Falkenhof - Testament of Ashes. The Inheritance Cycle, #2

Falkenhof - Testament of Ashes is a gothic crime short novel set deep in the Bavarian hills, where the ruined monastery of Falkenhof has endured for centuries as both sanctuary and grave. When forensic investigator Markus Adler is summoned to examine a cache of scorched vellum uncovered during a restoration survey, he expects a routine archival assessment. Instead, he finds the remnants of a hidden record-testimonies sealed, confessions altered, and fragments of a doctrine the Custodes Silentii have spent generations trying to erase.
Joined by legal archivist Catrina von Dietingen, Markus follows a trail of missing pages, contradictory accounts, and witnesses whose silence is older than the monastery's stones. Each recovered fragment reveals a pattern of deliberate erasure, a legacy maintained not through noble inheritance but through institutional control and the quiet machinery of fear. As the ash-bound archive begins to take shape, it becomes clear that the fire that destroyed Falkenhof's scriptorium was no accident-it was a purge.
As evidence disappears and the Custodes Silentii tighten their influence around the investigation, Markus and Catrina must navigate a labyrinth of secrecy, doctrine, and buried testimony. Their descent into the monastery's shadowed chambers becomes a confrontation with an order determined to preserve its authority at any cost. In a place where silence is enforced and history is written in ash, exposing the truth means restoring the testimony that was never meant to survive.