Sniv The Seasoner, a goblin, slipped through the tree-cloaked hills. He kept moving north to reach the Havenspass Trail. The goblin warrens lay far behind him now, and hunger had a louder voice tonight.

Oakenshire slept under its mossy roofs. Log walls and narrow dirt lanes wound between ancient oaks. Sniv’s eyes flicked toward the farmhouse at the edge of the fields. It belonged to a widowed farmer named Natalie. Smoke had curled from its chimney at dusk; now only a single candle glowed behind the shutters. One woman. One kill. A sack of grain, a flagon of oil, maybe a few coppers. Easy. He could be gone before the roosters crowed.

He crouched at the treeline, fingers tightening on the hilt of the little cleaver he still carried for culinary purposes. It felt more comfortable in his hands then any dagger or sword ever could. Quick and quiet, he thought. No screams. No mess. Just supplies for the road toward Havenspass.

Then the wind shifted. A strange, clean scent drifted across the dark rows—crisp, green, almost peppery. Sniv’s nose twitched. He crept closer, belly low, and the moonlight revealed something impossible. Bok choy. Thick white stalks and dark, ruffled leaves standing in tidy rows like soldiers at attention. Beyond them, snow peas climbing their trellises, ginger roots poking up like pale knuckles, and long purple eggplants gleaming faintly. Vegetables no human farmer in these parts should know. Vegetables that belonged in the steaming woks of dreams Sniv had never dared name aloud.

His culinary brain lit up like a grease fire. Kung Pao Squirrel, he thought, saliva flooding his mouth. Ginger Raccoon. Bok Choy and pork stuffed egg rolls. A proper stir-fry instead of the slop I've been surviving on! These were ingredients. Real ones. The kind that could make a goblin chef forget whatever was ailing him from his past.

Sniv straightened, cleaver forgotten. He glanced once more at the farmhouse. Inside, superstitious Natalie slept soundly, never knowing how close death had come. She would never know, either, that the self-proclaimed seer Glomein, an older gnome lady who had appeared on her doorstep weeks earlier, eyes wide with one of her usual visions had prevented her death.

“Plant them,” Glomein had hissed, “or you die before the next moon. The greens will save you.” Natalie, who feared omens more than goblins, had obeyed. She’d traded half her seed stock for strange packets from a passing trader and turned half her best field into an experiment no one else in Oakenshire understood.

Sniv didn’t know any of that. He only knew the stalks felt perfect in his clawed hands—crisp, alive, bursting with possibility. He moved like a shadow among the rows, harvesting with the practiced care of a chef. A handful here, a pocketful there. Enough for a small feast when he reached the safety of the trail north. No blood on his hands tonight. Only dirt and the faint, wonderful smell of dinner. When his pouches bulged, Sniv backed away, silent as mist. He glanced once at the farmhouse window, almost grateful. Then he turned north again, slipping between the ancient oaks, the weight of stolen vegetables lighter than any murder he had ever considered.