Earth Born (The Earth Born Cycle Book 1)

by N. E. Conneely

  Outside the door to her dwelling, Shasta paused. Yet again there was a dragon draped across the roof, snoring of course, but the two neighboring dwellings also sported dragons resting on the roofs. Smaller dragons had claimed the perches, and still more were sprawled across any appealing bit of grass.

  Reminding herself that she was one of the luckiest people in the world, able to spend months on end out here in the Dragon Lands of Wyoming and that it was worth more than a little frustration and even some angst with her partner, she pushed open the door. The living room was dark, and Cord’s bedroom door was closed. At least they wouldn’t be having another argument tonight, though now she’d have to leave him a note.

  She walked across the living room and into her bedroom, careful to close the door behind her before she flipped on the light. She crossed over to the narrow desk under the window and retrieved a piece of paper and a pen. Then she quickly wrote a note asking him to meet her here after lunch tomorrow so they could leave town and investigate something she’d discovered. When she finished, she slid the note under his door before retreating to her room for the night.

  Sleep didn’t come easily. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the bones and felt the shivers of fear and sharp lances of pain. Unable to sleep peacefully, she tossed and turned until she was looking up at the ceiling, wondering if being in Cord’s arms would make her feel safe enough that she could sleep.

  Chapter Three

  “All right, yesterday you got your first look at the obstacle course. Today things are going to be more interesting.”

  All six of the dragons groaned.

  Shasta grinned. “I hope you didn’t eat a heavy breakfast. Rather than spreading your flight runs out across the entire day, we’re going to pack everything into the morning. Natalia, when would you like to do your two runs?”

  The peach dragon fluttered her wings. “First in both rounds.”

  Shasta nodded briskly. “In round one, Natalia will run first with Tracy playing the opposition. Matilda will run next with Romeo running opposition. Then Randolph with Byron. Then Tracy with Natalia. Then Byron with Matilda. Then Romeo with Randolph. Since you’re finding it difficult to do the course while carrying an object, today we’ll do the course without the rock.” Before they could get too excited, Shasta gave them the bad news. “That means I expect all of you to finish, and finish with better and faster flying.”

  She surveyed them. Wings that had been lifted in excitement drooped. Byron was blinking sleepily, and Randolph was anxiously shifting his weight from foot to foot. Well, the best way to deal with both of them was to get them moving.

  “Natalia, Tracy, you’re up. And remember, we’re simulating flying past multiple objects, similar to those that you will find in human places, which includes things like airplanes.”

  Natalia and Tracy bobbed their heads and took to the air. It didn’t take either of them long to get into position. The beginning of Natalia’s run was as smooth as it had been yesterday. A gust of wind caught her as she was going through the double-dome obstacle, and she almost scraped her wings against both the inner and outer layers, but she recovered at the last moment. All in all, her run was clean and fast, just as requested.

  Before the two of them even made it back to the group, Shasta turned to the next set. “Matilda, your turn to run. Romeo, get moving; you’re the opposition.”

  When Romeo turned to walk over to her, Shasta made a shooing motion, not wanting to give him a chance to make another one of his peculiar comments. He sighed gustily but took off and headed for his position on the obstacle course.

  By the time Natalia and Tracy were on the ground, both Matilda and Romeo were in position. Matilda had tired fairly easily the day before, especially when carrying the rock. Today her movements were quick and sure, and she danced her way through the obstacle course without mishap, finishing almost as quickly as Natalia.

  At this point the rest of the students had figured out the drill. Randolph and Byron were in the air as soon as Matilda finished her run. Byron was flying slowly, likely sore from the previous day’s collision, so Randolph ended up doing lazy circles overhead while waiting for him to get into position. When given the start light, Randolph attacked the course with gusto. He did fairly well until the light beams and ended up getting tagged by two of them. He sent a burst of flames into the sky, then circled back to the group.

