Does this need a comma after the word says?

The text says “he gave the queen the case and granted her his life, and she could choose whether to show him mercy or refuse” (lines 72-74).

no, but if you wrote that I would say "the texts states" instead of "the test says"

Explanation:

the explanation is commas commonly appear before quotation marks for instance there is a strong convention of using a comma after expressions like "he said" or "she asked" there is a widespread belief that a comma is required before a quotation although there isn't necessarily a grammatical reason for one

hope that helps