The Dragon Warlord's Silent Bride

DIANA’S POV

The restitution delegation required fourteen wagons before anyone counted the negotiators.

Diana learned this from the transport summary Daric placed on the council table the following morning.

”Fourteen confirmed,” he said. ”Possibly sixteen if the engineering equipment travels separately after the lower road.”

He tapped the date mark at the top of the transport sheet.

”The formal notice lost time at a Southern relay. The convoy did not.”

Raigoro looked at him.

”How far?”

”If the weather holds, two days.”

Diana looked toward the delegation list.

Two days gave Household considerably less time than Diana wanted.

Raigoro read the manifest.

”Grain?”

”Three wagons in the first convoy.”

”Medicine?”

”Two.”

”Wardstone?”

”Four loads.”

”Engineering?”

”Structural steel, anchor fittings, conduit hardware, tools, and two specialist crews.”

”Money?”

Daric handed him a separate sealed schedule.

”Partial financial restitution now. Further settlement subject to negotiation.”

Raigoro read without visible satisfaction.

Valence was finally sending things it should have sent before, and no one in the room behaved as though a debt paid late became generosity.

The delegation list sat beneath the cargo documents.

Diana had avoided it since entering, but Raigoro slid the page toward her.

”Household needs names and ranks.”

Of course it did.

Rooms, meals, security routes, Government Terrace access, and decisions about which support personnel could remain in the lower diplomatic house.

Diana took the list.

The first names belonged to officials she knew only from court distance: a treasury deputy, a treaty lawyer, a military quartermaster, a royal engineering representative.

Then one name stopped her.

Lord Cassian Rovel.

Diana remembered him as a younger man carrying Queen Elara’s appointment book during formal court days. He had possessed the unusual ability to stand near powerful people without constantly finding reasons to remind everyone he was there.

He had laughed once when six-year-old Diana spilled dark berry cordial across a foreign ambassador’s white sleeve.

Her mother had tried not to.

Lord Rovel had failed.

After Elara died, he learned the same lesson as everyone else.

Stop looking at Diana.

Diana kept the chalk above the page as she reached the next familiar name.

Lady Jessa Harrowen.

She had supervised junior royal ceremonies while Selena was growing up. She knew Selena’s favorite sweets, her preferred colors, which dances she liked, and which visiting prince had embarrassed himself trying to impress her.

She had also known Diana existed.

Perhaps not well.

Diana continued.

A diplomatic secretary had served during the years when Diana’s appearances became fewer. Secretary Pellor, attached to the restitution convoy’s transport records and route documentation, was unknown to her. A senior household officer had signed palace notices after Elara’s death.

The page began feeling less like a delegation and more like a corridor in Valence Palace opening under her feet.

Raigoro’s voice reached her.

”If someone on that list creates a security concern, tell me.”

Diana looked up.

He asked nothing else.

Which name?

Who remembers you?

Who knew Elara?

Would they recognize Diana?

Raigoro returned to the cargo schedule.

The restraint should have made breathing easier.

It did not.

Diana read the list again.

Was Lord Rovel dangerous?

She did not know.

He had participated in the court that erased her by continuing to serve it, but continuing to serve was not the same thing as threatening her life.

Lady Jessa had once spoken kindly to Diana before Elara died and later learned to look through her.

Cruel, perhaps.

Dangerous, Diana could not support.

She wrote: I DO NOT KNOW.

Raigoro read.

”All right.”

He returned to Daric, and the answer ended there.

Diana had no one to fight.

The absence of one was becoming a problem.

Daric tapped the manifest.

”Why now?”

Blackharrow’s treaty clerk answered.

”Broken Ward changed the political cost.”

Diana looked toward him.

He continued.

”Third Watch was survivable for Valence because Blackharrow carried most of the immediate consequence. Broken Ward affected wider defensive confidence. Merovia requested treaty-performance review. Belland asked for confirmation of reserve obligations. Asteva began asking questions about cross-Crown supply and ward-material verification.”

Daric said, ”Severin asks questions whenever he smells a room he has not been invited to control.”

”That too.”

Raigoro looked at the Valence packet.

”So Odran discovered treaty compliance.”

”Diplomatic pressure often improves memory.”

Diana remembered Third Watch’s empty shelves.

VALENCE MEDICINE.

VALENCE GRAIN.

VALENCE WARD MATERIALS.

The labels had remained after the promised supplies did not.

Now fourteen wagons were coming because other kingdoms had begun watching.

Useful and late. Both could be true.

Raigoro asked, ”What do they want?”

The treaty clerk opened the cover letter.

”Formal acknowledgment that restitution has begun. Negotiation of outstanding financial obligations. Review of future transport commitments. Potential adjustment of troop and engineering requirements.”

”Adjustment.”

”Yes.”

”Reduction.”

The clerk hesitated.

”Possibly.”

Raigoro leaned back.

”Then four wagons of wardstone apparently buy a conversation.”

Daric said, ”Not the answer.”

”No.”

A smile threatened before Diana suppressed it.

Raigoro did not look toward her.

She had grown used to him noticing.

Diana focused on the list.

Lord Rovel. Lady Jessa.

People from a court that had trained itself to forget her were about to sleep inside rooms Diana assigned. They would walk corridors she now knew better than they did, hear servants call her Your Grace, and watch Blackharrow officials bring her files.

Would they expose her?

Pretend?

Would they understand immediately that Raigoro knew?

Would they look at Diana and still say Selena because Valence had spent nineteen years teaching them which version survived?

A household clerk entered.

”Your Grace, Mistress Hale needs room allocations tomorrow if the delegation keeps its current pace.”

Work.

Diana wrote: I WILL HAVE THEM.

The clerk bowed.

Raigoro looked toward her.

”The household does not need to place every delegate in the Inner Keep.”

She knew.

”The lower diplomatic house can take support staff.”

Diana nodded.

His attention remained on her a moment longer.

”If you want additional guards around your rooms while they are here, tell Mistress Hale.”

Diana held the chalk above the slate before writing:

DO YOU THINK I NEED THEM?

”I think people from the court that concealed your history are entering the Citadel.”

Her pulse changed.

Your history.

He had used no name.

”That is enough reason to offer you the choice.”

Diana looked down, then wrote:

SAME GUARDS.

Raigoro nodded without argument or persuasion.

Daric moved to the next security question, and the meeting continued.

By the time Diana left, she carried three pages of household requirements and the delegation list folded inside them.

Alma waited in her office.

Diana handed her the names.

Alma read, and her face changed at nearly the same places.

”So they sent people who remember.”

Diana sat.

Alma lowered the page.

”Do you want me to be afraid?”

Diana gave her a look.

Alma corrected herself. ”More afraid.”

Better.

Diana wrote: THEY MAY SAY NOTHING.

”They may.”

The possibility was hardly comforting.

Alma sat across from her.

”If they recognize you and call you Selena anyway?”

Diana did not answer.

A knock interrupted them.

Mistress Hale entered carrying a map of the guest wings.

”The delegation reaches the Citadel in two days if weather holds.”

She spread the plan over Diana’s desk.

”Where do you want Valence?”

Diana did not look at the map immediately. Her attention returned to the delegation list.

Lord Cassian Rovel had known Diana while Queen Elara lived.

Lady Jessa had known Selena well enough to remember her preferences, her performances, and the details of her public life.

At least some of the others had served Valence long enough to know there had once been two girls in the royal household.

Receiving them was different from receiving diplomats who knew only Selena.

These people could enter Blackharrow, look at Diana, and know exactly which sister stood before them.

Diana lowered her eyes to the guest-wing map.

Two days.