elemental 04 - cyclone (2 page)

C
HAPTER
2

AIRA WALKED INTO THE LAWYER’S office alone, leaving Aiden and Dylan sitting outside in the car. She took a deep breath, trying to suppress the maelstrom of emotion she felt. She just wanted the whole ordeal to be over; she wanted to be free once more. The comforting sensation she had always felt in her grandmother’s house was gone. Between the increasing impulses to lash out at everyone, her confused feelings of desire, fear, and anger toward Aiden, she found it difficult to believe she would ever achieve anything close to balance in her life again. Her grandmother wasn’t the first person whose death Aira had gone through, but the pain of it lingered with an intensity she couldn’t stand. She wanted to run, to flee the country, to try and outrun the grief that washed over her in waves whenever it came to mind. She wanted to get away from Aiden, and even Dylan, to submerge herself in experiences and work and the challenge of day-to-day living until she couldn’t remember herself anymore. The need for circumspection, to be careful, weighed on her. It was not part of her essential nature to be patient, to stay at home, to avoid contact with the outside world as much as possible. She couldn’t make herself do it for much longer.

The lawyer’s office was crowded with relatives who had come for the reading of the Will. Aira briefly felt claustrophobic, but then forced the sensation down. These were people she knew, people she loved. She took a deep breath and stepped further into the room, sitting down next to her mother. Aira reached out and took her mother’s hand, giving it a supportive squeeze. It had been a difficult time for her mother—more so than it had been for her in some respects. After all, while her grandmother had been a major figure in her life, she still had her own mother and her stepfather as well. She also knew her mother had strained relations with her siblings. 

“I believe everyone is here?” the attorney said, looking around the room. Aira glanced around at the motley-looking assemblage of aunts and uncles. Most of them were elementals, though not as strong as Lorene had been—nor nearly as strong as Aira. She didn’t know to what extent anyone in the family knew anything about the Will; she hadn’t paid much attention to any discussions about it, isolating herself as much as she could. When she couldn’t avoid time with the rest of her family members, she mostly tuned them out. 

“Everyone is here,” Aira’s uncle said firmly. Aira didn’t notice if anyone who might be relevant was missing. She was the only grandchild attending the reading and only because the attorney had insisted she be present. The lawyer was a longtime friend of her grandmother’s, and while the genetics for elemental magic had passed him over, he came from a line of elementals—earth elementals if Aira remembered correctly. He had been kind at the funeral, Aira recalled in a remote way. So much of that time was a blur to her; things seemed to be moving too quickly and too slowly all at once, and she found herself disoriented.

“Thank you all for coming in your time of grief,” the lawyer began, casting a warm smile around the room. “The Will Lorene left behind is not very lengthy, so this shouldn’t take long.” He opened the document and Aira fought the urge to fidget. She couldn’t see why she needed to be here. She glanced at her mother, whose deep blue eyes were reddened by tears and felt ashamed. If for no other reason, she should be here for her mother, she told herself firmly. 

Aira barely paid attention to the preliminaries, not needing a will to know the facts about her grandmother’s last years. She began to pay attention once the lawyer began reading out the section on property. Her mother received $15,000—not an inconsiderable windfall—along with a few precious items, antiques her grandma had kept, some of which had originally been given to her by Aira’s mom. Aira began to tune out again after that, with the seemingly endless bequests of particular items and sums of money with particular reasons associated with them. When she heard her own name, however, her attention returned. The lawyer looked at her with a mixture of amusement and mild concern on his face. “To my granddaughter, Aira, I leave my home and a provision of $20,000 for its maintenance and taxes, with the stipulation that she may not sell it outside of the family, and if she keeps it she must stay in the home for three months out of every year.” 

The endowment brought grumbles. Aira knew vaguely that one of the previous wills her grandmother had put together made the house joint property for all of her sons and daughters. She wondered why the old woman had changed it. One of her uncles cast a baleful glance in her direction without saying anything. Aira stared at the attorney in shock. “I don’t understand,” she said, interrupting him in the moment before he moved on to the final items.

