Chapter 144: THE ROAD SOUTH IS NOT THE SAME ROAD, PART II

DIANA’S POV

By afternoon, diplomatic riders and carriages began overtaking the Blackharrow convoy.

Belland, Asteva, and Merovia passed in succession, carrying senior officials, household entourages, and people who had attended Southern courts long before Blackharrow ever knew Diana existed.

Diana began watching the passing delegations differently.

A Merovian carriage eventually drew alongside them, and the crest on its door was one she remembered from the Valence court before her marriage.

Prince Adrian.

Diana held the edge of the window.

Alma noticed.

"What?"

Diana watched the carriage move ahead before writing:

PEOPLE THERE WILL HAVE MET SELENA.

Alma fell quiet.

They had both known this in Blackharrow.

The passing delegations made the risk immediate.

The lie had been easier to imagine through records, treaty books, portraits people might barely remember, and foreign archives Daric had spent months searching.

A person who had stood in the same hall with Selena needed none of those things.

He could simply look at Diana.

She knocked once against the carriage frame to get Raigoro’s attention. A few minutes later, the convoy slowed enough for him to ride beside her.

Diana held out the slate.

WHO DO YOU KNOW HAS MET HER?

Raigoro read it.

"Prince Adrian."

Diana held the slate more firmly.

"Prince Emmon. There will be others."

Ministers. Envoys. Courtiers who had stood near Selena often enough to remember her without needing a portrait.

Diana wrote:

WHAT IF SOMEONE SAYS IT?

Raigoro understood.

"That you are not Selena?"

She nodded.

"Then we do not invent another answer."

Diana looked at him.

"You asked me to leave the public record unchanged until after the summit. I will keep that agreement. But if someone confronts you directly and you decide the truth has to come sooner, tell it."

Her chalk remained against the slate.

AND THEN?

"Blackharrow confirms what its investigation already established. Your name is Diana Valence."

Diana looked down at the words.

The thought still frightened her, but discovery no longer meant what it once had.

Raigoro knew her name. Alma knew. Daric knew. Blackharrow possessed authenticated records establishing that Diana Valence had existed long before anyone sent her north as Selena.

Recognition could destroy the timing Diana had chosen.

It could not erase Diana again.

She wrote:

AND THE WEDDING?

Raigoro’s answer came without hesitation.

"Then Valence explains how Diana Valence arrived in Blackharrow under Selena’s name."

Diana looked toward the Merovian carriage disappearing ahead.

She had her own choice to answer for. Raigoro had asked her privately who she was, and Diana had knowingly written Selena.

She had already admitted that to him and apologized.

Her lie belonged to her.

Being sent from Valence under another woman’s name did not.

"I will not ask you to defend what Valence did just to preserve the timing of this summit," Raigoro said.

Diana looked back at him.

"Do you want to turn back?"

Going forward no longer required pretending nobody would recognize Selena. Diana only needed to know what she would do if someone did.

She wrote:

NO.

Then:

I STILL WANT TO GO.

And finally:

IF THEY ASK ME DIRECTLY, I WILL NOT LIE AGAIN.

Raigoro read all three lines.

"All right."

Diana remained afraid.

On the fifth day, the land flattened. The mountain horizon remained visible behind them, but the road broadened and cultivated country began appearing between low wooded ridges.

The air lost Blackharrow’s biting cold, and Diana’s heavy travel cloak stayed folded for most of the afternoon.

She might have enjoyed the warmer weather under different circumstances.

Instead, she watched every passing delegation and wondered whether someone inside had once watched Selena dance.

THE FIFTH NIGHT

Raigoro joined her at the evening station after finishing the security review.

Diana had Master Marlon’s packet open beside her meal.

He looked at it.

"You brought work."

She stared at him.

"You are judging me."

Diana wrote:

YOU BROUGHT TWO WAGONS OF PAPER.

"Evidence."

PAPER.

"Important paper."

Diana pointed at Marlon’s packet.

Raigoro considered the argument.

"That is also important paper."

Victory.

She returned to the form.

A few minutes later, Raigoro said, "You are reading the same line for the third time."

Diana closed the folder.

Annoying man.

A knock sounded at the station room door.

Raigoro turned as one of the Blackharrow relay clerks entered carrying a narrow dispatch case marked with the Citadel seal.

"Your Grace. Dragon Heights."

Diana forgot the form immediately.

