Elena returned to the archive before dawn, the folded letter from her mother still pressed carefully inside her coat, determined to find whatever else the sealed box might contain.
She emptied it completely this time, laying every item across the table with careful precision. Beneath the jewelry and faded correspondence, she found a second letter, longer than the first, written in the same careful hand but addressed differently.
*To my husband, Cassius, upon the day you finally understand why I am writing this.*
Elena's pulse quickened as she unfolded the fragile parchment, smoothing it flat against the table under the lantern's weak light.
*You have asked me many times why I feel such urgency about the warning the elders gave me before our daughter's birth. I have never told you the f
