Aria’s POV
It came on the current at dusk.
A bowl. Clay, cracked, old. Not ours. Not Sen’s. Tui’s mother’s bowl. The one she’d carried downriver with an empty hand and a green thread.
It floated upriver. Against the pull. Mint leaves inside it, fresh and bright. The river was giving back.
Tui saw it first. He ran into the shallows without thinking, grabbed it before the water could take it again. Water dripped from the rim. Mint scent rose with it.
“She sent it back,” he said. Not a question. Knowing.
We gathered at the bank. No one reached for the bowl yet. Market rule. You don’t take what the river returns until you know why it came.
Nira knelt beside Tui. “Market rule,” she said soft. “What’s inside, and what does it cost?”
Tui lifted the bowl. Inside: mint, yes. But unde
