The soot in Harbor City didn't just sit on the skin,it stained. At six years old, Kaelen Thorne had already learned that if you didn't scrub your knuckles until they bled, the gray stayed in the creases of your skin like a map of the slums.
The air near the docks tasted of sulfur and salt. It was thick enough to chew on. Kael sat on a rusted iron crate, his small legs dangling, watching his father, Vane Thorne.
Vane was a man built of hard angles and disappointment. He was currently hunched over a shipment manifest, his thick fingers tracing lines of ink while he argued with a foreman named Garret Hull.
"I'm telling you, the weight is off," Vane spat, his voice like gravel grinding in a tin bucket.
"Three crates of blasting jelly don't just vanish between the quay and the warehouse."
Garret, a man whose stomach strained against a sweat-stained tunic, didn't even look up from his clipboard. He grunted "Maybe your boy ate 'em, Thorne. He's looking skinny enough to try."
Vane's jaw tightened before saying quietly "Or maybe you swallowed them"
Kael saw the slight tremor in his father's hand—not from fear, but from the heat rising under his skin. Vane was a firebender, though the army had stripped him of his rank years ago for 'insubordination' that usually involved a bottle of cheap rice wine. He didn't produce flames much these days....mostly, he just simmered.
"Go on, Kael," Vane barked without turning around. "The market is peaking. If we don't eat tonight, it's on your head. Get to the stalls. Remember what I told you about the long-eye?"
"Yah.. you practically beat it into me." Kael hopped off the crate. His landing was heavier than a six-year-old's should have been. As his feet hit the cobblestones, a strange, dull thud echoed in his chest, and for a split second, the impact didn't hurt. It felt as if a layer of cool grease had slid between his bones and the pavement, absorbing the shock. He felt a faint, liquid tugging behind his navel—a sensation he called The Shiver.
He didn't say anything. He never did. Whenever he tried to tell Vane about the cold feeling, his father would just clip him over the ear and tell him to quit acting like a Water Tribe coward.
" I wonder why he calls water Tribes cowards..."
Kael darted away from the docks, weaving through the forest of legs belonging to sailors and laborers. The "long-eye" was Vane's term for looking at everything but your target. If you looked at the bread, the baker looked at you. If you looked at the clouds, the baker forgot you were there.
The market street was a riot of red banners and the smell of roasting meats that made Kael's stomach coil into a tight, painful knot. He spotted his mark,a fruit vendor named Mira Sotto. She was busy shouting at a delivery boy, her hands waving wildly in the air.
Kael drifted toward the stall. He wasn't running; he was flowing. He felt the Shiver again, a strange, rhythmic pulse that seemed to match the splashing of the harbor waves a hundred yards away. It made his movements unnaturally smooth for a child.
He reached for a plum, his fingers inches from the bruised purple skin.
"Think twice, rat," a voice hissed.
Kael froze. Beside the stall sat Old Man Sho. He was blind, his eyes clouded over like boiled eggs, but he was leaning on a cane of dark wood, pointed directly at Kael's shins.
"I'm just looking," Kael muttered, his voice thin.
"You're looking with your stomach, not your head," Sho said, a toothless grin stretching his wrinkled face. "Mira has a temper like a spark-plug. She catches you, she won't call the guards. She'll just fry your fingers off. Move to the next stall. The cabbage man is distracted by a fly."
'I always wonder how he sees and knows what I'm doing even tho he is technically blind' kael thought before looking at Mira who was slowly turning back to her stall.
Kael backed away, his heart hammering. As his pulse quickened, he felt a sudden, sharp heat in his palms,the way his father always described it. But as the heat rose, the Shiver responded. A localized chill ran down his left arm, meeting the heat at his wrist. The sensation was sickening, like drinking boiling tea and ice water at the same time. He stumbled, his vision blurring for a second.
Easy, a thought that wasn't a thought echoed in the back of his mind. It was more of a feeling—a ripple in a pond.
He steadied himself against a stone wall. The stone was hot from the midday sun, but where his hand touched it, a faint dampness appeared on the surface. He pulled his hand away, staring at the moist print on the dry rock.
"Kael!"
A shout came from across the square. It was Tora, another street kid, a few years older with a permanent smirk.' We'll he is always smirking like he is trying to charm the world..this punk'
Tora was the one who actually knew how to move and by move he was referring to stealing, a street rat has to eat something at the end of the day.
"Yo a rat just told me that the Enforcers are coming up the South gate" Tora called out, weaving through the crowd. "They're doing a sweep for 'unlicensed' labor. If your old man is still at the docks, he's going to get hauled in for questioning."
Kael felt a spike of genuine fear. If Vane was arrested, Kael was as good as dead. Vane owed money to half the dock-bosses in the city.
