Chapter 3 - The Ledger of Blood
The darkness in the vault was absolute, pressing against Lucy’s eyelids like a physical weight. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“Who’s there?” she whispered, her voice trembling in the damp, stagnant air.
A low, dry chuckle scraped against the stone walls. “Who do you think, child? I am the floor you walk on, the mortar that holds your misery together. I am the castle.”
A sudden spark flared on the massive stone desk in the center of the room. A single, thick candle ignited by itself, casting a flickering, jaundiced light across the chamber. Lucy blinked against the sudden brightness, backing away until her spine hit the cold iron door behind her.
The stone statue of the first king—King Alistair the Great—was no longer inanimate. Its heavy stone head turned slowly, the grinding sound of rock on rock echoing like thunder. Its stony eyes locked onto Lucy.
“You hear them, don't you?” the statue spoke, its voice deep, resonant, and smelling of centuries of dust and dried blood. “The objects. The walls. The crown.”
Lucy swallowed hard, her throat dry as sand. She didn't dare lie. In this place, truth was the only currency that mattered. “I hear them,” she whispered.
“And you think you are special,” the statue rumbled, a bitter edge sharpening its rocky tone. “A unique little creature gifted with a divine sight. But you are wrong. You are merely the latest in a long, miserable line of cleaners who heard too much and vanished into the foundations.”
The stone king raised a massive, heavy hand and pointed a finger toward the open ledger on the desk.
“Step closer, scullery girl. Read what your precious Prince William walked into this morning.”
Drawn by a terrifying, irresistible compulsion, Lucy peeled herself away from the door and walked toward the stone desk. The pages of the ledger were enormous, covered in sprawling, faded ink written in dozens of different hands.
She looked down at the most recent entry, dated today.
King William VII. Crowned this day. Soul bound to the Vault. Term of contract: Three years, or until the Chancellor requires a fresh vessel.
Lucy gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. “A contract? The crown isn't a symbol of power... it’s a leash.”
“It is a prison,” the stone king corrected harshly. “Oakhaven was never ruled by kings. Kings are puppets put on display to trick the peasants into bowing. The true ruler of this kingdom is the Chancellor—and the immortal entity housed within the vault beneath the throne. Every king who ever sat on that seat was drained of his life force to keep the Chancellor young, immortal, and in power.”
Lucy stared at the page, her mind racing back to the young prince’s pale, exhausted face. “Six kings,” she whispered, remembering what the crown had told her. “The crown said it watched six kings die.”
“And William will be the seventh,” the stone king said coldly. “Unless he is broken within the month. The Chancellor is already preparing the ritual of transference. When a king’s vitality begins to fade under the weight of the crown’s spikes, the Chancellor harvests the remainder to extend his own wretched existence.”
“We have to stop him,” Lucy said fiercely, slamming her small hand down onto the wooden desk.
The stone king let out a sound like grinding boulders—a laugh of pure disbelief. “Stop him? You? A twelve-year-old orphan who scrubs grease off plates? How? The guards would cut you down before you reached the third landing. The Chancellor holds the keys to the kingdom’s soul.”
“Not all the keys,” Lucy said, her eyes dropping to the open metal box beside the stone statue.
Resting inside were three heavy, intricately carved iron keys glowing with that same faint, haunting blue light.
Before the statue could react, Lucy lunged forward, sweeping her arm across the desk and grabbing the keys from the box.
The moment her fingers closed around the cold iron, a blinding flash of white light erupted from the floorboards. The entire vault began to shake violently, dust raining down from the high vaulted ceiling as a piercing, unearthly screech echoed through the catacombs.
“THIEF!” the stone king roared, slamming his massive fist onto the desk, shattering the stone into a thousand pieces. “PUT THE KEYS BACK OR BE BURIED IN THE STONE FOREVER!”
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Lucy didn't look back. She sprinted toward the heavy iron door, clutching the glowing keys tightly to her chest. As she reached it, the door swung open on its own, propelled by a violent gust of wind rushing up from the depths of the tunnels.
She plunged headfirst into the darkness just as the stone ceiling of the archive began to collapse behind her.