Raigoro took the case and broke the outer seal. Diana recognized Master Clair’s handwriting before he finished the first line.

He read the report, then returned to the beginning and read it again.

Diana held out her hand.

Raigoro passed her the page without comment.

Vharos had eaten nearly a full feeding and had stood longer than the previous day without another collapse. The injured wing still could not safely bear full extension, so Clair had ordered the same restricted rehabilitation and continued support beneath the damaged side.

There would be no attempt at full flight or ordinary training, and the patient would be permitted no argument about either.

Diana reached the next line.

Vharos had apparently attempted to bite one rehabilitation strap.

She lowered her eyes, amused.

Raigoro noticed.

"You approve."

Diana pointed at the line.

"Of course you do."

She read the report again.

There had been no new collapse. His breathing remained stable after exertion, his appetite was improving, and his irritation was increasingly directed at objects rather than people.

Clair had written the final observation with enough dryness that Diana could hear him saying it.

When she looked up again, Raigoro had taken back the report and was reading it once more.

Diana wrote:

YOU MISS HIM.

Raigoro read the slate.

"Yes."

Of course he missed Vharos.

The dragon had chosen him when Raigoro was eleven, and nearly nineteen years of bond could not become less real because five days of road stood between them.

Diana looked toward the report.

She missed Vharos too. Her attachment was different from Raigoro’s, but the old dragon’s absence still mattered.

Raigoro folded the page carefully and set it beside his plate. His hand returned to the table between them, close enough for Diana to take if she wanted it.

She placed her hand over his.

The ring pressed lightly against his knuckle as Raigoro turned his palm beneath hers.

Diana watched him.

Five days on the road had made it alarmingly easy to reach for him simply because she could.

She leaned across the small space between them and kissed him.

Raigoro’s surprise lasted only long enough for her to notice before his hand moved to the side of her neck and he kissed her back.

The kiss was warm, brief, and uninterrupted.

When Diana sat down again, Raigoro looked at her.

"Was that an answer to something?"

She wrote:

YOU ASK TOO MANY QUESTIONS.

His amusement returned.

For the next fifteen minutes, Concord Hall and Valence could wait.

They finished the meal because the station kitchen had gone to the trouble of making it, and Diana had learned that romance did not excuse wasting bread.

Raigoro read Clair’s report again.

Diana pointed at the page.

YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THAT.

"Yes."

IT HAS NOT CHANGED.

"No."

Diana waited.

Raigoro folded it, then opened it again.

She stared.

"I am checking whether Clair hid a more useful conclusion between the lines."

HE DID NOT.

"I know."

The explanation did not help.

Diana reached for her tea and accidentally found Raigoro’s cup closer.

She took it instead.

The tea was considerably stronger than hers.

Diana made a face and put the cup back.

Raigoro watched her.

"Theft has consequences."

She wrote:

BAD TEA IS ITS OWN CONSEQUENCE.

His amusement was obvious.

Diana kept her own cup after that.

When the plates had been cleared, they moved to the narrow bench beside the station hearth because neither had any reason to return immediately to separate rooms.

Raigoro opened one final travel report. Before he had read much, Diana leaned her shoulder against his.

He stopped reading and looked down at her.

"Nothing."

Diana approved of the answer.

He resumed, and Diana stayed where she was.

They needed no declaration, no question about tomorrow, and no promise that Concord would be easy. His shoulder remained warm beneath her cheek while Clair’s folded report stayed in his other hand.

For that evening, it was enough.

The next morning, the convoy took the final road south.

Vharos remained behind them in Blackharrow, recovering slowly under people Raigoro trusted enough to leave him with.

Concord waited ahead.

They reached the district by midmorning on the sixth day.

Diana noticed the roads before the hall.

Five major routes converged across the broad valley, each marked by a different Crown symbol before joining the paved central approach.

Beyond them rose Concord Hall.

It resembled a fortified civic complex rather than a palace, built around a massive central chamber with five delegation wings extending from it and a separate Warden residence along the northern side.

The entrance carried no royal crest. Above it stood only the old Concord mark, five crowns arranged around an open center.

Raigoro’s convoy slowed.

Banners moved above the walls: Valence, Asteva, Westmere, Belland, and Merovia.

Diana looked at them.

The first time she had entered another kingdom after leaving Valence, she believed she was being transferred between prisons. Today she had crossed six days of road because she wanted to enter this hall, and fear had come with her without changing that choice.

Tomorrow, she would enter the chamber.