Chapter 141: DIANA CHOOSES TO GO

DIANA’S POV

Raigoro found Diana the following morning measuring compensation forms.

He stood in the doorway of Household Relief while Master Marlon watched Diana place two versions of the same document side by side. The newer form had gained another line, which Diana disliked, though Master Marlon insisted it prevented people from misunderstanding their appeal rights.

He was probably correct, which only made the line more irritating.

Raigoro waited until she noticed him.

"Do you have a minute?"

Diana looked toward Marlon.

The senior clerk waved one hand.

"Please. Save the form from whatever she intends to do to it."

Diana gave him a look, and Raigoro suppressed his amusement.

They went to her office, where he closed the door behind them. With no Daric or treaty counsel present, the conversation was more private than most discussions involving the summit.

Diana paid closer attention.

Raigoro sat opposite her desk.

"The summit location is confirmed."

She nodded.

"Concord Hall."

Diana knew the name from old treaty documents, though she had never seen it. Concord Hall stood on neutral treaty ground administered jointly by the Five Crowns.

"Six days if the roads stay clear," Raigoro continued. "Seven if the upper southern pass ices. Departure tomorrow morning."

Soon.

Diana looked toward the travel packet on her desk.

Raigoro waited before saying, "I told you yesterday I would ask this morning."

Her hand remained on the chalk.

Yes. He had.

She had spent an unreasonable portion of the night thinking about exactly this conversation.

Raigoro held her gaze.

"Are you coming?"

Diana looked down at the slate. She already knew what he meant, but she wrote anyway:

TO THE SUMMIT?

"Yes."

The question had been useless, but it had given her another few seconds.

Raigoro continued before she could answer.

"There are security problems. Someone tried to kill you after the wedding. Valence will be present. Every Crown will bring officials who may question Blackharrow’s evidence, our procedures, and anyone connected to the matters before the summit."

Diana knew how arguments for leaving someone behind usually worked. Danger, efficiency, diplomacy, the ability to speak, and other people with more experience could all become perfectly respectable reasons for concluding that she should stay.

She waited for that part.

Raigoro said nothing.

When Diana continued waiting, he did the same.

Infuriating.

Apparently, he had listed the risks because she deserved to know them, not because he intended to make the decision for her.

She wrote:

YOU NEED SOMEONE WHO CAN SPEAK FOR BLACKHARROW.

Raigoro read the line.

"I have several people who can speak."

Diana looked up.

"I asked whether you are coming."

She understood the distinction.

He had not told her she should stay because the summit was dangerous or that she had to come because her position required it. He had not said he needed his wife beside him.

He had asked whether she wanted to go.

Diana looked down at the slate while Raigoro let her think.

He had apparently turned waiting into a personal weapon.

She wrote:

DO I HAVE A REASON TO BE THERE BESIDES BEING YOUR WIFE?

"Yes," Raigoro answered.

"The relief records led to the first impossible receipt. Your office separated the widow’s actual claim from the military discrepancy instead of treating one as proof of the other. You compared the people named in the paperwork instead of assuming that internally correct records described reality."

Diana listened as he continued.

"You helped establish why failed treaty support creates civilian consequences that cannot be repaired by transferring money into a military account and declaring the obligation settled."

Diana looked down.

Daric, Marlon, clerks, and widows who had brought records no one else compared had all contributed to that work.

Raigoro answered the objection before she could write it.

"I did not say you did it alone."

Diana accepted that.

"The summit will discuss what the Crowns owe one another when support fails, who verifies delivery, and what happens when the systems responsible for defense do not share information."

Those were questions Diana understood because she had seen what followed when systems failed.

The consequences appeared as missing names, conflicting records, and families left waiting for answers.

Raigoro paused before adding, "And you are Grand Duchess of Blackharrow."

The political title still carried Selena’s name.

Diana wrote:

PUBLICLY SELENA.

Raigoro read the slate.

"Yes."

He gave her the truth without pretending the problem was smaller than it was.

Yesterday they had agreed to delay correcting the public record until after the summit. The decision now sat between them, and Diana hated him slightly for remembering it accurately.

At least irritation was familiar.

She wrote:

AND IF THEY DO NOT WAIT FOR ME TO WRITE?

Raigoro considered the question.

"They should."

Should was different from would, and Diana appreciated the distinction.

She wrote:

KINGS INTERRUPT.

"Yes."

COUNCILS INTERRUPT.

"Yes."

LAWYERS ARE WORSE.

"Usually."

Diana stared at him until his brief amusement disappeared and he returned to the subject.

"If someone asks you a question, answer in the form available to you. If they interrupt before you finish, finish anyway."

Diana had expected something more protective and considerably less impractical.

She imagined a king speaking over her while she continued writing. It would be awkward and possibly humiliating, but it was also possible.

She wrote:

AND IF IT SLOWS BLACKHARROW?

"I will bring Daric."

Diana remained unconvinced.

"Tavia."

Her opinion did not improve.

"Treaty counsel."

Diana narrowed her eyes.

Raigoro continued, "I have several people who can speak. You are not being invited because Blackharrow lacks mouths."

Diana stared at him.

Something shifted in the way she understood the invitation.

She had spent years watching politics from places built for someone else. She had watched from behind the carved screen above Valence’s Great Hall, through doors left open by accident, from correspondence she was not supposed to read, and from the musicians’ gallery while visiting princes came to dance with Selena.

Older men had discussed trade, marriage, succession, roads, soldiers, and treaties as though Diana belonged to another species entirely.

She had hated them, but she had always listened.

Diana knew the names of kingdoms long before their rulers knew hers. She knew which Crown sent horses, which sent medicine, which produced stone, which maintained roads, and which arguments made her father lie more smoothly.

Watching had been the only form of participation anyone allowed her.

Now a Five-Crown summit existed because systems Diana had helped examine inside Blackharrow had collided with systems outside it.

She was frightened. The thought of Valence in the same hall unsettled her, and imagining herself writing while kings waited made her palms damp.

Diana wanted to go.

She wanted to see Concord Hall and sit where decisions were made instead of behind carved wood. She wanted to hear five kingdoms explain what they believed Blackharrow was owed and see whether Astevan scholars could reproduce Julius Renn’s findings.

She wanted to know whether Belland would protect merchants more fiercely than soldiers. She wanted to watch Tavia explain to someone who had never crossed a mountain in winter that a map was not a road.

Most of all, she wanted to be present when people discussed the failures that had left families waiting in Blackharrow.

Diana also wanted to discover whether she could do it.

Raigoro had made room for her. Diana wanted to find out what she could do once she entered it.

Raigoro waited.

He had asked a simple question, and for once Diana wanted to answer before fear finished listing everything that might go wrong.

She wrote:

YES.

Before she could lose courage, she added:

I WANT TO GO.

Raigoro read the second line.

"All right."

Diana looked again at the words.

I WANT TO GO.

Her pulse remained too fast, but she left them on the slate.