"Mother! Mother!" Maeve called out, desperately wanting to hear a reply as she stared at the burning building before her, the one her mother got trapped in.
"Princess Maeve, it's not safe to go there." The maids tried to hold her back.
Not caring about the inferno ahead, Maeve broke free from the clutches of the woman holding her back and ran to the burning building.
"Mother!... Please say something…" She cried out hysterically, checking to see if her mother's silhouette was anywhere in the fire.
In a matter of seconds, the whole building came crashing down and was nothing but a pile of ashes. Maeve remained frozen in her spot as she watched as everything burned, including her mother.
"NO!..." She yelled.
"No!... It can't be… she's still there… she has to be…"
She ran to the burnt-down building, still having hope of seeing her mother lying somewhere in the pile of logs and ashes.
"Princess Maeve! You'll get burnt." The maids tried to stop her but their words reached deaf ears.
Maeve searched the whole place, not caring about the feel of hot coal caressing her skin or the chill she felt as blood trickled down her leg after a nail pierced and cut her leg. The only thing she could think of was her mother.
Soon, a royal guard ran into the mess and pulled Maeve out of the inferno she stepped into.
"Let me go!"
"LET ME GO!"Maeve hit and kicked the man carrying her but her small ten-year-old body was powerless against his build.
"Have you lost your mind, child!'
Maeve turned to see her father yelling at her, his gaze held an intense amount of coldness that made her feel chills despite the heat around them.
"Fa-father-" She cried out to him, begging for a drop of affection.
"Don't call me that!" The king snapped at her, "It's clear that the woman is dead, there's no point causing any more drama about it. If you want to follow her to the afterlife, be my guest and jump into the fire… stupid child."
He wasn't bothered by the loss of his wife, rather he was happy, he saw it as a good riddance, an opportunity to marry the one he truly loved, his mistress.
The hatred he had for his now late wife was directed onto Maeve and the king did not bother to hide it.
Maeve watched with teary eyes as her father turned her back from her. His words stung her more than the fire melting her skin. She had just lost her mother and there her father was, making her feel like trash.
She cried and wailed her heart out, the loss of the only person who loved her was a great pill to swallow.
Her vision got blurry as her feet felt weak, she used up all her energy and could feel herself slowly giving in to the darkness. Just as her eyes were about to completely close, she saw a shadow in the smoke and fire.
"Mother…" She said, before finally slipping into a coma.
Finally regaining consciousness two months later, Maeve was shocked to see how much her world had turned upside down in the time she was unconscious.
Her father was remarried to one of his mistresses, the woman he was rumored to have twins with, a boy and a girl. Suddenly she not only got a stepmother, but also stepsiblings who made it their life's mission to make her life miserable.
Her stepmother hated her for being the child her husband had from his last marriage and her step-siblings hated her for being born directly into royalty while they were just children from an affair.
Maeve's life was even more miserable because everyone considered her an outcast. For as long as she could remember, she had heard whispers in the castle that she wasn't the king's daughter due to her red hair and jade-green eyes which no one else in the kingdom had.
For that reason, her father resented her and the servants around would always whisper mean things whenever she walked by.
"Illegitimate child…"
"She isn't even royalty…"
"I wonder who her real father is…"
"The queen is such a whore…"
Those were the kind of words Maeve grew up hearing but the one time she asked her mother about it, she just smiled at her and said, "You're my daughter and that's all there is to know." so she gave up finding the truth.
After the death of her mother, Maeve was completely alone. Her father was kind to his new family and adored them but resented her deeply to the point where he hated seeing her face.
No one in the kingdom, aside from the ones in the castle had ever seen Maeve's face. Her father was so ashamed of her that he lied to his people and told them she was a sickly child and couldn't step outside the castle or be at social gatherings due to her poor health.
As a result of that, the only world she had ever known since birth was the one inside the four walls of the castle walls. Her life was miserable and lonely from birth till adulthood.
***************
9 years later…
"Your Highness, you're running late."
Maeve stood up from her dresser, staring at her reflection in the mirror one more time before walking out.
All the servants she passed by on her way bowed slightly before her but she ignored them all.
"I don't want their hypocrisy, they all consider me an outcast and wish I was out of here anyway so we can just skip the pleasantries." Maeve would always say to her hand-maiden whenever she asked her to be more welcoming to the servants who greeted her.
It was the after-party for her step-sibling's twenty-third birthday party and she wondered why they had invited her in the first place, their actions felt unsurprisingly suspicious.
Since they moved into the castle nine years ago, Maeve was forbidden from eating with them, attending balls and celebrations with them or even speaking to them unless they spoke to her first. They all avoided her like a plague or someone invisible.
The one rule she didn't find absurd was that she wasn't allowed to call the King and Queen 'father' and 'mother' There was no way she would replace her mother with her wicked stepmother, and as for the king, she disowned him as her father the moment he got remarried to that wench.
For those nine years that passed, she was completely confined in her chambers with books as her only source of comfort.
"Couldn't you have worn something other than this dreadful mourning dress today?" Esley, her stepsister said the moment she got into the hall.
"Esley, leave the little rat alone, she's still mourning her dead mother till now." Mikah, her stepbrother laughed.
'Little rat' that was the nickname the twins gave Maeve. They compared her hair color to the fur of a rat and mocked her for her unique appearance.
Maeve didn't even flinch at their comments, she was used to it to the point where nothing phased her.
Since her mother's death, the only kind of clothes Maeve wore were black. She felt it portrayed the state in which she was in, total darkness, and for that reason, once again, her family mocked her, saying she was dressed like a widow.
"Maeve, come over here." The king called out to her in his usual cold voice., devoid of any affection toward her.
Maeve walked past her grinning step-siblings and went to the king.
The hall was surprisingly empty with only one guest present despite them saying it was an after-party, and from the mischievous looks she was getting, Maeve knew something was awfully wrong.