Chapter 5 - The Man With the Falcon Ring
The stranger looked to be in his early forties.
Too young to be Marta’s father.
Too well dressed to be a villager.
His dark coat carried road dust beneath fresh snow.
He kept both hands visible.
Silas, still on the ground, reached toward his knife.
The stranger noticed.
“I’d prefer not to be stabbed before introducing myself.”
Marta stared at the ring.
“Who are you?”
“Adrian Keller.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“It shouldn’t.”
He looked at the letter in her hand.
“Lukas Falken was my employer.”
Marta’s pulse quickened.
“You knew my father?”
“For eleven years.”
“Where?”
“Vienna.”
Silas forced himself to sit upright.
“You followed Konrad here?”
Adrian shook his head.
“I followed Marta.”
She stiffened.
“Why?”
“Because Lukas asked me to.”
“He’s dead.”
“I know.”
Adrian reached slowly into his coat.
Silas raised the knife.
“Careful.”
Adrian produced a small sealed packet.
“No weapon.”
He gave it to Marta.
Her name was written on it.
Again.
More words from a dead parent hidden by living men.
She broke the seal.
Inside was a legal certificate and a short note.
Marta,
If Adrian has found you, then I am probably gone.
I spent most of my life believing you died as an infant.
Seven years ago, a traveling merchant from Falkenwald told me about a young woman named Marta Novak who looked exactly like Anna.
I began asking questions.
Someone tried to kill me three days later.
Marta stopped.
Her hands tightened.
Adrian watched her carefully.
She continued.
I survived long enough to learn the truth.
Konrad Weiss had intercepted every letter Anna and I sent after your birth.
If I failed to reach you, Adrian knows where I placed the documents proving your identity.
Do not seek revenge for me.
Seek the truth.
And when you find it, do something better with it than the men who stole it from us.
Your father, Lukas.
Marta folded the letter slowly.
“How did he die?”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“Poison.”
Silas looked toward the forest where Konrad had fled.
“Ordered by Weiss?”
“I couldn’t prove it.”
“Can you now?”
“Possibly.”
Adrian pointed toward the ledger.
“Lukas spent years tracing Weiss money through merchants and banks. He discovered payments made to a man who visited him three days before his death.”
“Name?”
Adrian looked at Marta.
“Tomas Keller.”
The missing guard.
The same man who had helped search Marta’s house.
Marta felt sick.
“He poisoned my father, then came back here.”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“No idea.”
Silas spoke.
“Konrad sent him away yesterday.”
Marta understood.
“To silence him.”
Adrian nodded.
“Or hide him.”
Regional officers carried Silas to the church infirmary.
The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his shoulder.
Painful.
Bloody.
But survivable.
Marta refused to leave until the wound was stitched.
Silas sat on a table while Brother Matthias worked.
“You can stop staring,” he told her.
“I’m deciding whether to thank you or hit you.”
“Wait until the stitches are done.”
“Why?”
“Less work for Matthias.”
The priest sighed.
“I preferred you when you lived on the mountain.”
For the first time in days, Marta laughed.
It surprised everyone.
Including herself.
Later that evening, the village council hall filled.
Konrad had escaped.
But his power had not escaped with him.
The ledger was read publicly.
Families discovered that for decades, excessive “rent” collected by the Weiss administration had never gone into the valley trust.
It went into private accounts.
Marta watched emotions spread across faces.
Shock.
Anger.
Shame.
Some of the same people who mocked her that morning now avoided her eyes.
Otto the baker approached first.
“Marta.”
She waited.
He looked miserable.
“I laughed.”
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“No.”
His face fell.
Marta continued.
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
She did not rescue him from his guilt.
He nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Then be different tomorrow.”
The words surprised her.
Perhaps that was what her father meant.
Do something better with the truth.
One by one, others apologized.
Some sincerely.
Some because the tide had turned.
Marta could tell the difference.
She accepted neither too quickly nor too cruelly.
Near midnight, Elias joined her outside the hall.
“You carry authority naturally.”
Marta snorted.
“I was tied to a chair twelve hours ago.”
“Authority has little to do with chairs.”
She looked toward the mountain road.
“Will Konrad come back?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“He spent his life believing Falkenwald belonged to him. Men like that rarely walk away.”
Marta looked at her scar.
“What happens to the trust now?”
“If your identity is confirmed, legally you become its senior trustee.”
“I don’t want to own everyone.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Konrad did.”
