A Dragon Born Read Online Free Page A

they had been involved in many of the battles of the Great War, and while they were known as confrontational when meeting an enemy in battle, they also wore masks when they fought, like the one Keira had worn. They also respected strength and will, which was why Ariana was both confused and frustrated at the way Keira had been treating her.
    At first, Keira had called her a child and spoke to her as such until she had figured out how to escape from the sap of the hollow tree. Ariana was stuck inside the tree for over a day, trying to pull free from it and it was not until she had exhausted herself trying to escape that she had finally relaxed and found that she could hear the tree talking to her. It was a strange feeling, but she quickly realized that the tree was more than just a piece of wood, that it hummed with life and, after a while, she found she could hear it and even speak to it, though it complained at having to use words to speak to her and called her a child, much the same way Keira did.
    Ariana realized that the trees did not so much speak with words as suggest thoughts, which she likened to the difference between speaking normally and whispering. Eventually, the tree agreed to let her go so long as she promised she would do it no harm, and that she would not use her mage fire in the forest. The tree knew Ariana was being truthful through the strange connection it had made with her, one that she discovered she now shared with all the trees and, in delight, she had met many of them during her journeys among the branches. It had become a joy to visit so many of them, even if it was just to touch them briefly as she explored the nearby forest, and she tried not to get too upset that they still treated her like she was a child. They were trees, after all, and she understood that they did not mean anything by it.
    Keira, on the other hand, frustrated Ariana to no end, and she had not made up her mind whether she should consider the elven woman a friend or not. Keira had been pleased that Ariana had convinced the tree to let her go and deemed it proof she was no longer a child. Now, she simply called her girl as though that was some kind of improvement, and had decided that Ariana should learn how to travel the forest properly if she was to ever amount to anything. Since she had no idea where she was and realized that she truly was at the mercy of the elven woman and possibly even the trees themselves, she decided to go along with what Keira wanted her to do, which was mostly a form of training.
    At first, the idea of running and leaping among the branches of the great trees had seemed a little dangerous, but once she had felt the trees with her bare feet, she realized she could sense where they were all around her, even without touching them. It was easy to fly from branch to branch, once she could feel where they were, and she suppose it as much like the way squirrels ran among the branches, but now, Keira had decided to call her Squirrel, which seemed like lesser than being called girl, but Keira seemed to think it was an improvement, and had only given her a new name because she had shown that she was learning. Still, it irritated her that she would not simply call her by her real name.
    "I don't understand," Ariana said, giving up on trying to figure it out.
    "You do not understand why you are called Squirrel? Perhaps you are still a child."
    "No," Ariana said, worried the woman would reduce her to child status again. "I understand why you have now named me Squirrel. Thank you for the name, or I suppose I should thank the trees. They do have a sense of humor. I just don't understand why it matters."
    "It doesn't matter."
    "What do you mean? It doesn't matter?"
    "You are who you are, are you not?"
    Ariana stared at the woman in disbelief. Keira smiled at her with a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. Ariana had a thousand things she wanted to ask and a few more she wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. It would only