Metaworld Chronicles

"What are the chances the Barlow Group isn't going to withdraw their bullshit?" Gwen asked the oval table and its assemblage of face-palming, head-aching folks recovering from Maotai. The night had been long, for Jean-Paul had not grown out his hair despite her best Essence and now resembled a naked mole-rat. At first, Gwen suggested that Jean-Paul would perhaps own the new "look", like a cute pug. Unfortunately, now as bald as Bezos, Jean-Paul appeared more reptilian than ever, so much that the casual observer would question his Demi-ancestry. "Charlene! What do you think?"

"Gwen, for the love of Evee, lower your voice," Richard remarked with a wince. He and Petra had joined them shortly after they retired to the Bunker, where they had left early from their labours to celebrate the victory of their cousin over the Empire's elites. "We can all hear you, but right now, your words are bouncing around inside my skull like Clarion Calls."

"You could always put the twins' incompetence in the METRO." Petra motioned with a casual wave. As one with principally Russian blood and trained to drink professionally instead of responsibly, her cousin was better fortified against magical booze than Richard. "Besides, these things take time, don't they? I doubt the Veteran's Association can 'order' their protestors home like dogs."

"I think it'll take a few weeks, so have patience," Charlene's answer emerged from a mound of silken black cloth wrapped around her head to block out the light. "Ooo— my insides feel like a thousand crows taking flight at once."

"You young people..." Walken, who had abstained from the drinking and left early for his family, shook his head disapprovingly. He Maged Handed across another jug of water from the hidden fridge, warmed it with a snap of his fingers, then refilled glasses for the sufferers. "Gwen, perhaps you should reconvene later? The Barlow Consortium will take time to collapse, by which time we'll have the advantage in their fire sale."

"Alright— alright—" Gwen relented, lamenting that her lightweight companions could not combine workaholic lifestyles with an alcoholic one. Unlike the Dwarves who drank until they blacked out and then returned to work as refreshed as a clear winter morning, her humans were ill-suited to hard-boozing life.

Now forbidden from raising her voice, she turned her attention to the papers of the day, delivered by a hungover Lorenzo first thing in the morning before escaping to his office to "sleep off" the overtime. The latest METRO had been printing as early as midnight, having primed the print run prior, awaiting only the details of her victory. On its cover, an unsoiled Gwen stood beside Charlene, flanked by Aiden and Jean-Paul, while somewhere below in a separate panel, there sat the haggard images of the twins in their moment of defeat.

Comparatively, there was an image of her in filthy battle armour on the Telegraph's cover, being hugged by Charlene Ravenport and editorialised by the headline "BIRDS OF A FEATHER". On the Sun, there was a flattering but far more terrifying visage of her in full Void-mode, half-covered by her Dark Egg while hundreds of hungry mouths wept from her obsidian shell. This one, Gwen marvelled, had the gall to use the headline, "I AM BECOME DEATH". It was an apt and eye-catching front page, though Gwen wasn't sure who the audience for such an allusion would or should be.

Nearer the back pages, she scanned the Editorial section of the Sun, where a Magister by the name of Lawson Ashbridge of the Middle Faction delivered his lauded opinion on the matter of Void Mages.

Seeing that her companions continued to resurrect their kidneys, she quickly scanned the article.

The Legacy of the Void

In 1979, one month after the Invasion of the Indonesian Peninsular and the harrowing victory of the Mageocracy at Singapore city, a Void Mage made history as the first sorceress to conduct a raid of extinction on a Coral Fortress.

Though the Military had not kept records of the sorceress' exact actions, eyewitness accounts considered the outcome optimum for Great Powers with the luck and resources to constrain a War Mage of the Void persuasion.

The end to the Coral Sea War was so spectacular, the destruction so complete, that the Mermen Royals from the Seven Kingdoms who managed to flee withdrew their forces and sued for a ceasefire, putting a ten-year halt on the incursion of the Mageocracy's territorial waters.

