the knight in a glass coffin.

2.

Her response? She flicks the flat of his blade with her nail. His sword remains steady as she circles around him. "First of all. I don't know who you are. Secondly, you got the wrong person."

His nostrils flare and his eyebrows furrow. "You are the one who cursed me! You are the last one burned in the image of my mind!"

She sighs and props herself against what was his final resting place. Could she kill damsels in distress? No, probably not. It wasn't their time yet, and she wasn't their villain. Ugh, how disappointing. "Very well. Tell me how I cursed you."

"The princess warned me of your arrival," he said.

"Of course there's a princess." He must be her knight, sworn to protect her.

"You flung your sorcery at me, spouting that I shall be cursed forever unless freed by true love's kiss," he growled. "And then I was torn away and found myself here!"

"How strange, why would you be the target of a curse and not the princess?"

He shook his head. "A trivial question. Now you try my patience." He moves forward.

She scurries away from being cornered. "Then you don't know why? If you don't understand why the curse was wrought upon you, then you may very well have to fulfil its demands to have it lifted."

A low growl rumbled out of him. "Why worry about such things, when I can kill you and end it for good." He lunges at her, and she dodges his attack in the nick of time, landing on soft, dewy grass.

He was a wolf with snarled lips and of fanged malice. His approach was calculated, not unsteady from anger or hate. She was surprised that he allowed her to talk in the first place when he could have lunged for her throat and ripped it clean.

The once stale air of the garden felt thick and repulsive; the floral aroma was too sickening for her senses. The trees towered over her like giants in judgement, and the topiary seemed to be walls of a prison.

"Surely you have me mistaken," she says briskly, trying to catch a breath. Her legs had responded accordingly—they were taking her backwards, away from the scary man with the sword. Her confidence had not waned, though her brain was rummaging very quickly through old memories. She had met many princesses in her life and not all of them were alone. She was attempting to match his statement with what she knew. "You wouldn't happen to be the escort of the lovely lady in the tower, would you? Mayhap you are related? No?"

His pace quickened.

"The princess, you could at least tell me who she is. Or what kingdom she hailed from, or who reigned there. I know of so many—"

"Oh, and I suppose you have cursed them all too, haven't you," he lashes out at her and the pillar behind takes the hit.

From now on she was making sure she surveyed the entire area first before finding herself lobbed into a duel. "I really, really think you've got the wrong person, ser!"

"I could never forget your face, witch, you have torn my life apart!"

His piercing cry must've been magic, because she felt his voice hollow her out from the inside. The pain of him clambered into the darkness of her heart, into depths she could not comprehend.

Ah, she thought to herself. There it is. She winces, and her body is propelled backward. She is falling. That pain was like a strike of lightning, its jagged edges racing through velvet tunnels. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It was not from a jilted princeling or a lonely maiden with the purest tears.

This pain felt personal.

A glimpse of a scene that felt like a dream. She was flinging words at that man—the very one about to stab her with his blade—and there was a princess, but of course, draped in jewels and the finest lace the kingdom could manage to procure. She hid behind him, for he was her protective shield, her adamant guardian, her royal knight. She watched our heroine with widened eyes, with a curious expression that did not portray innocence.

All she could see of herself was the streaks that lined her face and the words that she could not hear. But she spoke them. And for every word that was spoken, her heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. The scene began to darken as her mind tried to go deeper, and as the shadows fell and smudged her memory, all that was left was a haunting smirk on the princess's lips.

She was flat on the ground and the back of her head ached. She must've smacked it on something but at least she was not seeing stars. Her eyes sweep up at the tip of the blade ready to plunge at her.

"Hold," she commanded to him.

He stops. "Why?"

"If I am surely the one that has caused you misfortune, then you must know who I am."

There was a pause. Aha! She got him. He was frustrated. "I only remember that day, nothing more."

She scoffs. "How fruitless your search would be, then, should you end my life now. Is your story not important to you?"

His words matched his glare. "Of course it is."

"Then stay your blade and fury, ser knight. Would you be so merciful as to postpone your execution until we uncover the truth? Then once it is revealed, I will be happy to meet my end."

She waited, not moving a single inch. He was completely frozen, though he was looking away, deep in thought. She nearly flinches when his piercing gaze falls upon her, but her pride did its best at hiding any sign of weakness.

"Agreed. Let us tarry not a moment longer." Without a second to spare, he begins his march out of the garden.

She reaches out to him, scrambling to her feet. "Wait! I can't just call you 'ser' all the time. Do you have a name for yourself?"

They matched his eyes. "Grey."