Princess Thief [✔]

Prologue

Trigger Warning: This chapter may contain scenes including trauma, or emotional distress. If you are uncomfortable with the following, please skip this chapter.

An empty canvas on all six sides — like a cage with only nothingness, tricking my eyes at the expansiveness it lacked.

It was pure white. Pristine. Silent. Peaceful.

But not for long. My feet were rooted to the ground. Dotted blood prints gradually surrounded the wall until it formed a distinct shape. Crimson hand marks of various sizes filled my view. The howling of desperate pleas echoed behind me, the numbing fear rendering me immobile.

The familiarity only gnawed deeper as those cries were the same as I remembered. They were the people I once knew and people I had not really known until their deaths.

My pulse quickened like a fast painful thump buzzing in my ears.

Helplessness strangled my breath. Tiny streams of sweat trickled down my body, adding to the moist sheen already present as a second skin. But that was not all. I looked down to witness a crimson pool around me, climbing up my feet in supple ripples.

My eyes darted across the room, watching as the walls inched closer and the ceiling lowered. I simply stood there, still frozen in place, and bellows of fear were stuck in my throat.

The wailing had long diminished as the blood reached my neck. The room seemed to shrink and I couldn't stretch my arms the way I wanted to. A frightful dread made my skin crawl and my chest tightened in a panicking terror. The recurring fear engulfed me but this time I felt my body shake.

***

I jolted from my bed, gasping. The familiar sight of my bed canopy filled my view. I took a large breath to calm myself down. Not again.

Fear and anger stirred within me. Fear for there was nothing I could do to stop the horrifying dreams that had been plaguing me and anger for the person who was the reason for this all.

My life was a living nightmare but even my dreams would not let me escape from this reality. A sick way of telling me to give up because there was nothing I could do to defy it.

Repressing a sigh as I rose, my numb hand reached out to the bedside table hidden by green velvet curtains draping around the bed. With a glass in my hand, a shadow slithered around in my peripheral, escaping to the deep dark corners.

I shook my head and put down the glass, not minding it. I must be imagining things.

"Ace."

I stilled at the faint voice, followed by soft knocks that came from the door. What was that? I was certain I heard something just now.

"Princess."

Just when I thought I was still hallucinating because of the dream, the voice spoke once again. There were no other princesses in this bed-chamber except me. But who would visit me in this unholy hour? I completely slipped away the curtain, trying to adjust my vision in the dark.

Outside, on the balcony, the silhouette of a man entered my sight. His looming shadow was facing my bed. I tried to stand up, only to wince in pain. I turn behind and noticed the bed sheets were still soaked with dried blood. It was the evidence of Father's enjoyment from this afternoon.

Ignoring the stinging of my back, I stood up once more.

I examined the man's appearance as I walked toward him. Covered in a hood that blended in the dark evening sky, I had no idea who he was but one thing caught my attention — the man stood with a royal grace like every aristocrat I had known.