I Woke Up Married to the Cursed King

Chapter 30: Chapter 30: What’s in the Ground

Elian dealt with the nightmare entity first thing in the morning.

It was easier than he’d expected. Without the cover of the bigger spirits it had nowhere to hide, and without strength it had no real defense. He cleared it in twenty minutes with salt and intent and the specific chant his master had taught him for things that fed on sleeping minds.

It went without drama.

He stood in the corner where it had been and felt the room settle into itself a little more.

One more thing gone, he thought. Good.

* * *

But the dream hadn’t let him go.

People in a circle. Something at the center. The feeling of intention being built, aimed, buried.

Buried, he thought.

He kept coming back to that word.

He went to find an egg.

* * *

The maid in the kitchen looked at him with the expression people wore when the consort showed up somewhere unexpected and asked for something unusual.

"Just one," Elian said. "Uncooked."

She brought it.

He took it and walked.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for. The egg technique was old — his grandmother had used it, his master had used it, the principle was simple. An unbroken egg held in the palm was sensitive to disturbance in a way that most tools weren’t. Something buried with intent, something placed with working behind it, would make itself known.

He started with the outer grounds. The garden. The path along the eastern wall.

Nothing.

He moved inward. The courtyard. The space behind the kitchens.

Nothing.

He came around to the area behind the royal wing — the narrow stretch of ground between the palace wall and the outbuildings, the kind of space that existed in every large building and was used by nobody and maintained by the groundskeeping staff and otherwise forgotten.

The egg moved.

Not dramatically. A vibration. A subtle tremor against his palm, the way a tuning fork felt when you held it after striking it. He stopped walking.

Took two steps back.

The vibration stopped.

He took two steps forward.

It came back. Stronger.

Gotcha, he thought.

* * *

"What are you doing."

He looked up.

The divine being was standing at the edge of the path, watching him with its bright curious eyes. It had been spending more time outside the shrine lately. Elian had stopped commenting on this.

"Working," Elian said.

"With an egg."

"Yes." He looked at the ground under his feet. "Something’s buried here." freewebnσvel.cøm

The divine being came closer. Looked at the ground. Looked at Elian.

"I gave you this ground," Elian said pleasantly. "As part of the palace grounds. Which means you’re supposed to be protecting it." He looked at the divine being. "So why didn’t you tell me something was buried here?"

A pause.

"I’m weaker than you think," the divine being said. Not defensive. Just honest. "When people worship you, you have power. People worship me—" It gestured at itself. "A handful of maids leaving fruit. I’m closer to a vengeful spirit in terms of strength than I am to what I was." It paused. "I can feel things on the grounds. I can’t always act on them."

"Fair," Elian said. "Did you see who buried it?"

The divine being considered. "This area. The path between the wall and the outbuildings." It looked around. "Only staff come here. Maids, butlers, groundskeepers. Anyone else would be noticed."

Elian looked at the ground.

Staff, he thought. Someone with access to the back corridors and the service paths. Someone who could move through this part of the palace without anyone looking twice.

He handed the egg to the divine being, who took it with a slightly bewildered expression.

Then he crouched down and started digging.

He didn’t have a tool. He used his hands. The ground was packed but not deep — whatever was here had been placed for concealment, not permanence. Whoever had done it had wanted it findable if you knew where to look, because findable meant retrievable. Meant they could come back.

His fingers hit something at about a handspan’s depth.

He cleared the dirt carefully.

A small pot. Dark clay. Wrapped tightly in silk — deep red, close-woven, the kind of material chosen deliberately. He could feel the intent radiating off it even through the wrapping. Old. Specific. The working of someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

He sat back on his heels and looked at it.

I know what this is, he thought. I’ve read about these. I’ve never seen one in person because the people who made them where I came from kept them very hidden and very secret.

He looked at the silk wrapping. At the careful way the pot had been positioned in the ground — orientation mattered with these. The direction it faced, the depth, the material around it.

I always thought this was particular to my world, he thought. Specific to the traditions I grew up with.

He looked at it for a long moment.

But here it is. In a palace in Valdris. Buried by someone who has been walking these service paths and nobody has looked at them twice.

"Dark magic," the divine being said beside him. It was looking at the pot with an expression that suggested it knew exactly what it was looking at. "Old working. Very old."

"Yes," Elian said.

He didn’t touch it yet. Touching something like this without preparation was how you ended up with the working attached to you instead of its intended target.

He looked at the divine being.

"I need to know everything you can tell me about who comes through this path," he said. "Every face. Every routine. Anyone who deviated from their routine. Anyone who was here when they shouldn’t have been."

The divine being looked at him.

"That," it said, "might take some time."

"I know," Elian said.

He looked at the pot in the ground.

Someone in this palace buried this, he thought. Someone who knows these workings. Someone who has been here long enough to know which patch of ground nobody checks.

You’re not just watching from outside, he thought. You’ve been inside this whole time.

* * *

He went to find Riven.

Riven was in the outhouse. He’d taken over one corner of it with the specific efficiency of a man who had set up temporary workspaces in worse places than this.

He looked at the pot.

Looked at the silk wrapping.

Looked at Elian.

"You found it," he said.

"It was where the egg said it would be."

Riven crouched beside it without touching. He studied it the way Elian had — professionally, with the distance of someone who knew better than to get too close to something like this.

"Old," he said.

"Twenty years, we think."

"At least." He stood. "The silk is specific. Eastern tradition, but an old branch of it. Pre-standard." He looked at Elian. "Whoever buried this wasn’t using modern methods. They were using something older. More obscure."

"Which means they were trained somewhere specific."

"Or by someone specific." Riven looked at the pot. "This is skilled work. Not amateur. Not learned from a book." He paused. "Someone taught this person. Someone who knew this tradition in detail."

"The tutor," Elian said quietly.

Riven looked at him.

"Someone named Crane," Elian said. "Or something like Crane. Eastern. Was in the life of one of Veylan’s family members years ago."

Riven was quiet.

"That’s a thread worth pulling," he said.

"I know." Elian looked at the pot. "But first I need to deal with this."

"Yes," Riven agreed. "You do."

He stepped back and gave Elian room to work.

* * *

He went back to the corridor after.

The sending was in its usual place.

Elian looked at it for a long time.

You came from the ground somewhere in this palace, he thought. You’ve been here so long you’ve forgotten your own name. You just call yourself the one.

But someone knows who you were. Someone buried you. Someone has been coming back to feed you.

He thought about the pot he’d found. About the silk wrapping. About the specific tradition it had come from.

Eastern. Old. Pre-standard.

A tutor with a fake name. Eastern connections. In a child’s life for two years and then gone.

These things were connected.

He looked at the sending.

Find the body, Riven had said. Then it’s done.

But finding the body means knowing who the body was. And knowing who the body was means knowing who buried it. And knowing who buried it means knowing who’s been coming back.

He turned all of it over.

Someone with twenty years of patience, he thought. Someone who built this carefully and slowly and is still maintaining it.

And they’re close.

The sending watched him think.

Stop watching me think, he thought at it.

It kept watching.

He walked away.

He had a pot to process and a ritual to perform before nightfall.

The body would come after.

Everything came after.

One thing at a time.