The Alchemists of Loom (Loom Saga, #1)

by Elise Kova

He curled his fingers into fists to keep his talons from unsheathing out of instinct when she threatened his home. “Why?” “For what you have done to Loom.” “What we have done?” he balked. “We have given you magic, we have gifted you with progress. We have imposed logical systems of government, a hierarchy in which everyone knows their place and how they fit.” She began to laugh, though he failed to see how what he said was funny. Arianna grasped her stomach and her shoulders trembled with barely containable, malicious mirth. “You—you gifted us, with progress?” She shook her head. “Dragon, check your history. Your people fell from the sky. We were the ones to give you wings, to make your magic useful.” “It was quite useful to begin with.” “And we knew how we fit together before. We were a chain, every Guild forming a link that supplied the next, which made Loom work.” She prodded a finger in his chest. “Then you came, and put gates on the system. You tried to turn links in a chain into rungs of a ladder, one atop the next. Our trade has yet to recover, our output is only half of what it was, without the Vicar council the Guilds do not communicate, and that’s not even touching on problems with educating our youth now that they are trapped within your asinine notion of ‘families,’ condemned to their guild only to be killed off if they don’t make the cut.”