Kael POV
He read it because it was a security concern.
An unvetted communication arriving by runner, no faction seal, no verification of origin, that was a standard intercept situation. He was the commanding officer. Reading unverified external correspondence before it reached base personnel was protocol. It was completely defensible. He could write it up in the incident log with clean, neutral language, and it would hold up to any scrutiny.
He told himself this at midnight, standing outside the command post with the letter in his hand.
He told himself this again at twelve-fifteen, after he'd already read it.
I miss you. I made a mistake. Let me make it right.
He folded it back along the original crease exactly, carefully, the way it had come, and he walked to the planning table where Mara kept her build notes, and he set it down, and he left.
He did not think about why he folded it carefully.
