Alright. Let's open this with presence, voice, and a quiet sense of doom—the kind that makes a reader think something is wrong here and keep going.
Chapter One
The Price Tag on Power
Magic used to hum in the stones of Elaris.
That's how my grandmother described it—like the kingdom itself was breathing. She said the streets glowed faintly at night, not enough to blind you, just enough to remind you that power lived beneath your feet. She said children learned their first spells the same way they learned their letters, and that even the air tasted different back then.
I wouldn't know.
By the time I was born, magic had a price tag—and the kingdom had already sold it.
I stood at the edge of the market square, hood pulled low, fingers clenched around a pouch that wasn't heavy enough to be worth what I was about to do. Above me, banners snapped in the morning wind—gold and white, the royal colors. They always looked cleaner on festival days, like today, when the Crown liked to remind everyone how peaceful Elaris had become.
Peaceful. That was the word they used.
Safe. Prosperous. Free of dangerous forces.
Free of magic.
A bell rang at the center platform, sharp and commanding. The crowd quieted, merchants pausing mid-sale, children tugged back by their parents. I felt the shift immediately—the way people straightened when authority cleared its throat.
Lord Treasurer Halvorn stepped forward, his silk robes gleaming. Behind him stood the Iron Wardens, hands resting casually on steel batons etched with runes that no longer worked. Symbols of power without the power itself. That irony never failed to make my jaw tighten.
"People of Elaris," Halvorn announced, voice magically amplified—one of the last permitted enchantments, controlled strictly by the Crown. "Today marks thirty years since the Accord of Exchange. Thirty years of peace. Thirty years without chaos, without wild sorcery tearing our homes apart."
A few people clapped. Others followed, slower. Habitual applause was easier than thinking.
I didn't clap.
Thirty years since the kingdom sold its magic to foreign hands—immortal hands, if the old stories were true. Thirty years since Elaris decided survival mattered more than wonder.
Halvorn raised a small crystal vial.
Even from where I stood, I felt it—a tug behind my ribs, like a memory trying to wake up.
Residual magic.
"By decree," he continued, "all unregistered artifacts must be surrendered today. In exchange, the Crown offers fair compensation and protection. Magic belongs to the past. Order is our future."
Liar.
Magic didn't belong to the past. It belonged to the few who could still afford it.
The crowd began to move, citizens lining up to hand over trinkets: old charms, cracked stones, heirlooms passed down with whispered warnings. Most were harmless now—drained, inert. But sometimes… sometimes something real surfaced.
That's why I was here.
I scanned the line, eyes sharp. Years of surviving in the lower districts taught me how to read people fast—who was scared, who was desperate, who didn't fully understand what they were giving away.
Then I saw him.
A boy, maybe twelve, clutching a leather-wrapped object to his chest. Too tightly. His pulse was visible in his throat. That wasn't fear of authority—that was fear of loss.
I moved.
Slipping through the crowd was easy when you knew how to disappear without vanishing. I brushed past him, murmured, "Don't give that to them."
His eyes snapped to mine. Wide. Dark. Familiar.
"They'll take it anyway," he whispered.
"Not if you don't let them see it."
I pressed something into his hand—my pouch. Coin clinked softly. His grip tightened instinctively.
"Go," I said. "Now."
He hesitated. Then the Iron Wardens shifted closer to the line, and that decided it. He ducked away, swallowed by the crowd.
A heartbeat later, the air changed.
I felt it before I saw it—a wrongness, a pressure, like the world leaning in. The crystal vial in Halvorn's hand began to glow brighter, reacting to something nearby.
Me.
"Stop her," Halvorn barked.
Too late.
I was already running.
Shouts erupted behind me as I vaulted a vendor's table, apples scattering across the stones. The hum in my chest grew louder, angrier, like something that had been asleep too long.
I didn't cast a spell.
I couldn't.
Magic had rules now. Locks. Chains.
But it still recognized me.
A Warden swung his baton. I twisted, barely avoiding the strike, and the air shattered. Not exploded—fractured, like glass under pressure. The baton flew from his hand, skidding across the square.
Silence fell.
Everyone stared at me.
I stared at my hands.
They were shaking.
"Well," I muttered, breathless, "that's new.
Halvorn's face had gone pale. "Impossible," he whispered. "There is no magic left in Elaris."
I looked up at him, heart pounding, and for the first time in my life, I understood something my grandmother had tried to tell me.
Magic wasn't gone
It had just been waiting.
And apparently, it had chosen me.
I ran again—this time not away from the truth, but straight toward it—because if the kingdom had sold its magic…
…someone was going to have to steal it back.