Lion in Human Hide
A downloadable book
Declan is a perfectly normal student with perfectly normal goals: making his family proud, having fun with his friends, studying magic. When he befriends a homeless person behind his college dorms, he thinks nothing of it.
When that person turns out to be a god, things get weirder.
Secrets stain this entire school, from employees to students, including Declan himself. He wants to know the whole truth... but this will not be without consequences.
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While very different in setting, tone, and execution, reading this brought to mind Ink in the Blood by Kim Smejkal. Taking place on an alternate-history Earth, Lion in Human Hide follows Declan, a college student of the Bardic Arts who, at a young age, was adopted into a prominent mage family. The internet is used alongside bags of holding, and near the Tonsillar lymph nodes sit glands responsible for the primary legal source of magical energy. Atoui incorporates a setting-specific array of myths and folklore, most notably the narrative of the God Dressed in Plague and the old alchemical adage of "A lion in human hide would devour even the Sun to further their goal". Declan is snared by a number of interconnected subplots, ranging from the legality of magic sources, demonic heritages, curses, time travel, barrier seals between realms, ghosts, wandering gods, imposter syndrome, and pervasive family drama, capstoned by the ever-present gun on the wall, the enigmatic Kal Matriarch. Satisfying repetition of prose carry a steady rhythm from beginning to end.