Gala

Even though Gala was attacked at the docks at Staff Harbor, her walks across the Wine River didn’t miss a beat. The river was the most majestic thing she had seen in her life. It was one of the nine mythical rivers across Riverward that were at least fifty kilometers wide at the mouth. All the countries had settled around these nine rivers and built their countries, governments, and cultures around them. It would be foolish not to.

Nero had joined Gala on this walk, and as Gala and Nero walked down the river, passing by small beaches and docks, they eventually came to a public boardwalk where people went about their day. There were always ships at all the docks, especially now that war was on the horizon. “You know,” Gala began. “If we had Iyo pledged to us, this whole thing probably wouldn’t have happened.”

Nero kept his eyes down, looking at his muddy feet which were beginning to collect specs of mud. “If a griffin wasn’t enough for whoever attacked us, another one of the nine wouldn’t help. Do you really expect a dragon to take sides in this?”

“It wouldn’t hurt. If we had Iyo, he would definitely—”

“What? Pose a threat to every man, woman, and child that resided on the continent? If you wanted to spark a preemptive attack on the country, taking out their strongest weapon would probably be the most logical move.”

“Then we would still have a griffin,” Gala rebutted.

“A griffin cannot freeze or burn thousands at a time, or hell if Walik was still alive, their capital would be gone in a second with everyone washed out to sea.” Nero shuttered at the thought of such destruction. “Wait,” he said as he walked toward a bench. “Let’s sit down for a bit.”

“We’ve been walking for only a half-an-hour,” Gala responded, annoyed.

“I don’t go on walks like these. I only came out here because Mom wanted me to leave the palace more often. I was just attacked by someone last time I went near the shore, and now she wants me out here again.”

“Claudia knows that if your last experience on the shore was being attacked, then as more time passed, you would somehow go out less than you currently do,” Gala explained as she sat next to Nero.

Nero nodded as he tried to change the subject. “Why is it so hot out here?”

“Because it’s the middle of summer, and you’re—for some unexplainable reason—wearing two layers.”

“It gets chilly in the palace, and I would rather be warm than cold,” Nero said as he scanned his surroundings. Everyone only had short pants and maybe a shirt on. “I don’t get it,” Nero continued. “How do they go their entire lives in such…poverty and don’t riot.” Gala nodded in agreement. “We spend eighty percent of the crown’s money on the military. Ten percent goes to feasts, and the rest probably gets wasted on things like bribes or something.”

Gala laughed. “I’ve tried suggesting things to Father, but he shuts them all down. ‘They’ll never appreciate it,’ he said. Never appreciate it? Unbelievable.” she said. “Dad has built the largest army on the continent and kept them in line for years. Plus, even if we had the money for them, what would we do with it? Just give them handouts?” Gala asked.

“Fix the roads and rebuild the buildings for a start. It’s about time we give this place a makeover,” Nero suggested.

“Oh, I’m sure that you would make this place your little playground. Demolish a building over there, erect a monument over here, collect all the books in a fifty-kilometer radius and put them in a library, and replace every meter of dirt not used for farming with bricks.”

Nero nodded and smirked. “Hell, maybe even give land to the ones willing to farm so the cities aren’t crowded and give the people some choice in who rules them.”

Gala looked at Nero with surprise. Everyone else who suggested such an idea before had either been killed or whisked away in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Their father made sure of it. “You know what you just suggested, right?” Gala asked.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong, and it doesn’t change the fact that I trust you. There is a reason why the Expert’s Commonwealth and the Griffin Republic have the longest-standing and only military defense pact. Democracies don’t attack other democracies. The conflicting egos of millions are always better than the undisputed ego of one.” He paused. “You agree with me, right?” A sense of sudden fear crept onto his face as Gala hesitated to answer. Of course, she agreed but it wasn’t something to be showing off to the world.

“Yeah, it has its positives. Let’s say Maximus and Romulus died, and you became king, what would you do?”

Nero pondered the question. He ran his fingers through his hair. For someone who read nearly every minute of the day and questioned every decision made by his peers, it seemed like he never considered what he would do himself. “I think you know what I would do,” Nero responded. “I would love to spell it all out,” he continued as it seemed he tried to hide years of passion behind a laugh. “But you know…spies and all that.”

