I Married A Dragon (Prime Mating Agency)(3)
The morning after, I’d awakened in a medical pod in the infirmary. Why I’d been out so long, when I normally should have recovered from getting squished in a few minutes, still baffled me. Although Dr. Bailey had given me a clean bill of health, she still kept me in isolation for twenty-four hours to make sure the toxins the aqrats had passed on to the dragon during the battle hadn’t infected me.
For some reason, I didn’t quite buy it.
Nobody would answer my questions. Tedrick didn’t even come see me. They only asked me to write up my report from my isolation room. This morning, they’d finally released me only so that I could come to this meeting room. That two guards escorted me here from the infirmary seriously freaked me out. What did they fear? That I’d run? Why would I?
The sound of the door opening startled me. I immediately straightened, wondering which suit was coming to debrief me and, hopefully, give me some answers. To my shock, instead of the head of our department, a stunning female Temern entered the barren room. Typical of her avian species, she had a beak that made it harder to see when she was smiling, although she undoubtedly was right now. Her white feathers, with dark specks on her wings and sprinkled on her chest, reminded me of those of a snow owl. She had a majestic pair of wings that almost trailed to the floor, and a long, fluffy white tail that vaguely reminded me of that of a bird of paradise.
“Hello, Ms. Daigo. My name is Linsea Voln. I’m sorry for making you wait,” the Temern female said in a sweet and melodic voice that immediately felt soothing. She took a seat in the chair across the table from me. “This case has been rather insane. I’m sure you have many questions, and I will endeavor to answer them for you.”
“Hello, Ms. Voln,” I replied, feeling more confused than ever. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met. Which department are you from?”
“Oh, right, I’m sorry. I am an ambassador with the UPO. I handle mostly critical foreign matters—basically political conflicts that might devolve into an interplanetary war.”
My jaw dropped as I stared at the female. It was shocking enough that the UPO would send a Temern to speak to me. As some of the most powerful empaths of the galaxy, Temerns were highly sought after by the legal system, governments, and corporations, whether as mediators, negotiators, or merely to help assess if a person was being deceitful in their dealings. But now she was implying that I was somehow involved in something that could cause interplanetary war?
“What do you mean by ‘war potential’? And what in the world does it have to do with me?” I asked, rolling my shoulders to loosen the tension quickly building in my back. “I’m guessing it has to do with that portal and the dragon? Was that a foreign attack?”
“I understand your shock,” Ms. Voln continued. “And I promise to answer all of your questions. But first, may I ask that you call me Linsea? We Temerns aren’t too big on formalities.”
I nodded absentmindedly. “Sure. And you can call me Kaida, if you wish.”
She beamed at me, her smile more visible in her stunning blue eyes than in the stiffness of her beak. “Excellent. But to answer your question, no, it wasn’t a foreign attack. That portal resulted from Veladeem Research overstepping their boundaries and illegally performing unsupervised research with shadow obsidian stones. They shouldn’t have had the stones in their possession to begin with. And using one of them created a rift into the void—you could almost call it a parallel universe—from whence came the fiendish creatures you fought.”
Linsea shifted her wings and clasped her long, slender fingers on the table in front of her before continuing.
“However, the ‘dragon’ named Cedros Qhelian—who is in fact a Derakeen—is indeed at the heart of the issue. He is a rare breed of his species, which resembles what humans call dragons. His people live in the shattered world of Dramnac.”
I recoiled in surprise. “Wait, what? I thought an anomaly had opened in the center of that planet, and it had somehow imploded.”
Linsea smiled and nodded with an amused expression. “An anomaly did shatter Dramnac into a million pieces, but it still thrives in fragments that exist in different phases of reality held by their core. All Derakeens can shift phases to travel between the dimensions of their world.”
“Wow, okay. That sounds both messed up and super cool,” I said, intrigued.
“It is a fascinating world. However, only Shadow Lords like Cedros can open portals between dimensions and between worlds,” Linsea explained, taking on a serious expression. “Therefore, their people revere them almost like gods.”
I nodded pensively. “Yeah, I can see that. Such insane power would be in high demand but is also extremely dangerous.”
“Agreed. As recent events demonstrated, Derakeens aren’t the only ones to travel in the shadows. There are entire realms that evolve in parallel to our own reality. Many are peaceful, but other shadow dwellers aren’t so much.”
“Like those aqrat monsters,” I said, barely repressing a shudder.
“Correct. On top of opening portals and guiding back to their home travelers who get lost in the void, Shadow Lords fight the monsters that pierce through the veil to keep the shadow pathways safe,” Linsea continued. “Certain pathways are safer than others. But the one that Veladeem tried to create is the worst possible one.”