Prince of Attania, 2

Daniel didn’t waste any more time getting to the west coast. The news was troubling. Immense coastal storms threatened the cities of Tashkan and Erra, sparing only northern Saffron. The storms were not natural by any means.

“Jet, what are you doing?” Daniel muttered under his breath. He sat cross-legged on his bed and stared intently at the small television the inn had provided. Attan stood next to him, watching flames flicker across the screen.

“Wildfires are out of control . . .” The tinny voice on the television droned on, while the camera panned all around the hills south of Tashkan where a dull orange glow showed through bands of heavy smoke.

“In other news . . .” The picture switched to Tashkan’s city center showing King Jet meeting with a group of non-family protesters.

Daniel shook his head. “Sometimes I think your father thinks he really is one of them,” he said to Attan, who blinked in surprise. Daniel was one to talk.

“What do you mean?” he asked. Jet was clearly Family. Among the multi-hued protesters, he looked more like the guards who milled uncertainly at the edges of the crowd. The screen changed again, showing a tornado ripping up what appeared to be storage warehouses.

“He should be placating the local royals.“ Daniel answered. “Not antagonizing them.”

Oh. The Family in Tashkan did not like having their authority challenged. And Jet was doing just that by choosing to meet with non-family over Family. “You think he caused the fires? And the storms?”

Daniel laughed briefly. “Of course. I only hope we’re not too late to stop him from making a mistake. Kings are Kings for a reason. They have the most power, but sometimes they can lose control. That’s why the Enforcer is so important. Not for this petty policing, no. It’s to hold the Kings’ power in check when he goes too far.”

Attan looked skeptical.

“You don’t believe me? You should. You heard about Parrion, right? Your grandfather—Jet’s and my father—melted that city into slag because he was angry that they murdered his wife and children. He would have done the same to Low City when he thought your father had been kidnapped and killed, but Merrell stopped him.”

“I thought Low City burned to the ground,” Attan said.

“Half of it, not all of it. That was Merrell’s doing. I only hope I’m strong enough to stop your father before he destroys the entire west coast.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Attan protested.

Daniel just raised an eyebrow. On the television, the tinny-voiced announcer showed yet another scene—this one focused on Family—a release ceremony. Jet was there, looking grim, though he made no move to stop the ceremony, and it looked like he was using wind to prevent Family guards from stopping it either.

“Get some sleep,” Daniel advised, switching off the little TV. “Tomorrow we’ll be there.”

Attan was a little disappointed that his uncle hadn’t offered to merge, but he nodded, turning to smoke himself. He was staying in another room with John. He materialized in his bed, glad John was already asleep because he really didn’t feel like talking. This trip was beginning to wear on him for many reasons.

In the morning they began the last leg of their journey in their signature black limousines. Daniel said they needed to be seen, but Attan would have much preferred to enter Tashkan in Elemental form.

John sat with them in the back of the lead limousine. It made conversation somewhat awkward, and Daniel had still made no move to merge. Attan took a breath and said what was on his mind anyway. “Why did my father protect the Family that released? I thought he hates that.”

“He does.” Daniel glanced at John, but continued. “But he will defend their right to do so. Jet doesn’t like to go back on his word. Years ago, he made a deal with Aylard that he wouldn’t prevent these releases as long as Aylard didn’t interfere with Family’s choice in the matter.”

“Aylard First?” John asked in surprise.

“If Aylard had had his way, all Family would be released, whether they wanted to or not. He would have killed all of us.”

John’s eyes widened. That part of the story had never been general knowledge. Daniel’s dark gaze fixed on him, and John quickly schooled his features. Nor would it become general knowledge now.

But that wasn’t all there was to the story, either. Jet may have been unwilling to let countless Family be killed in order to free their elemental cores, but as much as he protested, a part of Jet longed for that release himself. Attan knew, because he felt it too. He glanced at his uncle, and saw the same internal conflict in his eyes. Attan really, really wished they could merge.

“We’re here.”

The limo pulled up to the governor’s mansion in Tashkan. Icy rain pelted the white marble steps. It hadn’t been raining just a few miles down the road. This had to be Jet’s handiwork. Attan couldn’t help but wonder if his father’s local weather-working was wreaking havoc on other parts of Attania.

The governor himself met them at the entrance to his gleaming mansion, looking harried and relieved at the same time. “Enforcer. You’re finally here. Maybe you can talk some sense into the King.” Attan recognized Tashkan’s governor as the one who had been at the meeting in Darcy last year to discuss Family releases. He’d been vocal then about the problem.

“Where’s the King?” Daniel asked, getting right to the point. He strode through the people surrounding the governor. “He’s not answering his communicator.”

The governor scowled at being ignored. “Ask them.” He pointed at the enforcers Daniel had sent with Jet, who stood at attention near the back wall.

“I’m asking you.” Daniel stared down the governor, who flushed. It was very visible on his pale skin.

“How should I know? He’s been unreasonable ever since he got here. All I said to him at breakfast was that I hope his new son would be more like Family and less like an Elemental. Then maybe all this releasing business would stop. He disappeared in a flash of light and we haven’t seen him since.”

Attan, who had been doing a good job of remaining expressionless as an enforcer should, tried not to react to the governor’s oblique accusation. Daniel, however, burst out with an incredulous, “And you didn’t connect Jet’s disappearance with your sudden rainstorm?”

The governor shrugged. “It rains sometimes. Not everything is caused by your so-called elementals.”

