The morning after our trip to Keshan, I discovered that breathing became surprisingly difficult when someone expected me to do it correctly. That seemed unfair, considering I'd managed the activity for thirteen years without receiving a single complaint from my lungs. Mara, however, had informed me that producing a flame by accident and keeping one alive deliberately were two very different things, and apparently the difference involved an unreasonable amount of standing around.
I stood in an empty courtyard of the Eastern Air Temple with my feet planted on the cold stone, trying to remember the sequence she'd shown me. Sunlight touched the curved tips of the surrounding roofs, but the floor remained in shadow, and the wind coming off the Eastern Sea kept pushing my hair across my right eye. The morning was beautiful, which would've been considerably easier to appreciate if my left foot had stopped doing whatever it wanted.
I inhaled, shifted forward, and extended my arm with a slow exhale. My back heel rose too soon, my shoulders followed it, and I caught myself before pitching onto my face. The worst part was knowing exactly what I'd done wrong the instant it happened; recognizing a mistake and preventing one, I was discovering, were not the same skill.
I moved back into position and tried again. This time I remembered my feet but held my breath while concentrating on my shoulders, defeating the purpose of an exercise that was supposed to improve my breathing. By the third attempt, I was beginning to suspect Mara had deliberately given me something so boring I'd eventually appreciate every other chore at the temple.
A small black-and-white bird landed on the courtyard wall and tipped its head toward me. It had a long tail, a ridiculous little crest, and the confident expression of a creature entirely convinced it belonged wherever it pleased. I watched it hop sideways twice and immediately imagined an entire nation of birds ruling the rooftops, complete with councils, territorial disputes, and a king whose crown was stolen by a particularly ambitious sparrow.
The bird gave a sharp chirp and flew away, leaving me standing with both arms lowered. I looked down at my hands and realized I'd abandoned the exercise halfway through. Apparently, the imaginary bird monarchy would have to survive without me for a while.
I reset my stance, breathed without trying to force the rhythm, and moved more slowly. My weight settled over the forward foot as my arm extended, and this time the motion ended without a stumble or an awkward pause. The success was small enough that no one watching would have noticed anything special, but I felt the difference immediately: I hadn't fought my own body to make it happen.
"That's better," I murmured, looking at the space beyond my knuckles. I wasn't permitted to produce fire while practicing alone, and the memory of Mara catching a falling vase was more than enough to persuade me that her warning had been sensible. Still, I wanted to know whether that smoother movement would make the little flame easier to maintain.
"It looked better from here, too," Pathik said from the archway behind me. He stood with a basket under one arm and a patient smile on his face, apparently having watched long enough to witness the first successful attempt of the morning. "You seemed less determined to wrestle your own feet into obedience."
I turned and grinned before reaching for my water flask. "They're stubborn," I explained, taking a drink. "I think I've got it, then I start thinking about one part and mess up the rest."
Pathik joined me on the low platform beside the courtyard. He knew enough about breath and attention to be useful, though he'd never pretended that being a spiritual teacher made him a firebending instructor. "When you notice an error, can you correct it without becoming completely absorbed in it?" he asked, watching a breeze disturb the leaves near the steps.
I considered that while rolling my shoulders. Whenever I tried to fix my feet, I forgot my breathing; when I watched my breathing, I stiffened my shoulders; and when I got all three right, my imagination usually wandered somewhere that didn't exist. "Not very well," I admitted. "But I think it's getting easier."
"Then that's a good beginning," he said, rising as the morning light crept farther across the courtyard. "Come have breakfast before you tire yourself out. I suspect the exercises will still be waiting when you're finished eating."
He was right, and I wasn't going to argue with anyone offering food. As we walked toward the kitchen, I wondered whether an entire day of ordinary movement might teach me more than another hour of standing stiffly in place. Mara had never said I needed to look impressive, only that I needed control, and perhaps that distinction would eventually get through my thick skull.
By the second afternoon, I'd begun experimenting with where I practiced. The main courtyard was comfortable, but it was also familiar enough that I associated it with the little flames I'd managed to produce there, and that made keeping to the no-fire rule annoying. I wandered eastward after lunch and found a broad terrace overlooking the forested slopes of the temple island, with enough room to move and a view that made even repetitive exercises seem worthwhile.
The terrace faced the sea and caught the wind between two pale columns. From the stone railing I could see thick forests descending toward the coast, a few pale strips of sand hidden between cliffs, and smaller islands scattered farther out across the water. The nearest roofs were warm beneath the afternoon sun, while patches of shade still covered the floor where the mountains blocked the light.
I stepped into position and began the breathing sequence. The breeze pressed against my shirt whenever I turned, and I found myself making tiny adjustments to keep balanced, though the floor beneath me was perfectly still. It reminded me of Bera telling me not to fight every movement of his boat; the advice had worked on the deck, and it seemed to work here as well.
After several repetitions, I noticed that the wind didn't feel the same everywhere on the terrace. Beside the sunlit wall, the air brushing my face was pleasantly warm, but a few steps into the passage behind the columns brought a cooler draft flowing from the shaded stone. I moved between the two places twice, partly out of curiosity and partly because I wanted to know whether I was imagining the difference.
The sunlight had been warming the exposed stone for hours, and the air near it rose in gentle currents that disturbed a loose ribbon I'd tied around my wrist. A cooler draft flowed through the shaded passage to replace some of that moving air, making the ribbon twitch in a different direction when I stood near the opening. None of this was especially mysterious, but it was the first time I'd watched those changes with the same careful attention I'd been giving my bending.
I sat by the railing with my notebook and made a rough sketch of the columns, the heated wall, and the narrow passage. There was something attractive about the idea that sunlight could shape invisible currents simply by warming different surfaces, and I began wondering what would happen when the sun moved low enough for the entire wall to fall into shade. The thought seemed worth testing, though I'd need to remain here until evening to see the difference.
I returned to practice, using the ribbon's movement as a reminder not to become rigid. The wind pushed at my side, I adjusted, and the next movement settled naturally into place instead of ending in a clumsy correction. For several minutes I enjoyed the exercise, which was something I hadn't expected to say about breathing without producing a single spark.
Then a gust flung my hair directly over both eyes. I stood there blind for an undignified moment before pushing it aside and deciding that Aang's shaved head had considerable practical appeal. I wasn't ready to copy it, but I found some cord in my bag and tied back the longer strands so I could finish without constantly wrestling my own hair.
The sun descended as the afternoon wore on, and the terrace slowly changed around me. The wall that had felt warm beneath my palm cooled once its shadow lengthened, and the rising air beside it weakened; farther along the mountain, air cooled against the shaded rock and flowed downward through a narrow gap. The breeze at my ankles became noticeably colder as evening approached, even while the last sunlight still warmed the upper edge of the railing.
I followed the movement with the ribbon and then with my bare hand. Heat from the sun had warmed the stone and the nearby air, but as the light slipped away, the temperatures changed and the currents changed with them. It wasn't simply a matter of a warm wind becoming a cold wind; the direction, strength, and source of the moving air could all change as the mountain heated and cooled unevenly.
My mind immediately ran ahead. If I could eventually remove energy from air itself, would cooling one pocket cause a current to develop around it, or would the result behave differently because Coldbending wasn't ordinary heat transfer? I wasn't able to test that, and I wouldn't mistake the natural wind for evidence that I had somehow learned airbending before mastering ice. I wrote the question in my notebook, drew a little star beside it, and deliberately set the idea aside for later.
