Chapter 51: THE SECOND CHAIR

DIANA’S POV

There had been one chair beside Vharos’s observation area.

Today there were two.

Diana stopped at the entrance.

Her two Household Guards remained with her outside the keepers’ working space.

Alma looked past her.

"Progress."

Diana gave her a look.

The chairs were plain wood, positioned behind the nearest safety mark and far enough from Vharos that no keeper appeared nervous about them. One belonged to Raigoro.

The second apparently belonged to the unexplained variable.

Master Clair handed Diana a writing board before she sat.

It had been divided into columns.

TIME

DISTANCE

VHAROS BEFORE ARRIVAL

VHAROS AFTER ARRIVAL

DUCHESS PHYSICAL RESPONSE

Diana read the final heading twice.

Then wrote underneath: UNFLATTERING.

Master Clair glanced at it.

"Necessary."

Raigoro sat in the other chair. His board contained Vharos’s feeding schedule, medicine, sleep periods, and notes related to the bond.

Diana pointed toward it.

WHY DOES HE GET MORE?

"Some of it is medically restricted. Some of it only he can report."

Master Clair adjusted a sand timer on the small table.

"You still do not get the medical file."

A surprisingly normal answer.

Diana sat.

Vharos was awake but quiet.

Healer Lou had completed her morning examination before Diana entered. One keeper prepared water while another moved folded cloth and clean bowls onto a narrow wheeled stand.

Diana opened the behavior booklet to the section she had marked the previous day.

Vharos’s tail lay loose.

Jaw relaxed.

The near wing rested unevenly because of old pain and weakness.

Diana looked from the drawing to the dragon.

Then back.

The younger keeper began pushing the wheeled stand toward the treatment area.

Vharos’s eye opened farther.

The keeper continued.

Diana saw the change at the base of the tail first.

Tension.

Then the edge of the near wing shifted closer to the floor.

His head still had not moved.

Diana raised one hand.

Diana pointed toward Vharos, then the approaching cart.

STOP THERE.

The keeper froze.

Vharos’s tail struck the bedding stone once.

A metal wash basin rested against the lower frame. Each tiny wheel movement made it scrape.

Master Clair heard it too.

"Back the cart away."

The keeper reversed slowly.

The scraping stopped.

Vharos’s tail loosened after several breaths.

Master Clair returned to Diana.

"What did you see?"

She wrote: TAIL TIGHTENED. WING CHANGED.

"Do you know why?"

Diana shook her head.

Master Clair nodded. "Then leave the reason blank."

He did not quiz her further.

The ugly booklet had become marginally less offensive.

The controlled part of the session began once the cavern settled again.

Diana waited at the farther mark, then entered on Clair’s signal.

Before she reached the nearer line, Vharos lifted his head toward the passage.

Diana stopped and wrote: HE HEARD ME.

Raigoro checked the time.

"Maybe."

"You were not in his clear line of sight yet. That tells us the reaction may not require seeing you clearly."

Diana waited.

"It does not prove he heard you."

Annoying.

Correct.

She erased her sentence and replaced it with:

REACTED BEFORE NEAR MARK.

Master Clair recorded the same time on his own sheet.

The dragonstone had begun warming.

Diana wrote: STONE WARM.

"How warm?" Master Clair asked.

Diana frowned.

Warm was warm.

Apparently not.

Clair went to the small warming shelf near the treatment station and returned with three smooth stones kept for heat packs. Each had been wrapped briefly in cloth to prevent direct contact from becoming uncomfortable.

He placed them one at a time in Diana’s palm.

The first was barely warm.

The second matched the dragonstone more closely.

The third was distinctly hotter.

Diana pointed to the second.

Master Clair wrote the comparison.

Diana stared at him.

"Warm means different things to different people."

She added MATCHES SECOND TEST STONE beneath her note.

At least if they intended to make everything complicated, the complication was useful.

Vharos looked toward her again.

Diana checked the dragonstone.

Still the same temperature.

She checked the timer.

The reaction had happened before she noticed any increase in heat.

That did not prove which came first.

She wrote: VHAROS TURNED BEFORE I NOTICED CHANGE IN STONE.

Master Clair read it and nodded.

Better than pretending she had noticed the exact moment the stone warmed.

Healer Lou entered later with Vharos’s medicine.

Clair’s keepers positioned themselves first. One remained near the head while another prepared to adjust the left wing enough for the healer to reach the painful area beneath it.

The medicine went in.

The wing moved almost simultaneously.

Vharos’s breathing increased.

Diana wrote: BREATHING FASTER AFTER MEDICINE.

Then stopped.

The keeper’s hands remained beneath the wing.

Diana looked from them to the sentence.

She crossed out AFTER MEDICINE.

Then wrote: MEDICINE AND WING MOVEMENT OCCURRED TOGETHER. BREATHING INCREASED.

Master Clair read over her shoulder.

"Better."

That was all. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Healer Lou glanced toward Diana’s note.

"His ribs remain tender on that side. Wing movement can pull through the same area."

Diana added the information beneath her observation without changing what she had seen.

Later, when Healer Lou needed the same controlled wing adjustment to examine the tender side again, no medicine was being given at the same time.

Vharos’s breathing changed slightly.

Less than before.

Useful, perhaps.

Diana recorded it.

The formal session continued for less than an hour.

Vharos ate a small amount.

The dragonstone warmed twice.

Once, nothing obvious happened afterward.

Diana wrote that too.

Her board was full by the time Master Clair ended the session, but very little on it answered the question that had brought her into the cavern in the first place.

Why did Vharos know her?

Strangely, that no longer made the work feel pointless.

The paper did not pretend to know more than they did.

Master Clair collected the formal sheets.

"You can leave."

Diana looked toward Vharos.

He had lowered his head.

His eyes were closed.

Raigoro stood and gathered his field report.

Diana remained in the second chair.

He looked at her.

"You heard him."

She wrote: I KNOW.

Raigoro waited.

Diana looked toward Vharos.

HE IS ASLEEP.

"Yes."

She did not want to make noise through the cavern simply because the formal work had ended.

Perhaps that was not logical. Vharos had slept through keepers moving equipment before.

She stayed anyway.

Raigoro looked toward the dragon.

Then sat down again.

Diana glanced at him.

He opened the field report he had brought from Command Terrace.

He asked nothing about why she remained.

The cavern settled around them.

A keeper worked quietly near the medicine shelves. Water moved through a narrow channel cut into the mountain wall.

Vharos breathed.

Diana opened the behavior booklet but did not read immediately.

Raigoro turned one page of his report.

Then another.

Eventually he lowered it.

Days ago, Diana had watched Raigoro command a battle through delayed information, changing terrain, and hundreds of soldiers. Here, none of that authority could make Vharos eat or command an old body to stop hurting.

Raigoro stood and walked to the limit Master Clair had left open for him.

He rested one hand against the black scales beside Vharos’s jaw.

The dragon did not wake.

Raigoro remained there longer than the touch required.

Diana returned to her booklet before the moment became something she was taking without permission.

When he returned to the chair, both of them went back to reading.

For the first time since arriving in Blackharrow, sitting quietly beside Raigoro did not feel like waiting for an interrogation to begin.

They remained until Vharos woke without either of them trying to explain why.