Chapter 29 AMBROSE
AMbrOSE
Three days before we're set to leave, I'm writing contracts in my room when my five mates stage an intervention.
The work is delicate, requiring absolute concentration.
Communication protocols for the sanctuary network we started during the northern journey, each one a thread connecting communities that have been isolated for decades.
Green light flickers around my hands as I write, blood and will and sacrifice woven together into something that might actually make a difference.
Each contract costs something. That's the nature of Crossroads Keeper magic. Nothing is free. Nothing is without price.
The communication protocol I'm finishing now costs me the memory of my first successful contract, the pride I felt when the magic actually worked.
It drains away as I write the final binding, the specific details becoming fuzzy and indistinct.
I remember that it happened, remember being young and accomplished, but the feeling is gone.
Just another price paid for the greater good.
My hands tremble as I set down the pen. They've been trembling more often lately, a side effect of the years I've lost. Twenty-three years old in body, but my hands shake like an old man's.
The face I see in mirrors has new lines that weren't there a month ago.
My storm-calling abilities are completely gone, that part of my djinn heritage sacrificed during the attack on Phoenix Sanctuary.
And my father's face, the memory of what he looked like before he died, has become a blur I can't quite bring into focus no matter how hard I try.
Worth it. Every sacrifice necessary. My mates are alive. The students are safe and the network is growing.
I reach for another blank contract, already calculating what the next protocol will cost, when the door opens without warning.
All five of them file in. Skye first, his power already filling the room with pink authority.
Stellan behind him, fire flickering with barely contained emotion.
Jade in full demon form, tail lashing with agitation.
Rumi with his golden wings partially manifested, divine balance reaching toward me like a diagnostic spell.
And Harlow, phasing solid in a way that blocks the door completely.
They don't announce their purpose. Don't warn me. One minute I'm alone with my contracts and my sacrifices, the next I'm surrounded by the five people I love most in the world, all of them wearing expressions of determined concern.
"We need to talk," Skye says, his Praestes voice brooking no argument. It's not a request. It's a command backed by Mother Nature's authority.
"About what?" I ask, though I already know. I've been expecting this conversation since I aged ten years in a single night during the first attack. Since my hands started shaking. Since Jade pointed out that I look older than I should with fear in his voice instead of teasing.
"About how you're killing yourself," Stellan says bluntly. He moves to stand directly in front of my desk, his fire agitated with protective fury. "About how you keep sacrificing pieces of yourself for the rest of us and expecting us not to notice."
"We notice," Jade adds, his demon voice rough. He prowls the perimeter of my room like a predator assessing threats, but the threat he's worried about is me. "We've been noticing for weeks. The aging. The trembling. The way you flinch sometimes like you're losing something we can't see."
Their collective worry crashes against my awareness. They've been watching me deteriorate. Watching me lose years and abilities and memories. And they're done pretending not to notice, done respecting my privacy while I slowly destroy myself.
"Every contract has a price," I say, the old defense falling automatically from my lips.
The words my mother taught me before she died, before her own contracts consumed everything she had to give.
"That's how Crossroads Keeper magic works.
You can't create something from nothing. The universe demands balance."
"But the prices don't have to come entirely from you.
" Rumi moves closer, his power already reaching out to examine my contracts with golden light.
He reads the threads I've woven, seeing the costs embedded in each one.
His expression grows increasingly troubled.
"Mother Nature, Ambrose. These contracts, the ones protecting the sanctuary, the communication network, they're all anchored to you.
Every single cost comes from your life force alone. "
"Who else would pay them?" The question comes out sharper than I intend. "You? Stellan? Should I ask Jade to give up his hunger, or Harlow to sacrifice more of his connection to life? These are my contracts. My responsibility."
"Bullshit." Jade stops pacing, planting himself directly in my line of sight.
His purple eyes are blazing with an emotion I can't quite name.
"You could share the costs. Spread them across all six of us instead of bearing everything alone.
I've been doing research, talking to other essence users.
Contract magic doesn't have to work the way you're using it. "
The suggestion stops me cold. "You've been researching my magic?"
"Someone had to, since you won't talk about it.
" Jade's tail lashes once, hard. "You've been hiding how bad it's gotten.
Pretending you're fine while you age years overnight.
Did you think we wouldn't notice that you look ten years older than you did a month ago?
Did you think we'd just accept watching you die slowly? "
"I'm not dying," I protest, but even I can hear how weak the argument sounds.
"You've lost fifteen years of your lifespan," Harlow says quietly from his position by the door.
His death-sight is active, white light flickering in his eyes as he looks at me.
"I can see it in your life signature. Ten years gone in the past month alone.
At this rate, you'll be dead of old age before you're forty. "
Ten years. The number lands like a death sentence. I knew the costs were significant, but I hadn't truly come to terms with it or let myself think about what it meant as in actual time remaining.
"The sanctuary network needed those contracts," I say, but my voice has lost its certainty. "The protection protocols during the attack. The communication links. The emergency extractions. People would have died without them."
"And people will die if you burn yourself out," Skye counters, moving around my desk to stand beside me.
His hand finds my shoulder, warm and grounding.
"You're not just a contract writer, Ambrose.
You're our mate. Part of this family. And we need you alive and whole, not sacrificed piece by piece for contracts you could have shared. "
"I can't ask you to bear my prices." The words scrape out, torn from somewhere deep. "That's not how it works. The costs are mine to pay."
"You're not asking. We're offering." Jade's demon certainty is absolute, his voice leaving no room for argument. "We're mates. We share everything else, essence, emotions, pleasure, burdens. Why not this? Why are your contracts somehow different from everything else we've combined?"
"Because they hurt." The admission slips out before I can stop it. "The prices hurt, Jade. Losing memories, losing abilities, losing years of your life. I can't ask you to feel that. I won't."
"So you'll feel it alone instead?" Rumi's divine balance wraps around me, golden light probing at the contracts anchored to my power.
"You'll suffer in silence, pretend everything's fine, let us watch you deteriorate without understanding why?
That's not protection, Ambrose. That's isolation. And it's not fair to any of us."
Every instinct screams to protest, to insist that protecting them means bearing the costs myself, that this is what Crossroads Keepers do, what we're meant for.
My mother gave everything she had to her contracts, sacrificed herself completely for the people she loved.
That's the legacy she left me. That's what I was trained to do.
But looking at my five mates, at their determined faces, their united front, I realize they're not going to accept no for an answer.
And maybe, just maybe, they're right. Maybe I've been so focused on the lesson my mother taught me that I forgot she also left me alone, used up and empty, with no one to help me carry the burden she left behind.
"It would change the contracts," I admit, my resistance crumbling.
"Make them more complex. The binding would have to include all six of us, connect us through contract magic in addition to our mate bonds.
And you'd all feel the prices being paid.
Not just abstractly, but actually feel memories fading, abilities diminishing, time draining away. "
"Good," Harlow says, and there's steel in his quiet voice. "Maybe that will stop you from writing contracts that cost decades of your life without telling anyone. Maybe if we all feel the price, you'll think twice before sacrificing yourself for things that could be handled other ways."
The shame of that realization burns through me. They're right. I've been making unilateral decisions about costs that affect all of us, hiding the consequences because I didn't want them to worry. But worry is part of love. Sharing burdens is part of family. And I've been denying them both.
"Show us how," Skye orders in his Praestes voice. Not a request. A command. "Show us how to share contract costs, and we'll decide together what prices are worth paying."
So I do.
I clear my desk, pushing aside half-finished contracts and research materials. My mates arrange themselves around me in a circle, their power already reaching toward each other, toward me, ready to connect in whatever way I need them to.