The last warmth faded from the stones as the sun sank toward the horizon. I was preparing to gather my things when a strange sound drifted up from beneath the terrace, low and hollow like somebody blowing through an enormous wooden flute. It rose, trembled, and ended in three faint metallic chimes, followed by an ugly little rattle that didn't belong with the rest.
I stood still and listened until it happened again. The noise seemed to travel through the stone beneath my boots, not simply across the open air, and I couldn't see any wind chimes nearby that might explain it. The terrace had provided enough interesting discoveries for one afternoon, but apparently the mountain wasn't finished.
I followed the sound toward the eastern passage, stopping near a narrow staircase that descended between two older buildings. The corridor beyond was dim and partly sheltered from the sun, and the sound seemed to come from somewhere beneath it. I considered exploring immediately, then remembered how many of the temple's forgotten passages were cracked or poorly maintained and decided that disappearing underground alone wasn't especially clever.
When I returned to the kitchen, Pathik was preparing dinner. I described the strange noise while cutting vegetables, and he looked toward the eastern window with an expression that suggested he recognized something I didn't. "The Hall of Whispering Winds," he said after a moment. "I haven't thought about that place in years."
I stopped cutting and put the knife aside. "That's a real name?" I asked, immediately delighted by how good it sounded. "What is it?"
"An old meditation hall beneath the eastern terraces," he explained, stirring the pot. "The Air Nomads built channels and instruments into the mountain so the wind could create music. It helped students notice their breathing and the movement of their attention."
I looked toward the darkening window, already picturing enormous bells and secret passages. The explanation also fit remarkably well with the exercises Mara had assigned, which made me want to investigate even more. "Can we go tomorrow?" I asked, trying not to sound quite as eager as I felt.
"In daylight, after we've checked the entrance," Pathik agreed. He gave my unevenly chopped vegetables a quick glance and smiled. "And perhaps after you finish the task in front of you."
I looked down at the carrot slices, which ranged from reasonably neat to shapes that shouldn't have been possible with a single vegetable. "They're still edible," I offered, deciding that was a stronger argument than pretending I'd been paying attention. Pathik laughed and accepted the bowl, apparently willing to overlook their unusual geometry.
That night, I dreamed of a creature made from cloud and bone sleeping beneath the mountain. Every time it breathed, thousands of bells rang across the sky, while tiny spirits gathered in the ceiling beams to complain about the noise. By morning, the creature had apparently appointed me its official storyteller, which was an unfortunate responsibility considering I'd spent most of the dream arguing with the spirits about the proper rules of a miniature kingdom.
Pathik woke me shortly after sunrise and informed me that I'd been talking in my sleep. I asked whether I'd mentioned the spirits, and he admitted that he'd heard something about a queen who ruled a nation of mushrooms. I decided not to explain, partly because the dream had grown difficult to remember and partly because I was suddenly much more interested in the real hall waiting beneath the temple.
***
We left after breakfast, crossing a stone bridge that connected two of the Eastern Air Temple's three mountain peaks. The bridge was broad enough to walk comfortably, but the drop on either side vanished into mist and forest, and I stayed near the middle without making a grand display of bravery. Above us, the temple's curved roofs caught the early sunlight, and far below the wooded slopes descended to the island's rocky coastline.
Pathik led me through a part of the eastern complex that I hadn't explored. The courtyards were smaller here, with weeds between the flagstones and faded murals beneath the eaves, and several doors had swollen inside their frames after years of damp weather. Every so often we passed a little shrine or an empty classroom that made me wonder who had last used it, though I resisted the urge to investigate every room before reaching our destination.
One courtyard contained a row of small stone figures depicting children practicing airbending forms. Time had worn away their faces, but their different poses were still visible, and I stopped beside one statue whose hands were extended in a gesture I recognized from the series. The little figure wasn't much taller than my knee, which made it strangely easy to picture a real child standing there and trying the same movement.
"They practiced here?" I asked, running my gaze along the row rather than touching the damaged stone. Pathik nodded, explaining that younger students had once moved between these courtyards for lessons, meals, games, and meditation. He didn't speak as though every day had been sacred and peaceful; several of his memories involved noisy children, annoyed instructors, and arguments about who had cheated during a game.
I liked hearing those stories. The Air Nomads had suffered something terrible, but before that they'd been ordinary people as well, with favorites, rivalries, bad habits, and children who probably hated getting up early. I found that easier to connect with than treating them as a collection of perfectly serene monks who spent every moment floating above earthly concerns.
The buildings gradually gave way to a passage carved into the mountain. Little openings were arranged along its outer wall, and I noticed a faint whistle whenever the breeze crossed one of them. Farther along, a lower note rose from a narrow shaft in the ceiling, followed by a fluttering sound that reminded me of wind passing through reeds.
I slowed to listen, making Pathik stop several steps ahead. The noises were too varied to come from a single instrument, and they changed as the wind strengthened or weakened outside. "They started the music before you even get to the room," I said, following the direction of the nearest whistle.
"So it seems," Pathik replied, looking pleased by the observation. "The passages were part of the experience. Students were encouraged to notice how their surroundings changed before entering the hall itself."
At the end of the passage we reached a broad stairway descending into the mountain. The stone was dry but worn, and Pathik examined several cracked steps before allowing me to follow him down. I carried a small lantern despite the daylight, partly because the lower landings were shadowed and partly because I wanted to look inside the little side openings without putting my face into anything unpleasant.
Halfway down, I found a spider occupying one such opening. It was larger than I'd expected, with a round striped body and several long legs arranged in a way that suggested it was having an excellent morning until I arrived. I apologized under my breath and moved on while Pathik waited, his smile implying that he had heard the entire exchange.
At the bottom stood two enormous wooden doors carved with clouds and curling air currents. One had sagged upon its hinges, leaving a narrow gap through which cool air escaped, carrying that long hollow note I'd heard the previous evening. The bronze handles had darkened with age, but the carvings remained remarkably clear, their patterns flowing around one another as though a gust had been captured in wood.
Pathik tested the stone beside the doorway and pushed gently against the less damaged leaf. The heavy wood resisted, then moved with a groan, releasing a breeze that swept my hair backward and stirred dust along the landing. I stepped forward to look inside, and for several seconds I forgot I was supposed to be helping him hold the door.
The chamber beyond was enormous. Its circular floor was carved directly into the mountain, with pale columns supporting a high roof pierced by long openings toward the sea. Wooden walkways crossed the upper levels, and hundreds of objects hung among the beams: bronze bells, hollow flutes, carved cylinders, and strange instruments whose shapes I couldn't immediately identify.
Sunlight entered through the eastern openings and fell in broad slanted shafts, illuminating drifting dust and the slow movement of suspended chimes. Air flowed through channels cut into the walls and floor, turning different instruments into voices that seemed to answer one another across the room. Some notes were clear and delicate, while others were low enough to feel through the soles of my boots.
I stood just inside the threshold, looking from the high openings to the instruments beneath them. There was no music master conducting anything, yet the entire place seemed to respond whenever the wind changed direction, as though the mountain itself were playing a song it had never finished. The sound wasn't perfectly harmonious; several instruments rattled or remained silent, and a few cords had snapped, leaving their bells scattered across the floor.
"Wow," I said quietly, unable to think of anything more useful. Pathik joined me and looked around with an expression that changed from pleased surprise to something softer. "I remember sitting here when I was younger," he murmured, studying the low circular platform in the middle of the room.
I glanced toward him. "Was it always this big?" I asked, then immediately realized how ridiculous the question sounded. He laughed and answered that the hall was probably exactly the size he'd remembered, although the emptiness made it feel different.
