The mana range sat on the eastern edge of the Order's headquarters complex — a long open corridor of volcanic stone with MagIron targets set at intervals along the far wall, the surface of each one marked from years of discharge work, the air in the range carrying the permanent residue of fire and earth and water and wind sessions run in the same space for decades. The smell of the place was distinct from the training yard — not sweat and volcanic dust but something more mineral and charged, the specific quality of air that had absorbed a great deal of mana over a long time.
Lore stood at the near end with his right arm extended, palm open. The morning cool of the range sat against the back of his neck where the Drake scale ended, the volcanic stone underfoot still holding the night's temperature through his boot soles. Fathom rested against the range wall behind him, the maroon Damascus dark in the low light.
The charge built at the center of his palm and he walked.
The arcs crawled outward as his boots found the volcanic stone — knuckle to knuckle, thumb to index, the pale blue-white of them faint in the morning light coming through the range's open roof section. The hair on his forearm rose under the Drake scale bracer, the skin beneath the plate prickling with it. The struck-iron smell of it sat sharp in the cool air. The charge pulled at his attention the way a held breath pulled — wanting either release or collapse — and he held it at the center of the palm through a slow circuit along the near wall, his weight shifting, his boots finding the uneven sections of the range floor, his body doing what walking required of it.
The accumulation held.
He completed the circuit. The charge was still in his palm — thinner at the edges than it held from standing, the volatility working against the movement the way it always worked against the movement, but present. He directed it at the nearest MagIron target and released.
The crack was smaller than a standing discharge. The char bloom was tight and new against the older marks beneath it. The smell of hot MagIron and the sharp acrid edge of the discharge sat in the back of his throat.
He did it again. And again. Circuit after circuit, the charge building and holding and releasing, the mark on the nearest target accumulating with each pass. By the twelfth circuit the collapse was coming later — not gone, not clean, but later than it had been coming two weeks ago, the lightning staying coherent through more steps before the volatility frayed the edges. By the eighteenth the recovery when it did collapse was faster, the condensed form rebuilding without the full restart it had required at the start.
He stopped at the center of the range and ran the full accumulation instead. Standing still, palm open, the charge spreading across the whole hand, the arcs crawling wide, the hair on his forearm rising under the Drake scale. The charge built to the threshold. He counted.
Two point four.
He discharged it at the far target — the one at the end of the range, the oldest one, the char on it layered so deep the original grey of the MagIron was barely visible underneath. The crack of the full discharge rang off the range walls and came back sharp and the bloom was wide and hot and the smell of it sat in the air long after the sound had gone.
He looked at his palm. Looked at the bloom on the far target.
Two point four.
He picked up Fathom from where it rested against the range wall, settled the familiar weight of it across his back, and headed for Ragven's office.
Ragven's office sat on the second floor of the headquarters building, the window looking out over the main training yard and the city roofline beyond it. The volcanic stone of the walls held the morning cool before the afternoon heat arrived, the room dim and easy at this hour. Maps on one wall, annotated in Ragven's hand. A rack of weapons along the opposite wall that had never been decorative. A second chair across from the desk that had been added at some point after everything else in the room, slightly newer than the rest of it.
Ragven was leaning back in his chair with his boots on the desk and a cup in his hand when Lore came through the door. He looked at Lore and looked back out the window.
"How'd it feel?" he said.
Lore dropped into the second chair. "Two point four."
Ragven's eyebrows moved. He drank from the cup.
"Down from two point eight," Lore said.
"I know what it's down from." He set the cup on the desk. "Two point four in the range or in motion?"
"Both. Eighteen circuits holding the condensed form, then the standing accumulation."
Ragven looked at the window for a moment. He refilled his cup and pushed the jug toward Lore's side of the desk without looking at him.
"Veskra's going to lose his mind," Lore said.
"Veskra's not going to say anything. He's going to write it down and ask you something you won't understand for three sessions." Ragven put his boots down and leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "He told me when you first arrived that you were the most interesting thing he'd seen in eleven years."
"He didn't say it like a compliment."
"No. He said it like a problem he hadn't solved yet." Ragven looked at him. "That's as close to excited as Veskra gets."
Lore looked at the map on the wall — the Firoxy posting territory, the long route marked in red. The city, the ridge territory, the settlements scattered across the volcanic slope in the pattern he had learned to read the way he read the city itself.
