Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

Ren arrived without a travel bag.

Nia noticed from halfway down the path.

She had left the cave with a shallow basket tucked against her hip and Kael's taste still on her mouth. He had caught her beside the entrance before heading toward the lower route board, kissed her until the basket pressed awkwardly between them, then taken the basket long enough to move it out of the way and kissed her again.

Shen had watched from the worktable until Kael left.

Then he had crooked one finger at her.

Nia had laughed. “You had me all morning.”

“That has nothing to do with Kael getting two.”

“You counted?”

“Yes.”

She had gone back inside and kissed him once, slowly enough that Shen stopped pretending this was about numbers. His hand had settled at the back of her neck until she pulled away.

Now both husbands were working, Nia had a basket to return to Mari, and Ren was coming up from the lower turn with nothing strapped across his chest.

No narrow travel bag hung at his side, and no wrapped packet occupied either hand. None of his workers followed with goods. His dark trousers had road dust at the hems, and his boots had lost the determined cleanliness she had teased him about before. The dark-red hair tied behind his head had shifted during the walk, leaving several loose strands near one fox ear.

Nia stopped.

Ren saw her, and his smirk appeared when she looked past him toward the path.

“I left my workers elsewhere,” he said when he reached her. “I also left the bag, the goods, and everything else you appear to be searching for.”

Nia looked at him again. “You really didn't bring anything.”

“Apparently I can travel without carrying half my livelihood.”

She smiled and resumed walking.

Ren fell into step beside her.

He looked toward the upper path. “I expected this to feel less suspicious. I am a merchant entering Hearthfang with nothing to sell, buy, inspect, carry, dispute, collect, deliver, or negotiate. Someone should probably stop me.”

“I could take you to Kael.”

“That seems excessive.”

Nia laughed.

The basket caught Ren's attention, and he reached toward it before stopping himself. “May I?”

Nia shifted it farther onto her hip.

He sighed.

“You remembered to ask,” she said. “That's progress.”

Ren gave her a wounded look and let her keep the basket.

The path narrowed around a section of stone darkened by water from an upper seep. Nia moved to the dry side without thinking. Ren followed her line and stepped over the damp edge.

He no longer needed directions at that turn.

Nia noticed but kept walking.

Mari was outside one of the storage passages with three rolled covers at her feet. A household male Nia recognized from the upper row held one end of a fourth while Mari checked the cord running through its edge.

She saw Nia approaching and pointed toward the dry ledge beside her.

“Put it there.”

Nia set the basket down.

Mari pulled the cord through another handspan, tested the tension, then nodded to the man holding the opposite end. He began rolling the cover from his side.

Her ram ears shifted toward Ren.

“You again.”

Ren placed a hand against his chest. “Your welcome continues to overwhelm me.”

“I don't need anything.”

Ren opened his mouth, then closed it.

The corner of Mari's mouth moved before she crouched to tie the rolled cover.

“Good.”

Nia picked up the empty basket and left before she laughed in Mari's face.

Ren caught up several steps later. His tail gave a sharper sweep than the pace required, but he kept his opinion of Mari to himself.

The path opened into a strip of sun between two stone rises. Spring growth had thickened along the edges where runoff collected, and tiny pale flowers pushed through the shorter grass near the wall. Nia slowed to avoid stepping on a cluster.

Ren stepped around them too.

“Usually,” he said, “I can ask where you're going because I need to know where the goods, sellers, or work are. I have discovered that knowing I no longer need an excuse does not make me feel less as though I've forgotten one.”

“You'll get used to it.”

“That sounds ominously permanent.”

Nia glanced at him.

His smirk made it impossible to tell how much of that had been a joke.

For once, nothing urgent waited for her. She had returned the basket. Shen did not need her in the kitchen. Kael had taken the route-board question with him, and the small stack of washed cloths near the cave could dry without supervision.

She turned at the next fork.

Ren followed.

After they passed a household entrance and reached a quieter stretch, he looked around. “Where are we going now?”

“Nowhere.”

His steps slowed.

Nia continued for another pace before looking back. Ren stood in the middle of the path with an expression better suited to discovering that a road had vanished.

She laughed and waved him forward.

Ren joined her, though he still looked unconvinced.

