the Orchard at Edge of Map

At Lastfold Orchard, the fruit does not predict the future. It offers a glimpse of one that might still be changed. Oris Tarrow has spent years tending the trees and keeping their impossible harvest out of official hands. Then one branch begins showing the same vision again and again: a nearby town emptied after a magical-industrial project goes wrong. Oris cannot ignore the warning. They also know what can happen when the wrong people decide a warning is proof. Hesta Ruun, a cartographer from the capital, arrives to map the phenomenon with a confidential brief of her own. Oris distrusts the authority a map can confer; Hesta distrusts any account she cannot test. Their uneasy investigation points first toward sabotage, then toward the orchard itself. As suspicion gives way to intimacy, each attempt to prevent the disaster seems to draw it closer. To save the town, Oris and Hesta must confront the limits of what they know, what they have withheld, and what they are willing to risk for each other. The Orchard at the Edge of the Map is a literary fantasy mystery with a slow-burn romance, rooted in work, weather, and the courage to choose without certainty.