Waverly's Arc

Chapter 6 of 13

Silas's traders returned just before noon the next day. Waverly watched them ride in from the post office window, their horses lathered and their faces set in a way that told her everything before they'd even dismounted. She met them at the hitching post. The older one pulled a canvas sack from his saddlebag and held it out without a word. Waverly opened it. Inside lay a handful of dead flowers, their petals brittle and gray, stems broken at odd angles. The trader said they'd found them scattered inside the easternmost waypoint—the one with the rock shelter. Everything else was gone. The canvas had been stripped from the frame, the supply cache emptied, even the stones that marked the fire pit had been moved. Someone had taken it all weeks ago, judging by how dried out the flowers were. The other trader added that the second waypoint showed the same signs: cleaned out, deliberate, nothing left behind but dirt and a few crushed stems. Waverly turned the brittle flowers over in her palm. Someone had found her hidden route before she'd even sent the message. They'd known about the waypoints, known what to take, and left just enough evidence to prove they'd been there first. Waverly walked back inside and sent for Silas. When he arrived, she showed him the flowers and told him the route was compromised. He asked how that was possible—she'd said those waypoints hadn't been used in fifteen years. Waverly said they hadn't, which meant someone else had mapped her old courier trails, probably the same way she had. Silas asked if that meant the convoy knew about every hidden path she'd planned to use. Waverly said yes. She folded the route instructions she'd written the night before and dropped them into the stove. The paper caught and curled into ash. She told Silas they couldn't rely on old knowledge anymore—whoever they were up against had already done that work. They needed a new plan, one built on routes no one had used before, not even her. Silas stared at the stove, then nodded. Waverly felt the weight settle: her careful preparation had been outpaced, and now protecting Lovelock meant starting over with nothing but the present and whatever they could build faster than their enemy could follow.