Prologue
People do not usually speak of the Tithe. It is forbidden.
The elders say that magic permeates everything: the earth, the water, even the air itself. And so, sooner or later, any mention of the Tithe is bound to reach the keen ears of those who dwell in the Immortal Courts.
And then, trouble will surely follow.
At least, that is what people say. From childhood, mothers teach their children that some words are best left unspoken, or at least never spoken too loudly. Not to answer if someone calls their name from outside the window at dusk. Not to pick up strange things in the forest, even if they look valuable. Especially if they look valuable…
Men do their best to teach their sons and daughters everything they know, so that their children have at least the smallest chance of surviving when they are chosen. At village celebrations, no one sings the old songs about the folk of the hills anymore, though once every household knew them by heart.
Sometimes, at night, someone still hears music drifting down from the hills. Soft and so beautiful that it sets their teeth on edge. On such nights, people stay indoors until dawn and fasten every bolt on their doors. Almost every family here has a story about someone who once followed a voice into the mist and never came back.
But once a year, silence becomes useless.
The Tithe cannot be forgotten. It cannot be waited out behind shuttered windows or locked doors. It comes with the last month of autumn, when the woods around the villages begin to rot from damp and the ground is covered with a thin layer of silver frost each morning.
And then even the air seems to change.
People grow quieter, and children’s laughter is heard less often in the streets. The old folk look more and more often towards the hills, beyond which lie the lands of the Immortal Courts.
No one knows why it must be ten people, every autumn, every year. Or why the Courts still honour the ancient pact instead of taking as many mortals as they please. But the pact is hundreds of years old, and in all that time the fae have never broken it.
Neither have the humans.
