Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 2

parchment itself. The other...
    The answer hit him in the gut. Aeron nudged Kamala out of the way to look down on it, and there he saw the impossible signature:
    Emyr
    The smell was wrong, as if something had changed in the decades between this compact and the last time Aeron had seen his father, smelled and felt his magic. Emyr's magic had flowery overtones like his daughter's, but shot through with warm cinnamon threads. That defining spiciness was absent from this compact's magic entirely. "How can someone's magic change ?"
    It was unthinkable. Could not happen.
    And yet, no two signatures could be so much alike, even if there was another Emyr.
    A dark look passed between Tam and Kamala. Aeron's wings buzzed in indignation. "How long have you known of this compact?"
    Tam shifted from one foot to the other, crossing his arms over his chest. Aeron shot him what was meant to be a cruel look, but knew it fell flat, betrayed the weak, cracking feeling somewhere beneath his ribs instead.
    "There's more, or so we suspect." Kamala said. "Only know that if we kept anything from you, it was because we wanted to do right by you. To protect you until we were as certain as we could be."
    "I don't need protection from weak-magicked mortals," Aeron snapped.
    He set to translating out loud, since most of the text was far too complex for either Tammas or Kamala. The first part was all flowery language in High Ancient Faerie, watertight to Aeron's eyes— even on the mortal end: a compact between one Emyr of Emyr Hill and a mortal called Megha. The crux of the agreement was a promise to trade one Khalil for " my son, Aeron of Emyr Hill, when his magic comes of age... "
    And in the event of her death, the binding would pass to her next of kin. Though he would not have been born yet, who else could this be but Tammas?
    Aeron's eyes felt hot. Kamala's library blurred around him.
    Tam touched his arm; Aeron shook it off, blinked away the threatening tears, swallowed the hurt. "Who is this Khalil?"
    "He was a powerful cleric. I knew him well." Kamala's voice was full of sadness, and it made Aeron's wings twitch fitfully. She continued, "He disappeared some decades ago. While he was known to have certain relations with..."
    "Megha. My mother," Tam whispered. "But how could she have the right to...?"
    "Khalil must have let Megha bind him to her, first. The gods know how she convinced him; I would rather not." Kamala turned a sympathetic gaze on Aeron. "And a parent has dominion over a child until they're of age."
    Aeron didn't trust his voice, so he bit back a tirade on how he did not need the perfectly obvious facts of magic explained to him, thank you very much. He contented himself with a snarled, "You don't say."
    Tam's lips had gone a sick shade of gray by then. "Oh gods."
    "What did you know before I translated?" Aeron's throat was tight; his mind whirred like wings in a gale.
    "We didn't know, we— we only suspected," Tam said. "You mentioned what your home was called, so I could read that, your name, and a few other words that haven't changed in your tongue since the high ancient days. Like ' son '."
    "Where did you find all this?" Aeron forced out.
    "My mother left her rituals and spells with Kamala with instructions that I should have them when I'd mastered my magic. I kept the ones I couldn't understand, like this, locked away. But— but the summoning ritual was in plain language, and I remembered seeing her do things like it often. I would never have connected the two pages if not for the flowery magic smell during the summoning. It was so familiar, but it wasn't yours or..." A long, silent moment. And then a whispered, "I'm so sorry."
    Aeron fixed his gaze on the parchment. He wouldn't let Tam see what he was thinking and feeling. He didn't deserve to see.
    "Yesterday I found a similar document in one of my books and made a comparison," Kamala said. "Then I knew for certain that it was a compact, and—"
    "And my father traded my life away before my wings had even come in. Yes, I see." And trust Emyr to find the one mortal with the attention to detail to word and maintain a compact properly. Aeron paused, breathed deeply, curled his feelers in tight and folded his wings against his back protectively. When he had control of his voice once more, he asked, "What did he do with this Khalil? Is he a thrall at the Court? Or something more sinister?"
    The humans exchanged dark looks again.
    "We're even less certain of our