The supply cart did not come down the valley road at sunrise.
Barnaby Holt kicked an empty willow basket across the dirt yard. The dry wicker bounced off the timber porch, scattering three withered juniper needles across the gravel.
“Frozen solid,” Barnaby spat, his single eye glaring uphill toward the manor towers. “Not even a bundle of bitter-grass. Cassian told the gate stewards that our allocation was re-routed to the sword courtyard.”
Kaelen stretched his arms above his head, letting out a long, quiet yawn. He leaned against the rough cedar post of the porch, adjusting his straw hat.
“Less inventory means less dusting,” Kaelen observed. “It’s practically a labor strike in our favor.”
“We need bitter-grass to brew Mina’s daily base broth,” Barnaby growled, resting his hand on his hip. “Without base broth, the furnace sits cold. If the furnace sits cold, the clan accountants will reassign this shed to Garrick’s ore storage by next month.”
Kaelen looked down at his cloth slippers.
Cassian thinks freezing our herbs will force me to beg at his courtyard steps, Kaelen thought. He underestimates how much effort begging requires. Walking uphill is steep, and listening to his speeches gives me an earache.
Beneath his ribs, the slate pulsed with steady warmth.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 75 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 76x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 76 Hours (77x Ready)]
Seventy-five hours. Seventy-six times efficiency.
Walking at a leisurely pace did not break his True Fallow State. As long as his heart rate stayed low and his meridians remained asleep, the tally climbed uninterrupted.
“Keep the water boiling, Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said, slipping his hands into his loose gray sleeves. “I’ll go buy some bruised roots from the border hunters.”
“You?” Barnaby stared at him as if he had grown two heads. “You hardly ever walk beyond the orchard fence.”
“The south gate has fresh turnip cakes,” Kaelen replied mildly. “And the downhill slope is very gentle.”
He strolled past the wooden sign, which now hung straight on the post with two new iron nails.
The road down to Ashford was dusty and dry. Ox carts rattled past, loaded with rough river timber and sacks of barley. Cultivators from minor outer factions hurried by with swords strapped to their backs, their faces tight with ambition and sweat.
Kaelen kept his stride slow and rhythmic. Every step was deliberate, loose, and effortless.
Look at them hurry, Kaelen mused, watching a young swordsman sprint past in the hot sun. Sprinting raises the heart rate by forty beats a minute. That burns three times more calories and yields zero multiplier. Truly, diligence is a disease.
Half an hour later, he reached the broad stone arch of Ashford’s south gate.
The south gate bordered the wild outer foothills. It was where independent hunters, trappers, and low-rank scavengers sold their gathered goods to avoid the heavy middleman taxes of the inner ghost market. Smells of roasted mutton, horse manure, and crushed wild ginger hung thick in the air.
Kaelen drifted past the timber stalls. On reed mats lay bunches of wild spirit herbs, mostly bruised by careless picking or chewed by mountain bugs. For high-rank alchemists, these were useless trash.
For Kaelen, whose multiplier could refine mud into jade, they were cheap gold.
Before he could reach the hunter stalls, a sharp commotion erupted by the heavy wooden gate.
“Out of the road!” a harsh voice bellowed. “Make way for the Vance clan supply wagon!”
A battered mule wagon limped through the stone gateway. Its heavy oak spokes were chipped and caked with dried black mud. Two crossbow bolts were buried deep in the driver’s bench, their fletchings snapped.
Behind the wagon walked four guards wearing the iron chainmail of Vance mercenaries. Every one of them was bruised, their leather vests slashed open and their faces pale with exhaustion.
Walking at the rear was a slender young woman in worn leather armor.
She was barely twenty years old, with high cheekbones and a mess of dark brown hair tied back with a leather thong. She held a seven-foot spear shaft in her right hand, but the steel spearhead was gone, leaving only jagged, splintered ash wood. Her left shoulder was soaked in dark crimson blood that seeped through a hasty linen wrap.
Kaelen paused beneath the awning of a dried fruit stall, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Mortal Pulse Rank 5, Kaelen noted. Her breathing was ragged, but the balance of her hips and feet showed terrifying martial discipline. She moved like a hunting leopard, even while bleeding out.
The wagon ground to a halt beside the tax barrier.
A stout man in a fine purple robe waddled down from the inspection platform. He had grease on his collar and a brass abacus tucked into his sash. It was Overseer Hobb, one of Garrick Vance’s senior estate managers.
“Three hours late!” Hobb barked, spitting on the cobbles. “Garrick Young Master wanted this shipment in the drying house by noon. The iron ore wagons are waiting for their lubricant tallow!”
