THE ENORMOUS THRONE room is silent. Queen Olivia
Avington treads carefully along the red aisle that would lead her to
her husband, her heels knocking gently against the smooth white
tiles. King Charles Avington II is sitting on his throne in a most
comfortable position, having not awaited his wife in any way.
Queen Olivia composes herself, standing, sighing most silently,
clasping her hands together and resting them just below her
tummy in the most proper way. She bows. “Your Majesty.”
After picking under his nails, King Charles finally takes his
attention to his wife. He glances around at the room, observing
the emptiness; even a room full of court members wouldn’t stop
him from doing anything he would usually feel obliged to do. King
Charles rolls his eyes and scoffs, thinking of how pathetic the
Queen looks bowing to him like that –Pathetic, but his ego is only
groomed by the gesture. With a bored sigh, he speaks. “It has
taken you far too long to get here, Olivia, and now you stand as
though I’m to speak the breath of life into you.”
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The Queen wants to grimace, but she knows that even the
slightest move out of character would land her in another pit of
pain and shame. “There is news from Lystotia on the subject of
our daughter. I... We have received a letter from Prince Rowan,
himself.”
“Prince Rowan?” asks the King, sitting up attentively. He stares
at the queen, intrigued and almost smirking. “Do elaborate.”
Queen Olivia suddenly feels something clogging her throat –
something inside her believes she wouldn’t want to say this. She’s
afraid of what Charles would think. She’s afraid of what Charles
would do. “As you may be aware, Your Majesty, the Prince is of
the age at which he is more than merely interested in settling
down. His parents, King Stephen and Queen Carol have offered
their permission for him to write to us personally, as he has stated
in the letter. It appears that soon you will receive a letter from a
messenger of theirs, written by them directly, but as for Prince
Rowan, he wanted to be the first to share his intentions with us.”
“Marriage,” King Charles says, feeling the word on his tongue.
It was a word that stung.
“You are aware, Your Majesty, that Prince Rowan William
Wright III is the Betrothed we have chosen for our Ericia. It was
ordained by both our decisions and set in word, made official with
the Royal seals of Vynier and Lystotia on the fourth birthday of
our daughter.”
“It’s really a shame,” King Charles says, deep in thought,
“Ericia and Rowan have barely had enough encounters to call each
other ‘friends’.” He laughs, but it’s a humourless, pitiful laugh.
“How many times have they met?”
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Queen Olivia thinks for a moment, but it’s too obvious the
answer. “Three times, Your Majesty.”
“Th-three?” King Charles bursts out into a barrel of laughs on
his throne, the sound of his voice echoing. “What else did the boy
say?”
“He has stated that, with our permission, he would like to stay
here at our Palace for a while –for the purpose of getting to know
the Princess better. He made it very clear that he would like to
form a special bond with not only her, but with her family as well.
He said that, with the information to be received from his parents,
things will be explained to you more in detail, Your Majesty, but
he wanted the honour of informing us first.”
“Prince Rowan,” King Charles says, his tone eccentric, “What a
brave, brave boy.” He looks at his wife, standing before him, and
allows a tense moment of silence to fill the room before he speaks
again. “I will await the letter from his parents. Until then, there
will be no further discussion on the matter of a marriage involving
Ericia. You may leave.”
Queen Olivia bows lowly, turning and exiting the room.
King Charles watches as she disappears, the doors to the throne
room shutting behind her. In the empty room, all alone with his
thoughts, King Charles begins to laugh. He laughs as though this
Betrothal was never imaginable in his head. He laughs as though
the request of the Prince is funny –and to him, it is.
***
Ericia tosses and turns in her bed. Cold sweat is trickling downher face and neck, the feeling of stickiness is all over her skin. She
twitches. She’s asleep, but her body and mind is wide awake.
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Ericia recalls the vivid memory of her six year old self, walking
quietly through the corridors of the palace to get to her parents’
room, her creamy nightgown trailing behind her, her bare feet
warming the cold ground. There are bare taps whenever she takes
a step and soon enough she is at the bedroom door of the King and
the Queen. There are no guards posted out here –no one at this
particular moment. Ericia doesn’t wonder why. She grabs the
handle of the door and pushes it. There is no sound to accompany
it, the door opens slightly. Ericia only opens it wide enough to
allow one of her eyes to peek through. She spots the large king
sized bed on which her parents are lying.
King Charles rests his hand on the Queen’s thigh, moving his
index finger higher and higher up her leg, pulling against the
material of her nightgown. Queen Olivia turns towards him,
stopping his hand before it could reach higher grounds. She stares
into his eyes –his dark eyes waiting for something more
spectacular to occur next.
“No, Charles,” says the Queen. “Please. Not now.”
As if King Charles is a switch and her words are a finger upon it,
Charles’ expression changes entirely in a matter of seconds. He
continues to slide his hand upward, under her nightgown, Queen
Olivia being unable to fight him off due to his strength. At first,
the queen’s undecipherable responses of utterances sound like
playful struggle to the on-looking princess peeking in at the
action, but eventually Olivia begins to moan and groan –the
occasional struggle leaving her tone.