"The northern ridge track," he said. "What's the read on it?"
"Large. Heavy. Deep impression, wide spread. Two weeks of sign and nobody's put eyes on what's making it." Ragven traced a finger along the ridge section on the map without getting up. "If it comes down into the settlement territory before we know what it is we'll have a problem."
"I'll take the northern ridge next week."
"I know you will." Ragven leaned back again. He was quiet. Outside the window the city ran through its mid-morning — the street noise of the market district two roads over, a training bell from the main yard below, the distant low register of the volcanic vents on the upper slope. Neither of them filled the quiet.
Then the door opened.
A messenger — young, the Order's runner livery dusty from a hard ride, the breathlessness of someone who had run up two flights of stairs at the end of a long journey. He looked at Ragven, looked at Lore, looked back at Ragven.
"Knight Lord." He held out a folded document. "From the village of Telvash. Urgent."
Ragven took it and unfolded it in a single motion. He read it. His eyes moved across the page once and then went back to the beginning. He set it on the desk.
"Horned Belvrak," he said. "Two days northeast. Village called Telvash. Three farms destroyed in the past week, a fourth started on last night. It's been moving through the settlement territory — territorial, not predating. Trampling crops, knocking down structures, charging anything that moves into its line." He looked at the map. "Telvash sits at the edge of the ridge territory. If the Belvrak is ranging that far down it's been disturbed or displaced."
Lore looked at the map. "I'll take it."
Ragven looked at him.
"You were going to assign it anyway," Lore said. "I'm volunteering so we skip the part where you pretend to deliberate."
Ragven was quiet for a moment. Something moved in his face. "Close the door," he said to the messenger. The messenger closed the door.
Ragven looked at Lore. "I'm putting you in charge of this one. Four Knights — two newer, two veterans. Nobody you've worked with." He stood. "Come on."
The four Knights were assembled in the main yard. Ragven walked out ahead of Lore and spread his arms slightly, the gesture of a man genuinely pleased to see people.
"There they are." He looked at each of them in turn with the expression he wore when something was about to be entertaining. "Right — so, we've got a Horned Belvrak terrorizing a village called Telvash, two days northeast. Lovely place, good grain fields, or they were until recently." He looked at the confident Knight. "You're from the eastern posting originally, yes? The ridge terrain up there isn't too different from what you'll find around Telvash — granite shelf, hard footing, good sight lines once you're up on it." He looked at the smart Knight. "I've read your assessments. Sharp. Very sharp." He said it the way you said something true without making it a compliment exactly. He looked at the veteran from the other posting. "Four years, right? I heard about the Vorruk clearance last season — good work on that, genuinely." He looked at the loner last, and his expression didn't change, the same warmth directed at someone who clearly didn't want it. "And you. You work alone because you're better alone. That's fine. Today you're not alone." He looked at all four of them. "This is Lore. He's been with me since he arrived and he's leading this one." He clapped Lore on the shoulder once, the kind of clap that moved a person. "He'll keep you alive and get the job done. Any questions, complaints, or philosophical objections — save them, because we've all got places to be." He grinned. "Good luck. Try the Vorn noodles in Telvash if they offer, the pepper there is different from the city, milder but it's got more depth to it."
He walked back toward the building.
Lore looked at the four of them in the quiet Ragven left behind.
The confident Knight had his arms folded, chin up. His mana sat close to the surface, a warmth in the air around him above what the Firoxy heat accounted for.
The smart Knight stood with his head slightly tilted, his eyes moving from Lore to the map case and back.
The veteran from the other posting looked at Lore directly, his face flat, his weight even on both feet. He had not moved since the Vorruk comment.
The loner was looking at the gate Ragven had walked through.
"We leave at dawn tomorrow," Lore said. "Full kit, trail rations for four days. Questions about the Horned Belvrak, ask now. Anything else — keep it." He looked at each of them without hurry. "We're not killing it if we don't have to. If we can move it without a fight that's the outcome. If we can't, we finish it fast and clean and we use everything it gives us. Nothing wasted."
He picked up his map case. "Dawn."
He walked back toward the building.
Behind him nobody said anything for a moment. Then the confident Knight said something to the smart one in a low voice. The smart one's response was shorter. The veteran from the other posting looked at the space where Lore had been and exhaled once through his nose. The loner walked toward the gate alone.
