Once Upon A [Stolen] Time (Stolen Series Book 1)

by Ahsan, Samreen

  On my way, I met our royal sorcerer, Haakon. After V, he was the only one I could talk freely to in this entire kingdom.

  “Good morning, Edward,” he said in a friendly manner. His long white beard looked like snow against his olive skin. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  I had told him about my dreams. Even his arcane knowledge didn’t help with interpreting them. I didn’t say anything in return to his question, so he understood.

  “You had the same dream?” He knew it already. Things would not simply change one fine morning, would they? I nodded. “Perhaps she’s the woman you fancy in your fantasies?”

  “Nah!” I snickered. “I don’t fancy anyone, Haakon. There’s no one in my fantasies.” He knew I was lying. She was the only woman I had ever longed to touch and love, but the dilemma was: who the hell was she?

  “What would you do if you met her?” His question surprised me.

  I shook my head. “First, I would ask her what she’s been doing in my dreams for so long—haunting me since childhood.” He was listening intently. “I would ask her what she has to offer me. Why is she here?”

  “What if she came here to bring color into your life?” His question robbed me of speech. I thought for a minute. Can someone do that? “What if she breaks the spell and you live like you deserve to live?”

  “Who would she be then? A witch?”

  He gave me his devilish grin. “A witch’s job is to do witchcraft or hex you—not to give you hope.”

  I sighed.

  “You told me you saw our tree and the courtyard filled with beautiful flowers?” he confirmed.

  I nodded.

  “It used to be like that before…” his thoughts wandered.

  “Before what?” My curiosity was piqued.

  He shook his head. “Nothing.” He was avoiding my gaze. He knew something deep and secret, but his lips were sealed. “If the dream is a glimpse of your future, then maybe she will come to end the curse and bring colors to your life.” His meaning suddenly struck me hard.

  “Were we hexed?” I asked Haakon. His face went pale. Every time I would ask him about this—how the curse had come about—he just wouldn’t answer. I knew he was hiding something from me. I just needed to figure out what it was. V and I had been kept in darkness about our family and this barren castle’s history. King Stefan knew how desperate I was to know its secrets, but he would never spill the beans and he had ordered everyone in the kingdom who knew the truth to seal their lips. They would have to face the consequences if they dared speak the truth.

  I didn’t want to force Haakon and put his life at risk. Once, my teacher and tormentor, Phillip Concord, had seduced me with the promise of the truth, but that arsehole only used my body for his pleasure. He had taken me to the extreme of self-loathing. Even if it were a woman, I’d never allow any person to touch and entice me.

  What about her?

  Despite so many years of self-loathing, I would still like her to touch me. I would like to feel her hands on my body. The woman of my dreams would have access to my heart, body and soul.

  But where is she?

  How many more years would I have to wait for her?

  “Never mind, Haakon,” I said. I could see he was relieved at my words. “I will find out someday.” The color came back to his face.

  “Your father, King Stefan, will tell you someday.” He looked around cautiously to see if anyone might be eavesdropping. “When he thinks you’re ready to be a king.”

  “Ready to be a king?” I asked him with concern. “What makes you ready to be a king?”

  His voice trembled. “When you become just like him.” Haakon’s eyes were as fearful as his words. On the surface, he conveyed Stefan’s message to me, but in truth—he didn’t want me to be like my father. Everyone in the kingdom knew how King Stefan was and what he did to his prisoners. I had not seen any captor as treacherous as him.

  In order to be like King Stefan, I would have to pull the heart and soul from my body. If this heart were beating, it would keep hope intact.

  I put a hand on Haakon’s shrunken shoulders. I didn’t want to make the old man miserable. His wisdom was a treasure to our kingdom. I turned around and went upstairs.

  Along the stairway was a gallery proudly representing the kings from past centuries—my forefathers. I stopped by the portrait of myself at age twelve. That was the only way I could see myself. That was the time when my training to become a man—or more precisely, the training of self-loathing—started. It was a perpetual and relentless exercise to create a man who could gain pleasure from his captives’ screams. My father wanted me to be like him.

