Marked by the Four Beast Lords After Transmigration

Nia was halfway through washing the spring greens when Shen took the knife away from her.

She looked from her empty hand to him. “I was using that.”

“You were holding it.”

“I had plans for it.”

Shen turned the knife in his hand and cut the thick end from one of the roots waiting beside the basin. “You stopped cutting some time ago.”

Nia looked down. He was right. She had washed the same handful of leaves twice while trying to decide how to ask the question sitting in her head.

Water ran from the greens over her brown fingers. She shook the leaves once and dropped them into the draining basket.

“I was thinking.”

“I noticed.”

“You could have let me finish.”

“You can have it back when you need it.”

His white-silver hair had fallen over one shoulder again. Nia reached across the narrow space between them and pushed it behind him before the ends could drag through the damp leaves.

Shen glanced at her hand, then resumed trimming the roots.

Nia watched him cut two more before she finally said, “You knew Ren before I did.”

“Yes.”

There was enough amusement in that single word to make her suspicious.

“Don't start.”

“I haven't.”

“You were going to.”

Shen's mouth curved, but he spared her whatever answer he had been considering.

Nia carried the draining basket to the preparation table. The kitchen smelled of damp greens, cut roots, and the broth Shen had left warming near the hearth. Outside their cave, someone called for a carrying basket. Another voice answered from farther down the passage.

She began sorting the greens into two piles.

“I know what Ren is like when he's working,” she said. “At least I think I do.”

Shen brought the roots over and sat opposite her.

“That depends on which Ren you have been watching.”

Nia stopped tearing a damaged edge from one leaf. “There are multiple?”

“He would probably tell you there are as many as he needs.”

“That sounds like him.”

“It should.”

Shen picked up another root.

Nia waited, but this time she refused to drag the answer out of him one question at a time.

Eventually Shen looked up.

“You want to know whether the merchant is different from the man.”

“Yes.”

“He is, but not as much as you think.”

That was more useful.

Shen turned the root over in his fingers before cutting away a bruised section.

“The first time I met him, he was selling medicine materials at a western meeting ground. I needed a dried root that the seller I had traveled to see no longer had. Ren had some.”

Nia smiled. “Of course he did.”

“He had almost everything I needed that season, or knew who did. He charged me for the root. The next time, he charged me for telling me where to find something he did not have.”

“That sounds more like the Ren I know.”

“He was a merchant.”

“He was greedy.”

“He would say those are different things.”

“I would say a man who charges his future friend for directions is greedy.”

“We were not friends.”

“Yet.”

Shen conceded that with a slight tilt of his head.

Nia tore another leaf and dropped the damaged piece into the waste bowl. “So when did that happen?”

“I don't know.”

She looked up sharply.

Shen was already cutting again.

“You remember exactly how much redneedle I put into food the first time we tested it, but you don't know when someone became your friend?”

“There was no reason to measure it.”

Nia laughed.

Shen continued trimming the roots while he spoke. Ren had kept appearing at meeting grounds and along seller roads. Sometimes he had goods Shen needed. Sometimes Shen knew something Ren wanted to know about herbs or medicine materials. They ate together when their routes crossed at the right hour and occasionally traveled the same stretch of road. At some point, Ren stopped asking for payment when Shen needed the name of a seller or the direction of a camp.

Shen could not remember which meeting had been the first time.

Apparently Ren could not either.

“He still charged me for goods,” Shen added.

“There's the Ren I know.”

“He gave me fair prices.”

“You say that as if it redeems him.”

“It matters.”

Nia pushed the waste bowl closer to the edge of the table. “I suppose it does.”

Shen's tail slipped around the leg of her stool and rested against her ankle.

They worked quietly for a while.

Nia had almost decided to leave the conversation there when Shen said, “He was worse about resting then.”

She looked up.

Shen had not changed expression, but Nia knew him well enough to hear the disapproval.

“Worse than now?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn't sound possible.”

“It was.”

He set the knife down long enough to move the finished roots into a bowl.

Years ago, Ren had arrived at a western shelter after several days spent moving between seller roads. One heel had been rubbed raw. His other foot was swollen enough that Shen noticed the difference as soon as Ren took off his shoes.

Nia's hands slowed over the greens.

“Did he know?”

“He knew his heel hurt.”

“That wasn't what I meant.”

“I know.”

Shen had cleaned the damaged skin and checked the swelling. Ren had sat still through all of it, thanked him, eaten half of what Shen put in front of him, and then reached for his shoes.

Nia could already see where this was going.

“What did you do?”

“I moved them.”

She stared at him.

Shen picked up another root.

“You moved his shoes.”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Across the room.”

Nia started laughing.

“He got up for them,” Shen continued, “so I moved them again.”

That made it worse.

Nia put the leaf in her hand down before she tore it by accident. “How many times?”

“Twice.”

“Only twice?”

“The second time I told him I would put them outside if he tried again.”

Nia covered her mouth.

Shen gave her a mildly offended look.

“You are enjoying this.”

“I wish I had been there.”

“He does not.”

That sent her into another fit of laughter.

She could picture Ren with none of his usual smoothness left, exhausted and barefoot while Shen calmly held his shoes hostage.

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing worth repeating.”

“Was he angry?”

“He was tired. He was hungry. His foot hurt, and I had his shoes.”

“So yes.”

“Yes.”

Nia wiped the corner of one eye.

The image was funny, but it also gave her something she had not seen herself. Ren was always so controlled around her. Even when something went wrong at the market, he seemed to have another answer ready before the first one failed.

“What happened after you threatened the shoes?”

“He ate the rest of the food.”