“And you think that all who have benefited from our family over the years or have a drop of our blood would accept this plan of yours? What would you do about them?”

Nero didn’t hesitate. It was as if his response was the only thing he was sure of. “That’s why I’m not king.” Nero stood up. “There are nine countries, all with their forms of government. From a monarchy to technocracy, to democracy.” He paused and looked back at Gala with scared yet curious eyes. “I wonder who ends up with the best leader.” Nero then turned and walked away. Gala flew out of her seat and walked up to Nero and asked where he was going. “To the palace, where these things don’t have the risk of killing millions of people but are rather contained in pieces of paper.

#

Gala let Nero go and walked about an hour more before making her way back to the palace. When she passed through the gates, a messenger informed her that she was expected in the throne room an hour later. Gala threw on her best clothes in preparation. Anytime she was summoned to the throne room, it was never a casual affair.

She wore black silk trousers with a white shirt and a purple overcoat. She threw on a cape—which was also purple—and made her way to the throne room. She arrived ten minutes early and waited until she would just be on time. The doors to the throne room were open, and as Gala waited by the side, she could admire the lush design of the door. The Black crown was on top of four squares. The top right and bottom left were white, while the top left and bottom right were purple. It was the ensign of the Kingdom of Qar, and unlike most of the ensigns, which were on fabric or silk, this one was engraved into both doors. Gala was sure that Nero would be able to admire it much more than she ever could, but it didn’t bother her, nonetheless.

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The time came, and Gala walked into the throne room. The throne room could be so large that it could hold a football match if it desired and have ample room for spectators. There were ten parallel benches on each side of the hallway that ran down the middle of the room. Each seemed like it was and would forever be polished. The king’s servants made sure of it. The floor was made of gray marble that was swept every night when everyone was sleeping. Sometimes Gala would stumble on them when she came home late at night and witnessed nearly two dozen people cleaning up the throne room. Six Corinthian pillars stood with depictions of ancient battles where Titus fought enemies of the kingdom on behalf of the king. At the front were three thrones elevated by a couple of steps from the rest of the room. The ones on the left and the right were identical with them being entirely made of marble, while the middle one—where Maximus currently sat—was more hospitable to a king. The throne was made of marble, but no piece was visible as purple silk lined the entire throne. The armrests were shaped like hydra heads, so the king was always putting them down with his arms. The back of the throne had griffin feathers spread out in all directions and only stopped just before reaching the other two thrones. The middle throne was nearly double the size of the other two thrones and was the only one with a name—The Griffin Throne.

Gala stopped when she stood before the stairs that led up to the thrones. Maximus was in his formal royal attire. A window, nearly as large as the room itself, shined into the throne room. It was nearly sunset, and the windows faced west. There was so much light that a man, even in the front row, wouldn’t be able to tell if a king or a griffin sat on the throne. The light slipped through the feathers and made them whiter than could be produced by a natural process, and the base shined as if Mydrazan descended from the heavens to light it up.

Gala fell to her knees and bowed before her father before standing back up. “Do you know why I have summoned you?” Asked Maximus. His voice once again became as it was during the funeral. Authoritative, demanding, and impatient.

“No, your majesty,” Gala answered.

“The Earl of Wailing Wind has died, and his heir is only eight years old. I need a regent for the seven-year gap.”

Gala was a little disappointed now. She would probably be given the duty of finding suitable candidates with the correct blood to rule over the city while the new earl was too young to rule.

“I will find—” Gala tried to say.

“Kneel,” Maximus said as he stood up.

“What—”

“I said kneel.”

Gala fell to both of her knees in disbelief. Her eyes didn’t dare look up at her father. She sat there speechless, trying not to smile, giggle, or even give a wrong look in her eyes that wouldn’t appear professional. Maximus drew out a sword—that he didn’t use regularly—and walked toward Gala. He pointed the sword at Gala, close enough that a sudden jolt would kill a person, and began to speak. “Do you Gala Mane swear to serve the king until death, never serving yourself before the crown, pledge to look after the Earldom of Wailing Wind to the best of your ability, and swear that no harm shall come to the young earl?”

Gala gulped and cleared her throat. Something this important would not be undercut by a voice crack, raspy, or scratchy voice. “I do.”