“How... dare you... tell me what I can and cannot do?” Charles
says to her.
“Charles,” Queen Olivia says, breathless, she almost chokes on
the word, “Charles, please, no!”
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King Charles covers her mouth with his free hand, pushing his
body over hers and proceeding to strip the top of her nightgown
off.
Ericia stands, staring through the open crease in silence. Her
blue eyes are bright and full of life and innocence, but what she is
witnessing is dark and begins to irritate her. Ericia finds herself
asking questions.
Why is mommy screaming? Why is daddy fondling that place between
her legs? Why is mommy crying? What is that look on daddy’s face? Why
is he choking her? Why isn’t she saying anything now?
It’s the echoes; it’s the echoes of her mother, desperate to get
out of that traumatizing situation. It haunts her, the voice of pain
rather than pleasure, crying out for him to stop –stop –please,
please stop, until she can’t bring herself to speak anymore.
The next thing Ericia knows is that she’s being pulled from her
little peeking spot by a servant named Marie. Marie was a young
woman assigned to take care of Ericia as a full time guardian in
place of her busy parents.
Marie pulls her away from the door and closes it, leading her
through the corridor at a startling pace.
“Marie,” Ericia asks, looking up at her, “what are they doing?”
“If I tell you that, my darling girl,” Marie says, frowning and
almost frightful, “You won’t be able to sleep for a long time.”
“But I want to be able to sleep,” Ericia says to her, “but I’m still
curious.”
Marie stops her in a quiet spot nearer to her own room. She
stoops down and pushes the hair covering Ericia’s eyes to the
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creases behind her ears. Marie sighs. “When you are older, little
one, perhaps you will understand for yourself. Now, please, let’s
get you to bed. You have to promise me you won’t speak a word
of what you saw to anyone. Keep it a secret until you figure it out,
alright?”
Ericia doesn’t understand, but Marie had suddenly brought her
little finger out, and Ericia takes it, swearing never to speak a
word of it to anyone until she has figured it all out.
Then, Marie fades from the moment. It’s as if Marie has begun
to vanish literally, but she’s fading so slowly that Ericia can see her
until she is gone from before her eyes. The next thing Ericia sees
is Marie, her head inside of a noose, and her body dropping as the
wooden floor under her falls.
Ericia wakes up, cold sweating and breathing heavily. She drags
her hand through her moist, blonde hair, her clear blue eyes full
of tears as she begins to cry. She hugs her pillow tightly, fighting
the urge to scream her lungs out.
It’s all true, it all happened. She had witnessed her mother being
abused, and Marie was executed when the King found out that she
had known such things.
It was after Marie’s death that Ericia had become a thorn to the
king. She would be punished harshly for making even the smallest
mistake.
Ericia drags herself more to the corner of the bed where she
could rest her back against the wall. Even now, the more recent
slices on her back are throbbing because of her anxious body.
Every wound hurts.
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The Princess stares ahead at the candle standing on her dresser.
She stares into the flickering flame. It’s almost as if she can hear
the sizzling of the iron meeting her skin again as she gets lost in
the visual of it. Her pores rise. A chill runs through her entire
body and every part of her shakes involuntarily.
Ericia knows that it will take a long time before she can fall
asleep again. When she was younger, after she had found out the
truth about that first time she had seen her father dig into her
mother like she was some sort of ripe fruit, ever since Marie had
been executed and the abuse towards her by her father began,
Ericia had been having the nightmares. There were only enough
panic attacks wild enough to cause the servants to run to her in the
middle of the night to calm her down –only enough to be able to
count on the fingers of one hand. When word of those panic
attacks reached her father, the abuse that followed was often
worse than the nightmares and the recollection of the memories
themselves.
So Ericia had learnt to suffer in silence. She lies flat on her bed,
staring at the ceiling, counting the stones jotting out from the
concrete above her individually, allowing herself to breathe in and
breathe out slowly with each count and, soon enough, she drifts
off.
***
Princess Ericia Charlotte Avington walks into the throne roomin a brilliant blue gown, a small silver crown decorating her
flowing, wavy blonde hair. She approaches the King and the
Queen, sitting on their thrones, and bows before them.
There are other members of the court in the room, but being
specifically called upon by the King, she is the centre of the
subject matter, and she is about to find out why.
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“I have received an interesting letter from the Royals of
Lystotia, Ericia,” King Charles says, in a tone that is obviously
only for show and to once again groom his ego. “Prince Rowan, as
you know, is your Betrothed. I understand and am aware that you
two have not had many interactions, but that is about to change.”
Ericia swallows something that isn’t even in her throat. She
almost collapses from nervousness. Her Betrothed. The last time
she had interacted with Prince Rowan was when they were
fifteen. That was the last time Lystotia had ever hosted such a
grand ball, inviting the neighbouring kingdoms and guests from
out of the continent as well. Ericia, thinking about Rowan in the
way she remembers him, pictures his thick blonde hair which he
had insisted then that he refused to have cut. It covered his eyes
for most of the night, and when they were dancing at the ball, he
had stepped on her toe so many times because he couldn’t see
clearly. He wasn’t very tall back then, either, but at least he was
trying to be charming and polite towards her. She had kept the
impression that he was amiable for all these years in her heart of
diminishing hope.
