Page 7 of The Ruby Dragon Prince
He shifted so he could grab the handle, which was shaped like some sort of dragon’s claw, and pulled. The door opened without any resistance.
Again, we all gasped and exclaimed in fear and surprise as opening the door revealed not a dungeon or the storeroom we all knew took up the space of the floor under us, but a narrow, gilded staircase that descended into a forest. I could smell the delicious scent of growing things along with a perfume that defied description. The light emanating from the forest was like that of the most enchanted full moon.
“What do we do?” Obi asked, glancing at all of us in turn for guidance.
“We explore,” Rumi said, beaming with excitement.
Without waiting for any sort of discussion about whether we should go or not, Rumi hurriedly descended the stairs into the forest.
“Wait, Rumi! You can’t just go through a magic door like that!” Selle called after him.
“If he’s going, I’m going,” Leo said, stepping onto the staircase.
“I’m going, too,” I said with a bright smile. Anything was better than staying in our room until Father decided to palm me off on Lord Groswick.
The thrill of excitement that filled me as I descended the golden staircase into the forest was like breathing in the scent of winter biscuits and spiced wine, knowing the winter solstice had finally come. My mind raced to accept and interpret the things I saw around me as the world of our bedroom retreated behind me and the much vaster world of the forest surrounded me.
The door was clearly magical. When I looked back to make certain Selle, Obi, and Misha were following us, I nearly tripped at the sight of the door suspended in the sky. There was no ceiling above us, just an endless, beautiful, star-studded sky. As soon as Misha came through the door and carefully shut it behind him, the door seemed to disappear entirely, and when he reached the bottom of the stairs, those, too, disappeared.
“How do we return to the castle?” Obi asked in a panic.
“Why would we want to return to the castle?” Leo snorted.
“We don’t know what we’re going to find here,” I cautioned him. “It could be worse than what we had before.”
“Nothing could be worse than what we had before,” Selle said with a wary look.
“We have responsibilities to the people of Father’s kingdom,” Misha pointed out. “We might not have much power, but we have some. We have people who need our protection, if we can give it.”
Rumi frowned, then seemed to get an idea. “How do we go home?” he asked the forest.
As soon as the question was asked, the golden staircase and the door reappeared.
Rumi smiled and nodded to it. “There you go. I suspect that when we want to return home, we simply ask for the door to reappear.”
“Do we have to be in this spot when we ask?” I asked.
“Let’s find out,” Rumi said.
He turned and started off through the forest at a fast, adventurous pace. We all followed him. I looked around at the specific trees and markings of the place where our door had appeared, hoping to memorize the area in case we did have to return to that exact spot to get home.
I needn’t have worried. It became clear within a few minutes that we were following a path that led from the place where our door appeared to…somewhere. The stones were iridescent green and easy to see in the moonlight.
As soon as I was no longer worried that we would be lost in the enchanted forest forever, I relaxed and began to look farther than my immediate surroundings as we walked. The forest was like nothing I’d ever seen. The trees were not ordinary oaks and maples and pines. They were something else entirely, with beautiful, sturdy trunks and friendly, spreading canopies. The branches held not only leaves, but gems, too, just like the tree on the door. Some of them dotted the ends of branches like fruit, but others had long cascades of jewels, like necklaces and bracelets, hanging down and catching the moonlight.
“It’s beautiful,” Obi said as we walked. “Like something out of a dream.”
“I definitely feel like I’m dreaming,” I agreed.
I could hear the music that I’d heard when the door appeared under Rumi’s bed as well. The scents I’d caught in that surprising moment were all around us now with more joining them. I could smell roasted meat and sugary treats, like there was some sort of feast ahead of us.
We continued through the forest until the trees gave way at the edge of a miraculous lake. The waters looked like they were made of liquid sapphire and diamond. The grassy banks around the lake shone like emerald. In the center of the lake was a large island with a massive pavilion that seemed to be made of silver and gold and pearl. It shone bright from lamps that Icouldn’t see but that illuminated what I could only describe as an enchanted ball taking place there.
“What do you think?” Leo whispered to the rest of us, as if he didn’t want the ball guests to discover us. “Are we invited?”
No sooner had the words left his lips than a bridge of the same emerald grass we stood on appeared spanning the water.
“I guess that answers that question,” Rumi said. “Come on.”
