The Distant Queen

Clara

Of all the things I expected to hear when I met my long-lost mother for the first time, it certainly wasn’t, “You’re too late.”

I stop dead in my tracks, glancing nervously at Tessa, Wyatt and Matthias. We’re barely out of the transport boats, and my bare feet are sinking into the dense black sand covering the beach. It slips between my toes, and I absentmindedly squidge them this way and t