Ren's breath hitched and then went thin as thread.
Eyes closed, knees trembling, he obeyed the command to listen to the space between things.
A cold whisper threaded his skull: "Feel the music."
"Again," Lin said from the stone beside him.
"Don't think of wind. Think where the wind isn't. Don't clench—let the gap sing."
Ren pushed his jaw as if it were a stubborn latch.
The pendant at his throat lay flat under shirt.
His hands shook, fingers remembering the night the saw snapped.
"You mean—" Ren started, voice rough, and cut himself off.
"You mean channel it and not—drain myself?"
"Exactly," Lin said, soft and sharp in the same breath.
"You're siphoning marrow when you should be opening a door. Stop trying to be a lamp. Be a window."
Ren closed his eyes and tried Lin's way: not to push for power but to feel the weave of the air.
He breathed slow, like someone counting the seconds between heartbeats.
The Echo's voice threaded through that silence.
"THE ECHO: OBSERVATION—THIRD-PARTY METHOD RECOGNIZED. SUGGEST ADJUSTMENT."
"Shut up." Ren muttered.
He pictured a chime, then unraveled the image and let only the stillness remain.
For a moment the cliff offered a faint hum.
Lin tapped his glasses with a nail.
"Not bad. Now don't panic. Do not try to force it. Don't think about what will happen if you fail. Listen to the small music—let them tune you."
Ren nodded and inhaled the salty edge of cloud.
The world filled with quiet notes.
When he stopped hunting for a sensation, the sensations found the space between his ribs.
For two breaths nothing tore out of him.
For three breaths he hovered.
Kira's voice cut up the slope, sharp as solder.
"You alive up there or turning prayer into a hobby?"
"Alive," Ren croaked, and the sound came steadier than he expected.
He tried to hold the openness for forty seconds.
Lin hummed like someone impressed.
"Good. Don't gloat."
Lin's tone lost the teasing.
"This is work. We tune. We do not suck the marrow. Try again. Longer."
Ren tried again.
Breath became a metronome; his shoulders lowered as if the cliff were a hand catching him.
The pendant warmed faintly.
Time stretched.
At four minutes and change, his vision trembled; a white spike lanced across his temple.
Muscles went cotton and the world dipped.
He jammed fingers into the stone and counted back, teeth gritted.
"Stop," Lin ordered gently as Ren's knees folded.
Hands caught him before the cliff could claim him.
Kira reached his side, a look like worry and something harder on her face.
"You pushed too hard," Lin observed.
"You almost made a sacrifice."
"I didn't have a choice," Ren gasped, breath collapsing like a bell under water.
Lin brushed dust from Ren's sleeve.
"You asked how to channel, remember? You need repetition, not drama. Feel the current, don't drink it."
Ren's fingers curled over the pendant.
The Echo chimed once.
"THE ECHO: YOUR METHOD IS PRIMITIVE. THIRD-PARTY IS VALID. PROCEED."
Lin smirked.
"Even the machine agrees. That's rarer than you think."
Kira gave Ren a hard look.
"You listen to him. Not because he's nice. Because if you go on fainting we'll be carrying you like a sack of bad fortune."
Ren tried to smile and failed.
They trained until the sun pushed the cloud-edge like someone dragging a curtain.
Lin's corrections grew specific.
"Open the channel here," he said, pointing at Ren's throat.
"Don't push. Imagine the sky as a patient canal. Think in breath, not in wanting."
Ren obeyed and twice the echo answered—tiny, encouraging pulses.
The first felt like catching a fish.
The second brought a teasing shift in his limbs.
"You did that," Kira breathed.
"That was—less fatal."
Lin chewed the inside of his cheek, pleased.
"Progress. Not perfection. Pay attention: the pendant amplifies, but amplification without tuning is a bell that calls hammers."
"Do you think the Split Hammer knows how to tune?" Ren asked, throat dry.
"Probably," Lin said.
"They're better at breaking things into pieces that please their masters. We must assume they'll seek any poorly tuned focus."
Kira swore under her breath and spat into the wind.
"Then learn quick. We've little time."
Ren pushed through another minute, then another.
The Echo's tree shimmered at the edge of vision.
He ignored the numbers and listened instead.
At three minutes and fifty seconds, his vision went gold at the rim.
Something like a thread pulled loose inside him—an ease that made his knees light.
He managed four minutes thirty before a white strike of migraine laid him flat.
Lin sighed, not unsympathetic.
"You'll die of frustration before you die in battle. That's not a metaphor I enjoy."
Ren sat with his back to the wind and let his breath come slow.
The pendant lay cool against his skin.
"You taught me to listen," Ren said finally, voice raw.
"But what if listening draws more than I can handle?"
Lin's glasses caught the sunlight; his face softened for half a beat.
"Then you learn to tune your life, not hide it. This is a tool with temper. You can teach it to obey, or you can let it make you a beacon."
Kira picked up a pebble and tossed it down the slope.
"We don't have the luxury of time, Ren. The Guild and the Split Hammer smell blood. You need more than tricks. You need steadiness."
Ren's thumb traced the scar under his jaw.
He nodded once, small and resolute.
"Teach me," he said.
Lin's grin flickered like a lantern.
"Fine. But you owe me stories and a share of stubbornness."
They trained until twilight.
Lin showed pressure gauges and crude ways to map thermal currents, drawing diagrams in the dirt with a stick.
Kira argued over measurements.
"If you can measure a gust, you can predict a spike."
"Tools help," Lin said, handing Ren a thin metal device like a flat key with a hollowed tip.
"This measures subtle pressure shifts. Not elegant, not pretty—but useful."
Ren accepted it with fingers that trembled less.
Kira tapped the tool against his palm.
"Use it," she said, voice blunt.
"We need you alive, not heroic."
Lin rose, coat flapping like a patchwork flag.
"I leave at dawn. Curiosity satisfied, papers fuller."
He shrugged.
"You'll probably annoy me by surviving."
Kira shoved the tool into Ren's palm again, lower and more direct.
"Don't go proving prophecies right. Tune the thing. Measure the currents. Learn to be a channel, not a graveyard."
Ren looked at the small instrument—cool metal, not unlike the pendant in solidity.
He slid it into his pocket, fingers closing around it like anchoring a knot.
Night fell and the cliff breathed out the day.
Kira lingered a moment, then stepped closer.
She placed something in his hands with a hush that held an entire blunt affection.
"Kira—" Ren started.
She cut him off with a half grin and a warmth that sounded like threat and comfort.
"Use this. To measure the currents. Not for you to die, idiot."