Page 5 of The Ruby Dragon Prince
“Take them to their room!” Father shouted, marching along with us as the guards pushed, shoved, and dragged us down the hall toward the private part of the palace. “You will pay for this treachery,” he went on. “Whatever freedoms you’ve had are gone. Your room will be your prison. You will only be allowed out when it suits my purposes.”
Dread pooled in my stomach. I caught sight of Misha and Obi weeping as Leo tried to comfort them and move them along. Selle had gone pale but was trying to be strong. Only Rumi seemed to be treating our impending imprisonment as if it were a joke.
When we reached our room, Rottum yanked open the door and the guards shoved us into the room. Father stepped in behind us, glaring.
“I will discover who that man is and have him eviscerated in front of you,” he vowed to Rumi. “I will have his head displayed on a spike in your precious garden.”
“If you can find him,” Rumi replied in a whisper.
“Insolence!” Father shouted, then slapped Rumi hard across the face.
The rest of us gasped and lunged forward to support Rumi. The blow had been so hard that he’d nearly lost his balance.
“Guards! Lock this door!” Father said, backing out of the room. “Put additional chains around it. I want it guarded at alltimes. No one goes in or out. These whelps are no longer my sons, they’re my prisoners.”
Panic filled my stomach. The only tiny freedom we princes had was our walks around the city and in the botanical gardens.
“You will rue the day you tried to cross me,” Father spat at Rumi, then turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter
Two
Tovey
Iflinched hard at the slam of our door. The six of us had been shut away so many times before, but something about the finality of the bang and the gut-wrenching turn of the lock gave me a sense of foreboding that I’d never felt before.
“That’s it, then,” Misha said, sinking back from the door, still clinging to Obi. “We’re doomed. Our lives are over.”
“Our lives are not over,” Leo said, rolling his eyes at Misha. He looked far more nervous than his words sounded, though.
“Father means it this time,” Selle said as we all turned away from the door and wandered aimlessly through the space of our circular room, none of us knowing what to do. “He’s going to keep us locked away for the rest of our lives.”
“No, he isn’t,” I said, unhappily. “He’s going to keep us locked in here until he finds alphas to sell us to in marriage.”
My brothers glanced at me in horror. All but Rumi, who had moved quietly to the foot of his own bed and had his back toward the rest of us.
“That can’t possibly be true,” Obi said, more like he hoped it wasn’t true. “Father wouldn’t be so cruel.”
“Father is evil,” Selle said with a snort.
“And I think he does mean it,” Misha said in a panicked voice that was barely audible. “He forced me to dance with Lord Anise tonight, and Lord Anise told me that I would be his as soon as he bargained for my hand.”
“Lord Groswick said more or less the same thing to me,” I said, sinking into one of the chairs in the center of the room. I had never felt so hopeless. I couldn’t see how the six of us would be able to escape our fates.
“I don’t want to marry an old, cruel, ugly man,” Obi said, his lip wobbling, like he was trying to be brave and not cry over our fates.
“It’s Rumi’s fault,” Leo said at last, turning to glare at our brother. “If he hadn’t recklessly courted that servant, in front of Father and everyone, then none of us would be in this position.”
We all turned to Rumi. My stomach roiled. I hated it when any of my brothers fought. We were all that each other had and turning against each other made all of us weak.
“You shouldn’t have dallied with your beau in full sight of Father and everyone,” Selle agreed with Leo, but gently.
“He’s turned us all into prisoners,” Leo said, marching over to where Rumi was only just shaking out of his thoughts and realizing we were talking about him. “And all for what, a servant?”
Rumi glanced from the rest of us to Leo, his excited look turning into a frown. “You would criticize me for finding love and enjoying a moment of joy where I found it?”
I pushed myself to my feet and moved quickly to the brewing confrontation, hoping to stop it. The others came with me until we were all standing around Rumi.