Nia led him toward the upper ledge they had used before, then changed her mind when she saw two workers replacing a cracked drainage lip near the turn. Instead, she took the branch that curved toward a smaller open shelf above the household rows.

The shelf held no market cover, storage entrance, or worktable. A broad stone sat near the back where the wall had broken away unevenly. Spring sun warmed the upper surface.

Nia sat and patted the stone beside her.

Ren looked down at it before sitting.

For several breaths, neither spoke.

Below them, Hearthfang moved through its morning. A man carried two water vessels along the lower path. Someone shook a cloth hard enough for the snap to carry upward. Farther off, stone struck stone in an irregular rhythm from one of the repair areas.

Ren rested his forearms loosely on his thighs.

Nia studied him. “What do you actually do when you're not working?”

“I sleep more than you apparently think respectable. I eat. I bathe when the road has been kind enough to provide somewhere decent, and I walk when I'm staying in a place worth seeing.” He looked toward the higher ridges. “Sometimes the walking becomes route work. Sometimes I just want to know what is beyond the next rise.”

Nia could believe that.

“I like high places too,” he continued. “Shen has probably told you that already.”

“He told me about your shoes.”

Ren went still.

Nia started laughing.

“Shen talks too much.”

“He said you used to spend money on shoes you didn't need.”

“I needed them. They were well made, I was successful young, and I had certain excesses.”

“You're defending the shoes.”

“They cannot defend themselves.”

That made her laugh harder.

She waited until she could speak again. “More than ten?”

His expression told her enough.

Nia laughed and let him keep the exact number.

Ren's tail flicked against the stone as he looked over the household rows. “Since my dignity is already damaged, you can contribute something. What does Nia do when nobody needs her to decide whether a plant deserves to become dinner?”

“I read when I have something worth reading. I can sit somewhere comfortable and do absolutely nothing for a very long time. Before I came here, I watched a lot of stories and competitions too. Pretty much anything that caught my attention.”

She told him about losing whole evenings to stories from places she had never seen and about her habit of sometimes learning the ending before she began.

That finally made him interrupt.

“You did what?”

Nia grinned. “I like knowing sometimes.”

Ren turned toward her fully. “You deliberately ruined the ending?”

“It doesn't ruin it. I still get to see how everybody gets there.”

For a merchant who valued information, Ren looked personally offended by her use of it.

Nia pointed at him. “You cannot spend your life finding out everything before everybody else and judge me for spoilers.”

“Those are useful facts.”

“The ending is a useful fact.”

“The ending is the reward.”

“The whole story is the reward.”

Ren stared at her for another moment before looking away with a small shake of his head. “This may be the first serious problem in our courtship.”

Nia laughed.

A carrying pole creaked somewhere below them. The man beneath it complained loudly about whoever had tied the rear bundle, and another voice shouted back that he should learn to walk straight.

Nia watched them disappear between the lower stone rises.

Beside her, Ren had settled more comfortably on the rock.

“Shen was right about the high places,” she said. “You brought me up high the first time we spent time alone too.”

“I remember. I also remember you looking over the edge as though you were deciding whether the view justified climbing farther.”

“It probably did.”

“That was what worried me.”

Nia bumped his upper arm with her shoulder.

Ren's mouth curved.

A breeze moved across the shelf, freeing another strand of his dark-red hair. It brushed his cheek once, then again.

Nia reached up and smoothed it back.

Ren went quiet.

The breeze immediately freed it again.

“You tied it badly.”

“I tied it on the road. I had no idea my appearance would be inspected this closely.”

“You came courting.”

“I came to spend time with you. Apparently that includes hair criticism.”

Nia touched the strand again, more because she wanted to than because it needed fixing.

Ren watched her.

“You came anyway,” she said.

“I did.”

The teasing had left his voice.

Nia lowered her hand.

Ren caught it before it reached her lap. He held her fingers loosely and watched her face.

Nia turned her hand and threaded their fingers together.

His tail moved once across the stone.

Below them, someone argued about a missing tool. A woman laughed loudly enough that another voice answered from farther down. Water splashed into a vessel.

Ren's thumb moved over the side of Nia's hand.

“I thought this would be easier,” he said. “I've crossed Hearthfang enough times that I know half these paths now. But give me a seller who changed a shipment, a route that needs checking, or three households arguing over the same goods and I know exactly what to do. Today I walked in with empty hands.”

