The attack on the southern garrison came eleven days after Jian rode out, and word of it reached the palace in the middle of the night, carried by a rider whose horse had been pushed nearly to collapse.
The eleven days between had passed in a strange, suspended rhythm Yuan hadn't expected — long, quiet hours of training with Han during the day, punctuated by brief, precious letters from the road that arrived every few days, short and practical, mostly reassurances that the column was making good time and the garrisons along the way remained calm. Yuan had read each one more times than he'd admit to anyone, memorizing the particular slant of Jian's handwriting, the small, dry observations he tucked into otherwise formal military updates that only made sense if you knew him well enough to hear his voice behind the words.
