Twisted Worlds

Chapter 1- The Nightmare Begins *Edited*

Chapter 1

Syltyn was once a beautiful as well as a peaceful place; but no more.

I was nine when it happened, when my father King Baumen was killed by an assassin, the one who claimed his throne was no mere mortal, he was Diorten the leader of the darkest parts of my world. From that day forth this glorious Earth-like Kingdom was no better than darkness itself. The beautiful purple skies and wispy lilac clouds began to fade away until the sky became a perpetual night, the long tall grasses and fruiting trees out on the open planes began to wither and die, and our home was transformed from a huge turreted cream fairy-tale castle, into a nightmarish black stone Palace. It was once the most beautiful castle in Syltyn; It's walls were pale sandstone with ornate stained glass windows, the beautiful circular turrets and towers could be seen from everywhere around as it rested atop a mound in the centre of our beautiful kingdom. But it had become something else; a dark place of death and magic. The turrets now spiraled and twisted around one another high up into the dark sky, like claws, the beautiful walls were scared, torn and blackened, with dark symbols of curses and black magic carved deeply into them, in truth it looked much more like a nightmare than the fairy-tale castle it once was.

I was trapped in that palace, in that horric place in a nightmare I couldn't wake from. 

"Arabella Selene Francesco Riverali Bascheloni! Get down here this instant, unless you wish to spend the rest of your days working under the deepest mountain mine shaft!!" My new "father" was screaming up the echoey halls of our palace. My mother Queen Arabelo was forced to marry that despicable stand in, King Diorten once my father died, that was nearly six years ago and today it was my turn to marry. 

I ran out of my bedroom, or "dungeon in the sky" as I called it, the typical fairytale hide out; shove the daughter you don't want in the tallest tower of the castle and lock the door for safekeeping. I hear mortals on Earth read all about this, only for them it ends in happily ever after with the damsel in distress meeting her Prince Charming, well here all our Prince Charming's have been locked up; except for one.

As I dashed down the stairs I managed to trip up on the hem of my faded Lilac dress and tumbled down three floors, I jumped up, dusting myself off before sprinting down the remaining stairs and into the large entrance way of the palace. The entrance was no longer the beautiful room it once was, the lush purple walls were now as black as the sky, the icy white crystals that had draped from the chandelier had transformed into ruby and onyx, and the walls that were once covered in family portraits were torn and broken when my new "father" in a flash of anger had left claw makes across every face.  

I began walking along the West hallway stopping before an old portrait of my father, now slashed open, the maids had always commented on how I looked just like him; Strong high cheekbones, tanned skin with early green eyes, my father had always called me beautiful. King Diorten didn't see it the same, my looks displeased him and so he had changed them with magic. My long brown hair was now eternally platted with blood roses dotted throughout, my earthy green eyes were transformed with a spell to stay black as night and my once tanned skin had been altered to be as white as snow.

It was my sixteenth birthday, the day I was to become a wife to the only man I would ever be allowed to marry. 

I stepped through a doorway and into the large drawing room, there stood my mother looking frail and pale, after years of sadness and heart break, and King Diorten looking stern as always; beside him stood another, a boy of nineteen maybe twenty, his hair black as night, his iris' red as blood. He was fairly tall and muscular but from the reptilian-like eye slits in his pupils I knew he just like Diorten, not human...  Although at first I was stunned by his presence and for a moment I almost let myself believe he was handsome, his tall frame matched by his black tailed dinner suit, with his shirt ruffled slightly at the front and the traditional patent black hunting boots stopping just below the knees of his black dinner trousers, he looked very regal and almost certainly of royal blood, but those eyes brought bsck the nightmares of my past, they would haunt me forever.

"Mama, I am here now" I chimed, she hardly glanced at me but I could see the tears running down her pale sunken cheeks. 

"Congratulations Arabella," my new "father" listed his arms out in job, "this is Chito, your fiancé and in exactly thirty minutes, your new husband." King Diorten spoke with a hiss behind each word, I was the burden he would no longer have to bear once I was shipped off with this creature of a man and he would get out of it exactly what he wanted, a royal Serenteli child. "Your dress is behind the door in the next room, I will see to it the maids help you with the corset" and then he turned away, dragging my mother with him and Chito followed in close succession.