Chapter 8

The men in dark green robes stared down at the boy, who lay on the ground, frozen with fear.

People spoke about the Dai Li in whispers. They were the Earth King's personal agents—always watching, always listening. Anyone who crossed the Dai Li disappeared. And now here they were, their eyes drilling into the boy's as if trying to find a reason for him to disappear, too.

Too late, the boy saw the man closest to him glance down at something on the ground. The whalebone knife. Its ivory handle stood out like a discarded yellow tooth on the packed dirt of the courtyard.

The boy scrambled to snatch up the knife, but the man had already bent over and picked it up. Unlike the two clean-shaven men behind him, the man who now held the boy's knife wore a short beard and seemed important. He was probably the one in charge.

"The mark of the so-called Truthspeakers," said the man as he ran his thumb over the slashed Earth Kingdom symbol etched into the knife handle. He narrowed his eyes at the boy. "What do you know about the Truthspeakers, boy?"

Pain throbbed in a line where the bullies had sliced his scalp. Truthspeakers? What was the man talking about?

"I-I don't know anything about them," he said.

The Dai Li agent studied the boy, as if examining his answer for flaws. "Hmm. You do seem a bit young to be involved in such…subversive activities."

"It seems very suspicious, sir," said one of the lead agent's subordinates. "We came to this section of the Lower Ring to search for the Truthspeaker headquarters. Now we find this boy and a knife bearing their symbol."

The lead agent turned back to the boy and stroked his beard. "Since you claim to know nothing about the Truthspeakers, then tell me this. Why is their symbol carved into the handle of your knife?"

"It-It's not my knife," the boy stuttered. He knew his answer sounded unconvincing, but it was the truth.

"A Water Tribe boy with a knife made from whale bone, which he says is not his," the agent mused. "How convenient."

"It's not mine, I swear!" The boy wished the Dai Li would go away. He wished he could disappear, run far away from them and their terrible eyes.

The Dai Li agent stared down the boy, his face a mask of cold suspicion. "Then whose knife is it?"

The boy swallowed. His tongue was suddenly thick and dry. The knife didn't belong to the boy, because he wasn't supposed to have it.

Because the knife belonged to his father.


The afternoon after the trade meeting found Aang sitting on the floor of his tent. His legs were crossed in lotus position, and his fists were pressed together with a black-and-white ribbon looped around his fingers. A small fire burned in a stone-lined depression in the middle of the floor. The fire provided only meager warmth, but he barely felt the arctic cold as he wove currents of heated air around him like a cloak. There were advantages to being both an airbender and a firebender.

As he meditated, Kanna's words echoed in his mind.

"We can allow the past to carry us like a river, going wherever the current takes us and eventually drowning in regret about what could have been. Or we can swim for the shore and find our own path and choose who we become."

Aang breathed in. He did not warm the air he breathed. The bracing chill that entered his lungs, prickling through every crevice of his chest, helped him clear his mind.

Before he could swim to shore, however, he first needed to find the riverbank. He had to let go of everything that was holding him back, everything that was dragging him down. He had to release his grip on guilt and worry and control and let the energy of the universe flow through him. Only when he was free of those things could he start swimming without losing himself in the current.

Aang imagined himself as a lotus blossom floating on water. He bobbed gently on the surface as the river carried him downstream.

Let go. He pictured the Eastern Air Temple and the crystal catacombs. Let it all go.

He breathed out. In that breath, for the first time in months, he felt a release. Memories of the air temple under the stars and the eerie glow of the catacombs dissolved into mist. His muscles softened, his body relaxed.

Then Aang remembered Katara. Her smile, her fingers caressing his face, the taste of her lips. Her tears. Her eyes, filled with horror as he convulsed with lightning. The vision of her weeping, sobs racking her shoulders as she clutched the empty husk of his body.

Instead of a lotus flower drifting on the water, he was a stone plunging into the abyss.

Aang gasped. His eyes snapped open. He breathed hard in the cold air.

It's her, he realized as his heart slowed its pounding against his ribs. Katara. She's the reason I can't let go of the past.

Aang slipped the ribbon off his hands and cupped its coiled length in his palms. He could still see it woven into the pleats of Katara's braid, the white spaces between the triangles standing out like bright lines in the dim light of the Earth Kingdom restaurant. She had worn it on their first date. And then, after they'd returned home, her surprise when he had wanted to hold the ribbon after she had taken out her braid. When he had shyly asked to keep it, her surprise had turned into a delighted blush.

Then she had kissed him. He still remembered how she had melted into him and wound her arms around his neck. The scent of panda lilies had filled the room. Those had been happy times. Blissful times.

Now, however, Aang realized he had been going about this all wrong. To overcome his guilt about the past, he had to let go of Katara. He knew that. They were no longer together, so letting go of her shouldn't be this difficult.

