Chapter 18 Galwell #2
Fear descended over him. He’d died once, he reminded himself. This should not scare him.
The reason it did, he knew, were the circumstances. Galwell would not reprise his first death, defeating villainy, sparing his friends. He would die in dishonor. In disrepute, with dishonest
sentences hung on him. He would die unjustly impugned for ignominious crimes.
He’d hoped he would inspire hope. The Vestriyan judgment would not only kill a man—it would rewrite a legacy.
That was what Galwell feared.
“You cannot,” Thessia struggled to get out. “He’s Mythrian. He’s under my rule.”
“On our land,” the king returned. “Where he slew our prince. We have the utmost respect for Mythria and the long-standing
friendship of our realms. But Galwell’s crimes are too grave to go unpunished. There must be consequences,” he pronounced.
“Even you must consent to let your subjects face punishment when within our borders.”
Thessia looked shattered. Galwell knew the king’s judgment made horrible sense. He was on the verge of interjecting when Thessia
seemed to collect her shattered pieces. Her spine straightened. She faced the Vestriyan couple like fucking royalty.
“Galwell is not my subject,” she returned. Imperiousness flickered like magic fire in her forceful syllables.
She turned, meeting his gaze. Galwell saw something there, some significance, but he could not understand it. Thessia’s expression
wavered, then went calm with carefully controlled panic. She looked back to the king and queen.
“He is my betrothed,” she stated.
Gasps came from the guards, the queen—from everyone. Galwell heard one come from himself. He stared in wordless wonder at
Thessia.
Incredibly, she now looked perfectly composed. Courageous, even, in her solemn pronouncement. She continued. “Sentencing him to death without fair trial would be an act of war against our realm.”
“Your—betrothed?” the king sputtered. “You do realize you’re here on your honeymoon with another?”
Thessia looked past Galwell, her expression somehow serene. Glancing over his shoulder where he knelt captive, Galwell realized
Hugh had entered the throne room from the direction the guards had led Galwell.
Hugh held his wife’s gaze with fraught emotion that Galwell had never witnessed on his rugged features.
“My queen doesn’t lie,” he said. “Our marriage was a sham.”
He walked into the room with quick, even strides, looking at once entirely certain and yet somehow fragile.
“As everyone in our realm knows, Thessia was betrothed to Galwell True in her youth. When we learned he had returned to life
on the night of our wedding, we never consummated our marriage,” he went on, voice stiff—nothing like the charming man whose
honest goodness made charisma come easily. “We knew it would not be right,” he explained. “Thessia always wanted to honor
the promises of her youth. But more than her promises, her feelings for this hero have never faded.”
Galwell was dizzy now.
Her—her feelings? Nothing Hugh said made sense, yet it . . . sounded impossibly plausible. Galwell could not understand how Hugh and Thessia
could have made this plan so quickly, entirely unspoken.
Still, they must have consummated their marriage. They were in love. He was certain of it.
“We were waiting for the right time to tell my people,” Thessia rejoined quietly, “while still respecting the other hero my realm loves—Sir Hugh.”
She looked like her heart was splitting right down the middle. Galwell had to force himself to watch.
She fought past the pain to face the king and queen, whose eyes were rounded, their complexions peculiar shades of pinkish
white.
“You cannot execute the future king of Mythria,” Thessia concluded. “Not without—what was it you said?”
She fixed her unflinching stare on the king.
“Consequences,” she repeated.
The king stared Thessia down. Galwell fought to remain compliantly on his knees when everything in him revolted.
He hated this. Not just the part where he’d received his sentence of execution.
He hated the helplessness—the consequences his hapless presence wrought on everyone else.
He was meant to protect his loved ones, not the reverse.
Especially not when it cost Thessia and Hugh the unimaginable declaration they’d just made. He
was the hero, damn it.
But everything had changed since his death. He knew not how to be a hero in this time. He knew not if they even existed.
“You say he is the future king and yet you remain married to another. Your realm knows nothing of your so-called plans,” the
king said. “If you were married, of course we would never open such hostilities.” He exaggerated his words, his mocking implications clear. “However, you are not yet.”
“I’ll marry him tonight. Just give me time to dissolve my marriage to Hugh,” Thessia offered quickly, her eyes darting to
Hugh’s with what Galwell knew to be regret.
