Breaking the Wheel

Chapter 11

Zaheer sat, looking out at the thin rime of ice that still covered the face of the chasm. There were many ways he had imagined spending his first day of freedom, but none of them had included recounting the fall of Ba Sing Se to a gang of infatuated outlaws. The way they looked up to him was disturbing. He had never fancied himself a hero.

The first time he had been here, it had been with Unalaq. Before the lotus, white or red, had taken over their lives, before any of that. They had been barely more than children. They had been friends.

---

Zaheer had climbed down first, Unalaq following on the ropes he laid down, his blue robes cut in airbender style.

"Can you feel that?" The water tribe prince looked around him as he set himself down, his thin face lighting up. A pair of startled lemurs took to the air as he dropped his heavy packs. "The air nomads must have had a meditation circle here."

They sat back to back in the center of the circle, and after a moment of silence, Zaheer found that he could feel something. The sensation was there, beneath the soft shrill of cicadas and the beating of his own heart. It was a sense of tranquility, as if there was a huge body of water just at his feet. "Me first this time?" he asked.

"Sure," Unalaq smirked. "I'll make sure the lemurs don't eat you while you're gone."

---

Much as he was grateful to find a group that also opposed Kuvira, the outlaws disrupted the tranquility of the place, their chatter amplified by the ravine. The flying lemurs were long gone, and there was little sign that they had ever been.

Korra emerged from the entrance of the shrine, treading carefully round the remnants of the airbender garden as she came to meet him at the brink. She stood there, staring at him, as if she were working herself up to something.

"You said you could help me," she said, her voice abrupt in the cool air.

Zaheer looked away from her, down into the darkness of the ravine. "I think I can."

"Then what are we waiting for?" The Avatar sat beside him, folding her legs into the lotus position. "Let's do it."

Zaheer inclined his head. "Follow my voice," he said, just as he had instructed many before her, and her eyes closed, her breathing slowing as she sought the path to the spirit world. He matched the rhythm of his breath to hers, setting his sense of self aside in the moment. There could be none of his own chi here, no ego. Just master, and student.

Korra shuddered, and Zaheer felt her fear as if it were his own. Felt himself thrown like a ragdoll, his limbs sluggish. And above him, Korra's vision of Zaheer, staring down with bleak, grief-mad eyes. Every heartbeat was agony, driving the venom deeper.

You can't fight both me and the poison.

Zaheer felt Korra panic, turning from the vision, fighting to escape.

"No," he used his physical body to speak, long practice keeping his voice level. "Let it play out."

"I can't," she choked, as vision-Zaheer drew the breath from her lungs. "I can't!"

Korra's eyes snapped open and she gasped for air, taking frantic, ragged breaths before she grabbed the edge of the platform and retched into the chasm, her gasps turning into sobs.

"Dammit," she cried, the stone around her fingers wrinkling and buckling as she bent it. "Dammit!" she screamed, hitting the earth with one fist, sending a massive rock crashing into the opposite side of the chasm.

"Korra," said Zaheer, softly. The outlaws watched them nervously from the shrine entrance.

She looked at him, accusing. "You said you could fix me."