"Today it is called 'Empowerment.' In bygone eras, the Trueborns called it 'elevation' and 'enlistment.'
"Such pretty terms to hide the ugly truth: Empowerment is enslavement. We Empowered are the Rex's property. The curias rent us, and the Praetors trade our leases between themselves for wealth and favors as though we were cattle instead of people. Pampered, protected cattle, but cattle. Property.
"Yes, magic breeds less true each year, and Empowerment has become an ever more popular solution to the decline in the sorcerous population. However, necessity does not justify depriving us of the right to choose who we will reproduce with, filling our Lightless children's veins with dangerous prometus, and renting us to curias on a whim.
"I love my young charge with all my heart, but I am a slave held captive by the royal curia he rules."
—Fluentia Amnis, foster mother
of Princeps Worldholder Altivolus Adurere,
from A Garden of Fragrant Heresies
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Garden of Light: Beneath Devouring Eyes #1
FantasyAn abandoned boy, a grieving prince, and a reclusive sorcerer find themselves caught in a web of peril and mystery... Domi, a young thief abandoned on the street at birth, just wants to save his dying foster mother. But first, he must survive the m...
