"It's often said that a person's greatest enemy is their own mind..." - Queen Hadassah.
The morning sun rose bright and clear over the kingdom of the Netherlands, with soft pink and gold colors spreading across the sky. But for Hadassah, sleep had been difficult the night before. Her mind was full of worries about the coming-of-age ceremony, just three days away.
In the kingdom, people without magical powers were often looked down on or pitied, and Hadassah was terrified of being one of them. She had spent many nights praying to the gods, hoping they would give her even a little bit of magic. She would have been happy with the simple powers of the Sand Whisperers, the lowest-ranked clan, just to avoid being powerless.
After a restless night, Hadassah finally stood up, but she didn't look like her usual self. Her beauty, often compared to that of the Land Fairies, was dimmed by the tiredness she couldn't shake off. The loud crowing of a rooster near her window pulled her from her troubled thoughts.
Hadassah groaned, thinking of ways she might turn the rooster into a stew just to stop its noise. As she got dressed, the noise became unbearable, and she slammed the window shut, trying to block it out. A headache throbbed in her temples, a pain she had been suffering from, for twelve months now. It started when she turned seventeen, and she hadn't told her parents about it, not wanting to worry them. But the headaches were getting worse and harder to ignore.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Hadassah could still see traces of the beauty everyone in the kingdom talked about. Her father had given her a wooden comb on her seventeenth birthday,that she cherish a lot, and as always she used it now to smooth her golden hair, which fell in soft waves around her shoulders. The comb moved easily through her hair, unlike the tangled thoughts in her mind. Her emerald eyes, as bright as those of the Land Fairies, looked back at her, reminding her of the times people mistakenly thought she was one of them instead of just a commoner's daughter.
If not for the worry weighing on her, Hadassah might have admired her reflection a bit longer, maybe even hummed along with the birds outside her window. But the upcoming ceremony crushed any lightness she might have felt. Her thoughts were interrupted by her mother calling her name.
"Hadassah..." her mother's voice echoed up the stairs.
Hadassah sighed, glancing at the clock. "Mama, it's just seven in the morning. I'm coming down," she called back, smiling despite herself. Mothers in the Netherlands had a way of getting under your skin, she thought, chuckling quietly even as the pain in her head lingered.
"Whether it's seven or eight, come downstairs, young lady, before I come and drag you down myself!" her mother's voice was sharp, but Hadassah knew it was filled with love.
Hadassah quickly made her way down the stairs, knowing her mother's threats weren't to be taken lightly. As she reached the bottom, she saw her father and moved toward him, hoping to avoid her mother's nagging.
"Good morning, little angel," her father greeted her, sipping his tea with a content smile.
Hadassah playfully rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to remind him she was no longer a little girl. But even if she did, her father would still insist on calling her by sweet, childlike names. It was one of the many things she loved about him.
"Young lady, come sit down," her mother's voice cut through her thoughts. "Have you forgotten you're supposed to meet the king and queen today? Were you up late reading those books again?"
Hadassah sighed as she walked to the table, her mother's questions coming one after another. "Mama, calm down. I couldn't read last night. I couldn't sleep," she admitted, trying to sound lighthearted. But her words brought a sudden silence, and she felt her parents' worried eyes on her.
"Why, baby?" her mother asked, her voice softening immediately, the sternness gone.
Hadassah looked at her parents, feeling guilty. These two people were her whole world, and the last thing she wanted was to make them worry. "I'm okay, Mama. Papa, you don't have to worry about me," she said, forcing a smile to reassure them. "Besides, Mama, didn't you say I'm supposed to meet the king and queen today?" she added, trying to change the subject.
"And the prince, Hadassah," her mother reminded her, smiling knowingly.
Hadassah felt a small excitement in her chest, seeing the joy in her parents' eyes at the mention of their old friends. The king, who had been her father's childhood friend, always welcomed them warmly, and Hadassah had grown used to their annual visits. Every year, on the seventh day, Hadassah and her parents would visit the palace, a tradition that started when she was a child. What was once a simple visit had taken on a new meaning after her engagement to the prince. Now, it was seen as a romantic meeting between the two, though Hadassah wasn't particularly thrilled about it.
"Yes, Mama, and the prince," she echoed, moving toward the fire to get some breakfast. The routine was so ordinary, but she found comfort in it, grateful to have her parents with her. As she sat down at the wooden dining table, her thoughts drifted back to her fears about the upcoming ceremony. What if her powers never showed up? What if she was destined to be like her parents, without magic? The thought weighed heavily on her, and she sighed deeply, stirring her mushroom soup without much interest.
She looked up at her parents, only to find them watching her closely. Her mother's eyes, the same as her own, were sharp with concern, and her father's brow was furrowed with worry. Hadassah knew they were thinking about the rumors that had been going around the village. People whispered that her parents had once been the most powerful magical beings in the land, but during the Great War, they lost their powers. A cruel curse had been placed on them, dooming all their children to be born without magic. Hadassah, their only child, seemed to be the fulfillment of that curse.
Many times, Hadassah had wanted to ask her parents about the stories she'd heard. She had overheard so much from the market women, who loved to gossip while trading goods. She knew her mother had struggled to have children and that before her birth, she had lost several of her unborn siblings. She knew her mother had been disowned by her fairy clan for marrying a low-born man from the Sand Whisperer clan, the same clan that now rejected her. And she knew her mother had once been engaged to the king himself but chose her father instead, a decision that shocked the entire kingdom. Hadassah often wondered how the king managed to stay friends with her parents after such a betrayal.