  I shook my head in disgust and moved on toward my room. I was passing by Veronica’s chamber when I heard Emma coughing badly.

  “Here you go, love, drink this.” Veronica was giving a yellow-colored drink to Emma.

  “It tastes bad. I don’t want to drink it.” Emma kept arguing with her.

  “How will your cough go away if you don’t drink it? I made it especially for you.” The woman who was our royal physician stood next to her.

  I opened the door wide and Emma rushed to me, trying to escape her medicine. “Uncle Edward, I don’t want to drink this.” She crashed into my leg and held it tightly.

  I lifted her up and carried her in my left arm. “You have to, love. It’s a healing juice.” I drew her face close to me and whispered. “Otherwise, how will you play with your cousins?” I winked at her.

  By royal command, she was not allowed to mingle with the villagers, but I often managed to sneak her out of the guards' sight and let her play with her friends in the village. I didn’t want her to spend her childhood like V and I had—dark and shaded.

  She smiled her brightest smile and kissed me on my cheek. “Okay…only for you.” And she jumped out of my arms, going straight to her mother. She gulped the medicine in one go, without complaining.

  “You came at the right time. Thank you,” Veronica said gratefully.

  The physician left the room with the empty cup. “Is it doing any good for her cough?” I asked Veronica.

  “Gillian says it’s a slow medicine, but all natural herbs. It will develop her immunity.” She shrugged, giving me the same answer that our physician had given her. Emma didn’t seem to make any progress. In fact, her coughing fits were more frequent now. She'd get tired after five minutes of running around in the fields. I was concerned about her health, but there was nothing much I could do about it.

  “Get her ready.” I glanced at my sister. “I will take her out to her cousins.”

  “Won’t it make you late for your fight today?” Veronica asked.

  “I promised Emma. Let Concord wait,” I replied.

  “You have to be stronger.” She raised her voice, mocking King Stefan, and started laughing. For him, it was a sermon that he'd repeat every day. He wanted me to be tyrannical, unjust and oppressive like him, and apparently a pervert and a morally corrupt man who would find pleasure in someone’s pain.

  He was particularly fond of inflicting sexual pain—I came to know that side of him at the age of eighteen. I was given a lesson in being a dominant so I could tame a woman according to my dark desires.

  I couldn’t ask Stefan if he had any sexual life after my mother died. It was too personal. But after I saw what he did to the women during my ‘lesson,’ my questions were answered. He held women in his prison and wanted me to be like him—a feudal lord who could take advantage of any of his people, and take away their lands if they dared to object.

  For him, the definition of being a king was to extract the heart and soul from a woman’s body. He thought my heart would only be strong if I punished a woman, making her beg for mercy, inflicting excruciating pain on her. According to him, anyone could harm and hurt a man, but hurting a woman required a heart of stone. Indeed, he was made of stone. His blood was already stale—he just wanted me to follow his footsteps.

  On leaving the room, I
glanced at the glass box that had been kept in this room for seven years. It was a constant reminder to Veronica of what she’d done in her past. Every time I looked at it, I was reminded that my father didn’t have a heart. So that could be the reason for the darkness here. Maybe there was no curse. Maybe Satan lived within King Stefan, and that’s why it was dark everywhere. And he wanted me to be like him—a Satan worshipper. Funny to think he attended mass every day, assuming he was pleasing God, while maybe it was Satan he was pleasing.

  Veronica was eighteen when she fell in love with a villager who was a baker in our castle. She knew Stefan would never agree to their marriage, so she ran away with the boy and married him outside the castle in a village church. She kept her marriage a secret, but when Stefan learned that she was bearing the baker’s child, he called the entire village together and separated the baker’s head from his body in front of Veronica and everyone, proving that there was no leniency for anyone who defied him, even if she were a king’s daughter. If one did something that displeased the king, one had to pay the price.