The road to Telvash ran northeast out of Firoxy and climbed for the first half-day before leveling into the ridge territory — volcanic stone giving way to harder granite-adjacent rock as the elevation increased, the terrain drier and less dramatic, the vegetation shifting from the tough low-stemmed growth of the volcanic zone to something denser and darker as the ambient mana changed quality. The sulfurous undertone of Firoxy faded out across the first two hours and was replaced by something cleaner and colder, the mountain air without the volcanic element. The Drake scale sat differently on the shoulder at this elevation — the ambient heat that had kept it warm since Lore's first day in the city dropping away, the armor returning to the neutral temperature of the material itself.
Lore set the pace at the front. Vrak walked beside him.
Behind them the four Knights sorted themselves — the two veterans in the middle, the two newer ones at the back. Nobody had offered names beyond what Ragven had provided. Lore had not pushed it.
"The confident one ran fire through his arms twice in the first hour," Vrak said, low enough for Lore only. "Both times unprompted."
"I noticed."
"He is showing you what he has."
"Let him." Lore looked at the road ahead, the granite shelf rising on both sides. "He'll show me something more useful when it matters."
The first day passed without incident. They made camp at a shelf of granite that looked out over the ridge territory running northeast, the terrain dropping away below and rising again to the next ridge line, the sky above it clear and cold at the elevation. Lore assigned watches without discussion. The smart one made a comment about the watch rotation that stopped just short of a direct suggestion. The veteran from the other posting completed his watch without a word in either direction. The loner took his watch, sat in it, and returned to his bedroll without speaking.
Vrak sat beside Lore at the edge of the shelf after the second watch, the two of them looking out over the dark ridge terrain.
"The veteran," Vrak said.
"The one from the other posting."
"Yes. He has been watching you since we left Firoxy. Not assessment. Something else."
Lore looked at the dark ridge line, the stars above it hard and cold at this elevation. "He's trying to work out if the reputation that hasn't reached him yet is real."
"Yes." Vrak was quiet. "He will decide when the Belvrak comes."
"They all will," Lore said.
The second day the road narrowed to a path and narrowed further as the ridge terrain pressed in. The granite shelves rose higher, the path threading between them, the footing reliable but demanding — not the volcanic stone Lore's boots knew but something harder and less forgiving at the edge. The smell of the Belvrak arrived before the village did.
Not the animal — the aftermath. Crushed vegetation, turned soil, the specific dense smell of something very large that had moved through recently. The path opened onto flat ridge farmland and the damage was visible immediately — two fields trampled flat, the stalks broken at the base rather than pulled, the weight of something enormous having walked through without particular attention. A fence line at the far edge had been pushed down, the posts snapped at the soil rather than pulled, driven in at the angle of something that had not noticed them.
A headman met them at the field boundary, an older man with a week of poor sleep in his face. Behind him a cluster of village people keeping distance from the strangers with weapons.
"It comes at dusk," he said. "From the northeast. Same direction every time. It feeds in the field for an hour, sometimes two, and then goes back up the ridge." He looked at the broken fence. "Last night it went through the Ardvan family's barn wall. The family was inside." A pause. "They're unharmed. It didn't seem to notice them."
"Has anyone tried to drive it off?" Lore asked.
"Three times. Fire torches, noise, everything we had. It charges the fire. Noise makes it worse."
Lore looked at the trampled field, the broken fence, the northeast ridge. He looked at the sun.
Four hours until dusk.
"Show me the ridge approach," he said.
The headman led them northeast along the path to where it climbed the ridge for twenty minutes before flattening onto an exposed granite shelf. The Belvrak's corridor was unmistakable — a wide lane of compressed earth and broken vegetation running down from the higher ridge, the stones along it shifted and cracked where the weight had crossed them repeatedly.
Lore crouched at the edge of the corridor. The impressions in the soil between the stones were deep and wide, the spread of each print broader than his outstretched hand, the depth of it several inches into packed earth. Multiple tons, low to the ground, moving on four legs with the dense impression of something built wide through the body. He looked up the ridge, the corridor running to where it bent out of sight around a granite shoulder. He looked down at the village below them, the sightlines, the distance between the corridor and the nearest structure.
He stood. Looked at the group. Said nothing yet.