Drunk on success and irrespective of the secrecy surrounding the Void Sorceress known as Elizabeth Sobel, the Tower Council of our yesteryears then grew adamant that the "War on Humanity" mandated the use of extreme military means. It was a hasty decision—one advocated by Lord Henry Kilroy, architect of the Tower and its subsequent Councils, from which the Mageocracy had lacked the legal and conceptual legitimacy necessary to measure the methodology of Void users, thereby gifting Sobel far greater moral liberty than should have been allowed.

As wars grew in human cost in the years to follow, Sobel quickly became an infamous stopgap measure for the Mageocracy's stretched forces. By official counts, under the tutelage of Kilroy, his spouse conducted no less than four hundred separate operations throughout her tenure, all the while unquestioned by military tribunals.

History has told us how Sobel faired, and now we stand at that same junction.

Void Magic is not a modern invention. Documents on Void Mages, mainly surviving ones, had existed for aeons in the Mageocracy's records. Sobel's creatures, these "Hydras" that we have all witnessed on Magus Song's Lumen-casted duel, are likewise not unknown knowledge. What differentiates the Void Arcanist from their fellow War Mages, who are often in the thick of battle, slinging spellfire and weathering a host of counterspells and returned artillery, is their unique constitution, one that had to be survived to be useful.

However, this does not mean that the caster is indomitable. Of all Negative-aligned elements, there is none more prone to self-harm than Void, and this is a proven fact made evident by Elizabeth Sobel's mental decline to madness. Sobel did not enjoy her victories in the post-war peace but had revelled so long in war and mass destruction that she was no longer capable of living in society. Her insatiable battle lust eventuated in her defection to the Others, to Spectre, and inevitably, her cold-blooded murder of Lord Kilroy, a man whose loss had invariably diminished the Mageocracy.

Gwen Song has now demonstrated the same aptitude as her predecessor. However, in stark contrast to the case of her Master's spouse, the sorceress has left no secret un-probed by Cambridge's most remarkable minds. Thanks to Magus Song, new methods developed by the Mageocracy's Magisters have ensured that almost all Void Mages willing to fall under the wing of the "Void Mage Union" would see their survival guaranteed, ushering in a new era of Spellcraft development. For those who still doubt the viability of Void Sorcery, I must say that…

Gwen noted that the rest of the article gave enough facts to appease the public's paranoia but wasn't heavy on details. The Magister, a "Marshall", was a proponent of her craft, though a wary one, a perfect metaphor for the state of her current branding in the public eye.

Inexplicably, as she replaced the paper on the table, a surge of tidal sentimentality struck like one of Caliban's vital euphorias.

Had she done it?

Had she overturned the PR nightmare on Void Mages left by Sobel?

According to the papers, she had.

The abrupt realisation made Gwen's chest constrict, and her fists tighten with crushing nostalgia. Back in Sydney, when she had first Awakened, the very notion that she could stand in public as a Void Mage was unthinkable. Back then, even a Master of Henry's achievements had been diminished by Sobel's fall from grace, swept up in a tsunami of atrocities into the shit creek of conspiracy.

Even now, in her storage ring, she had stowed her little hand-written notebook her Master had made for her. In it, Henry had explained his grand plan to make her lauded, cherished, famous, then venerated by the Mageocracy to normalise her life as a wielder of the Void.

And now— she has succeeded—and exceeded all of her Master's benign designs. Not only were Void Mages once more in the public eye, but Caliban would soon be popular enough to warrant an action figure.

But where was Henry to applaud her success?

Gwen couldn't help but feel as though she had crossed some threshold, only to turn her head and see that behind her were nought but emptiness.

Despite living among trustworthy allies, holding enviable power, and possessing more wealth than two lifetimes, She would still wake up sweating at night, dreaming of that strange vision she had in her Yeye's prison. There, in that alternate reality, she had not perished but instead grew into her Void powers as Elizabeth had, culminating in the destruction of Sydney, Blackwater, her Master, her family and her friends, all by her hand.

She felt a sudden desire to speak to Elvia—though that longing too, now lost the simplicity it once possessed.