  Tracy’s attempt with Natalia as the opposition went well, though she snagged a wingtip on the last circle. Byron took twice as long as anyone else, but he did complete the course, which was a first for him. Romeo managed to get hit by three of the green light beams all at once. When he landed, he heaved a big sigh, clearly disappointed with himself.

  Shasta looked over the group. “Much better. Byron, you need to be faster. Romeo, don’t be afraid to slow down on that obstacle. Take a quick break, get some water, but be back here in ten minutes, ready to do it again.”

  As they flew away, Shasta took her own advice. She snagged the canteen off the ground, uncapped it, and gulped down water. This class finally seemed to be understanding the obstacle course, which was nice. Though if they started having problems again once the weight was added back, she’d have to figure out a way to ease them into the more difficult work. She capped the water and set it down.

  Matilda, Natalia, and Romeo landed. Shading her eyes, she spotted the rest gliding back. Of course, ramping up the difficulty was going to be tomorrow’s problem. Right now she needed to herd them through another round on the course. As soon as Tracy, Byron, and Randolph landed, Shasta started giving orders. “Natalia, you’re up. Randolph, you’re flying opposition.”

  They heaved themselves into the air, Natalia circling and ready to start as soon as Randolph got in place. Randolph spat a short burst of flames into the air to signal his readiness, and Natalia dove through the start arch.

  Romeo sidled up to Shasta. “Your beauty rivals the sun. Perhaps you could illuminate my life?”

  She raised a single eyebrow. “What, like the sun does the earth?”

  Romeo’s mouth gaped open in a dragon grin, and he bobbed his head. “You will nourish me as the sun does the earth.”

  Shasta snorted. “Not going to happen. If you don’t stop these lines, I’ll send you back to Cord’s class.”

  “You don’t—”

  A screech filled the air, cutting off whatever Romeo was going to say. Shasta whirled around. Natalia and Randolph were in a tangled ball of dragon flesh, falling. The two of them were thrashing around, but their wings had gotten tangled and they weren’t able to separate themselves.

  Shasta bit her lip. She had to do something quick or they would crash to the ground and both of them would be injured or killed. She pulled down her shields, opening herself to both nature and her magic. “Make the air thick, like a cushion, so it slows their fall and holds them aloft.” Air currents whirled around her, and she hoped that would give the dragons a little more time.

  She gathered her magic, cast it the dragons’ direction. In her mind, she formed it into almost a parachute that would hold them in the air. The magic stuck to the dragons, pulling them upward, but it wasn’t going to be enough. They were getting closer to the ground.

  The air suddenly formed something akin to a thick disk under them. The wind shifted, creating an updraft that pushed against the disk and caught in the canopy of the magical parachute. Both dragons were still falling but much more slowly, and if they hit the ground at this speed, they were unlikely to be permanently injured.

  Shasta tore her eyes away from Natalia and Randolph long enough to assess her other students, but Matilda and Romeo were gone. Her eyes shot up to the sky again. The two dragons were flying toward Randolph and Natalia as fast as they could. This was well past the scope of anything that had happened in previous training exercises, and at this point Shasta wasn’t sure what she could do to help. She wasn’t powerful enough to simply move a dragon.

  Matilda had altered he
r flight path, angling around the entangled pair. Romeo slowed down, almost hovering, his gaze firmly fixed on Matilda. Seconds later Matilda looped back, flying directly for the entangled dragons. Romeo shot forward, aiming for Randolph.

  Shasta held her breath as the four dragons inched closer to the ground. It looked as if Matilda and Romeo were going to fly straight into the knot, tangling themselves as well. At the last moment they both tucked their wings close their body. Matilda rammed her shoulder into Natalia’s chest. Romeo did the same thing to Randolph at the same moment. The two tangled dragons popped apart.

