The door leading down into the Temple's underground level stood behind the main sanctuary.
Three old padlocks hung from the black iron door hidden between white marble walls.
Rowan looked at the locks and muttered,
"Is that a place to lock up sins, or a place to lock up money?"
Mira answered,
"If it is an offering chamber, both."
"The nobles put in gold coins, saying they are offering them to the gods, and merchants put in chests in the gods' name. There are fewer taxes and fewer questions."
Rowan thought for a moment.
"How sacred."
"Very. The less that is written in the ledger, the more so."
Matthias Ron pretended not to hear them.
"The Underground Offering Chamber is a place outsiders are forbidden from entering."
Kael held up the receipt of request.
"My name is already in your ledger."
"That is different from authorization to enter."
"Different."
Kael nodded.
"There are two kinds of people whose names go into a ledger. Those who will pay money, or those who will receive money."
"I came to find out which one I am."
Matthias's hand stiffened inside his sleeve.
The two junior priests wanted to stop Kael, but they were watching Matthias for his cue.
Documents were slower than swords. But if driven in properly, they made people unable to move.
"If you will not open it, write this down instead."
Kael spoke.
"The original Eastern Relief 7-B arrived at the Underground Offering Chamber, but the Temple refused inspection."
Matthias said in a low voice,
"Young Master, you lower the Temple's sacred space to the level of documents far too easily."
"If it is a sacred space, it should be cleaner. If a ledger is hidden in a clean place, then it is the ledger that is filthy."
Matthias looked at Kael for a long time.
There was no anger on his face. There was calculation instead.
At last, Matthias took out the keys.
Click. The first padlock opened.
Click. The second.
Click. The third.
The iron door swung open heavily.
Cold air rose from inside.
It was not the scent of incense. The smells of wet stone, old paper, and faint medicine mingled together.
Mira wrinkled her nose.
"We came to look at a ledger of food costs, but it smells of medicine."
Matthias turned back.
"The offering chamber also stores items used in healing rituals."
"It is the perfect scent for slipping medical costs into a ledger of food costs."
Kael descended the stairs.
The Underground Offering Chamber was more spacious than he had expected.
Small niches lined every wall, each holding wooden plaques and old chests.
A silver goblet for a sick heir. Gold coins offered in the name of a son who had never returned. Boxes of medicinal herbs meant for healing rituals.
But Kael saw other things as well.
[Tax Reduction Processing]
[Inheritance Dispute Avoidance]
[Source Verification Omitted]
Prayers were not always pure. That did not mean all of them were lies, either. But when money clung to desperation, someone changed its direction.
A gray storage chest sat atop the large stone table in the center.
Kael knew the instant he saw it.
This was it.
[Original Storage Chest]
[Target: Eastern Relief 7-B]
[Transfer Route: Temple Records Room -> Apothecary Hidden Passage -> Underground Offering Chamber]
[Receipt Confirmation: Incomplete]
Kael smiled slowly.
"Quite the journey you have had."
Matthias said,
"It was a seal inspection procedure."
"Does seal inspection normally pass through a hidden passage?"
Matthias did not answer.
Those who did not answer were usually one of two kinds. Those who did not know, and those who knew far too well.
A thin silver seal was affixed to the storage chest.
The seal was undamaged. On the surface.
But there were extremely slight indentations around the edge of the seal.
Someone had tried to open the chest without breaking the seal.
[Seal Bypass Attempt]
[Failed]
[No Change in Internal Document Location]
Fortunately.
The ledger was still inside.
Matthias inserted the key.
"Inspection is limited to entries related to Riorden."
The storage chest opened.
Inside lay a single thick ledger.
A gray cover.
Edges worn black.
Eastern Relief 7-B.
The original.
Kael opened the ledger.
The lines that had been neatly arranged in the comparison copy were messier in the original.
The pressure of the handwriting. Scraped marks. Numbers inserted by another hand.
To ordinary eyes, it was an old record.
To Kael, it was the order of a crime.
[Original Claim Target: Four Eastern Territories]
[Actual Payers: Belka Supply Trading Company and Three Other Trading Companies]
[Payment Records Deleted]
[Guarantor: Imperial Eastern Military Supply Office]
[Collateral Treatment: Temporary Vesting of Rights in Riorden's Name]
Mira's eyes sharpened.
"Wait."
She leaned over the ledger.
"Belka?"
Kael looked at her.
"Is it a name you know?"
The smile vanished from Mira's lips.
"That is my family's name."
Rowan fell silent.
The air in the Underground Offering Chamber grew colder.
Belka Supply Trading Company. It had once been a name heard often in the eastern markets.
Even as the war dragged on, it was the first to stock medicines and dried rations, and it did not cut off supplies even when the quartermaster corps paid late. Then one day, it disappeared from the ledger.
Mira had never spoken of that matter as a joke.
Kael looked at her hand. The fingertips clutching her pen had turned white.
"Mira."
Mira did not answer immediately.
Only after a moment did she force a smile.
"When merchants see their family's name in a ledger, they look at the price first."
It sounded like a joke, but its ending cracked a little.
Kael did not ask further. What she needed now was not comfort, but confirmation.
Mira glared at the lines in the ledger.
"So what this ledger is saying is..."
"The Temple slipped medical costs into the relief ledger, erased the money the trading companies paid, and then bound the bill to Riorden's name."