The lead mercenary guard wiped blood from his nose. “We were ambushed at Black-Pine Pass, Overseer. Iron-Hound bandits. Twelve of them, armed with poisoned steel.”
“And you let them delay the freight?” Hobb sneered, waving a fat hand dismissively. “Excuses from hired dogs. Your pay is docked by half for the delay.”
The guards grumbled, but they looked at the ground, too broken to argue.
The young woman with the broken spear stepped forward. Her boots left faint smears of red dust on the flags.
“My contract was for caravan point-scout,” her voice rang out, sharp and steady despite her pallor. “I scouted the pass, spotted the ambush, and held off four Iron-Hound raiders so your wagon could break through. My contract guarantees ten silver taels hazard pay for armed contact.”
Hobb turned slowly, eyeing her worn leather armor and the splintered spear shaft. A greasy, contemptuous smirk spread across his jowls.
“Hazard pay?” Hobb laughed loudly. “Listen to the little mercenary. You lost your spearhead, girl. The cargo took damage. Two sacks of Tier 1 fire-grass were trampled into the dirt during your little brawl.”
“I took two poisoned blade strikes to save your draft mules,” the girl said, her jaw clenching tight. Her knuckles turned white around the splintered spear wood. “Give me my silver.”
“You’ll get nothing,” Hobb barked, his face turning red with sudden malice. “In fact, you owe the Vance counting house eight silver for the ruined cargo. Hand over your weapons and report to the manor quarry for work duty.”
“My father’s contract doesn’t include quarry labor,” she said, her voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register.
Hobb reached to his hip and uncoiled a heavy, five-tailed bull-hide whip tipped with iron barbs.
“Insolent stray,” Hobb snarled, raising the whip. “You think you can dictate terms to a Vance manager? I’ll flay the skin off your back right here in the street!”
The crowd drew back, nobody daring to intervene against a noble house overseer.
The girl did not flinch. She shifted her weight, dropping the splintered ash butt into a low, coiled strike stance. Her pulse flared, but Kaelen could see the grayish black tint creeping up the veins of her neck.
Iron-Hound blade venom, Kaelen recognized instantly. Corpse-root mixed with viper gall. It enters the blood, chills the lungs, and rots the meridian walls. If she forces her Qi into another fight, her heart could seize within three breaths.
If she fought now, she would drop dead before her spear wood touched Hobb’s belly.
Kaelen sighed under his straw hat.
Why does everyone in this province love shouting in the middle of traffic? Kaelen thought. It is hot, the dust gets in the mouth, and someone is always waving a whip.
He stepped out from under the awning, his cloth slippers scuffing softly against the cobbles.
“Excuse me,” Kaelen said, his voice flat and perfectly bored.
Hobb froze with the whip raised halfway over his shoulder. He blinked, turning his fat head to squint at the newcomer.
When he recognized Kaelen’s pale face and frayed gray tunic, Hobb’s mouth fell open, then curled into a bewildered smirk.
“Third Young Master?” Hobb lowered the whip an inch. “What are you doing down at the south gate? Did you lose your way from your hammock?”
“I’m shopping for firewood,” Kaelen said, pointing a finger at the three crushed burlap sacks sitting in the back of the wagon. “Those sacks of trampled grass. The ones you claim are completely ruined.”
Hobb glanced back at the wagon. “Those are bruised Tier 1 wild-growth herbs. Mostly earth-root and bitter-stem. They were trampled under the mules’ hooves during the raid. The juice has leaked out. They’re useless slag.”
“Splendid,” Kaelen said. “I love useless slag. It requires very little care. I’ll give you four silver a sack.”
Hobb blinked in astonishment. “Four silver? For ruined mulch?”
“Take it or leave it,” Kaelen said, pulling twelve silver taels from his tunic—leaving forty-five silver and thirty-two copper bits in his pouch—and resting the metal on his palm. “Twelve silver taels in cash. Right now. You don’t have to carry them to the manor, and Garrick doesn’t have to write them off as a total loss on his ledger.”
Hobb’s abacus brain clicked instantly. Twelve silver for garbage that would otherwise be dumped in the ditch was pure profit for his private pouch. Garrick would never ask about three bruised sacks.
“Done,” Hobb said immediately, snatching the silver from Kaelen’s hand like a vulture grabbing meat. “Take the trash.”
Kaelen nodded. He looked at the three heavy burlap sacks, sixty pounds between them resting in the wagon bed, then looked down at his own slender forearms.
