Dark & Cold
- Ciara Attong -
© 2017 Ciara Attong
All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may
be used or reproduced without written permission,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
The moral right of Ciara Attong as the author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act of 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Any names, persons, places, or
objects used in the following are products of the
author’s imagination, have been used fictitiously or
without previous knowledge of existence. Any resemblance
to people, places or events is coincidental or
fictionalised.
ISBN-13:
978-1982006648
ISBN-10:
1982006641
Published by Creative Dragon Publishing® 2018
“For all of your scars, my darling. Especially those.”
Vynier is rich in spices strong enough to spread a scent of wealth
across the kingdoms beyond it. Peace thrives among Vynier,
Phillimont and Lystotia, the three neighbouring kingdoms of a
cozy Europe, but there is darkness festering within the Vynierian
palace; Darkness which can only be silenced by a mouth forced
shut and the conformation of a traumatised, almost brain-washed
mind.
Princess Ericia Charlotte Avington stands at the centre of the
confusion, and along with the dark, cold horrors of her everyday
life comes new trouble - trouble that's doubled.
Prince Rowan William Wright III of the Kingdom of Lystotia,
Princess Ericia's Betrothed, arrives at her palace with the intention
wooing his childhood acquaintance before they are to be married.
He is the heir to a kingdom abundant in textiles and precious
metals and minerals, handsome, charming and talented in every
Royal Prince way, but just when the Princess believes she has
found the hope of escape through this marriage, another visitor
arrives for a long term stay, and not only is he the Prince of
Phillimont –the home of the largest army in all the kingdoms- but
he knows something that Prince Rowan doesn't; the root of
Ericia's darkness.
P r o l o g u e
IT’S DARK AND COLD and wet– the room is a bone-chilling
experience of silence and anger. Outside the thick stone walls of
this isolated part of the palace, no one knows what is really
happening.
Citizens are baking, singing, tending to animals or dressing for
parties, servants and the rest of the working class are getting their
hands and feet a little dirty for money to feed themselves and their
families, children are out running in the fields, singing folk songs
and laughing until they fall off their balance, but as for Princess
Ericia... there is no such opportunity as freedom.
Her hands are closed into tight fists –the metal surrounding
Ericia’s wrists rub and twist and tear her delicate skin until it
bleeds. There’s fresh blood dripping out from her nostrils, dry
blood on her Cupid’s bow and upper lip just where the blood
stopped running, her breaths are shaky. Ericia could feel her
heartbeat moving through her otherwise lifeless body. She would
not be standing were it not for the chains keeping her lifted off the
ground.
Ericia had grown too numb to all of this –to the feeling and the
smell of her own blood, the thousands of slices on her back
formed from vicious lashes made with a leather and stone whip.
Her skin, torn apart, is now open to the frightfully cold world
once again.
Ericia doesn’t budge much as another lash strikes just at the
bottom of her spine. She feels it –she always feels it, but she
clenches her teeth and lets out a silent groan in the form of a
reserved sigh instead.
It is always like this. It has always been like this. Princess Ericia
Charlotte Avington was always in trouble. Princess Ericia
Charlotte Avington was always wrong. Princess Ericia Charlotte
Avington was always ‘out of control.’ Once again, Princess Ericia
Charlotte Avington has done something wrong.
“Have you learnt your lesson?” asks King Charles Avington II,
her father.
She can’t bring herself to look up at him. If she does, the
response would be the same –another lash to the back, or perhaps
many, depending on whether or not her father is feeling generous.
She nods slowly. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Louder,” commands King Charles, slapping the whip unto the
stone flooring. The echo of the whip around the stony walls is
always enough to shake something inside of Ericia.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” says the Princess, loudly.