The pale-stoned Academy was perched on a hill just on the outskirts of Atherin, and the capitalās skyline blurred with heat, smudging together the purple sapphire domes of Augurest temples, the towering crimson-and-gold obelisks honoring the patron saints, the carved marble pantheons with sapphire spires, the gleaming emerald tiles and pale sunbaked walls of the slouching townhouses. A sultry, jewel-toned riot of a city.
In Vallin, pleasure was not just pleasureāpleasure was a force of nature, as vital as water, as integral as air. Pleasure healed, nourished, enlivened. Pleasure was downright constitutional.
Pleasure was magic, and magic was pleasure.
But pain was also magic, and magic was also pain, and therein lay the problem.
The OrderĀ of the Silvercloaks had been founded two centuries ago in an attempt to bridle the chaos and debauchery wracking the country. Ever since the founding of Vallin, there had always been a streetwatch, always a trial-by-jury system and always a crude dungeon into which criminals were tossed, but House Veliron were the first rulers to truly explore what magic could do in the prevention and solving of major crime.
Because in a world built on pain and pleasure, there were always going to be those who pushed the very outer limits of itāwho exploited the fact that magic could not exist without those twin pillars. Street gangs who peddled narcotics to mages desperate for pleasure, Compellers who manipulated other mages into intimacy and submission, torturers who tried to siphon the potency of their victimsā pain for themselves.
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