Chapter 3 - What His Mother Hid
By sunset, half of Greyhaven believed Eli Vale was a miracle.
The other half believed he should be burned.
Eli preferred the people who ignored him.
Unfortunately, those people no longer existed.
Rumors moved faster than horses.
The boy had summoned the dead.
The boy had cursed the square.
The boy was secretly the son of a king.
The boy wasn't human.
One particularly creative rumor claimed Eli had been born inside the Silent Stone.
"People are idiots," Mara said.
Eli sat in the room above her bakery.
"That's your comforting speech?"
"I brought cinnamon bread."
"Better."
Mara placed it beside him.
Commander Rook stood near the door.
Eli still didn't trust him.
But he trusted Vey less.
That was apparently enough to create an alliance.
The metal message from Anna had been hidden.
Rook had substituted another strip before council guards confiscated the contents of the compartment.
Vey knew.
He couldn't prove it.
"What did the rest say?" Eli asked.
Rook unfolded the original strip.
Anna's message continued beyond the sentence they had read publicly.
The Stone is not a weapon.
They will tell you it is.
They told us the same.
It is a lock.
Eli looked up.
"A lock for what?"
Rook continued.
Below Greyhaven lies the First Chamber. The Stone controls its seal.
The Keepers were never rulers. We were guardians.
Our duty was not to possess what lies below.
Our duty was to prevent anyone from possessing it.
Mara sat.
"What lies below?"
Rook reached the final lines.
If Vey finds the Heart before you understand its purpose, Greyhaven will belong to one man forever.
Trust Silas only if he finally tells you what happened that night.
Eli stared at Rook.
Mara slowly turned toward him.
"Well?"
Rook looked miserable.
Good, Eli thought.
"What night?"
Rook walked to the window.
"Your mother didn't enter the underground archive alone."
"I know. You helped her."
"No."
He turned.
"I went with her."
Seventeen years earlier, Rook had been a junior guard.
Anna Vale had been twenty-three.
She had discovered references to the Keepers while cataloging tax records.
Vey was already a councilman.
His father had been chancellor.
Anna believed the Vey family had spent generations searching for the Heart beneath Greyhaven.
She needed proof.
Rook loved her.
He said it without drama.
That made it worse.
"I loved your mother."
Eli felt strangely betrayed.
"Did she love you?"
"No."
Mara winced.
Rook almost laughed.
"Anna was very clear."
"What happened?"
"We entered the chamber."
They found records.
Names.
Maps.
Descriptions of the Covenant Engine.
Then Vey arrived.
"How?"
"Someone betrayed us."
"Who?"
"I didn't know."
"Didn't?"
Rook reached into his coat.
He placed a ring on the table.
Mara gasped.
The crest belonged to Greyhaven's archivist.
Jonas Pell.
A gentle old man who had given Eli books when he couldn't afford them.
"No."
"I found this inside the sealed records room this afternoon."
Eli shook his head.
"Jonas helped my mother."
"Apparently he helped Vey too."
Eli refused to believe it.
So he went to ask him.
Bad decision.
Jonas's archive shop was empty.
The door stood open.
Books covered the floor.
Someone had searched the place.
Eli entered.
"Jonas?"
Nothing.
Rook drew his sword.
They moved upstairs.
Jonas Pell sat in a chair.
Alive.
Barely.
Blood stained his shirt.
Eli ran to him.
"Who did this?"
Jonas opened his eyes.
"Eli?"
"Yes."
"You look like Anna."
Everyone kept saying that.
Today he hated it.
"Did you betray her?"
Jonas began crying.
That answered the question.
"I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"They had my daughter."
"What?"
"Vey's father. He threatened her."
"You told them where my mother was."
"Yes."
Rook looked away.
Jonas grabbed Eli's wrist.
"But Anna escaped."
Eli froze.
"What?"
"She escaped the chamber."
"She died."
"Years later."
Eli stared.
"Then what happened?"
Jonas struggled to breathe.
"She found the Heart."
Rook stepped closer.
"Where?"
"Not where Vey thinks."
Jonas smiled weakly at Eli.
"Anna hid it somewhere nobody powerful would ever look."
Eli understood first.
"My house."
"No."
Jonas shook his head.
"Closer."
Eli thought.
A poor woman.
A poor child.
Something nobody important would notice.
Then he remembered.
The artifact.
"No."
Jonas smiled.
"The key isn't a key."
The brass device had disappeared inside the monument.
"What is it?"
"A container."
Rook swore.
Jonas nodded.
"The Heart has been inside it for seventeen years."
Eli turned toward the square.
The artifact was now inside the awakened Stone.
Which meant the Heart was too.
A bell rang.
Not the cathedral.
The Stone.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Rook ran to the window.
Golden light erupted over Greyhaven.
Then the ground beneath the archive cracked.
A narrow staircase appeared where no staircase had existed.
Cold air rose from below.
Jonas whispered:
"It knows the Heart has returned."
Eli looked into the darkness.
Far beneath them, something answered the Stone.
Not with a bell.
May you like
With thousands of gears beginning to turn.
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