Chapter 36 Galwell
Galwell
The questing party had gathered in the wings. Spirits were high.
They’d succeeded. Despite every challenge, they had won. Galwell’s heart swelled as he watched Ario from the shadows offstage. His people
had embraced him, chanting the young king’s name. Ario greeted them with genuine devotion. With love.
When he left the stage, coronated and celebrated, he looked confident. The applause of his waiting friends undid him. Tears
in his eyes, hand over his heart, he went right for his questing companions.
“Everyone!” he greeted them joyously. “I’m king!”
Needing no further encouragement, everyone—Galwell, Mona, River, Celine, Thessia, Hugh—surrounded Ario, sweeping the new king
of Vestriya into their embrace.
“Group hug!” cried Hugh. “Group hug!”
It was indeed. Benjamin somehow slimed his way up Ario’s back to perch on his shoulder, participating in the group hug by
swirling his eye stalks with enthusiasm.
Only the commotion of the royal guard parted the celebrating party. When they separated, Galwell found himself face-to-face
with the guardsman he’d spoken to earlier.
The grizzled man led a line of men and women dressed imposingly in Vestriyan royal livery, with swords and shields strapped to them.
They looked ready for war. With hands on the hilts of their swords, the encroaching force waited for the command of their captain, whose stern eye met Benjamin’s, then Ario’s.
In front of Ario, the captain of the guard knelt on one knee and bowed.
“My king,” he declared.
Galwell grinned.
“We await your command,” he continued. “Should we pursue the kin— I mean your mother and father? As we stand here, they flee
into the night.”
“If they seek to return, we will have to deal with them. But I do not wish to start my reign with bloodshed,” Ario replied.
“Let us move into a future without assassinations and secrets.”
His gentle pronouncement resonated with quiet strength. The guardsman nodded without hesitation.
Rising to his feet, however, he paused. His eyes flitted to the left of Galwell, where—ah, how lovely—galwell the gruesome gazed out intimidatingly from the poster hung literally right next to him.
“This man has escaped our cells,” the guardsman said, pointing to Galwell. “We apologize for our failure.”
Ario held up his hands. “Let every prisoner of my parents be set free. Open the jails,” he proclaimed grandly.
Now even Galwell straightened in surprise. He looked inquisitively at Ario, who put a reassuring hand on Galwell’s shoulder.
“People need to be inspired to goodness. To caring for their companions, to loving their realm,” he said. “Hope does not start
with punishment. It starts with forgiveness. There was heroism in Vestriya once. There shall be again.”
It was the uncommonest thing. With Ario’s promise, the quiet knot Galwell had felt deep in his chest since his first day revived
started to loosen.
Calm in his conviction, Ario faced Thessia next. “I hope our great realms can resume their close friendship, dear Queen Thessia.” He spoke louder, sounding downright regal now.
Thessia smiled. “It never ended,” she reassured him.
Ario clasped her hand vigorously, then returned his focus to his royal guard. Not king material, hmm? Galwell wanted to ask the man. Only with his massive magical strength did he restrain himself.
“Our work starts now. You serve the people, not the crown,” he reminded his soldiers. “We must correct injustice wherever
we see it. Where shall we begin? Take me to . . .” Only now did the poet king falter slightly, though he then found his course.
“To the closest injustice!” he concluded.
The guards conferred. No doubt there were many nearby injustices, not to mention other more important yet less geographically
proximate injustices. “Come with us, Your Highness,” one guardswoman eventually said, gesturing in the direction of the audience
waiting outside. Ario complied, giving his friends a thumbs-up on his way out.
Peace descended over the rallied questing party. The knot in Galwell unwound entirely, leaving him with only gratitude. Gratitude
for Thessia and Hugh, who’d undertaken painful sacrifices for the sake of their realm, and gratitude for Celine and River,
who’d dared conceive of new lives for themselves, and . . .
Mona. Where was Mona?
She wouldn’t just leave to seek revenge on her parents immediately, would she? What of Ario’s pronouncements about hope, punishment,
and forgiveness?
He whirled, making himself a little dizzy, until he found her nearby, waiting apart from the group.
The sight unnerved him instantly.
Pale, with widening eyes, Mona held the pamphlet Celine and River had distributed.
When Galwell moved closer, reaching out cautiously for her, she ignored him.
Nay, she did not seem to know he was there.
Instead, she seemed to read the lines of the pamphlet over and over, mesmerized, with vengeful concentration.
“You,” she said.
