Earth Born Read online

  Earth Born

  N. E. Conneely

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Fire Forged Preview

  Fire Forged (Earth Born Cycle Book 2) Excerpt

  New Release Newsletter

  Also by N. E. Conneely

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 N. E. Conneely

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information-storage-and-retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or author. Requests for permission to copy part of this work for use in an educational environment may be directed to the author. This book is a work of fiction. References to historical events, real people, or real locales are made fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For H.

  Chapter One

  A charcoal-gray dragon and a deep purple dragon flew straight at one another, each beat of their wings propelling them closer and closer. Shasta caught her lower lip between her teeth, holding back the words of warning, words that from this distance would be worthless. The dragons crashed into each other. Shasta winced when the thunderous boom reached her ears. The rock the charcoal-gray dragon had been carrying plummeted to the ground with a thump that she felt as much as heard. Both dragons faltered in their flight and started slowly gliding back to the ground.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the four dragons standing in a line to her right cringe. Between the flying accidents, the lack of manners, and the short attention spans, these new dragons were wearing her out. The last group, also a class of six dragons, had been a joy to work with—other than that one incident with the flames—but when dealing with dragons, a certain amount of fire was to be expected. Objectively, this class shouldn’t be any different than the last. They’d both been a group of six. All of them were about the same age, late teens, and size, between sixteen and eighteen feet. However, after two weeks with the current class, it was clear the individual dragons weren’t equal in attitude or ability.

  Shasta suppressed a sigh. When Oaks Consulting had taken this job, someone must’ve known what a pain it was going to end up being. There were some downsides to being the youngest and least experienced employee of the company her mother had started years ago. This was one of them. Plus there was the added burden of upholding the good reputation of a business that was older than she was. Permanent Solutions to Magical Problems was a great tagline for Oaks Consulting, but Shasta wasn’t sure there was an acceptable permanent solution to draconic stupidity.

  Turning, she folded her arms across her chest and raked her eyes over the four dragons. Heads drooped and wings lowered. “Natalia”—a peach-colored dragon jerked her head up—“your turn to run the course. Matilda.” This time a pale amethyst dragon snapped to attention. “You’re up for the opposition. Remember, this is simulating the crowded flying conditions in humanoid areas while transporting cargo, and Natalia, if you drop the rock, you fail the run. Out here it’s unlikely you’ll hurt anyone if you drop something, but most of the country is filled with people who don’t have much defense against an object falling on them.”

  It was always tricky trying to explain life in the rest of the country to dragons who’d never left Wyoming. They didn’t realize there were cities filled with millions of humans, werecreatures, elves, fey, brownies, dark elves, vampires, and a plethora of other races. These dragons had no idea what it was like to be the size of a house in a humanoid-sized world. They’d spent their entire lives here in the Dragon Lands.

  “Remember, outside the Dragon Lands, you’re the biggest and toughest creature. It’s easy to create problems just by doing things that would be normal here.”

  The two dragons nodded. Matilda leaped into the air with a powerful thrust of her hind legs and several heavy downbeats of her wings. Natalia walked over to a row of rocks. She grasped a hundred-pound rock with her forepaws and thrust herself into the air. Her takeoff wasn’t as fluid as Matilda’s, but it was more than adequate. Once they were both at altitude, Natalia circled over the waiting area as Matilda got into position for her part of the training run.

  Shasta shaded her eyes, looking for her two troublemakers. They were on the ground, well away from the obstacle course, slowly limping back. Since they were safely out of the way, Shasta stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly.

  Natalia broke off her circles as she powered herself up to speed for the course. The stone was pulled up close to her chest, her claws clamped around it. She gracefully swooped under the stone arch that marked the start of her run. Matilda came in from the side, and Natalia pumped her wings, quickly gaining altitude. The two dragons passed each other without any problems. Shasta gave a satisfied nod.

  Having made it past Matilda, Natalia pointed herself toward a series of rings, the first of the magical challenges. While the obstacle was nothing more than a series of green circles, not even a wingtip could brush as the dragon went through or the circle would turn red. To make it more difficult, each ring was a different size, they were staggered at varying altitudes, and they gently drifted from side to side with the wind.

  Natalia stretched her neck out, elongating her body as her wings cut through the air. Coming into the first circle, she pulled her wings in tight, twisting as she passed through the center of the circle and angling down to the next one. Her controlled dive took her through the second circle. As soon as her wings were clear, she started powerful strokes that carried her up to the next ring. She timed it so she shot through the circle while her wings were close to her body.

  There was only one ring left, at the same altitude as the previous one. Natalia climbed a bit above it so she could shoot through at the end of a shallow glide. The stone was still clutched in her claws. Shasta couldn’t see any sign that transporting the rock through the acrobatics was tiring her.

