The Grave of Lies — Part 2
The coffin was empty. The woman standing beside it knew why.
For one terrible moment, Viktor could hear nothing but the scrape of wood as Bram lifted the lid. Lantern light slipped across the cream-colored lining. A dark cloak lay rolled where his son’s body should have been.
“Empty?”
The word barely left his mouth. Yesterday, he had stood beside this coffin and said goodbye to Adrian. Now there was nothing inside it to bury.
He turned toward the doorway.
“You sealed the coffin!”
Konrad did not step forward. The steward’s jaw tightened, but his eyes moved past Viktor toward the two women beside the stone plinth.
He raised his hand and pointed at Mara.
“She was here at night.”
Elin looked at her sister. She already knew Adrian was alive. What she did not know was how deeply Mara was involved.
Mara met Viktor’s eyes, then turned to Elin.
“Yes. I hid him.”
The question she would not answer
Viktor took a step toward her. “Where?”
Mara glanced toward the doorway. Konrad lowered his hand.
“I will take you to him,” she said. “But not with everyone in this room.”
“My lord,” Konrad interrupted, “she has admitted interfering with your son’s burial. You cannot seriously trust—”
“There was no burial,” Viktor said. “There was an empty box.”
The steward fell silent.
Viktor turned to Bram. “Stay here with Konrad.”
The guard moved to the doorway. He did not draw his sword. He did not need to. Konrad looked at the space Bram now occupied, then back at Viktor.
“You are making a mistake.”
Viktor looked once more into the coffin. “I have already made one.”
The road beyond the chapel
Mara led him out through the chapel’s side passage. Elin followed close enough to catch her sister’s sleeve.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“I stood beside you while he mourned.”
Mara stopped. For the first time, her composure faltered. “And if I had brought Adrian back before I knew who wanted him dead, we might have buried him for real.”
Viktor had heard every word.
“Who wanted him dead?”
“Let him tell you.”
They left the castle by a narrow service path and followed the old monastery wall. The afternoon light was fading. Nobody spoke again until Mara stopped at a weather-beaten storehouse tucked behind the abandoned buildings.
She knocked softly, waited, then knocked once more.
A board shifted behind the door.
The voice of a dead man
The young man inside wore an ivory linen shirt beneath a dark blue coat. He looked exhausted. There was dust on his boots, and his hand trembled against the doorframe.
Viktor stopped breathing.
“Father.”
He knew that voice. No rumor, no trick, no empty coffin could have prepared him to hear it again.
He reached for Adrian’s shoulders, then held him as though the slightest distance might take him away a second time.
When Viktor finally stepped back, relief had given way to a question that hurt almost as much as the funeral.
“Why did you let me mourn you?”
Adrian looked at Mara. She closed the door behind them.
“Because I didn’t know who I could trust.”
“You could have trusted me.”
“Konrad was always beside you.”
Viktor’s expression changed.
Adrian steadied himself against a table. “He set the granary on fire while I was still inside.”
Elin stared at him. Viktor’s hands slowly curled into fists.
“Why?”
“I found the ledger. The taxes he collected. The money that never reached you.”
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then iron scraped against wood on the other side of the door.
Mara spun around. She caught the handle and pulled.
The door did not open.
Someone had slid the bolt into place from outside.
Adrian was alive. And someone had followed them.
To be continued in Part 3.
Read Part 1: Your Son Is Alive — Then Who Did I Bury?