  Natalia and Randolph were still falling but were both slowly opening their wings. With the help of the air and the magic, they were turning the free fall into a glide. Matilda and Romeo had circled back and were now flying a little behind them, ready to rush to their aid again. Natalia finally got her wings all the way open, gliding back to the group. Randolph had lost too much altitude for an easy glide, but the movements of his wings were strong, and he would be back only seconds after Natalia.

  Shasta took a deep breath and then another. As well as the four dragons were flying, she doubted there were any broken bones, though she suspected all of them had some assortment of bruises as well as strained and pulled muscles. By the time the dragons touched down and walked over, Shasta’s breathing and heartbeat were back to normal.

  “Are any of you hurt?”

  “Sore and bruised but not hurt,” Natalia answered.

  “Same,” Randolph added.

  “Matilda, Romeo, how are you?” Shasta asked.

  The two of them looked the worst for wear, with their heads low and wingtips drooping to the ground.

  “As long as you continue to shine a light upon me, I feel no pain.” Whatever injuries Romeo had sustained weren’t serious enough to get between him and his jokes.

  Matilda eyed the green dragon as if she wasn’t quite sure what had happened to him but still answered Shasta’s question. “Sore, but uninjured.”

  “Good.” Shasta nodded. “Now, what happened out there?”

  Natalia sighed. “I do not know. I went through the start, and suddenly Randolph was just there. I tried to pull up, but I couldn’t. The memory is not clear.”

  Shasta transferred her gaze to Randolph. “What do you remember?”

  “I-I am not sure.” He shook his head as if trying to knock useful thoughts loose. “I remember Natalia falling. I dove down, intending to help her, but then I don’t really know. I planned on coming up under her and trying to help guide her down, but the next thing I knew, we were tangled and falling.”

  Shasta tapped her foot. She believed both dragons, which left a very big question as to what had actually happened. Sure, Randolph occasionally made trouble, but he wouldn’t intentionally endanger himself or anyone else. Natalia was her most reliable student, and an accident like this was very abnormal for her. The problem was, she’d been talking to Romeo when they started the run and had no idea what had occurred. But she wasn’t the only one out here.

  “Did any of the rest of you see anything?”

  “I saw them entangle and start to fall, but I cannot tell you what led to that,” Matilda volunteered.

  “When Matilda took off, I saw what had happened and followed.” The scales around Romeo’s nose, cheeks, and eyes had darkened, a sign of embarrassment among the dragons. “As I was talking, I didn’t see anything helpful.”

  “It’s all right.” Shasta walked over and patted Romeo’s shoulder. “We all expected it to be a normal training run.”

  Romeo nodded, but the scales on his face stayed a dark green.

  “Tracy, Byron, did you see anything?” Shasta turned to her two remaining students.

  Tracy shook her head.

  Byron flushed, the scales on his cheeks going from charcoal to almost black. “I was watching Romeo and you.”

  “It’s okay. None of us knew that was going to happen.” She stared at the dragon until he nodded. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at the obstacle course. She didn’t know how much to make of this event. Something about it felt wrong, but she didn’t know if that was simply a factor of adrenaline obscuring memories or if there was something more sinister afoot.

  Either way, it had been a close call. Close enough that it had her rethinking the obstacle course and how she used it for training. It was all well and good to teach the dragons that there would be unexpected things happening in the human world where the air etiquette was different, it wasn’t worth injuring them. Of course, there was no way for her to know if it was the obstacle course itself or some other factor that caused the incident.

  Shasta chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Natalia and Randolph, you’re done on the course today. Take a short flight to make sure you’re not going to stiffen up and come see me, Cord, or the healer later today if you think you’ll need some first aid.”

  “We’ll go soak in the sulfur springs,” Natalia said, Randolph nodding his agreement beside her. “And we’ll be ready for training again in the morning.”

  Shasta’s eyebrows crept closer to her hairline. “Sulfur springs? I didn’t know there were any nearby.”

  “Not far by dragon flight,” Randolph corrected. “But on foot it would take much longer.”

