Gnewt's Arc

Chapter 10 of 14

The gem tumbled through the air, trailing light like a comet. Stryker dove after it, but the creature's massive head broke the surface first, jaws snapping closed around the glowing stone. The beast swallowed it whole, then turned back toward the cove, dragging its bulk through the shallow water. Gnewt watched the creature disappear, then turned toward the village. The crowd had already gathered at the cypress shrine near the lagoon's edge, their voices rising in anger. They weren't looking at the retreating beast anymore—they were looking at the elders standing beneath the peaked roof. Croaker stepped forward first, holding up the leather journal for everyone to see. "Forty years they kept this hidden," he said, his voice carrying across the water. "Forty years they knew about the curse, the creature, everything." The crowd pressed closer, demanding answers. The eldest stepped down from the shrine, face tight with calculation. "We protected this village," he said. "We kept the old dangers contained." But Gnewt saw the shift in the villagers' eyes—they weren't buying the defense anymore. Not after watching cloaked figures hunt through their streets. Not after seeing the creature swallow a gem the elders claimed didn't exist. The questions came fast now, voices overlapping, and the elders had no more room to deflect. Gnewt had wanted to prove the elders were the real threat. She'd succeeded. But as she watched the crowd close in around the shrine, she realized vindication meant the village would now demand she answer for releasing what the elders had buried. Guidry appeared at her side, carrying a weathered stone marker he'd pulled from the marsh. He set it down near the shrine's base without a word, then walked to the memorial site just beyond the crowd. Croaker followed, placing the journal on the flat center stone surrounded by weathered graves. The names carved into those stones matched the names in the journal—the six who'd questioned the elders and disappeared. The crowd went silent as they read the markers, connecting what had been buried with who had been silenced. The eldest elder tried to speak, but a fisherman cut him off. "You didn't protect us," the fisherman said. "You protected yourselves." The elders had no response left. Gnewt watched them stand exposed beneath the shrine's peaked roof, their authority crumbling with each name the crowd read aloud. She'd proven to the village that the elders were the threat, and Stryker was innocent. But proving it meant the village now knew Gnewt had chosen to free the creature rather than trust their judgment. She'd won Stryker's freedom and lost her own standing in one move. The crowd would want answers from her next, and she had none they'd accept. She'd calculated the cost of exposing the elders, but she hadn't prepared for what came after vindication—the moment when the village would turn from demanding the truth to deciding what to do with those who'd revealed it.