Six weeks of quiet followed the Vantris agreement's final signing, long enough that Mercer had almost let himself believe the matter was genuinely finished. Then one of his own grain shipments, due from the southern provinces, simply failed to arrive.
"Three days overdue," Senna said, laying the shipping manifest across his desk. "The captain's an experienced man, Mercer. He doesn't run late without sending word ahead."
"Storm, maybe," Mercer said, though unease prickled at the back of his neck even as he said it.
"No storms reported along that route in the past two weeks." Senna's expression carried the same careful tension Mercer had learned to recognize whenever her instincts flagged something worth taking seriously. "I checked with the harbor master already."
They waited another an
