A distant tolling of the castle bells hung in the cold night air as winter’s grip held the kingdom of Levonshire in silence. But within the stone walls of a staff chamber in the lower quarters of the castle, a quite different echo resounded, one of strained gasps and the urgent whispers of midwives. A young woman, her face lined with both youth and an exhaustion deeper than her years, clung desperately through the waves of labor.
The chamber was sparse, warmed only by a stuttering fire and the nervous heat of the attending women. One, a midwife of considerable experience, offered hushed encouragements while the more junior one mopped the brow of the laboring woman. Any cheer within the words was belied by the anxiety crinkling the edges of their eyes, as each contraction seemed to bear a toll they silently feared she couldn’t afford.
Through the narrow corridor outside, footsteps approached—rapid, insistent. Claire, a castle housekeeper, arrived, skirts bundled in her hands as she hurried in. She was meant to bring comfort, fortitude, but the scene that unfolded before her was far from comforting. By the hearth, the child—a girl, they’d just determined—wailed her entrance into a suddenly all-too-still world.
The midwives turned, weary sadness in their eyes as they relinquished the newborn to Claire. The child’s fists waved in the air, her tiny face screwed up in indignation and damp with life, seemingly unaware that her mother had slipped beyond the veil, claimed by the very act of bringing her forth.
Quiet entered with the chill from the hall, settling over the room as the young mother was tenderly laid to rest, a soft lament in a realm that would not know her sacrifice.
Claire’s grasp on the infant tightened gently as Queen Regina appeared at the threshold, the command of her presence belying the compassionate worry that knit her brow. Without a word, she extended her arms to receive the babe, swaddling her in a cloth brought for just this purpose—its finely woven threads a stark contrast to the humble surroundings from which the child had emerged.
A look passed between the queen and Claire, a weight of unspoken understanding and purpose. Regina cradled the child against her chest and whispered an order for her carriage. She then whisked away into the night, leaving the midwives and Claire behind—a sentinel to the fragile dawn and the secret it bore.
Regina's carriage rolled over the cobblestones to the Duke and Duchess of Levonshire’s estate. The duke was the king's loyal brother, a man of honor, his wife a lady of grace whose heart had been recently shattered a week prior by a stillbirth. To them, the queen delivered the child, along with the tale woven to conceal its true origin.
The couple greeted her with surprise, the grief in their eyes giving way to bewildered hope as they peered at the daughter presented to them. "Her mother has passed in childbirth, and her father is unknown," Regina explained, the half-truths leaving a sour trail that she swallowed down. "She bears no claim, no ties to any name. Would you take her as your own?"
Through tears and disbelief, the duchess reached for the newborn, cradling her in arms that ached to be filled. A soft, incredulous laugh escaped her lips, an acknowledgment of joy amidst recent pain. "She must never know the truth of her origins." the Queen commanded.
"We shall name her Isabella," the duchess whispered, and in that instant, a new life began – one ordained by royal will but written in the soft lines of chance and compassion.
And with that, Queen Regina turned away, the knowledge of the child’s royal blood—a lineage traced back to the king himself—confined within the vault of her heart. This secret, meant to protect the kingdom from scandal, also protected Isabella from a truth that could either elevate or utterly destroy her.
The flashback fades, a curtain drawn back revealing the roots of a tree that had long branched into the heart of Levonshire’s court. Isabella grew under the care and guidance of the Duke and Duchess, her true heritage as hidden from her as it was from the world. All the while, the queen watched over her, a silent guardian of a secret that time could never fully erase.
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