Standing six feet and eight inches in height, with a lean, but muscled body, Ulrima held an impossible beauty with his ageless features. His bright pink hair and eyes augmented this further, regardless of one's views, and his aura could make even the most chaste feel desire. Any mortal to ever lay eyes on him would declare him the most beautiful, most handsome, most hot, most whatever along those lines to ever exist, and they would not be wrong.

After all, the High God who represented love and lust itself would only naturally be the kind to invoke those feelings in others. Beauty was part of his domain. As was fashion, though if he were a normal person, people would likely question his sense of it.

A pink polo with red skinny jeans, and a pair of pink-and-red sneakers. His belt was pink as well, with a red heart for the buckle, and he wore a series of pink and red bracelets on each wrist. Strangely, as Cameron and Adam would realize long after the High God left, one of the bracelets on his right wrist was blue.

At the moment, however, both mages were still processing his presence, even the ancient mage stunned. He'd summoned gods more than a hundred times in his life for one reason or another, and had even had several seek him out without a summoning. He himself had fathered several demigods in his thousands of years.

Yet never had he once met a High God, and until Ulrima's words registered in his brain, the hijacking made no sense to him, even if Ulrima was the reason the summoning was taking place.

Cameron was the god of love's son, the demigod that the other god had been looking for. Never before had Adam ever encountered a demigod whose power had been bound so completely that he hadn't realized they weren't anything more than simply mortal.

"S-son?" Cameron stuttered.

"Yes," Ulrima's smiled widened further, and he quickly took the three steps to Cameron, picking him up and holding him tight, spinning around a little. "My youngest son. You've gotten so big since you were born."

Ulrima set his son down and began fussing with the boy's hair and straightening the child's clothes, his smile never fading.

"You're getting to be quite the handsome young man, too," Ulrima broke the silence again once he'd finished his fussing. "My Cupids alerted me that you were being hunted by a rogue god. I don't want you to worry about them. Namil already informed me as to which god was hunting you, and I've already taught him a lesson he won't forget."

Ulrima held out his hand, and a crimson stone formed in it, a pink chain hanging from it.

"Though if other gods – or any angels – start hunting you, here," Ulrima fixed the necklace around his son's neck. "The stone's made of my essence. If any angelic or godly magic hits you, it will absorb it. Well, an angel's healing magic won't be affected by it, because why should I care if someone's healing you? Well, if they're healing you, that means you got hurt, but we won't get into that right now. Oh, I messed your hair again. Hold on."

Ulrima began fixing his son's hair once more, then frowned and moved his hands through it, the hair decreasing in length as he did.

"There we go!" Ulrima beamed once he finished his son's magical haircut. "Perfectly-styled! Also, I heard you've befriended Refari's son. Good for you!"

Ulrima clapped his son on the back, who grunted at the unexpected and immense force behind the action.

"Do you have any questions for me?" Ulrima asked.

"Uh-um-uh-I-you-uh-"

"No worries," Ulrima chuckled as Cameron stumbled over trying to speak. "I'm sure you have plenty! After all, a boy whose never met his father before likely has many. Let's see… how come I haven't seen you before? Well, I've had to minimize my contact with you to avoid drawing attention to your existence. Other question. Hrm. Why did I bind your divinity? I planned on unbinding it once you turned eighteen. Let you have a mortal childhood and learn to defend yourself without it at first. I'm still leaving you bound up, as it's a good experience for you, though now that I know people are hunting you, you might be seeing an angel of mine or two from time to time.

"What other questions might you have?" Ulrima asked. "Oh! I know! Was I ever going to visit you? Yes, once you turned eighteen. I was going to personally visit you to unbind your divinity. What else? Let's see. Oh! You're probably wondering why you were allowed to wander the streets for two years. Well, I didn't exactly keep a personal eye on you, but since you can hear the aether voices, it doesn't really matter, now does it?

"Other questions, other questions," the god mumbled. "Oooh! Here's one. You're probably wondering-no, not going to answer that one, you're too shy and modest to ask questions like that. Also, to answer some more of your questions, I'm an ancient god. I can't exactly personally care for every one of my children, nor watch over them, and putting guards around you would've put you at risk. Other questions, other questions.

"I know!" Ulrima exclaimed again. "Why-"

"Why are gods hunting me?" Cameron blurted out, finally mostly over his shock and unease.

"Don't worry about that," Ulrima picked him up and kissed his forehead. "I've given you some protection, now, and sent a warning to others that I'm still around. Anyway, I really should be going. Good luck, my son, and enjoy your life!"

Ulrima then vanished in another explosion of rose petals, the smell of chocolate filling the air. Adam sighed.

"I have never been ignored by a god who's in my presence before," Adam said, and Cameron gave him a bewildered look. "That answers the whole purpose of summoning Sebar, now. I'm not sure why Ulrima decided to hijack it, he could have just shown up. Judging by how fast he hijacked it, he was waiting for me to do it. Unfortunately, it brought up a lot more questions, and he didn't answer those."

"My father's a god?" Cameron asked.

"Apparently!" Adam snorted. "That was surprising even to me, and I've been in the presence of more than two dozen demigods before. You seem completely and entirely human to me; your father's bind is better than any I've seen before."

Cameron thought for a few moments, then shrugged.

"Who is Refari's son?"

"I don't know," Adam answered. "Probably the nephilim you're friends with."

"The what?"

"Half-human, half-angel," Adam responded. "Refari's the Archangel of a god, though no one knows which one. Your friend Greyson's a nephilim, so it could be him that your father was referring to."

