“Light magic is unique,” he finally says. “All lightwenders possess the singular ability to touch the source of a person’s magic. That is, his soul. But such an ability can come with a cost, which is why you were out of sorts last night.”

I wince, but he continues.

“The awakening of your craft rippled across Thiy. It unsettled the spirits of the Dead Wood as well as many shamans and shadowblessed who are sensitive to the spirits. Within the Calling of Light, only one craft would be able to resonate that way with others. I knew immediately what you are, as did every lightwender and shadowblessed who felt your craft awaken.”

My throat has gone dry. I lift the teacup and take a scalding sip. “Which is what?” I croak.

“Have you ever heard of a soulguide?”

“I might have seen it in a book once,” I say, but I don’t know its significance.

“A soulguide is a lightwender who can shepherd souls, guiding them either into the afterlife or back to the living. Or so the stories say. Only one soulguide has existed in the long history of the shamans. Sury lived long before Evewyn was even conceived as an idea. She founded what would become the capital of the Nuvalyn Empire, the shaman city of Mirrim.”

I’m grateful I’m sitting because my legs feel weak. In the last few seconds, the throne room seems to have risen in temperature. My head swims. How could such a thing be possible? And yet, I had clutched Saengo’s lifeless body, and the very next day, I had touched my hand to her beating chest.

“Is that what I did to Saengo? I restored her to life?”

“In a manner of speaking, although it wasn’t a demonstration of your specific craft, not like what you did in the Dead Wood. What you describe sounds more like you made her into your familiar.”

NINE

“Into my …” I think about the healer from the Valley of Cranes, her magic trapped within her without a familiar as a conduit. That Saengo could be my familiar hadn’t even occurred to me. “I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand.”

“Shamans cannot access their magic without a familiar, almost always an animal spirit. Being the remnants of souls, they’re able to resonate with our living ones. Think of it like a song only souls can hear. The bond is an exchange. The familiar becomes the shaman’s conduit for her magic, and that same magic allows the familiar to regain physical form.”

And to become vulnerable to attack and disease. A smart enemy would target the familiar and render the shaman powerless.

“Normally, a medium is required to bond a shaman with a familiar. Mediums can see and speak to spirits. But occasionally, in situations of high stress, your magic can be unlocked by reaching for the nearest available spirit.”