Princed

Chapter 9

The goblin prince let out a snicker, his claws gleaming in the candlelight. He took several steps towards Irenie, his long strange feet scraping the stone floor as Irenie dragged hers back and screamed again, but the sound rung emptily in the room.

The prince stopped and she stopped, mimicking him. "Who th'tarts?" The young goblin prince cackled, his smile gleaming eerily since it looked like half his front teeth were broken. They were both frozen for such a long time it felt like someone should have at least tried to check up on the princess by now. Of course, they were all probably still fighting, but she needed them. Their princess needed them.

"I thuppose I can begin." Prince Froglip said before curling in on himself, looking ready to pounce.

A stifled cry hit Irenie's mouth but she bit back on the response and grabbed the nearest thing -her rocking horse in this case- and threw it at the prince as best she could. It went barely above knee height and just missed the prince's shins and toes. What she would have given if he could have been but five inches closer.

However, standing where he was, the prince dodged the wooden horse effortlessly. He was nimble and quick like none of the other goblins Irenie had ever seen. The prince's eyes peeled themselves away from the horse he had just avoided and went slowly to Irenie, a smile curling on the sides of his horrific face.

"Ladie'th fir'tht, then," the young goblin smiled widely as he swept out one leg and leapt forwards.

Irenie screamed again, but managed to flee from the antechamber to the bedroom, just missing the prince by a hair. She grabbed a vase from one of the tables and ran to her bed so it could separate him from her.

The princess held the vase defensively as Prince Froglip smirked at her from the other side and swaggered towards it.

"Ith that your battle cry? You ought to be making it louder and deeper!" The prince laughed maniacally before he bellowed at her with those frightening teeth exposed and a grin pulling tight on his lips.

Irenie screamed again and while the goblin was roaring, she threw the vase at him with all her might. It would have surely hit him since she had never seen anything move so fast as that vase. Prince Froglip clawed at it mid-air and the clay went crashing into the wall instead, where it broke into a hundred pieces.

"You're not a bad fighter for a thun girl," Prince Froglip hissed from the other side of the bed, his claws cutting through the mattress like streams of water, making ribbons out of the fabric. Again, he launched himself at the princess, but Irenie was at the very least determined to keep him from coming anywhere near her. She managed to drag the bed curtains forward and threw them at the prince who was wrapped in their gold instantly.

The princess backed away thinking that she might at least be able to unlock the door before the prince escaped, but alas, he tore that to shreds as well and found her instantly with those awful, yellow eyes.

He was grinning wildly now as Irenie ran to the door, her skirts thrashing about. She hit the surface and scrambled with the key, the prince's ugly face in the back of her mind.

She didn't have enough time.

Two hands on either side of Irenie hit the wooden door with a thud causing the oak to shudder. "I've pinned you," Froglip hissed with a heavy sigh from over her shoulder. "Did I impre'th you, printh'eth?" he asked her but Irenie couldn't move. He hadn't even laid a hand on her... yet, but that impending moment and all the moments after had her too terrified to speak. She just wanted it to be all over.

The goblin prince shuffled his feet. "Then have you accepted?" the goblin asked. "You'll come back with me?"

Irenie's brow squeezed painfully. Why did it sound like he was asking a question? Hadn't he come into her room to kidnap her? Hadn't all that fighting been just a means to catch her and drag her back to the hell the goblins had come from?

She didn't think her tiny feet could do any damage to this monster and fear had a truly cruel way of making Irenie's throat clench with it. She just wanted it to be all over. She didn't want to fight anymore, it was all too frightening.

Irenie nodded.

From the prince's position, he must have seen her head bob. "Marvelouth," the Prince said as his oppressive presence lessened for just a second when he removed both hands from the door.

The princess gasped when instead of demanding the key from her, the prince nearly wrenched the door to her room off its hinges with a deep grunt and threw it open the wrong way.

The goblin grabbed the princess' wrist and pulled her after him with an iron-tight grip on her hand. He dragged her along, pausing and becoming as stiff as a stone gargoyle at the blink of an eye only to keep moving. Princess Irenie simpered as she was lead forward like a lamb to the slaughter. She was so terribly separated from her physical body that Irenie didn't even occupy it anymore. It was like she knew she was being dragged back down to the goblin tunnels but she couldn't even protest.

They were headed to the wine cellar when Irenie heard voices calling for her. She wanted to respond but were they even real? Her voice was hoarse but the princess shuffled a little as Prince Froglip hid them both behind one of the enormous barrels of wine.

The goblin held a finger over his lips and blew through them for silence but made no move to cover her mouth. Tears were still rolling off the edges of her eyes and collecting on her chin.

However, even in the darkness of the wine cellar, feet away from the hole the goblins had used to break into the castle, she heard a familiar voice call her name.

Curdie! Her unfocused eyes regained a bit of their lustre as she breathed in sharply. He had come to get her! He kept his promise.

"Curdie!" She cried out, finally in control of herself once more. "Look out!"

The next moments after those were always a blur in her memory. She remembered Froglip leading her down the tunnel, she remembered the water that surged forth when the goblins had accidentally flooded the castle instead of the mines they had originally been targeting.

The next details were fuzzy to Irenie, now a young woman who was much older than eight. She was currently sitting at her writing desk, stroking the ears of the goblin cat she had been gifted and pondering the goblin-prince-sized problem that was arresting all her attention.

It was hard to believe the thing in her memory and the one that was staying inside the palace were the same. Both might have been hideous to look at, but never had she been less afraid of him. And he was now an adult! Surely he would have grown more ferocious with age? But Froglip was only at least half as terrible as the men who were currently vying for her hand in marriage.

The small test Irenie had conducted with the repairs made to the miners' houses went smoother than expected. Not only had she been able to demonstrate how the people of her kingdom often traded services for goods, like what the goblins had done for the miners, Irenie had also weeded out several of the suitors her Father had invited.

However, a week had already passed since the goblin's arrival and when midsummer's end came, Irenie would be forced to marry the closest suitable relative to the Tor family line, and that was Jeffery Torren, her awful cousin.

It was common knowledge that when a princess did not marry before the summer of her 18th birthday, she was wedded to one of her kin to keep the bloodline 'pure'. Irenie loathed this idea, but after this last week she would be forced to search for a suitor before midsummer sprang upon her.

In the next few days she was going to pick some suitable candidate, and then in the following weeks allow them to court her until it was midsummer when they would wed. It wasn't her ideal plan, but it was better than marrying Jeffery.

However, before the goblins left the next morning, Irenie had to know something. She had to hear it from the goblin prince's very own mouth before she could ever rest peacefully.