Prince of Attania, 2

Merrell got the last word the next morning when they were preparing to leave. “Let the boy stay here,” he said. “At Arden he’ll be among Family. He’ll be safe. Let my enforcers handle any trouble in Low City.”

Attan threw a panicked look at his father. He did not want to stay at Arden!

Merrell leaned back in his chair in his office on the lower level near the enforcer’s training area. They had been discussing everything from Parker’s precocity to the problems in Parrion to Jet’s refusal to take more than one wife.

“Attan is safe,” Jet replied evenly. “Why do you really want him here?”

“I know Attan is easily the most powerful Elemental in Attania, there’s no denying that. But he’s just a child, Jet. Let him be a child. He’s too young to handle any potential problem in Low City, and you shouldn’t expect him to. Let me send some of my enforcers instead.”

“That’s not the reason.”

Merrell rolled his eyes. “He needs supervision, Jet. I’ve gone along with your plan to combine Family and non-family children to the benefit of both, but Attan is your heir. He should be among the other royal Family children. We can’t risk him—unless. . .” Merrell’s eyes turned crafty. “If you had other children then . . .” He smiled, the trap sprung.

Jet smiled too. “Nice try. Attan, are you ready?”

Bewildered, Attan glanced from his uncle to his father. He didn’t want them to be mad at each other. But Merrell stood up and came around the desk to give them both a gruff hug. “It was worth a try,” he said with some amusement. “But really, Attan could be a big help at Arden. The things he can do . . .”

Grinning, Jet replied, “Would you really want Attan to teach these kids some of his tricks? If you thought I was bad back then . . . you might not like it when these powerful little Elementals start doing some of the things Attan does. Ask Macek.”

Attan reddened. He didn’t mean to cause trouble.

“Oh I have,” Merrell said with a laugh. “Fine, go then. But contact me if you need me. Attan,” he turned to the boy and placed his hands on Attan’s shoulders. “Be careful. You are not alone. You have all your Family to help you.” He turned back to Jet. “Does he have a communicator? He should have a communicator.”

Yes! Attan looked hopefully at his father. “We’ll see,” was all Jet had to say.

Jet and Attan swirled into elemental form, wind this time, to take them swiftly back to Low City. Before they left, Merrell joined them in a final merge that reassured Attan. His uncle was concerned but not angry; neither was his father.

They streaked across Attania’s skies still merged, though Merrell pulled away to return to Arden. Attan spread himself across the sky and felt his father do the same thing. He wanted to see how far he could stretch himself without losing his sense of who he was. It turned out to be quite far. Jet drew back first, narrowing his focus until he became physical once more on a mountaintop part way between Arden and Low City. Attan wanted to keep going. It felt so good. But he could feel his father’s concern. He concentrated his essence so he could form beside his father.

Jet sat on an outcropping of rock and gazed out over the rolling hills and valleys that led to Low City. “I see I shouldn’t have worried about you,” he said softly, patting the rock next to him. Attan sat down. “You can always come back, can’t you?”

Attan thought that was obvious. He nodded uncertainly. He always could take back physical form. The attraction was that he didn’t always want to. Maybe someday he wouldn’t come back, but not for a long time. “So can you,” he replied.

Jet chuckled. “I’m not so sure. There was a point there where I felt myself unraveling.” He didn’t mean his physical self, he meant his mind. “I wanted to test it.” He glanced at his son. “How far is too far?”

Attan didn’t understand the question. “Dad?”

Free elementals settled around their bodies, palpable presences though invisible to the naked eye. Wind danced through Attan’s hair and across his cheeks, begging him to play. Sunlight wove trails of warmth across his back, vying with the dark shadows that twisted about his legs for attention. “Dad, why can’t the others sense the free elementals?”

Jet shrugged. He cupped his hands and let sunbeams trickle through them like liquid gold. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “They know they’re all around us, and they can use them easily enough, but to the rest of the Family, free elementals are just forces of nature with no mind or thought to them.” He smiled as an errant sunbeam crawled up his arm to settle around his neck. “Even when we merge, the others only sense other Family, and not the free elementals who join us in the merge.”

Attan nodded. He’d wondered about that, too. “Is that why you don’t like it when Family fall prey to the radicals?” he asked.

Jet raised one eyebrow. “Who told you that?”

Suddenly unsure, Attan said, “Isn’t that what you call it when Family become free elementals?”

Jet laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.” He sobered. “And you’re right. That’s why I don’t like it when they give up their physical bodies so easily when they have no idea what they will become. They lose all memory of ever having been human. If they’d just become Elementals like us they could have the best of both worlds.” He leaned back against the rock. “They call themselves ‘Sons of the First’ – to distinguish themselves from the Sons of Men, I suppose. They’d be mortified to find out that the First was also the one who founded the Sons of Men.”