He moved through the terrain around the corridor for the next thirty minutes — the footing on both sides, the natural choke points where the granite shelf narrowed, the distance from the corridor to the village boundary at various points, the wind direction coming off the upper ridge. Vrak moved with him, reading the terrain the way he always read terrain. They did not speak much. They did not need to.
The smart Knight watched Lore's circuit. Once, quietly, to the confident Knight: "He's mapping the approach angles." The confident Knight said nothing.
The veteran from the other posting sat on a granite shelf and watched the upper ridge. The loner stood at the edge of the corridor and looked up it.
At the thirty-minute mark Lore came back to the group.
"Here's what we're doing," he said. "The Belvrak comes down the same path every time. It has a route and it follows it. We let it come to the flat section before the fields — that's where the corridor opens up and we have room on both sides." He looked at the two veterans. "Left flank, wide, past the scrub line. You're not engaging — you're blocking the angle toward the village. It breaks that direction, you push it back toward the ridge. Presence and noise only. Nothing aggressive." He looked at Vrak and the confident Knight. "Right side with me. We push from the east, keep the pressure consistent, give it one clear direction — back up the ridge." He held the confident Knight's eyes. "No fire. It charges fire. The headman told us. So no fire."
The confident Knight held the look for a moment. Looked away.
"I'm running earth through the ground along the left side of the corridor," Lore continued. "Slow push — raise the soil enough to give it a wall on that side and close the angle toward the village. Territorial creature, follows its route. We give it the route back up and make everything else feel like a wall." He looked at the smart Knight. "You're with the veterans. If it breaks toward the village I need someone who reads the terrain early enough to matter."
The smart Knight looked at him for a moment. Then nodded.
"We're not killing it unless we have to," Lore said. "Questions?"
Nobody asked any.
They moved into position.
The Belvrak came around the granite shoulder forty minutes later and Lore understood immediately why three attempts to drive it off had failed.
The Horned Belvrak stood at the upper bend of the corridor and the size of it arrived before anything else — four feet at the withers, six feet of dense body, the build of it low and wide and heavy in a way that suggested multiple tons settled close to the earth rather than carried above it. Grey-brown hide, thick and layered at the shoulders and flanks from decades of moving through granite terrain, the texture of it roughened and scarred, the surface carrying the record of a long life in hard country. The horn at the crown ran forward and slightly up, three feet of dense bone, the tip worn smooth from use. Two smaller horns flanked it above the amber eyes. The eyes were small and wide-set and fixed ahead with the focused quality of something that processed the world in territory and intrusion and direction.
It came down the corridor at a walk. Not alarmed. Moving through its own route the way it moved every evening, the hooves finding the compressed soil of the corridor with the ease of long habit.
Lore watched it cover the distance from the upper bend to the flat section. Watched the amber eyes move across the terrain ahead. He pulled earth mana down through his boots and into the ground along the left side of the corridor, the slow push building in the soil — a low continuous ridge of raised earth, a few inches, running parallel to the village boundary. He held it steady and waited.
The flash of fire came from the right flank.
Not large — a burst from an open palm, bright and sharp in the dusk air, directed at the ground between the confident Knight and the Belvrak. A warning shot. The kind of thing that worked on most creatures.
The Belvrak's head came up. The amber eyes found the fire. Its whole body changed — the walk stopping, the legs spreading wide, the head dropping and the three feet of horn leveling at the target. Then the sound came out of its chest — a low dense resonance that moved through the granite underfoot before it moved through the air — and it charged.
Four tons from standing to full speed in two strides.
Not toward the confident Knight.
Toward the village.
Lore was already moving.
"Left flank — hold the village boundary. Vrak — right side, draw it." He covered the ground between himself and the Belvrak's line in the seconds before the animal reached the field boundary, Fathom coming out of the sheath in one motion — the grip finding his palm where it always found it, the leather warm from riding against his back all day, the weight of the Damascus swinging into balance as his arm extended. Fire ran through the blade and into his body at once, the heat driving down through his legs and arms as he sprinted, the soft field soil giving under each stride and the fire-reinforced muscle taking the cost of it. The Belvrak's hooves hit the field ahead of him and the ground came up in clumps around each stride, the horn down, the amber eyes fixed on the movement and light ahead.
