| the rightful heir
SHALLOW VALLEY
Darkness had embraced the lands of Eden long hours before. The wooden horse-drawn cart with the royal ornaments stopped by the mansion owned by the Martin family. A middle aged man with long, yet kempt hair got out and straightened his spine after a long journey. Then he offered his hand to a golden-haired woman, helping her get out of the cart. He thanked the cabman and gave him four golden coins. Soon the vehicle was gone, leaving them alone in front of the old manor house.
The man led them on the way to the big, wooden door and knocked on them twice. They waited for a while before a young woman with a friendly-looking face opened the door for them and invited them inside.
"You're late" she said as they walked towards the dining room. "Lord Collins is already here."
"It's okay, Gina" the other woman interrupted her. Her voice was calm and a little hoarse, she used it a lot that day. "Lord Collins can wait."
A servant opened another door for them and they walked into a huge hall with a long table in the middle. Three people were sitting at it, their attention immediately focused on the ones that entered the room.
"Marcus Kane!" a tall, wealthy-looking man stood up, it had to be lord Collins. He headed towards the one that just came into the room. He gave him a brotherly hug that was returned with a little less enthusiasm. "It's been years since I last saw you!"
"I've been quite busy" Marcus Kane sent his friend a tired smile. He greeted the Martins sitting at the table and came back to their guest.
"Why are we meeting in such circumstances?" lord Collins asked. He had been informed about the reason of the meeting, however, he wasn't content with the place and the time. "Why not in the Podakru castle?"
"So we can keep some privacy" the voice didn't come out of Marcus Kane's mouth, but from the door, where the golden-haired woman was still standing, her arms crossed. She moved from the place she was at, walking slowly towards the rest of the people in the room. "I don't need the Lightbournes' spies to listen to this conversation."
"I can't believe" the lord made a few steps towards her, his eyes were widened and lips parted, yet he kept a little smirk on his face. "The Griffin princess in the flesh."
"I am not a princess" she corrected him sharply. "I am the rightful queen."
"Not yet" he turned his back on her to take the glass of wine from the table. She opened her mouth to say something, feeling clearly disrespected, but Marcus Kane grabbed her shoulder in a silent plead to stay quiet. She obeyed, aware that he was right. "There's a long way ahead of you. Now, I don't even know your name."
"Clarke" she said her name with confidence. Lord Collins came back to his place at the table and she followed, sitting opposite him. She sent a smile to the Martins and then her eyes wandered back to the man she was speaking to. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, lord Collins. I heard a lot of things about you."
She wasn't lying. Kane had known Dante Collins for years and told her many stories about him. She almost felt like she already knew the man sitting in front of her, even though it was the first time she had ever seen him.
"I heard only rumors about you, Clarke Griffin" he responded, taking a sip of wine from the silver cup. Clarke poured herself some, for all the servants were ordered to stay out of the dining room that day. It wasn't on the Martins' command, or even lord Collins', but on hers. Clarke Griffin trusted only a small amount of people and the servants she barely knew weren't among them. "People whisper your name on the streets. Tell me, should I trust them?"
"No prudent man should believe in everything he hears" she took a big amount of the bitter liquor in her mouth. "Especially not a lord of one of the clans."
"A lord shouldn't be waiting for so long after being invited" his face showed obvious impatience and annoyance. Clarke wasn't going to give in to him though, listening patiently. "Where have you been? What was so important that kept me waiting?"
"I visited Troit" there was no point in lying to him, she was sure that he would sense the lie anyway. "A town in Ice Nation."
"Why would you travel so far to such an irrelevant place?"
"Clarke always visits poor towns on Unity Day, my lord" Gina answered his question kindly. Clarke could see she was intimidated by that man, just like her parents. Dante Collins was in fact, an intimidating man, she couldn't deny it. "It's an opportunity to bond with the common people."
„Right" Clarke said. Gina was about to say something more, but one look from Clarke was enough to know that she shouldn't. She knew all that Gina wanted was to praise her in front of the lord, but she was sure that wouldn't help at all. A man like him wouldn't be impressed by helping the common, unnamed people." If I am going to be a queen, I need to know my people's needs."