We remained near the entrance until Pathik was satisfied that the lower floor was safe. Several upper walkways had lost planks, and one staircase ended in a collapsed landing, so he made it clear that we wouldn't be exploring those sections. I agreed readily enough; there was more than enough to investigate on the ground without discovering how well my body survived falling through a century-old bridge.
The central platform had several concentric circles cut into the stone, along with shallow grooves that led toward little grilles around its edge. Standing at different points changed what I could hear, and I spent several minutes walking between the circles while identifying which instruments became louder. Near one position, the deep wooden hum seemed to come from beneath my feet; near another, the bronze bells overhead were suddenly clear enough that I could distinguish each note.
"It's like the room has favorite places," I said, moving to the center again. Pathik explained that the design had helped students learn to direct their attention, sometimes toward a single sound and sometimes toward everything happening around them. I immediately wanted to try it, but the strange rattle I'd heard earlier interrupted us before I could ask.
A long exhalation rose from behind a stone screen near the western wall. It was followed by a sharp metallic strike that echoed badly through the chamber, making several other chimes tremble in response. I turned toward the noise and spotted a large wooden wheel moving slowly beside an opening in the outer wall.
The wheel was connected to a web of rods, pulleys, and hanging weights. Whenever a gust entered the channel above it, broad wooden vanes shifted, turning the mechanism and adjusting shutters built into the surrounding walls. It was a brilliant arrangement in principle, but one rod was jerking out of rhythm and pulling a heavy bronze chime sideways until it struck a supporting beam.
I crouched at a safe distance, studying the rod. Its upper bracket was split along the grain, and one of the fittings had become loose enough to let the connection sag. Each time the wheel turned, force traveled through the crooked joint and made the chime strike its support with that ugly rattle.
"That's it," I said, pointing toward the damaged bracket. "It's not supposed to pull that way."
Pathik examined the joint without approaching the moving machinery. He agreed that something was wrong, but he didn't claim to know how the whole system worked, and he asked me to keep my hands away until we'd found a safe way to stop it. That seemed like an excellent idea, particularly after I noticed how heavy some of the suspended counterweights were.
I looked for a brake and found a large wooden stop beneath the wheel, though its handle was broken and its operation wasn't obvious. Rather than experiment, we began searching the nearby alcoves for maintenance instructions. I was almost disappointed at having to leave the wheel unexplored, but the promise of diagrams and hidden tool rooms was enough to keep me interested.
The first room held cushions too old to use, a cracked table, and a collection of fragments that might once have been wooden puzzles. The second contained shelves, several small bells, and what appeared to be the remains of a children's game involving carved rings. I picked up one ring, turned it over in my hands, and spent an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out how the game had worked before remembering our actual purpose.
In the third room, I discovered a small wooden sky bison beneath an overturned bench. It was only a little bigger than my palm, and one of its six legs had snapped off, but an old blue arrow remained visible between its carved eyes. The toy had been handled enough that the wood was smooth along its back, and there were tiny scratches beneath its belly where somebody must have pushed it across a floor.
I showed it to Pathik, expecting him to tell me to leave it where I'd found it. Instead, he took a moment to examine the carving, his expression gentle and a little sad. "Children brought their toys everywhere," he said. "Their teachers were forever asking them to put things away before lessons began."
I looked at the damaged leg and wondered whether the child who'd owned it had come back looking for it. There was no way to know, and I didn't pretend otherwise, but I wanted to repair the toy instead of leaving it beneath a bench for another century. Pathik agreed that we could take it to our living quarters, provided we kept a note of where it had been found.
The maintenance room turned out to be behind a narrow doorway beside a series of breathing diagrams carved into the stone. Several cabinets had collapsed, but a heavy workbench remained intact, and beneath it lay a flat wooden panel covered in faded writing and carefully carved lines. I brushed away the dust while Pathik held the lantern, then smiled when the shape of the large wheel appeared among the drawings.
"Found it," I said, tracing the outline of the connected rods with my eyes. The board showed the wheel, shutter arms, counterweights, and locking stops in different positions, with little symbols marking how the parts were meant to move. Pathik recognized enough of the old writing to identify warnings about securing the mechanism before maintenance, although several lines had become too damaged to read confidently.
We carried the board into the main hall and placed it on a stone bench near the central floor. I compared the drawing with the visible wheel, sketching its simpler connections in my notebook while Pathik checked the diagrams against what he'd remembered. The deeper we looked, the clearer it became that someone had designed the hall as more than a room full of flutes: the moving shutters changed which channels carried wind, allowing the music to shift naturally over time.
I had been wrong about one thing already. The heavy chime wasn't meant to be struck by the rod at all; it should've swung freely when the redirected air reached it, while the rod controlled the shutter that determined when that happened. With the connection damaged, part of the chime's weight was pressing where it didn't belong, and the ugly rattle was only the most obvious symptom.
"Whoever made this was amazing," I murmured, studying the maintenance drawing. I could picture the builders measuring how the wind entered different openings, shaping channels to carry it, and testing one arrangement after another until the sounds fit together. The amount of patience involved was almost offensive, and I wanted desperately to know how many failed versions had existed before this one.
Pathik smiled and told me that the Air Nomads had valued practical skill as well as meditation. Their ability to bend air made some jobs easier, but buildings still needed careful design, and wind-powered mechanisms still required wood, rope, stone, and people who knew how to maintain them. I liked that much better than imagining every problem had been solved by waving a hand and producing a gust.
By midday, we'd identified several damaged parts and a possible way to lock the main wheel. We hadn't repaired anything, but that was fine; I had more questions than I'd brought with me, and the list was growing faster than I could write. Pathik insisted we return for food before continuing, which I accepted only because my stomach had begun making the decision for me.
On the way out, I stood once more near the central platform and listened to the incomplete music. The bent chime rang harshly whenever the wheel shifted, but beneath that sound I could hear the quieter instruments continuing exactly as their builders had intended. I wanted to restore that part of the hall so badly that I caught myself smiling before we even reached the stairs.
***
The kitchen table became my workshop that evening. I arranged sticks, pebbles, scraps of cord, and a little wooden spool across its surface, using them to build a rough model of the wheel and the rods attached to it. My first attempt fell apart the moment I released it, scattering enough pieces across the floor that Pathik looked up from his herbs with an expression of mild concern.
"Everything all right?" he asked, watching a pebble roll beneath the bench. I retrieved it and examined the string, trying to understand why my brilliant design had survived for exactly no seconds. "The structure doesn't stay up," I admitted. "Apparently that's important."
He laughed, then asked me what supported the real mechanism. I began describing the enormous wooden beams fixed into the mountain, their broad bases, and the stone anchors I'd seen beside the wheel. Halfway through the explanation, I realized that my model depended on three loose sticks leaning against one another and had no reason to remain upright.
I rebuilt it on a flat board with the supports tied in place. The next version stayed up, although turning the little wheel caused a pebble to swing wildly and knock another piece off the table. I caught the pebble before it reached Pathik's tea and moved the whole experiment farther away from anything breakable.
Hours passed with surprising speed. I changed the length of the cords, added a second arm, and tested how a small counterweight moved when I turned the spool, sometimes discovering that my predictions were wrong for reasons I didn't understand until I tried again. Every successful adjustment made me want to investigate another part, and I forgot entirely about the fact that I'd complained that morning about spending twenty minutes carrying water.
Pathik joined me after finishing his work, and I showed him the model with more enthusiasm than I usually devoted to anything involving chores. He listened carefully, then asked what would happen if one of the cords snapped, a question that seemed perfectly reasonable until I tested it. The counterweight dropped, the arm swung backward, and my little structure collapsed in a spectacularly undignified heap.
