Night settled slowly over the settlement, but it didn't bring peace.
The paper boats were gone from the river by midnight. Some had sunk. Some had drifted past the bend where the water narrowed between stone banks and vanished into blackness. Scarlett stood there longer than she meant to, Alexander's coat pulled tight around her shoulders, the damp cold working its way through the seams. The river had returned to its old direction. That should have felt like a good sign.
Instead, it felt like a message she didn't know how to read.
Behind her, the settlement had gone quiet in that uneasy way people did after hearing news too big to process. A few lanterns still burned. A baby cried somewhere near the southern sheds, then was soothed. Wind moved through the silver-leaved trees with a dry whisper, and every time it did, Scarlett thought of wagons rolling east into the dark.
Trust.
She could still see the word on the paper boat in Alexander's careful hand.
