Chapter 26: SELENA VALENCE SPEAKS

RAIGORO’S POV

Raigoro left his wife’s apartments without the answer he had gone there to get.

He went directly to the Command Archive.

Daric was still there.

Raigoro had gone to his wife’s rooms prepared to keep asking until she gave him an answer. Instead, he had stopped.

He had expected defiance. Another careful refusal. Something he could push against.

But then, she had looked him in the eyes.

There had been something in her eyes he could not explain. She had seemed suddenly younger, sitting there with the slate held against her lap and an answer she was clearly afraid to give him.

Raigoro had wanted the answer. He had not wanted to be another man who frightened it out of her.

Raigoro did not know what Odran had done to teach her that kind of caution. He knew only that forcing information out of her would prove nothing except that he possessed enough authority to make her surrender it.

He had already told her he had no use for obedience obtained that way.

The principle did not become less true because this time he wanted information.

He would verify what he could without cornering her. If he still needed the answer afterward, he could ask again.

Raigoro looked at Daric.

"When was Princess Selena Valence last reliably heard speaking?"

Daric looked up from the reports.

"You think the condition predates the marriage."

"I know it does."

Daric set down the report he had been reading.

"How far?"

"She would not answer."

Daric said nothing.

"Odran knew," Raigoro added.

Daric closed the file in front of him.

"That part she answered?"

"Yes."

Daric crossed to a cabinet along the eastern wall and removed two folders.

"I started checking Selena’s public appearances after the fire."

He placed the first record on the table.

"Merovian embassy dinner. Twenty-six days before the marriage. Selena argued with Lord Feran about hunting rights along the southern forest."

Raigoro read the witness summary.

"She spoke?"

"Enough that the embassy officer recorded three complaints about her manners."

The second report was more recent.

"Public hunting reception. Nineteen days before the marriage. Multiple foreign guests heard Selena address competitors and present a prize."

"Independent witnesses?"

"Several."

Raigoro read both records.

His wife had confirmed that her condition existed before the wedding but refused to say how much earlier. Selena had still been speaking nineteen days before the ceremony.

The two facts could still belong to the same woman.

"If the woman I married is Selena, she lost her voice sometime between this reception and the wedding."

Daric nodded.

"And Odran concealed it."

"Possible."

Daric looked at him.

"You still consider her Selena?"

Raigoro pushed the report back across the table.

"I consider possibilities until evidence removes them."

An illness, injury, or attack could have occurred during those nineteen days and been concealed before the marriage. So could a substitution.

He needed evidence that separated one explanation from the other.

"Two lines of inquiry," he said.

Daric picked up a pencil.

"First, find out what happened around Selena during those nineteen days. Check physicians, canceled appearances, injuries, changes in her household, and anyone who stopped seeing her when they normally would."

Daric wrote.

"Second?"

"Every living woman of Valence royal blood close enough to Selena’s age to have passed beneath that veil."

"The Compact requires royal blood."

"Yes."

It had verified the blood of the woman beside him.

It had never spoken her name.

Daric pulled the current Valence royal register toward them.

"According to modern records, Odran has one acknowledged daughter."

"Selena."

"Odran’s only sister died before his coronation. There are female cousins through two collateral branches."

"List them."

Daric turned a page.

"None were attached to the palace closely enough to explain Alma."

Raigoro had reached the same problem.

Alma did not behave like an attendant assigned shortly before a wedding. She understood his wife’s gestures before they were fully formed. She knew when to wait, when to answer, and when a question had crossed a line.

Whatever identity Odran had given the bride, Alma belonged to her history.

Raigoro tapped the modern succession register.

"Where did this copy come from?"

"Valence diplomatic office. Updated last year."

"Odran controlled the source."

"Yes."

"Then I want older copies."

Daric looked toward the archive shelves.

"Blackharrow diplomatic records?"

"Start there. Then religious registers, treaty copies, embassy household lists, and foreign succession records."

"That is several archives."

"Use clerks."

Daric picked up the modern register.

"How far back?"

"Far enough to establish every royal-blooded woman who could be close to her age now. Use copies Odran does not control."

Daric considered the shelves.

"Some of those records will be here. Some will not."

Raigoro waited.

"The oldest Blackharrow diplomatic collections were divided when several foreign offices closed. Merovia still holds part of one embassy deposit. Belland kept copied succession notices for treaty renewals, although I don’t know how complete they are. Religious registries answer to their own authorities."

"Send the requests today."

"Foreign replies may take weeks."

"Then they take weeks."

Daric looked down at the modern register.

"We could ask Valence directly."

"No."

"I assumed."

"Odran already controlled what was presented during the marriage. I have no reason to tell him which part of his story we are testing next."

Daric nodded.

"Independent records only."

"And records old enough that they were created before anyone knew Blackharrow would care about this marriage."

Daric gathered the current succession files but left one open.

"If every older copy also says Selena?"

"Then that is evidence."

"Against substitution?"

"Against any substitution theory that requires records we cannot prove existed."

Raigoro tapped the page.

"Do not decide another daughter existed because that explanation has become useful. Do not decide she didn’t because Odran’s current register says so."

Daric’s mouth moved slightly.

"You make investigation sound unnecessarily unpleasant."

"Certainty obtained by choosing the answer first is cheaper."

"And useless."

"Usually."

Daric closed the register.

"This may take time."

"Take it."

He gathered the files.

"If the answer exists on paper, we’ll find it."

Raigoro looked toward the shelves.

"Find discrepancies first. Answers usually come later."

Daric left with the files.

Raigoro remained beside the modern register after Daric left. Selena Valence had spoken before independent witnesses nineteen days before the wedding. His wife had already been unable to speak before Raigoro entered Valence.

One explanation required something to have happened to Selena during those nineteen days. The other required Odran to have placed a different royal-blooded woman beneath the veil.

Both remained possible. Raigoro wanted records that had never passed through Odran’s hands.