For several seconds we stared at the wreckage. Then I began laughing, because the alternative was admitting I'd spent three hours designing a machine that couldn't survive losing one string. Pathik chuckled too, though he reminded me that this was exactly why experimenting with a model was safer than discovering the same flaw in the actual mechanism.
I went to bed with the model partly rebuilt and my notebook full of diagrams. There was something satisfying about the challenge that I couldn't quite explain, especially since I wasn't trying to impress Pathik or win a reward. I just wanted to know how it worked, and that seemed to be enough to make the hours disappear.
***
We returned the following morning carrying rope, several wooden wedges, a few hand tools, and more caution than I'd felt like bringing. The wind was weaker than the day before, so the large wheel turned slowly, pausing whenever a lull passed over the eastern openings. Pathik and I checked the floor around the mechanism first, making certain that fallen pieces and loose stones wouldn't become problems if we needed to move quickly.
The maintenance board showed a wooden stop that could be slid beneath one of the wheel's spokes. The original handle had broken, leaving the stop partly jammed inside its housing, and I spent several minutes examining the arrangement before suggesting that we clear the debris around it. Pathik did most of the careful work while I watched the alignment and compared it with the diagram, since the gap around the stop was too narrow to reach safely with my hands.
Eventually the piece shifted. We waited for the wind to ease, then guided the heavy stop into its proper notch, allowing the wheel to settle against it rather than forcing it to a sudden halt. Pathik secured a second brace beneath the assembly, and we checked both supports before approaching any of the connected rods.
"Okay," I murmured, watching the now-motionless wheel. "That was satisfying."
"It was," Pathik agreed, though he looked toward the hanging counterweights rather than celebrating. "And now we can examine what needs attention without the machinery moving beneath us."
I'd been expecting that a closer look would reveal one obvious failure. Instead, I found several old ropes with frayed fibers, a loose fitting near the upper bracket, and a pivot so stiff it barely moved when I tested it with a long wooden probe. The cracked support was more serious than it appeared from the floor, because the split ran along the wood in the direction of the force passing through it.
We made notes and checked the drawing without attempting to repair the split. The support would need to be replaced or professionally reinforced, and neither of us knew enough about the strength of the old beams to improvise a permanent fix. That was frustrating, but I could understand the difference between being curious about a mechanism and being qualified to declare it safe.
A smaller piece near the counterweight caught my attention. The maintenance diagram showed a short arm pivoting around a metal pin, while the real arm sat at an awkward angle and seemed unable to return fully to its original position. I wondered whether a counterweight on the opposite side had settled too low, pulling the arm sideways and forcing the bracket to carry more strain than it should.
I explained the possibility to Pathik, following the connections with the end of my pencil. He listened and agreed that the balance looked wrong, though he repeatedly reminded me that we couldn't be sure which direction the load would shift until we understood all the linked parts. I knew he was right, but the more I stared at the drawing, the more convinced I became that raising the weight just a little would relieve pressure on the damaged joint.
It was one of those ideas that became more appealing each time I repeated it to myself. The peg holding the weight had several notches, and the diagram clearly showed that adjustments could be made during maintenance while the wheel was locked. I couldn't read every faded instruction, but I thought I understood the arrangement well enough to test a very small change.
Pathik stood beside the main support while I moved to the counterweight's locking peg. We agreed on a single notch and on stopping immediately if the mechanism shifted the wrong way, then I carefully raised the weight a few inches. For the first heartbeat nothing happened, and I felt a little surge of satisfaction at seeing the arrangement behave as expected.
Then the rod moved in the wrong direction. The stiff pivot pulled sideways, a faint creak came from above us, and dust fell from the cracked bracket as the split widened. I stared at the wood, suddenly aware that a little mechanical model and a huge assembly of old beams were very different things.
"Stop there," Pathik said, his voice firm enough to cut through my thoughts. I took my hands away from the peg, which had locked the weight in its new position, and watched the damaged bracket strain beneath the additional load. Releasing it immediately seemed tempting, but the wooden arm had already shifted, and I couldn't know whether dropping the weight back into place would snap something else.
Pathik moved to the maintenance diagram while I remained beside the counterweight. Another faint creak traveled through the support, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with my bending. I had made the wrong adjustment, and the mechanism was telling me so in the clearest language wood possessed.
"There's a secondary brace beneath that arm," Pathik said, tracing a faded line on the board. "Find it, but don't move the peg until we've supported the connection."
I crouched beside the lower housing and discovered the brace half-buried beneath dust and an old coil of rope. It was a heavy length of timber shaped to fit between the wooden arm and a slot in the supporting stone, and lifting it was more difficult than I'd expected. Pathik helped me raise it while I guided the upper end into place, careful to keep my hands away from the strained joint.
The timber settled against the stone with a deep knock. We wedged the lower end securely, checked that the brace was taking some of the load, and only then returned to the counterweight. I loosened the peg slowly while Pathik watched the arm, allowing the weight to descend to its original notch without dropping freely.
A final creak echoed through the hall as the bracket eased back. The mechanism stopped moving, and the new brace held the wooden arm in a safer position. I stepped away with my heart beating much faster than the task had warranted and stared at the crack I'd helped make worse.
For a while, neither of us said anything. The other instruments continued their soft music, almost insultingly unconcerned that I'd nearly brought part of the old mechanism down on our heads. I sat on the nearest stone bench, looking at my dusty fingers and trying to decide which part of the mistake annoyed me most.
"I saw it didn't match the diagram," I admitted eventually, staring toward the bracket. "I thought it was just old and shifted. I shouldn't have moved it."
Pathik sat beside me rather than standing over me. He didn't tell me it was fine, because the wood was more damaged than it had been an hour earlier, and he didn't pretend that understanding the problem afterward made the decision harmless. "You're right," he said gently. "We should have identified what every connection was carrying before changing the weight."
I winced at the word *we*. He'd been cautious from the beginning, while I'd been the one impatient to see whether my theory worked. I told him as much, and he acknowledged that I'd pressed for the adjustment, but he also reminded me that he had agreed to supervise it and should have insisted we stop until the unknown connection was understood.
That didn't erase my responsibility. It did make the conversation feel less like a judgment and more like two people working out how to avoid making the same mistake. I thought about the difference for a moment, then looked toward the locked wheel again.
"So now it needs a new bracket," I said, unhappy with how ordinary the answer sounded. I'd wanted to restore something magnificent, and instead I'd created one more job for whoever eventually repaired it. "That's going to take a while."
"Probably," Pathik agreed. "We can leave this section braced and untouched until someone qualified can inspect it. There are other things in this hall we may be able to repair safely."
I looked at the hanging instruments, several of which lay scattered beneath their supports. At first I wanted to argue that fixing bells wasn't nearly as interesting as restoring the main wheel, but the thought collapsed under its own stupidity. Making something work safely was part of the challenge, not an irritating obstacle someone had invented to stop me having fun.
"Okay," I answered, standing after a few minutes. "Let's do the smaller ones."
We spent the remainder of the morning securing the mechanism and placing a clear warning beside it. I copied the damaged connection into my notebook, marking the location of the crack, the secondary brace, and the counterweight that shouldn't be moved without a better understanding of the system. It was a less exciting page than the diagrams I'd drawn the previous evening, but I suspected it was the most useful one.
We left the larger assembly alone after that. I was still annoyed with myself when we returned to the kitchen, and I spent part of lunch sulking over my rice while Pathik spoke about ordinary things like the weather and what needed repairing around the temple. He didn't demand that I become cheerful immediately, which I appreciated, and by the time the meal ended I was already thinking about the smaller instruments we'd noticed near the hall's northern wall.
