“We have reached a favored arrangement with the noughts,” Morin says.
“What could you possibly want from them?” Aym asks.
“They have agreed to build and man us a prison made with theurgynate.”
Murmurs of consternation scatter around the table and then several voices break out in quick succession.
“Why would we want that?”
“Theurgynate is a poison!”
“What about the prophecy! They mean to destroy us!”
“The noughts should be exterminated!” the white-haired man spouts so harshly a deep pang of fear stirs in my gut.Not Syra.
Morin waits for the room to quiet before she speaks. “None of us have been successful keeping our dissidents under lock. They’re fleeing and none of us know where they’re going.”
“We’ll locate them. We always do.”
“Thirty-seven gone in the last three months.”
“We’ll find the—“
“One hundred and forty-three total,” Morin says, louder this time. “That’s one hundred and ten more than has ever fled at one time. There’s a chance they’re no longer within the Ouroboros.”
“They have to be! The barrier is still strong!”
“We can no longer deny that the barrier has had its shortcomings,” Morin hisses.
Several of the Magi seated around the table look appalled by the admission, sending worried looks behind their shoulders toward the commoners seated at the edges of the chamber who seem to be leaning forward to take in every word.
“Avalon for instance is no longer supplying the magic it used to supply.”
“I told you we’re working on that,” he spits, face reddening.
“We need to assume the dissidents are making it to the Noman La--”
“We don’t even know if the Noman Lands are real,” Aym interrupts.
“We better hope the Noman Lands are real,” a different woman’s voice rings out and the table turns its attention to her. Face lined with wrinkles pulled flat by the tightness of her bun, her eyes remain composed yet grave. “If they’re not real and they really have found a way past the barrier then they very could be making it beyond.”
More murmurs scatter over the table. “If it’s true, the more that escape the higher chance we have of being discovered,” Morin says. “We need to take this seriously.”
“They’ll never find us with the barrier!” Another man’s voice rings out.
“They already mentioned the barrier is faltering,” a man’s voice complains.
“What do the noughts have to do with this?” Veylor asks Morin.
“The dissidents continue to escape. Lemuria, the Gorgades, Croatoa. It doesn’t matter the kingdom. Magi are notoriously hard to imprison. The only viable option we’ve had in dealing with the dissidents is to execute them. In doing so, we kill those who carry the Blood of the Gods. The same Magi that could be helping to power our Kingdoms and keep the barrier intact. It’s a waste of power.” Morin calmly pushes herself to her feet, pacing back and forth to address the two men still standing.
“With the noughts' aid we can imprison Magi successfully. And theurgynate, I think, could be powerful in motivating those same dissidents into better behavior. Good behavior will be rewarded. Those Magi will have a chance to work at the new Crux.”
“What Crux?”
“The one we’re building at the corner of Agartha.”
More whispers scatter around the table. “How can we trust noughts? How do we know they’ll uphold their end of the bargain?”
