Chapter 6 - The Woman in the Grave
Marta could not move.
The woman was older.
Of course she was older.
Silver threaded her brown hair. A scar crossed one side of her neck. Her face was thinner than the portrait in the hidden room.
But it was her.
Anna.
Alive.
Marta’s mother stared back.
The world narrowed to two people.
“Marta.”
Her knees nearly failed.
Silas caught her.
“No.”
Marta heard herself say it.
“No.”
Anna began crying.
“My baby.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The words came out sharper than Marta intended.
Anna stopped.
“You’re dead.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
Anna’s face collapsed.
“I know.”
“I talked to your grave.”
“Marta—”
“For nineteen years!”
Konrad stood near the far wall, one hand bound.
Two armed men guarded him.
Not his men.
Provincial officers.
Elias entered behind Marta and stopped in shock.
“Anna?”
Anna looked at him.
“Hello, Elias.”
Silas’s face was unreadable.
“You lived.”
Anna’s eyes went to him.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked as though she had struck him.
Marta pulled away.
“No one says sorry until someone explains.”
Anna nodded.
“You’re right.”
The chamber contained old supplies, blankets, documents.
Anna had clearly been here more than a day.
Konrad laughed from the wall.
“Go on, Anna. Tell your daughter what a heroic mother you were.”
Silas stepped toward him.
Marta stopped him.
“No.”
She stared at Konrad.
“He doesn’t get to control the story anymore.”
Konrad smiled.
“We’ll see.”
Anna sat.
Marta remained standing.
Twenty-four years of questions would not fit comfortably into any room.
Anna began.
“The night at the bridge, Konrad pushed me.”
Jakob’s testimony was true.
“I fell into the river.”
Marta’s hand tightened around the edge of a table.
“The current carried me beneath the ice. Everyone assumed I died.”
“But you survived.”
“A shepherd found me miles downstream.”
“Why didn’t you come back?”
Anna closed her eyes.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Three months later.”
Marta recoiled.
“I was here.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
“Because Konrad’s father had learned I survived.”
Anna looked at Konrad.
“He sent men after me.”
Konrad said nothing.
“They found the shepherd who helped me. They killed him.”
Silas swore softly.
Anna continued.
“I realized if I returned openly, they would kill you too.”
“So you abandoned me.”
“Marta.”
“You did.”
Anna cried silently.
“I thought Elise had taken you south.”
Elise had believed Anna dead.
Anna believed Marta gone.
Every lie protected another lie.
“When did you learn I was still here?”
“Six years ago.”
Marta stared.
“Six?”
“Yes.”
“And you still stayed away.”
Anna’s face twisted with shame.
“I watched you.”
Marta laughed bitterly.
“You too?”
Silas looked down.
Apparently mountains around Falkenwald had been full of people secretly watching her suffer.
“I was gathering proof,” Anna said.
“You couldn’t say hello while gathering proof?”
“I was afraid.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“I know.”
Marta’s eyes burned.
“Do you know what being alone in this village was like?”
“Yes.”
“No. You don’t.”
She pointed toward her bruised knees.
“They tied me to a chair this morning.”
Anna covered her mouth.
“They called me filthy. Stupid. Fatherless. Pig.”
“Marta…”
“And my mother was alive.”
The sentence broke something inside her.
Tears came.
Not graceful tears.
Years.
Anna stood.
Marta backed away.
“Don’t.”
Anna stopped immediately.
Silas remained silent.
That was what Marta needed.
No rescue.
No explanation.
Space for anger.
Eventually Marta wiped her face.
“Why are you here now?”
Anna looked toward Konrad.
“Because he found me.”
“How?”
“I intercepted a message Tomas sent after he returned to Falkenwald.”
“The man who killed Lukas?”
Anna nodded.
“I knew Konrad was preparing something. I came back to stop him.”
“You knew Father died?”
“Yes.”
Marta closed her eyes.
“Did you ever see him again?”
Anna cried.
“Once.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
A year before his death.
Marta looked at her.
“He knew you were alive?”
“Yes.”
“But not me?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
Anna looked toward the floor.
“Because I still believed you were somewhere safe under another identity. I didn’t know where.”
Marta stared at her.
“You two found each other and still never found me.”
Anna’s silence was answer enough.
Konrad laughed.
