this.”

Kael finished the fruit. “Taste yours.”

Nia bit carefully into one side.

Her mouth tightened at once.

The sourness was clean and sharp enough to make her tongue water, stronger than the spring shoots and less sweet than rainpear. Only a faint fruit flavor sat behind it.

Nia took another bite, then finished the fruit while she looked across the shrubs.

“This is much closer. Sun-sour has more scent in the peel. The ridge-sour has more sourness in the flesh.”

“The fruiting does not last long,” Kael said.

“Then there is no reason to take much.”

Nia gathered six intact ridge-sours from different parts of the patch, leaving the rest for the birds and anyone else who used them.

She placed the six fruits together in the basket, away from the protected root sample.

“I want Shen to taste one before we cook with them. I also want to see whether the cut fruit changes if it sits.”

Kael nodded.

Nia looked over the patch once more. “Six is enough for that.”

They did not search for anything else.

Kael shifted back into tiger form at the edge of the steeper descent and lowered himself for her.

Nia climbed onto his back, leaned forward, and slid her fingers into his fur.

“Home.”

Kael started down.

Nia knew what the upper-slope turns required now. She moved with his shoulders and followed the tilt of his body when the path crossed the mountain.

At the broken upper route, he took the eastern line again.

Near the north turn, the workers had added another layer of gravel beneath the repaired stones. The same muddy-handed male looked up as Kael passed with Nia on his back.

“The seam stopped shifting.”

Kael paused.

Nia slid down from his back onto the firm side of the path before he shifted human again.

“Keep carts off it until morning,” Kael said. “If it stays firm through the night, test one empty cart before the loaded one.”

The worker nodded. “I will tell the lower team.”

Kael looked at the drainage cut once, then shifted back into tiger form and crouched for Nia again. Nia climbed onto his back and settled behind his shoulders before he continued downhill.

By the time they reached the upper water line, the gathering basket contained the protected root sample, six ridge-sours, the folded food wrappings, and the nearly empty water flask.

Nia preferred that to carrying home a full basket of plants she did not understand.

Shen was outside when they reached their cave.

His attention went immediately to Nia’s face and then to the basket.

“You slept.”

Nia slid from Kael’s back and touched the flattened side of her hair. “It shows that badly?”

“Yes.”

She looked back at Kael, who had already shifted behind her.

“You could have woken me sooner.”

“You were comfortable.”

Nia smiled and loosened the basket straps.

“What did you bring?” Shen asked.

“Two things. One of them still needs to stay away from food.”

Nia carried the route basket directly to the washing side before opening it.

She lifted the protected root sample first and gave it to Shen.

“Kael does not know whether people use the plant. A boar had already opened the soil around it. The broken root smelled warm and bright, so Kael used a stick to take two small side roots from the disturbed edge. Neither of us touched the root itself.”

Shen carried the protected sample to the medicine side. He opened the outer layer there, placed the still-tied inner packet on the inspection cloth, then returned the outer layer to the washing side with the travel washing.

“I will check it before we open this.”

Nia nodded.

Shen washed his hands before returning.

Nia removed the food wrappings and nearly empty water flask from the gathering basket. The cloths went with the travel washing, and she emptied the remaining water.

She cleaned the route grit from the basket, washed the flask exterior, and washed the six ridge-sours at the washing side.

Then Nia washed her hands.

She gave the basket, flask, and fruit their final fresh rinse. The basket went upside down to drain, the flask went beside the basin to dry, and the six ridge-sours went into a clean bowl.

“These are ridge-sours,” she said. “Patrols already eat them, and some households use them with dried meat. The patch is small, and the season is short.”

Shen looked at Kael.

Kael nodded. “They grow on the upper east slope. Birds take most of them.”

Nia picked up one of the cleaned fruits and placed it in a small clean dish for Shen.

“The flesh is sharper than the spring shoots. I want to know what happens after it is cut and whether it turns bitter if it sits.”

Shen looked at the fruit without touching it yet. “We can test that.”

Kael washed his hands beside Nia after the return.

She looked at him while water ran over his fingers.

“I liked riding you.”

Kael looked down at her.

“The steeper slope made me use your movement differently today.”

Shen glanced over from the clean side.

Nia smiled at him. “You still move nothing alike.”

Shen’s attention returned to the ridge-sour.

The tied aromatic-root packet remained on the medicine-side inspection cloth, the cleaned gathering basket drained upside down at the washing side, and the five remaining ridge-sours rested together in their clean bowl on the food side.

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