Dimwater's Dragon Read Online Free PDF

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    Perhaps that was the real reason she had broken into the study more often in the last year. It was her way of getting back at him, showing him that she could control her own life, at least in part.
    She slid her hand onto the window. Pressing against it, she lifted the pane of glass. She slipped under it into the study. Within seconds she was in the room and gently pulled the window down behind her. She couldn’t have it slamming shut and causing a ruckus.
    Kyra moved into the room and noticed that her father had left a book out on his reading table. She moved closer to see what it was he had been reading. She slipped her hand under the red leather book and picked it up from the table, turning it over to read the runes on the side. They were Elvish, written by the Sierri’Tai in fact. The Sierri’Tai were a race of drow, or dark elves as many others called them. She squinted at the runes, trying to decipher them. She had studied some Elvish books before, but the writings of the dark elf races still were difficult for her to decipher.
    When she finally deciphered the runes, she almost retched.
    “The art of selling carpets,” Kyra read aloud. She knew that her father was not selling carpets, nor had he ever done so. More likely he was using the text on trade to become a better negotiator for selling her hand in marriage. She dropped the book and moved to the large green armchair and flopped down inside it. She lifted her feet and snapped her fingers, magically calling a small footstool to place itself under her waiting legs. She relaxeed down inside as she looked up toward the picture on the wall in front of her. It was a painting depicting two men fighting numerous winged beasts. One was a wizard and the other a warrior who held an axe. A brass placard at the bottom of the painting read simply, “The rescue of Lady Caspen.” She looked at the man holding the axe in the picture and sighed in disgust.
    Kyra already knew who her future husband would be. She had known since her fifth birthday, which was exactly five years and eight months after her mother was rescued from a vampire’s lair. The wizard in the painting, a man by the name of Cyrus, had disappeared after the rescue. No one knew whether he had made it out alive. Most presumed he had been killed, as had numerous heroes before the pair of them made their way into the vampire’s lair. Only the warrior named Janik had survived. Kyra’s mother had never spoken much of her rescue, nor of her captivity. Kyra’s father, however, had spoken often of the hero’s bravery, cunning, and strength.
    It was on her fifth birthday that she met the warrior’s younger brother, Feberik Orres.
    Kyra’s father did not know she had been listening that day, as she was playing with a pair of dolls at the far end of the table in the dining hall while the men chatted among themselves. She had nonetheless heard every word her father spoke that day, and she did not fail to catch the fact that Janik was demanding Kyra be wed to his younger brother as recompense for his heroism. Her mother had come to take her away then, before the conversation progressed too much farther, but Kyra still remembered her father’s next words.
    “Though I appreciate what you did in winning my wife back for me, what other tangible consideration can I expect for such a betrothal?” her father had asked.
    As Kyra reflected on it now she realized it was not long after that conversation she had started rebelling against her father. Still, her mother raised her to be a lady, and that meant bending to her father’s will. That was exactly what she was going to do. Kyra would accept the announced betrothal, to whomever it may be, and then she would go off to Kuldiga Academy for four years. Her father had wanted her to choose the school of wisdom, to become an apprentice scholar and follow his footsteps. Luckily, Kyra’s mother had intervened and instead insisted she join the school wizardry.
    Kyra took