***
Repairing bells was considerably less glamorous than working on an enormous wind-powered machine. It involved dust, frayed cords, old knots, and a surprising number of insects that seemed to believe the abandoned instruments belonged to them. Nevertheless, it was something Pathik and I could do without attempting to support several hundred pounds of moving wood above our heads, which I had reluctantly decided was a desirable quality in a project.
We began with the bells that had fallen onto the lower floor. Several were dented beyond easy repair, but two remained sound, and the carved markings beside their former supports showed where they'd originally hung. I cleaned them with a soft cloth while Pathik inspected the nearby fittings, then we replaced the rotten cords and practiced a knot that held securely without cutting into the material.
My first knot slipped apart as soon as I tested it. The second tightened into such an ugly lump that I couldn't adjust it without undoing the entire arrangement, and the third might have been mistaken for a small sea creature suffering a particularly unpleasant medical condition. Pathik showed me the movement again, slower this time, and I finally managed something I could tug without it immediately falling apart.
"There," I said, examining the knot with cautious pride. "That's actually useful."
Pathik smiled and asked me to repeat it twice before letting me handle the bell. I did, partly because I wanted to prove I'd learned and partly because having my knots fail above my head seemed like an awful way to discover a mistake. Once the cords were ready, we hung the bells at the marked positions and stepped away to let the wind test them.
At first, nothing happened. Then a gentle breeze entered through the northern channel, and the two bells rang together in clear, delicate notes that seemed to hang in the chamber after the wind had moved on. I looked up, surprised by how much prettier the sound was when the instruments weren't rattling against damaged supports.
Pathik stood beside me, listening with a quiet smile. For a moment he seemed much farther away than the few steps between us, and I wondered what it felt like to hear a sound you remembered from people who were no longer here. He didn't make a speech about the past, and I didn't interrupt him to ask for one.
Eventually he told me that children once tried to manipulate the hall's instruments into making ridiculous noises. One group had been determined to imitate a flock of angry ostrich-horses and had succeeded so enthusiastically that their instructor couldn't conduct a lesson until someone restored the original arrangement. I laughed hard enough that I had to sit on the stone ledge, partly because I could imagine myself doing exactly the same thing.
"Did the teacher make them fix it?" I asked when I recovered. Pathik nodded and admitted that several students had spent the entire next afternoon returning the shutters to their proper settings. I considered that an entirely fair punishment, although I suspected I'd have enjoyed it more than the instructor intended.
The hollow wooden instruments were less cooperative than the bells. Some had become clogged with leaves and dust, and one had apparently served as an insect nursery for generations. I wore a cloth over my nose while cleaning them and still sneezed often enough that Pathik eventually asked whether I wanted to take a break.
I refused for another five minutes, then reconsidered when a particularly large cloud of dust emerged from a wooden tube. The hall was supposed to teach breathing, but inhaling a hundred years of powdered debris didn't strike me as a useful part of the curriculum. I sat by the central platform, drank water, and watched a little patch of sunlight move gradually across the floor.
We worked in short sessions over the next two days. Several instruments began producing clearer notes once their openings were cleaned, and we repaired the cords of two more accessible chimes, leaving anything high above the floor untouched. The hall was nowhere near restored, but it slowly changed from a room full of uneven rattles into a place where the surviving notes could be heard properly.
I began noticing how the sounds shifted through the day. Morning winds often entered from a different angle than the afternoon breezes, and the tall openings along the eastern wall produced gentler music whenever the sea air weakened. After sunset, cooler air moved down through some of the passages from the shaded mountain, altering which instruments carried the strongest notes.
That last observation reminded me of the terrace. I'd watched sunlight warm the stone and affect the nearby air before seeing cooler currents move through the shaded passages as the sun descended, and now the hall was letting me hear the effects of changing airflow. I made another note in my book, connecting it to the earlier sketch, but left the question of Coldbending's possible interaction with those currents for another day.
One afternoon, while we were eating near the central platform, Pathik told me about Gyatso visiting the temple years earlier. He didn't claim to know every detail of the monk's life, but he remembered a cheerful man who seemed to understand that children sometimes learned better when allowed to laugh. I asked whether he had been as good at inventing games as he seemed, and Pathik smiled in a way that answered me before he spoke.
"He was exceptionally good at finding trouble without appearing to look for it," Pathik said, taking a sip of tea. "Though I suspect he'd have insisted that it was all part of the lesson."
I grinned at that. I could easily imagine Gyatso encouraging a group of young students to turn an ordinary exercise into a competition while their instructor tried to maintain a serious expression. The picture made the empty hall feel a little less distant, as though the people who'd once lived here might have understood some of the same ridiculous things I found entertaining.
Pathik didn't stay sad for long, nor did he pretend he never missed them. We finished lunch while the bells rang overhead, then returned to work without attempting to turn the afternoon into a lesson about the meaning of loss. The hall had a job for us, and I wanted to hear what it would sound like when the next instrument worked again.
***
By the seventh morning, I had begun spending time in the hall even when there was nothing to repair. The central platform was comfortably sheltered from the wind, and the sounds of the surviving instruments made it easier to notice when my attention drifted. I liked being there because it was beautiful, but I was also curious whether the original breathing exercises could help with Mara's lessons.
Pathik agreed to show me a simple practice he'd remembered from the hall's diagrams. We sat opposite each other on the carved stone floor, facing the northern instruments where one long wooden flute produced a low, steady hum. He asked me to close my eyes, listen for that note, and observe what happened whenever another sound attracted my attention.
It was easy for approximately twenty seconds. Then three bronze bells rang overhead, and I imagined them hanging from the towers of an enormous floating city where spirits rode between rooftops on transparent fish. The fish were surprisingly practical transportation, and I'd begun planning a network of underwater streets through the clouds when Pathik spoke.
"Where did your attention go?" he asked, his voice gentle enough that I didn't feel caught doing something wrong. I opened my eyes and confessed that I'd been building a floating city, which made him smile. "And did you notice when you stopped listening to the flute?" he asked.
I thought about it and shook my head. The hum had become part of the imaginary city, no different from the sounds I'd invented for the spirit market, and I'd completely forgotten that it came from a real instrument across the hall. Pathik suggested trying again without attempting to suppress my thoughts, only noticing when I chose to follow them.
I closed my eyes and listened. The low note moved steadily beneath the other sounds, occasionally growing softer when the wind shifted, and I let my breathing settle without forcing it into a rigid count. Images appeared almost immediately—a mountain full of sleeping dragons, a royal council of mushrooms, a sky bison wearing an absurdly small hat—but this time I noticed them forming rather than disappearing into them.
I enjoyed the pictures for a moment and returned to the sound. Nothing terrible happened when I let an interesting thought pass without following it all the way to its imagined conclusion, which was a surprisingly useful discovery. By the time Pathik asked me to open my eyes, I was still imagining strange things, but I also knew where I was sitting and could hear the flute clearly.
"Better?" he asked, watching me with mild curiosity. I nodded and admitted that I still got distracted, but I'd started noticing before I completely lost track of everything else. Pathik smiled and said that recognition was part of the practice, not evidence that I was failing it.
The distinction mattered more than I'd expected. I'd always enjoyed getting lost in my imagination, and I didn't want to become someone who treated every daydream as a problem to eliminate. Learning when to return my attention seemed much more useful than trying to make my mind quiet all the time.