  “I figured that out already,” Shasta said dryly. She switched her attention to the rest of the group. “Tracy and Byron, I’d like each of you to try the course, but this time there won’t be anyone playing opposition. It’ll just be the obstacles. It’s not mandatory, so think it over. Now, Matilda and Romeo, how are the two of you feeling?”

  Matilda wiggled, a bit like a dog trying to shake itself out after being curled up on the floor too long. “I could run it again, but I am sore.”

  “I’ll do anything for my radiant instructor.” Romeo winked.

  Shasta suppressed a sigh. Considering how brave he’d been trying to rescue the other two, it didn’t really seem right to be overly finicky about how he spoke to her right now. “It’s up to the two of you then.”

  A full minute ticked by before Tracy stepped forward. “I will run the obstacle course.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Tracy bobbed her head. “If we have a near miss flying in the human lands, we won’t have the option of taking the rest of the day off.”

  “All right, whenever you’re ready.” Shasta stepped back and motioned for Tracy to move on out.

  Tracy trotted away, then thrust herself up into the air, her buttercream-yellow wings catching her and powering her skyward.

  Shasta kept her eyes locked on Tracy, unwilling to even blink lest she miss something. Tracy circled overhead once before diving through the start arch. With a powerful thrust of her wings, she started gaining altitude before leveling off and arrowing toward the next obstacle. Between one beat of her wings and the next, something happened. Tracy’s wings folded, hanging limply beside her body as she began dropping through the sky.

  “No!” Shasta shouted. “Air lift her up, keep her from harm. Repeat the actions you took before and save one more.”

  A wing shot out, gaining Tracy precious seconds. The other one slowly unfurled, and instead of falling she was gliding, though she was going down far too quickly and steeply.

  Tracy slowly began to thrust her wings. With each ponderous movement, she gained a little altitude, a little more time before she would crash into the earth. Finally she got herself turned around and was flying back to the group.

  Thank you for saving her. A breeze swirled around her, sweeping across her skin before vanishing. Shasta pulled the remaining magic back, which wasn’t much. She didn’t know if it had been the plea to the earth, the magic, or Tracy, but somehow the dragon hadn’t crashed into the ground. That didn’t change the bottom line. Something on the course had endangered three dragons today.

  As soon as Tracy’s feet touched the ground, Shasta closed her eyes and let her powers flow across the obstacle course and up into the
air, ranging as far as they could in every direction. There were no spells, no odd energy where someone had tampered with the air, wind, or anything else for that matter. The only traces of magic she felt were from the spells that were part of the course. She couldn’t find any reason that three dragons had come to harm today.

  She took a good long look at the three dragons who’d had trouble. They were as normal as a dragon could be. Shasta recalled her power back into herself. It didn’t make any sense. She’d seen these dragons fly before, and they’d been fine.

  Shasta rocked back on her heels as she considered the dragons. If they were the same as they’d been yesterday and the day before, then something else must’ve changed, though she had no idea what that could be. “Tracy, were you injured?”

  “No.” The dragon hesitated. “But I don’t want to fly the course again. One moment I was fine, and the next I was falling.”

  “I don’t want any of you to attempt the course again today.” Shasta studied the obstacle course for a moment before returning her attention to the dragons. “I examined it with my powers and can’t find any problems. I’ll have Cord look at it and see if another dragon can give it a test run before we try it again.”

  There were relieved sighs from the dragons.

  “You’re dismissed for today. Relax, take advantage of the hot springs, or even stay on the ground. Tomorrow we’ll go on a long training flight. Meet me by the dining hall at dawn.” Shasta waited until all the dragons nodded their agreement. “Dismissed.”

  While the dragons trotted a safe distance away before taking flight, Shasta checked her watch. There was still ample time before she was supposed to meet Cord. While she wanted to go ahead and get snacks and a few other things ready for their trip, the obstacle course needed another look.