Morwenna had spoken to Theo across many distances in her life, each gulf defined by the shifting architecture of their shared history.
There was the intimate distance of childhood, the physical span that required her to crouch, bringing her eye level to his, offering a sanctuary of shared breath.
Then there was the growing chasm of adolescence: the distance between two bodies occupying the same house but inhabiting separate, warring territories of self.
Eventually, that grew into the sterile, political distance of a household head addressing a chosen heir, a formal, measured space where every word was weighed for its impact on legacy.
She had navigated the spaces of grief, the heights of celebration, and that treacherous, careful neutrality required when speaking truth to a young person who would inevitably recoil if the medicine tasted too bitter.
But she had never spoken to him across this distance.