"I won't worry so much as to make a face like that—" Charlene gently coughed, pulling Gwen from her internal revelry with a confident smile. "There is no possibility of Exeter the Senior to renege on the deal his sons made in public. If they're truly unrepentant, we shall appeal to the Crown, which would diminish House Holland's ethos so drastically that no amount of Golden Blood would matter. The aristocracy lives and dies by their word, Gwen. Take that away, and you're left with two-bit landlords."

"But do you think we can coax them to tackle their debt with more urgency?" Gwen distracted herself by returning to the matter at hand. "Our stock price isn't going to float on magic alone. We need the protests to end so our employees can get back to work. That and sell off five per cent of our soaring float to fund our purchase of Barlow."

"I am sure Lord Exeter is working out a deal right now," Charlene's bloodshot eyes spoke with hungover confidence. "I mean, if I were him, I would want the matter resolved as soon as possible so we can all move on. Hell, he's probably talking to the Barlow's management right now, I hope."

Gwen nodded. Indeed, once the dust settles and the IoDNC comes to possess Canary Wharf's titles, there will be a significant remodelling of the final phase's plans for London's premier new CBD, the Mages' dream and, as advertised, the "only place to be".

London.

Westminster.

Morrigan observed the unusually gloomy room.

Mycroft Ravenport, Marshall of England's armed forces by hereditary right, sat brooding in his ancestor's armchair, his jubilant mood despoiled by a report that had arrived with a set of unanticipated guests.

Opposite, grim-faced and dour, sat the stern visage of Marshall Lawson Ashbridge, present and actual Marshall of the Mageocracy's Special Aerial Divisions. Unlike Mycroft, the Marshall was an active military Mage, one whose facial scars were badges of pride, made poignant by a singular, magical eye that had replaced the original taken by the will of God.

Adjacent to the pair, the present spokesperson for the Militant Faction, Lord Francis Holland of House Exeter, stood nursing a glass of Mycroft's finest highland whiskey, awaiting his opinion on the matter.

"Honoured Sirs." Her honeyed voice, sombre and subservient, materialised in the office of the Duke of Norfolk as a crow bearing a parchment.

Gingerly, her Duke unfurled the fabric, revealing a radiant, singular leaf about the size of one's palm, one with veins that glowed with an inner, eerie light. Mycroft cupped the leaf for a few moments, silently feeding it his mana until Mori sensed his mind joining with the trans-Planar link between London and the space-spanning tree at Tryfan.

The others shifted uncomfortably.

Though all three were adherents to the Accord, her Master's role was far more involved than his compatriots.

"Great Bloom," Mycroft audibly voiced his thoughts. "By the Accord, the Office of the Marshall answers thy summon. With me are Marshall Ashbridge and the Duke of Exeter. Together, we speak for the Factions."

"Marshall Mycroft, Marshall Ashbridge, and Lord Holland," came a voice that was no longer inside her Master's head but widely audible via some unknowable sorcery on the Llais Leaf. The tone was regal, but the ageless nature of the petal-pink voice inspired in the listeners a longing they had not known existed. "Indeed, Tryfan has dire need of your services."

"By the Accord, we are at your service," Marshall Ashbridge returned with care, his magical eye swivelling to scan their surroundings. "Insofar as our duty demands it."

"Dearest Bloom, is the matter regarding Shalkar?" Francis Holland, the Duke of Exeter, spoke with a hint of sardonicism. Her Master had scheduled the man for a meeting earlier to extend Charlene's demands, which would explain the hot-headed Duke's animosity. "Did the Elemental Sea boil over as a result of the girl's irresponsible actions?"

Her Master shot his lordly compatriot a disapproving look, as did their fellow Marshall.

"On the contrary, your Magus Song has exceeded expectations," the rebuttal from the Llias Leaf left no uncertainty as to Tryfan's opinions on the Gwen. "Though our Warden could be less kind about your failed efforts in the equator, Lord Holland. You have extracted the promised wealth, but the region's Planar stability has fallen into utter disrepair."

