Prologue
The dark enveloped the streets, and a cry called out into the night, hoping for a response. Any response would be good; it would mean they weren’t alone. A basket lay under a street lamp, the only sign of life being the movement of a blanket. A hunched figure slowly ran down the street, stopping only momentarily to pick up the basket.
Once home, Ivy lifted her hood and ran down the stairs to her dark basement bedroom. It was only here that she trusted to remove the blanket. Peeking out from under the purple rag were two golden eyes. The crying had stopped when Ivy got close; she knew what it meant now that they held eye contact. It wasn’t unknown in her world that a dragon bonds with the first human they see. What was also known is that only those worthy could hold eye contact with a dragon. These were people usually born into high-class families, those whose lineage goes back to when humans first bonded with dragons. However, Ivy was not born into a high-class family; she was an orphan. Left abandoned on the steps of the wealthiest family in the town. Most might assume that this made her high-class, but instead, she was treated as nothing more than a servant. On good days, she was a guest in her own house. On the worst days, she was treated as an outcast, neglected and reminded that she had been abandoned and would always be unwanted. Her room was her only sanctuary, and now she had a big secret to keep. Her adopted siblings, Rosalind and Max, had already received their dragons. Both had bonded at 13, and now Ivy was 13 with her very own dragon. She knew they would immediately take it away if her ‘family’ found out she now had a dragon. Without her, the dragon would never survive, but with her, she could be risking far more than the dragon’s survival.
