Page 41 of The Arcane God

“Ena, I don’t know if we’re safe here,” he said frantically. “They—the stryx—they, they were drinking all this blood and, and—”

“They drank more blood?” she asked, seeming extremely disquieted by that fact.

“Yes,” he said, trying to impart to her the weirdness of what he had just seen. “But that’s not all. They drank it, and then some of them started to…change.”

“Change?” she asked, shaking her head in confusion. “What do you mean change?”

“Just come on, come with me,” Turner said, lifting her to standing and throwing a fur around her. “We need to get to the horses and go somewhere else.”

“Wait, Turner, are you sure? They’ve been nothing but welcoming since we arrived,” Ena said, her brow furrowing, but standing up and putting her shoes on nonetheless.

“No, I’m not sure,” Turner said, realizing that he sounded batshit crazy right now. “But I know these people aren’t what we thought—they might be dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” Ena asked as she put on her coat.

“They turned into animals, Ena. Predators. One of them—Max—became a giant white bear, just like the one that attacked us, and, and they had all these carcasses hanging from the trees—who knows what they want with us. What they might try to do.” He realized he was making a lot of logical leaps, but it was his job to keep Ena and Ty’s baby safe now—and whatever these people were, they certainly did not seem safe now that the camp was about to be overrun with wild animals.

Ena studied him in the low light of the tent, but she didn’t argue. She simply nodded, and the two of them grabbed their saddlebags and fled from the tent.

They walked quickly, heading for the small cave nearby where they’d left the horses to bed down for the night. He hoped to fucking Iblis they were still there, and hadn’t been taken for whatever weird blood ritual the stryx had planned next.

The cave was in sight, and he felt relief surge through him at the sight of their horses, when a voice from behind startled him.

“Can I help you two?”

Turner and Ena spun around, only to come face to face with Kaya.

Chapter Sixteen

Ena

Ena froze as she looked into the face of her husband’s mother. Kaya’s dark brows were arched over her painfully familiar eyes in a challenging stare.

“I, uh, we…” Turner began, clearly unsure of what to say about their sudden departure.

But Ena wasn’t playing around. If what Turner saw was true, then she needed some answers. Drinking blood…changing into animals. This was a form of magic neither of them had seen before. What if these people were dangerous somehow?

“Turner saw something,” Ena began, not backing down from Kaya’s challenging glare.

“What he saw is no secret,” she began, directing her glare towards Turner. “And nothing to be afraid of,” she reassured.

“Nothing to be afraid of?” Turner echoed. “I just saw human beings shed their skin and turn into other creatures. That…was a tad frightening.”

“It may seem strange to you,” Kaya explained calmly. “The Change was to me at first too. But I assure you, it’s normal for them. The stryx are a third race of magic, one that’s been erased from witch and daemon history. But they’ve existed as long as we have, and their magic comes from Omnis, just like ours does.”

Ena paused at that. She remembered reading in The Evolution of Magic about the third race of magic who had parted ways from witches and daemons centuries ago over a disagreement. After learning from Mel about how they worshiped Omnis instead of Iblis or Gaia, she assumed this had something to do with it, but she’d never thought about what type of magic these people had. Could fear over their magic have been part of the disagreement too?

All of it seemed so reminiscent of witches’ fear of daemons, and the exact prejudices that had led to daemons being forced into the Underworld, and the binding ritual, that it made her pause. Maybe, despite Turner’s misgivings, they should hear them out.

“Okay,” Ena said, realizing that maybe they’d reacted too quickly. They needed to learn more about this magic before they made assumptions. “What exactly is the…Change, as you called it? What does it entail?”

“Well,” Kaya began calmly, as if explaining why it rained to a child. “As Turner saw, some of the stryx are able to Change into other beings, mostly on the full moon. Only those who’ve reached the age of twenty-seven and gone through their Awakening have the ability to Change, not unlike the way witches gain their Gifts at the Summoning, or daemons their Powers through the Trial.”

Gaia, that was incredibly fascinating. Despite the fact that they all worshiped different gods, their magic seemed to have some similarities. It did lend some credence to Kaya’s statement about all magic coming from the same source…only she’d called it Omnis, and hadn’t described it as Gaia and Iblis coming together, the way that Heran had taught her.

“But,” Turner began, chiming in cautiously, “are they dangerous when they Change? I mean, that one guy Max turned into a whole ass bear, and we were attacked by one of those just a few weeks ago.”

“No,” Kaya answered directly. “The stryx aren’t dangerous in their animals forms. They maintain their human memories and faculties. They simply exist…differently for a while.”