Maximus pulled the sword back before turning it, so the handle faced Gala. He ordered her to stand, and so she did. She looked at the handle before hesitantly looking toward her father for approval. He nodded, and Gala, now with a safe opportunity, gleefully smiled and gracefully took the sword from her father. “Under the authority of the crown, I now pronounce you Earl regent of Wailing Wind.”

Before Gala could thank her father, Maximus took a letter out of his pocket and handed it to Gala. “There is something else that we need to discuss,” he said.

Gala immediately dropped all feelings of glory and recognition and went back to her old self. Gala asked who sent that letter and what it said. Maximus explained that it was from Romulus, saying the organization responsible for Titus’s death was the People’s Lord. An organization that wished for the end of the Qar monarchy in favor of democracy. Maximus sat back down on his throne and asked what she made of it as Gala looked over the letter. “I think that we almost started a war over nothing,” she said as she looked back up at her father. “This is an internal threat, we can tell the military to stand down, and—”

“I still believe it is still time to go to war,” Maximus said.

“Why?” Gala asked in disbelief.

“They could not have operated independently. I am sure you are not naïve enough to believe that Dicon, the Commonwealth, or the Republic had nothing to do with this.” Maximus said. “We haven’t reunified the continent because we had no reason and no internal support for it. We have a cause to rally people around now. Religion shall do what my father and grandfathers were unable to do.”

“We can’t fight all three at once,” Gala explained.

“Of course, we can’t. We are not going to fight all three. There was greenwood poison in Titus’s body. We go after the Expert’s Commonwealth, and if the Griffin Republic comes to play, then we will destroy them too.”

“And you think the Dicon Diarchy is just going to sit by and let this happen?”

“We’ll put men on the border ready against a defense,” Maximus assured.

“They’ll never be able to cross the mountains,” Gala agreed. “But the Borzors can. We have a minority that thinks we have oppressed them for thousands of years, and if we go to war, they’ll rip the mountains away from us and the Dicon Diarchy. We can stand a chance against Dicon. We can go around the continent and hit them in the flat lands, but the Borzors will stay in their mountains, and if Iyo ever decides to choose a side, then he will choose them, and we'll have to fight a dragon as well.”

Maximus didn’t respond. Both of them knew what would happen if Iyo chose a side. There would no longer be servants of Mydrazan, only Cayo and the dragons. “We are still going to war,” Maximus tried reassuring. Gala could see that Maximus doubted his own plan as his eyes darted around the room in search of a response. “We’ve put too much into it.” Maximus tried to reason, His fingers twitched, and kept adjusting his posture.

“If the people ever find out that we have no evidence to implicate the Expert’s Commonwealth, then we will lose in a heartbeat,” Gala said. “We’ll have no cause and support. Wars are expensive. If we have put too much in already, then war will not only make us lose our money but every man in the kingdom.”

Gala walked up the stairs and stood above her father. The move insulted Maximus and stood up himself and then faced off against each other. “Alright, when is reunification going to come?” Maximus asked. It seemed he was still trying to justify an invasion.

“We will send people to show them the wrongness of their ways. When their eyes roll back and see the monstrosity they are. They’ll have no option, but to scratch their eyes out, then, and only then, we can grab them by the hand and lead them down the right path.” Gala took no pleasure in saying those words. She knew that even then, the three other countries would only come kicking and screaming, but for now, that was better than war.

Maximus fell back onto the throne and resigned the argument. “For a moment I thought it was time. To fulfill what I was meant to do, but maybe another day. And that day will be glorious, will it?”

“Yes, it will.” Gala lied. She almost emphasized with her father. He was brought up with one purpose and one purpose only: to reunite the continent. Every king before him had wanted to. Some resigned themselves to preparing the next king to finish the job while others wanted to be the one to take the glory. Ever since she had been alive, Gala had no doubt that her father was the second type.

Looking up at Gala, Maximus said: “I think making you’ll do a fine job as regent.” He smiled at her with Gala remembered all the fun times they had when she was a child. “You will leave for the coronation in a week,” continued Maximus. “Claudia will leave tomorrow to prepare for the ceremony. You can go now."

Gala saluted and turned away. As she walked out of the throne room and back to her chambers, she smiled. Grinning that she prevented a potential war, and that Wailing Wind would now receive something they never dreamt of reform.