  Natalia headed directly for the next obstacle. This one, a dragon-sized perch surrounded by two magical domes of light, was different. The goal was to fly around the side of the dome between the inner red layer and outer green layer. For Natalia, the space was hardly larger than her wingspan. In past sessions, dragons had taken a number of different strategies to getting around this particular obstacle. Natalia swung to the far left, coming almost parallel to the outer dome before gliding through the green barrier. At first she kept her wings spread, using flicks of her tail to keep herself safely between the two barriers. Then she used shallow wingbeats to propel herself the rest of the way. In a few seconds she had navigated the dome and was heading out.

  Shasta gave an approving nod, not that Natalia could see it. She looked at the two dragons on the ground, only to find them looking at her. She lifted an eyebrow, and they whipped their heads around, dutifully watching Natalia. After a long moment, she turned her attention back to the obstacle course, though out of the corner of her eye she saw them glance in her direction again.

  Natalia was taking advantage of an empty stretch and gliding, giving herself a few moments to catch her breath. She would need it, because the next challenge was Shasta’s favorite obstacle. This one di
dn’t look like much, just little beams of green light shooting up into the air, flickering out, and then appearing in a different location. It had taken some work to get the spacing and the timing right, but it had been worth it. Now it was a very formidable but entirely doable trial.

  The dragon slowed as she headed into the obstacle, likely trying to find the pattern. This was her second run, so she probably hadn’t figured out that each light had its own unique configuration, which made the pattern of thirty lights rather complicated to decipher while in the air.

  Natalia banked around the first light, then barrel-rolled to avoid one that flickered to life right in front of her. She snapped her wings open in time to avoid crashing into another light and then darted between two more. Natalia ended up in a gap. She swung her head to and fro, trying to find the best way out. Then she aimed to the left and headed for a big gap between two lights.

  Shasta held her breath, knowing what was about to happen.

  One of the lights flashed into existence. Now there wasn’t enough space for Natalia to fit. The dragon twisted her body, folded her wings, and slipped through the remaining space sideways. With another twist of her shoulders, Natalia righted herself and snapped her wings open, catching a thermal that lifted her high into the air. That was the best flying Shasta had seen from a dragon in this group.

  Matilda came back in for her second pass, this time aiming at Natalia. Shasta held her breath as the two dragons flew directly at one another. Not only was this the exact move that had caused the previous crash, but no one from this group had gotten past this obstacle, though Shasta had a good feeling about Natalia.

  Matilda and Natalia were getting closer. One of them had to brake, or they would collide. Shasta braced herself for another accident, sending a silent plea to the earth to cushion the landing and prevent injury.

  At the last moment, Natalia folded her wings, holding them tight against her body, then dove under Matilda and through the arch that marked the finish line. The dragons on the ground let out happy whistles. Natalia was the first one to successfully complete the obstacle course.

  As Natalia and Matilda came flying back, Shasta looked around for her previous course runners. Byron, the charcoal gray, and Randolph, the deep purple, were still lumbering back in the group’s general direction, going absolutely as slowly as they could possibly manage. Since her two remaining dragons, the buttercream-toned Tracy and the brilliantly green Romeo, had already run the course, Shasta waited, her arms folded across her chest, for the remaining dragons to return.

  Matilda swooped down and landed a polite distance away. The earth vibrated underfoot as Natalia dropped her rock on the ground. She glided a few feet away from the row of six rocks, landed, and then trotted over. The two dragons stood next to one another, taking deep breaths of the mellow spring air.

  “Natalia, congratulations on being the first to successfully complete the course.” Shasta grinned. “You’ll get your pick of run times tomorrow.”

  The dragon bobbed her head. “Thank you.”

  Shasta nodded and focused on Matilda. “Excellent flying. You’ll get at least two chances to run the course tomorrow.”

  Matilda’s head lifted. “Really?”

  “Really, really,” Shasta assured her.

  Matilda twitched her tail happily.

  In the distance, Byron and Randolph lumbered into the air, finally putting some speed into their return to the group. Shasta suppressed a sigh and focused on the four dragons on the ground. “You’re doing well. It usually takes a few days for everyone to get the hang of the course. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to those two.”

  Shasta turned away, walked toward the obstacle course, and planted herself in the landing area. She stood there, arms crossed, waiting for the troublemakers. The sun was delightfully warm on her skin, and the breeze was just cool enough to make being outside a joy. In moments like this, she fell a little more in love with the wide-open spaces and peace that came from being so far from humanoid civilization.

  The illusion of solitude was shattered when a slender green dragon sidled up next to her, teeth showing in the dragon equivalent of a smile. “I shall beat you into submission with my charm.”

  Raking her eyes across Romeo, Shasta licked her lips. “I hear dragon tastes just like chicken.”

  His mouth snapped shut, and he eyed her. “You would never be able to kill me.”

  She pushed her hair back, revealing her pointed ears, then lifted up a hand and summoned a fireball. “You forget who you’re dealing with.”

