BECOMING THE PRINCESS'S LACKEY

“An emergency, Your Majesty.” Anya stood by the door of the royal office in an urgent frenzy, holding a red envelope. Queen Celestine Arendall didn’t look up from the briefing from the Ministry of Culture. The sun was making its way subtly into the study, the birds were chirping, and the weather was cool – nothing urgent about her morning. “Good morning, Anya,” she said without looking up. “Apologies, Your Majesty.” Anya stepped in and dropped the envelope on her desk; the seal on it had been broken. She had served the royal family for years and yet had only been this anxious a handful of times. Celestine dropped the paper she was holding and shot a cold gaze down at the paper and back to Anya. “And what is this?” “The civil registry quarterly compliance office sent over a flagged document this morning. They run automatic checks on anything bearing the royal seal before they become a public issue. But this one came back with a… discrepancy.” “And?” “It’s a marriage registration, Your Majesty, filed three weeks ago at the Valdris consulate office in New York.” Celestine stared at the envelope for a long time, sensing an impending danger, debating whether it was better to ask Anya to handle it alone. But she knew Anya; the fact that she brought it here in such haste meant it was well out of her control. She proceeded to open it, and there it was, in the clean bureaucratic font of the Valdris civil registry; beneath it, a header that read Certificate of Marriage, was her daughter’s full name. Her Royal Highness Isabeau Arendall. Beneath it, in the space reserved for the second party, was a name Celestine had never seen before in her life. Matthias Cole. A total stranger married legally to the second in line to the throne? She had not seen a scandal of this magnitude for two whole decades. “Does she know?” “Well, she signed it, Your Majesty.” Celestine sat with it for a moment. “Get me all the information on this man. Leave nothing out.”