Sort of. Where I’m at in the story (my OCD-ness likes to write chronologically) is Sabina’s parents have no other choice than to tell their daughter that she’s about to be handed over to a life of suffering because of her diamond tears. For a little backstory–

The stars are the gods. The stars bestowed one immense power in each of the Previes when they were born while living in another kingdom. Fast forward past information that isn’t relevant at the moment, the Previes die, or rather opt to die because, really, immortality would get boring, and now they exist pretty much in Past (“heaven”) although they have access to this world via a mirror. They can also possess animals but the rulers of Past (whose names escape me, bad author) forbade human possession. Yadda, yadda, yadda since they were no longer capable of a tangible human form in the living world, someone had to rule.

Enter the Giver. The Previes bestow their power on the Giver, a new one once every X number of years and then the Giver filters the gifts throughout the people, never giving more than one to a person and never giving everyone a gift. Balance is key. Under normal rule circumstances, Diamond Criers existed at about one in ten. Under the now usurped rule, they’re dwindling and are hovering somewhere closer to one in a hundred, perhaps even one in five hundred.

When the Goquin usurped, they got themselves in a bit of a tiff. They couldn’t kill the Giver because that would destroy the powers and there wasn’t anything they could do about the Previes since they wouldn’t survive the climb up the Mountain of Past to get to them. Also, the Previes wouldn’t bestow power to them anyway so slaughter was out of the question. So they exiled the Giver and made sure to keep him alive so they could siphon his powers. Unfortunately, their methods weren’t able to suck all of them up, Criers being one of them and, of course, the most lucrative. So they relied on the Giver to, well, keep giving, which he did. Bestowing the powers onto the people acted as a sort of released for the Giver. Keep the powers in and go mad with it all. So he kept giving. Unfortunately, since he is still mortal and living only by the graces of the powers, he did start to fade, which equaled a drop in Criers.

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