I brought out the shallow bowl of water I'd carried into the hall and placed it on the stone before me. Pathik shifted back to give me room, reminding me to stop if I felt the familiar headache or numbness that sometimes followed my experiments. I agreed and raised one hand several inches above the surface, keeping my posture comfortable instead of leaning forward until my shoulders tightened.
The first attempt produced nothing. The second brought the faint pressure I'd come to associate with subtracting energy, but it vanished when a group of upper chimes rang unexpectedly and captured my attention. I let the distraction pass, settled my breathing, and began again without becoming particularly irritated.
This time the sensation remained for several heartbeats. The water near the edge of the bowl cooled slightly, then a delicate white trace formed where the liquid touched the stone. I watched it thicken into a tiny ring of frost, no wider than a fingernail, before deliberately releasing the technique.
My fingers tingled, and the beginning of a headache pressed faintly behind my eyes. I set my hand in my lap and waited rather than pushing through the discomfort, remembering that I'd already discovered the consequences of stubbornly attempting one more experiment. The frost lingered for several seconds before melting as the water and surrounding stone warmed it again.
"That seemed more deliberate," Pathik observed, looking at the bowl. I nodded and told him I'd noticed my concentration slipping sooner than usual, which made it easier to stop and settle before the pressure became uncomfortable. He didn't pretend to know exactly what had changed in my bending, only that greater awareness might make almost any difficult practice safer and more consistent.
I wrote down the result and drew a small diagram beside it. My Coldbending hadn't changed into airbending or some new mysterious form, and I still couldn't freeze an entire bowl on command. I'd simply become a little better at doing one small thing without losing track of myself, which was enough progress to make me smile.
For a while, I sat listening to the hall and watching the last frost dissolve. The little toy sky bison we'd found now rested safely in my room, waiting for a replacement leg, and I wondered what the child who'd owned it would think of the strange boy using their old meditation hall. I hoped they'd at least appreciate that the bells were ringing again.
***
The next morning, I woke with a powerful desire to remain exactly where I was. My shoulders ached from carrying supplies and reaching around the old instruments, and the blanket over my sleeping mat was warm enough that leaving it felt like a decision that required serious justification. I lay there listening to the wind outside, considering whether I could reasonably spend an entire day doing nothing without making Pathik worry I'd become ill.
Then I remembered Mara's instructions. I'd practiced the breathing sequence for several days, but returning to Keshan would mean showing someone else whether I'd actually improved, which sounded rather less comfortable than practicing alone. The prospect was exciting enough that I finally crawled out of bed, though not before promising myself another nap later.
I practiced on the eastern terrace after breakfast. The sun was still low, so the air beside the stone railing felt cooler than it had during the previous afternoon, and a gentle current moved through the shaded passage. I followed the familiar sequence slowly, letting each movement settle before starting the next, and noticed that my feet no longer demanded nearly as much attention.
The improvement wasn't perfect. My right shoulder still tightened when I became distracted, and I caught myself holding my breath during the fourth repetition, but I corrected both without needing to stop and begin everything again. When a gust disturbed my balance, I adjusted instead of fighting it, and by the end of the session I felt pleasantly tired rather than frustrated.
Pathik found me stretching near the railing. He asked whether I'd like to help clean one of the smaller storehouses after lunch, and I considered pretending not to hear, but the warmth in his expression suggested that he knew exactly what was passing through my mind. I agreed with a sigh, then spent the afternoon sorting old baskets, jars, and pieces of cloth that had somehow survived in a dry room behind the kitchens.
The work wasn't fascinating, but it needed doing. I also discovered a few small bronze fittings that might be useful for future repairs in the hall, though I resisted the urge to declare them suitable without checking their condition. Finding something interesting in a chore didn't necessarily make the chore enjoyable, but it helped.
Bera arrived the following morning, announcing himself with the signal bell at the lower station. I was in the kitchen when the sound rang out, attempting to shape dough around a vegetable filling without letting half of it escape. The little bun I'd made looked more like a flattened mushroom than anything from a respectable bakery, and I was considering whether the appearance mattered when Pathik glanced toward the window.
"Someone's arrived," he observed, smiling when I immediately looked up. "Perhaps it's Bera. He mentioned he might travel this way again before heading to Keshan."
I washed the flour from my fingers and accompanied him toward the lift, trying not to look too eager. We found the fisherman beside a basket of supplies, his blue headscarf tied beneath a weathered face that brightened when he saw us. He greeted Pathik warmly, then turned toward me with a grin.
"Got news for you, boy," he said, settling the basket on the stone. "Those two youngsters are doing fine. Nima's arranged passage toward the mainland, and Tavi's ankle is almost healed."
I smiled before I could stop myself. The last time I'd seen them, Tavi had still needed a walking stick and Nima had been worried about whether they'd ever find a safe way across the sea. Knowing that they'd made it to Bera's village and were preparing for the next part of their journey made me unexpectedly happy.
"Good," I said, leaning against the railing. "Did he find a dragon yet?"
Bera barked out a laugh. He said Tavi had asked exactly the same question about me, apparently convinced we were engaged in a competition neither of us had officially agreed to. I told Bera to wish him luck and ask him not to get himself eaten, which the fisherman promised to do with an expression suggesting that he expected the conversation to be entertaining.
Bera's boat was leaving for Keshan the next morning. Pathik needed a few more supplies and had already been considering another trip, so he accepted the offer of passage after confirming that the weather looked favorable. I tried to remain composed when he turned to ask whether I wanted to accompany him, but there wasn't much point pretending the answer was anything other than yes.
I packed that evening, bringing my notebook, water flask, a little food, and the blue ceramic cup I'd purchased from Mara. I wanted to show her that I'd actually been using it, though I wrapped it carefully enough that it couldn't knock against the other objects in my bag. I also brought some of the diagrams I'd made of the Hall of Whispering Winds, not because I expected Mara to repair the mechanism, but because I suspected she'd understand why I found it so interesting.
The crossing was calm the following morning. The wind filled Bera's sail without making the deck lean too severely, and I spent part of the voyage watching the island diminish behind us. Daro asked why I kept moving my hands through little patterns while sitting near the bow, and I explained that I was practicing firebending forms without actually producing fire.
He looked at me skeptically, then attempted to imitate the movement. His feet became tangled almost immediately, and Bera laughed so hard that he had to lean against the railing. I showed Daro where his back foot should go, only to realize that explaining a movement was considerably harder than performing it myself, especially when the other person kept asking why his shoulders mattered.
Eventually Daro returned to helping with the sail, and I decided that Mara deserved a little more credit for her patience. It was one thing to recognize a mistake in my own stance and another to explain it clearly enough that someone else could correct it. I settled back against a crate and let the sea breeze move through my hair, enjoying the fact that no one was asking me to demonstrate anything complicated.
Keshan appeared through the morning haze a short while later. The green-roofed houses clustered above a harbor full of fishing boats, and the market was already busy by the time we reached the pier. I recognized several streets from our previous visit, along with the waterwheel near the lower workshops and the familiar smell of spices drifting from the food stalls.
We visited the woodcarver before going to Mara's workshop. I wanted to see whether the little sky bison was still there, though I didn't have enough money to purchase it even if it hadn't been sold. To my relief, the figure remained near the center of the display, still wearing its sleepy expression and looking as though it had better things to do than wait beneath a market awning.
The elderly carver recognized me and asked whether I'd saved enough yet. I admitted that I hadn't, then told him about the damaged toy we'd discovered in the meditation hall and asked whether replacing a wooden leg was difficult. He explained that the answer depended on the grain of the wood and the condition of the joint, then offered to examine the toy if I brought it on another visit.