Vrak hit it from the right side with his full earth reinforcement driving into the Belvrak's shoulder. The impact sound crossed the field. The Belvrak staggered left, the charge breaking for a fraction, the head swinging right toward the new threat. Vrak was not where the horn arrived. He had moved. The horn swept empty air and the momentum of the swing pulled the animal's head further right and its stride went wrong for two steps.
Lore reached it.
He went for the front right leg — planted at the Belvrak's shoulder, his boots driving into the churned field soil, and drove into the joint where the leg met the body with everything he had. Fathom's flat against the joint rather than the edge, both hands on the grip, the fire through the Damascus pushing heat into the pressure point, his shoulders and back and legs all behind the blade. The animal's hide was hot against his forearms where they pressed near the flank — the body heat of several tons of muscle radiating through the air between them — and the vibration of its breathing came up through the blade and into his hands. The Belvrak felt the pressure — a sound out of it that was adjacent to pain, the leg shifting, the entire mass of the animal adjusting around the point of heat at its joint.
He pushed harder and pulled earth down through his boots into the ground simultaneously — the second element opening alongside the fire, the familiar dense weight of it moving down through his legs and into the field soil, the strain of running two elements at once sitting in his chest like a held note. The soil along the left side of the animal's position rose in a low continuous ridge, the ground swelling upward a few inches at a time, running parallel to the village boundary. The smell of turned earth joined the smell of the animal and the churned field.
The Belvrak's head came around. The amber eye found him, close enough that the smell of the animal was overwhelming — dense and mineral, decades of ridge country in it. The horn was three feet of worn bone and he was inside its reach and the eye looking at him was large and amber and processing him in very simple terms.
He held the pressure on the joint. Held the earth ridge along the left side. Held his ground.
Vrak appeared on the right flank, earth running through his body, his presence adding a wall to that side of the animal's awareness. The two veterans had closed the village angle and were holding it — two large bodies in armor standing between the animal and the lights behind them. The smart Knight was at the far edge of the field covering the one gap in the coverage without being told.
The Belvrak's weight shifted back a fraction. The amber eye moved across the group — Vrak on the right, the veterans at the village boundary, the earth ridge closing the left, the open corridor above it running back up to the familiar ground of the high ridge.
Lore released the joint pressure. Held the earth ridge. Stepped back one step.
The Belvrak took a step back. Then another. The hooves found the harder ground at the field edge and the steps steadied, the animal's stride returning from the frenzy's jagged rhythm to something more deliberate. It turned. It found the corridor opening and walked into it and went up the ridge at a walk, the hooves finding the compressed soil of its own route.
Lore kept the earth running through the ground until the sound of the hooves on the granite path had faded into the upper ridge.
Then he let it drop.
He looked at the field around him — the trampled section where the charge had begun, the soil still disturbed from Vrak's impact, the low ridge of raised earth along the left side already beginning to settle back. He looked at the village boundary where the veterans had held the line. He looked at Vrak.
Vrak looked back at him. His tail was still. His expression was the expression it always was.
Lore looked at the confident Knight.
The confident Knight was looking at the corridor where the Belvrak had gone up the ridge. His mana was not running at the surface anymore.
"Come on," Lore said. "We need to talk to the headman."
He walked toward the village. Behind him the four Knights fell into step. The confident Knight last, at a distance from the others that he maintained through the rest of the evening.
The headman fed them that night — grain and salt meat and something braised that smelled of the local herbs, served in the village hall with the farming families at the far end of the room keeping their distance but watching. The Belvrak had not returned. The headman said it three times across the meal, each time with the quality of a man still convincing himself.
They made camp outside the village and started back at dawn.
The road back to Firoxy took two days. Nobody said much. The confident Knight rode at the back of the group both days. The smart one made no comments. The veteran from the other posting walked his section of road and said nothing either way. The loner was the same as he had always been.
Lore let it sit.
They came through Firoxy's gate on the afternoon of the second day, the sulfurous air of the city settling back into the chest like something returning to where it belonged. The volcanic stone of the streets familiar under his boots after two days of granite.
He stopped at the gate.
"Dragon's Bane," he said. "All of us. Now."
The confident Knight looked at him.
"We're getting noodles," Lore said. "And we're going to talk about what happened. All of it." He looked at each of them. "You can order whatever you want. Vorn braise is the right answer but I'm not going to tell you how to live."
