Page 2 of The Gold Dragon Prince
The five of us blinked at each other, as if that was the first time we’d even heard of Tovey.
“I know you know where he has escaped to,” Father growled on. “You helped him to escape. You cannot fool me.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” Leo said, blinking rapidly. “Did you not give Tovey to Lord Groswick? Has he not taken our brother away?”
Father had intended to give Tovey to the odious Lord Groswick in exchange for the plot Groswick had conceived of to tax the farmers of our kingdom so that Father could fill his coffers and bring them to heel. Tovey and Rufus had foiled the plan, and when they’d forced Lord Groswick to confess his duplicity to everyone in the kingdom during a festival, Father had had no choice but to lock Groswick away.
We knew full well that Tovey hadn’t been dragged off by the man, who was still in the castle’s dungeons, as far as I knew, but feigning ignorance was a fun way to tweak Father’s nose.
“You know full well…he is not…you think you can….” Father sputtered through several attempts to counter the story we stuck to every time he demanded we tell him where Tovey was, which was daily. “You know where your brother is, and you will tell me at once!” he shouted. “I will not let you out of this room until you confess all to me!”
We glanced at each other and shrugged. The five of us had grown incredibly skilled at looking ignorant over the past month.
“We know nothing,” Rumi said, speaking for all of us, as he frequently did. “You have kept us locked in this room for a month now without any contact with the outside world. How would we have any knowledge of where Tovey has gone?”
Father hissed and nearly stomped his foot in a tantrum. “Simply keeping you locked away is not good enough. I have half a mind to reduce the rations you’ve been allowed to starve the answer out of you.”
He grinned and rubbed his hands together, but his wicked look faded when he saw we weren’t cowed by his threat. The fact was that we traveled to the magical world every night to attend dances at the pavilion and to visit with Tovey and Rufus. The eggs were getting larger every day, although it would be another few months before they hatched. We had plenty to eat in the magical world, and we tended to bring small parcels back with us to eat the next morning.
“So you still refuse to tell me where your brother is?” Father demanded, jaw clenched.
“We don’t know,” I lied with a shrug.
Father huffed. “Then I hope you enjoy these walls,” he said. “They will be your prison until you confess.”
Without waiting for any sort of response from us, he turned and marched out of the room, the guards following. Once they were all in the hall, he turned to glare at us one more time, then slammed the doors.
We waited a few seconds, then burst into laughter.
“The only person Father is hurting with his antics is himself,” I said, closing my book, pushing my glasses up my nose, and standing.
“He’ll die of apoplexy if he keeps aggravating himself over Tovey,” Misha agreed quietly.
“Who would inherit the kingdom if Father dies?” Obi asked as we all headed to the wardrobes beside our beds to change into our dancing costumes for the night. “Omegas cannot become kings.”
I shrugged. “I think Father has a younger brother, but he was banished before we were born.”
“He did and he was,” Leo said as he pulled on a blue tunic. “But Uncle Florian was an omega, so he couldn’t have inherited the throne either.”
“Then why did Father banish him?” Obi asked, sitting on his bed to put on his dancing shoes.
“I think it’s because he was with child,” I said. “Father couldn’t have known if that child was an alpha that might supplant him, but he banished Uncle Florian anyhow.”
“I heard he stole the child, which was an alpha, when it was born and did something bad to him,” Misha said in a hush.
“I hope not,” I said, genuinely worried for the potential cousin I’d never met.
There wasn’t time to think about it. We changed quickly, and with a little push, Rumi’s bed was moved to the side, revealing the magical door.
I always felt a thrill when my brothers and I descended the golden stairway into the vibrant forest of the magical world. It was like I could finally breathe and my spirit could come alive after the oppression of living in our father’s world.
I knew the path from the spot where Rumi’s dooropened to the lake where the pavilion stood so well now. The trees that lined the path were tall with leaves of every shade of green imaginable. But they were also dripping with gems, in clusters and in ropes, as if jewels were the fruits they bore. The air was fragrant with promise, and the music that wafted to us from the pavilion had my heart singing even before we came within sight of the lake.
The lake itself looked as if it were made of living, liquid crystal. It sat at the bottom of a small hill, atop which was a magnificent castle that I was itching to explore. In the nearly two months since my brothers and I had started attending dances at the pavilion, several of the partners I’d danced the nights away with had told me that the castle belonged to the dragons that ruled over the magical world.
Well, in actuality, it was the dragons’ mother, Queen Gaia, who ruled the magical world. Some said she ruled all the worlds. Her son, the prince who I suspected was Rumi’s secret lover, Emmerich, was the ruler of the particular part of the magical world where the forest, castle, and pavilion stood. Tovey had confirmed that Rufus had rooms at the castle as well, as did all of his brothers and other family members, but Rufus and Tovey preferred to spend their time at Rufus’s lair, now that they had eggs.
We crossed over one of the magical bridges of grass that appeared for invited guests to give them access across the lake and into the pavilion. I stood straight, glancing around to see if Tovey and Rufus had decided to make an appearance at the night’s dance. I couldn’t see them anywhere, but I did see several familiar faces. Fairly quickly after we’d discovered the magical world and begun attending the nightly dances, my brothers and I had made friends with several people in the magical world.
