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  Earth’s Hope

  Earth Reclaimed, Book Three

  Dystopian Urban Fantasy

  By

  Ann Gimpel

  Copyright Page

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © March 2015, Ann Gimpel

  Cover Art, Copyright, © February 2015, Fiona Jayde

  Dream Shadow Press, Mammoth Lakes, CA

  ISBN: 978-1-943090-81-5

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, e-mail, or web posting without written permission from the author.

  Publishing history:

  Contracted but never released from Musa Publishing

  March 2015: E-book and paperback from Ann Gimpel and Dream Shadow Press

  Earth’s Hope

  Book Description

  Power so old, deep, and chilling it hurts to think about it will overrun Earth if nothing changes. Targeted, furious, and fighting back, Aislinn runs wide open, gathering allies and putting her life on the line.

  Aislinn Lenear has traveled a long road since the dark gods invaded Earth better than three years ago. After seeing her father slaughtered in front of her, and her mother sink into madness, Aislinn built strong walls around her heart. First her bond wolf, and then Fionn MacCumhaill, changed all that, but she and Fionn are far from home free.

  Four of the six dark gods are still sowing destruction, and they’ve joined forces with Lemurians, a desperate lot, running just ahead of the tide of their own mortality. In a bold move, they try to coopt a group of young dragons, and very nearly succeed. Dewi, the Celtic dragon god, and Nidhogg, the Norse dragon god, banish their brood to the dragons’ home world, but they refuse to stay put.

  In a fast-paced, tension-riddled closure to this dystopian, urban fantasy series, Earth's Hope sweeps from Ireland to the Greek Islands to the Pacific Northwest to borderworlds where the dark gods live. Fionn’s and Aislinn’s relationship is strained to the breaking point as they struggle to work together without tearing one another to bits. Fionn is used to being obeyed without question, but Aislinn won’t dance to his tune. If they can find their way, there may be hope for a ravaged Earth.

  Reviewer Praise for Earlier Books in the Series:

  Earth’s Requiem

  Have you ever picked up a book by a new to you author and been transported to another world? That is what happens when you start reading Earth's Requiem by Ann Gimpel. You are transported into her world of our earth, a post apocalyptic earth, but ours none the less. Holli Greer

  I was hooked from the first chapter. This story is interwoven with mythology, history, magic, love, friendship and survival. Each layer is interlocked so seamlessly and you can't tell where one starts or ends. The characters are colorful, the friendships deep and the story grabs hold of you and does not let you go. Niki Driscoll

  This story was amazing. Gimpel really knows her world building. We are thrust into this new world and you feel like you are there. It was very easy to get lost in this book. Offbeat Vagabond

  The world of magic and mythology comes to life, the prophecies so fascinating it’s easy to lose onself in Ann’s stories and forget everything in the real world. Definitely a hit right out of the park. InD’Tale Magazine

  Earth’s Blood

  I fell in love with these characters and their world in the first book Earth's Requiem and more so in Earth's Blood!!! The characters and world is so detailed that you feel as though you are there and for me that means it is an amazing book! Cupcakes and Books

  Top notch read!! Do yourself a favor a pick this book up! Fury8 Bibliophile

  Book 2 is just as fantastic as the first! Please note to read Earth's Requiem (book 1) first as it would answer many things and keep you better connected to the wonderful world that has been created. Just as the first book this one grabs you from the start and pulls you into a wonderfully created world with a tension filled plot, beautiful descriptions and easy to love characters. Book Bliss Blog

  Dedication:

  This book, and the two preceding it are dedicated to my patient husband. It's not easy being married to an author, but he puts up with my endless hours at the computer and reads my first drafts--at least most of the time.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Dewi’s blood-red wings cut through cold, blustery air. Day edged into evening, and the western horizon would soon be awash in the muted tones of a winter sunset. The dragon traveled without thought, following Nidhogg’s dark bulk as he flew in front of her. For a time, she’d kept pace with her mate, the Norse dragon god, but the sight of their dead child cradled in his forearms smote her, and she’d dropped back to where the dark gods’ treachery didn’t smack her dead in the heart. Perrikus and Tokhots had kidnapped two of her younglings. One was safe, but the other had bitten Tokhots and succumbed to his poisoned blood.

  Fire burst from Nidhogg’s mouth, followed by steam. His grief was shifting to anger. Too bad hers couldn’t do the same. Dewi rotated her head atop her sinuous stalk of a neck. Today she felt every single one of her better than two thousand-year life span, and her mistakes haunted her. Life had been simpler before mankind developed a fondness for machinery and electronics. Back then, everyone still believed in magic and treated her with the reverence that was her due as the Celtic dragon god, but the world had changed. Humans no longer jumped when Celtic gods—like her—snapped their fingers.

  Smoke burbled past her double rows of teeth. Not that the electronic age was a problem anymore. The dark gods had joined forces with Lemurians, alien beings from the lost continent of Mu, and stripped the planet of all human life they couldn’t turn to their advantage. They’d done a damned thorough job of it too.

