I Married A Dragon (Prime Mating Agency)(66)

I nodded. “Right. I had forgotten about that. But they are apprentices…”

“They didn’t cast this doorway,” Cedros explained, turning to look at it. “The portal they opened further destabilized the rift and caused a power surge in that specific pathway.”

“So that’s how those terrible off-world accidents have occurred,” I said pensively.

As if summoned by my words, two young Ordosian children slithered into view on the other side of the portal. The Naga-like species—considered primitive by galactic standards, were only to be exposed to other worlds under strict guidelines. That the portal opened in an area where their children hung out indicated it was trespassing into their sacred lands. The thought of what slaughter could have ensued had the aqrats gone through made my stomach roil.

Both children jerked their heads left, no doubt having been called by someone. The smallest one with black scales pointed a finger at us—although more likely at the portal. To my shock, a tall black human female came into view. As soon as I saw the golden scales adorning her neck and arms, I knew who the woman was. I’d heard of the mess at the Great Hunt. She picked up the little Ordosian with black scales. He immediately wrapped the snake tail that served him as legs around his mother’s waist, while she pushed the oldest child behind her protectively, her eyes scanning the portal with a worried expression.

Cedros immediately dispelled it.

“Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath. “I’m going to need to warn the UPO. The Ordosians will not take this intrusion kindly at all. But first, we need to have another talk with Headmaster Aldyr,” I said with a harsh voice while looking at the ground near the area where the apprentices had summoned the portals.

“Agreed. Can you recognize the culprits?” Cedros asked.

I frowned. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I never got a good look at their faces as they were sideways to me. The one I saw straight on was in his battle form. And the void dampened their voices too much for me to clearly hear them.”

I walked the short distance to where the apprentices had initially stood and crouched to pick up a few of the shattered fragments of the stones they’d used. I stuffed them into an evidence pouch before turning back to Cedros.

“However, I have a good idea how to narrow them down. I’d been toying with a theory that turned out not to be far-fetched at all,” I said. “Let’s go have a talk with Headmaster Aldyr regarding his surprisingly talented new cohort, who is learning much faster than usual.”





The Headmaster’s midnight-blue scales took on a duller hue as he paled, listening to me recounting the incident I had witnessed. Although crestfallen, the absence of genuine shock and the worry on his face confirmed this was no news to him.

“You knew what your students were up to,” I accused factually, my voice devoid of aggression.

The Headmaster stood from his stool, circled around his desk, and went to stand by the patio door of his office’s terrace, looking down at the apprentices training. I didn’t press him to answer, knowing he would in his own time.

“Poverty is a difficult thing, Miss Daigo,” he finally said in a conversational tone, his back still turned to us as he continued to look outside. “You are new to our world. While my people may look happy and well-adjusted to you, we have our challenges, like most organized societies.”

He turned to look at me, his silver eyes glowing against the darker shade of his scales.

“I know very well the challenges of poverty. I was an orphan in a crime-ridden refugee colony. If not for the opportunities to make a better life for myself that school and good grades gave me, I’d either be dead or a criminal myself,” I said sternly.

“Then you understand why these ill-advised apprentices resorted to desperate measures,” Aldyr said in a passionate tone. “This program is expensive and lengthy. For many of our pupils, finally starting to work professionally is the lifeline their families desperately wait for to make ends meet at last. There is nothing more devastating than for a promising apprentice to be forced to drop out because they can’t afford a Miner to give them the quality stones they need for their training.”

“I empathize with all of that. But there are security rules for a reason!” I interjected. “Innocents have died because your students tried to cut corners. And you said nothing!”

“Hold on!” he exclaimed vehemently. “We didn’t know that our pupils were the cause. They don’t have the kind of power necessary to open an off-world portal. Frankly, from your own recounting of today’s events, I doubt the apprentices you saw even realized the full extent of what was happening and how a portal inside an unstable shift could cause the required power surge for it. Even you saw the doorway and didn’t realize it led off-world until Shadow Lord Cedros told you.”

“That may be true, but what they did was still irresponsible. Sure, the rift would eventually collapse, but had that window been into our world, my brothers and I would have been stuck cleaning up that mess. I wouldn’t be surprised your pupils are the cause of the abnormally high number of roaming aqrats we’ve had to deal with in the Vessant sector. And you allowed it,” Cedros countered.

“Like every other Headmaster before me,” Aldyr snapped back. “I could lie to you, pretend like I did not know, and let the apprentices take the fall. That’s what my predecessors have done when pupils were cast out of the program for getting caught using subpar stones. Notice that I said subpar, not unsuitable. But I refuse to keep hiding from the truth. It has never been a secret within the inner circles that Scribe apprentices often train with non-regulatory stones. Even the Council knows.”