“That’s because he misunderstood stewardship as ownership.”
Marta thought about villagers who had humiliated her.
Could she protect people who had enjoyed her suffering?
She didn’t know.
Elias seemed to read her expression.
“You don’t need to decide tonight.”
A boy ran toward them.
“Captain!”
Elias turned.
“What?”
“One of the magistrates found a horse near the eastern road.”
“Konrad?”
“No.”
The boy swallowed.
“Tomas Keller.”
Marta stepped forward.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The grain warehouse.”
They hurried there.
Tomas sat beneath guard.
He looked exhausted.
Fearful.
When he saw Marta, he began crying.
“I didn’t know who you were.”
She stared at him.
“You helped plant stolen coins in my room.”
“Konrad paid me.”
“And my father?”
Tomas lowered his head.
Adrian entered behind her.
Tomas saw him and flinched.
Adrian’s voice went cold.
“You remember me.”
Tomas nodded.
“You poisoned Lukas Falken.”
“Yes.”
Marta’s stomach twisted.
The confession came too easily.
“Why?”
“Money.”
“Who ordered it?”
Tomas looked toward the door.
“Konrad.”
“Say it clearly.”
“Konrad Weiss ordered Lukas Falken killed.”
Silence.
There it was.
A crime spanning countries.
Years.
Parents.
Marta wanted to hate Tomas.
Perhaps she did.
But he looked less like a monster than a weak man who had sold pieces of his soul until none remained.
“Where is Konrad?”
Tomas hesitated.
Elias stepped closer.
“Answer.”
“He has a hunting lodge north of the glacier road.”
Silas’s voice came from the doorway.
“Not anymore.”
Everyone turned.
His arm was in a sling.
Marta glared.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“Terrible habit.”
He held up a folded map.
“Konrad sold the lodge last winter.”
Tomas looked confused.
“Then he lied to me.”
Marta studied him.
“What did he tell you?”
“That if things went wrong, we’d meet there.”
Silas looked at Elias.
“A trap.”
Adrian examined the map.
“Then where would he go?”
Marta suddenly remembered something.
Her mother’s hidden room.
The cradle.
The second matching shawl.
And a sentence from Anna’s letter.
If I failed to get you away from Falkenwald.
“A way out,” Marta whispered.
Silas looked at her.
“What?”
“My mother had a tunnel from the house to the mill.”
“Yes.”
“What if there are more?”
Brother Matthias, who had followed Silas, went pale.
“The old founders built escape passages during the border wars.”
“Where do they go?”
“Different places.”
“Show us.”
They returned to the church crypt.
Brother Matthias uncovered an old stone map carved into the wall.
Four tunnels spread beneath Falkenwald.
One went to the Novak house.
One to the mill.
One to the northern forest.
The fourth—
ended beneath a symbol.
Silas leaned closer.
“A house?”
Brother Matthias shook his head.
“The old monastery.”
Marta frowned.
“There’s no monastery.”
“There was.”
“Where?”
He pointed toward the high mountain ridge.
“It was buried in an avalanche forty years ago.”
Adrian stared.
“Buried completely?”
“Mostly.”
Silas understood.
“Which means underground chambers might still exist.”
Marta looked at the map.
A refuge no villager remembered.
Perfect for Konrad.
Elias ordered officers assembled.
They would leave at dawn.
Marta announced she was coming.
Three men objected.
She ignored all three.
Silas didn’t object.
He simply handed her a heavy winter cloak.
At sunrise they climbed.
The trail narrowed.
Snow deepened.
By midday they reached ruins protruding from the mountainside.
Broken stone.
Collapsed beams.
A half-buried arch.
Silas found tracks.
“Recent.”
They entered through a gap.
Inside, an underground corridor remained intact.
Lamps had been lit.
Konrad was here.
They followed.
At the end stood an iron door.
Voices sounded beyond it.
One was Konrad’s.
The other—
female.
Marta froze.
Konrad said, “You should have kept your promise.”
The woman answered.
“I kept it for twenty-four years.”
Marta looked at Silas.
She knew that voice.
Not from adulthood.
From somewhere much older.
A memory without a face.
A lullaby.
A hand brushing hair from her forehead.
Marta whispered, “No.”
Silas looked confused.
“What?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I know that voice.”
Before anyone could stop her, Marta pushed open the iron door.
May you like
The woman inside turned.
And Marta saw the face of the person whose grave she had visited since she was five years old.
