I grab hold of his fingers around my neck, trying to pry them away. The edges of my vision go black. With every ounce of strength I have left, I fling out my foot and kick him straight in the gut.
Fucking hell! My foot dings off him like I kicked sheet metal. I think I broke a toe. But it must have taken him by surprise because he drops me, and I collapse to the ground, clutching my neck and coughing.
In a burst of I-just-about-died rage, I glower up at him. “How the fuck am I supposed to answer you when you’re choking me out, you overgrown tin can?”
He’s so still, he looks like a suit of armor standing sentinel in a hallway—a jazzed-up, flowery suit of armor, that is. But I’m not going to give him the opportunity to manhandle me again. I jump up, ready to make a break for the brambles—
He snatches my wrists and holds my hands uselessly before me.
“Let me go!” I scream, desperately trying to tear free of him, spitting and snarling like a wild cat. But it only makes him grip me harder.
Goddammit, he’s so fucking still and he’s not saying anything. I need to try a different tactic. Taking a huge breath to calm my panting, I stop fighting against his hold and stare into his eyes. Or where I think his eyes are, anyway.
“Look, I’m not supposed to be here. I don’t know any Prince of Thorns, or whatever. I’m a human. See my ears? I’m just trying to go home. Let me go. Please.”
The knight doesn’t reply. It’s almost hypnotic, staring into the dark spaces where his eyes might be. My breath catches in my throat. Who is this being? Even though I can’t see his face, it feels like he’s assessing me, staringintome.
“Say something, won’t you?” I growl.
“What… is your name?” he says, his strange echoey voice like velvet.
“Rosalina.”
“Rosalina,” he repeats, and his grip loosens on my wrists.
Suddenly, footsteps pitter-patter on the bridge and I whip my head around to see a girl running toward us. Like Keldarion and the man in the dungeon, she has pointed ears. Her skin is so pale its nearly translucent, and her short white hair flows behind her. “My Prince! My Prince!”
My Prince? The tin can who tried to choke me out is aprince?
The prince turns to the girl and inclines his head. “What is it, Astrid?”
The girl doubles over, panting, her white dress flapping in the breeze. “That human woman! She’s not supposed to be out here.”
“What?” The prince drops my wrists and turns to fully face her. “What is the meaning of this?”
“She’s Keldarion’s prisoner,” the white-haired girl says. “And she’s escaping!”
Heh heh. Let them ponder over the mystery of who I am. I ain’t sticking around. As soon as Prince Tin Man let me go, I bolted for the bushes. Keldarion and his castle of freaks can kick rocks.
“Arghh!” Another sensation tightens around my neck, and I fall backward. But it’s not the knight’s hand this time, but my scarf, of which he has snagged. He yanks me back along the bridge.
“What are you doing?” I scream, wedging my hands underneath the scarf fabric so he doesn’t take my head off with it.
“You’re Keldarion’s prisoner,” he says slowly.
“I didn’t do anything!” I cry.
The white-haired girl hops beside us. “She found her way through the Briar to the castle and made it all the way up to the dungeon to find her father. She traded places with him by choice.”
The armored prince gives a deep sigh. “I’m gone for three days and Keldarion finds a new way to torment me.”
“Where are you taking me?” I kick my legs out but it’s no use. He’s dragging me behind him like I’m nothing.
The white-haired girl—Astrid—pulls the doors open and I’m hauled back into the castle.
“Don’t bother taking me back to the dungeon. I’ll find another way to escape,” I say.
The prince gives a half-hearted look over his shoulder. Instead of ascending to the dungeon, we go up a grand staircase and down a long hallway with walls the color of evergreens and intricate golden designs of flowers and leaves.