Chapter 145: THE FIVE-CROWN WORLD

DIANA’S POV

Concord Hall had been designed by people who believed political disagreement improved when everyone had taller ceilings.

Diana looked up as the Blackharrow delegation entered the central receiving court.

The ceiling remained very high.

No improvement yet.

Alma walked one pace behind her, while Raigoro remained beside her rather than taking the position ahead.

Diana noticed.

The building felt unlike any royal palace she knew because no single family had been allowed to design it as an extension of itself. Five Crown emblems repeated around the upper gallery at equal height, with the Ashen Concord mark occupying the center.

Blackharrow’s Warden banner stood beneath the royal standards instead of among them.

The Warden was not a sixth Crown. It was a different office, and the distinction had been built into the stone long before anyone in the room was born.

Arrival day contained no formal policy session, which Diana approved of immediately.

Credentialing came first. Delegation seals were checked, security lists matched, evidence custody recorded, and private offices assigned. Joint clerks confirmed which documents could enter the public record and which would remain sealed unless formally introduced.

Counsel Mael disappeared almost immediately into an argument over whether one of Belland’s requested observers had the correct classification to attend the restricted technical review.

Daric looked happier than anyone should while supervising guards.

Tavia found the transport office before she found her room.

Julius Renn followed the wardstone cases with such intensity that Diana suspected the stones now had better protection than several minor nobles.

The summit would formally open the following morning. That evening, the Five Crowns would attend a diplomatic dinner and reception where everyone could greet one another politely before spending the next several days proving that the politeness had limits.

Diana understood the logic.

She disliked it anyway.

The herald announced Blackharrow into the main receiving court.

"His Grace, Grand Duke Raigoro Kael of Blackharrow, Warden of the Ashen Gate."

Raigoro entered, and Diana moved beside him.

The next announcement struck exactly where she expected.

"Her Grace, Princess Selena Valence, Grand Duchess of Blackharrow."

The borrowed name traveled farther beneath the high ceiling than it ever had inside the Citadel.

Diana kept walking.

There was no screen above her, no musicians’ gallery, and no narrow passage built for invisible daughters.

Hundreds of people could see her now: officials, courtiers, military representatives, ward scholars, treaty lawyers, and household staff who had probably memorized the arriving delegations before breakfast.

Some looked because she was Raigoro’s wife. Others had apparently heard stories about the silent Valence princess.

A few studied her with the uncertainty Diana had begun to recognize.

They were trying to match memory against the woman in front of them.

Diana kept walking.

The first official greeting came from a Belland treaty minister. He bowed to Raigoro and then to Diana.

"Your Graces. Belland welcomes the Warden delegation."

Diana inclined her head.

The minister began to turn toward Raigoro again, then caught himself. Perhaps he remembered she could not answer aloud, or perhaps he had only just noticed the slate.

Either way, the hesitation came.

He had expected speech.

Diana reached for the chalk.

Raigoro left the greeting to her.

Diana wrote:

BLACKHARROW THANKS BELLAND FOR ATTENDING.

The minister read it, adjusted without ceremony, and addressed her directly.

"Of course, Your Grace."

By the third greeting, the officials nearest them had understood the procedure.

Diana wrote.

They waited.

Nobody died from the delay.

Encouraging.

Westmere’s delegation arrived heavily represented by engineers and fortification officers, which Diana found considerably more believable than any royal court sending only ornamental diplomats to discuss wardstone.

One senior Westmere minister greeted Raigoro by saying, "Your technical appendix is too brief."

Several steps behind them, Julius Renn muttered, "Finally, someone sensible."

Daric looked at him.

Julius did not retract the statement.

The Westmere minister noticed Diana next.

"Your Grace."

Diana bowed.

"I am told your household office was involved in the discrepancy that first reopened some of the support records."

She nodded.

"Then I expect you will have opinions tomorrow."

Diana wrote:

UNFORTUNATELY.

The man laughed.

She liked him enough to become suspicious.

Merovia entered with less military weight and more people who looked as though they had spent their adult lives arguing over shipping, medicine, money, and whether a lost day at port counted as a delay or a catastrophe.

Prince Adrian was among them.

Diana recognized him at once, though they had never been introduced.

The last time she had seen him, she had been behind a carved screen above Valence’s Great Hall while Adrian and the other visiting princes gathered below for Selena.

Diana remembered Prince Emmon’s pearls and the Belland heir’s song better than anything Adrian had offered. Adrian had been one of the quieter princes, which was perhaps why she remembered his face better than his gifts.

He looked much the same now, though considerably less decorative without a Valence court arranging flowers around him.

His gaze crossed the receiving court, found Raigoro, and then reached Diana.

He paused.

Diana’s amusement disappeared.

Adrian had seen Selena that night from the floor of the Great Hall. He had watched her receive gifts, laugh with princes, and prepare to dance before Daric Voss arrived covered in blood and ended the celebration.