"The common people won't bring you to the throne" he drank some more wine, clearly not interested in the conversation. He didn't respect her at all and it took all Clarke's willpower to stop herself from saying something about it.
"You're right" she noticed that Kane wanted to say something as well, she looked at him and nodded slightly to let him know that she could handle it herself. "That's why I invited you over here."
Dante's face showed a shadow of interest. She had already noted that he was a man who only cared about things when they would profit him.
"The Collins and the Griffins had been in good relations for generations" she continued. "We can keep those relations if you support my claim to the throne and allow me to take over the Mount Weather castle."
"Mount Weather?" he seemed quite surprised by the fact that she demanded it. He must have thought that she'd aim for the royal palace in Polis, Mount Weather was only a Griffin family castle and taking it wouldn't bring her any closer to the throne.
"What kind of queen would I be without a castle?" Clarke responded, gaining much confidence with every second of the conversation. She knew she would turn him on to her offer. "Before I get any army, I need to take my family palace. It's settled on your lands and is watched over by your soldiers. If you let me, I can get it back without any bloodshed."
"Your demands are high" he massaged his forehead and took a big sip of wine, taking a long break before he spoke again, most likely calculating what he could gain from that. "What would I get in return?"
"Whatever you want."
She could feel the Martins' intensive stares on her. She never discussed with them what she was ready to give in exchange for the castle. Clarke was aware that neither Gregory, nor Roesia Martin realized just how important it was, not to mention Gina. Marcus Kane was probably the only one in that room who truly understood that.
"I have a son" he started, after a moment of thought. Clarke already knew where he was going. "He's unwed."
"You want me to marry your son?" Clarke drank some of her wine. She wasn't surprised with his offer, Marcus told her that lord Collins had a son, she was prepared for that. „Is that all?"
„Yes. Marry my son and I'll support your claim. Podakru will stand by you" he stopped for a moment, as if he was making sure that he had made a right decision. "The true queen and the king of Arkadia."
Saying those words, the thought of
his son as a king, must have confirmed his belief in the choice he had made. Everyone waited for Clarke's answer, even though they already knew it.
"Alright" she said slowly, hear heart beating twice faster than it was supposed to, due to excitement. "Let it be marriage."
Clarke smiled satisfied. She was finally getting back her family castle and an army. A real opportunity to take back the throne, something she dreamt of since she could remember.
"To the rightful queen and the king" Gregory Martin raised his glass and everybody followed him, drinking delicious wine brought from Podakru by lord Collins.
Clarke raised her glass as well, more to herself than to anybody sitting at the table.
"Happy Unity Day."
***
"Are you sure you really want this?" Gina asked as she helped undo Clarke's braids. "A marriage with a stranger."
"This marriage will give me my home back" Clarke responded. Her voice was tired after the whole day of using it. Her eyelids were getting heavy as well, all she wanted at that moment was to lie down and rest. She was glad that the dinner ended rather quickly and she could just go to her room and talk to Gina privately.
"Aren't you afraid?" Gina undid the last braid Clarke had on her head and started brushing her hair slowly. "You don't even know him."
"I'll be fine" she said. She didn't even think about her future husband, but about the opportunities the marriage would give her. "I don't have a choice anyway. This may be the only chance to get back what was taken from my family. Podakru has a huge army and the Mount Weather castle. This is the perfect opportunity."
"So you trust lord Collins with his words? You seemed to not like him very much at the dinner."
"No" she said doubtlessly. People like him should not be trusted, the only thing lord Collins cared about was his personal gain. She was sure that there was no loyalty, no honor in this man. "I think he would betray me the moment he was given an opportunity."
"Why'd you agree on that deal then?" Clarke noticed Gina's consternation in the small mirror that reflected her friend's face.
"I hope that if I marry his son, our alliance will be strong enough" she turned her head to look her friend. "I need to take the risk, Gina."
"I know you do" Gina said softly, her face smiling at Clarke. "Who knows, maybe he's handsome, your new husband."
"Oh, I hope so" she laughed. Clarke knew that Gina was trying to make a perspective of marrying Finn Collins a little more welcoming to her, but the truth was, she wasn't really concerned about it. She had always known that the strongest alliances were made by marriages. Her entire life, she was aware that she wouldn't marry anyone for love, it was a privilege a queen couldn't have. "But after seeing his father, I really dont expect much."
