Gwen & Art Are Not in Love

Set in a reimagined medieval England where Camelot is the seat of the crown and the legends of King Arthur Pendragon persist as both history and living religion, the story follows Princess Gwen and Arthur Delacey, two young people bound by a betrothal neither wants, each hiding a secret that could destroy them.

Gwen is seventeen and has been promised since birth to Arthur, heir to the title Lord of Maidvale. As children, Arthur tormented her relentlessly, and she once broke his wrist in retaliation. Their parents separated them when Gwen was nine. Her only real companion is her brother Gabriel, the heir to the throne, a quiet young man who dreads his future as king. When Gabriel confirms the marriage is moving forward, Gwen appeals to their father, but the king insists on honoring the alliance with Lord Delacey, a devoted Arthurian cultist who supported his claim to the throne. England is divided between Catholics and these cultists, who venerate the legends of Pendragon, and the king has relocated to Camelot as a gesture of unity.

At the tournament's opening ceremony, Gwen watches Lady Bridget Leclair, the only female knight in the country, ride in to jeers and thrown coins. Bridget is Tai, her family hailing from the Sukhothai Kingdom, and she bears the hostility with composure. Gwen has harbored an intense, secret attraction to Bridget for years. Arthur arrives at Camelot late, bruised, and accompanied by his body-man Sidney. His father has ordered him to court Gwen formally and report on developments at court. Arthur's mother died when he was six, and his father has spent Arthur's life telling him he is worthless.

After a tense first supper, Gwen slips outside to watch Bridget and catches Arthur kissing a man in a shadowy alcove. Each now holds damaging information about the other. In the wine cellar, they negotiate a pact: mutual secrecy and a fake courtship. Arthur secures leverage by digging up a childhood diary Gwen buried years earlier, containing entries about wanting to kiss Bridget.

At the tournament, Bridget fights Sir Marlin, known as "the Knife," champion of Lord Willard, the king's cousin who once challenged him for the throne. Marlin beats Bridget savagely. At the next event, when a tournament knight named Sir Woolcott threatens the fallen Marlin with a drawn sword, Bridget urges Gwen to intervene, but Gwen is paralyzed and cannot speak. Bridget leaps into the arena, and Gabriel arrives to stop the fight. Gwen reflects that if all Gabriel had to do was shout, all she had to do was shout.

Arthur and Gwen's hostility softens. He reveals that as a child, every complaint Gwen made to his father earned Arthur a lecture about his worthlessness. Arthur urges her to stop denying what she wants, and their conversations deepen into friendship. Through Agnes, Gwen's lady-in-waiting, who begins courting Sidney, the wider group comes together. Arthur invites everyone to a secret cultist celebration of Morgan le Fay beneath a chapel, where Gwen encounters Bridget and her friends. After the ceremony, Arthur and Gabriel spend the night in the library discussing kingship and Arthurian history. Later, Gabriel shows Arthur a fledgling crow he is nursing in the mews, the castle's hawking yard. Arthur, moved by Gabriel's tenderness, kisses him. Gabriel shoves him away, follows him outside, and kisses him back before fleeing.

Bridget offers Gwen sword-fighting lessons, their sessions charged with closeness. Gwen confesses her feelings for Bridget to Gabriel, but he responds with distress and walks away, his pain stemming from recognizing himself in her confession. During a hunt, Bridget reveals she once courted a woman, and when a physician dismisses Bridget's severe menstrual pain, Gwen overrides him and demands treatment. It is the first time she asserts herself on someone else's behalf.

After an assassin infiltrates the royal wing and Bridget kills him, Gwen and Gabriel reconcile. Gabriel admits Arthur kissed him and he kissed Arthur back. Arthur discovers ancient letters hidden in a book from home, written in Common Brittonic, an ancient Celtic language, from Sir Lancelot to King Arthur Pendragon, revealing a romantic relationship between the legendary figures. He shares them with Gabriel, and their own relationship tentatively deepens.

Gwen and Bridget share their first kiss at dawn in the training courtyard. For Gwen's eighteenth birthday, the group sneaks into the city, where Gwen and Bridget kiss openly amid the dancing crowd. Arthur returns Gwen's diary with all pages intact as a birthday gift. But Bridget tells Gwen she will not stay after the tournament, unwilling to sacrifice her career for stolen moments. Gwen is heartbroken.

Then Arthur is ambushed outside an inn and nearly killed. After weeks of unconsciousness, he recovers only to find himself shut out. Gwen overheard Lord Delacey boasting that Arthur was sent to spy on the royal family and found a letter instructing Arthur to cultivate their confidences. She and Gabriel conclude Arthur has betrayed them.

On the tournament's final day, Gwen spots Lord Willard conferring with Lord Delacey and realizes a coordinated conspiracy is underway. She warns her father, but the king dismisses her. As the melee begins, most of the knights turn on the royal stands. Gwen throws herself at her father, pushing him from the path of a thrown knife. Lord Delacey reveals the coup to Arthur, admitting he arranged Arthur's beating as a warning about loyalty. Arthur, understanding at last why he was shut out, seizes a rebel banner, rides alone between the armies, and hurls it to the ground before being struck by arrows.

The king is stabbed from behind by Sir Marlin and dies in Arthur's arms. Gwen learns of her father's death from Sir Hurst, the Captain of the Guard. With Gabriel unaccounted for and morale collapsing, Gwen orders the last guards deployed and dons Gabriel's gold armor, riding out disguised as the new king to rally the troops. On the field, Bridget wields Excalibur Nine, a ceremonial sword she pulled from its stone plinth during the chaos, to strike down Lord Willard as he stands over the wounded Gabriel.

Gwen walks onto the field and finds Arthur, Sidney, Bridget, and Gabriel alive, broken but supporting one another. Arthur tells her through tears that he loves her. Gabriel, barely conscious, learns he is king. Sir Hurst calls out "Long live the king," and everyone kneels.

In the aftermath, Gabriel loses his left arm to amputation and governs with a quiet, deliberative style. He sends the Lancelot letters to scholars who find further correspondence confirming the relationship. He and Arthur resume their relationship, taking things slowly. Gabriel decides to release the letters publicly, reasoning that if he may die doing his job, he wants to die having been true to himself. Lord Delacey and Lord Stafford, the king's own steward revealed as a conspirator, are among the prisoners; Gabriel scatters the conspirators across England in indentured service.

On St. Martin's Day, the group gathers before Gabriel's public address. Bridget has returned early from a tournament, and Gwen and her mother have begun an uneasy reconciliation. Gabriel, terrified but resolute, plans to quote from the letters: "To be truly brave, first you must be afraid, and to be afraid, you must have something you cannot bear to lose." Arthur reassures him that people will come around when they see the kind of king he truly is. From atop the statue of Arthur Pendragon, Gabriel's crow Morgana shakes out her dark wings and flies off into the bright morning sky.