The Laws of Magic

Magic is real in Aevrya. The year is 317 and every village in the empire knows someone who claims to have seen it. A flicker of light without a flame. A wound closing faster than it should. A weight lifted that no man could carry. And, every time, a cost.

The cost is not a custom. It is not a tradition. It is the law of the world. Two laws govern every working in Aevrya. Both apply to everyone. Neither can be broken.

The Law Of Balance

The Law of Balance is the first law of Aevrya. Creation and destruction must stay in balance. What is built calls for what unmakes. What unmakes calls for what is built. The scale must hold.

Tip the scale and the world corrects. The correction is not punishment. The correction is the law doing what the law was made to do.

The Law Of Price

The Law of Price is the second law. Every working has a cost. Nothing comes for free.

A worker who heals a wound spends sleep, or strength, or years. A worker who calls a flame to a hearth spends a piece of himself to do it. The bigger the working, the higher the price.

If the worker chooses what to spend, the cost is honest. He pays what he can afford. If the worker does not choose, the world chooses for him. It takes from sleep that does not rest. From a harvest that fails. From a season of fevers in the village he came from. The world does not ask. It collects.

Why Magic Is Not Common

Most people in Aevrya never use magic. The reason is not that it is forbidden. The reason is that the price is too high to pay twice. A farmer who could heal his own wound by calling on a working could do it once. He would not do it again.

Magic in this world is not a gift. It is a discipline. The few who can carry it carry it because they were taught to count the cost before they pay it.