Prince of the Kin by Arin Cross (free ereaders TXT) 📖

Everyone has a tale to tell, one that may have changed their life with little to no effort. My own tale changed everything I believed in within a few short minutes.
My life as it is now, could not be considered anything but boring. Living from day to day working the farm within the small village of Vala. Vala is one of three villages in the Miandern Valley, quite a ways from the Imperial City, where the king rules us all who live in Guestern, which is very large- stretching from the western sea to the temperal sea, a full 300 vales. The Miandern is only 5 vales, it takes a week to get from one side to the other.
Vala has a grand total of 40 residents, which varies around the time of the year, but this is permanent residence instead of travelers. We are a folk who tends to be suspicious about everything, and that’s helped us last for quite a while. We do meager things to keep us alive; farming, clothing, loggers, so on and so forth; and we trade with the other two villages to get what we need. But sometimes that doesn’t even work so we go without. Sometimes we get the guests, or travelers, to help out in someway, but we don’t always trust them enough to do so.
With Dragons, demons, imps, and harpies- who would?
Not my village, never my village...
That’s where are suspicious nature never comes to terms, but I’ve come to be somewhat trusting of these people, even if the rest are not. Thank’s to an old friend, I was never considered sane. Because of him, my beliefs that I was taught so young were changed drastically.

At the age of ten, I knew exactly what to stay away from, thanks to my parents constant ranting. There were harpies, which would claw your eyes out and didn’t have the decency to really look human of any sort. The demons and imps, you could always tell when one was coming your way with the way the flowers withered and all.
Then there were the dragons, or the dragon kin as we call them. These could turn into humans, and pass off as one with no problem at all. They either did it cause they were bored, to lure them out, or to get them to trust them enough to play their games. That was the problem with these creatures, they were too cunning for a human to figure out if they were used as a puppet.
That didn’t stop me from going out in the woods of course, every once in a while, I’d go to the wild flower patch and pick flowers for mom. It was a clearing, surrounded by pine trees and extra thick bushes, shrouding the way from any passers by. But when you got past those, it was like a rainbow had been laid out on the field for those select few to see. It was beautiful in the dark, but in the sunlight it seemed to gleam.
I’d been going to the same place for months, and I’d stay there for hours. I’d only leave when I thought I’d been there long enough and mom might have a heart attack. One day, after I’d finished my work, I went back.
‘It’s around here, past this tree, through those bushes,’ thought the ten year old as she giggled, hurrying along the well known path. She couldn't wait to see the flowers again. She snuck through the brush and out into the plain, only to find herself face to face with a boy, only a few years older then her by the looks of it. He had sharp eyes, with pupils that looked like a cats, and pointed ears. He stared at her a moment, tilting his head and watching her just as she watched him. It was quite a few moments before the boy came forward, deciding to be friendly apparently.
“Hi...” he said in a soft voice that she had to lean over slightly to hear, she stepped back a bit. She stared up at the other, sure she was going to get in trouble if her mother found out she was talking to the other.

Publication Date: 10-27-2010

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