“The First? You mean Aylard First?” Attan had heard about Aylard First his whole life, how he had been the last of the neverborn, a true elemental who became Elemental by taking on a physical body thousands of years ago. He had believed that Family should never have come to be, and that returning to their natural states—as elementals—was the only solution. He was very persuasive. He convinced non-family of his plan, and then later, when everything came to a head because of Jet, he even managed to convince other Family that his way was the right way. “But he’s gone,” Attan said. Aylard had released his physical body for good right around the time Attan was born.

“I wonder,” Jet said thoughtfully. “You could release your physical body to the ends of Attania and still take it back, couldn’t you? I wonder if Aylard could do the same.”

Attan supposed he could, but in his mind he knew if it ever came to that, he wouldn’t want to. He didn’t have the heart to say that to his father, though. “Why do some Family do that and not others?”

“You mean fall prey to the radicals?” Jet said with a smile. “Some people are just looking for answers. Some truly believe the radicals, the Family who preach that we were never meant to have human form. They believe it so completely that it doesn’t scare them to give up their identities and become free elementals.”

“Free elementals have identities,” Attan protested. “Maybe they don’t remember their former lives as human beings, but they can communicate.”

“We know. It doesn’t matter for the rest because they won’t know it until after they have transformed into free elementals. And once they do that, they can’t come back the way you can.” And possibly Aylard. “I won’t stop Family from releasing their physical selves if that’s what they truly desire, however I will not allow these so-called ‘Sons of the First’ to prey on people’s emotions and convince them to do something they would never have considered otherwise.”

“Dad, did you really think I would follow them?” Attan asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. He might have followed the ones in Darcy, if his father hadn’t intervened. It was that tempting. But not for escape, not for oblivion, no. Attan would have gladly gone into elemental form for good because it was right.

Jet sighed, and reached over to hug Attan. “I know you would, Attan, because I am tempted too. If it weren’t for your Mom—and food—“ He ruffled Attan’s hair. “I would go too.”

Food—ugh. Attan still didn’t understand the attraction.

“Let’s go.” Jet became wind, swirling all the other elementals clustered around him into himself as he started down the mountain towards home. Attan quickly followed, and for a while it was blissful and utterly right.

Coming home to Low City and Doll was right, too. Attan loved his mother and his father enough to want to stay with them. His mother could not sense the free elementals any more than the other Family could, and Attan dreaded losing her when he finally went. Home was so different from Arden. He basked in the gentle love of his own small family. Even school was better here. The Family kids weren’t afraid to embrace their Elemental natures, and the non-family kids weren’t scared of them. Attan returned to class the next morning with a light heart, determined to do better.

“Where were you?” Greg whispered, as the two bent their heads over their latest assignment. It was a botany experiment, designed to teach Family and non-family children how to work together to improve crops someday. Greg’s small plant struggled pitifully in its bed of dirt since Attan had not been around to encourage its growth. The other pairs’ plants were twice as tall already.

“Darcy,” Attan whispered back. “I went with my father. The King.” He didn’t often play that card, but Greg’s accusatory tone had ruffled Attan a little.

Greg turned white. “You didn’t tell him about my brother, did you?” he asked.

When Attan didn’t reply, Greg turned his shoulder stiffly away. “I should have known,” he muttered. “Can’t trust one of you.”

Attan touched his finger to the struggling plant. Tiny elementals scurried to engulf it—light, water, air—all eager to do Attan’s bidding. The plant expanded with a noise Attan was sure the whole room could hear, though no one else seemed to notice. It grew until it exploded from its tiny pot of earth. Attan had to summon earth elementals to quickly support it, so that in seconds it appeared to grow right out of the desk itself, which was now a rich dark brown mound of dirt and nothing like a desk at all. The plant grew until it reached the ceiling, stretching for the sun beyond.

“Attan, stop!” Greg pulled on his arm. From across the room, Macek Merrell raced towards them, his hand outstretched with shadow forming. He was going to contain the out-of-control plant before it overtook the entire classroom. Blinking, Attan pulled back the elementals.

“Sorry,” he muttered. The plant had stopped growing, but it was still gigantic. Attan left it alone and gathered up his things. He wanted to leave before his cousin berated him yet again for overdoing it.

“Attan, wait. I didn’t mean it.” Greg grabbed his arm again, and Attan let it go to smoke, but Greg just grabbed the other one. “I’m not mad at you.”

Sighing, Attan stopped. “What did you expect me to do?” he asked, aware that they were gaining an audience, including the teacher. “I have to go.”

“Don’t go. Come to the farm with me after school today. I’ll tell you everything.” Greg whispered quickly before stepping aside.

Macek towered over both of them. “Attan, what did I say about showing off?”

“I wasn’t!” Attan protested, but Macek hauled him and Greg out of class to give them a good talking-to. Something in Attan relaxed. Things were getting back to normal, at least normal for him.