Her Duke did not bother to hide his smile, while Ashbridge merely shook his head.

"We would have fixed it had someone not pulled out the rug from under us and absconded with our funds." Francis Holland amazed Morrigan by continuing to accuse him without a hint of embarrassment. "That said, how can I be of service?"

"If my Lords would recall," the voice continued. "Many moon cycles ago, Magus Song found evidence of a mass exodus from the Elemental Sea. An entire Brass Legion had evaporated from our southward expedition, easing the Khitani's passage as we sought to contain the elemental rifts."

Mycroft and the others voiced their acknowledgement.

"Once our Wardens had cleared the way through to the deep Murk, Arch-Warden Eldrin implemented means to track the Brass Legion through their cross-Planar jaunt. A few human days ago, Tryfan received its answer, uncovering the whereabouts and actions of the Emir's Elemental Legion."

Mycroft inclined his chin in thought while the other two voiced their enquiries.

"This would be Zodiam the Ursine?" Holland furrowed both bush brows.

"A dangerous existence to all mortal life," Marshall Ashbridge agreed. "Enlighten us, O Bloom. What did they do?"

"The Legion under Prince Zodiam." The voice remained calm, though the Llias' ability to enforce empathic emotions remained in place, giving even Morrigan a feeling of woe and worry. "Amassed an attack on the northern conjunction of elemental crossroads, in the First Seat of Frost."

The Marshall and the Exeter gazed at her Duke, whose profession involved intimate knowledge of foreign titles for landmarks.

"By which you infer the northern pole?" Mycroft clarified for his companions. "Where the Frost Flower of Lhîweth, may her Bloom be eternal, reigns over the White Reach?"

The room grew suddenly silent.

"Does the Frost Flower of Lhîweth still bloom? Are Tryfan's cousins of the north safe?" Mycroft continued, his heart pounding so hard that Mori could feel her organs quicken.

"We can mobilise within the week if need be," Marshall Ashbridge spoke. "Sixteen Battalions, half of which are Aerial Battle Wings."

"You can try to mobilise, but the reality is that we're taxed beyond belief." The Duke of Exeter rebuked the Marshall. "These will be sixteen very tired and incomplete Battalions."

"Unfortunately, Emir Zodiam was only a part of the threat," the voice continued, softening as it solicited undue pity from the men. "His forces were joined by Dauphiness Nin Gak of the Seven Kingdoms and a Great Shoal of Mermen. Additionally, the aftermath indicates that the rogue Lich hiding in Siberia had also joined them."

"A Shoal! At the pole?" Francis Holland's eyes grew visibly wide. "That's not possible. It's too cold. The Undead I can envision, but a living, breathing Shoal?"

"They're there to invade, not to live," Ashbridge interrupted the unbelieving Holland. "Besides, maybe the Brass Legion warmed them up? The better question is, how in the Fire Sea are the Elementals surviving near the poles? They would expend Essence at a rate far higher than they can sustain."

Morrigan licked her beaks.

The secrets here were delicious beyond belief.

"Hence the Lich—" Mycroft said dryly. "The Mermen brings the bodies. And the Necromancers will have their troops—then I assume the Emir can burn the tree at his leisure. I can see it working, milady—but have our foes succeeded? This happened months ago, correct? you are merely surveying the aftermath?"

"Correct. For now, I shall inform the Mageocracy that the Frost Flower of Lhîweth still lives and that the Great Oak of Lhîweth still stands," the voice said. "However, the Grove is severely destabilised, and the Frost Wyrm Laelitharian has perished—"

"—By the Nazarene!" Francis Holland could not appear to hold back the growing malice in his voice. "Great Lady, if you're preparing us for the Third Beast Wave, please get to the point. Every minute matters if we need to mobilise the entirety of the Mageocracy. We live short and expendable Human lives, but lives nonetheless."

"Francis! Hold your tongue!" Mycroft barked down the Duke Exeter. "Great Bloom, please forgive my unlearned companion. As you were saying—the Wyrm Laelitharian is defeated, but the Great Tree stands?"

