The Dragon Warlord's Silent Bride

DIANA’S POV

The chest remained beneath the covered receiving court after the restitution wagons had been sealed away.

Diana wished it had looked more threatening.

It was only polished wood with brass fittings and a Valence royal-household seal, large enough to contain clothing and small enough to contain almost anything else.

Lady Jessa Harrowen waited beside it with one Southern servant.

Mistress Hale held the separate inventory.

”Do you want it taken to your apartments unopened?”

No.

Diana looked at the recipient line again.

PRINCESS SELENA VALENCE.

GRAND DUCHESS OF BLACKHARROW.

Private would mean accepting whatever story Valence had packed inside the chest before Diana knew what it was.

She preferred witnesses.

Diana wrote: OPEN HERE.

Lady Jessa stepped closer.

”Your Grace. The Southern royal household hoped these would make Blackharrow feel more familiar.”

Diana looked at her.

Familiar had become an increasingly offensive word.

The servant presented the seal, and Mistress Hale inspected it.

Valence royal household. Untampered.

The servant opened the chest.

Red silk appeared first.

Diana knew the type of fabric, though not the specific garment. Valence court silk was chosen for formal daughters because the color held vividly in painted portraits and looked expensive under candlelight.

Mistress Hale lifted the inventory.

”Three formal gowns.”

Lady Jessa smiled.

”Suitable for Southern diplomatic occasions.”

Diana looked at the first.

Selena’s colors.

Red and gold, with a line of small sunbursts embroidered along the sleeves.

Diana had watched Selena wear the same motif for years.

The second bundle contained a ceremonial mantle bearing the public crest of the Valence First Princess.

Diana had once possessed that crest. Selena inherited it after Diana disappeared.

Now it had been packed into a chest addressed to Selena and sent to Diana.

The irony left little to say.

Mistress Hale continued.

”Jewelry case.”

The servant opened it.

Inside were a sapphire comb, two gold bracelets, and a necklace Diana recognized immediately.

It belonged to Selena.

Diana had watched her wear it during public summer ceremonies, usually from behind the carved screen while servants fastened it around her sister’s neck.

Lady Jessa followed Diana’s gaze.

”Her Highness always favored that piece.”

Diana looked at her.

Lady Jessa knew.

She had known Selena too well to mistake whose favorite necklace sat inside the case, and she remembered Diana too.

Yet she stood inside Blackharrow explaining Selena’s preferences to Diana as though helping her remember herself.

Alma moved closer.

Diana did not need protection from a necklace.

She looked back at the jewelry case.

The next item was a leather music folio.

Diana’s fingers tightened.

Lady Jessa said, ”Old performance pieces.”

Mistress Hale opened it.

Songs, court dances, voice arrangements, harp pieces.

Nearly all were associated with Selena’s public performances.

The music was Selena’s, not Diana’s violin music.

Page after page of a life everybody had been permitted to see.

Diana touched one sheet.

A harvest song.

Selena used to sing it every autumn because Maerissa liked the applause afterward.

Diana had played violin in the practice room when no one was listening.

One sister had received an audience. The other received a chest twenty years later containing the wrong woman’s music.

Mistress Hale reached the final packet.

”Correspondence.”

Lady Jessa said quickly, ”Social letters. Nothing official.”

Hardly reassuring.

The first envelope was addressed to Princess Selena.

So was the second.

Old friends, a cousin, two noblewomen congratulating Selena on the beginning of restitution between Valence and Blackharrow.

One letter referenced a summer hunting party Diana had never attended. Another asked whether Selena still hated northern weather.

Diana read that one twice.

Alma whispered, ”Enough.”

Diana looked at her.

Alma said nothing.

Mistress Hale closed the correspondence bundle.

Lady Jessa said, ”The palace believed Her Grace might appreciate familiar things now that relations are improving.”

Diana lifted her slate.

WHO CHOSE THEM?

Lady Jessa paused.

Her first hesitation of the entire scene.

”The royal household.”

Diana stared.

WHO?

The woman looked toward the chest.

”Queen Maerissa approved the transfer.”

Of course.

Diana looked again at the red silk, Selena’s necklace, Selena’s songs, letters written to Selena, the First Princess mantle.

Maerissa had sent no threat or accusation.

She had simply packed Selena’s public life into a chest and delivered it to Diana under Selena’s name.

Diana understood enough for her hands to go cold.

Lady Jessa continued.

”Her Majesty believed the Duchess should have access to objects belonging to her former household.”

Diana wrote:

THEY DO NOT ALL BELONG TO ME.

Lady Jessa stopped.

Diana looked at what she had written.

She had said more than she intended, but she left the words on the slate.

Lady Jessa recovered.

”Some items belonged to the office of First Princess.”

A careful answer.

Diana looked at the necklace.

The necklace did not.

Lady Jessa knew.

Diana knew.

Neither said Selena.

Footsteps approached.

Raigoro crossed the receiving court and stopped beside Mistress Hale. His attention went first to the chest, then to Diana.

”What is this?”

Mistress Hale handed him the inventory.

”Personal household transfer from Valence.”

Raigoro read the recipient line.

His face hardened.

”Requested?”

”No, Your Grace.”

He looked at Lady Jessa.

”Why was it included?”

The woman gave the same explanation.

”Objects from Her Grace’s former household.”

Raigoro looked inside the chest.

He recognized none of the personal history. He could see only what the inventory told him: formal clothing, jewelry, music, letters.

Diana hated that some part of her wanted him to understand without asking.

Raigoro turned to her.

”Do you want it removed?”

He did not ask whether the things belonged to Selena, which ones belonged to Diana, or what Maerissa meant by sending them.

Only whether Diana wanted the chest removed.

She looked at it.

She wanted it thrown from the nearest wall.

She also wanted to know exactly what Maerissa had chosen.

Diana wrote: NOT YET.

Raigoro nodded and looked toward Mistress Hale.

”Nothing from the chest enters Her Grace’s apartments unless she requests it.”

Lady Jessa said, ”Grand Duke, these are royal household belongings.” 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Raigoro looked at her.

”They arrived in my Citadel addressed to my wife.”

Cold. Nothing more.

”She decides what enters her rooms.”

Diana’s chest tightened.

My wife.

The words were institutional here. Protective, perhaps only that.

Still.

Lady Jessa inclined her head.

”Of course.”

Raigoro looked once more at Diana without offering warmth or a private question, then returned to the receiving inspection.

Diana watched him go.

The wound between them remained.

He had not crossed it. He had simply stood on his side and refused to let Valence cross hers.

Diana looked down at the necklace Selena had once worn before cheering courts, then at the slate in her own hand.

The chest had been sent to Princess Selena.

Blackharrow had placed it in front of Diana.

For the first time, the difference between those two women had arrived as something she could physically touch.