„Maybe he has pretty eyes, at least" Gina responded. "You know they are the most important. Love comes in the eyes."
"Right" Clarke sighted. Gina was a romantic and Clarke was quite the opposite of that. It wasn't for the fact that she didn't believe in love, but because love wasn't for her. She was mindful of the possibility that she'd never grow to love her husband. Moreover, she was fine with it.
Gina finished brushing Clarke's hair and put the hairbrush back in the chest of drawers. She started making the bed for her in silence while Clarke was still sitting on the chair.
"I saw a guy with pretty eyes today" Clarke said after a while. Her thoughts wandered to the man she had seen on the warm morning in Azgeda. There was an unusual depth in his dark eyes that got them stuck in her mind. She was surprised by how much attention she started paying to that. She must have learnt it from Gina. "In Troit."
"They say that the most beautiful people are born in Azgeda" Gina said and Clarke thought that this could be true. There wasn't one person there that she didn't find magnificent. However, there was only one pair of eyes that she had in her mind. "How was Troit, anyway?"
"Scary" she thought of the words she could use to describe it and scary was probably the best choice. "Those people have no food, children don't have clothes warm enough for winter" she stopped for a second, thinking about the kids she saw that day, they couldn't even read. "I don't want my kingdom to look like that."
Gina walked towards her and kneeled in front of her, so that their eyes were on the same level. She cupped her face with hands and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.
"I'm sure their lives will be much better under your reign" she said quietly. "You should get some sleep. It's been a long day."
Clarke nodded slightly and watched Gina leave the room. Only after a while did she get up to change her clothes. She was about to go to bed when she heard someone knocking on the door.
"Come in" she said loud enough for a person behind the door to hear. She saw Marcus Kane coming into her bedroom and closing the door behind him. "Hey."
"Congratulations" he made a few steps towards her. "I told you you'd convince Dante."
"He wasn't hard to convince" she responded while looking in the mirror.
"You don't look pleased" he noted. She wasn't able to hide any emotions from him. He read her like an open book and she wondered how he'd never managed to fail in his assumptions.
"I don't trust that man" she turned her head towards him to see him smiling gently, almost in a fatherly way. "You told me he was a decent person."
"He is" he assured her. "You don't need to like Hammond. You're not marrying him, but his son."
"Have you met him?" for the first time Clarke started to wonder what her future husband was like. She hoped that Finn Collins wasn't similar to his father, she didn't enjoy that man's company. "His son."
Kane sat on the stool next to her.
"Once" he said. "Seven years ago. I liked him."
"Just like his father?" she raised her brows.
"Just like his father" he laughed slightly. "You'll meet him once we get to Podakru. Maybe you'll change your mind once you get to know him."
"Maybe" she forced a smile, even though she knew very well that Kane would notice it wasn't real. She wasn't sad about marrying Finn Collins, no. She was concerned that Marcus didn't seem to share the lack of trust towards the lord of Lake People. "When are we leaving?"
"In a few days" he got up and looked around the room. "Think what you want to take with you, we won't be coming here any soon. You have yet a kingdom to conquer."
His statement reminded her that she didn't need to fear Dante Collins. She was no regular woman, she was a queen, a descendant of the great rulers. What was lord Collins against the Griffin queen, anyway?
Kane headed towards the exit of the room.
"Am I making a right decision?" she asked him before he managed to leave. Ever since her father died, it was Marcus who she could rely on, it was him who she trusted the most.
"Of course you are" he sent her that warm smile again. He stopped for a second, as if he was hesitating whether to continue or not. "Your father... He would be proud of you."
He left after saying those words, leaving her alone. She looked at herself in the mirror, hoping that he was right.
It was the second anniversary of her father's death. They used to live in peace, in the small house placed in the south of Shallow Valley for a huge part of her life. She wasn't brought up as a princess, in a palace with dozens of maids, but her father raised her to be a queen. He used to tell her that when the right time comes, he would give her back the throne that was taken from her family. Every time she asked him when would that be, he said that her time hadn't come yet.
