Meeting Maid Nadia

As Sabrina landed on her butt, every other maid in the quarter stopped what they were doing to witness the incident that had just happened between the foreign dog and the princess maid.

"Are you blind?" The maid who had collided with them said with fury, sending a slap across the face of the girl who had been helping Sabrina out.

This infuriated Sabrina, and she managed to stand up on her feet, looking at the maid who had just collided with her; even though she could have taken another route, Sabrina knew without doubt that she had done it on purpose.

"You were the one who walked right into us, and you have no right to slap her the way you did, you are a maid just like she is," Sabrina said with a strong voice, her eyes studying the maid's flawless face and her long black hair, styled elegantly on her head, and that instant, Sabrina knew this maid is not just a maid, she is an important maid.

When Sabrina uttered those words, every other person in the room gasped with surprise, expecting the worst, the room filled with tension.

Sabrina understands the situation instantly; it seems there is a hierarchy when it comes to palace maids as well.

This maid seems to be at the top of the food chain, and for some reason, this maid doesn't like her, even though it is their first meeting, Sabrina thought to herself.

"How dare you talk back at me, you lowly foreign dog," She spat the words out, referring to Sabrina as a slut and waiting for Sabrina to talk back.

But Sabrina thought otherwise; she didn't have her strength, and it wouldn't bode well for her to make another enemy tonight; the palace seemed like a very hard place for commoners like herself; she needed as much ally as she could get; making an enemy of this maid is a bad idea.

So when Sabrina said nothing, the maid pushed them aside and stepped out of the quarter, with the show over, everybody returned to what they were doing as if nothing was amiss.

Then the girl supported Sabrina and helped her towards a room in the building, seems like there were many rooms there, all painted in plain white colors. There were four beds in the room they entered, and the maid directed Sabrinatowards a freshly made bed.

"Here, you need to eat and rest, your knee is all swollen up, and you don't look well," The girl was saying but Sabrina's eyes were already going out of focus, she tried to hold on, whispering in her mind that she's fine, but she blacked out before she could open her mouth, her eyes slid shut.

Carly stared down at the lady who had once been fed and bathed in the Prince's quarter; she wondered what led to her wearing the slave uniform and what her offense was that had made her end up in the mine, not even the lowest of maids were given such punishment.

Working at the mine is worse than flogging, and now she had gotten on the wrong side of Nadia, the most powerful maid in the palace, who works with the palace of the first princess, Nadia is as ruthless as her mistress, even though this is only whispered behind her back.

Life has always been hard for maids who are foreigners in the palace, but the fact that she had once been favored by the untouchable and phantom Prince Jamal had made her prey to all the maids in the palace.

Now everybody despises her, for falling out with the prince and becoming a lowly maid. Carly shook her head to clear the thoughts and made to apply the pain relief that the bodyguard had instructed her to apply on Sabrina's knee; Carly wondered if it was the Prince's instructions or if the bodyguard was just doing his own.

If it was the Prince's instructions, that could only mean that Sabrina had not totally fallen out of the Prince's favor. Carly feels like there's more to the story.

After applying the locally made pain relief on her knee and forcing some porridge down her throat, Carly covered Sabrina with what passed as a blanket for the maids before going to make her bed.

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"How is she faring?" Jamal asked Marco who stood in front of him with his head bowed.

Jamal was sitting behind his desk in his closed-off workspace, his back was turned to Marco, and he was staring intently out of the glass wall as if he had no interest in the conversation at hand.

"She worked hard at the mine today, not showing any pain or weakness, she will be a good warrior, boss," Marco said with certainty.

"I did not ask for your opinion of her; now answer my question: how is she faring?" Jamal replied, his tone not showing any anger or fury, just the cutting coldness.

"She is doing fine, although she injured her knee. She had been escorted to the slave's quarter, and I have given the maid something to use on the knees, but the maid reported that she passed out," Marco replied, and Jamal nodded his head.

"Tell everyone to get ready; the trip to Milan has been brought forward, and ask Zaynab to send me the security details she had been able to hack into; we need to make our move sooner," Jamal instructed.

"Yes boss," Marco replied and stepped out of the room when Jamal signaled that he could leave.

It seems the punishment is coming along just fine; Jamal knows that by the time he comes back from his next trip, his pet will have learned the hard way, and then he will decide what he will do with her next.

___________________________________________

Sabrina woke up with a start; she had a dream; it was not exactly terrifying, but it wasn't nice either. She had been seated with her uncle at an elegant dining table, and he had been smiling maliciously at her, which was why the dream was strange to her.

Sabrina noticed that the pain in her body had receded, and for some reason, her injured knee felt better now; she wondered how it got better that fast.

"Argh..." Sabrina groaned, trying to sit up, her voice waking Carly, and in a moment, the maid was already beside her.

"You are up, are you okay?" Carly asked.

"Yeah, I am fine, did I pass out?"

"Yes, you did, but I saved you some food; here, eat this; you need your strength if you have to go to the mine tomorrow," Carly said and brought a nylon-wrapped food for Sabrina.

When she opened it, Sabrina realized that it was rice, and she started eating the food without uttering a word.

Her mind was filled with everything that had happened in her life and Jamal's sadistic nature in placing her under a man who despised her.

She stared at her tattered hands, the blood on them now dried up; the pain in her body was nothing compared to the ache in her heart.

Sabrina had expected that she would go back to Jamal's residence after the long day; she even admitted to herself that she had been so looking forward to going back there and sinking into the bathtub and relaxing her aching muscles.

But once again, Jamal had decided she didn't deserve it; she had expected too much, now see where it had landed her, in a maid quarter, eating nylon-wrapped food and so far removed from his world.

"Are you okay? You have stopped eating for a while," Carly asked, staring worriedly at Sabrina and snapping her out of her self-pitying thoughts.

Sabrina nodded her head and continued eating the food. She planned to survive in this hellhole that fate had thrust at her, and to do that, she needed to keep up her strength, so she would consume all the molecules of food in front of her.