Chapter 26: Proof of Life

Some warnings arrive loudly. This one waits until everyone is listening.

Mara Vey follows the first clue deeper into an empire suspended on islands above a permanent storm, where every answer creates a more dangerous question.

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.

Prince Caelan offers help but withholds the one fact that would make trust easy.

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

A familiar symbol proves the threat began long before either of them arrived.