"Yes, it's Greyson!"

"Such a sweet kid."

"His father's a badass. Ever wanted to see literal darkness run away? Yeah. His father's made that happen."

"Okay, shut up," Cameron said.

"Damn, I forgot how sexy Ulrima was."

"I said shut up!" Cameron exclaimed, and the voices chuckled as his face flushed.

"The aether voices," Adam muttered, frowning at Cameron. "So that's what they are."

"You know what they are?" Cameron asked.

"Yes," Adam sighed. "I just didn't think about them when I heard about the voices in your head. To be honest, I half-expected you to just be a little bit crazy. The fact that they didn't use a term I'd recognize or tell you about my experience with one of them means they were intentionally keeping our connection a secret."

"Well, we did say he should die."

"Yeah, wasn't that obvious enough that we knew him?"

"Nah, since we could have just been random voices in Cam's head."

"We are random voices in Cam's head."

"Oh, right."

"So, um, what are they?" Cameron did his best to ignore the conversation going on in his head.

"Fifty-four voices," Adam answered. "Each representing one of the eighteen elements. Three voices to each element, each with a different spell they govern."

"So… hearing them isn't my root magic?" Cameron asked.

"They probably are?" Adam seemed unsure. "I've never actually met someone who could hear them before, to be honest. At least, not without an ancient ritual that actually does require a blood sacrifice. That's why I didn't make the connection, in addition to their not making it obvious."

Adam thought for a few moments, then began cleaning up the ritual space. He brushed off the flower petals and brought his supplies back upstairs, then returned and filled a bucket with water and some soap.

He scrubbed the surface of the ritual space until it was completely clean, dumped out the bucket, then sat on the couch, noting that Cameron had moved back to standing beside the elevator. Everything had probably scared him and exhausted him, and the boy was likely ready to go. He was still alert, attentive, keeping track of every movement around him.

Part of his paranoia that something bad would happen.

"What the aether voices do," Adam finally spoke again, beginning to arrange the magazines sitting on the coffee table. "Is teach the person who summoned them to him or her the spell that particular one governs. They walk them through how to use it, and once the magician's proficient enough, they leave. During the time the aether voice is linked to them, they can also guide them, act as guardians of sort. 'Go this way', 'don't go that way', and such.

"However," Adam continued. "It also required that the mage actually work on learning the spells. If the mage didn't go through the training, they died. It generally lasted one to three weeks. It seems to me that linking to them is your roots, meaning you don't need to actually go through the rituals. By the way – this one's actually pretty specific about the sacrifice. Male, white, blond, with brown eyes. Must be the year of the age of majority for their species on their world.

"Anyway," he shook his head. "The fact that they aren't constantly trying to train you tells me that you aren't bound into the lessons like the mages who summon them are. The fact that linking to them is your roots also means that you can probably tap into them for the knowledge of how to use the spells, too."

Cameron shifted a little bit, then nodded.

"One of them taught me telepathy," he confessed to Adam. "How to use it both ways. And… when he did, the others all fell silent."

"Was this when you were attempting to learn telepathy?" Adam asked.

"Yes," Cameron nodded.

"That's probably why," Adam said. "Through the normal rules, they can't teach you something outside of the schools of magic you already have branches for. They might also not be able to teach you unless you're trying to learn it. Or they could have other reasons for not teaching you before now. The three for mind can teach telepathy, compulsion, and memory magic."

"I don't like the idea of doing compulsion or memory magic," Cameron shifted uncomfortably.

"Which might be why they haven't brought it up," Adam shrugged. "Who knows? Actually, they do. You could probably ask them."

"They're just going to chatter away," Cameron looked a lot more uncomfortable. That was exactly what they were doing at the moment. "Have you… have you done the ritual?"

"A few times," Adam nodded. "Do remember, Cam, that things are vastly different in today's society than it was thousands of years ago. A sacrifice for that ritual was perfectly acceptable in my society, much like intercourse with what are now considered minors."

Cameron made a horrified face, and Adam hastily held his hands up.

"I follow modern society's rules," Adam told him. "I promise. And in adult form, too. Anyway, I did the ritual to learn teleport magics and some of the magics of the void and space schools. Ah. You know what, you having mind school as your root school of magic actually makes sense, now that I think about it."

"It does?" Cameron looked unsure.

"Nearly all nephilim, the half-mortal children of angels," Adam nodded. "Have healing magics because of their heavenly parents. Demigods also tend to have an affinity for magic based on their divine parents. A child of a god of healing might have healing magic, too. The son of a god or goddess of nature might have an affinity for nature magics. The child of a god of sky might have an affinity for air, water, or energy magics. Son of a god of death? Probably has their roots in necromancy. Your father's a god of love and lust, so it would make sense that you have mind magics."

Cameron frowned.

"I don't see the connection."

"Gods like Ulrima tend to affect the mind," Adam explained. "They can invoke or suppress feelings in people. Other gods can, too, but a god of love's primary domain affects the mind. It's possible that's why you awakened empathy as well – to sense the feelings of another can assist with-"

"I don't want to hear it!" Cameron clamps his hands over his ears, and Adam laughed.

After a few moments, Cameron slowly lowered his hands.

"I wasn't going to say something that would make you uncomfortable," Adam said. "I was just saying, sensing the feelings of another can assist with knowing how someone actually feels, even if it's just for dating and love. There's a good chance you'll have an easy time learning compulsion as well."

"I don't want to learn compulsion."

"I know," Adam smiled at him. "Just letting you know. Anyway, I need to get going, it's almost time to open the warehouse for tonight's matches."