Celest (Queen Of The Cosmos #1)

Chapter 1 Celest

“Zion, please stop, you know it wasn’t me!” I cry out to my brother.

“I know it wasn’t you Celest! I don’t care! You are a worthless piece of flesh, and I enjoy taking my anger out on you!”

Zion yells back at me as he raises the whip and lashes my bare back, “17, 18” he sighs with contentment and drops the whip onto the stone ground.

He turns away from me and begins to walk up the stairs, “Happy birthday baby sister, now clean this up, it’s a mess in here. I want it to be clean, not a single drop of blood!”

“Why me, why always me?” I whisper into the dull light of dawn, “one more day Celest, you can do it, just one more day.”

I turn over onto my back and I lay on the cold stone floor of the dungeon for as long as my body allows.

When I slowly sit up my back peels from the floor and I cry out in pain.

I grab my shirt and pull it over my bloody back and pull my knees to my chest.

This is the normal thing for me. My brother, father and mother have all taken their turns beating me in one form or another.

Today though, was an extra long session as it always is on my birthday.

I look around this small room that’s maybe a nine foot square, and see new wet red blood mingling with the old dry brown blood on the stone floor, walls, and ceiling.

The number of times I have been in this room is unknown to me.

Any time my brother wants to whip me or beat me, he brings me down here.

As I scan the room I notice that my blood and tears begin to glisten in the sun that's shining in one beam through a very small window.

I take a deep breath trying to contain myself and the smell of copper fills my nose.

I have come accustomed to the smell of my own blood, it used to make me nauseous but not now, it just reminds me that I am still alive.

I hug my knees and sob, “Happy birthday to me,” I choke out.

I hear Agnes, a servant here, come quickly down the stairs.

Gasping, she whispers, “Come on Celest we have to get you out of here and clean you up before breakfast, I heard Zion say he wants this cleaned up and on your birthday day no less. How ridiculous! The other servants and I will clean in here, please don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, Agnes. Please, can you help me get up? My back hurts so much.”

She helps me to my feet and we walk past a couple barred rooms.

There is a pair of old wrinkled hands sticking through one door, reaching for anything they can.

There is never anything for him to grab, everyone walks in the designated spaces and people are only brought down here to be punished or jailed.

Nile has been down here since the very first time I was brought down here right after I turned five.

He cried as I was whipped five times to celebrate my birthday.

“I’m sorry child,” he would say as I walked past, “I’m sorry I couldn't save you.” I was told he was just a crazy man who tried to kidnap me when I was an infant, so I always kept my distance from him. Today as I look at him, he is an old man and his eyes are clouded over.

“Please bring the people peace,” he whispers as I walk with Agnes up the dark musty stone stairs to my room, trying not to slip on the moss that is growing in the corners.

This spiral staircase leads directly from the dungeon to the level my bedroom is on.

Every step I take I can feel my skin aching and blood slowly rolling down my back.

Today, December 7this my 18thbirthday. I am going to college tomorrow.

I will be on an airplane to my new life in less than 24 hours.

I am so excited to have this opportunity.

I have been looking forward to this day for so long.

My family doesn’t understand me. I have always been the black sheep in the family.

I love the outdoors, painting, and most of all reading.

I would be in total bliss with a hammock outside and a good book.

However, I am not allowed to behave as a normal teenager.

My parents are the King and Queen of Bloodmoon in Vallmond, and I must follow their rules, and a woman reading in the public eye is not one of them.

The only time a woman is to read is in school, behind closed doors.

At least that's what my father would tell me.

I have always wanted to go to college, but I never had the guts to bring it up in a full conversation with my parents.

The thought of exploring literature and learning about things that are different from my lands is so intriguing.

One day after a severe whipping from my mother, I finally brought it up to my father, "Father, I know things between us aren't easy, and I know you’ve made it clear you don’t like me.

I’m not here to ask for your affection, and I’m not asking you to pretend we have a perfect relationship.

I am simply asking for the opportunity to go to school.

Even if you don’t support me personally, an education is the one thing that will give me the tools to build a stable, independent life.