But it was difficult.

He knew why. He had always known why. And now, he could finally admit the truth to himself.

The truth was that he still held on to Katara. He clung to his memories of her, his love for her that burned in his heart. He couldn't let her go because, deep down, he never really wanted to.

"My place is in the Southern Water Tribe with my family and friends. Not with you," she had told him on the docks of Hai Bian.

But Katara had let him go. She had left him because she didn't want him in her life anymore. And as far as he could tell, nothing about that had changed.

Aang no longer had any reason to hold on to her anymore.

He needed to take one more step. Letting go of Katara through meditation wasn't working.

Aang stretched out her ribbon on the rug in front of him. The narrow strand of cloth was nearly as long as his arm. He ran his fingers down its length, caressing the familiar pattern of alternating black triangles overlaid on white. The ribbon was his comfort. His treasure.

The ribbon was Katara's presence in his heart.

He picked up the ribbon and cradled it between his hands. It was not so different from another strip of cloth he had used to keep, a reminder of his decisions that had ended in catastrophe. A cloth darkened with blood and shame. The symbol of his failure in the crystal catacombs.

His people had a tradition of burning mementos of the past when meditation alone could not provide release. Aang had burned that stained strip of cloth on a cool fall evening in Ba Sing Se. Perhaps burning away that part of his shame was why he could finally let go of some of his guilt.

But he hadn't been able to let go of all his guilt. Because Katara was the final piece of the puzzle.

He needed to get rid of her ribbon, purge it from his life.

Aang wadded up the ribbon in his hand. The fire burned only an arm's length away, its flames wavering lazily along a driftwood log.

All he had to do was reach out his arm and let the ribbon fall into the flames. He remembered, back in Ba Sing Se, how the flame cupped in his hand had devoured the length of bloodstained cloth, leaving him with nothing but a pile of ash.

But as he held the balled-up ribbon over the fire, a sudden pain seized his chest. He clenched his fist tightly around the ribbon and yanked back his hand, clutching the ribbon close to his heart.

I…

I can't do it.

Even just imagining Katara's ribbon catching on fire, the flames eating away the black triangles, was enough to make him double over. His body hunched protectively around the hand holding the precious strand. A sob escaped from his mouth as his forehead touched the rug.

I can't do it. He drew both of his arms in to his chest, as if trying to hold her ribbon even closer than he already was. As if making absolutely certain there was no way he could cast the ribbon into the flames, even if he wanted to.

I'm sorry. I can't do it.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Aang kept apologizing silently over and over, even though he didn't know who he was apologizing to.

"Avatar Aang?" said a voice from behind him.

He uncurled his body just enough to look over his shoulder. It was Hei-Won. The doorway of the tent framed her delicate features and the short braid she wore over her shoulder. Through the gaps between her head and the tent flap, he could see Yee-Li and Jian standing behind her.

Aang blinked and wiped the back of his hand over his eyes. He straightened up and gave her his best attempt at a smile. "Hi, Hei-Won. What's up?"

"Did you still want to take us penguin sledding?" She looked him over carefully. "Only if you're up to it, of course."

Penguin sledding. Katara laughing and shouting as they zoomed down the hill together. Then tumbling off their otter penguins, getting tangled up in each other in the powdery snow.

Aang pushed those memories away. He had promised the Acolytes that he would take them penguin sledding. "Sure. I'd love to," he said.

He still had to figure out what to do with Katara's ribbon, though. But that could wait until later.


Katara shrugged, hefting the basket of caribou hides higher up on her shoulder. She had commissioned a new whalebone hand knife from Uluk, since her own knife had sustained a chip that she couldn't grind away. Uluk had been meaning to pick up more animal hides from the tanner to sew into blankets, but she'd been so swamped with requests for new blades that she couldn't find the time to visit the tanner. So Katara had offered to bring the caribou hides to Uluk when she returned to retrieve her blade from the knifemaker.

The tanning racks stood at the edge of the village. The wall that fended off wild animals and the elements stood incomplete in this part of the village, since it was in the process of being torn down and rebuilt to accommodate the growing number of tents and igloos. The gap in the wall was wide enough to admit a small army and opened up onto the vast snow fields that surrounded the village.

As Katara turned down the path that led back to the village proper, a flash of color caught her eye.

Several specks of yellow and orange—four, to be exact—milled about the snow fields in the distance. A crowd of black dots swarmed around the brightly colored specks as if attracted to them.

A sharp pang pricked Katara's heart. After she had broken Aang out of the iceberg, penguin sledding was the first thing they did together. Later on, she'd found out that he considered it their unofficial first date. Since then, they had made a point to go penguin sledding every time they visited the South Pole. Sometimes they went with friends, and sometimes they went by themselves. But when they went penguin sledding, they always did it together.

