Elara blinked. “That’s heresy.”
Kellus smiled. “That is your anima fluens untapped. Not dangerous. Powerful. The Order of the Fold has spent a thousand years convincing women that their own skin is a hazard. It is not. Clothing does not bind a man’s magic—it inflates his ego. And a woman’s nakedness does not release magic—it releases obedience. The Tithe is not a circuit. It is a leash.”
Without the Tithe, crops would wither. Without the Tithe, the boundary walls against the Howling Wood would collapse. Without the Tithe, a woman’s own untamed magic would burn her from the inside out by her thirtieth year.
And for the first time in a thousand years, a woman’s bare skin meant nothing but itself.
Elara blinked. “That’s heresy.”
Kellus smiled. “That is your anima fluens untapped. Not dangerous. Powerful. The Order of the Fold has spent a thousand years convincing women that their own skin is a hazard. It is not. Clothing does not bind a man’s magic—it inflates his ego. And a woman’s nakedness does not release magic—it releases obedience. The Tithe is not a circuit. It is a leash.”
Without the Tithe, crops would wither. Without the Tithe, the boundary walls against the Howling Wood would collapse. Without the Tithe, a woman’s own untamed magic would burn her from the inside out by her thirtieth year.
And for the first time in a thousand years, a woman’s bare skin meant nothing but itself.