  Dewi was falling behind, so she flew faster. Not fast enough to pull in front of Nidhogg, though. It was pathetic, not dragonlike at all, but Dewi clung to sanity by a thread. If she didn’t watch it, despair would get the better of her, and she’d set the countryside below on fire.

  “What are you doing, woman?” Nidhogg trumpeted.

  Dewi’s eyes snapped open and she looked around. Lost in her thoughts, she’d veered off course to the east. “Sorry,” she called and flew faster until she drew alongside the coal black dragon who’d been her mate for millennia. He turned whirling green eyes awash in pain her way. Dewi shook her head and said firmly, “This is my fault. I should’ve—”

  “Stop.” He narrowed his eyes. “We can’t go back. You think I don’t feel guilty for what hap
pened to our child?” More fire streamed from his nostrils. “I was so spellbound to have you by my side again, I deluded myself into believing nothing wicked would befall us. How could it? Hadn’t we paid enough?” Bitterness underscored his words.

  “Hush, love.” Shaken out of her own sorrow by Nidhogg’s distress, she sent healing magic across the air between them.

  “We will find time for talk,” he said, “but now I need your help crossing the barrier into our borderworld.”

  “Of course.” Dewi wove magic around them, strengthening the air currents beneath their wings. She’d been overjoyed and astonished when Nidhogg breathed life into dragon eggs she’d turned into a shrine. Between delight at being reunited with Nidhogg after his centuries of imprisonment, and the sudden reality of eight baby dragons, she hadn’t fully settled into motherhood. The small dragons were so endearing—and unexpected—she’d coddled them, denying them nothing.

  In hindsight, she should have been more vigilant. While her back was turned, the dark gods had filched two of her precious brood from beneath her nose, with help from the Lemurians. Thank the goddess Fionn and the MacLochlainn had stepped in and saved one of her purloined children. They’d tried to save them both, but had been too late. Aislinn—the MacLochlainn—might be headstrong, but she was courageous and loyal. Dewi hadn’t thanked her enough, something she’d remedy just as soon as they returned to Fionn’s manor house in Inishowen.

  Dewi peered through the gathering gloom of the dying day. She couldn’t see across the barrier quite yet, but she knew what lay beyond it. Dragons had been forged in a fiery world. Long ago, most dragons raised their young there, but she and Nidhogg—and the eight younglings he’d resurrected from their egg casings—were the last of their kind. New eggs percolated in her belly, but it would be weeks before they’d be ready to incubate, and a year beyond that before they hatched.

  “Pay attention!” Nidhogg’s deep voice held an uncharacteristically sharp note. “Your mind is wandering.”

  “I said I was sorry.” Steam curled from her mouth. “This isn’t easy. I want to be back in Inishowen with our other younglings.”

  “You think I don’t?” More smoke followed his words. “Would you have us pile one sin atop another? We must honor our lost child by bringing her home.”

  Dewi didn’t answer. Each of them was so mired in grief it was a miracle they were able to be civil. She pushed more power into her spell. They were close to the magical barricade separating Earth from the dragons’ homeland. The air darkened and developed an iridescent glow. Power tinged with an electrical jolt zinged off her wingtips; the air smelled singed with a hint of ozone. “I haven’t been here since we lived in the Old Country,” she murmured.

  “That long?” At least the funereal quality had left his voice. “Why?”

  The anger that had eluded Dewi earlier slammed into her like a runaway train. Fire boiled from her belly and erupted through her mouth. “Because,” she snarled, “there were hundreds of years when I was convinced I was the only dragon left alive. Why would I want to return to our world—unless I planned to die?”

  “You gambled when you tried to free me that first time.” Nidhogg’s tone was soothing, gentle. “In your place, I would have done the same.”

  “I may have gambled, but I lost,” she moaned. “I tried my damnedest to liberate you from the dark gods, but I wasn’t strong enough, and I abandoned my clutch of eggs when I went after you. It was a hell of a choice. You or our children. In the end, I lost both.” She shook herself from nose to tail tip, and scarlet scales rained from her hide.

  “I love you for trying to save me.” He turned his head and gazed at her. “You did rescue me. It just took a few hundred years longer than you’d hoped.” He hesitated through a couple wing beats. “I’ve never been so happy to leave anywhere as I was to escape that wretched borderworld Perrikus calls home. Ruler of power and energy, my ass. Petty despot, more like. He only kept me alive to siphon my magic, so he could keep his pathetic excuse for a world from withering. That idiot D’Chel didn’t help matters. He’d stop by my prison and gloat until I wanted to smash his face in and shove those perfect teeth of his down his throat.”

  “How did you know dragon’s fire would reanimate our eggs?” she asked. “If I’d known it was that simple, I’d have done it long ago.”

  “I didn’t. Not for certain. I’m much older than you, Dewi.” He blew a gentle tongue of flame her way. “It’s entirely possible I’m the oldest living creature on Earth. I hold bits and pieces of things, images that float in my mind. We had nothing to lose.”

  Dewi thought about the shrine she’d made of her clutch when she returned without Nidhogg after her first rescue effort. She’d mourned so deeply, the eggs were surrounded by mounds of precious gemstones from her tears. “I suppose you’re right,” she murmured and stopped. No reason to admit she’d also kept the eggs as a reminder of her own fallibility.

