Winter lingered, but not with snow. The Fire Nation's cold came in drafts — damp, creeping chills that hid in stone and bone. The kind that made joints ache and breath mist briefly, then vanish.
Inside the Emberleaf, the hearth was strong. Warmth hummed softly between cups and customers.
Alec was sweeping behind the counter when Linya waved him over, her knuckles wrapped in thin cloth to fight the cold.
"Boy," Linya said, her voice rough as worn stone, pushing a clay jar gently toward Alec. "Take this down to the basement. Put it in the salted ice sack — you remember how, don't you?"
She wiped her hands on her apron, eyes flicking toward the open window.
"This frost we're getting? It doesn't stick. Air's too damp," she muttered. "If we don't keep it cold enough, everything inside'll spoil."
Then she turned back to him, sighing. "And we're running low on ice again. Either we get more by tomorrow… or we'll have to throw the whole batch out."
Alec blinked. Ice?
There were no ice cellars here. No snowbanks to dig into. They were weeks from the nearest mountain trail. And besides — this was the Fire Nation.
He frowned, then turned away for a second, eyes narrowing in thought.
Ice… was the opposite of everything he'd been learning. Firebending, temperature control, energy direction. But then… his mind flickered.
Thermodynamics. Those high school old lessons from his past started coming back to him.-Conservation - Transfer - Equilibrium.
Heat wasn't just about adding warmth. It was about shifting it.
Removing it.
He stood still, breath shallow. That was it.
"Wait," he muttered to himself, "heat isn't just fire. It's motion… energy… loss of it too."
He looked down at his hand. If fire could excite molecules… then stillness, control — perhaps he could slow them. Not ignite. Still.
That night, after the customers had gone, Alec sat in the back courtyard.
He filled a bowl with water and held his hand over it. Not to heat, but to draw energy out.
Slow the motion. Guide the breath.
His first attempts did nothing. The water stayed tepid, sloshing gently.
[System Notice: Unknown Intent – Conflicting Element Detected]
Alec exhaled sharply. Of course. This wasn't fire. But something in his affinity — his sense of heat — resonated.
The second attempt he did slower. Not a push. A pull - just like waves in the ocean.
He envisioned the molecules like tiny dancers, then imagined himself slowing their rhythm, stilling their pace with presence alone. He reached with his mind, his will, and tried to slow the tempo. As if whispering to them, "Rest now. Wait."
After twenty minutes, the water's surface dulled slightly.
Not frozen. But no longer warm.
A slow, whispering chill.
[Firebending – Adaptive Mode Detected: Thermal Reversal Attempted (Progress: 3/100)]
Not ice as it was still far it. But it was something.
Still, questions stirred in him. He had seen Fire Nation soldiers with preserved meat. Cold drinks. Even blocks of ice in the kitchens of officers' estates. How? How did they get it?
That night, Alec dreamt of flames that curved backward, that pulled instead of pushed — smoke trailing into stillness, not sky.
He brought the bowl back the next night. This time, he angled his fan behind him, letting the resonance guide his breath rather than stir flame. Instead of pushing energy outward, he drew it in. Reversed the flow.
A thin mist crept along the water's edge.
[System Update: Thermal Reversal – Level 1 (27/1000)]→ Sub-Skill Detected: Heat Extraction – Passive Cooling Initiated
Alec blinked.
He hadn't even moved.
But the air around the bowl felt denser. Slightly heavier, like the atmosphere just before snowfall.
He kept returning, night after night, practicing when no one was around. Sometimes with bowls of water, sometimes with stones heated in the kitchen. Cooling them, not with wind, but with focus. With fire twisted inside-out.
One night, he dared more — dipping two fingers into the water before starting. Channeling the reversal not from above, but through contact. Letting the chill travel through his skin, a conduit instead of a source.
His fingers tingled — then numbed.
[Skill Progress: Thermal Reversal – 112/1000]→ New Threshold Unlocked: Molecular Stillness Sensitivity→ Note: Extended practice may cause local hypothermia. Use caution.
Alec smiled faintly, shaking his hand as warmth returned. Even pain was proof it was working.
He no longer thought of fire as just heat. It was motion. And this — this was the absence of it. Not waterbending. Not ice magic. Just… the other side of the same breath.
By the eighth night, a rim of frost kissed the bowl's edge.
Small. Incomplete.
But real.
[Skill Level Up: Thermal Reversal – Level 2 (203/2000)]→ Effect Gained: Local Temperature Suppression (30cm Radius, -5°C)→ System Insight: You are bending fire in reverse. You are learning to still the dance.
He stared at the frost, heart pounding with quiet pride.
No teacher. No scroll. Just a " blind " boy with a fan, a bowl of water and his knowledge. He smiled and said in his heart ' I think I can be considered a Genius to some extent in field of fire bending '. Little did he know that this was a resonance effect of his dual affinity trait.
It was midmorning, and the tavern room was unusually full for the hour — steam curling from chipped mugs, soldiers slouched into their seats, boots muddy from patrols. Alec moved between them with a practiced calm, tray balanced in one hand.
At a corner table, two off-duty Fire Nation soldiers leaned in close, their tones low but just loud enough to catch snatches of their talk.
"…One of 'em nearly froze my arm clean off. Thought I'd pissed myself, honestly."
Alec blinked, half-pretending to wipe down a nearby table.
"Oh, come on," the other said through a mouthful of bread, "you're being dramatic again."
"Not this time," the first replied, flexing his hand. "Girl couldn't have been more than seventeen. She moved like a ghost — water under the floor, through the walls. We had to torch the damn crates just to see her move."
The second laughed, but it was uneasy. "Yeah, well… they're locked up now. Not our problem."
"Still gives me chills. The air felt wrong. Like it didn't belong here."
"You think the higher-ups'll send 'em to the mines? Or… the pits?"
The first paused. "Nah. Heard the captain talking to that guy from the engineering crew. They're keeping the prisoners alive. For something. Don't know what."
The other scoffed. "Can't be just waterbenders. If they were rebels, they'd have shouted it. Tried to make a scene."
"They didn't need to. We were lucky to catch 'em asleep. That girl? She woke first and nearly drowned Karu in his boots."
Alec moved past, pretending not to listen, but his chest tightened. Waterbenders. Alive. Nearby. It had to be connected.
But… where?
No location had been mentioned. No name, no landmark. Alec filed away the details carefully.
"Still can't believe they managed to hide here this long," the second soldier muttered. "I mean… in the Fire Nation?"
"Yeah," the first said, voice lower now. "And did you hear what they're using that old factory for? Something about new storage, needed a ton of wood and steel. No clue why. Place always gave me the creeps."
The other grunted. "North side, right? Heard the builder crew grumbling a few weeks back - said the place smelled like mildew and something else… rot, maybe?"
They laughed again. "Probably the rebels."
But Alec's eyes narrowed.
North side. Old factory. Wood and steel.
And then he remembered.
Weeks ago, Rhoen had mentioned something offhand, something about carpenters getting paid triple to upgrade an old site for some "logistics expansion." Unusually hush-hush. High material demand. Too quiet since.
He hadn't thought much of it then.
But now?
Alec returned to the counter in silence, heart steady. Eyes thoughtful.