The revelation of the hidden archive gnawed at me. Father Alaric's droning lessons on Montala's divine benevolence now felt even more farcical, merely a cacophony of white noise against the tantalizing hum of forbidden knowledge just beyond my reach. The scroll mentioning "The Prince's Debt" was a beacon, a thread leading into the true, venal heart of the Church's power. I needed to get back there.
My opportunities were scarce and fraught with peril. Valerius's watchful presence seemed to intensify, his cold gaze frequently sweeping through the temple hall, a predator assessing its territory. Even Father Alaric, though outwardly pleased with my apparent progress in rote memorization, had begun to introduce more subtle tests, questions designed to gauge comprehension beyond simple recitation. "Elias," he would ask, his voice deceptively gentle, "tell me why the Corrupted One sought to sow discord, and how the Lord Montala crushed his lies." I would offer a child's simple, earnest answer, carefully phrased to reflect understanding without revealing analytical depth. It was a tightrope walk.
My chance came during a long, unusually tedious purification ceremony involving incense and chanting that rendered Father Alaric utterly absorbed. The heavy, sweet smoke billowed, obscuring vision just enough. Slipping away became an exercise in controlled breathing and silent footwork. The dusty corridor was just as I remembered, the air cooler, heavier. The wooden door, stubbornly resistant last time, yielded with a soft creak as I applied my newfound leverage.
Inside, the dim light filtering through a high, grimy window barely illuminated the towering shelves. The scent of aged paper and forgotten secrets filled my nostrils. I moved with a focused urgency, my small fingers tracing the spines, searching for the "Prince's Debt" scroll. It was exactly where I'd left it.
Pulling it out proved challenging; the scroll was brittle and fragile. I had to brace it against my chest, slowly unrolling a small section. The script was ancient Montalan, dense and arcane, but my mind, accustomed to dissecting complex systems, began to parse it. It wasn't a direct loan ledger, but rather a series of convoluted agreements and land deeds, detailing how parcels of fertile land and mining rights had been "gifted" to the Church by various princes throughout history in exchange for "divine blessings" during times of famine, war, or political instability. It described a gradual, systematic acquisition of the kingdom's true wealth under the guise of piety. The current Duke's family, the Prince, all were beholden to the Church not just spiritually, but economically. This was a blueprint of their leverage.
A faint clatter from the main temple hall sent a jolt through me. Time was running out. I couldn't copy the text, but I could memorize key phrases, dates, and the names of the specific land tracts mentioned. My mind became a meticulous recording device, etching every detail into my long-term memory. This wasn't merely hypocrisy; it was systemic predation.
I carefully re-rolled the scroll, pushing it back into its hidden recess just as a voice, not Alaric's but another, deeper priestly voice, echoed from the corridor outside the archive door. "Is anyone in here? I thought I heard something."
My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I froze, blending into the shadows cast by a teetering stack of scrolls. The footsteps paused outside the door. A moment of agonizing silence stretched. Then, a low grumble. "Must be the dust settling." The footsteps receded.
I waited, unmoving, until I was certain the priest was gone. Then, I quickly and silently made my way back, rejoining the main ceremony as if I had merely been momentarily distracted by a bird outside. Alaric barely noticed my return, still lost in his chants.
Later, Seraphina brought me a children's book with illustrations of the kingdom's history, focusing on the benevolent rule of the Duke's ancestors. As she read, I silently cross-referenced the names of regions in the book with the land tracts I'd seen in the archive. The "fertile plains of Eldoria," described as a Duke's ancestral gift to the people in the book, were clearly listed as "granted in perpetuity to the Lord Montala's Temple" in the hidden scroll. The blatant manipulation of history for religious narrative was chilling.
The knowledge I now possessed was a potent, dangerous weapon. The Church, I realized, was not merely exploiting faith; it was slowly suffocating the kingdom, binding the Prince and Duke with chains forged from land deeds and false blessings. My task was clearer than ever: to find the weak link in these chains, to expose the truth, and to introduce the pure light of the Bible into this world shrouded in engineered darkness. The blueprint for their undoing was now forming in my mind.