The Man in the Catacombs
Chapter 08 - The Man in the Catacombs
The third bell hung in the oldest tower of the cathedral.
It had not rung since the queen’s funeral.
Elara, Rowan, and Archbishop Corren climbed the spiral stairs after midnight while Tomas guarded the door below. Behind the bell’s support beam, they found a narrow passage cut into the wall.
The tunnel descended into catacombs older than the palace.
Names had been carved into the stone. Forgotten kings. Unclaimed children. Soldiers whose families never knew where they were buried.
At the end of the passage stood a wooden door reinforced with iron.
Elara heard coughing inside.
“Father?”
The coughing stopped.
A chain scraped across the floor.
“Elara?”
She dropped the candle.
Rowan caught it before the flame died. Together they forced the door open.
Lord Edmund Vale sat against the wall with a blanket around his shoulders. His hair had gone white, and imprisonment had hollowed his face, but his eyes were clear.
Elara knelt and wrapped her arms around him.
For several seconds he did not move. Then his hands rose slowly and held her as if he were afraid she might disappear.
“I heard the wedding bells,” he whispered.
“They did not finish.”
“Thank God.”
Rowan stood near the door, unable to speak.
Lord Vale looked at him. “You came back.”
“I should have come sooner.”
“You came when she needed you.”
Elara pulled away. “Who did this?”
Her father’s gaze moved to Archbishop Corren, then to the stone walls.
“Varrick ordered the imprisonment. But the king gave him the power.”
“Why did Varrick keep you alive?”
“Because I witnessed Queen Marian’s murder.”
The words seemed to drain the air from the chamber.
Lord Vale explained that twelve years earlier, the queen discovered Varrick stealing grain taxes and paying mercenaries along the northern border. She planned to expose him before the council.
The night before the hearing, the queen drank medicine prepared by the royal physician.
She died before dawn.
“The physician confessed,” Corren said. “Then hanged himself.”
“He confessed because Varrick threatened his daughters,” Lord Vale replied. “Lady Celeste and I found the real poison hidden in Varrick’s study. Your mother copied his account ledger.”
Elara’s throat tightened. “Where is it?”
“She hid it.”
“In the prayer book?”
“No. The book holds the path, not the proof.”
Lord Vale looked at Rowan.
“The rest is his to tell.”
Elara turned.
Rowan’s face had gone pale.
“What did my mother give you?” she asked.
He reached beneath his coat and pulled out a small silver locket engraved with Queen Marian’s crest.
“I have carried this for twelve years,” he said.
Elara stared at him.
Inside the locket was a tiny key.
May you like
Rowan had possessed the key to the truth before her father’s arrest, before his exile, before every lie that tore their lives apart.
And he had never told her.