I want to learn, I want to graduate, and I want to make something of myself so that I can provide for my own future.

I know that your answer is probably 'no,' but I am asking you to reconsider.

I am not asking for you to be proud of me right now, I am just asking you to not stand in the way of my future.

Please, let me go to school and earn my education."

To my honest surprise my father was totally in agreement with me about going to college.

He told me that if that was something I felt was necessary to better myself and maybe fit into the family a little bit more then he would agree, and I could leave after my birthday.

I almost fell off my seat. No one will know me at my new school.

I chose a college far away so I can remain an anonymous stranger and I intend to stay away for as long as possible and disappear into my newfound freedom.

I want a degree in management or business, something along those lines, so I can open my own business one day, a place where children can go to be safe from abuse, and have food available to them if they are hungry.

Anything I can do to stay out of the castle would be fine, but honestly, any job that would keep me away from this hell would be worth it. I am so ready to extinguish this life.

Everyone here thinks that being of royal blood would have its benefits, and of course in some sense it does.

I get to eat all the divine foods when I travel with my family to different castles in our surrounding area, but my family has always treated me like dirt and failed to acknowledge my presence at all.

When I am out in the public eye, I must wear long sleeves and long dresses because no one can know about the beatings, whippings, or other abuse I receive.

I have been treated like a slave in my own house since I knew how to clean.

I am responsible for the cooking, cleaning and if my older brother didn't want to do his homework I was required to tell him the answers so he could just write them down, since I was not permitted to write.

I could do nothing about it because, if I even slightly step out of line or disagree with them, I am punished until I lay bleeding on the floor.

Today, I promise myself, it will be the last day I receive a whipping.

I have received so many that I have become numb to the pain.

After I am punished, I normally lay on the floor in my room dreading the fact that this might be the life I am destined to have.

Every day I look in the mirror, and I am reminded of the actions of my family.

I have about 25 long raised welts and scars from the whip snapping across my back.

I have received more but they have faded away or landed on top of one another.

Today as I stand in front of the mirror, I notice that one of the fresh whip marks I received is in the shape of a crescent moon and it lies in the center of my back.

It would be quite beautiful if it hadn’t come from a whip or by the hands of my brother.

I don’t understand why I had to be born into this family, or why my family has forsaken me.

I thought about telling someone, anyone, but I knew I couldn’t.

No one would care or believe me. “Oh poor Princess Celest, she has everything and she’s just crying for attention.”

Well, I don’t! My parents have deceived so many people and tarnished my character so that everyone thinks I am lying.

When we travel most people just ignore me, or they turn their noses up in disgust.

My brother Zion though, is the heir to the throne, and has everything; women hanging on his arms, name brand clothes, the best cars money can buy, the best of everything.

Not me, I get old clothes that I must find in the old, discarded laundry, and the only time I get to wear anything nice is when we go out.

My mother always says “we must keep up appearances; you are part of the royal family so you must be seen but that doesn't mean you need to be heard.”

Keeping up appearances is what my mother, Marcella, was great at.

She is a little under 6 feet tall and is stunning.

She is fair with high rosey cheek bones.

Her eyes are green like the moss on trees and her long orange hair is always curled and either pinned to a crown or flowing down her back.

I can’t tell if it is the light reflecting the color of her hair into her eyes, but sometimes her eyes have a reddish tint to them, I can see it the most when she is angry.

She never leaves her room without putting on her face and eye powder.

She exudes dominance and grace as she walks through her people.

They bow to her and she pays them no mind.

She is always dressed in expensive, lavish gowns that drag on the floor behind her.

She is definitely a queen. I just wish that she would treat me like she loved and cared about me; like she used to when I was younger, but now she has been behind my abuse many times.

Her favorite thing is to put me in a cage while naked.

It is so small, I have to sit with my legs pulled to my chest.

When she walks by me she pours ice cold water on me until I shiver uncontrollably.

She loves to isolate me, my father does too.

My parents even went as far as to hire teachers to come to the castle to teach me.