Spirits
I was ripped out of my dreams just a few minutes before we would arrive. Janus was still awake, not bothered by the fact that I used his shoulder as a pillow, checking his arrows for the seventh time. I have no idea how often he did it while I was asleep.
“Ah, good you’re awake.”
“Are we there yet?”
“Just a few more minutes.”
“Sigh.”
Part of me had hoped I could just sleep through this whole charade, but fate wasn’t feeling generous. With nothing else to do, I pressed my forehead to the carriage window, and the sight outside chased away any lingering drowsiness in an instant.
Outside, beyond a thick wall of the same black stone used in the capital, as well as a few trenches and high fences about a few hundred meters from the ancient patchy road, was an endless sea of flowers in the distance that stretched into the horizon with no end in sight. The sea of flowers and lush grass looked like colored sprinkles over Woodruff (Waldmeister) ice cream hills on a hot summer day.
Janus followed my gaze, his eyes softening as he took in the view. When he looked back at me, there was a kind of gentle pity there, as if he already knew what I was about to ask.
“Janus, can we go there?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s a death zone.”
“Death Zone?”
“It’s where the Kingdom’s wind spirits live, and they are very territorial.”
My heart sank, disappointment settling heavy in my chest. I remembered what Otto had told me—wind spirits are drawn to the scent of flowers, fiercely protective of their fields. Calling them territorial was almost a joke. They would raze entire cities just to protect one of their own, and no one was welcome where they raised their young.
A spirit is born when a lot of attribute mana is gathered at one point, and a soul randomly drifts along. The soul instinctively attaches itself to the attribute mana, and a spirit is formed. Another spirit or mage can create the attribute mana in question, but it can also happen when a lot of non-attribute mana is close to a given “Element.” Wind turns non-attribute mana into wind mana over time; earth turns it into earth mana, and so on. Because of this, Earthspirits are the most numerous and are primarily born this way; next come Windspirits and, shortly after, Waterspirits, while Firespirits are among the rarest, found naturally only in volcanoes or dwarven forges, which are famous for never going out. The other attributes are so rare they exist only in legend.
Way easier is the second method, where a mage or spirit maintains a lot of their own attribute mana in one place until another spirit is born. However, this process can take hundreds of years, so it isn’t really feasible for humans to make their own spirits. Even in the past, people just made deals with already existing spirits.
When a spirit is formed, it usually stems from a pretty weak soul, like a plant or small animal that has passed away. Then, over a couple hundred years, they strengthen, and what was once just floating mana particles becomes a lesser spirit. Those are still just particles of mana but now with a sense of self and actual purpose. A few hundred years later, they enter the second stage of low-level spirit, which can understand speech and reason, which are the most common since this stage is in a spirit’s life its greatest bottleneck. Not only does it take about five hundred years to reach the next stage, but in this stage they are also the most useful to people. In the past, people poached and hunted them for their mana stones and abilities. Tame a fire spirit and your home would never be cold, or grab a healing spirit and no injury would ever befall you, or catch a wind spirit, and your ship’s sails would always be full.
That must be why the Windspirits are so territorial and kill everyone who enters their domain on sight. The mid-level Windspirits stay in this flower field even after evolving to keep the young safe and will only leave after a thousand years, once they have become a high-level spirit, the stage before they become Dragons.
Of course, this didn’t all come from Otto. Spirits exist everywhere, even in space, even on planets without any other life, so I naturally heard a lot about spirits in the gods’ realm.
Listlessly, I fell back into my seat. Gone was my dream of running through an endless flower field. But then I perked back up.
“Janus, are there any other fields like this?”
“Not really. Large patches of flowers attract wind spirits, so every kingdom regulates the size of any given plot. The ones they do allow aren’t nearly as big.”
“What about the sunflowers back home?”
“Those barely have a scent, if at all, so it’s fine. We can go there when we’re back home. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good!”
I give Janus a quick kiss on his cheek before letting my head fall back on his shoulder.