Nia squeezed his fingers. “And survived.”

“Barely. I considered bringing emergency bark.”

She laughed against his shoulder when she leaned into him.

Ren shifted beneath her until her weight settled comfortably.

“I want it known that the bark would have been useful if this went badly.”

“You were going to distract me with it?”

“I have escaped worse situations with less.”

Nia could believe that too.

For a while they sat without needing to decide what came next.

Then Ren told her about a northern town where every roof leaned in the same direction because of the seasonal wind. He had once spent three days there waiting for a damaged wheel to be repaired, trapped in a yard belonging to an old woman with six geese.

According to Ren, every goose hated him.

Nia lifted her head.

“All six?”

“From the moment I arrived. I had done nothing to deserve it.”

The certainty in his voice immediately made her suspicious.

Ren insisted the geese had judged him on sight. One had followed him whenever he crossed the yard, another had learned where he slept, and the largest apparently believed the wheel cart belonged to it.

“Did you try feeding them?”

“The old woman told me not to encourage them.”

“That means you tried.”

Ren paused.

Nia laughed.

“One piece of dried grain cake,” he admitted. “The large one took it and then tried to bite me.”

“Good judge of character.”

“They were unreasonable creatures.”

The old woman had been worse in a different way. Once the repaired wheel was fitted, she refused to let Ren leave until he accepted enough dried fruit for several days on the road. Ren imitated her sharp voice badly enough that Nia accused him of improving the story.

“Only the parts that need help.”

“So most of it.”

“An insulting estimate.”

Nia settled against him again and gave him one of her own Hearthfang failures in return. Early on, she had been completely certain she remembered where a covered vessel belonged and nearly made Shen reorganize an entire shelf around her mistake.

“He let me argue about it too,” she said. “Then after I went to sleep, he moved the vessel back.”

Ren laughed, the sound moving through the shoulder beneath her cheek.

“I found out the next morning. I was offended.”

“I hope there were consequences.”

“He made breakfast.”

“Then justice was served.”

Nia nudged him without lifting her head.

The sun shifted slowly across the shelf.

Eventually Ren's attention moved toward the lower paths.

“I told my workers I would return before the evening meal,” he said. “I came here without business. I did not abandon my livelihood.”

Nia sat upright and released his hand. “Then you should keep your word. You can come again.”

Ren stood, brushing dust from the back of his trousers. “So easily? I expected a more difficult second invitation.”

“You already survived nowhere.”

“That was difficult.”

Nia smiled and accepted the hand he offered her down from the stone.

They walked toward the main path together.

At the first fork, Ren chose the correct branch without waiting for her.

Nia noticed but said nothing.

The lower route grew busier as they descended. A pair of workers passed carrying bundled poles. Ren moved to the safe side before they reached him, leaving the inside line open for the load.

Near the trade shelter, Tovin stood beside a stack of tied parcels with a counting strip in one hand.

His eyes found Ren.

Ren kept walking.

Tovin looked at the parcels, then at Ren again.

Nia bit the inside of her cheek.

“Tovin,” Ren said pleasantly.

“Ren.”

Neither man moved toward the goods.

Tovin's gaze shifted to Nia.

She refused to help him.

After a moment, Tovin returned to his counting strip.

Ren exhaled through his nose and continued toward the eastern split.

Nia waited until the shelter was behind them before laughing.

“I heard that.”

“You were meant to.”

“I have conducted business with that man for years.”

“And today you walked past his parcels.”

Ren glanced back once. “I may regret that.”

“You'll survive.”

He gave her a long look.

Nia smiled.

They stopped where the lower path divided toward the eastern road.

Nia stepped close enough to straighten the edge of Ren's coat where the travel strap usually pressed it down.

Ren looked at her hand.

“You really came with nothing.”

“I did.” His finger brushed the blue-green bracelet at her wrist, careful not to hook it. “I might bring something next time, but it will be for you.”

“You don't have to.”

“I know.”

The easy answer pleased her more than another clever one would have.

Ren lowered his hand and looked toward the eastern road.

“I'll see you soon.”

“Yes.”

He left without turning the departure into anything larger.

Nia watched him for a few steps, then turned uphill.

She carried the empty basket home with nothing new to put away.