In the dark, with her mask lowered and the wind pulling loose strands of hair across her face, Maerin looked less like the captain of Veyrhold's outer watch and more like a woman who had spent too many years standing between people and impossible choices.
"My father died in the wreck field," she said.
Rohan went still.
Maerin did not look at him.
"He was not chasing salvage. That is what people assume when someone dies there, because salvage greed has taken many fools. But my father was a records keeper. He believed one of the old hull sections still contained navigation fragments from before the crash. Not a working route, perhaps, but enough to prove where Horizon's Mercy had intended to go before it fell."
"What happened?"
"He found something. We know that much because he sent one runner back with a sealed plate and instructions to give it to the elders. Then he went deeper with two others."
Her jaw tightened.