He walked toward the Dragon's Bane without waiting to see if they followed.
They followed.
The front of house woman saw Lore cross the courtyard and changed direction toward the kitchen without being asked. She looked at the six people behind him and changed direction again and came back with a larger jug than usual and set it on the table without comment.
Lore sat at his usual table. Vrak beside him. The four Knights arranged themselves around what remained — the confident Knight across from Lore, the smart one beside him, the veteran from the other posting at the end, the loner at the corner where the table met the wall.
The bowls came. The front of house woman set two pepper saucers in front of Vrak without being asked and one in front of Lore. The four Knights looked at the saucers. Lore took his and tipped half onto the first bowl and set the other half aside for later, the same way he always did it. Vrak picked up both his saucers and poured them over his bowl completely — the dark red sauce covering the surface of the Vorn entirely — and picked up his spoon without comment. The confident Knight looked at Vrak's bowl and looked away.
Lore stirred his pepper through and looked up.
Nobody said anything for a moment.
"I'll start," the confident Knight said. His voice had a different quality than it had carried for the past three days — flatter, the performance gone out of it. "I ran fire. You told me not to and I ran fire anyway because I thought I knew better than the headman's account." He looked at the table. "I almost put it into the village."
"Yes," Lore said. "You did." He ate a bite of noodles. "Why."
A pause. "Because I was impatient. And because I wanted to show you something."
"What did you want to show me."
The confident Knight looked at him. "That I was worth being here."
The table was quiet for a moment. The Dragon's Bane ran its evening around them — full tables, the kitchen noise through the walls, the reed canopy moving in the evening air.
"You read the situation correctly up until the moment you didn't," Lore said. "You held position for thirty minutes, you took the right flank assignment without pushing back, you had the patience for the assessment." He looked at him. "And then you spent all of it on one decision you made without the information the rest of us had." He poured from the jug. "The headman told us. Fire makes it worse. You heard that."
"I heard it."
"And."
"And I thought a controlled burst at distance would be different." He picked up his spoon. "It wasn't."
"No," Lore said. "It wasn't." He looked around the table. "Anyone else."
The smart Knight cleared his throat. "The watch rotation comment," he said. "On the first night."
"What about it."
"It was a better rotation. I still think so. But saying it the way I said it — " he paused, choosing the words with the precision of someone who did everything with precision — "wasn't the right moment for it."
"There's a right moment for that kind of thing," Lore said. "Before the mission starts, or after it ends. Not on the road on the first night when nobody knows each other yet." He looked at him. "You read things well. That's genuinely useful. The question is when you deploy it."
The smart Knight nodded once.
Lore looked at the veteran from the other posting. The man had been eating his noodles steadily throughout the conversation, his assessment expression unchanged.
"You held the village boundary," Lore said. "When it mattered, you were exactly where you needed to be."
The veteran looked at him. Something in his face shifted — not much, but present. "I wasn't sure about you," he said. "Before the Belvrak."
"I know."
"I'm sure now." He ate another bite. "For what it's worth."
"It's worth something," Lore said.
He looked at the corner of the table. The loner was halfway through his bowl, his eyes on the food in front of him.
"You covered the gap at the field edge," Lore said. "Nobody assigned you there. You read the terrain and moved."
The loner looked up. A brief look, direct, and then back down. He said nothing.
"That's all I needed," Lore said.
He finished his bowl and reached for the remaining half saucer of pepper and tipped it onto a second helping that had arrived without him asking for it — the front of house woman's read of the table as accurate as it always was. He set the spoon down and leaned back in his chair, one arm across the back of it. The jug was nearly empty. Outside the canopy the Firoxy evening was doing what it always did — the city noise, the smell of the volcanic stone cooling after the day's heat, the distant thread of the volcano's vapor bending east in the upper air.
"Here's what I'll tell Ragven," Lore said. "That the mission was completed. The Belvrak was moved without serious injury to the village or to anyone in this group. And that I'd work with all four of you again." He looked at the confident Knight. "Including you. Especially you, actually — because the next time you'll know something you didn't know before." He picked up his cup. "That's what missions are for."
The confident Knight looked at him for a moment. Then he picked up his own cup.
Vrak reached for the jug and found it empty. He set it back down and looked at the front of house woman across the courtyard. She was already changing direction toward the kitchen.