Story Sneak Peek

This is from my current story. Takes place in the middle of the book. When I originally wrote this, I thought it was missing something. And then, I had a dream and had to capture it in this story. It's only a first draft but I think it turned out pretty sweet.

 

The aching from hunger began to ebb away as time went on and her body adjusted to not eating. She spent most of the day attempting to sleep. She doubted she would have the strength to stand anymore since she remained chained to the cot. She started to sob but there were no more tears left for her to cry.

She may not have been hungry but she was viciously thirsty. Whatever they gave her, she could not get enough of it. It was the one thing sustaining her in this miserable period.

Not long after her arrival, she was unsure of how long time was passing but it was maybe a week if she had to guess, the nightmares began. Not the kind she would occasionally have as a child. She would wake up, call for her mother, and, once she realized she was in her room and safe, everything would be fine. No, these were beyond terrifying. Waking up screaming, crying, clutching the thin blanket to her chest and nearly hyperventilating for at least fifteen minutes.

The worst part about it was, these were memories. Her memories, or at least they seemed like memories. They featured people in her family, members of her father’s council, her brother’s friends. So, they had to be her own memories. And, they were horrible. They started with little things. Her father ignoring her when she wanted to show him a new song she learned on the piano or criticizing a poem she had stayed up half the night writing for her mother’s birthday.

Then, they gradually began to worsen. Her brother and his friends chasing her in the garden and pushing her into a rose bush. Being laughed at by the whole court when she forgot her lines during a court play. Her father and mother criticizing her when she was not successful in her lessons like her brother. “Why can you not be like your brother?” “Thank the Gods, you will not be queen. The nation would be doomed.” The insults and criticisms became gradually worse each time she recalled them in her half sleep. Until it came to the memory she wanted to forget the most. Kneeling before her father, in tears, begging him not to make her marry Duke Scumdart.

“Father, please,” she had cried. “Anyone else but him. Father, if you have any love for me at all, I beg you.”

“Oh, get up, child,” her father demanded. “Why must you create a scene about everything you dislike? The world is not going to end because I wish you to finally be wed.”

“But, Nicholas is older than me and he is not married yet,” she argued. “Why must I and not he?”

“SILENCE!” he shouted. He stood and she shrank back as he stepped toward her, glaring and continuing to shout. “I am your king, first and foremost. It is only by some unhappy accident I am even remotely responsible for your miserable existence. You will do as I say. You will marry the Duke within the month and you will be out of my hair at last. Once you are his wife, you will cease to be my daughter and become merely my subject.”

She turned a pleading gaze to her mother, who sat in the throne next to the king. “Mother?” But, she would not meet the girl’s gaze. “Do as you are told,” was all she said in a blank tone.

Trying to gather whatever dignity she had left, she staggered to her feet and bolted from the room. When she reached her bedchamber, she dismissed her ladies and servants, threw herself on the bed and sobbed.

With each time she woke from one of these nightmare visions, she found the feeling of sadness slowly fading away. For a while, she felt nothing. She, sometimes, did not even scream when she woke. She was merely short of breath from her heart racing at the emotion she recalled at the time. Then, the emptiness began to fill. With pure and utter hatred and loathing. She hated them all. She realized that her life was full of misery and despair. They never loved her. They only acted like they had until she was old enough to be married off and then they could pretend she never existed. She vowed that, if she ever got out of this hell hole they had shoved her in, they would regret everything. They would know her torment and she would be the one standing over them as they begged for the mercy they never gave her.