"Indeed," the voice returned. "From what our estranged cousins in the Seat of Forest were willing to divulge, the siege began with a great rush of frail bodies against the Rime Wardens of Lhîweth, an endless tide of flesh and bones that continued for days, exhausting its defenders and their sorcery and piling enough filth against the Great Tree to overwhelm its perimetry wards. In the aftermath, the Necromancers raised the dead, growing into their power with so much haste and vastness that the Lich among them raised a legion at his leisure. This second battle proved far more difficult than the first, utterly draining the Rime Wardens of their numbers—at which point they then had to face Zodiam's rested Brass Legion."

The men listened to the simple words streaming from the leaf, doing their best to envision a battle that would have pulverised even the best defence the Mageocracy could mount—a key reason why disruption and diplomacy was a core strategy for the Empire's survival.

"The Emir's elemental Essence had only grown since the Fire Sea's opening, and it was there and then that Zodiam expended the stowed power he had amassed for thirty sun-cycles. As with his previous success, a temporary portal into the Plane of Fire formed from the spent Essence of his Legion, momentarily dispelling the Planar Wards our cousins had perfected over millennia."

There was a pause.

"The concerted effort was enough to draw forth the Great Wyrm Laelitharian, upon whose wrath the Brass Legion was spent, and the Great Undead Shoal dispersed. Though it was neither Nin Gak nor Zodiam that brought low the Great Guardian of Lhîweth."

"There's yet another foe? One that can take down a Mythic Guardian Wyrm?" The Duke of Exeter's expression was like a thunderstorm. "And you expect us to throw bodies at this thing?"

Morrigan sensed her Duke's mind sifted through the numerous reports he had received over the last six months to a year, perceiving that an answer that had been long-hidden now revealed itself.

"Spectre?" he said at once. "Sobel?"

Her Duke did not mention the Outcast, the Elf that had eluded Solana's Arch-Warden since before the Empire had made its first colonies. In any case, if Sobel and Spectre were involved in an attempted murder of a World Tree, a rogue Elven mentor could not stray far from the plot.

"Your wisdom serves you well," the voice approved of his conjecture. "Indeed, the Emir and the Dauphiness were aided by our old foes from Spectre, with our sorceress acting as the instrument by which they bypassed the Great Tree's defences and thus, lured Laelitharian from the Wood Womb. Fed by the Great Shoal, she battled the exhausted Wyrm, then consumed enough of the Guardian to enforce its temporary retreat."

Morrigan instantly thought of Gwen and the report of how she had devoured the Mongolian Death Worm. A Void Mage grew potent with every battle—not so strong as a fully functioning super-structural Tower—but enough to overwhelm a low-tier city. He would love for the Mageocracy to mount an expedition to hunt the woman down, but the cost in lives and materials for such a protracted jaunt into the Wildlands was unthinkable. The Mageocracy had too many fires everywhere and not nearly enough water.

"This is all very overwhelming and mythical." The Duke Exeter took a deep breath, then annoyedly scratched his beard with one hand. "But let me confirm something—will there be a Third Beast Tide? I require a definitive answer, O Bloom."

"I cannot profess to divine the forever shifting future—" the voice said. "However, unlike the madness of Vynssarion, Laelitharian shall return to the Tree Womb to be reborn. It will take a century or more, but so long as Lhîweth stands, so Laelitharian shall remain sane."

"Thank God for that." The Duke turned to Mycroft with an unamused grin. "Nonetheless, we all know that our Militant Faction has been humbled of late. Perhaps the Grey Faction would like to volunteer a portion of its obscene profits this time?"

Morrigan could see from the Duke's overt display that the man was very keen to change subjects from the matter of his sons' debt and disgrace to something that would expend the lives and wealth of families other than the Exeters. Yet, despite the man's loathing for the Accord and what the Hvítálfar might represent in the complex geopolitics of the Mageocracy, the Elves rarely raised the stick without presenting an overwhelmingly large carrot. As a result, the Accord was to the Militants like flames to a cloud of Moon Moths.