“Your grandmother spoke to me at length about this bequest, because it was a major change to her will, and made it so that she had to alter the other bequests accordingly to be fair,” the older man said, setting the paperwork down. He glanced at the others in the room before settling his gaze once more on Aira. “She felt that since you spent so much time in the house, and because of your…situation…it would be a good idea for you to have it to yourself. She hoped it would help you attain some stability in life.” Aira sat down without remembering when she had stood up. She looked at her mother in surprise. She’d had no idea of the change, not even an inkling. Apparently, her aunts and uncles were unaware of it as well. The attorney cleared his throat. “The bequest is completely valid and as the executor of the will, I would resist any attempts to challenge the provision laid out in this article.” There was a little more grumbling, but it gradually subsided and Aira was left more or less to her own thoughts as the man continued with the reading, outlining the last of the property bequests, the debts, and all of the other details that went along with her grandmother’s passing. 

Aira left the attorney’s office as quickly as possible, walking outside to Aiden and Dylan. “She left me the house,” she said to them blankly, shaking her head. “I have to live there three months a year and I can’t sell it to anyone but a family member.” Dylan raised an eyebrow and Aiden stared at her in undisguised shock. 

“What are you going to do?” Dylan asked her. 

Aira shrugged.

“I’m going to let them probate the will and deal with the provision of living in the house later. For right now I’m going to get the hell out of dodge until my aunts and uncles cool off about it.” Aira had taken one of the attorney’s cards, knowing that because she was named in the will, she would need to be in touch with him as the document was processed and put through. The twenty thousand dollars would more than take care of the upkeep of the house, as well as the property taxes, though Aira wondered about more complicated issues of estate taxes and other financial burdens. She reminded herself that she made sufficient money to cover it as she got into the car on the passenger side and stared out the window. She heard the wind rustling through the trees and didn’t bother to suppress it, her mind too occupied on the incredible change in her fortunes—for better as well as for worse. 

They drove back to Aira’s grandmother’s house—now Aira’s house, she thought with startling realization. As they sat at the kitchen table, she looked around, considering all of the possessions that would soon be gone. She would collect them and give them to her grandmother’s lawyer to distribute in his role as the executor. Dylan stood and began to make tea while Aira tried to wrap her head around the incredible bequest. Part of her didn’t think she would ever be fully comfortable living in the house, while another part was pleased and honored her grandmother had bequeathed it to her. There was so much she had to adapt to, so much she had to understand and accept. Aira stood after a few long moments, feeling restless. She needed to clear her mind and think about the new issues afresh and a walk seemed like the best way to do that. 

The intense, floral scent of the garden in bloom colored the air as Aira stepped out into the warm afternoon, looking around at the property with a slightly different vision than she’d ever had in her life before. She knew that nothing had fundamentally changed in the few hours she had been away; but knowing that she was now responsible for the property, that she was its owner, made everything look almost deliriously vibrant. The grass was a deep, robust green, the flowers a riot of colors: orange and red, pink and fuchsia, creamy white, lemon yellow, and deep crimsons painting themselves across her gaze. Aira wandered around the property, shaking her head occasionally at the completely bizarre fact that, with only a few legal hurdles, she was the owner of all of it. She knew on paper the house and land actually had very little value—but the energy of the place was vitally important, and Aira could understand objectively why her grandmother had stipulated that no one outside of the family should own it. She thought to herself as she climbed a tree the difficult way, instead of flying up to a preferred branch, that as a potential candidate for ruler of the element of air, it made sense in some respects that the house had come to her. She sat in the green, cool depths of the fig tree, resting her head against the trunk. 

Aira dozed; she was startled by a falling sensation but caught herself before she tumbled off of the branch, latching onto the trunk of the tree as her heart pounded. 

