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I wake up slowly. The sound of dripping water is echoing in a room farther down the corridor from my own. I can still smell the room's previous occupant. Their fear mixed with the coppery-sweet scent of blood; all underlying the castle's own distinct odor of dank moist earth and rotting lichen. The combination tickles my gag reflex back to life. I have been locked in Castle Point for... well I'm not entirely sure anymore. Perhaps three weeks, perhaps more, time does not flow the same way here as it does in the rest of the world. It would seem that I have been left to my own devices. There have been no changes, nothing new, no people, nothing at all for several days now.
My whole body aches. I have no wish to open my eyes to face the new day but some things are beyond what we would wish. Sitting up with as much care as possible, I am confronted once again by my dismal situation. I am in one of the castle's corner towers; brought here against my will, as are all the castle's guests. The room around me is sparsely furnished, waterlogged bits that have come in on the tide from the unfortunate ships that have strayed too near the point's rocky shore. The walls are black, not only in my room but throughout the entire keep. A black so deep it appears to absorb all available light. It used to be a brilliant, shining white, I do not know where this knowledge comes from, perhaps the walls spoke of it. But I do know the evil that has taken over here has permeated every stone; staining each one until it shares a closer resemblance to its own true imaginings; creeping and stealing even the magic bestowed upon me by my heritage; leaving me weak and vulnerable.
My whole body aches. I have no wish to open my eyes to face the new day but some things are beyond what we would wish. Sitting up with as much care as possible, I am confronted once again by my dismal situation. I am in one of the castle's corner towers; brought here against my will, as are all the castle's guests. The room around me is sparsely furnished, waterlogged bits that have come in on the tide from the unfortunate ships that have strayed too near the point's rocky shore. The walls are black, not only in my room but throughout the entire keep. A black so deep it appears to absorb all available light. It used to be a brilliant, shining white, I do not know where this knowledge comes from, perhaps the walls spoke of it. But I do know the evil that has taken over here has permeated every stone; staining each one until it shares a closer resemblance to its own true imaginings; creeping and stealing even the magic bestowed upon me by my heritage; leaving me weak and vulnerable.
The pallet I lie down upon is straw-filled and riddled with vermin . My first several nights here I was too repulsed to use it, preferring to sleep curled in the farthest corner from the wriggling insects. It did not take me long to shed myself of my more prim inclinations; lack of sleep and the cold rising from the stones made the pallet - even with its current residents - much more appealing. There are no mirrors here; a small thing that I am grateful for. If the portions of my body that I am able to see are any indication, I no longer resemble the Sihde Princess I was.
My skin has taken on a greyish hue, covered in patches of char from the iron deliberately placed throughout the castle. These burns will not heal here in this poisoned environment. Even in the best of circumstances my people recover slowly from the smouldering effects of iron. My knuckles, fingertips and nails are torn and ragged; when I was first confined here I attempted to escape through the walls. I discovered some crumbling mortar around the stones surrounding the room's small window and using the pendant on my necklace, I began to scrape at the weakened crevices. Hoping to remove enough mortar to be able to pull the stones free and enlarge the window opening. My thought was to attract the attention of a passing ship and if that failed, to throw myself from the tower and end my torment. As the groove became deeper my pendant was becoming more worn and smaller; my hands would slip causing my many cuts and abrasions. I was appalled to note the wall's almost eager absorption of my blood.
I know not how my captor discovered my plans; two of his guards came in late one evening and took the remains of my pendant. I cried out, demanding my freedom in the name of my father, the King. No notice was paid to my request, it never is. My gown is filthy and torn. My hair is no longer the silvery white so many envied, it too is grey; my fingers too tender to even attempt to pull out the multitude of knots woven through it like intricate lace. I am uncertain when the wall adjacent to my humble pallet began to mumble and mutter its dark story to me. I am uncertain it is not my own mind shattering under the constant strain of evil wending its way through every particle of the castle and its surrounding rocky point.
They whisper to me of vile imaginings; they whisper to me that I am not real. Telling me that they are the spirits of forgotten stories; telling me that a man, a mortal man of all things, is the reason I have been abducted from my loving family and treated so abominably. They murmur of their own stories, unfinished and forgotten, telling me of a precious few who have disappeared, their stories completed.
I do not want to believe, yet part of me knows the whispers to be true. I do not want to die, yet I fear I will in this dark place. Mostly ... I do not want to be forgotten.
Rain
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