Chapter 11: MERIS

DIANA’S POV

The eastern road added four days.

Diana learned this from Alma, who learned it from a kitchen servant, who had learned it from a quartermaster complaining about oats.

Blackharrow had a remarkably efficient system for spreading information once horses were involved.

The replacement coat came from White Pass Station stores with an inventory tag assigning it to Diana until they reached the citadel.

She tried to return it once.

The quartermaster sent it back.

Diana decided one attempt was enough.

They left White Pass Station after sunrise and took the longer eastern road. The detour carried them through working valleys, mining settlements, public stores, guarded bridges, and garrisons built into the mountains.

On the tenth day, the convoy stopped at Hollow Bridge, where engineers were replacing ice-damaged supports beneath the crossing.

"No loaded wagon over the center span until noon," the bridge master told the quartermaster.

The wounded crossed first. Baggage followed by hand, and when a guard told Diana she could remain inside while her carriage was taken across separately, she raised her slate.

I AM LIGHTER THAN THE CARRIAGE.

A nearby soldier laughed.

The guard glared at him before looking toward Raigoro on the far side of the bridge.

"Stay between us."

Diana crossed with Alma between two guards. Halfway over, she made the mistake of looking down at the frozen river far below.

That was enough looking.

When they reached the other side, the guard apparently felt compelled to defend himself.

"She asked to walk."

Diana held up the slate.

I AM LIGHTER THAN THE CARRIAGE.

Raigoro read it.

"That is true."

Diana lowered the slate. She had already prepared a second argument.

Apparently, she would have to save it.

The road continued north.

The stations changed, but the nights developed a rhythm. Wet clothing dried beside fires. Horses were checked before anyone ate. The wounded saw healers, and guards took position outside Diana’s room.

No one entered without knocking.

On the second night after Hollow Bridge, the temperature dropped hard enough to freeze the water left near Diana’s window.

The room had a hearth, but the wind pushed through the old stone faster than the fire could warm it.

Alma was asleep beneath two blankets.

Diana remained awake.

She wore the station coat over her nightdress and kept another blanket around her shoulders. She drew her feet close and pulled the blanket tighter. Even so, the cold had found its way into her fingers and toes.

She added another piece of wood to the fire, but the room stayed cold.

Diana looked toward the door.

A guard stood outside. All she had to do was knock.

She did not.

In Valence, needing something had always required a second calculation: whether the need was worth being noticed.

The wounded had traveled all day. Eren still needed a healer. Men outside were taking turns standing watch in weather colder than the room.

Diana had a roof, a fire, a coat, and two blankets.

Surely that was enough.

She returned to bed.

By morning, Diana had barely slept.

Alma took one look at her. "Princess?"

The chalk slipped from Diana’s fingers when she reached for the slate.

Alma sat upright.

Diana managed to write:

I AM FINE.

That earned her a long look.

She erased the lie before Alma could begin.

A knock came at the door.

The convoy was preparing to leave.

Diana dressed without complaint.

Outside, the cold was worse.

She climbed into the carriage and tucked her hands inside the station coat.

They had traveled less than an hour when the convoy stopped at a narrow rise. Through the window, Diana could see Raigoro speaking with the lead scout.

Alma pressed the slate into her lap.

"Your hands."

They were trembling.

Diana tucked them deeper inside the coat just as Alma opened her mouth.

A warning shake of Diana’s head came too late. Raigoro was already walking toward the carriage.

"What is wrong?"

Diana shook her head and kept both hands hidden inside the coat.

"Give me one."

She kept them where they were.

Raigoro turned to Alma.

Alma hesitated. "She was cold all night."

Diana turned on her.

Alma at least had the decency to look apologetic.

Raigoro turned toward the nearest rider.

"Bring the healer."

The woman arrived within minutes and examined Diana’s hands before checking the warmth beneath her coat.

"She has been cold too long."

The healer caught Diana’s wrist when she reached for the slate.

"You can argue after you are warm."

"Why didn’t you call the guard?" Raigoro asked.

Once the healer released her, Diana wrote with a crooked hand:

I HAD A FIRE.

AND A COAT.

Raigoro looked at the station coat. "You gave away the better one."

SHE NEEDED IT.

Diana had been ready to defend that decision too. Raigoro gave her no argument to answer. He read the words, looked once more at her trembling hands, and turned toward one of the riders.

"Tell the next station she requires a room away from an outer wall."

Diana immediately wrote:

THAT IS NOT NECESSARY.

"Your hands disagree."

Raigoro returned to his horse before she could produce a longer objection.

Alma waited until he was out of hearing.

"You were saying?"

Diana pulled the blanket over her hands.

Alma smiled and wisely left the matter there.

By the twelfth day, Eren could sit outside the medical wagon for short meals under the healer’s increasingly suspicious eye.

Diana found him eating beside two soldiers.

At the sight of her, he started to stand.

The healer put a hand on his shoulder. "Try it."

Eren reconsidered.

Diana wrote: YOU ARE LEARNING.

"Against my will."

MOST EDUCATION WORKS THAT WAY.

One soldier laughed. The healer looked delighted. Eren looked betrayed by all of them.

By then, Diana had seen enough repaired bridges, public stores, patrol roads, schools, warehouses, and garrisons to understand something else about Blackharrow.

Valence displayed prosperity.

Blackharrow seemed to build with it.

Later that afternoon, a mounted patrol approached along the road.

A shadow passed over Diana before the riders did.

The horses reacted before Diana understood why.

Several lifted their heads. One stamped against the frozen ground.

Diana looked up.

A dragon moved above the trees.

Gray wings spread across the winter sky.

The rider between them leaned with the turn as the dragon banked toward a stone tower on the ridge.

Diana stopped so abruptly that Alma nearly walked past her.

The gray dragon descended toward the stone tower, beating snow from the roof and ridge with her wings. Around them, the convoy kept moving.

No one else stopped. In Blackharrow, a dragon landing beside the road barely qualified as an interruption.

Diana’s clearest memory of a dragon belonged beneath Valence: chains scraping over stone, men shouting, fire, and a black wing dropping between a child and death.

Meris stood in the open winter light with nothing around her neck but a riding harness.

A stable boy ran from the tower carrying a bucket, and Meris lowered her enormous head so he could scratch the scales beneath her jaw. His hand nearly disappeared against the gray hide.

The boy treated her like an animal he had known for years, and Meris accepted the attention just as casually.

Alma came closer.

"I expected more screaming."

Diana looked at her.

"From us," Alma clarified.

That seemed fair.

Raigoro rode back along the convoy and found both women still watching the tower.

"The patrol rotates every six hours."

He had mistaken Diana’s attention for a question again.

"The dragon is Meris. Captain Veyr rides her."

Diana looked back toward the ridge.

Meris folded one wing while the stable boy placed the bucket beside her.

Questions crowded in, but every answer might lead back to the dragon beneath Valence.

Meris raised her head and looked across the road.

At first, Diana thought the dragon was watching the convoy. Then the gray head turned a little farther and stopped on her.

Captain Veyr shifted in the saddle. A low sound rolled from Meris’s chest as she stepped toward the edge of the ridge.

Raigoro followed the dragon’s attention.

Diana’s hand moved toward the dragonstone beneath her coat, but Meris spread her wings before she touched it. Snow burst from the tower roof as the dragon launched into the air.