Chapter 138: THE CROWNS WANT ANSWERS

DIANA’S POV

Diana found few things more alarming than Raigoro agreeing with Daric.

Alma poured more tea.

"What was Commander Voss right about?"

"The problem is no longer containable as a Blackharrow investigation."

Raigoro handed Diana the first page.

The language was formal and irritatingly careful. It concerned cross-border procurement irregularities, altered strategic ward material, evidence destruction affecting treaty-linked goods, questions about military support routes and contractor oversight, and possible interference with infrastructure supporting the Ashen defense.

The document named no guilty Crown and made no claim that one conspiracy had caused every failure Blackharrow had found.

They did not know enough to claim either, and the problem itself was dangerous enough.

Raigoro said, "Westmere wants an independent look at the altered stone because some of the raw ward material may have crossed its quarry markets."

Reasonable.

"Merovia wants the medical and commercial route failures examined because several of the affected shipments crossed its ports or merchants."

Also reasonable.

"Belland wants limits defined before any investigation reaches private transport networks inside sovereign territory."

Diana looked up.

Raigoro seemed to find the concern legitimate enough to be annoying.

"And Asteva wants the altered-stone conclusion tested independently before Blackharrow’s interpretation is accepted as fact."

The request fit what Diana knew of Asteva, with its formal magical scholarship, controlled analysis, ward theory, and institutions built around studying systems Blackharrow usually encountered while those systems were already trying to kill someone.

The altered wardstone had become larger than one damaged military shipment. It now raised the question of who possessed authority to examine magical failure when the consequences crossed five kingdoms.

Magic existed inside the infrastructure every Crown depended on, which made control over its failures political as well as technical.

Diana tapped the phrase contractor oversight.

Raigoro looked up.

She wrote:

WHO CHECKS THE LAST HANDOFF?

"Whoever receives the shipment," he said.

Diana gave him a look.

He reconsidered.

"Who is supposed to receive it," he corrected.

Better.

She wrote:

AND WHEN THE RECEIPT LIES?

"That is one reason the Crowns are asking questions."

Diana looked at the five marks on the cover. Blackharrow had discovered false signatures only because someone had compared supposedly completed deliveries with the lives of the people named on the forms. Missing supplies and compromised hardware had not become less dangerous when a clerk marked them delivered.

Each Crown wanted to know where its responsibilities ended. Families in Blackharrow wanted to know why the things promised to them had never arrived.

Diana wrote:

THEY SHOULD ASK THAT TOO.

Raigoro read the words.

"They should."

She had not expected agreement to make the coming summit feel more intimidating.

Diana returned to the page.

Blackharrow had not called a summit. Several Crown governments had separately raised enough overlapping questions that the treaty offices had combined them into a joint request for an Ashen-defense conference.

Diana read that section twice.

Raigoro said, "They want a joint forum."

She looked up.

"Not because they agree with one another. They agree that too many of the same questions now cross their borders."

Diana had spent months watching Blackharrow pull threads inward, separating one failure from another and distinguishing genuine connections from things that merely happened to share a road.

Now the roads led outward.

Raigoro folded the letter.

"My council will prepare our position today."

Diana nodded.

He said nothing about her attending, and there was no reason he should. She already knew who Blackharrow would need: Daric for command and evidence, treaty counsel, Julius Renn or another senior Ward specialist, Tavia because transport networks crossed territorial systems she understood better than half the diplomats who discussed them, and Raigoro himself.

Diana looked down at the joint request.

A sovereign summit moved differently from Blackharrow.

Here, months of daily life had taught people to wait while she wrote. Master Marlon knew her shorthand. Mistress Hale understood when Diana pointed instead of explaining. Tavia could read half her expressions before the chalk touched the slate, and Daric waited, usually while pretending impatience.

Raigoro had learned to listen while she wrote.

Five sovereign courts would work differently. Kings interrupted. Treaty lawyers argued over sentences while other people were still speaking. Foreign ministers filled silence because silence looked like weakness when nobody understood who owned it.

A woman who could not speak aloud might be loved perfectly well at breakfast and still become inconvenient at a council table.

Diana hated how easily the thought came.

A servant entered to clear the plates while Raigoro folded the letter.

The man bowed.

"Will Her Grace’s office require the morning reports here?"

Raigoro looked toward Diana rather than answering, and the servant followed his gaze.

Diana wrote:

SEND THEM TO HOUSEHOLD RELIEF.

He bowed.

"Yes, Your Grace."

The exchange was ordinary by Blackharrow standards, yet Diana watched the servant leave.

Raigoro rose.

"I need Government Terrace."

She nodded.

He paused beside her chair with enough space between them that any touch would have to come from Diana.

She reached first and placed her fingers briefly over his hand.

Raigoro looked down at them, then at her. He neither kissed her nor turned the moment into another declaration. His thumb brushed once over her knuckles.

"I’ll see you later."

Diana nodded, and he left.

She remained at the table with the summit request while Alma sat opposite her.

"You are thinking too loudly."

Diana wrote:

I AM NOT SPEAKING.

"That has never stopped you."

Diana looked toward the treaty marks on the folded document.

Five Crowns and five governments belonged to a political world built around voices. Since Raigoro told her he loved her, Diana had feared what might happen to that love.

He could love her completely and still discover that the world outside Blackharrow worked better without a silent woman beside him.

At midday, the consolidated request arrived in final form.

Every Crown had now acknowledged the need for the conference.

The proposed location was Concord Hall, the permanent treaty complex maintained jointly by the Five Crowns for disputes no single royal court should control. Because the questions concerned the Ashen defense, existing procedure required the Warden’s office to issue the formal summons once the participating Crowns agreed to convene.

Diana read that part carefully.

The Five Crowns had asked for the summit, while Blackharrow would formally call them together under the Warden’s authority.

Diana left the seals untouched and studied the document.

Raigoro would place the Warden seal beneath a meeting the Five Crowns themselves had demanded.

The careful treaty language left one question unwritten.

What would happen when the political world outside Blackharrow finally looked closely at the woman standing beside him?