“I do not think that would be wise,” the queen warned. “We must wonder at the intentions of any ally of ours marrying a man
accused of murdering our son.”
“I wonder at any ally of mine questioning my judgment or my honesty,” Thessia returned stonily.
The king’s stare didn’t waver, holding Thessia’s mercilessly.
“Very well, then,” he finally said. “Let us have your consequences.”
He nodded to his men.
“Transport this criminal to the Black Keep. We execute him tonight.”
Galwell watched rage warp Thessia’s features. He could not hear her furious protests, not over the devastating rush that consumed
his thoughts.
It is really happening. Galwell the Great’s improbable second life would end on the meaningless point of a misguided sword. Or meaningless drop of
poison. Or meaningless obsidian glint axe. He did not know how they handled executions in Vestriya.
The point was, it was horribly, hilariously, wretchedly worthless. He had returned to life only to destroy his own legacy.
The men hauled him through the palace, then outside, where onlookers continued to jeer. It started to rain. Galwell felt like
he’d stepped into some time-slowing fog, some warping dark magic. Every moment seemed to stretch forever. Galwell could see
every grimace, every foul gesture, every word of condemnation forming on the mouths of everyone he passed.
Hugh’s words echoed in his head. Our marriage was a sham. Our marriage was a sham.
Galwell had admired Hugh for his honesty. He considered the man’s genuineness equal to Galwell’s own—except when Hugh was
praising Ario’s verses. Hugh would not lie to escape danger this way.
Yet the king of Mythria’s voice had sounded impossibly steady. Frighteningly earnest. Our marriage was a sham.
How?
Either Hugh had lied to the king of Vestriya just now . . . or he’d lied to everyone, the entire realm, for months.
First Celine. Now possibly Hugh and Thessia. Galwell’s head spun. Was no one, even those closest to him, honest in themselves?
What was next? Would River reveal she could change into a wolverling under the full moon’s light?
The rain plastered his hair to his face. The sky warped with ugly contours of ominous gray. He trudged over uneven flagstones,
over the black water puddling in the cracks. When he reached the prison cart, shackles were locked onto his feet.
The sound of the clamping chains returned him to himself.
If he stepped into the waiting prison carriage, he would be executed. He, Galwell the Once-Great. Thessia could not save him.
She could not marry him while he was in custody. Not that he’d ever welcomed the notion of needing rescue. The real villains
had vanished, out of his reach.
Galwell gazed up into the stormy sky.
He was no hero. Not here. No longer. What had heroism earned him in this shadowland? His party shattered. His feet shackled.
What was the point? Why cling to honor and virtue?
When one of the guards tried to push him forward, Galwell didn’t move.
The man’s elbow struck his enormous back without effect. The men redoubled their efforts, but Galwell the Great was strong.
These men did not know how strong he was. How much they were never in control.
He stood, statuesque, motionless in the rain. His guards did not realize they’d only managed to constrain him due to his oh-so-Ghosts-damned
noble cooperation. Only his honor held him in chains.
Well, fuck that.
With one powerful stomp, Galwell shattered the Vestriyan metal around his ankles. He pivoted, pummeling one of his guards with enough force to send the man flying.
More guards descended on him—Galwell flung them off easily, hurling them ten irons with flicks of his hands. With rain whipping
from his drenched red locks and the swift, sweeping movement of his fists, he was a one-man maelstrom.
When his captors were subdued, Galwell let the storm pound down on him. Turning his back on the prison carriage, he did something
he’d never done before.
He ran.
With the rain coming heavier, Galwell fled through the city, knowing he’d destroyed the final pieces of his reputation. He
did not slow down. He ran past shadowy street corners, past shrieking pedestrians, into the crumbiello shop he remembered.
Down the inconspicuous stairs, where he pounded on the secret door.
Please. Please, he thought loudly. Please. I need you.
He was reaching up to redouble his pounding when the door opened from within.
Mona for once looked shocked, beholding Galwell dripping wet, his heroic head hung low. She did not gloat or smirk.
He spoke now. “Please, Mona,” he implored. “I need you. I need—I need you to hide me.”
With her stare on him, Galwell felt her reading his thoughts, learning what had happened. Upon the conclusion of her examination,
something like sympathy settled over Mona the Merciless. She opened the door wider.
“Come inside,” she said. “Fugitives are always welcome with me.”