Fairmist

The Thiaran Empire runs on an arrangement called the Debt of the Blessed. Once a month a child is handed over to the Slinks, creatures out of a burning dimension, and in return the empire prospers. The citizens wear jewelled masks and look away while it happens. The compact holds as long as nobody interferes.

Grei is seventeen and cannot manage that kind of blindness. His thoughts run to treason, and treason draws him into a prophecy that promises to drive the Slinks back where they came from for good. The prophecy has a price attached: he must travel to the capital and sacrifice one last innocent himself.

As Grei works out what the prophecy is actually asking and stays ahead of the people who want him dead, the whole thing narrows to one choice — save the empire, or save his own soul. The book declines to make that easy, and refuses a clean line between the good side and the bad one.