  “Brace yourself.” Nidhogg’s wings beat so fast they became a blur. Dewi shuttered her inner eyelids across her corneas. The dragons’ world was a place of heat and light. Moments later, familiar smells buffeted her, singeing her lungs until she inhaled deeply, breathing past the pain. A charred landscape spread beneath her, beautiful in its barrenness. Red, orange, and black scorched dirt stretched in all directions.

  Dragons could go for long periods with no food and little water. Their home world had only a single spring, and it had always proven sufficient for the dragons and small herds of wildebeest-related ungulates they fed on. Most of this land was a continuous string of volcanoes ringed around caves. The spring was deep within the cave system. Double suns were just falling beneath the western horizon, turning the sky a deep crimson, like a bloody gash across the world. Soon the only light would be from the ever-present fires.

  “We will offer our daughter to the flame,” Nidhogg said and inscribed circles in the thick, smoky air as he headed for a stark volcanic crack. Dewi followed him down. Some part buried deep within her welcomed the barren world, recognized it as part of her making. Nidhogg touched down, and Dewi joined him on the cracked, dry ground of their borderworld. He held out their daughter’s body.

  Dewi took her child and clasped the small dragon close. She would have grown up to be golden; even in death, her red scales had continued to change color. Dewi bent her head and brushed her jaws over her youngling’s scaled head. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “So very sorry. I wish I’d had time to get to know you.”

  “She would have been special,” Nidhogg broke in. “Just like her mother.”

  Tears gathered, welled, and spilled into the dust. Pearls, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds sparkled at Dewi’s feet. She gazed into Nidhogg’s eyes. “I will always blame myself for this. Just like I blamed myself for making the wrong choice and leaving our eggs to search for you.” She blew out steam and fire-streaked air. “We’ll move beyond this, but those bastards will not get any more of our children.”

  “I hope you’re correct.” Nidhogg narrowed his spinning green eyes. “We’ve thrown down the gauntlet. Not just you and me, but the Celts and humans like Aislinn, humans with power. The bond animals are in this too.”

  “I suppose they are.” Dewi thought about Rune, the wolf bonded to Aislinn, and Bella, the raven bound to Fionn. Hunters bonded to animals, infusing them with magic, or drawing out latent power that was already there. Human magic came in five iterations: Hunter, Mage, Seeker, Healer, and Seer. Most humans had two magics, one primary and one weaker, but Aislinn held all five. Fionn did too, just like all the Celtic gods.

  “Dewi.” Nidhogg laid his snout alongside hers. “There’s never been a war without casualties. You may not come through this. I might not. Certainly, people we love will die.”

  Dewi bristled and clutched her child closer. “No more of my children. Not on my watch.”

  “No matter how vigilant and well-intentioned you are, it could happen.” He straightened. “We fight to save Earth. We hav
e no choice. Tomorrow is far from a certainty. Hear me when I tell you I welcome death as a free dragon. Dying by inches over hundreds of years in that stinking pen on Perrikus’s world was agony. No matter what comes to pass, it won’t be worse than that.”

  Alarm sluiced through her, and she shifted so she faced him. “You can’t die. I just got you back.”

  Compassion streamed from his eyes. “I feel the same way about you, Dewi, my love, my heart. Remember they said we’d never last? That the Norse dragon god and Celtic dragon god would be at each other’s throats?”

  Dewi nodded. “Now that you mention it, yes, I do remember.” She snorted and smoke rose above her head. “Proved them wrong, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, love. We did.” He held out his forelegs for their daughter. “Let us pray and send her to her rest.”

  The sound of his chanting in their ancient language rose and fell around her. After a time, he kissed their daughter and handed her to Dewi one last time. Nidhogg didn’t have to talk. He glanced at Dewi and then at the jagged crack at their feet, which belched sulfuric fumes. Dewi joined her voice with his for the final stanzas of the lament for the dead. Once they fell silent, she hunkered forward and dropped their daughter’s body into the bowels of the dragons’ borderworld.

  No matter what Nidhogg says, I am never burying another of my young.

  Never.

  “Come.” Nidhogg’s deep voice rumbled next to her. “So long as we are here, we should visit the caves and make certain the everlasting spring still flows.” He spread his wings and beat the air with them.

  Dewi had been ready to teleport into the caves, but flying was better. They’d be able to lay eyes on their world, assure themselves it hadn’t been disturbed. Not that it was likely. Wards wrapped their borderworld, powerful magic that would incinerate anyone who wasn’t a dragon.

  Dewi took to the skies; once airborne, she scanned familiar landmarks and felt a bittersweet tug. Humans would never understand the attraction of the dragons’ home. Neither would the other Celtic gods. She’d always felt she lived two lives, particularly once she believed she was the last dragon. Longing rose in her like a hot tide. If she had a choice in the matter, she’d bring her children back here and settle in with them and her mate. Let the humans and Celts sort out the mess with the dark gods. She could raise another clutch of eggs, and they’d be well on their way to repopulating the Earth with dragons…