Chapter 33: ONCE

DIANA’S POV

Tavia had already returned to the Muster work above, while the treatment crew remained occupied with the wounded dragon.

Raigoro waited beside the stone barrier.

"Have you been near dragons before?"

Diana still had one hand on the stair rail.

Behind him, the wounded dragon had lowered her head to the treatment court while the keepers cleaned blood from the stone.

The safe answer required only two letters.

NO.

Diana had used harder lies than that.

Instead, her hand remained above the slate.

Raigoro did not repeat the question.

The underground chamber still returned whenever memory decided to become cruel: black scales, chains dragging across stone, men shouting, a wing dropping between her and fire, and Queen Elara pulling her away.

The memory had been broken for so long that Diana had spent years wondering which pieces belonged to the event and which had been created afterward by fever, grief, or frightened adults refusing to explain anything.

Meris had noticed her, other dragons had reacted to her, and the wounded dragon had calmed while looking at her.

With every dragon that reacted to her, pretending the childhood encounter had never happened became harder.

Diana lowered the chalk.

ONCE.

Raigoro read the word. His face gave her nothing.

"When?"

Diana stopped breathing for one beat.

That question reached farther.

How old?

Where?

Which dragon?

Who else was there?

What happened afterward?

Every answer could move him toward Valence.

Toward Queen Elara.

Toward her six years old.

Toward Diana.

She looked down at the slate.

Raigoro waited while she stared at the word, so Diana wiped it away.

"Where?"

She shook her head.

"Valence?"

Her hand tightened around the cloth.

Too close.

Diana faced him. Whatever he saw in her expression was enough to make him stop.

He did not smile as though he had trapped her.

He did not say that silence was an answer.

He simply changed the question.

"Was the dragon free?"

Diana remembered chains.

Her fingers went cold despite the heated court behind them.

She looked toward the wounded patrol dragon.

No chain restrained her.

The leather guide lines used during treatment had already been removed. Two keepers remained nearby, but neither stood between the dragon and escape.

Diana wrote:

NO.

Raigoro read it.

"Caged?"

Diana hesitated. She remembered stone, chains, and men, but no bars.

She wrote:

CHAINED.

Something changed slightly in Raigoro’s expression when he read CHAINED.

She erased the slate.

Diana wished she could erase the answer as easily. Until now, the chamber had belonged only to broken memory and the few questions Alma could not answer. Writing CHAINED had put one piece of it outside herself.

Raigoro knew that piece now. He was quiet for several seconds before he nodded.

"All right."

Diana had expected another demand, or at least a reminder that he required the truth. Instead, Raigoro let the matter rest while Master Clair gave instructions for the dragon’s overnight observation.

Diana wrote quickly.

YOU ARE NOT ASKING AGAIN?

Raigoro looked back.

"I already did."

She waited.

"You are frightened of the answer."

Diana’s hand stopped.

He had named her fear before her guilt, and Diana had prepared herself for the opposite.

Raigoro continued.

"I do not know whether the fear is because the answer concerns Odran, the dragon, your identity, or something else."

Suspicion remained.

"But asking the same question until you are too tired to refuse would not make the answer more reliable."

Odran would have disagreed. He believed repetition improved obedience, while Raigoro seemed to care whether continued pressure damaged the answer.

Diana almost preferred being distrusted by a man with standards.

It was a strange thing to discover about someone she still had every reason to fear. Raigoro wanted information from her, but apparently even suspicion had rules in Blackharrow.

Master Clair approached.

"Your Grace."

Raigoro turned.

"The patrol dragon will remain under observation tonight. If her agitation returns, I would like to repeat today’s condition with the Duchess present."

Raigoro looked at Diana rather than answering for her.

Master Clair did the same.

"Your Grace?"

Diana wrote:

IF I AM NEEDED.

The keeper nodded.

"Thank you."

After the keeper left, Raigoro said, "One more question."

Of course.

She waited.

"Did what happened with the dragon have anything to do with your inability to speak?"

The memory broke open too fast, bringing Queen Elara’s blood, a locked room, Alma crying, and Diana trying to call for her mother without making a sound.

Her hand moved before she thought.

She pressed two fingers against the scar beneath her throat.

His eyes followed the movement before Diana lowered her hand.

Too late.

Neither of them spoke.

Then a dragon horn sounded from the upper court.

Diana looked away first.

Raigoro did not ask again.

He stepped aside from the stairs.

"You may return to your rooms."

Relief never quite arrived. As Diana climbed the steps with Alma beside her, she remained aware of Raigoro standing behind them.

He still knew very little, but each answer gave him another direction to search.

Alma waited until they had crossed the upper gallery.

"What did you tell him?"

Diana showed her the slate.

ONCE.

Alma stopped walking.

"Princess."

Diana erased it.

Alma looked back toward the treatment court.

"That is more than he knew this morning."

Diana continued toward the household passage.

She had kept Valence, Queen Elara, and the black dragon out of her answers.

Still, by evening, Diana suspected Raigoro had given Daric a new order. On the secured route back toward the Inner Keep, Daric came down from Command Terrace carrying a stack of older Dragon Host registers. He slowed when he reached Diana and Alma, who moved half a step closer to Diana.

Daric said, "I am not asking anything."

"That would be new," Alma replied.

He continued past them.

Diana watched the old registers disappear down the corridor.

Raigoro had found another road into her childhood.

The records had not given him the answer he wanted.

Now he was asking whether a dragon had been there before him.