She watched as Aang and the Air Acolytes coaxed the otter penguins with the promise of fish. Once they had each secured a penguin, they glided off on their mounts and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

Katara knew that Aang had been able to get on without her. That's what she expected. That's what she wanted—if not for herself, then for him.

He was spending time with people who were—well, not his people, exactly, but people who had dedicated their time and energy to keeping his culture alive. And that was the way things should be, because she and Aang were no longer together.

They couldn't be together. Even if Aang wanted to be with her, she couldn't be with him. Katara weakened his airbending. She weakened him. If she stayed by his side, the knowledge that she could one day be his downfall would eat away at her the way rust ate through the hardest steel. If she ever had to gaze upon his broken body knowing he had fallen because of her, she would never be able to forgive herself. The guilt would consume her for the rest of her life.

And so, he had let go of her, and she had let go of him. That was where things had stood between them when he arrived at her village, and that was where things continued to stand. There was no reason why he would do anything—like penguin sledding—exclusively with her.

Maybe it was so hard to see Aang moving on because even though everything was different now, some things hadn't changed. Earlier in the day, she and Aang had navigated a tricky political meeting together, working off each other in a seamless rhythm that was so familiar—and theirs alone. And then there was last night. She had forgotten how much she had missed being held in his arms.

Katara knew she should be happy for Aang. She wanted to be happy for him.

But as tears misted her vision, she couldn't find it in herself to be happy. Instead, she felt as if she had just lost something she could never get back.

Why does this have to be so hard?

Why did I have to fall in love with him in the first place?

The basket of caribou hides began to slip. She caught the basket before it could topple to the ground and shifted it squarely back onto her shoulder. After dabbing her tears with her mittens, she turned her back on the snow fields and headed into the village.


Uluk's stall was located near the village square. Katara was crossing the hard-packed snow of the square when she spotted a girl with hair loops and twin braids walking in the same direction.

"Hi Sakari!" Katara said brightly, waving at the girl.

Sakari shrank back into herself, but she waved back. "Oh, hi Katara."

Katara had hardly seen Sakari since Professor Song and Takit arrived at the village, even though Sakari was the one who had suggested inviting them to investigate the ice caves. Maybe that was because Katara had been so caught up with preparing for the trade meeting and being Takit's tour guide. Or maybe the girl had a reason for making herself scarce, such as being busy herself.

Katara jogged over to catch up to Sakari. "I haven't seen you around much lately. Where are you headed?"

"I'm just running some errands. I need to pick up some medicine for my mother."

"I'll walk with you for a bit, then. I'm going to see Uluk. She made me a new knife, and I need to get this basket of pelts to her. The healing huts are not far from her stall."

Ever since Katara returned to the Southern Water Tribe, she had made a point of learning the stories of everyone who lived there. Since she had moved back to the South Pole for good—and with Sokka still traveling with Aang, the Avatar—she was favored to become chieftain after her father gave up the post.

And a good chieftain knew her people.

She had met everyone in the village in the four months that she'd been home, but there were still some people she couldn't get a handle on. Sakari was one of those people.

Sakari was about the same age as Katara, and she was skittish and shy. Katara could never quite break through her shell. Her posture was always slightly hunched, as if she was shielding herself from the world. She spoke very little and had a haunted look to her eyes.

The war must have taken a toll on her, Katara thought with a swell of sympathy. Life must have been hard in Ba Sing Se.

"Is your mother unwell?' Katara asked.

Sakari gave a small start of surprise. "My mother?"

"You mentioned you were getting medicine for her. Is she feeling ill?"

Sakari's features softened as tension left her posture. "Oh no, she's not ill. Her joints give her a lot of trouble, so Mattuk created a special tea for her that makes the pain bearable."

Katara smiled at her. "I see. She's very fortunate to have a daughter like you."

"Thank you. I'm an only child, so I'm all she has." Sakari looked away and ducked her head. "She's all I have."

As they walked on, Sakari didn't say anything more. This was how conversations with Sakari usually went. Katara would, with some difficulty, get her talking about herself or her mother, but then she would clam up when things got too personal.

Which was why Katara was surprised when Sakari was the one to break the silence. "I lost my father when I was a little girl. I was only six years old."

Sakari's eyes were still trained on the ground. She had never shared about her father before. Being allowed into Sakari's confidence was something special, and Katara knew she had to handle this privilege with care.

"I lost my mother when I was around that age," Katara said quietly. "She was killed by a Fire Nation raider."

Sakari hugged her arms to her chest. "My father…he died in the war, too."

"I'm so sorry, Sakari." Katara laid her hand on Sakari's shoulder. "Listen, if you ever want to talk, my tent is always open to you."

