I’m sure we’ll get to the technothriller part at some point.
The apparently-not queen of Virginia (at least, for the moment) stood up to look at the fire. “This stretches all the way back to the founding of Virginia, Enoch,” she said. “You’ve read as much about the First Age of Magic as I have, I’m sure. The world, smashed underneath the arrival of magic; the burning of nations and the collapse of civilizations. And here, on the East Coast of North America, a fight that promised to grind everything into dust.”
“That’s one way to put it,” said Enoch. “Another is that we held off a cruel foe that sought to bring their wickedness to the last few places still holding to liberty and justice. And that we’ve kept holding them off until the day where the fight could be taken to them.” He drained his glass. “Seven centuries, Damiana. Seven centuries where they’ve tried to poison our lands and warp our citizens and hold us down, just because we’re still there. The Republic’s taken everything the Dominion’s thrown at us for seven hundred years of pain and torment, and we’ve had a bellyful of it.”
“I know,” said Damiana. “But know this: the Dominion would have done worse, if they only could have. That they did not was because of the geases their first ruler entered into with ours.”
Damiana began to pace the room. “It was an agreement entered with the best of intentions,” she said. “At least, I think that it was, from what records remain. Perhaps even the Dominion thought so, although they were known by a different name by then. The idea was simple: that which later became known as the Universal Dominion would retreat past the Mississippi, and we would let them go in peace. And peace there would be, as long as they did not make war east of the Great River.”