She did not mean Galwell. When Mona looked up, he followed her gaze to the crowd of their companions. Crumpling the pamphlet
in her hand, she strode with fury—
Right to Celine. In moments, she’d pinned the other woman to the wall, clutching Celine’s throat without mercy.
Galwell rushed to the pair. Celine’s eyes were wide with fear—yet not, it seemed, with surprise. Not restraining his magical
strength, Galwell seized Mona’s shoulder and pulled her off Celine. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
“How?” Mona seethed. “How did you hide it? How did I never know?”
“It’s not something I choose to think of very often,” Celine replied.
Mona shook her head. “Your thoughts were . . . fragmented at times. Still, I never . . . No one’s ever hidden something like
this from me.”
“I hide it from myself, too. How could I live otherwise?” Celine replied, quiet misery stealing into her voice. “I’ve had
a lifetime of practice.”
Deftly, Mona slipped out of Galwell’s grip. She lunged for Celine, slamming her once more against the wall. “It was you,”
she said. “You set the fire that killed my friends. The only people I had.”
Now Galwell did not rush for Mona. The revelation stunned him silent. His head spun.
“I didn’t set the fire,” Celine gasped from within Mona’s choking grasp. “I was the fire. It was . . . an accident.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mona insisted. “You killed them all. Why have you hidden from justice?”
Celine struggled, prying at Mona’s grip with frantic fingers. “I was just a child myself,” Celine pleaded. “I didn’t know
cinderflower would grow out of the ashy remains of that village’s soil. I didn’t know they would be forced to sell the poison
to the crown to survive. That the poison would be used to terrorize political enemies. I didn’t know.”
Galwell saw Mona falter with the slightest hesitation. Or perhaps he only hoped he did.
“Now I do,” Celine went on. “Which is why I shared everything in our pamphlet. Everything. Including my own involvement.”
“It’s—” Mona fought to keep the waver out of her voice. “It’s not enough.”
Celine’s struggling weakened. In Mona’s chokehold, defeat slackened her shoulders. “I know,” she admitted.
Mona looked fraught. Galwell could practically feel her pain, could feel how Celine’s revelations had ripped open the wounds
from Mona’s past. She’d thought her friends died by accident. But now she knew there was someone to blame. Someone she’d maybe
started to call a friend. His heart broke for her.
Not only for Mona, though. Celine looked helpless, pinned to the theater wall. She wasn’t just in Mona’s punishing grip. She
was in the unrelenting grasp of something even more damning—regret.
But the truth was, this wasn’t something Celine had done to Mona. It was a tragedy they both had suffered.
He opened his mouth to explain exactly this. In the same moment, someone slammed hard into Mona.
Celine dropped from the wall to her knees, wheezing, as Mona and her attacker lay sprawled on the scuffed hardwood. Mona’s
assailant rose first.
“Lay one more hand on her,” River warned, “and I’ll kill you.”
“Fine,” Mona retorted. She stood, deftly pulling her long knife from her hip sheath. “Kill me, assassin.”
Panic shot through Galwell. How could everything collapse this fast? He remembered what the other members of the Four had confessed to him, the way they had shattered in the wake of their victory.
Was this what waited in the darkness after every quest? Pain, paranoia, infighting? Old grievances reopening and creating new wounds?
It couldn’t be.
“Stop this.” Galwell forced himself into their midst, separating the women with his magical strength. “We’re on the same side,”
he insisted.
“No,” Mona retorted. “We’re not.”
Her eyes never found Galwell. Her fury had refocused on River.
Celine rose to her feet. Rubbing her neck, she looked shaken. Hollow. “Mona has every right to revenge,” she murmured.
“No,” River replied fiercely. Her gaze found Celine’s. “No, Celine. We are not every worst thing we’ve ever done.”
With River’s pronouncement, Galwell felt the fight ebbing from Mona. Her hesitation offered him the chance to push her farther
from River.
While Mona’s eyes stayed half frenzied, jumping between Celine and River, her shoulders slumped. Her long knife lowered limply
to her side. With River moving defensively close to Celine, Galwell felt the situation safe enough that he could concentrate
on Mona. He found her eyes—
Someone crashed sloppily into Galwell, jostling him sideways. Galwell caught raven curls and the shimmering threads of expensive
clothing.
It was—Chestlewitt?
The playwright was visibly drunk. Unfortunately, he was also holding a sword. Fame and force had gotten him backstage, Galwell guessed.
“The story was nearly complete!” he hollered. He swung his sword with inebriated recklessness. He was dangerous, Galwell realized.
“Just one more loose end to tie up. You!” he shouted at Galwell.
Ghosts, was he still wailing about his fucking play?