First Apprentice

Chapter 26 Part 3

With the Central Keystone at half-strength, my other gates took a lower priority. However, I was required to maintain each gate assigned to my office. Failure meant death, and I was days away from failing.

By exceeding the eight gates threshold established by article five, paragraph seven of the Border Guard's Charter, Terry officially separated his office from mine.

Basically, Endellion and Rainer assumed any apprentice who could maintain and hold eight gates no longer needed a mentor and was more than responsible enough to handle all their office's needs for themself.

Yet, I couldn't maintain my gates when I only had three sealers, including myself and Helen, who were qualified to do the job.

The charter baldly stated every sealer was entitled to training, board, clothing, and personal incidentals, which must be supplied to a minimum standard to be determined by the Seven. All Terry needed to do was teleport up and hold an inspection, which I would fail. He could either demand an explanation (for instance, the standards were never enforced during the Second War because of shortages) or imprison me for five years for endangering the lives of my sealers. Written before Katia's insanity, the Charter did not care whether I purchased the supplies from Border Guard contracted sources. All it cared about was whether I took care of my sealers and my gates.

Either way, Terry got rid of me for five to ten years and bought himself enough time to find a more permanent solution to his apprentice issue. Actually, having a transformation in prison and completely unsupported by my family would likely accomplish his goal without dirtying his hands.

None of which mattered because without proper weapons we'd all die when the clans attacked the Central Keystone, which assumed we didn't freeze to death first!

Hands dug into my shoulders. "Alannah-dae!"

I blinked as Tylar's face swam back into focus.

"A flare?"

I shook my head. "Not for a few more months. Just..." I stared at the back of the cavern, imagining the bustle that once overtook this area, the shivering bodies and frostbit limbs, the corpses my ancestor's journals spoke of piled around the cave mouths as makeshift windbreaks. If I did nothing, that would be us.

"Article fourteen," I whispered to myself.

"What?"

"When a first apprentice holds eight or more gates, article fourteen grants their office full autonomy from the Seven, if the apprentice declares it." My voice sounded stronger than it had in hours as I rattled off one of many rote lessons on the Charter Grandfather poured into my brain. "It turns the office into a smaller version of the Sealer Corps. Rainer and Endellion intended it to be a training position for their child, but Endellion's guardian bond rendered her sterile. Rainer fathered a son during a mating challenge, but he never assigned his apprentices more than six gates. Only Selim ever held eight gates as an apprentice. He never declared it."

"Because he was sane. Treasury pays salaries from a general fund, not the office budget. Those alone will run about two-hundred-sixty heads."

"Two-hundred-sixty-seven heads, forty moens," I corrected.

"You thought about this enough to know our salaries!"

"Food, clothing, and housing, too. Ever since I realized Terry handed me twenty-nine gates without the means to maintain them, I've run the numbers a dozen times. If you were all experienced, apprentice-rated sealers with the Seven mandated equipment and training, the research budget would almost cover everything."

"We're not."

"I'm aware. How are their clan magics?"

He snorted. "What clan magics? You have ten Dracons who need matches to light a candle, a Marstow dae who takes an hour to shift into his gryphon form, and four Shedu who can't conjure enough wind to move a leaf! Of the six Marstow in your den, the only thing they accomplish when they cast their illusions is looking constipated."