  “They said damsels in distress love it when dragons rescue them.” He cocked his head to the side. “Elves can’t create fire.”

  “I’m a damsel, but I’m not in distress. And I never said I was an elf.” With her slender build, golden-blond hair, and pointed ears, she was often mistaken for one. She was actually half elf, half witch, and there wasn’t much that caused her distress. “Plus I’m here to teach you how to interact with society. Saying you’re going to beat me into submission isn’t romantic; it’s creepy. If you can’t talk to me in a manner acceptable to humans, I’ll send you back to Cord’s class.”

  He pulled his head back, likely surprised that he could fail a class and have to retake it. Not to mention, her partner wouldn’t be kind to a dragon sent back to repeat sensitivity training.

  “Now, I need to deal with those two knuckleheads.”

  Before Romeo could do more than open his snout, Shasta turned on her heel and headed for the two problems that were touching down in the field. Taking a deep breath, she bellowed, “Byron, Randolph, basic meals only tonight and tomorrow—no cake, no fish, no sweet tea!”

  Their collective groans had her suppressing a smile. The simplest way to modify a dragon’s behavior was to leverage food. It had yet to let her down.

  “Byron, you failed for running into an obstacle, failing to complete, and dropping the rock, which in a crowded area could hit other flying creatures, planes, and whomever was on the ground.”

  His wings drooped lower and lower as she spoke.

  She switched her gaze to Randolph. “You failed to be an interactive obstacle. The two of you shared the responsibility of determining how to avoid one another.”

  She pressed her lips together. Both of them looked pathetic, wingtips touching the ground, head lowered, and the scales across their nose dark in the dragon equivalent of a blush. She needed them to be ready to tackle the course tomorrow, not afraid of it. “Your commitment to your choices, ability to recover and manage a safe landing is to be commended. The punishment is to remind you to fully think through your actions, not to discourage you from bold attempts.”

  The two dragons nodded. Their wings were tucked against their back, and their scales had returned to their typical color. That was the most she could hope for right now.

  Spinning around, she strode over to the rest of her class and surveyed the lowered heads and big eyes. “That’s it for the day. Tomorrow we start at six. That means be on this field at six, not waking up. Anyone who’s late will get a special assignment.”

  Tired heads bobbed, and one by one they headed to the great hall. Since it didn’t take a genius to guess that Byron and Randolph would try to get some forbidden foods before the brownies—magical creatures of hearth, home, and earth—who ran the kitchen and town heard about the ban, she held up her palm and focused, channeling magic from deep inside her into a small orb sitting on her hand. Then she thought of what she wanted the spell to do, and its texture changed. Satisfied with the basic spell, Shasta spoke into it, listing the goodies that Byron and Randolph weren’t allowed to have. With a nudge from her, the magic grabbed on to the words. Shasta fed it enough power so it could fly and find Cornelia, a brownie who worked in the dining complex, and relay its message. She’d see that word spread. By the time Byron and Randolph touched down, every brownie on site would know their restriction. The brownies liked nothing more than thwarting problematic dragons.


  With that taken care of, Shasta turned her attention to the obstacle course. She reached out to the various lights in the sky and released the constraints of the magic holding the shape, color, and brightness. With a twist and a nudge, the spells dissipated, draining the remaining energy into the earth. Then Shasta mentally reached for the on-off switch on the control box for the light beams and toggled it off. While the lights themselves were simple spells anchored to a specific location, the weatherproof control box housed the set of spells that powered all the lights and were too complex for her to make and unmake every day. Plus once she’d gotten the spacing and patterns right, it would maintain them even if moved to a new location, which saved her a lot of time.

  When the obstacles powered down, Shasta took a deep breath and soaked in the view. The rolling hills were dotted with dragons, in the sky, on perches, and lying on the grass. Shasta started trudging back to her home away from home, the house the dragons had offered for her use as long as she was here. As frustrated as she was with those knuckleheads, it was hard to beat the sight of dragons sunbathing in the evening light, scales casting rainbows into the air. A gust of wind hit her, and she stumbled but kept her feet. The dragon overhead gave another strong flap before landing on a perch that was three stories tall. Its ruby scales glowed in the sun, bathing everything in red light. She watched it gleam and glint until she stumbled over a rock. From then on she kept her eyes ahead no matter how pretty the sight.

  Of course, there was even a dragon draped across the slate roof of her house. Luckily, dwarves had built this place and they’d known what they were doing. The building was crafted with flawless stone that not only made a comfortable dwelling but was sturdy enough to withstand anything, even the walnut-colored dragon currently lounging on her roof. The door, oak with iron hardware, was the least solid thing on the building. Shasta tugged the door open. Although it wasn’t fireproof, Shasta was grateful she didn’t have to wrestle with a stone door every time she wanted to go in or out of her home.