The letter arrived on a morning painted in soft rose and steel gray, slipping through the flap of my tent like a quiet promise. I was consulting with a sepoy—teaching him breathing techniques to stem the tremors of panic—when the camp runner appeared, hands tucked inside his parka, crinkling envelope pressed between fingers. He waited, shy and awkward, as though unsure couriers should ever witness their own deliveries.

I finished guiding the sepoy through a grounding exercise—counting breaths, naming five things we could see, four we could hear, three we could touch, two we could smell, one we could taste—and watched as calm settled in his eyes. Then I turned to the runner.