I thanked him and continued uphill with Pathik. The little carved sky bison was tempting, but I'd learned something from spending nearly all my money on food during the first trip, and I wasn't eager to repeat the experience. I still bought one honey-sesame cake when we passed the familiar stall, though this time I stopped at one and saved the remaining coins.
Pathik noticed. He didn't congratulate me for the extraordinary achievement of buying a single pastry, which was probably for the best, but I saw the corner of his mouth rise when I carefully tucked the change back into my pouch. The cake was just as good as I remembered, and I ate it slowly while we walked toward the quieter streets near the pottery workshops.
Mara's building looked almost unchanged. Rows of finished bowls and jars stood beneath the front awning, and warmth drifted from the kiln room at the back, carrying the dry scent of heated clay. Ren sat at the wheel shaping a narrow vase, and he looked up when I entered with Pathik.
"It's the turtleduck boy," Ren announced, grinning as he wiped his hands on a cloth. "You back to see whether your masterpiece survived?"
I grinned and glanced toward the drying shelves. "Mostly. Also, I'm here to practice."
"Mara's going to be thrilled," he said in a tone that suggested the opposite. He called toward the back room, and her voice answered immediately, telling him that if another customer wanted a custom glaze he should explain the waiting time before promising anything.
Ren laughed and informed her that it wasn't a customer. A moment later Mara appeared in the doorway with her sleeves rolled up and clay dust along one cheek, looking from my face to Pathik with a guarded expression that gradually turned into recognition. "Oh, it's you," she said. "Have you been practicing, or have you spent ten days setting things on fire?"
"Practicing," I answered, smiling despite the question. "No fires. I promised."
She studied me for a moment before glancing toward Pathik, who confirmed that I'd been working on the breathing and stance exercises. Mara seemed satisfied with that answer, although she didn't immediately praise me or assume I'd mastered anything. She pointed toward the rear courtyard and told me to show her the sequence before we discussed actual flames.
I followed her outside, recognizing the water barrel, herb pots, and the wooden shelf she'd moved away from the doorway after my previous visit. The space felt less intimidating than it had the first time, though I was suddenly aware that performing alone on the temple terrace and doing it under Mara's eyes were different experiences. I set my bag beside the wall, loosened my shoulders, and took my place on the packed earth.
Mara watched my first sequence without saying anything. I shifted my weight through the movements, inhaling as my arm returned and exhaling as it extended, keeping my shoulders as relaxed as I could manage. The last step was a little awkward because I was thinking about where she stood, but I finished without losing my balance and waited for her verdict.
"Again," she said, giving nothing away. I repeated the movement and caught my right shoulder rising too high, so I lowered it before continuing, earning a brief nod from her. On the third attempt, the entire sequence felt smoother, and I was almost disappointed when it ended.
Mara circled me once, examining my feet and the line of my shoulders. "Better," she admitted at last. "Your stance still isn't perfect, and you're thinking too hard when someone's watching, but at least you aren't throwing yourself forward like you're trying to fall through a door."
I smiled, relieved that the work I'd done hadn't disappeared the moment I stood in front of her. "I practiced a lot," I told her, then remembered the hours I'd spent repairing chimes instead of working on the exercises. "Well, most days. I got distracted a few times."
"I believe that," Mara said, and the faint smile on her face suggested she wasn't surprised. She moved a small clay marker onto a flat stone several paces away, then returned to stand beside me. "This isn't a target. I just want you to keep your attention in one direction while you maintain a small flame."
I looked toward the marker and nodded. Mara demonstrated first, extending one hand while inhaling gently, then allowing a candle-sized flame to appear above her fingers. The fire moved as she breathed without flaring outward or shrinking suddenly, and she maintained it through several slow breaths before closing her hand.
Watching her was almost irritating. The movement looked effortless, but I knew how many things she was controlling at once, and I suspected that the relaxed expression on her face represented years of experience rather than a lack of difficulty. She gestured for me to try, and I stepped into the position we'd practiced.
The first attempt failed before a flame appeared. I gathered the familiar warmth inside my chest, became excited about finally using it, and tightened my breath so abruptly that the sensation disappeared. Mara sighed, although she didn't sound angry, and reminded me that I'd been doing the sequence correctly until I started trying to force a result.
I tried again with less urgency. A tiny orange spark flickered above my fingertips, then vanished as I drew the next breath, and I felt my shoulders rise with the effort. Mara told me to rest for a moment rather than chasing the spark, then asked what I'd noticed when it disappeared.
"I stopped breathing normally," I admitted. "I felt it happen and wanted to keep it there, so I kind of held everything still."
Mara nodded and gestured toward the workshop. "You saw how I adjusted the kiln without making a huge flame," she said. "The fire keeps moving even when it looks steady. You have to give it a path, not trap it in one moment."
I thought about the hall's wind instruments. A note could sound steady without the air inside its wooden tube becoming motionless, and the moment the airflow stopped, the note would stop as well. The comparison wasn't a complete explanation of firebending, but it gave me something familiar to imagine that didn't involve squeezing the flame into place.
I looked toward the clay marker again and tried to forget about impressing Mara. My feet settled into their stance, my shoulders relaxed, and I drew a breath that felt ordinary rather than dramatic. The warmth appeared as I moved my hand forward, a thin current extending along my arm with the exhale.
A small flame bloomed above my palm. It was orange, no bigger than a candle flame, and it trembled when I noticed it, but I kept breathing rather than clenching my fist or freezing my body in place. On the next breath it narrowed slightly, then steadied as I continued the motion.
I was so pleased I almost laughed, which would've ruined everything. Instead, I let my attention return to the movement and took another measured breath, feeling the little flame remain for another moment before I deliberately brought my hand down. The fire vanished without a burst, leaving warmth along my fingers and a faint ache in my shoulder.
For a second, I only stared at my hand. Then I looked toward Mara and found her watching me with a small, unmistakably pleased smile. "Three breaths," she said. "Not bad."
I grinned so hard that my cheeks hurt. "I did it," I said, more to myself than to her, because the feeling was still new. It hadn't been a big flame or a dangerous technique, but it was the first time I'd created fire and maintained it long enough to choose when it ended.
"You did," Mara agreed, though she raised a finger before I could get carried away. "Once. We'll need to see whether you can repeat it without tiring yourself out, and we aren't doing that until you've rested."
I nodded, still smiling. My fingers were warm but not burned, and the effort had left me tired in a way that felt closer to ordinary exercise than the headache that accompanied too much Coldbending. I wanted to try again immediately, but this time I understood why waiting might be part of learning to control something.
Pathik joined us after a while, having spent the lesson speaking with a merchant in the front room. Mara explained what I'd accomplished and what still needed work, and the old man listened without claiming credit for teaching me firebending. He seemed pleased when she agreed that I could return for occasional lessons, subject to her work schedule and my willingness to follow instructions.
"He's not hopeless," Mara told him, glancing toward me. "Just distractible and impatient. I'll take that over someone who refuses to listen at all, provided he doesn't make a habit of ignoring me."
"I'll listen," I said, then noticed the look she gave me. I thought about the damaged bracket in the hall, the vase she'd caught on my previous visit, and the unpleasant realization that a clever idea could become dangerous if I refused to question it. "I'll try harder," I corrected, and Mara seemed to approve of that answer more.
She showed me a shorter exercise to practice between visits, still without producing flames, and made me repeat the movements until she was satisfied that I understood their order. I drew a quick sketch in my notebook so I wouldn't confuse the positions later, then showed her the pages I'd made of the Hall of Whispering Winds when she asked what else I'd been studying.
