Chapter 196: Terms of Trust

The next move belongs to whoever can live with its cost.

Old allies return, private debts come due, and the final plan begins before anyone feels ready.

The evidence survives, but reaching it requires a choice that exposes the group to a new enemy.

Mara Vey keeps the larger goal in view: restore the roads between the islands before famine begins. The immediate problem is smaller, sharper, and impossible to postpone.

They disagree without leaving. For both of them, that becomes a more intimate choice than agreement.

Mara Vey stops trying to restore the old world and fights instead to build a fairer one.

The recurring signs of maps, constellations, wind return with a different meaning, linking this choice to what came before.

Victory becomes possible at the exact moment survival becomes uncertain.