Daniel glared and pushed past him. “You.” He spoke to the enforcers who were supposed to be guarding Jet. “Follow me.” Attan and the rest of the enforcers Daniel had brought with him brought up the rear, leaving the governor standing, outraged, in his own entrance hall. “Take a look outside,” he advised the governor.

The rain had turned to ice and encased the entire mansion and its surrounds in several inches of pure ice, and the storm showed no sign of abating. The western coast of Attania was famous for its mild weather. It hadn’t snowed there in over a hundred years.

Daniel commandeered the governor’s dining room, shooing out everyone who wasn’t an enforcer. He stationed two of his own enforcers at the entrances to make sure none of the governor’s people spied on them. “Now, then,” he said, and transformed. Finally. Attan gladly joined the merge, which consisted of all the remaining enforcers in the room.

Quickly Daniel got the picture. Jet had not shared any of his plans with his own enforcers, choosing not to involve them. The governor antagonized Jet at every turn, and all Jet’s threats fell on deaf ears. Tashkan’s governor simply did not believe that Jet was as powerful as he said he was. So Jet set out to prove him wrong. At first, he only targeted those areas which conflicted with his great plan for Attania, but he had become increasingly angry and took out his frustrations on a much wider level than before. The governor knew it was Jet’s doing, but he dismissed it as irrelevant. He might have actually been trying to provoke the King, to turn Family sentiment against him. Jet was powerful, but not exactly popular in many Family eyes.

Daniel came out of the merge and took Attan aside. “Do you think you can find your father?” he asked. When Attan nodded, Daniel said, “Can you control him, if he’s truly lost control? The governor might be right about one thing: if Jet ends up destroying the whole west coast, he’ll lose the support of the rest of the Family. Everything he’s worked for up to this point will be destroyed. He doesn’t want that, I’m sure of it. Help him snap out of it—stop the storms and bring your father back. I need to stay here and try to fix things with the governor. Besides, you’re more powerful than me anyway.” He winked, and Attan grinned back at him.

“I’ll find him,” he assured his uncle.

The merge had loosened something inside Attan which had been tense for weeks. He felt more himself now. With a last nod, he disappeared, flowing through the locked doors and out of the mansion. From above, the mansion looked unreal, glittering in the late day sun. On the horizon, Attan could see a vast whirlwind over the Western Sea, and he headed towards it. As soon as he passed the boundaries of the mansion, the ice suddenly stopped, and warm breezes met him. He greeted them joyfully, and changed his essence to match theirs. Soon enough, he would have to enter the whirlwind. He looked forward to it.

Jet was not within the whirlwind after all. Attan found him sitting in human form on a rock outcrop, watching waves whirl and crash below him. Attan sat beside him. “Why aren’t you there?” he asked. He would be—right in the heart of the whirlwind, part of it.

Jet grinned, and slung an arm around his son. “I was waiting for you.” He transformed to wind, taking Attan with him, and they entered the whirlwind.

In a moment, they had caught up on each other’s lives, and Jet was amused that even Daniel believed he had lost control. That had been his plan all along. All his strikes had been calculated, even his supposed upset at Tashkan’s governor’s remarks that morning. Jet knew the governor was uncomfortable with how Family was evolving, but Jet was giving him no choice. Beyond the seemingly out of control waterspout floated all of Tashkan’s fishing vessels in a sea of calm, awaiting Jet’s signal that it was safe to return. Most, but not all, of the boats belonged to non-family. Jet had just made it look as though his elemental outbursts had caused lasting damage.

Together, they calmed the whirlwind and the sea below.

“The warehouses weren’t part of my plan,” Jet confessed, as they walked along the now placid beach. “I tore them down because I was angry. Those were the warehouses we had set up for food to be delivered from our experimental fields in eastern Attania. The food was to go to all the people, but I found out the governor would not allow non-family to participate in the distribution. They’re lucky all I did was destroy the buildings.”

“Daniel’s not going to be happy,” Attan warned. “He thought you had really lost control. He’s trying to fix things with the governor now.”

Jet grinned. “Let’s not tell him just yet.”

But Daniel figured it out anyway when Jet strolled in, flicking his hand to melt the ice around the governor’s mansion and send the resultant water back up into the air and out to wherever it had come from before he’d commandeered it for his little demonstration. “Jet!” he barked. “What the hell are you up to? Do you have any idea of the mess you caused?”

“I have an idea,” Jet answered. “Did it work?”

“Which part? The mess? The unflattering news broadcasts? The governor? It would have been a whole lot easier if you’d just replaced him with one of our choices. Charles, for instance. I bet Sephira would have liked that—her son, governor of Tashkan.”

“Hmm.” Jet stroked his chin. “No, I think I want our cousin to remain governor here for now.” The governor in question paled at hearing his future discussed so blithely. “But maybe I will send Charles out here to keep an eye on him. Charles can take over when this governor retires.” Jet dusted off his hands and looked straight at the governor. “It will give you time to rebuild your retirement home up in the hills. This time, though, you don’t have to worry about removing the non-family who’d been living in those hills for generations. I took care of that for you.”

“You took care of it?” The governor asked, bewildered. “I heard the entire area except my summer place had burned in the wildfires last week.”

“Not exactly,” Jet said with a smile. “In fact, only your over-sized mansion on the top of the largest hill burned. The non-family village that used to live there has found another place further down the mountain which suits them much better. In fact, you’ll be neighbors if you rebuild your house on the top of that hill. They may even sell you some of the lumber you’ll need to get started.”

“But—but—the news! That’s not what they said!”

“Didn’t you know?” Jet exchanged grins with Daniel. “The royal Family controls the news.”