"I have to get to him," Kael said, turning to run.
"Wait, you idiot! You'll run right into them!" Tora tried to grab Kael's shoulder, but Kael was already moving.
He didn't go through the main street. He went for the narrow gaps between the iron-clad buildings. He scrambled up a stack of coal crates, his small fingers digging into the rough wood. He felt the Shiver again, but this time it was aggressive. As he climbed, his grip felt sticky, almost as if his sweat were acting like an adhesive.
He reached the rooftops—a jagged landscape of clay tiles and venting chimneys. Below him, he could see the red-and-gold armor of the Fire Nation Enforcers.
There were four of them, led by a man Kael recognized, Enforcer Goro.
A man who walked and talked like the world owed him something....maybe a mental check.
Goro walked with a heavy, rhythmic stomp, his hand resting on the hilt of a dao blade.
"Every man without a permit goes in the wagon!" Goro's voice boomed.
Kael looked toward the quay. Vane was still there, still arguing with Garret. He hadn't seen the guards yet. Kael tried to shout, but the wind from the harbor swallowed his voice.
He had to get down there. Fast.
The quickest way was a drop onto a canvas sunshade, then a slide down a drainage pipe. Kael didn't hesitate, He jumped.
The air rushed past his ears. He hit the canvas with a loud thwack, the fabric groaning under his weight. He rolled, but he misjudged the angle. He tumbled off the edge of the shade, falling toward the hard, unforgiving stone of the lower alley.
'Hold ' the ripple whispered.
In mid-air, Kael felt his body go strangely limp, yet dense. As he hit the ground, he didn't bounce or break. The water in his tissues seemed to shift in a split second, a fluid armor that dispersed the energy of the fall. It hurt—gods, it hurt—but he scrambled to his feet, gasping for air.
He rounded the corner of the warehouse just as Goro and his men reached the dock.
"Vane Thorne!" Goro shouted, a ball of fire blooming in his palm like a warning flare.
"You're three months behind on your 'protection' fees to the district office. Or did you think we forgot?"
Vane stood his ground, but Kael could see his father's knees shaking. Vane didn't have enough fire in him to fight four armored men.
"I paid Garret," Vane said, his voice cracking.
"Ask him."
Garret didn't even look up. "Never saw a copper, Enforcer."
Vane quickly looked at Garret " You must swallowed it like how you fucking steal the bloody jell! You fat fuck!"
Garret finally looked up and his eyes directly on vane " Maybe you got too much grease in your system..your hallucinating. I'm a honest worker of the emperor why would I steal from such a being."
Vane scoffed as he looked directly in Garrets eyes " with how fat you are even cows get offended by your presence "
Vane didn't even flinch as the insult left his lips. He watched the vein in Garret's neck throb, a thick cord of purple against his pale, sweaty skin. The silence that followed was heavy, smelling of salt and the rot of discarded fish guts.
"Enough!" Goro's voice cracked through the tension like a whip. He didn't look angry; he looked amused, which was far worse. He leaned back, his grin widening into something jagged and predatory. "That's a shame. Boys, take him. And if he resists... well, the harbor is deep."
The guard to goro's right, a thick-set man named Silas, didn't wait for a second invitation. He stepped into Vane's personal space, He threw a right hook with the practiced ease of a man who got paid to break things.
Vane saw it coming, but seeing it and moving his weight in time were two different things.
The fist caught him square on the jaw. There was a dull thwack, the sound of meat hitting meat, and Vane's head snapped to the left.
The world blurred for a second, a copper tang filling his mouth as his teeth sliced into the inside of his cheek. The force of the blow staggered him,his boots skidded on the damp, slick stone of the quay, and he had to throw his arm out to catch his balance against a rusted mooring post.
"That all you got, Silas?" Vane spat, a glob of red landing near the guard's feet. His jaw felt like it had been hit with a mallet, and his words were slightly slurred. "My grandmother hits harder, and she's been dead since the Great Thaw."
Silas growled, his face flushing. "Smart mouth for a man about to go for a swim."
From the other side, a leaner guard named Ken moved in. He didn't have Silas's bulk, but he moved with a fluid, annoying confidence. He lunged forward, reaching for Vane's collar to haul him upright for another beating.
Vane didn't wait. He dropped his weight low, feeling the pull in his thighs as he ducked under Ken's grasping hands. The movement was sluggish—his head was still ringing—but he used his shoulder as a battering ram, slamming it into Kaelen's midsection. It wasn't a clean hit. Ken was solid, and the impact sent a jolt of pain through Vane's already bruised shoulder, but it bought him a second of breathing room.
"Get him, you idiots!" Garret barked from the sidelines, his face still a mask of humiliated rage. "Stop playing with him!"