Ericia wonders what he must look like now at the age of twenty
–surely he must be twenty by now. She’s forgotten his birthday,
but she’s always remembered that he was at least eight months
older than her.
“The Prince has written an interesting letter,” King Charles
continues, “which was approved and confirmed and put into
further detail by his parents and now that we have gathered the
full story, we are ready to let you all in on it.” The King pauses,
and Ericia’s heartbeat speeds up.
Ericia suddenly hopes that what she is about to hear is not the
planning of her wedding. It has always been her dream to fall in
love before that –even if it means having to fall in love with that
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specific Prince, as long as she could do that, she would be happy
with the marriage.
She knows, however, that even with that burning desire to
marry out of love, her father would never allow her to have her
way. If she so much as decided to absentmindedly poke her food
with a finger or sigh too loudly, he would be off with her again –
and being off with her is far too ugly of an understatement at
which to put it.
“Prince Rowan William Wright III has announced his intention
to marry our Princess Ericia Charlotte Avington after he has had
the honour of staying here, at Vynier, in this very palace. He
intends to bond with not only the Princess, but with the entire
family, and form general and personal relationships with as many
people as he can. I can assure you all that he is a brilliant,
charming, and honourable young man. If the unfortunate
occurrence that we had predicted wrongly of his future spirit had
happened when they were both four, we would not have decided
to make him our precious daughter’s betrothed, wouldn’t you
agree?” King Charles says, grinning at the people in the room.
A general wave of laugher crosses the risen thrones at the front
of the room and King Charles feels satisfied with the response.
“Prince Rowan is yet to send word of when he intends to
arrive. Until then, we will prepare everything so that only the
finest of Vynier will be his experience.”
Ericia stands, listening to her father speak of this ‘bond’ that
Prince Rowan intends to develop with her. Can she really, truly
fall in love with him? Will she? And if she does, will she be able to
escape the darkness of her life as she knows it?
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Ericia decides to have hope. When the meeting is adjourned, she
heads to her room, filling her bathtub for herself, dropping rose
petals and lighting lavender candles around the tub slowly as she
tries to calm herself down in order to prepare for her bath. Her
maids are outside, setting a garment for her to wear and cleaning
up her room. Ericia learnt from a young age to stop relying on the
maids to bathe her. When wounds started to show and scars
remained risen or obvious, Ericia became insecure and was
determined to be the only one to see her bare skin. She bathes and
dresses herself. She has decided that she would be the only one to
touch her body –that is the power she has been able to exhaust;
the only power she can exhaust, but even with such power, her
limit ends where her father’s abuse begins.
***
Prince Rowan arrives with as grand an entrance as the Royals ofLystotia usually adore putting on. There are three carriages –one
with the Prince’s clothes, another with dwindling food supplies
that were used on the journey to Vynier, and of course, the most
beautiful carriage hosting Prince Rowan and his personal servants.
Princess Ericia stands beside her parents, all dressed up in a
beautiful red ball gown and a golden crown. She steps forward,
given the honour of welcoming the Prince into the palace.
Ericia’s heart is beating so fast as the servants step out of the
carriage –and then he makes his way out, her heart stopping
entirely. He has gotten taller, and he’s still as fair as he has always
been. He cut his blonde hair but she could still see the Rowan she
once knew in him –the hair was still a mess, a thick blonde bit on
his head with a side part. The wind must have gotten to it on the
way here. He shakes his head forward a bit and the hair falls into
place perfectly. He looks up and his moss green eyes meet hers.
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She steps forward, catching a breath and straightening her posture
with every move towards him.
“Prince Rowan,” she says, bowing.
“It’s clear to me that you have aged in both grace and beauty.
What a pleasure to finally see you again after so many ages,
Princess,” he says, smiling brightly.
Ericia is startled by his smile. Something about his smile shakes
the child within her. She hadn’t seen such a bright smile in so
long. She hadn’t smiled that brightly in so long. Happiness seemed
to fade so quickly for her –so tragically at a young age. All she
knew now was how to falsify the idea of her own joy to others.
“Please,” she says, smiling back, “just call me Ericia.”
“Alright, Ericia, then I’m just Rowan,” he says, openly
extending his arms, warmly. “May I?”
Ericia laughs, taking barely one step forward before extending
her arms and falling into him for a tight hug. Ericia feels awkward.
She hasn’t seen Rowan in so long, and hugging him feels like
hugging someone entirely new. It isn’t a horrible hug. She has to
admit that his build is comfortable and his sweet smelling cologne
is to die for. She is almost sure she would collapse here and now.
The Prince and Princess stay like this for only a few seconds
before breaking apart.
It only takes Ericia moments to realise it could be so easy for her
to escape the terror of her father. If only she could keep the image
of a perfect princess up –if only she could be all that Rowan would
want her to be... she could be free.
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