The message came within six hours.
Not a recording. Not a folder of documents. A single handwritten letter, delivered by a courier who arrived at the compound gate before evening and handed it to Roan with the specific efficiency of someone who had been told time mattered.
Roan brought it to me.
He did not ask what it was. He did not ask why a courier from the eastern territory was bringing a handwritten letter to the Luna of Shadowmere the day after the coalition dissolved. He simply handed it over with the particular dignity of a man who understood his function and executed it without requiring explanation.
"Thank you," I said.
"Yes," he said. And left.
I looked at the envelope.
Dena Marsh's handwriting — the same precision I had seen in the summit room's documentation, the contro