“And slept?”

“Eventually.”

“Did you give them back in the morning?”

“After I checked his foot.”

Nia shook her head. “You're lucky he likes you.”

“He complained about it the next three times I saw him.”

“Three?”

“Possibly four.”

“That is absolutely a grudge.”

Shen considered the accusation while he gathered the last of the roots.

“He remembers when people inconvenience him.”

“That's a nicer way to say it.”

“He also remembers when they lie to him.”

There was a difference in Shen's tone this time.

Nia began tearing the greens again while she listened.

Shen told her about a seller who had once promised Ren a certain number of grain bundles and arrived with fewer. Instead of admitting the shortage, the man kept changing the way he counted the bundles and insisting the agreement had meant something else.

Ren had been patient at first.

Then midday passed without food.

“He gets unpleasant when he's hungry,” Shen said.

Nia looked over. “You say that like you've suffered.”

“I have.”

She grinned.

Shen ignored that.

Ren had stopped joking with the seller. He had counted every bundle himself, named the original agreement, reduced the amount he was willing to pay, and told the man exactly where he could take the remaining grain if he wanted to keep arguing.

“Did the seller agree?”

“Eventually.”

“Did Ren?”

“He bought the amount that had actually arrived.”

That sounded like him.

Nia had watched Ren bargain often enough to know how easily he could make an argument sound like a shared joke. She had not seen what happened when he decided a person no longer deserved the effort.

“He still traded with that seller afterward,” Shen said.

That surprised her more than the story itself.

“Really?”

“The grain was good. The seller was not reliable.”

“So Ren trusted the grain and not the man.”

“Yes.”

Nia smiled. “That sounds exhausting.”

“For Ren?”

“For everyone he keeps stored in his head.”

Shen laughed quietly.

The sound made her look at him. Shen did not laugh loudly often, and Nia liked catching it when he did.

“He remembers people,” Shen said. “What they sell. What they promised. Which roads they use. Whether their goods were good the last time. He also remembers who tried to cheat him and who corrected a mistake without being forced.”

“That explains why he seems to know everybody.”

“He does not know everybody.”

“He acts like he does.”

“He likes people.”

Nia raised her eyebrows.

Shen saw it and added, “Most of the time.”

“That I believe.”

A wooden wheel squeaked somewhere outside, stopped, then squeaked again.

Nia paused with a leaf between her fingers.

The same wheel had been making that sound since the day before.

A man outside muttered something she could not make out.

Nia looked toward the entrance. “If that's still squeaking tomorrow, I'm going to oil it myself.”

“It is not our cart.”

“I can hear it from our kitchen.”

“That does not make it ours.”

“It makes it my problem.”

Shen looked at her for a moment.

“What?”

“You sound like Kael.”

Nia gasped. “Take that back.”

“I did not say it was bad.”

“You meant it.”

“I did.”

She threw a small torn piece of leaf at him.

Shen caught it before it reached his chest.

“Stop wasting food.”

“It was the damaged part.”

He inspected it.

Nia leaned across the table. “Do not put that in the bowl.”

Shen put it in the waste dish.

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

She sat back, satisfied.

The wheel squeaked once more before fading farther down the passage.

Shen finished the roots, but neither of them immediately stood to carry the bowls to the hearth.

Nia rubbed a wet thumb over the side of her palm.

“Does Ren ever stop?”

Shen glanced at her.

“Working, I mean. Talking. Looking for the next thing to buy or sell.”

“Yes.”

“What does he do?”

For once, Shen had to think.

Nia let him.

“He finds somewhere high to sit.”

She blinked. “Ren?”

“Yes.”

That was so far from the answer she had expected that she smiled.

Shen told her Ren preferred ledges above shelters, raised platforms, broad rocks beside roads, and once the roof of a storage building whose owner had spent half the evening telling him to get down.

Nia laughed. “Did he?”

“Eventually.”

“Why does he like being up there?”

“I never asked.”

That surprised her.

Shen noticed and shrugged.

“He was sitting. I did not need him to explain it.”

Nia turned that over while she gathered the last of the greens.

She could imagine Ren choosing the highest place available because it gave him a view of the road, and she could easily picture him watching travelers arrive even when he had nothing to sell them. The difficult part was imagining him sitting quietly when no bargain, worker, seller, or problem required his attention.

Shen reached for her bowl.

Nia pulled it away.

“I can carry this.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you reaching for it?”

“You were staring at the wall.”

“I was thinking.”

“You do that often while holding things.”

“I have never dropped this bowl.”

“Not yet.”

Nia stood before he could take it.

Shen's tail unwound from the stool and brushed the back of her calf as he rose beside her.

She looked at him. “You know, for someone who has spent this entire conversation telling me Ren's faults, you like him a lot.”

“He is my friend.”

The answer was immediate and ordinary.

Nia smiled.

Shen took the root bowl and started toward the hearth.

She followed with the greens, then stopped him with a hand against his arm.

“One thing.”

He waited.

“Does he know you tell people about the shoes?”

“I have never told anyone before.”

Nia's smile widened.

Shen looked at her expression and sighed.

“Do not tell him.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You are planning something.”

“I am carrying greens.”

“Nia.”

She walked past him toward the hearth.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Shen followed her, close enough that his shoulder bumped hers when she slowed.

Nia was still smiling when she set the greens beside the fire. She wondered whether Ren would choose one of Hearthfang's higher ledges if he ever had enough time there with nothing that needed buying, selling, carrying, or fixing.

Shen lifted the lid from the warming pot. When he handed her the stirring spoon, Nia took it and turned back to the meal.