Jake Griffin was poisoned in the late evening on Unity Day two years before. They were having a dinner and suddenly he fell on the ground and never got up again, simple as that. It was a quick death, Clarke assumed that he didn't suffer much. Even if he did, he didn't show it.
Hours after his death that seemed like years to her, she left her home with Kane. Dear Marcus Kane was the best friend of her father's, he witnessed Jake's death as well. They travelled to the far north of Shallow Valley that day, where the Martins lived. Marcus told her once that Gregory and Roesia knew her father. Their family served the Griffins for generations and they continued to do so. They let her stay in their mansion, she ended up spending two years there. She got used to living with them.
Clarke looked around, thinking it would be hard to leave that place. Gina was like a sister to her, Gregory and Roesia treated her like she was their child. Aside from Kane, they were her only family and she didn’t like the perspective of leaving them.
She opened the window and looked at the dark, starless sky. She could feel cool wind brushing her face and her bare shoulders. After those two years she still didn’t get used to the cold evenings of the north. She couldn’t imagine how cold winters must have been in Ice Nation that was notorious for inhospitable weather. One visit there was enough for her to know that Azgeda wasn’t a place for her.
She wasn’t meant to live in the cold anyway. She was a Griffin, born from fire of the old Fayagedakru, her place was in the east, on the throne in Polis.
“My time has come” she whispered to herself as she stared at the gloomy sky torn by the lightning.
***
AZGEDA
Bellamy turned his head towards the tiny window to see the thinderbolt ripping through the dark sky. A sunny day ended and there was coming a stormy night.
“Bell, look” Octavia was back from her bedroom with one on their oldest books. She opened it and leafed through the pages. “It says about the Lightbournes’ conquers.”
His sister had been looking through every single book they owned for over an hour, trying to find any information about Daniel Lightbourne. Bellamy, on the other hand, stayed on the couch and watched as the fire was slowly burning in the hearthstone. He still tried to process everything they had learnt that evening.
“Daniel Lightbourne, the son of Xavier the conqueror” she started reading, straining her eyes to see the blurry letters. “Ruled for eight years” she stopped for a few seconds, trying to decipher the faded text. “It says that he was murdered by the Griffins’ supporters, his wife and his daughter too.”
She looked up at him, clear excitement in her eyes while his face was rather emotionless.
“After his death, his younger sister Priya was coronated. Mother of king Russell” she continued. “Everybody thought mom was dead, but she survived. That means... We have better claim to the throne than Russell or his children. You have better claim than anybody else.”
Her words echoed in the room and it took him a moment to realize their weight. Claim to the throne. Going down in history. Wasn’t that what he had dreamt about since he could remember?
“What are we gonna do about this, Bell?” she asked quietly, for he remained silent.
“Nothing” he said unhesitatingly after a moment.
“Nothing?” Octavia’s voice was much louder this time. “Bellamy, this is huge!”
“What do you think we should do, huh?” Bellamy raised his voice a little more than he intended to. “Go to Polis and ask Russell Lightbourne to give up his crown for us? I bet he’ll do it with pleasure.”
“I’m not an idiot, Bell.”
“Then why are you acting like one?” he didn’t mean to get angry at his sister, but the fact that she didn’t understand the danger their heritage could bring them frustrated him. “You just read that Daniel Lightbourne was killed. Don’t you understand the danger we would be in if anybody found out? Our mother lived so far from Polis for a reason.”
“Our mother was a drunken prostitute who would rather buy another bottle of wine than feed us” Octavia was getting more and more angry with every word. “We could have lived with dignity and she kept us from that! And you think we should just leave it like that? It’s not fair!”
“Nothing is fair, O” Bellamy got up and approached his sister. He grabbed her by her arms and lowered his head to look at her. “You know I’m just trying to protect us. Please, promise me you won’t tell anybody about this.”
She didn’t answer, instead she walked away from him to hide in her room. He was sure that she would come around and listen to him. She knew that he only wanted to protect her. She just needed some time.
He glanced at their mother’s birth certificate again. A piece of paper with enough power to give them a decent life.
“You’ve never wanted our lives to be easy, haven’t you?” he said as he put the document back in the dusty chest.