sammyh12
She wore the collar for seven years. She never knew what it was truly for.
In Elvarath, magic is a privilege-and a prison. Every mage above Threshold One wears a collar, bound by law, supposedly for the city's protection. Sable Threnwick has lived under its weight since she was sixteen, her magic suppressed, her future narrowed to a quiet archivist's life in the Third Tier.
Then a woman dies at the Founding Festival.
With her final breath, Kestra Vane shatters the lie Sable has always believed. The collars don't protect the city from dangerous magic.
They harvest it.
Beneath Elvarath's gleaming streets, something ancient and hungry waits. For centuries, House Caldreth has fed it mageblood to keep it dormant-and now the system is failing.
Damen Caldreth is the heir to that legacy. He was raised to inherit the chains, not question them. But when Sable's search for truth collides with his own crumbling faith in his family's rule, they form an alliance that could save the city-or burn it to the ground.
The deeper they dig, the darker the secrets become. A rebellion stirs in the Warrens. A madman plots to unleash what lies beneath. And the entity in the dark has been waiting far too long to be set free.
Some chains are made of gold. Some lies are written in law.
And the truth might cost them everything.
Content warnings: Death, violence, mild gore, trauma recovery, scenes of persecution/oppression