Queen Clarissa's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Queen Clarissa read the list of names for the fourth time and crossed out the last one. Her doctors had given her two years, perhaps three. Genovia needed an heir before her reign ended, and the list held every noble cousin, duke, and distant relation with a claim. She had met them all. Not one of them loved this country more than they loved its crown. She set down her pen and let the fire pop in the grate. "Every name a wolf," she said to the small white dog curled on her lap. The dog lifted its head, blinked, and settled again. Clarissa scratched behind its ears. If she chose wrong, the greedy ones would gut the treasury and tax the farmers bare. If she chose no one, they would fight over the throne the moment she died. Both roads ended in ruin for the people she had spent forty years protecting. A knock came. Her steward entered with a thin folder and a strange look. "Your Majesty. You asked me to trace the child. The daughter your son had before he died." Clarissa went still. "I asked you that eleven years ago. You told me the trail was cold." "It was." He set the folder down. "A letter arrived today. From a widow across the sea. She raised the girl as her own and never told her." Clarissa opened the folder with careful hands. Inside lay a single photograph. A teenage girl stood beside a garden fence, long brown hair pushed off her face, mud on her boots. She wore a worn leather vest and a crooked grin. She looked nothing like a princess. She looked strong. "Her name is Mia," the steward said. "She has no idea she is royal. She thinks her grandmother is a stranger." Clarissa touched the photograph. Green eyes. Her son's eyes, exactly. Something turned over in her chest, sharp and warm at once. Here was the one person on earth who shared her blood and wanted nothing from the crown, because the girl did not know the crown existed. "She is my granddaughter," Clarissa said softly. The dog jumped down and pawed at her skirt. She barely noticed. For the first time in months, the list of wolves did not matter. "Prepare a carriage," she said. "And a room. The east one, with the window over the pear trees." The steward hesitated. "Your Majesty, she is not raised for this. She may refuse. She may hate what we ask of her." "Then I will teach her," Clarissa said. She closed the folder and pressed it to her chest. "I have a granddaughter, and Genovia has an heir. All I must do now is convince a girl who has never heard my name to become a queen." She rang the bell before her courage could fail.