Prince of Attania, 2

Elea’s group was at Midver the next time Attan visited. He was glad he hadn’t announced himself first, preferring these days to come in as wind. It had been dry recently, so Attan arrived amid wind-driven rain, letting the barren earth soak up much-needed water before he worked his particular brand of magic on it.

When he stopped at the chapel to visit Emma, he found Elea among the rest of her women, waiting out the storm. As usual, she picked him out unerringly from among the myriad invisible elementals swirling about the chapel. With a mental sigh, Attan transformed. “Hello, Elea,” he said, trying his best to ignore the indignant glare of the frizzy-haired woman next to her.

“Hello, Attan,” Elea replied with a small smile. “I’ve been looking for you.”

That surprised Attan. “Oh, I was away for a while,” he said. He had meant to check on Elea’s village, too, despite the fact he had been warned away from it by her father, but with the trips to Archerstown and his responsibilities at Arden, he hadn’t had much time. “Why were you looking for me?”

Elea pulled his hand and led him outdoors, shielding her head with her other arm. Attan frowned, and the driving rain slowed to a fine mist. “Sorry,” he said, pushing the storm he’d brought to the outskirts of Midver. “Where are we going?”

She led him over to the new well in the village center. “I wanted to talk to you,” she said, clearing away a puddle of water from one of the stones so she could sit. Attan dried it for her with a thought, and sat beside her. “You haven’t been around lately.”

He had promised Elea he would come see her, and he hadn’t. “I know. I meant to.” He gave Elea a half-hearted smile. “Any more gatherings lately?”

She shook her head. Sadly, he thought. “No.”

“I’m going to sea, you know,” Attan told her. “On a ship, I mean. In the summer.” It was early spring now; the winter had passed in a blur of activity with several more trips to Archerstown. Ben and Reg had both agreed to let Greg be part of the sea crew, to Greg’s great relief, and both boys spent part of their time together making plans for the voyage. “We’ll launch not too far from you,” he added, realizing Elea’s village wasn’t that far away from Palmer by the Southern Sea.

“Tom Jadock came to see me,” Elea blurted, interrupting Attan.

Attan stared at her in shock. Nobody had seen nor heard a thing about Tom Jadock since he’d mysteriously escaped from New Parrion! “When? Where is he now?”

Elea glanced up to see the chapel door open. Her mother, along with Emma and the rest of the women from her village, were coming towards them. “Not long, and he’s still there. He wants to see you.”

“Me?” Attan wanted to see him, too. To take him back into custody because he murdered Thomas Merrell, the old Enforcer, whom Tom believed was his father, which made the entire tragedy even worse.

She grabbed his hands. “You—or me, he doesn’t care which. Only I can’t do what he asks. Please—they don’t know.” She glanced at the group approaching them. “The spirits brought him to me.”

“What does he want you to do?” Attan asked, a feeling of dread coiling in his stomach. Tom always had a scheme, and it always turned out bad for the people around him.

“Make the spirits manifest as humans. Like you.”

That was impossible. Maybe thousands of years ago, when the first elementals had combined to take physical shape, but not now. Now it was the opposite. Physical-shaped Family were just beginning to embrace their elemental heritage and had learned to let go of their physical shapes to become Elementals for short periods of time. Except him. Attan had been elemental before he was physical, and so he was more truly both than even his father, King Jet. He didn’t have a chance to respond to Elea, however.

“Young Spirit!” Emma bustled over to him, her inner sight every bit as strong as Elea’s. She saw the spirit burning in him rather than his physical body which sat on the lip of the well next to Elea.

Attan rose. “Emma,” he said in greeting, guiding her down to his seat on the well. “I was just coming to see you.”

“Yes, yes,” she replied, smiling happily. “You young ones need some time to yourselves, away from us old ones. That’s what I told Maude, but she was worried about her charge. She doesn’t know you like I do.” Emma chuckled.

Attan glanced at Elea, who rose to her feet, too. “Sorry, Maude,” she said to the frizzy-haired woman. “I didn’t mean to worry you.” She glanced back at Attan. “We should get going.”

Without a further word, Elea’s group walked away towards the woods. Emma patted the stone beside her, and Attan sat, bemused. “They walk all the way?”

“It’s part of the ceremony,” Emma told him. “We have camps along the way, and they are never alone. But you know that.”

Attan watched as throngs of free elementals surrounded Elea’s group. No, they were not alone. He wished he could be there with them, though. “I’m going to sea,” he told Emma, just to see what she would say.

She smiled. “That’s good.”

Attan wanted to go after Elea, talk to her some more, confront Tom. He should have communicated with Daniel or his father, or even Ben, the moment he found out Tom’s whereabouts. But he didn’t want to endanger Elea’s village.

There was a quicker way to get to Elea’s village through the caves and tunnels below Attania. He could do what he’d come to Midver to do, and still have time to get to Elea’s village before she and her women returned. It would give him some time to think about what he needed to do.

That decided, he called back the rain with a vengeance, after making sure Emma was safely back inside her workshop, and gathered more of Midver’s free elementals around him. They spent the next two days preparing and seeding the land. He gave the new seedlings a boost, and made sure the elementals who remained behind would continue to send sunlight and occasional mild rain so that the crops he planted would grow. It was enough to last Midver for the rest of the year with proper care. Never again would Midver have to be at the mercy of people like Tom Jadock for their survival.

Attan sped along the narrow tunnels, following paths of color towards the sea. Around him, an entourage of free elementals flowed, their essences reflecting back the colors of the walls as they touched, as did his. They were of one mind: find Elea.

He found her some distance away from the village, in a small cave which connected, somehow, to his. She was sleeping when he gathered her gently in a cradle of air, much like the one Lorra had used when her twins were babies, and moved her outside so they could talk. “I’m here,” he whispered, as her eyes opened.

She smiled. “Attan.”

“You’re tired. I could take you home on a cloud,” he murmured. “I could take all of you home so you don’t have to walk.” He knew as he said it that she would refuse. Part of the ceremony, Emma had said. What ceremony? Whose? If it was for the elementals, wasn’t he one of them? He didn’t need or want a ceremony.

“You go first,” Elea said to him. “He’s waiting. But don’t give him what he wants, Attan. The Spirits only want to please him; they don’t really want to become---like you. They want to go home.”

Attan thought he should feel insulted, but he didn’t want to be like him, either, so he understood what Elea meant. “I’ll talk to him,” he said. “If I can, I’ll get him to leave you all alone.” If he could, he’d take Tom Jadock away where he couldn’t hurt anybody ever again.

“Will you come see me afterwards?”

“Yes.” Attan took a breath. “Elea? Why do the spirits want to go home?”

“It was a mistake, to come here. We were a mistake. We were never supposed to exist.”

We, Elea said. Meaning who, exactly? Non-family, Family? Attania itself? And if she meant her people, non-family, what did that have to do with elementals?