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I was still reeling from hearing a familiar was a kind of god but managed to ask, “What kind of power?”
“The power of any god, a way to help their worshipers. Cats in Egypt could sense when vermin were near the grain stores without being close by and were able to kill them before they could spoil the food. A bull in Greece was able to regrow its horns in a matter of hours and sharpen them in seconds to protect its people. I even read about how the jaguar gods in the Mayan civilization could call other animals and creatures into action at times of war.”
“So what the fuck happened?” Charlie asked, clearly as interested in the story as I was.
“You said they developed a consciousness from worship? So, they weren’t human souls?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Souls are souls. They don’t have a specific race or creature allocation. All living things have souls.”
“So, how did it become that familiars had past lives?” I asked.
“All souls have had other lives. A new soul is rare indeed. The real question is why do you remember that past life, and that lies in the witches’ summoning spell.”
“So, witches saw these animal gods and decided to keep one?” Zaide asked, his eyes dark with anger.
Elizabeth continued, “After the fall of the titans, the shadow portal crumbled, and their connection to the interlinked dimensions was gone. Much of the shadow magic in the portal was absorbed into the earth, and the realm recycled it by placing it in animal gods who, with this magic, could then speak to humans telepathically and alter their forms.”
Shadow magic? I have shadow magic?
I looked at Baelen, who stared back at me, his face frozen, but I couldn’t read the emotion I saw there. Anger? Fear? It worried me because if he really had been possessed by a shadow, was it because of me? Did they know their magic resided in familiars?Am I the cause of his suffering?
“Does anyone else find it weird that all we are hearing about at the moment is shadow this and shadow that? For a realm with a dead portal, they are coming up an awful lot,” Charlie said with his usual skepticism.
I didn’t want to get distracted, though. I needed to know more. How I existed. “Alter forms?”
Elizabeth nodded. “To be as their worshipers are. Human.”
“Human,” I repeated, a little dazed. “Daithi didn’t do this to me? I could always turn human?”
Elizabeth nodded. “It was always within your ability. Daithi probably forced the issue.”
“Wow.” I took a moment to process that and then frowned. “But I was summoned. I wasn’t an animal god.”
Elizabeth tilted her head in agreement. “Animals aren’t worshiped anymore. There aren’t many animal gods, if any, left in this realm. Witches saw animal gods become more powerful and wanted the power for themselves.”
“Bloody typical,” Charlie mumbled.
His hatred for witches would have been comical, especially considering he created a magical cage only hours ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to laugh. I felt like I was on the verge of something, learning something that would change everything.
Elizabeth continued unperturbed. “They discovered the animal gods now had some shadow magic. Shadows have a bond, which they reserve for their mates, that ties their souls together. They become one. They can feel each other’s emotions, hear each other’s thoughts, and share power. They die together. As the shadow magic wrapped so tightly with the animal gods’ own magic, they changed and became, in a small part, shadow.”
My eyes widened. “The bond—“
Elizabeth nodded. “You recognize it. It is the bond you have with Charlie. “
Charlie’s face was serious, but I felt lighter, relieved. “So, it’s like my pair bond with Zaide and my mate bond with Baelen. It’s for mates.”
Elizabeth’s pause chilled my blood. Her voice was low as she said, “Your bond is warped.”
“What?”
She held up a hand to stop any more interruptions and hastened to finish. “Back when animal gods roamed, a few witches were able to tether their souls together. It’s unclear in the texts about whether it was a consensual bond or not, but the effects were the same. The witches had access to the shadow magic residing in them. But as animal gods dwindled and the shadow magic was homeless but unattainable to them, witches decided to find a way to make the animal gods.”
“How did they do that?” I asked quietly.
“A spell. A very complicated spell that requires months of preparation to call a soul, gather shadow magic, and reap magic from faith and prayers.”
“How—“