"What would you have us do?" Her Duke spoke to the leaf. "If indeed the foes are beaten back, for now."

"Tryfan lacks the means to pursue a protracted campaign." The voice grew stern and regal. "Regardless, we endeavour to aid our cousins in stabilising the region, and you would know the difficulty of such a task."

Morrigan watched her Duke glance at his contemporaries. Ashbridge gave him an affirming nod from the Middle Faction, while Holland's silence could arguably be taken as tacit agreement. Even without an actively maintained portal such as in the Fire Sea, the slow-healing of the World Tree would ensure that all manners of Elemental Creatures now flowed from the primordial chaos of their Planes into the Prime Material. "Pruning" of these creations would hasten the Tree's ability to restore stability to the region while leaving them unchecked to breed and fight would prolong, or at worst, create a second Fire Sea, eventuating in a wholly preventable Beast Tide.

"I will inform our allies in the central continent and commit the necessary troops from our end as a show of sincerity," Mycroft spoke for the trio present. "Will we see trouble from the Rime Guards?"

"Our best Druids are already there—though you will find the Frost Flower of Lhîweth no friendlier than before. Thereby, please take the utmost care in the region and avoid incursions into the Seat of Frost at all costs."

The Duke of Exeter scoffed.

"Fairest Bloom. Though we are fully capable of reining our Mage Flights, we cannot be responsible for the actions of Rogue Mages." Ashbridge raised a point that her Duke would have brought up himself. "With the opening of so many Elemental Rifts at once, the absurd volume of Crystals growing in the region would reach an astronomical rate, drawing scum from all over the world."

"Indeed, and though her Rime Guards are spent, the Frost Flower is fully capable of defending her realm—" the voice returned. "Her wrath in this difficult time would additionally be multiplied by her grief. Her Grove burns, but our dearest cousin remains one of the Eldest, and as such, possess powers within the seat of her home unrivalled even by your Towers…"

"That's just great." Holland heavily placed his glass on the side table. "In addition to Spectre, we now need to hunt down and kill the looters. But if we get too close to the looters running after the loot, the Frost Flower will annihilate our troops. Meanwhile, we need to hold back a developing Beast Tide in a Black Zone with no supplies while arresting and killing our kind. All of this is very easy, I am sure, for a Hvítálfar to envision."

"The Mageocracy will be amply rewarded." Her Duke refrained from shaking his head as the High Priestess of the Elves affirmed the statement the Holland's patriarch hoped to hear. Thankfully, Morrigan bobbed her beak disapprovingly in his stead. "For the next year, your Mageocracy will receive the finest materials from Tryfan, magical instructors, and our craftsmen will be at your service in Trawsfynydd, and our Hierophant Druids be ready to assist your plantations. As a gesture of goodwill, we will also double the allotment for Rejuvenation treatments."

"That's very generous." Her Duke did sound happier upon hearing the seemingly overwhelming terms of trade. "Is there anything else, Dear Bloom, that you wish to inform us?"

Against the men's expectation, there was a long pause.

"Until the rifts are repaired, and Lhîweth stabilises..." The voice replied evasively. "There will be changes to the challenges you already face, and through these trials, Humanity will learn first hand the importance of maintaining the Accord, more so for your sake than ours. Your commitment, composed of your will and your willing sacrifice, will dictate the conditions of your children and their children's lives."

"Is that a threat?" The Duke Exeter stood to address the Llias Leaf, an act that Morrigan found utterly ridiculous. "Should we clap and sing as we send our children to their death?"

"Francis! Sit down!" Her Duke forced the man back into his chair with a wave of his hand before turning to the Bloom. "Speak out of turn again, and I'll call in your Faction's outstanding loans!"

Mycroft's warning didn't matter, for the connection from the leaf waned, then faded, leaving the three men once more alone in his office, joined only by an eye-twinkling raven.

"I assume," Marshall Ashbridge spoke after a minute of contemplative silence. "That the Bloom isn't talking about war casualties? What's going to happen then, Mycroft? Why did she mean by our children?"

