Prince of Attania, 2

Jet hated these things. The reception room teemed with Family, most of them related to him, and all of them seeking to gain his attention. If Merrell hadn’t been at his elbow firmly guiding him across the crowded room Jet would have bolted long ago.

Wister was the third city they’d been to in under a week and already Jet missed home. But it came with the territory. At least he had been able to see for himself some of the results his program of integration had yielded: more crops, more non-family innovations which until recently had been squashed by the ruling Family, less dire poverty in the outlying towns and villages. Though you wouldn’t know it from this gathering. Not a single non-family guest was present.

Jet scowled. The royals held onto their bad habits harder than any other group in Attania. He and Merrell had had this conversation countless times over the last ten years. Change did not occur overnight. It would create chaos, otherwise. Jet needed the royals to govern the masses. If only Jet could win them over to his way of thinking.

As if he had sensed Jet’s unspoken thoughts, or more likely read them off Jet’s sullen face, Merrell propelled him to the far end of the reception room, where a table set apart from all the others on a raised dais awaited them. The seat of honor. Jet had no illusions that if he weren’t the most powerful Family in this room right now, he wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it. But he was. And power spoke to these people louder than any words.

The table was already occupied. The local governor, a brother or a cousin, Jet couldn’t remember which, came to his feet as Jet approached. “King Roderick!” He smiled expansively and reached out to grasp Jet’s arm.

Jet nearly let himself merge, thinking that’s what the governor intended, but when he realized the governor meant the gesture as a physical greeting only, he stopped, looking to Merrell for cues. Not all Family had embraced their Elemental natures; some couldn’t, and some wouldn’t. Until Jet knew which category this relative fell under, he’d keep to physical form.

“Jet, you remember Alston Farley. He was in Darcy recently for our talks.”

So—a brother, then. He’d taken the surname of his mother after the death of their father, King Roy. Only the King’s successor—and his offspring—kept the name Estee.

“Good to see you again,” Jet said blandly. This one, like most of Roy Estee’s offspring, was much older than Jet, and it showed in the lines around his eyes and mouth. Governing had taken its toll on Alston Farley.

“King Jet,” Farley corrected himself, “I’d like you to meet my lady wife, Aileen, and our daughter, Madelyne.”

Ah, the truth comes out, Jet thought, unsurprised. Three cities, three possible brides. If the royals had their way, he’d have a bride in every city, the better chance of giving their line an heir with the power to succeed Jet.

Madelyne and her mother had risen as well. Jet felt as if all the eyes in the place were trained on his back. “Please, have a seat,” Madelyne said, patting the chair beside her. With an amused glance, Merrelll walked around the table to sit next to the governor. Jet slid into the seat between the girl and her mother.

Alston’s daughter looked older than Jet, but not by much. A year or so, maybe. That was deceptive, because Jet had aged very little in the past ten years. At twenty-seven, he looked about nineteen or twenty.

Madelyne wore her straight black hair in a loose knot at the base of her neck. Little tendrils escaped to spring like shadowed vines around her neck and shoulders. Her skin was very white, like all Family. But her eyes—they were a clear gray, lively and direct. She smiled at Jet and said, “Awkward, isn’t it?”

She ignored the glare her mother gave her behind Jet’s back, and poured Jet a glass of wine. Jet grinned, accepting the glass. As Madelyne’s hand brushed his own, she allowed it to become shadow for just an instant, but it was enough to make Jet’s glance fly up to meet her eyes. She was an Elemental, even if her father was not. Interesting. She held his gaze for another few seconds before turning to her own meal.

For the rest of the dinner, Madelyne made small talk with everyone at the table, charming Merrell with her candor. She had opinions on Jet’s policies, not all of them positive. She also, it turned out, worked in the city as a teacher in one of the new schools which taught both Family and non-family children.

“What do you teach?” Jet asked, curious.

“History.” Madelyne’s sharp gray stare dared him to argue. “The history of Attania.”

Once, Jet would have given anything to attend a class about history. He had known nothing of Attania, nor of his own heritage. It turned out that a lot of what was written in the histories was wrong. He wondered what Madelyne Farley was teaching her students. “I’d like to stop in and watch one of your classes,” Jet said.

“Tomorrow,” Madelyne replied. “If you have the time.”

Jet would make the time. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he replied with a smile.

They put him in the best suite, as King, with Merrell and his guards in another one close by. Jet was exhausted by the end of the evening and excused himself early. He toyed with the communicator he’d brought with him. Attan hadn’t had to use it, which was good, he supposed. He put it back in his bag. Communicators were for emergencies. Sighing, he went to bed.

Shadows seeped under Jet’s door as he slept, wrapping themselves around him like a dark blanket. For a moment he dreamed himself home, instinctively matching shadow with shadow as he merged—then fell back to his physical body in shock.

“Madelyne! What are you doing here?”

The shadows roiled but Madelyne refused to take physical shape. Growling under his breath, Jet reverted to shadow once more and permeated the girl’s shadow with his own, gleaning in an instant what she was up to. He swept her up with him, cocooning her at his core the way he would do with Attan or Doll.

She fought against his control, unused to merging with someone as powerful as Jet. Inevitably, she reverted to her physical form still encased in Jet’s shadow, squirming uneasily as she tried to get free. Satisfied he’d made his point, Jet took back his physical body as well. He immediately realized his mistake as he held the still squirming girl underneath him. His body reacted.

