Dragonbound: Blue Dragon by Rebecca Shelley Page B

Great blue. One that will be difficult to break, I fear. You'll need to drink lots of water, though your stomach won't tolerate it well."
    "Aadi," Parmver called.
    A boy about Kanvar's age darted into the room. He had the gray skin and dark hair of a villager.
    "Fetch some drinking water please," Parmver told him.
    The boy sped away, and Kanvar could hear his running steps echo down the hall.
    "I'm not sure I can drink anything." Kanvar's mouth was dry, but his stomach recoiled at the thought of putting anything into it.
    "Is your mind still shielded from Dharanidhar's," Parmver asked.
    "Mostly." The dark wall his father had built around his mind still terrified him. He pressed at it in a futile attempt to escape.
    "Easy there," Parmver said. "It seems your father was a bit heavy handed with that. But then finesse was never his strong point. I'll get him to take the shield down as soon as I teach you how to make one of your own. All right?"
    "Please, please hurry," Kanvar said.
    "As fast as I can," Parmver reassured him. He crossed the room to the bookshelf and came back with a heavy volume whose leather cover was cracked and brittle with age. The pages themselves had yellowed almost as dark as the leather cover. "I think that shield is accelerating the dragon sickness, but some things can't be learned in a matter of seconds. This might take you a little while."
    While Parmver opened the book, Aadi returned carrying a tray with a crystal decanter of water and two glasses. He set the tray on the table and poured out the water.
    "Thank you, Aadi," Parmver said without looking up from the book. "Please go find his majesty and tell him I need to speak with him privately before the Choosing Ceremony." Aadi nodded and ran off again.
    "Choosing Ceremony?" Kanvar asked as he accepted a glass of water and took a sip. It felt icy cold going down his throat, but Parmver made him drink it all then lie back.
    Tucked in the quilt on the soft fluffy bed, Kanvar felt warmer than he had since the fever first took him. "What is the Choosing Ceremony? Where has my father gone? What's going on?"
    "That's what I'm trying to teach you, my boy. Just hold on a second longer." Parmver thumbed through a couple more pages and then stopped. "Can you read?"
    "Yes, of course," Kanvar said.
    Parmver turned the book so Kanvar could see the page he'd opened to. It showed a young gold dragon with its head down level with a boy who rested his hand on the dragonstone in its forehead. There were words below the picture in a thin spidery handwriting, but Kanvar didn't recognize them.
    "I know how to read, but those aren't real words at all," Kanvar said.
    Parmver turned the book back to himself and frowned at the page. "Has the language changed so much in the last thousand years? I suppose it has."
    "You are not a thousand years old?" Kanvar said. "I mean, my father was just exaggerating right? You couldn't have been around before Stonefountain fell?"
    Parmver glanced at Kanvar and then laid the book aside. "I don't know how I'm supposed to teach you years worth of history, lore, and skills in such a short time. I should have started instructing you from the time you were very young. Like I have with Aadi. There is the slight chance that he might be a Naga. He has displayed some mental abilities and affinity for the dragons. I've been teaching him since he was six and expect the fever to come upon him soon. But with you . . . there is so much you must learn before you bond and such a short time, I can hardly think where to start."
    "You're talking your way around my question without answering me," Kanvar interrupted. "Were you really at Stonefountain? It fell a thousand years ago. I've studied enough history to know that."
    Parmver rubbed his wrinkled face. He did look ancient. "Yes, I was at Stonefountain. King Khalid was a good friend of mine. We grew up together. Learned from the same tutors. He, of course, became King, and I went into the study of plants and