"Did I impre'th you, printh'eth?" Froglip hissed from over her shoulder.

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 as if he didn't quite know what to do. "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 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 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 put up a fight.

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.