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The four leaders of the lands brought offerings to the deities to banish their ire.
The sorcerer brought mechanical inventions made of IRON. A gift of ingenuity.
The fae brought a creature of great intelligence and strength with a COPPER mane. A gift of creation.
The witch harvested SILVER and spun it like webs to link the magic of beings to the land. A gift of cunning resourcefulness.
Last, the creature of the night offered the gods their second-born. Her GOLD hair flowed like sand dunes. A gift of sacrifice.
The benevolent gods accepted the leaders’ offerings, but they demanded one final gift of sacrifice from all rulers. In return, they would grant their bloodlines great power.
“What does that last part mean…about the gift of sacrifice?”
“Have you heard about the tithes?” he asked.
Nava pursed her lips and shook her head.
“It’s said that the founders had to pay the tithes to the gods to save the world by forfeiting their second-born magical heir. Then, in their grief and to prevent the gods from waging another war we couldn’t win, they mandated the creation of magical armies to fight the deities.”
“Is that why families have to give away their magical children?”
Orion nodded, glancing at the pages that detailed a history he’d learned a long time ago. “At first, when the memories of the devastation brought by the gods were still raw, magic-wielders volunteered for the armies. And so did their sons and daughters, for a few generations. Then, slowly, they stopped, and the magic dwindled. First from families that held less power—out of four children, only two inherited the trait. After that, just one, and then an entire generation would go without magic.”
Nava’s frown deepened. “It sounds like the propaganda my mother used to tell me the Crows spread, so they could take the children away.”
“The kings and queens set the tithe, Bee. The Crows uphold it. Every person born with magic needs to be trained to defend our world in case the gods come for us again.”
Nava raised an eyebrow at that, silently challenging his words. “But how can we defeat a god? They can’t die.”
“They can, if you use the right weapons—or so the story goes.” Not that talking about the gods would help them at all with their current predicament.
“So the founders created the Society of Crows to uphold the balance.” Nava tapped her chin, but her voice turned high-pitched with irritation. “I don’t like it.”
Remnants of memories he still had to unveil tickled his mind, making the ghost of his headache resurface once again. He cleared his throat and rubbed his index finger over his temple. “Later generations forgot why the drafts happen in the first place, and it’s the Society’s job to keep records of those years of pestilence, war, famine, and death.”
“Do all the kingdoms take tithes?”
“My father rarely does. He only demands that the Dark Ones join the royal guards. But there is no need to take them as children. Every Dark One born with enough power to wield it comes to serve the king willingly.”
“I see how they serve him,” Nava said tightly, shaking her head. “All the women ended up as his consorts.”
Orion rested his elbows on his knees, meeting her unrelenting gaze. “They wanted to, Nava—they told me that much.”
“I doubt they would say otherwise when the truth could get them in trouble.”
He didn’t want to get into this argument with her. Her hate for the king wouldn’t allow her to see that some people regarded him as something close to a god. “I’ve heard the Gold Kingdom doesn’t draft children either, but I’m unsure whether that’s true or not. Their politics are complicated.”
“How so?”
“For starters, they have two monarchies fighting for the same crown. The shifters who lost the last war and the vampires.”
“Vampires?” She blinked rapidly. “Really?”
“It’s not a place I would head to for a break, even though it’s beautiful.” Orion shrugged and continued paging through the book. Surely there was something in here that could help them?
“So the Society upholds the tithes, which keeps their armies strong with magic to fight the gods?”
“When I was a Crow, they taught us to be prepared for when the gods returned. They didn’t teach us to harm people simply because they wanted the citizens of Caztian to suffer. Every family has given up something precious. The founders who became the royals paid the first tithe when they gave the gods their second-born child.”
