I read the letter three times. Each reading extracted a different layer.
First reading: political information. The engagement suspended. Embercrown under investigation. Valdrake neutral. Standard Ducal communication — strategic positioning communicated through formal correspondence.
Second reading: personal. "Your mother would have understood." A dead woman invoked — Cedric's mother, who'd died when he was young, who was barely mentioned in the game and completely absent from the estate. The Duke mentioning her meant something. Something that the compression couldn't fully contain. The particular leakage of emotion that occurred when a man who'd spent forty years sealing himself addressed the one subject that the sealing couldn't reach.
