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Avenay stumbled a step as her mind latched onto a truth. The satyr grasped her arm to keep her upright. She barely saw the path they took or the people anymore as her mind turned. Why would they be stuck here? From the little information she had, it sounded as if the enchantments were to keep the people in place from long ago. Maybeshe didn’t know much about spell-casting, but she knew they were specific and tricky.

She turned to Vasu. Haggardness showed on every feature, defeat clear in his eyes.

“Vasu, how hard is a containment spell?” she whispered.

He scrunched his brow. “Very complicated, though with enough power, it’s easy enough.”

“How easy is it to contain not only an entire area, but any new variables that enter into the spell?”

His frown deepened, then softened with a swiftness of understanding that made her almost giddy at the confirmation it gave.

“I’m a fool,” he hissed. “We aren’t contained here, and we never have been. A spell like that would require such intricacies and extra provisions that it would be damn near impossible to create one that could last for this long. A containment spell is usually tied to specific people and a specific place because while it’s still complex, it’s much more effective.”

That opened a whole new line of questions for Avenay. “How in the world has it worked this long for the descendants of the original people? Is it tied to blood lines?”

But the answer unfolded in both their minds at the same time as they stared at each other in shock.

“How?” Vasu asked.

Avenay shook her head and looked at the soldiers. Could they truly be centuries old? None looked older than middle age, many much younger. Yet, there were no children that they had seen, and the statue in the center of the town looked just like Edond.

The servants in the castle looked at them with sadness as they entered. Avenay would bet good money they had known of the plan all along. But how? Had the king been waiting for someone to show up to do this?

They were brought into the throne room, where Edond lounged, his robes piling gracefully about him, finger tapping his cheek in annoyance.

The soldiers brought her and Vasu to the base of the dais. They pushed them to the ground, her knees slamming hard into the marble floors, pain radiating up her legs. This was a far cry from the greeting they had initially received.

“I had hoped what the acolytes told me wasn’t true about you, Avenay,” he said.

“And what did they say?” she asked.

“That you’re following the heresy of the ancient witches.” His eyes slid to Vasu. “That you were meddling where you shouldn’t. Then ran when you uncovered the truth.”

“What is the truth?” Vasu asked, voice shaking. His face held a mix of expressions that warred for dominance: rage, sadness, devastation. Betrayal. What was it like to devote your life to the worship of someone, only to uncover it was all a lie?

Edond sighed, bored. “I suppose there’s no reason to keep it from you anymore. Besides, in a matter of hours, it will all be done. Perhaps you can prepare your blasphemous hearts to receive Evoleen. I believe that once you see the vision we have, once you understand how wonderful it can be, you’ll accept it with eagerness.”

“What vision?” Avenay asked.

“A world of peace, with no sickness, no illness. Only fairness.” He leaned forward, that boredom suddenly gone from his face, replaced with the fervor of an acolyte or a lover. “You don’t understand everything Evoleen can do, how she wants to bring order to the chaos of our world.”

His words pleaded with Avenay’s heart, pulling, tugging, begging that she understand. She could almost see it in her mind. Seraphina would be well and alive. Others wouldn’t die like her mother did. Whatwould it be like to not worry every day? To not come home and check carefully on her sleeping sister to ensure she still breathed? Would something like this truly bring peace? If you didn’t worry about illness, if your needs were cared for, Avenay believed it would. Could it be that simple, though?

“At what cost?” Vasu asked. “Magic always has a cost.”

Edond sat back and waved his hand in dismissal. “Yes, but it would be fair.”

Avenay exchanged a tense glance with Vasu as a sick feeling washed over her.

“It would require volunteers, of course,” Edond replied. “But I think it would be easy to find them. We’ve proven that here already.”

“Proven what?” Avenay didn’t like what she was about to hear.

“That people will sacrifice themselves for the greater good. You’re right, Vasu, there always is a cost. For anything to bring people back to life, or even sustain life and youth for centuries, there has to be death of some kind. There has to be an equivalent exchange.”

That confirmed what they’d believed—that they were the original ones. A tight band stretched across Avenay’s chest. She felt as if she understood what he was about to say only a moment before he said it. And she was afraid of what would now be revealed.

“You have to pull power from the pit. But the only true gateway to that is birth and death. Death being the greater one. In addition, the life force leaving a person, via bloodletting, adds even more power. Add to that a conduit, and you can sustain an entire town for almost six moon cycles from one person’s sacrifice. The sacrifice allows the well in the city to be an all healing potion of youth for any who drink it. But it will stop if the sacrifices don’t continue.”