He knew what Selena Valence looked like.

Diana was not Selena.

His attention lingered long enough for Diana to notice, though perhaps not long enough for anyone else to find it unusual.

Then he continued forward as though nothing had happened, and protocol carried him elsewhere before either of them spoke.

One person at Concord Hall had already looked at Princess Selena Valence and remembered the face that belonged with the name.

Adrian had said nothing.

Then Asteva entered.

The herald announced King Severin.

Diana knew the seal before she knew the man. She had seen his correspondence months earlier in arguments about sovereign limits, private contractors, the Blood-and-Flame precedent, and objections Raigoro disliked largely because they were difficult to dismiss.

The man himself did not resemble a villain from the stories Alma used to tell when they were children.

Diana found that mildly disappointing.

Severin wore formal dark silver and Astevan blue, with narrow ward-script worked into his cuffs as institutional insignia rather than ornament. His delegation included treaty lawyers, senior ward scholars, and two Wardkeepers carrying fitted instrument cases.

Asteva had apparently come prepared to disagree with Julius using equipment.

Julius looked interested.

Diana considered that dangerous.

Severin greeted Raigoro first.

"Grand Duke."

"Your Majesty."

Their exchange carried neither warmth nor open hostility. They sounded like two men who had disagreed in writing often enough to have no need for performance.

Severin turned to Diana.

"Your Grace."

He used the Blackharrow title without calling her Princess or using Selena.

Diana noticed, though she could not tell whether the omission meant anything. Perhaps he considered her ducal title more relevant here. Perhaps he was simply careful.

She bowed.

Severin said, "I understand your office encountered one of the administrative contradictions that eventually reached the defense review."

Diana lifted her slate.

He waited while she wrote.

ONE OF THEM. MANY PEOPLE FOUND THE REST.

Severin read the answer himself.

"A useful distinction."

He considered her for another moment.

"I hope the summit preserves it."

Diana looked at him.

The statement could refer to evidence and interpretation, Blackharrow and Raigoro, or one failure being kept separate from another.

She could not tell.

Diana was content not to understand Severin yet.

Severin inclined his head and moved on.

Diana turned to Raigoro and wrote:

IS HE ALWAYS LIKE THAT?

"Yes."

Unhelpful.

She added:

WHAT DID HE MEAN?

Raigoro read it.

"I do not know."

At least he did not pretend.

The receiving court continued until midday, when the Blackharrow delegation finally received its private rooms, council positions, and schedule.

The first formal session would begin with the state of the Ashen defense. The Gate came first, and the investigation would follow.

Each Crown would report its current obligations, reserves, delayed support, infrastructure concerns, and requirements before committing additional resources to the next defense period. Only after those reports would the altered wardstone and cross-border failures enter formal discussion.

Diana approved of the order.

The summit existed because five governments had concerns. It was not an audience assembled so Blackharrow could listen to Raigoro explain the world.

They ate a late midday meal inside the Blackharrow wing while Counsel Mael reviewed the schedule between bites.

"Tomorrow morning begins with Blackharrow’s Gate report," Mael said. "The Crown support reports follow."

Raigoro nodded.

"Westmere, Belland, Merovia, Valence, then Asteva. Asteva requested the final Crown slot because its technical delegation intends to address the independent magical review."

"Good," Julius said.

Daric looked at him.

"You understand they may disagree with you."

"If they can prove me wrong, I would rather know before someone installs altered stone in a defensive wall."

Diana liked Julius more every time he became annoying for the correct reason.

The afternoon remained formal but relatively harmless.

Then the Valence delegation entered.

Diana saw red and gold before she recognized individual faces, and every old instinct she had learned in Valence returned at once.

Odran.

Maerissa.

Senior officials Diana remembered from corridors she had once been expected not to enter. A court physician she had not seen in years, two treaty officers, and household staff followed them.

Selena was absent.

Diana already knew she would be. She had studied the public delegation list before leaving Blackharrow, but seeing the Valence party without her sister made the absence feel different.

Raigoro glanced toward Diana.

He did not touch her in the middle of the receiving court. Instead, he shifted half a step closer and left the remaining distance for Diana to choose.

Enough.

Odran had not yet seen them.

Maerissa had.

The queen’s attention found Diana and remained there briefly before moving on as though nothing of consequence had happened.

The old fear returned with humiliating familiarity.

Diana hated that Maerissa could still summon it simply by entering a room.

Counsel Mael appeared beside them.

"The formal dinner begins at seventh bell. Receiving line before that. No policy debate unless someone loses discipline."

Daric looked toward the Valence side of the hall.

"So policy debate."

Mael ignored him.

Diana looked across the enormous receiving court.

Tomorrow she would sit in a council session with five Crowns.

Tonight she had to survive dinner.

Apparently diplomacy believed in escalating danger gradually.