The embroidery teacher stepped in a few minutes after Ellen. The room was filled with only the daughters of the nobles, and they were being taught how to carry themselves with grace and elegance as everyone in the room would be married to important figures in the kingdom.
They were taught how to be noble wives and madams in the near future. However, Ellen could not concentrate on anything that was being taught in class. Instead, her mind kept playing Queen Regina's voice.
"I am not your mother."
"I am not your mother."
" I am not your mother."
"Is it actually possible that she is not my mother?" Ellen kept wondering in her mind.
"If the Queen is not my mother, then where is my mother? Who is she?" Ellen couldn't help her thoughts. Her heart skipped beats when she thought of the possibility of being an illegitimate child.
"Could that be the reason the Queen mistreated me?" She asked herself. She thought of several possibilities, but she could not figure it out any reasonable possibilities.
After thinking about the situation for almost the entire day, her head began to ache from thinking too hard. In the end, she decided to ask her father about it, after all, he should know.
Days passed, and Ellen could not bring herself to ask her father. She thought of several ways to bring up the topic or excuse as to why she was asking without relating it to the Queen, but she could not. Ellen did not dare mention the queen as she was scared of her wroth
So one night, she decided to ask her maid about it. "where is my mother?" she asked while the maid was helping her get ready for bed.
"in her chambers, your highness," the maid replied politely.
"I mean my biological mother" Ellen took the courage to ask. She noticed that the maid became stiff for a couple of minutes looking her through the mirror before she smiled and acted dumb.
"Don't try to act smart, or I will get you into trouble," Ellen threatened when she saw the maid was about to open her mouth and lie.
"I.. I... I," the maid could not find her voice. She knew that the princess was already aware that she knew something. She did, after all, she was already working in the Palace when the formal Queen died. But the king has made a decree that no one was allowed to talk about the dead Queen.
"Your highness, please take pity on this old maid and spare her. The thing about my princess mother can only be told to her by the king," the maid pleaded.
"No, my father is not willing to tell me. Besides, I am afraid to ask. So you would tell your princess what you know, " Ellen demanded.
"No, my princess, I cannot go against the king's command, he would have me executed," the old maid answered politely.
"Okay, you should get ready to be executed because I will tell my father that you told me that Queen Regina is not my mother, " Ellen threatened. In reality, she had no plans to get the maid into trouble, but she was desperate for answers, so she decided to threaten the maid. She already had many sleepless nights and so she was not willing to let another night pass without finding out the truth.
"My princess, I never said that," the mind replied, bowing her head and praying that someone would come and save her. She understood the princess character, so she knew that Ellen never makes empty threats.
" Are you calling me a liar? " Ellen demanded when she heard the maids answer.
" No, my princess, I dare not call you a liar." The maid said, still bowing her head, sweating profusely because she was at a lost of what to do.
"Tell me what you know, I promise my father will not hear a word of it, or I will carry out my threats, " Ellen said calmly when she saw the state of the poor maid.
Having no other choice, the poor woman decided to tell Ellen how her mother, the formal Queen, died when giving birth to her.
After Ellen got the information from her maid, she dismissed her and cried herself to sleep.
After finding out the truth, Ellen no longer bothered herself about pleasing the Queen since she understood that there was nothing she could do that the Queen would acknowledge, so she avoided her as much as possible.
After all, it was a known tale how stepmothers were vicious. So she [Ellen} endured whatever the Queen and her children threw at her. Strangely neither the Queen nor the king noticed that princess Ellen stopped referring to the Queen as 'Mother'. Instead, she called her 'your highness.'
This went on until there was an invasion in the kingdom on prince William and princess Ema's twelve birthday party. After that, a war broke out between Ellen's kingdom and Avalo, their enemy, for many generations.
During this time, the king was very busy and was rarely in the Palace. So Queen Regina took the opportunity to become even more unbearable to Ellen. She did not let her join the safe chamber of the noblewomen when they needed to hide. So she was forced to stay with commoners.
In the Queen's mind, the presence of Ellen will overshadow her daughter. She intended to use the opportunity to make her daughter shine among the noblewomen. After all, Ema was already a young lady, and she hoped to find a suitable man from a noble family to marry her.
Unfortunately for her, the king returned from the war to see how his family and kingdom were doing. He was not pleased when he realized that princess Ellen was missing. Queen Regina was not going to let Ellen ruin her chances. She had to be wise to find a convincing reason why Ellen was absent in the chamber. She instantly told the king that Ellen had acted recklessly and would not listen to her in the past few months of the war.
The king immediately summoned Ellen to be brought to him, maybe because of the war at hand or because he trusted Regina blindly; he did not listen to the explanation Ellen tried to offer.
As punishment, he sent her to the injury camp. "Since you want to spend time outside the Palace with commoners so much, you should at least be useful," the king's voice rang in the hall. Ellen looked at her father, disbelief written all over her face. How could her father punish her without even allowing her to explain herself?
Queen Regina was delighted when she heard the king's words. She even secretly visited the grandmaster asking him to make things difficult for the princess.
Fortunately, the grandmaster was an honest man who took pride in his reputation more than benefits. So he still treated her{Ellen} nicely beside, she was very loveable. So all the physicians and even the injured loved her.
Contrary to Queen Regina's expectations, the people began to praise Ellen as the princess of the people. In fact, words began to go around that the princess was the preferred leader.
Even though the physician knew that the princess was helping because the king ordered her to, they still chose to remain quiet and allow the news about the princess's kind gesture to spread around the kingdom. Besides, she deserves the praise because she learned diligently and helped whenever she could without complaining. People even started mocking the prince for hiding behind his mother's skirt. Many people admired her and call her brave for staying strong even after seeing so much blood. After all, a woman is viewed as delicate and should not be in a place like the injured camp.
These words going around really annoyed the Queen, but she could do nothing about it. After all, the people were singing the praise so loud that even the king heard of it.
Though she succeeded in making her daughter friends with many noble daughters, unfortunately for her {Regina}, the nobles were the few, and the commoners were the multitude.
Moreover, even the noble was full of hypocrites. Ellen was seen as a hero for helping injured soldiers beside the sons of the nobles also went to this war. So they naturally supported the winning side. So even in the noble chamber, Many young heirs and madams praise princess Ellen.
Queen Regina could only grit her teeth in anger silently and joined in the praise.
The war continued for three years, and soon, Bozao, Ellen's kingdom, was at a loss. So many of their soldiers died in the battle field, and they were on the verge of losing the war. At this time, Avalo decided to offer a bit of compromise and offer peace that was to be sealed with a marriage.