“Remarkable family.”
Silas hit him.
One punch.
Hard.
Konrad collapsed.
Marta didn’t stop him this time.
Elias pulled Silas back.
“That’s enough.”
Silas breathed heavily.
“No. It isn’t.”
Anna looked at him.
“You came back.”
“Too late.”
“So did I.”
Their eyes met.
Twenty years of regret passed between them.
Marta looked away.
She wasn’t ready to carry theirs too.
“What proof did you gather?” she asked.
Anna opened a chest.
Inside were account books, letters, official seals.
“The original trust charter.”
Elias picked it up.
“This alone could convict the entire Weiss administration.”
“There’s more.”
Anna produced a signed statement.
Marta read.
Konrad’s father had confessed shortly before his death.
Fraud.
The false report of Lukas’s death.
The attack on Anna.
The archive fire.
Everything.
“Why didn’t you take this to a court?”
“I tried.”
Anna’s expression darkened.
“The first magistrate I contacted worked for Weiss.”
Adrian nodded.
“Lukas discovered the same network.”
Konrad smiled weakly.
“You think removing me fixes anything?”
Marta looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He said nothing.
Anna went pale.
Silas noticed.
“You know.”
Anna grabbed another document.
“There are names.”
Elias read them.
Merchants.
Judges.
Land agents.
Officials across three provinces.
Falkenwald was one piece of a larger fraud scheme.
Konrad suddenly lunged.
He had loosened one rope.
Before anyone reacted, he grabbed a lantern and threw it into the documents.
Flames erupted.
“No!”
Marta rushed forward.
Silas knocked burning papers aside.
Anna grabbed the trust charter.
Elias seized Konrad.
Smoke filled the chamber.
A beam overhead caught fire.
“We need to leave!”
They gathered as many documents as possible.
Konrad fought.
“You’ll lose everything!”
Marta picked up the confession.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“You already did.”
They ran for the corridor.
Then an explosion shook the ruin.
Snow thundered above.
Silas looked upward.
“Avalanche!”
They raced.
The entrance collapsed ahead.
Stone and snow crashed down.
Darkness.
When Marta opened her eyes, dust filled the air.
She heard coughing.
“Silas?”
“Here.”
“Mother?”
“I’m here.”
Elias called from farther away.
Konrad cursed.
Everyone alive.
But trapped.
Silas examined the blocked passage.
“We’re not digging through that.”
Brother Matthias remembered the old map.
“There may be a second exit.”
“Where?”
“Lower chamber.”
They descended deeper.
The monastery had catacombs beneath it.
At the bottom they found an iron gate.
Anna stared.
“I’ve never been past this.”
Marta noticed the falcon emblem.
Four circles.
Four founding houses.
She touched her scar unconsciously.
“Maybe this was meant for them.”
Silas pushed the gate.
Locked.
Konrad laughed.
“You’ll freeze down here.”
Marta searched the lock.
Not a keyhole.
Four rotating metal discs.
Symbols.
Brother Matthias examined them.
“A family cipher.”
Elias looked at the saved ledger.
“Maybe the order is written there.”
Smoke began creeping downward.
They had minutes.
Marta flipped through pages.
Falcon.
Stag.
Wolf.
Oak.
The four founding families.
Beside each was a number.
She turned the discs.
Stag.
Oak.
Falcon.
Wolf.
Click.
The gate opened.
Cold air rushed in.
A passage led downward.
They followed.
At the end, moonlight appeared.
They emerged through a cave on the other side of the ridge.
Everyone collapsed into snow.
Alive.
Marta laughed and cried at once.
Anna sat near her.
Neither spoke.
Not yet.
Then riders appeared below.
Elias stood.
“Officers?”
Silas squinted.
“No.”
There were too many.
At least twenty.
Armed.
Leading them was a man in a dark green uniform.
Adrian’s face changed.
“I know him.”
“Who?”
“The provincial magistrate Lukas contacted before he died.”
Marta felt hope.
Then Adrian finished.
“The one Anna said worked for Weiss.”
The riders surrounded them.
The magistrate dismounted.
He smiled at Konrad.
“Mr. Weiss.”
Konrad slowly began smiling too.
The magistrate pointed his pistol at Marta.
May you like
“Hand me the documents.”
And behind him, every rifle rose at once.