If Solana were Morrigan's old self, Morrigan reasoned, she would have meant the children had to be offered up as tasty morsels.

"When the Fire Sea first opened," Mycroft reminded his militant cousins. "We lost innumerable people and cities. We didn't know at the time, but the portal's emergence had also changed the climate in the region, desertifying the tablelands. You've never heard of the famine there because all of our colonies had been eradicated or evacuated. Every place from Baku to Ashgabat was abandoned."

"So?" The Duke shrugged. "The Hvítálfar seemed fine with the Fire Sea wreaking havoc. What makes this any different? We have no colonies on Greenland."

"According to Gwen's reports," Mycroft spoke to the growling Duke, whose face turned even sourer as he mentioned the girl's name. "The famine shifted the entire population of Centaurs northward, the Rat-kin southward, and was the key culprit responsible for the instabilities there. Tens of million Demi-human lives were lost and were they not, we would have experienced a localised Beast Tide. Either way, this is a problem that she had profitably resolved for the Mageocracy by opening up grains trade for the Khitani and facilitating Elven crops for the Rat-kin."

Morrigan nodded her beaks. She liked Strun, who reminded her of the warriors of old that used to inhabit her isle.

"What does the Middle Faction have to say about this?" The Duke of Exeter turned to their third companion. "Trading with monsters? Enriching rats? Building a vermin tide of her own? That's not very Middle Faction, is it now? Lord Kilroy never condoned such a thing, not in my memory. Besides, did the Fire Sea change anything in our part of the world? It didn't. I want to see Mycroft try to convince the public that their sons and daughters will die for the cause of some sprout, one without bearing on our colonies."

Marshall Ashbridge appeared to give the matter some thought before he spoke. "Norfolk, you know as well as I that the girl has our support, but Francis is correct in that she may have gone too far. Did you know Gwen had cultivated a religion in her name? There are rumours from the Ordos that she had quite the Faith reading, which isn't bad if we offer her that particular route. I am not going to stand in your way—but know that we in the Middle Faction have high hopes for Kilroy's Apprentice, especially as Gunther refuses to return to Europe, and the alternative is Alesia. I must likewise agree with Francis on the matter of Tryfan's request—we really can't afford a longitudinal conflict, not without drastically taxing our coffers."

"The girl is free to act as she chooses." Her Duke regarded the pair, his countenance so genuine Morrigan almost cawed with laughter. "Her friendship with Charlene has no input from me, nor am I in any way involved in Lord Holland's scion's self-sought consequences, humoured as I am at the outcome. And you know my position on the Accord. I am confident Tryfan speaks the truth, even if we're unwilling to commit ourselves. As for the cost—"

"Maybe an arrangement can be reached." The Duke of Exeter straightened his jacket. "Mycroft, may we speak in private?"

"We—" Her Duke paused for a brief second, his mind branching out across a dozen scenarios and outcomes in a mere moment. Sensing Mycroft's old tricks, Morrigan fluffed her feathers with delight. "—may not. Nor do I wish to waste time on your family, Francis. These are our children's debt and gain, not yours nor mine. We have an impromptu, long-term campaign ahead of us, milords. Let's not allow such trivialities to distract us from duty."

As the voices moved from Gwen toward trivial matters of logistics, Morrigan transferred her consciousness from the room elsewhere to the Isle of Dogs, where her favourite Essence spigot was taking a walking with her cousins, soaking up the adoration of her employees.

What had the High Priestess of the timeless ones meant, Morrigan wondered, by that Humanity would learn the true importance of the Accord? What would happen if Humanity failed to commit "voluntary" sacrifices to healing the Grove of Lhîweth? What had the weather to do with any of it, and why had the Hvítálfar intimated as such?

It was a riddle, one that reeked of secrecy, her favourite treat. Perhaps, Morrigan wondered as her murder spread its wings and dove down toward the girl—someone who had been to Shalkar and came back the Rat-kin's saviour would be capable of providing an answer!