Eyes wide, the governor’s daughter stared up at him. Now that she had him where she wanted him, she wasn’t sure what to do next. Jet solved her dilemma by rolling off her. He stood next to the bed and let his gaze rove over her body. In physical form, she wore very little, her sleeping clothes, no doubt. The body underneath was pleasing, which bothered Jet more than a little. He was no innocent, and before Doll he had had his share of sexual encounters, not all of them initiated by him. Yet Doll was the only person Jet had ever desired, until now.

“It won’t work,” Jet told her, crossing his arms. “I don’t want another wife. You might as well leave.” At least, in the other cities, the Family women who were paraded in front of him had the decency to wait for him to make the first move, well, except for Lorra, but she was another story altogether. Lorra he could handle.

Madelyne sat up in his bed and drew her knees up to her chest. That wasn’t helping. Jet turned his back on her, but her words still reached him. “I don’t want a husband either. I want your child.”

That was blunt. Most of the women also wanted the prestige that went along with being named the King’s wife. Doll didn’t, and apparently this girl didn’t either. Or so she said. Jet spun around and pushed her flat on the bed, pinning her in place with his upper body. He asked, “Are you sure?” before he kissed her deeply. Years ago, he’d done the same thing to Lorra when they were both students to shock her, but instead it had made Lorra realize she actually did want Jet.

Madelyne stiffened beneath him, then her body relaxed bonelessly against him as she kissed him back. Jet wasn’t sure what he wanted at that point, but the body he wore was definitely interested. He roughly pulled her thin nightgown up, prepared to give this bold girl what she thought she wanted—what he realized he wanted as well.

“Stop.” Madelyne put a hand to his chest. Jet almost laughed. Stop? Now? This girl was driving him crazy.

“Why?” he growled into her neck, though he stopped moving as she had asked. His hands hovered on both sides of her hips.

Madelyne kissed him lightly and moved his hands to her waist. “I thought we would merge as Elementals first, before . . . this.” She let her body fade to shadow and slithered away from the bed, returning to physical form at the door. “I’ll see you again tomorrow.” With a small smile, she slipped out the door, letting it close it behind her with a snick. She probably intended for Merrell’s mercenaries to notice her coming out of the King’s room.

With a groan that was only partly exasperation, Jet flung a hand over his eyes and sprawled out in the space she had so recently occupied. Games. He hated them, especially when he had no idea what the rules were. For Jet, it was never about being unfaithful to Doll. She would be the first to tell him to take Queens in other cities. She knew him to his core, as he knew her. What surprised him about Madelyne is that he felt attracted to her. He and Doll had tried to have more children, without success. Could he have a child with another Family woman? Jet didn’t know, but he knew that Attan was not just a physical being. Could he have a child in Elemental form with another woman?

Merrell shot him knowing looks the next morning at breakfast. Last night’s visitation had not gone unnoticed, nor was it intended to. Governor Farley also beamed with pride, as if he himself had arranged the assignation. For all Jet knew, perhaps he had. Only Madelyne was missing. She’d gone earlier to the school to prepare for the royal visit later that morning.

Jet appeared at the school for Family and non-Family children with all the fanfare that accompanied him in his progress across Attania. The people wanted to see their King in action. Most hoped for a glimpse of some unusual weather-working or other signs of his power. Merrell allowed a small television crew to follow them. Not all villages in Attania had television, even ten years after Jet came to power, but most of them now did, and all the larger cities did as well, though the government still controlled it.

Madelyne’s classroom was on an upper level. The lower levels were reserved for practice rooms where Family and non-family learned to work together. Since there was no river near Wister like there was in Low City, the emphasis was more on farming and making things grow. Wister was surrounded by farmland, though that was not its main focus. Wister was a cultural center and housed a great library that rivaled the library in Darcy.

All eyes turned to see the King as he entered Madelyne’s classroom. Her students were older than he expected, almost grown, and a fair mix of Family and non-family. Jet motioned for Merrell’s guards to stand in the back of the room. He found an empty desk and sat in it. “Go on,” he said to the teacher, who had paused in the middle of a speech when he entered the classroom. “Continue your lesson.”

Madelyne smiled tightly and tried to ignore the cameraman who moved in a slow circle around Jet, turning his camera so he could catch the entire room. She picked up the book she had been reading and began again.

“Family are the natural protectors of Attania,” Madelyne read. “They control the elements, which makes them the ideal leaders of all Attania’s people. The strongest Family control the most elements, though all Family are by nature stronger than the strongest non-family.” She glanced up. “That’s just the way it is.”

The students, of whom half were non-family, read along in their own books. Several of them glanced back at the King, but only for a moment or two before focusing again on their reading. Jet found himself watching Madelyne as she read. Obviously, she had chosen this passage with him in mind. It was the same rhetoric that most of the royal Family spouted in the various cities he visited. Family is powerful, therefore Family is destined to rule Attania. Wasn’t he proof of it himself, as the most powerful among the Family? Jet settled back to listen. She had a very pleasing voice.

Afterwards, Jet took a little time to shake hands with the students and make small talk before he had to leave for his next appointment—a farm on the outskirts of Wister. He sent the cameraman and Merrell’s guards out ahead of him so he could have a few moments with Madelyne.

“Interesting lesson,” he commented. “Remind me to introduce you to my friend Reggie. He might take exception to your lesson, considering he is the governor of the entire northern region.” He chuckled at Madelyne’s sour expression. Of course she’d heard of Reginald Archer, the only non-family leader in all of Attania. “I’d like to talk about history with you some more, maybe take a look at your library? Are you free later?”

Madelyne leaned back against her desk. “I can be,” she replied. “It seems I may have a few things to teach you.”

Jet felt a shiver of anticipation that had nothing at all to do with history.