Mara examined the diagrams with more interest than I'd expected. She didn't pretend to understand the whole mechanism, but she recognized the idea of directing airflow through adjustable channels, since controlling the draft mattered enormously in the operation of a kiln. When I described my mistake with the counterweight, she gave me a look of such immediate disapproval that I almost laughed.
"You adjusted a load-bearing mechanism without knowing which way the force would move?" she asked, returning the notebook. I admitted that I had, and she reminded me that old machinery could be just as unforgiving as fire when someone became impatient. "At least you had someone there who made you stop," she added, sounding more relieved than annoyed.
I nodded, unable to argue. What interested me most was how the hall's moving shutters affected the direction of the air while Mara's kiln used its vents and chimney to control heat. Both systems depended on understanding the movement of things people couldn't easily see, even though one was designed for music and the other for pottery. I added that comparison to my growing collection of questions, then closed the notebook before my thoughts carried me too far away from the conversation.
When Mara returned to the workshop, she allowed me to examine the little clay turtleduck I'd shaped during my previous visit. It remained on the drying shelf, its head too large and one of its feet crooked, but the surface was firmer and the neck hadn't collapsed. I held it carefully while Ren watched with the expression of someone who'd found a private source of entertainment.
"Still looks like it swallowed another turtleduck," he observed, leaning on his workbench. I turned the sculpture to examine its impressive round stomach and decided he was probably right, though that didn't make me like it any less. "He's supposed to look like that," I informed him, which only made Ren laugh harder.
Mara examined the clay and said it would probably be ready for firing with the next suitable small batch. She wasn't guaranteeing it would survive, particularly because my joins weren't as clean as they should've been, but she promised to give it a fair chance. I thanked her and returned it to the shelf, already curious how the finished piece would look once the clay changed color.
We left the workshop after arranging that I'd practice the new movements before my next visit. Ren waved from his wheel, and Mara told me to keep fire away from wooden shelves, which I assured her was now a personal priority. Her expression suggested she'd believe that when she saw it, and I found myself smiling as we stepped into the warm afternoon street.
I bought a single honey-sesame cake on the way back toward the harbor. It was just as good as the first one I'd tasted, but this time I still had coins left afterward, and I felt unreasonably pleased by that small achievement. Pathik didn't make a ceremony of it, though I saw him smile when I carefully returned the change to my pouch.
The boat journey home was quiet. I sat near the bow with my notebook open, reviewing the stance corrections while the islands moved slowly past, and occasionally looked toward my fingers as though expecting another flame to appear on its own. Nothing did, obviously, and I was glad of that; I wanted the next flame to be something I chose deliberately, in a place where it would be safe to practice.
When the sun began descending, the air over the water grew cooler against my face. I watched the last light move across the sea and remembered the terrace, where warm stone had sent air rising while shaded passages carried cooler currents downward. It was an observation I'd already written down twice, but seeing the day change around me made the question feel worth keeping.
I thought of removing warmth from a pocket of air, then deliberately stopped before deciding what would happen. I couldn't do it yet, and even if I could eventually learn, the effects might depend on moisture, surrounding temperatures, and the strange rules of my own bending. It was a problem for a future version of me who hopefully understood more than I did today.
"Thinking about something?" Pathik asked, settling beside me as the boat moved through a long gentle swell. I smiled and told him I'd been watching how the warmth changed when the sun went down, which seemed like the simplest truthful answer. He looked toward the darkening sea and said there was always more to notice when one learned to look carefully.
I agreed, then asked whether he thought there'd be anything good for dinner. He laughed at how quickly I'd changed subjects, but I didn't see much reason the two interests couldn't coexist. The movement of air was fascinating, and so was the prospect of a warm meal after a long day.
***
We reached the temple island before sunset and climbed the lower path toward the supply lift. My legs were tired, my stomach was beginning to make demands, and the little cord holding Tavi's shell had become warm against my skin after a day of traveling. I helped Pathik carry the lighter supplies into the kitchen, then asked whether I could visit the hall briefly before dinner.
He agreed as long as I stayed out of the damaged section and returned before the food was ready. I promised I would, though he gave me the amused look of someone who knew that I occasionally forgot the time whenever a thought caught my attention. I made my way through the eastern passages while the evening light stretched across the courtyards, following the familiar staircase down into the mountain.
The Hall of Whispering Winds was quiet when I entered. The lower chimes we'd repaired rang softly as the cooler evening air moved through the channels, and long shadows fell across the central platform beneath the high openings. The large wheel remained securely locked, its damaged support waiting for a repair beyond our present abilities, but the rest of the hall no longer sounded quite so abandoned.
I sat in the center and listened. The low wooden flute along the northern wall hummed when the wind reached it, and the bells answered in a delicate pattern that shifted without repeating exactly. I let my breathing settle with the sounds, enjoying the feeling of being somewhere that didn't require me to accomplish anything for a little while.
My imagination wandered almost immediately. I pictured a dragon made from golden fire curling around the towers of an ice palace, its wings sheltering a tiny city where people wore elaborate cloaks and argued about how much snow was acceptable on the rooftops. Then the dragon grew bored and fell asleep, which struck me as a perfectly reasonable conclusion to a busy day.
I smiled at the picture without losing track of the room around me. I could still hear the flute, feel the cool stone beneath my palms, and notice the slow movement of my breath. That wasn't the same as controlling my thoughts, and I didn't particularly want to control every one of them; it was simply nice to know I could return to the world whenever I chose.
I opened my notebook and looked at the page I'd marked with a little star. The sketch showed the terrace wall in sunlight, the cooler shaded passage, and arrows representing the currents I'd watched as the sun descended. Beneath it I'd written a question about what might happen if Coldbending removed energy directly from the air, and I added one final note: *Don't try until I understand the basics and can do it safely.*
There would be time for that later. I still needed to master ice before water or air training became possible under Death's conditions, and my current accomplishments barely extended beyond a thin ring of frost and a flame I could sustain for three breaths. Somehow that didn't discourage me as much as it might have a week earlier.
I placed the notebook in my bag and listened to the chimes one last time. The wind passed through the restored instruments, the music softened, and the old hall seemed content to continue without requiring an audience. For a moment, I wondered how many other forgotten places might be hidden across the temple island, then decided I didn't need to discover all of them immediately.
My stomach growled loudly enough that I heard it over the flute. I looked down, mildly offended that my body had apparently decided to interrupt a perfectly good moment, then got to my feet and brushed dust from my trousers. Pathik would be preparing dinner, and I had promised to return before he had to come searching for me.
I headed for the doors, already wondering whether I could build a miniature wind instrument for my room. A little wooden dragon with wings that moved when the breeze entered the window would be wonderful, although I'd need to make sure it didn't produce the same terrible noises as the damaged wheel. By the time I reached the stairs, I'd begun sketching the mechanism in my head and had nearly forgotten the most important part of my evening plans.
"Jinx? Dinner's ready," Pathik called faintly from somewhere in the upper passage, saving me from another detour through my own imagination. I called back that I was coming and quickened my pace, smiling as the hall's gentle music followed me into the corridor. I'd learned a little about breathing, a little about fire, and a great deal about what happened when I mistook an interesting idea for a complete understanding of how something worked.
Tomorrow there would be more exercises and more ordinary chores, and I would probably complain about both at least once. Tonight there was food, a warm place to sleep, and the comforting knowledge that the questions I'd written down weren't going anywhere. I was thirteen, after all, and I had plenty of time to figure out what to do with them.