Chapter 1-- The daughter no one loved

There were moments in my life where I often asked myself if I did something wrong.

And I know what you're thinking not the, "I broke my mother's favorite glass plate" kinda wrong or "I called my dad a hairy ogre" kinda wrong.

But sometimes I felt like there's something wrong with me.... or maybe my existence.

Ever since I can remember I've always had the picture perfect family. Lived in a mansion that practically looked like a castle. Had the perfect loving parents any girl could ask for.

Attended balls, living my life as though I was one of the Disney princesses come to life.

Then on the night of my 13th birthday, a terrible

scream had me waking up in the middle of the

night, scared, helpless and confused. I rushed

down stairs just like the rest of the staff towards

the soft whimpers coming from the dining room on the ground floor.

And there laid my mother's stiff and lifeless body

in the arms of my father who cried bitterly into

the curve of her neck. Her lifeless eyes staring into

the nothingness of the ceiling above and on her

lips, was the smudge of the darkest shade of purple I knew all too well. Grape wine. It was one

of her favorites. Only, it had been tampered with.

Poisoned. The remaining contents of the drink

was spilled on the floor with it's chalice thrown

across the room.

And I remember, and oh, how I remember like it

happened yesterday. The cries, the screams, and agony. I remember standing there, frozen, dumbfounded, speechless. It was as if my soul

just stepped out of my body as I stood, staring

at my mother's lifeless eyes, just begging, begging her to blink and tell me to wake up because this was just a bad dream. But no it wasn't. That I know.

Because all my life I've never seen my dad cry. Not when he lost all his exports at sea or when he found out that his wife couldn't give birth anymore. And I couldn't understand for the life of me why I couldn't move, why I couldn't move towards her and do something just as the servants were moving about trying to pry my father from my mother so they could prepare the body.

And I, just like the sacred little girl I was ran upstairs and hid inside my room.

The day of my mother's funeral was a scene straight from a gothic play. The sky was gray and sad as if it were also mourning with us. I sat beside my father in the church where burial rites were being said by the priest, who stood in front of my mother's closed casket.

My nose was red and running from the tears that promised they wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. I was crying so hard that my fragile 13 year old body couldn't help but shake my whole frame.

Unlike me, my father hadn't shed a single tear ever since he found my mother's lifeless body in the dining room. He's been stiff, rigid and unmoving. He hasn't said a single word to me during all the events that happened.

Back then, I thought he was grieving, just like all of us. But now that I think of it what if he wasn't grieving at all?. What if it was something else?. Something I did, maybe?

After the funeral rites were finished being said and the mass had come to an end, it was time to bury her. It happened so fast, one moment she was here and the next she was being lowered to the ground. One moment, she was telling me stories of princesses and the next she was being covered in dirt.

My mother, my friend, my confidant, my world. Just like that she was gone in a blink of an eye.

For just a heartbeat, my father's eyes met mine. They weren't filled with comfort or grief. They held something I wouldn't understand until years later.

Fear.

A knock on the door breaks me out of my reverie. A servant girl pokes her head through the open door of the library. She has light blonde her and emerald green eyes. I think her name was Zoey.

Father often replace the servants around the mansion that I lost track of their presence and their names.

She bows low without meeting my eyes.

'Miss Elara?' she asks

'Mmhmm?' I hum in response.

'Lord Donovan requires your presence in his study'

I sigh, 'Tell him I'll be right there'

She nods and turns away to deliver the message to my father.

What does he want this time?.

I stand up from seat, straighten my pale blue gown and head towards the door out of the library.

My father's study is located at the west wing of the mansion. It used to be on the east wing, next to my mother's and his bedroom but since she died he's never stepped foot there again.

The once cheerful and bright mansion is now a hauntingly sad and depressed foundation of walls and ceilings. The walls used to be a combination of orange and yellow, my mother's favorite colors but now stripped from their former brightness and given an ashy, gray color that hurts to look at.

The walk to my father's study was surprisingly short because I couldn't help but get away from the hallways that seems to haunt me for the past seven years since my mother died.

I stand in front of the double doors that lead to my father's study. I take a deep breath and exhale when I knock on the door.

'Come in' I hear his voice say from the other side.

I opened the door and walk through them, closing them behind and standing in middle of the room.

'Father' I say as a form of greeting.

'Elara' he responds.

He doesn't even look at me, he eyes roam the papers littered over his table.

'I was informed you required my presence'

'Why, yes. I have some news to share' he informs.

He still doesn't look at me.

'And what is this news that couldn't send a servant to tell me, just like you always have?' I say folding my arms on my chest.

He sighs, drops his pen on his study table, leans into his chair and looks at me. Finally, he looks at me.

'You're getting married' he inquires

The silence that follows after is so deafening, that if a pin were to be dropped on the ground I'd hear it over this soul-crashing silence.

'What?' I breathe out too stunned to form a full sentence.

'You're .Getting. Married' he repeats saying the words slowly as if he were talking to a child.

'But father, I haven't courted anyone or have interest in anyone' I tell him desperately trying to let him see reason.

He shrugs. Literally shrugs. As if he hadn't shatter my world into a thousand pieces with just a sentence.

'Its already been done' he says calmly like he's talking about the weather.

'This could benefit the family business. This could build an alliance between the Donovan's and the Ashcroft's' he says expecting me to understand that this was for my own good. The good for my future and my family.

'Family business?' I give a cold, humorless laugh. 'We stop being a family ever since mother died, we stop being a family the day you turn your back on me!' I yell.

I storm towards the door, stopping to look at my father over my shoulder, to deliver my last blow.

'I hate you, Father. For once in my life, I wish you were the one who died instead of mother'.

And with that I walk out of his study, banging the door behind me.