Silas swung again, a heavy, overhead blow meant to crush Vane's spirit along with his skull. Vane scrambled back, his heels catching on a coiled thicket of hemp rope.
He stumbled, his arms windmilling as gravity tried to claim him. He felt the weight of his own gear—the heavy leather of his boots and the satchel at his hip—dragging at his momentum. He wasn't some light-footed acrobat; he was a man fighting for his life on a slippery quay.
He hit the ground hard on his backside, the vibration of the impact rattling his spine. Silas was over him in an instant, pinning Vane's shoulder down with a boot that felt like a mountain.
"Stay down, old man," Silas grunted, leaning his weight into the press.
Vane bucked, his fingers clawing at the rough stone, searching for anything—a shell, a loose stone, a rock. "Get... off... me!" He gasped, his lungs burning. He managed to wedge a knee between himself and Silas's leg, shoving upward with every ounce of desperate strength he had left.
Ken circled back, kicking Vane sharply in the ribs. The air left Vane's lungs in a pained wheeze.
"You're making this way harder than it needs to be, Vane," Goro called out, his voice sounding disturbingly bored. He stepped closer. "Just a quick trip to the bottom. Very peaceful. No cows to offend down there."
Vane looked up through a haze of sweat and blood, his eyes locking onto Goro's. He didn't look scared, he looked like he was calculating. Even pinned under Silas's boot, with Ken looming over him and his ribs screaming, the defiance hadn't left him.
"You're going to have... to try... harder," Vane hissed.
Kael, hidden behind a crate of scrap metal, felt a blind, white-hot rage flare up in his chest. It wasn't like the Shiver. This was his own. This was the Thorne blood. It burned in his throat, making his breath come in short, jagged gasps.
He didn't think. He stepped out from behind the crate.
"Leave him alone!" Kael screamed.
The guards paused, looking down at the small, soot-covered boy. Goro laughed, a short, barking sound. "What's this? A little ember trying to start a forest fire?"
"Kael, get out of here!" Vane yelled, his face pale.
Kael ignored him. He felt the heat in his chest reaching a breaking point. He thrust his hands forward, mimicking the form he had seen his father use a thousand times. He expected a spark. He expected a puff of smoke.
Instead, a gout of orange flame roared from his right hand. But at the same exact moment, his left hand jerked back as if pulled by a string, and a spray of water exploded from his palm.
The combination was violent. The fire hit the water, creating a localized explosion of scalding steam that blinded the guards.
"Aah! My eyes!" one of the guards shrieked, clutching his helmet.
The alley was suddenly filled with a thick, white fog. It wasn't natural. It hung heavy and wet, smelling of the sea and charred wood.
Kael fell to his knees. His right arm felt like it had been dipped in lava, and his left arm was unnaturally cold, the skin turning a pale, sickly blue. His heart was hammering a rhythm that felt like it was trying to tear his ribs apart.
Too much, the Shiver groaned.
Vane didn't waste the moment. He didn't ask questions. He grabbed Kael by the scruff of his neck, hoisting the boy up like a sack of grain.
"Run," Vane hissed.
They sprinted through the fog, Vane's heavy boots echoing on the stone. Kael hung limp in his father's grip, his head spinning. He looked back and saw Goro emerging from the steam, his face red with fury, coughing as he tried to clear his lungs.
They dived into the labyrinth of the "Undercity"—the crawlspaces beneath the docks where the tides came in. Vane didn't stop until they were deep in the shadows, the water lapping at their ankles.
Vane dropped Kael onto a dry patch of sand. The man was breathing hard, his eyes wide as he looked at his son.
"What was that?" Vane whispered. He wasn't looking at Kael with pride. He was looking at him with something that looked suspiciously like terror.
Kael looked at his hands. His right palm was red and blistered. His left palm was dripping wet, even though he hadn't touched the water.
"I don't know," Kael wheezed.
"You... you produced fire," Vane said, kneeling down. He grabbed Kael's left hand, the wet one. "But this... this isn't right. You're a Firebender, Kael. You're a Thorne. What is this?"
He squeezed Kael's wrist. As he did, a small, translucent shape—like a ribbon of silver water—rippled just beneath Kael's skin, moving away from Vane's touch.
Vane let go as if he'd been burned. Or frozen.
"There's something in you," Vane said, his voice trembling. He stood up, backing away a step. "Something's wrong with your blood, boy."
Kael curled into a ball on the sand. The Shiver was quiet now, but it wasn't gone. It was coiled around his spine, a cold weight that felt like a secret he was never supposed to have.
Outside, the bells of Harbor City began to ring—the signal for a lockdown. The Enforcers would be looking for a man and a boy who could produce fog.
Kael closed his eyes. He was six years old, he was hungry.