The other girl bit her lip and nodded, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

Katara hesitated, then hooked her free arm through Sakari's. She half-expected the other girl to shy away, but she didn't. Heartened that Sakari had accepted her gesture of friendship, Katara said, "You know what? I'm getting kind of hungry. After I pick up my knife from Uluk, I can come with you to the healing huts, and maybe we could get dinner together after that. Unless you need to go back to your mother, of course."

She fervently hoped that Sakari would say yes. This would be the perfect opportunity to get to know Sakari better, and it would be a good excuse to avoid sharing a meal with Aang.

Sakari finally lifted her eyes and smiled. Katara didn't think she had ever seen Sakari smile before. Seeing her smile was like watching the sun melt away springtime snow. "I think I can—"

"Hey, Katara! Sakari!"

They stopped walking at the sight of Takit waving his hands in the air and hurrying toward them.

"You'll never guess what we found," he said when he reached them, breathless with excitement. He had exchanged his forest-green coat for a Water Tribe parka—he had needed the extra warmth of the parka when exploring the ice caves. Wearing the parka, he would have blended right in with the rest of the Water Tribe villagers if it hadn't been for the closely cropped style of his hair.

Katara couldn't help grinning at him. She found Takit's boyish enthusiasm endearing. "What did you find?"

He bounced on his feet, almost jumping up and down. "There's a spirit in the ice caves!"

"A spirit?" Katara raised her eyebrows. This was an unexpected development. "You saw a spirit?"

"Oh, no no no, we didn't see it," Takit said, shaking his head. "We heard it. The spirit made these loud booming noises down in the caves, the ones we haven't had the chance to explore yet."

"Hmmm." Katara wasn't entirely convinced, but what else could make a noise like that deep within the caves? "Maybe we should ask Aang to investigate."

"Oh yes, the Avatar would be the perfect person to deal with the spirit. It must be huge, if the racket that it's making is anything to go by."

Sakari unhooked her arm from Katara's and edged away. "I'm sorry, Katara, I have to get going. My mother needs her medicine, and she is waiting for me."

"Okay," Katara said, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "I could always wait for you until you're free—"

But Sakari continued to back away. "No, I'm sorry. I have to go."

"—or maybe we could grab dinner another time," Katara finished, but Sakari had already darted away and disappeared among the tents lining the village square.

"What's up with her?" Takit said, scratching his head. "Is she all right?"

Katara sighed. She was so close to making a breakthrough with Sakari. "I don't know. I wonder if she got spooked when we were talking about the spirit in the caves."

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed in dismay. "I didn't mean to scare her."

"It's okay. I'll catch up with her later." She nudged Takit with her elbow. "I'm headed to Uluk's stall to pick up a knife. Want to come with me? We can grab dinner after that, and you can tell me all about the discoveries you and Professor Song have made."

Takit's eyes lit up at the prospect of having an audience for him to talk about his work. "I would love to! Do you know what the most interesting thing about the caves is? Besides the spirit, I mean. The carvings we found were etched into the ice, perfectly preserved for hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years! Professor Song thinks that the extreme cold of the South Pole, especially below the surface, has prevented repeated freeze-thaw cycles that would otherwise erode the carvings over time…"

Katara listened to him chatter on and inserted a few well-timed comments to show she was still paying attention. As he talked, she mulled over her encounter with Sakari. The girl had always been a bit of an odd bird. But when it came to Takit and the professor's expedition in the ice caves, her behavior was strange, even for her. Even though Sakari was the one who had suggested inviting those two to study the caves, she never asked about their progress or showed any interest in their discoveries. In fact, she usually tried to avoid the subject.

And when Takit had mentioned hearing a spirit in the caves just now, Sakari had acted like she couldn't leave fast enough. Maybe she had been alarmed by the idea of a spirit residing not far from the village. But with her peculiar attitude about the scholars and the ice caves, Katara couldn't help wondering if there was more to it than that.

When they reached Uluk's stall, Katara handed the basket of pelts and a handful of coins to the knifemaker—who bubbled with gratitude for Katara's help in bringing her the pelts—and received a whalebone knife in return.

The smooth ivory hilt fit perfectly in her grip, and the weight of the knife was evenly balanced. While she was looking over the knife, Takit stood with his back to the stall and drummed his gloved fingers against his leg to a nervous beat.

Katara took off her mittens and stuffed them into her pockets. She unsheathed the knife to inspect the blade. As she turned over the sharpened wedge of slate, examining the bevel of the cutting edge for blemishes, a voice behind her made her shoulders stiffen.

"You move on pretty fast, don't you?"

She whirled around to find the sight of an all-too-familiar face framed by strands of beaded hair and wearing an infuriating smirk. "Amarak," she said in an icy tone, "what are you doing here?"


Author's note: It looks like this fic is shaping up to be between 18 to 20 chapters long. I won't have a firm chapter count, though, until I'm done writing the final chapter ;)

The next chapter update will be 2 or 3 weeks from now, and always on a Thursday. See you then!