The note was written in a hand so unsteady Marina had to read it twice before the words fully resolved, ink smudged in places as though written in poor light, or in haste, or with hands that were not entirely steady when they held the quill.

Luna, it began, and Marina's chest tightened at the familiar salutation, the same word Halvard had used in his first letter, formal and careful even now.

I am alive. I am being held somewhere I do not fully recognize, though the terrain outside the single window I've been given access to suggests northern territory, near the old contested border. My captors have not harmed...