Read Online True Son by Lana Krumwiede - Free Book Online Page B

deserved it. He was a failure.
    U. Felmark Puster laughed. “Oh, my. Let the record show a strong emotional response. Your friends are very near, I assure you. Would you care to visit them? I can authorize that, but only if you cooperate. Now, we are aware that this aberrant ability takes different forms. Here is question three: How many forms of the ability known as dominion are there? Please explain each of its forms in detail.”
    And Gevri did. Gods save his grimy soul, he answered question three. And question four. And five through eighteen.
    He never did get to visit the archons, but he was allowed to sleep for fifteen minutes.
    Paradise, just as he’d imagined.

Taemon sat in the living room of Amma’s new house. She’d given him the most comfortable seat in the room, a low-slung chair with leather straps woven together to make the seat and a soft cushion on top of that. But he had never felt more uncomfortable. Amma was explaining to her da why she should be allowed to join the delegation. Mr. Parvel didn’t seem to be listening.
    “What can I do, Da? What can I do to prove to you that I can do this? I went back to the city with Taemon to confront Naseph. I’ve traveled across the mountain to Kanjai. I helped Taemon during the battle with the archons. . . .”
    “I couldn’t have done any of that without her,” Taemon added.
    Mr. Parvel glared at him.
    “Doesn’t that prove that I can handle myself? That I’m capable?”
    “You also revealed the location of the library,” Mr. Parvel said, “which led to the loss of every single book —”
    Taemon raised one finger. “Actually, sir, that was me.” No one listened.
    Mr. Parvel continued his rant. “You left home without permission to go traipsing over the mountain. That doesn’t spell out ‘responsible’ to me.”
    “Traipsing?” Amma sputtered. “We were trying to save Taemon’s da! He would have done the same for me if it had been you captured by the Republik.”
    Taemon nodded emphatically, but Mr. Parvel wasn’t even looking at him.
    A pause hung in the room between daughter and father.
    “Please, Da,” Amma whispered. “I need to go to Kanjai to find a way to bring home the books. I’ve brought one back already, and I swear to you I will hunt down the others.”
    Mr. Parvel shook his head sadly. “What do we have to bargain with, Amma? How are we going to ask about books? We’ll be lucky enough if we leave the meeting unscathed; the very best we can hope for is a tremulous peace agreement. There’s no place for further demands.”
    Taemon would never admit it, but Mr. Parvel had a point. What could they offer to trade for the books? Somehow Taemon didn’t think a simple “please” would do the trick.
    But this didn’t seem to bother Amma. “I don’t know what will happen, Da. But neither do you. None of us knows because none of us has ever been in this situation before. What I do know is that I can’t just sit here in Deliverance when there’s even the slightest breath of a chance that my going to Kanjai might result in our getting the books back. I need to go. I
will
go.”
    Mr. Parvel sighed, stepped over to the window, and stared into the evening haze. “Everything is changing so fast. Two short years, and our lives are completely different from how they used to be. How could we have prepared for this?”
    Amma looked at Taemon, as though expecting him to say something here. But what?
    “You’re right, Mr. Parvel. Everything is changing.”
    Mr. Parvel turned from the window to look at him. Taemon wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but he could hardly stop now.
    “Amma . . . Amma has played a role in all this change — a big role. And she herself has changed, too. She’s no longer a little girl.” Here Taemon felt himself blushing, all too aware that he was talking to Amma’s da. “But change can be a good thing, even if it makes us uncomfortable at times. Don’t you think our society is better off now