“Aira?” She heard Aiden calling her name. It did nothing to settle the frantic beating in her chest. The wind began to rise. Aira struggled to get it under control, taking a few slow, deep breaths. Aiden called her name again. The wind continued to rise and Aira felt a sudden fear of her own element—of the fact that she was not fully in control. For the first time since she had begun to manipulate and control the wind, she was prey to it, not master of it. She reached out with her mind more steadily, focusing down, ignoring even the sound of Aiden’s voice in the need to maintain her hold on what was real, on what she knew she was capable of. Aira gripped the tree tightly, closing her eyes and forcing her breathing to an even slower, steadier pace, willing the wind to obey her commands, to follow her example. 

After one terrifying moment, the wind began to die down instead of escalate, and Aira sighed, reinforcing her will over it. She opened her eyes and relaxed slightly as her pulse slowly returned to normal. Aiden was still calling her. She considered remaining hidden, but knew that would be cowardly. If he was actively looking for her, it could be something important. Her own jumbled feelings toward him were something she could deal with another time—when things were somewhat normal once more. She climbed down, dropping from the lowest branch and walking out into a more landscaped part of the property. Aiden had his back turned to her, and for a moment Aira’s maelstrom of emotions centered on annoyance at the elemental, and she entertained the notion of using a gust of wind to give him a shove. The thought gave her pause and she stopped mid-step. Aiden annoyed her, certainly—he somehow managed to touch on every last one of her nerves—but he wasn’t doing anything to actively annoy her in the moment, and she heard her grandmother’s voice in her mind, asking if she hadn’t managed to outgrow such childish pranks.

Aira cast the thought away and emerged from the brambles guarding the grove of fig and mayhaw trees, calling out in response to Aiden. He turned and spotted her, his eyes lighting up with recognition before falling back into concerned, almost solemn lines. “There’s a messenger for you,” Aiden said, looking away for a moment. “It’s from the elders.” Aira’s stomach dropped, she bit sharply on her bottom lip. A messenger from the elemental elders was a rare thing—and even more rarely was it a good thing. Generally speaking, if the elders contacted an elemental directly, they had come to the conclusion there was a problem. Aira wondered just what kind of problem they thought she was. 

She half-ran from the isolated corner of the property, Aiden jogging at her side as Aira made her way to the front of the house, compulsively smoothing her hair and brushing at her clothes with her hands, as anxious as she had been the few times she had been called to the principal’s office as a child. Aira glanced at Aiden nervously as she opened the screen door and then the main door beyond it, trying to assemble as much courage and composure as she could. 

The man sitting at the kitchen table was dressed in a fine, but utterly nondescript, gray suit. His features were bland, his eyes the only thing that gave a hint at his otherworldly nature. As he turned to look at Aira, she was drawn into the gaze of his deep, dark blue eyes, the words of greeting she had on the tip of her tongue only a moment before completely forgotten. She swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat, taking a deep breath. “Ah, Aira,” the man said, smiling faintly. “I’m glad Aiden was able to find you.” Aira nodded, forcing herself to move, to take the few steps into the kitchen. She sat down across from the messenger; Dylan unobtrusively brought her and the man both cups of tea, and Aira spared Dylan a grateful glance.

“We haven’t met; may I have your name? And what brings you?” The man’s dark eyes lightened slightly as his smile grew. 

“My name is Daley,” he said, tilting his head forward slightly. “I’m here for a few reasons. The first is that, obviously, the elders are very saddened by the loss of your grandmother. I’m informed that she told you of her status as the Regina Undinae before her passing.” Aira nodded. “We currently have no one to replace her position—and there is, of course, the more pressing issue of the long-vacant role of the elemental ruler of air, which she would have told you about.” Aira nodded again, trying to restrain the dreadful feeling building under the surface. Outside, the wind began to rise again. She wondered what kind of elemental Daley was—elders’ messengers were all elementals, old families of a particular faction. They were not just messengers, they were also responsible for apprehending irresponsible and dangerous elementals. She knew Aiden and Dylan had worked in tandem with the elders’ messengers before.