Aria’s POV
Word came back on the trader’s boat before the bark did.
He didn’t unload salt. Didn’t unload cloth. He unrolled a strip of blue thread instead. Same blue as downriver Mara’s cloth. Same blue as Coren’s map. And tied to it, dry and flat: one of the staff’s leaves.
He set it on Sen’s table, right where Coren the Warden had sat with his bowl.
“Downriver market,” he said. “Someone found it caught on a post.
Didn’t burn it. Didn’t throw it. Tied it up with this.” He touched the thread. “They sent it back. Not as trade. As answer.”
Coren opened his map. No new lines. He just set the leaf and thread in the empty circle where the bark’s _Why?_ had blurred.
“Roads first,” he said. “And the road brought something back.”
Mara picked up the leaf. Turned it over. Veins still
