Page 23 of Hidden Sacrifice
He had me there, and I was familiar with several of the various religions on Earth. Since I died, no one has ever mentioned a god, let alone gods. I just assumed we had gotten that part wrong.
“And human souls can become celestial souls?”
“Dormant powered human souls are the only mortal souls that can become celestial souls. The soul power must be dormant. The soul must be sacrificed for the demon mating, which isn’t the best description. More accurately, it is an interrupting death. Your soul is closest to your powers at that near-death point, and you send out a celestial calling for your mate.”
“Like an accident or a gunshot?”
“Any human death would probably do. I did some research, here and there. I was looking for an answer for your question about what would have happened to your soul if you hadn’t become our mate. Guess that answers why you’ve never lived or died before, no matter what, we would have been called to you.”
Part of me was glad I hadn’t lived longer as a human. I might have started a life before finding my true destiny. I would have wasted all that time, only to find myself right here where I belonged.
“So which gods ended up being the real ones?” I can’t believe I was about to find out the answer to that question. Then again, I was dead. That really should be a number one unlocked achievement after death.
“All of them,” he said with a whisper I could barely hear above the sound of the crashing waves. “They are all real. And they love to come down and play with their toys from time to time. You might even meet a few someday.”
Wow. Just, wow.
I realized the only emotions I was feeling were my own. Justice sat calmly beside me in the sand as we stared together into the familiar yet suddenly new night sky. Comforting silence stretched between us, but I felt as his pinky brushed across mine. He linked our fingers together as we shared a moment of quiet beauty.
“Do you feel how quiet and how calm this is?” his voice was like a lazy cat brushing against me, wanting to be pet.
I nodded my head, not wanting to break this bubble of bliss I found myself in.
“Imagine carving out a box of this, bring along the sand and the ocean. The slight breeze ruffling across your skin. The salt mist flavor on your tongue. Bring it all into a little room and put that room into your mind.”
I closed my eyes, focusing on everything around me and dulling my sight to appreciate the subtle sounds of the waves crashing and the wind traveling through the leaves. I took my time to create the perfect replica of this moment in time and place it inside a room inside me.
“Done,” I said, mentally shutting the door and rejoining Justice in the present.
“Now, separate just the emotion from that room; it should feel extremely calm.”
Going back into my mental space, I felt for any emotion coming off the sealed door. I had learned that Justice was excellent at describing precisely what you needed to do to learn a skill. You had to trust him and follow what he said precisely. If I had to express the emotion I felt off the door, it would be calm. “Okay.”
“Now pull that emotion out and around you, covering every inch.”
I did as he said to the best of my ability and found it worked exactly like that. The calm emotion seemed to flood from the doorway, and I quickly wrapped it around me. Immediately, all I felt was calm.
“It does have a dulling effect on your own emotions. But it acts like a barrier between your emotions and others. Now you can feel what emotion they have, but you will not experience that emotion. If you want to do that, then you open the barrier. You can always pull it back from this space again.”
At least I wouldn’t have to worry about a lengthy training process for this one. And it didn’t seem to use any power to maintain, which was even better. It also explained why Justice was so calm all the time. Mentally, he could be lounging on a beach chair with arsenic in a coconut shell.
“Can I build more rooms with more emotions to cloak in?” Having a hyped-up concert energy room would be very effective in battle.
“You can have as many rooms as you would like; it’s your mind. Sometimes, I build rooms just for moments I want to keep. I built a room just now as well. Now I can sit with my fox on the beach anytime.”
“Is this something all demons can do?”
“No, this is our balance to our power. Everything must be in balance. We feel everyone’s emotions, or we dull our emotions. The ability to store them as memories is a happy loophole.”
“You are an amazing teacher.” I laid my head on his shoulder, feeling calm and content. Guess I would be feeling relaxed a lot more. “Do you ever take it off and just feel all the emotions in the room?”
“Mostly, I just identify the emotion and figure out how that works with what they are saying.”
That made sense. Feeling myself smile when I hadn’t wanted to smile was rather uncomfortable. I did feel more assured that I would be back in complete control of my body if I had a mental chill pill on constantly. Really, I needed more emotion rooms. For now, calm would have to do.
In the distance, I noticed the slight brightening of the sky as the sun slowly made its way around the planet. I had no idea where mid-realm was, but one of those stars had a world I stepped on.
“Time to get going?” I asked, tilting to look up at Justice.