Carrying three sacks uphill would burn my Fallow timer in six minutes, Kaelen thought. I am an invalid third son, not a pack mule.
He turned his eyes toward the wounded girl with the broken spear.
She was leaning heavily on the wooden shaft, her face pale as parchment and her breath coming in shallow, shuddering gasps. Dark venom-sweat beaded on her forehead.
“You,” Kaelen said mildly. “Can you walk?”
The girl looked at him through sweat-matted bangs, her gray eyes sharp, cautious, and fierce. “I can walk.”
“Good,” Kaelen said. “I just bought three sacks of weeds and I refuse to carry them. If you carry them up to the Third Herb Shed, I’ll give you a hot meal, a dry roof, and a pot of tea.”
The girl stared at him, bewildered. “You want me to carry three sacks? I’m bleeding.”
“Then don’t bleed on the burlap,” Kaelen said. “Blood stains ruin the resale value.”
Hobb let out a crude laugh. “Take her, Third Young Master. A useless cripple hiring a half-dead beggar girl. A match made in heaven.”
The girl’s jaw tightened. She ignored Hobb completely, stepped to the tailgate of the wagon, and seized the rope ties of all three heavy sacks with one calloused hand.
With a muffled grunt of immense willpower, she hauled them off the wagon bed and swung them across her uninjured right shoulder. The sixty-pound weight settled against her leather armor, but her spine stayed straight as iron.
“Lead the way,” she gritted out through clenched teeth.
Kaelen turned on his heel and strolled toward the north valley path, his hands tucked back into his sleeves.
The girl walked two paces behind him. Her boots dragged slightly in the dust, her breathing ragged, but her grip on the splintered spear shaft never loosened for a single second.
The journey uphill took nearly an hour. Kaelen kept his pace slow and steady, pausing occasionally to inspect a wild thistle or admire a passing cloud.
By the time the sagging shingles of the Third Herb Shed came into view, the afternoon sun was slanting long and golden through the pine needles.
Inside Kaelen’s skull, the chime rang out clear and deep.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 80 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 81x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 81 Hours (82x Ready)]
Eighty hours. An eighty-one times multiplier.
Kaelen stepped onto the wooden porch and kicked off his slippers.
Behind him, the girl reached the bottom step. She dropped the three heavy burlap sacks onto the porch with a heavy thud, then swayed violently on her feet.
Barnaby rushed out of the shed with a clean rag in his hand, his single eye wide with shock.
“By the ancestors,” Barnaby gasped, dropping to one knee beside the girl. “That’s mountain viper venom. Look at the black lines on her collarbone. She’s about to collapse.”
The girl sank down just inside the shed doorway, her back resting against the rough timber frame. Her skin was burning hot, but her lips were turning an icy, bruised blue.
Even as her knees gave out, her fingers stayed locked around the splintered ash wood of her spear shaft.
“What’s your name, scout?” Kaelen asked, sitting down on the edge of his hammock.
“Sera,” she whispered, her voice rough as sandpaper. “Sera Thorne.”
“Well, Sera Thorne,” Kaelen said, looking at the jagged end of her weapon. “You carried sixty pounds of bruised herbs three miles with corpse venom in your veins. That’s either extreme loyalty to twelve silver, or extreme stubbornness.”
Sera let out a bitter, raspy laugh that ended in a wet cough. She raised the splintered shaft, looking at the faded engravings worn smooth by years of use.
“This was my father’s spear,” Sera whispered, her fingers tracing the splintered grain. “The Storm-Pike. A Tier 3 lightning weapon forged by the northern clans.”
“A fine weapon,” Barnaby murmured, inspecting the tight grain of the ash wood. “Where’s the blade?”
“Hound-Lord Briggs snapped it with his iron mace when he ambushed our caravan two years ago,” Sera said, her gray eyes blazing with raw, burning fury. “My father died holding the rear guard so the Vance wagons could escape.”
She took a ragged breath, the dark venom lines pulsing beneath the pale skin of her throat.
“And your pay?” Kaelen asked quietly.
Sera’s hand trembled against the wood, her knuckles turning bone-white.
“There was no pay,” Sera said, her voice shaking with bitter grief. “My father died protecting their cargo. But Garrick Vance forged the loss manifests.”
She looked straight up into Kaelen’s eyes, the words tearing from her throat like broken glass.
“Garrick claims my father was negligent,” Sera whispered. “He holds a blood-signed indenture contract on my life. Fifty Low-Grade Spirit Stones. Until I pay it, I am his slave.”