  For a horrific reminder of what would happen if she ever again went against his wishes, Stefan placed the baker’s head in Veronica’s room in a glass box. He said it was to remind her of the sin she committed, although in actuality it wasn’t a sin. She’d married the boy, taken the vows in church—but Stefan never approved the marriage.

  I was the same naive age, and not in any position to stand up for my sister, except for giving her a shoulder to cry on.

  I shook my head in despair at the bitter memory and headed to my room.

  After changing my clothes, I took Emma down to the kitchen, where the baker’s sister, Emma’s aunt, collected her niece. Emma would spend the entire morning with her aunt and cousins before Stefan came home for lunch. Her aunt was responsible for Emma’s education as well. She was like a second mother to Emma.

  I exited through the north door, which opened onto the front of the castle. The vast but desolate grounds awaited me. Stefan was already there, standing next to Concord. Alongside them was a poor man, begging on his knees and touching Stefan’s feet. He was accompanied by a woman crying loudly and begging for mercy. They were all surrounded by other villagers and our soldiers, who were watching the scene. It seemed like today was not the day for a sword fight.

  I walked toward them, piercing through the crowd, and stood next to Stefan.

  The man who had been kneeling in front of Stefan saw me and rushed to bow down in front of me.

  “Your Highness, I beg your mercy, Your Highness. Please spare us from this cruelty. I beg for pardon. It will never happen again, Your Highness.” He cried on my feet like a meek animal. I looked at the woman, who fell on her knees, surrendering herself for whatever brutality was written in their faith.

  I looked at Stefan quizzically. He said, “He sold our crops to outsiders for extra money, and didn’t pay taxes. This greedy man deserves punishment. We don’t need traitors in our kingdom,” he announced loudly.

  “Hail King Stefan,” shouted all the people around us, raising their swords. Almost the entire village was present to witness the king’s justice.

  The woman, still kneeling, said, “Your Highness, it’s not his fault. We have four children to look after. I was the one who asked him to bring food so our children could eat. I will accept punishment on his behalf.” The woman kept crying. She looked to be around my age, and she had four children to look after. This was an example of true love and sacrifice. The woman agreed to accept all charges leveled at her husband so he didn’t have to suffer any pain.

  “That solves the problem, then,” King Stefan announced. “Pick him up,” he ordered one of the soldiers. His slave came and collected the man, grabbed him by his collar and took him away. “The woman shall pay the price,” he announced.

  It was also an unmistakable statement of wealth, power and despotism, showing that no one could disobey or challenge the king under the Hues’ reign.

  “No, Jane,” the poor man shouted. “Please don’t do that.” He looked at his wife. “I will die, but I will not let this cruel man take your honor.”

  “Enough!” Stefan barked. “I don’t want to hear any more arguments. Take that man away and throw him outside the castle’s boundary.” He walked toward the woman, who was crying at my feet but looking at me with hope. She didn’t know I was as helpless as her.

  “For you, beautiful whore, I will teach you a lesson.” Stefan pulled the woman mercilessly by her hair.

  That was how King Stefan and his ancestors exacted punishments and payment of debts from the poor. If the man was incapable of paying his debts, his wife, sister or daughter had to pay. This was how King Stefan satisfied his immoral hunger. It was an accepted form of punishment—cruel and pitiless tortures were induced to inflict horror and fear in the entire kingdom, so the coming generations would learn not to raise their voices against a Hue.

  I coughed and cleared my throat, enraged by my own father’s crude and unjust demand. He was trying to fulfill his desires by extracting sexual screams from the poor woman. He had his own sick methods of drawing debt repayments from poor villagers. Stretching them on the rack, their hands and feet shackled, until their limbs came apart. Hanging the person on a cross and burning him alive, water torture, branding by flogging and whipping—for him, just cutting the throat was not enough. He made sure he inflicted pain, limb by limb, until the victim was no longer able to bear it. He’d wait for the victim to regain strength, and then start again. That’s how he wanted me to be like him, strong so I could impose as much torture as my father and forefathers had been doing for centuries. The baker was the only one who didn’t endure any torture. Stefan just chopped his head off and placed it in Veronica’s room. Veronica had been enduring that passive torture ever since.