"That is roughly right."
"Roughly?"
"It is worse than that."
Kael pointed to the next lines.
[Partial Diversion of Relief Supplies]
[Transfer Target: Temple Healing Account]
[Alternative Billing Candidate: Riorden Collateral Rights]
"Some of the supplies and money the trading companies paid went into the Temple Healing Account. The price was erased, and the remaining burden was bound to Riorden's rights."
Rowan frowned.
"In simple terms?"
Mira said coldly,
"Someone else paid for the food, the Temple used it for medicine, and the bill was put on Riorden's table."
"Ah."
Rowan nodded.
"I understand. That feels unpleasant."
"That is an accurate understanding."
Kael looked at Matthias.
"Is this the Temple's support?"
Matthias's face was pale.
"It is an old record."
"Being old does not make it an absolution."
"The east was in turmoil at the time. Relief, healing, and military supplies were all moving at once."
"Mixed records are not erased this cleanly."
Kael pointed to the scraped lines.
"This is not a mistake. Someone redirected it."
"Redirected what?"
"The direction of billing."
Kael turned the pages. The nearer he came to the end, the smaller the handwriting grew.
And beneath that tiny writing, a very faint seal had been stamped.
To ordinary eyes, it was a stain.
But not to Kael.
[Accounting Review Seal]
[Affiliation: House Seradin Accounting Office]
[Reviewer: Proxy Signature of Viktor Seradin]
Viktor Seradin.
At last, the name came into focus.
Viktor Seradin was always at the edge of the ledger. He never signed it, yet he was the man who set the value of every signature.
This time was different. Riorden had not yet fallen, and the ledger had not yet been burned.
"Matthias."
Kael's voice lowered.
"This ledger is not evidence of Riorden's debt."
Matthias did not answer.
"It is evidence of rights that were bound in Riorden's stead."
"That is the Young Master's interpretation."
"No."
Kael placed a hand on the ledger.
"This is a matter of billing direction."
He looked at Mira.
"Belka Supply Trading Company paid money."
Mira slowly nodded.
"That is what the records show."
"The four eastern territories received relief, and the Military Supply Office stood as guarantor."
Kael pressed one line of the ledger with his finger.
"And in the middle of it, Riorden's rights were bound as collateral."
Mira said in a low voice,
"So Riorden did not borrow money..."
"Riorden's name was used as the knot in the debt."
Kael did not close the ledger.
"A knot can be undone."
For the first time, Matthias spoke with a wavering voice.
"What do you intend to demand?"
"First. An original ledger inspection confirmation for Eastern Relief 7-B."
"That is possible."
"Second. Confirmation of the traces of deleted payer entries and of the presence of the Seradin accounting seal."
"That is impossible."
"Then a confirmation of impossibility."
Mira laughed quietly.
"I am beginning to get used to that phrase."
Rowan said,
"That is frightening."
Kael held up a third finger.
"Third. Confirmation of the temporary vesting status of Riorden's collateral rights."
"The Temple cannot confirm that on its own."
"It is written in the Temple's ledger."
"A cross-check by the Imperial Eastern Military Supply Office is required."
"Fine. Then draft a request for a cross-check in the Temple's name."
Matthias stopped.
Only then did he seem to realize what he had said.
The Imperial Eastern Military Supply Office. Once that name appeared in a document, this matter would no longer be an old record within the Temple.
"Young Master. This matter can be handled quietly."
Kael looked at him.
"Quietly?"
"The Temple is willing to correct an old error. So that Riorden will not suffer any harm..."
"Harm."
Kael cut him off.
"It already has."
The Underground Offering Chamber fell silent.
In his past life, Riorden had fallen between lines like these.
"Quiet debts are expensive."
Kael said,
"If you want to handle it without being discovered, you have to pay more than you would after being caught."
Mira narrowed her eyes.
"Merchants will like that saying."
"Sell it if you need to."
"What about royalties?"
"Take them out of my debt."
"I do not like that."
Rowan said seriously,
"Please do not take them out of my wages either."
Kael opened the ledger again.
"Matthias. Choose right here, right now."
"Choose what?"
"Will the Temple remain an accomplice in ledger manipulation, or will it remain a witness that stored the ledger?"
Matthias's gaze moved between the ledger and Kael.
Then footsteps sounded from the top of the underground stairs.
They descended slowly. They were neither the light steps of a junior priest nor the tread of military boots. They were expensive leather shoes.
Mira quieted her breathing.
Rowan's hand touched the hilt of his sword.
The last color drained from Matthias's face.
Kael's finger rested on the faint seal at one edge of the ledger.
The footsteps stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
An unfamiliar man's voice spoke.
"That ledger is an old relief record."
Kael slowly turned his head.
A black coat.
Silver buttons.
And gloves bearing the small emblem of House Seradin.
The man was smiling.
"It is a ledger a little too complicated for a young master to handle."
Kael closed the ledger.
Thump.
The sound of old paper echoed through the Underground Offering Chamber.
"I like complicated ledgers."
He looked at the man's gloves.
The emblem of House Seradin.
The shadow that had remained at the end of the Empire's final ledger in his past life.
This time, he had appeared too early.
No.
Kael smiled.
This time, he had appeared at exactly the right moment.
"They make for a satisfying read."