Kaelen's POV
The letter arrived folded inside a bread loaf.
I almost missed it. Marcus had brought the loaf with the morning provisions, the way he always did, and it was only the slight wrong weight of it that made me pause before eating. Something about it felt different. Heavier than it should have been. I turned it over in my hands, felt the hard lump inside, and knew.
I broke it open over the table. The paper fell out.
I sat down before I read it.
I did not know why. Some instinct. The particular instinct of a man who had been living at a remove from something he loved and was about to close the distance. My hands were steady. My heart was not.
I read it.
She had written the political content first. The way she always led. With the work. The thing that could be said plainly. The thing that did not require her to be vulnerable before she was ready.