  You’ll become a man when you learn how to punish a woman, my father had once told me when I was fourteen, after he’d called me a pussy when I refused to torture a female prisoner.

  “Allow me to exact repayment, King Stefan,” I interrupted, hoping he’d buy my idea. “Since she agreed to pay her debts, what is more suitable than for me to take her in the tower and help her fulfill the debt she and her husband owe?” I looked at the people in front of me and continued loudly. “There is a price for every wrong you do in our kingdom—no one is spared and no one may leave without our permission. This woman is a Satan worshipper, and convinced her innocent man to deceive King Stefan. There is penance due for every sin. She shall be punished in our tower like Satan needs to be punished—inch by inch, part by part, limb by limb—an atonement for her betrayal.”

  I grabbed the woman’s hair from Stefan’s grip and pulled her toward me. The hope that she’d carried in her eyes a minute ago flushed out in an instant. At that moment I realized how I actually looked—like my father—cruel, tyrannical and heartless. She looked daggers at me, and that was the way I wanted her to look at me so my father could buy whatever I was selling him.

  King Stefan watched me for a second. I knew this look; he was reading me. For a moment I thought he would take the woman back for his lust but to my surprise, he smiled devilishly. “Indeed, the punishment must be meted out,” he announced loudly. “Meet your future ruler, the proud heir of the Hues’ empire, the future of the Hue dynasty, your future king—Edward.”

  I was a man now, according to King Stefan.

  The crowd roared, followed by loud applause. Everyone appreciated and ultimately accepted the fact that I would be as unjust as my father, following in his footsteps when it came to brutality.

  Before my father could say anything about how she’d be punished, I took advantage of crowd’s applause and appreciation and dragged the woman mercilessly by her hair through the crowd. I didn’t give King Stefan any time to think about the punishment. I knew if she accidentally landed in his hands, she’d beg for death, and the fierce man would never spare her last wish.

  The woman’s body went limp; her soul had alread
y died the moment I pulled her out of the crowd. I wanted her to defy me, push me, fight me, but all she could do was prepare herself for hell.

  At the left side of the yard there was a tower connected to the castle, which was used as a torture chamber. I dragged her body inside and took the stone spiral staircase, all the way up to the torture room. The dusty room was filled with all kinds of torture equipment: iron balls, knives, a ducking stool, a rack, branding irons, thumbscrews, a foot press, a pillory.

  I threw the woman’s body on the floor like a sack and her face hit the rack. She looked about the room in horror and gave me a scathing glance.

  I closed the wooden door behind me and hooked it so it locked.

  I crossed my arms and watched the helpless woman, who was horrified by the situation she was about to encounter.

  I gazed at the torture machines. “Where do you want me to start, wench?” I looked her in the eye.

  She averted her gaze from me and looked at the rack.

  “This is a rack, if you want to know,” I added in subtle tone. “The purpose is to shackle your limbs and pull them from every direction till they are dislocated.”

  “No.” She shook her head in pain.

  “There are other methods also. I could give you the option of selecting your pain according to your strength.” I paced slowly about the room. She watched me with hatred. “There is castration—”

  “No, please, have mercy on me, Your Highness.” She joined her hands in supplication to beg me. I was no God, but right at this moment, yes I was. “Take my body and use it for your needs, but please show some mercy.”

  “Would you accept flogging, flaying, branding or—”

  She started crying loudly, listening to the methods of torture. Her voice was shaking the walls. I looked around the room and realized how many cries and screams were buried in these walls. Year after year, victims had been flogged, castrated, disfigured, burned, branded, ripped, boiled, roasted, flayed, blinded, choked, drowned and had ultimately died. The silent souls of the corpses still lurked in those walls.