Verden Heiress

Chapter 1

A body was tied to a chair less than 20 feet from me, the exact mirror image of my own. Other than the obvious reason for them not to me be. For instance, the body was male, very male. He had a very strong build but he would have had to in order to reach the destination he'd arrived at. My tower is over a 100 feet tall, and straight up from the ground. Unless you are one of the 2 people, not including myself, that know where the door is, you'd have to climb. And have a good reason at that.

Back to the fact that he looked just like me. His hair was shaggy, and as his chin was dangling just above his chest, it fell in his eyes. That hair was a very pale silver, almost white. The exact color of mine. His face looked like mine, chiseled cheekbones, his having a stronger jawline than mine, yet his eyes had been the same ice blue of mine. That was before he got knocked out and tied to a chair. I studied him, my bow at the ready in case he started to wake up. His clothes seemed to be made of leather, not unlike mine, but they were in the fashion for riding, not climbing a 100 foot tower to what could possibly be his death. On his right hand he held the mark of house O'Rian, a pair of stags antlers. He must be well off to receive this mark, for only high ranking members of the house were branded at birth.

It had been Aerie who had knocked out the man. She was my best friend, my only friend. When we'd heard the smack of a hand against the stone outside we'd disappeared, me to my hide out above the window with an arrow notched, and Aerie to the closet across from me. When this man had come through, looking around and calling out my name, I'd dropped the arrow head from it's position and cocked my head to the side. He'd turned around, finding me, meeting my eyes and raised his hands.

"I just want-" he'd started to say.

Of course Aerie took no chances and jumped out from her hiding place, effectively disarming the intruder with a fell swoop from a frying pan.

"What do we do with him?" she asked quietly, eyes flickering about his body. He'd been a heavy fellow to pick up and deposit in his current position. If I am to explain Aerie correctly you have to take into account that she is not human. And our story goes farther back than just us.

Aerie comes from an ancient dragon family. Yes dragon. In the beginning, when whoever founded our world of Verden, two families made a pact, one being human, the other being dragon. This pact started with the most ordinary of agreements, you won't kill my family and I won't kill yours. But it ended with a tie of bloodline. The head of both families shook hands, slices on both of their palms. There was a prediction that day, that in each family, when girls were born as heads of both houses, then these girls would be united as one, the human given the dragon egg. For this bond to be secure, on the full moon a month after the egg has been in her possession shall she cut her palm and spill blood onto the stone.

Of course I did all this, with the instruction of Madge, my 'caretaker' who showed up every other week, and the next morning I woke up with a juvenile dragon outside my window. It had taken a few weeks for Aerie to discover the traits of her family, that they could transform into humans.

"I don't know, wait for him to wake up? Or wait till Madge shows up today. He's bound so he can't move."

Her molten blue eyes met mine, skeptisism plain on her face. Aerie is beautiful, hair so black it shines blue, exotic features. But who wouldn't think she would be exotic. She's a dragon. I'm a human.

"You know Madge will have a fit if she comes and finds him." Aerie takes a step forward and pokes his cheek, earning no response. "We should just throw him out the window."

I step closer to him, "I want to know what he has to say..." I grab the hand with his house mark, choosing not to comment on the bloody knuckles, "If anything we can hold him for ransom. He's O'Rian blood."

"How did he find us?" Aerie brings up an obvious question. Our valley is only accessable two ways. One by passage through the mountain, but you have to know where that is. Or by flight over the pass, which is only possible by dragon. Both ways are virtually impossible. Which means this man had to have had directions.

I shake my head, running my fingers across the braid that falls down my back, "Look through his sack. He has to have papers."

She reaches for the bag that he'd dropped on the ground when he'd entered through the window. It's an average bag, nothing special really, meant to be thrown over one shoulder and across the body. The stitching shows years of use but the leather appears to be taken care of. Aerie opens it, gently pulling each article out, examining it as only she can, before placing it around her on the floor. Paper lies on paper, other materials lie side by side. A book, journal really, lies by itself.

"He came here with no weapons. So he must be stupid," She says turning the bag over and shaking it to release anything else. Nothing falls so she discards it behind her.

"Or he knows I want to hear what he'll say."

Aerie rolls her eyes, "I don't like this."

I sit down in front of him and place my bow beside me, pondering what he could be doing here. Why did he come here? I'm not something a lot of people know of. In fact my whole life I've been a secret. And secrets have been kept from me. I don't know who my family is. Other than Aerie, I have limited human interaction. The only thing I've been taught is how to kill, and kill effectively.

"I don't really like it either. But I want to know who he is..."

Aerie sighs, rummaging through the papers she's found from his bag, "It says here his name is... Hain?"

"Yes..." comes a croak.