“Right, you want to serve?” Rook sneered down at the condemned man, and snapped her gaze to Yaosen, “You wanted him to live? He doesn’t leave your sight. Anything he does from here on out is on your head.” She stabbed a finger into Yaosen’s chest before collecting her sword and turning on her heel to leave.

The great hall began to empty out behind her.

“Leave this to me,” Yaosen whispered to Torun, “Find Duu and be ready to get out of here if these aren’t the people we think they are.”

“Are you sure?” asked Torun, chest still heaving slightly with the aftereffects of a strenuous duel, “What if we need to-”

Halvard pulled the sword out of Torun’s hand, as he too made to leave. Torun relinquished it only reluctantly.

“This isn’t survival anymore. This is logic and cultural understanding. Leave that to a monk of the Light Temple.”

Torun glared after the Farwild woman, “Don’t be so sure.”

Yaosen smiled and ran off to catch up with Rook.

She was striding down streets made of black chips of volcanic rock. To left and right there were buildings carved into the black stone of the mountain. Beyond, there was nothing but glimmering fields of high-altitude ice. The peak of a mountain rose up at the far end of the main thoroughfare, the village having been constructed in a lopsided caldera of sorts.

“I want to apologize,” Yaosen started, “I’m not entirely sure what happened back there, but if we could just discuss-”

Rook spun on him, yellow hair flashing about her face, “What happened is you cheated! We have nothing to discuss.”

“I didn’t cheat. I uncheated. I mean… I stopped you from cheating.” Well done, Yoasen. The logic and cultural understanding of a Light Temple monk. You can’t even form words in the face of this woman’s fury.

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“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rook turned and continued walking. The big bearded man, Halvard, fell in tow behind her.

“Yes you do,” Yaosen dropped his voice, “You blinded Torun with lightbending.”

“Light… Bending?” it seemed as if Rook were tasting the worlds and found them bitter, “Light? Hah! You couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Further from the truth? I saw the gesture with-”

Yaosen stopped short, ensorcelled by a thought as the woman walked on without him.

“Further from the truth? You were communing with the shadows? Your town is named for the shadows. But… that’s not possible? Which of the elements would allow you to…” Yaosen was talking his way through it even as a cascade of thoughts and possibilities came crashing together. Everything he knew of the four elements would be called into question, but then again, everything he knew had already been called into question with Duu’s training.

“The obfuscation of light would be a new school of firebending beyond anything even the Light Temple masters could achieve,” Yaosen whispered to himself, “Learning to obscure light before even learning to focus it, before even learning to firebend would be like… well, like learning to treebend before learning to waterbend.”

Yaosen looked up, “You’re a shadowbender!”

He hadn’t meant to shout. But it had taken him so long to work through the possibilities that Rook was now well down the street.

The woman whirled, hand darting to her sword again. She was so fast Yaosen barely remembered seeing her close the distance before the blade was tucked under his chin, her snarl inches from his own placid features. Her eyes darted across his, playing across his face.

She let the sword drop, “I’ll let you live, only because no one who just heard you even knows what you’re talking about.”

Halvard stood behind her a ways up the street, looking confused. Some of the villagers milled about, frozen in the beginnings of their tasks as they watched the drama unfold.

As soon as Rook spun and began walking away once more, the villagers quickly resumed their work.

Yaosen was left standing there alone, with the condemned man Fenri, behind him. The longer it took for Rook to come around, the longer it would take him to find the avatar. And if Rook banished Yaosen, as she seemed to be the leader of these people, capable of killing with immunity, Yaosen might never find the avatar. The firebender he sought could be in the house next to him, weaving baskets, and Yaosen would never find out.

He had thrown away his best chance at completing his mission and ending his exile, and he had done it all to save a beast.

Yaosen turned to the gaunt man following him.

“You,” said the monk, “Have a lot of explaining to do.”

Fenri cringed.