Clovis I Was My Grandfather

Now I need to tell you why I know all of this.

Not because I am a scholar. Because when I began researching my own family genealogy — tracing my roots back through generations of European ancestry — I kept arriving at the same place.

The Merovingians. And their first great king: Clovis I.

Who Clovis was

Clovis I (c. 466–511 AD) was the founder of the Frankish kingdom that would eventually become France. He united the Frankish tribes, defeated the last Roman governor of Gaul, and converted to Christianity. The Catholic Church called him the "New Constantine."

He was also, according to Lincoln's research, heir to a bloodline that the sacred geometry of southern Gaul was built to protect.

Who Clovis is to me

He is my grandfather.

Through generations of genealogical research — cross-referenced records, royal lineage databases, documented medieval family trees — I traced my ancestry back through European nobility to the Merovingian court. To Clovis I.

I am descended from the sacred bloodline that Henry Lincoln spent decades documenting.

When I first understood this, I sat with it for a long time. It felt too large to absorb. It felt like something that should belong to historians and academics, not an indie author from Williamsburg, Virginia.

And then I started writing Labyrinth of Shadows.

What it means for the series

Merona is a reborn witch who masters the sacred pentagram of Gaul and arrives in Paris to stand beside the Merovingian king. She protects Clovis. She protects my grandfather.

Every Gaelic spell in this series is authentic language. Every sacred site is a real place. Every elemental point is a documented location in Lincoln's pentagram.

And the king Merona rides beside in Paris is my family.

— Michaela