The Last Tithe

Magic has always demanded a price. In the empire’s capital, that price is controlled—measured, distributed, and enforced through a system known as the Tithe. Every spell draws from the many, siphoning strength, memory, and years of life from the population to fuel the few who are permitted to wield power. Most never notice what they’ve lost. Serin Vale is one of the people who makes sure of that. An elite auditor of the Tithe, Serin’s role is simple: track irregularities, contain unauthorized magic, and preserve the balance that keeps the system from collapsing. Detached, precise, and unwavering, she believe the cost of magic—however brutal—is necessary. Until the system stops behaving. When a rogue caster begins performing magic without paying the Tithe, the consequences ripple through the city in horrifying ways. People collapse without cause. Families are drained dry in an instant. Others survive—but emptied of something essential, left conscious and hollow. The cost is no longer shared. It is chosen. As Serin hunts the source, she encounter Cael Ardyn—a man who has learned how to bend the rules of the Tithe instead of breaking them. Where the system scatters suffering, Cael refines it. Where it hides the cost, he makes it visible. And where it spreads pain across the many, he forces it into the few. But Cael isn’t the only anomaly. With every encounter, Serin begins to experience the Tithe firsthand—not as an observer, but as a conduit. Pain, memory, and life itself start passing through her, revealing a truth buried beneath the system she spent her life protecting: The Tithe does not simply distribute cost. It requires something—someone—to hold it together. But who decides where the price is paid.