The Unseen Witness

The torchlight died in your hands first—a wet, spitting hiss as the brand hit the flooded flagstones. Then the dark came down like a door slamming shut, and you heard the nobleman’s body hit the ground a second time, a sound you’d never unhear.

You’d been cataloguing the old archive shelves in the lower vaults, chasing a mislabeled scroll about drainage systems, when the king had dragged him in through the rusted grate. You hadn’t meant to see. You hadn’t meant to be there at all.

Now the king’s boots were turning toward your alcove, the leather creaking with each slow step. The air smelled of wet stone and hot iron. You pressed your spine against the shelf, fingers brushing the cold edge of a bronze tablet, your heart slamming so hard you were certain he could hear it.

“I know you’re there,” King Alaric said, his voice soft as a blade drawn across silk. “Come out, little archivist, and I’ll make it painless.”

The words were a lie, and you both knew it. A few feet away, the grate of the old drainage tunnel gaped open—wide enough to squeeze through, if you were fast, if you didn’t mind the dark and the water and the unknown.