Bryan closed his eyes briefly.
"I knew we would return to this."
"We never left it."
"No. I suppose not."
Bryan opened a drawer and removed a folded scrap of treated paper.
He slid it across the table.
Rohan unfolded it.
It was not a plan. Not exactly.
It was a list.
Merchant-controlled movement categories.
Empty container return.
Guard rotation.
Waste reclamation.
Private crew stores.
Damaged equipment transfer.
Medical quarantine.
Atmospheric shuttle maintenance.
Each line had notes beside it: visibility, scan likelihood, Veyrhold trace risk, physical access probability.
Rohan stared.
"You made this."
"I made observations."
"This is more than observations."
"This is not permission."
"But it is help."
Bryan looked away.
His voice, when it came, was rougher than before.
"My sister tried properly. She did everything they asked, and they still found a way to keep her here. I will not tell you to trust a locked door because the person holding the key calls himself respectable."
Rohan looked at the list again.
The weight of it pressed into his hands.
"Bryan..."
"Do not thank me yet. The list may be useless. It may get you killed if you treat it like certainty. Merchant systems change. Guards rotate. Scans improve. And there are moral costs I cannot calculate."
"I know."
"No," Bryan said, voice hardening. "Listen carefully. If you run, and they punish Veyrhold, I will hate you for it even if I understand why you did it. If you stay, and they trap you here with paperwork and smiles, I will hate them more than I already do, which I had thought impossible. If you find some impossible third path, I will pretend I expected it."
Rohan laughed softly despite the tightness in his throat.
"That sounds fair."
"It is not fair. It is simply true."
Bryan pushed his chair back.
"Go sleep. You will need your wits tomorrow, and yours are inconsistent when tired."
"Another touching farewell."
"You have not left yet."
"No. I have not."
The first shuttle descended the next morning.
Unlike the signal craft, it came low enough for details.
Rohan stood with the Veyrhold trade delegation at the edge of the landing flats, wearing clean ash-cloth, a formal line token marking him as expedition-proven ally, and a face scarf that did not hide how tightly his jaw was clenched.
The eastern flats stretched wide and black beneath a bruised sky. Old landing scars cut across the glassy ground in overlapping circles. Veyrhold’s trade caravan had arrived before dawn: carts reinforced with blackstone wheels, pack frames carried by shield hands, sealed resource cases, medical request ledgers, and elders wrapped in formal ash-cloth marked with crash-line embroidery.
Maerin stood at the front with the watch.
Bryan sat in his wheeled chair beside the tally crates, looking more dangerous with a ledger than some people did with weapons.
Liora stood near Rohan, assigned to the escort line.
Pell had not been allowed to come, which had led to an argument his mother won decisively.
The shuttle appeared first as a vibration in the air.
Then as a shape descending through ash haze.
It was beautiful.
Rohan hated that.
The craft was smooth and pale, with curved wings folded close to its body and lines of gold along the hull that caught the weak light. Its engines did not roar like he expected. They hummed, deep and controlled, pressing against the bones rather than the ears. Ash scattered outward as it lowered, but the shuttle’s field kept most of it from touching the hull.
Clean.
That was the word that struck him hardest.
The shuttle was clean.
On Cael Athis, everything became scratched, stained, patched, and worn. Even Veyrhold’s most carefully maintained tools carried the marks of survival. But the merchant shuttle descended without a scar visible from where he stood. Its landing legs touched the black glass with elegant precision.
A ramp unfolded.
Warm golden light spilled out.
The first merchant stepped onto Cael Athis as if arriving at a social call rather than a desperate trade negotiation on a death planet.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in cream-coloured protective cloth trimmed with gold. His boots were polished dark brown. Not ash-scuffed. Not practical in any way Rohan respected. A transparent breathing veil shimmered over his lower face, so delicate it was almost invisible. Behind him came guards in sleek grey armour carrying compact weapons, then clerks with data slates, then attendants unloading portable pylons and canopy frames.
Captain Odris of the Gilded Heron smiled.
It was a handsome smile.
Practised. Warm. Infuriating.
"People of Veyrhold," he called, voice amplified by a small device at his collar. "It is a joy to return and find your hold enduring beneath the Ash. May this Tradefall bring prosperity, relief, and renewed friendship between us."
Rohan felt Liora go rigid beside him.
Bryan’s pen scratched once against his ledger, though nothing had been said worth recording.
Maerin’s expression became unreadable.
One of the elders, Sava, stepped forward.
"Captain Odris. Veyrhold receives the Gilded Heron under trade custom and ash witness. We have prepared the exchange ledgers."
"Excellent," Odris said, descending the ramp fully. "As always, your diligence honours your ancestors. I hope the season has not been too cruel."
The words were smooth.
Too smooth.
Rohan understood then why the merchants were dangerous.
Not because they snarled. Not because they arrived with threats openly displayed. But because they had learned the language of sympathy without allowing it to touch their actions.
Odris’s gaze moved across the delegation.
It paused on Rohan.
Only briefly.
But enough.
"This is a new face," the merchant captain said. "Not one of the lines I recall."
Every Veyrhold resident within earshot heard the implication.
Not shipblood.
Elder Sava answered evenly.
"This is Rohan Roy, expedition-proven ally of Veyrhold. He aided in the recovery of valuable salvage and has a matter to present during passage consideration."
Odris’s smile brightened by a fraction.
Rohan disliked him immediately.
"Passage consideration. How exciting. It is always encouraging to see ambition beneath difficult skies."