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"I doubt that you will die, child," Alera said calmly "Let us repeat the exercise"

Tavi's head pounded He sat up, and the throbbing pressure eased so icicle nearly three feet around at its base, and the thing had been harder than stone He looked blearily around the cavern, which was lit by a di from the thirty-foot circular pool in its center, the water coht and shadow danced and rippled around the ice cave, separated into bands of various colors by the water

Ice groaned and crackled all around them The floor of the cave swayed and rolled in a steady h the size of the ice ship above and around theently than the deck of any vessel

"Maybe we shouldn't call it a cave," he said thoughtfully "It's really ," Alera said, "that the occupants of a vessel are generally aware of the presence of a cargo hold This space is secret to everyone butout of his ears and looked up at his tutor Alera appeared to be a tall young woht dress of what at first seeray silk A closer look would show that the dress was made from cloudy mist as dark as a thunderhead Her eyes constantly swirled with bands of color, endlessly cycling through every i, her feet were bare, and she was inhumanly beautiful

Which was appropriate, Tavi supposed, since Alera wasn't hureatest fury upon the face of Carna Tavi didn't kno old she was, but she spoke of the original Gaius Prih she had been having a conversation with him just the other day She had never displayed what sort of power she ht have - but under the circu her with courtesy and polite respect was probably a wiser action than trying to elicit some sort of display from her

Alera arched an eyebrow at hiroan and brushed fine, soft snow fro There was better than a foot of powder on the ground Alera said she had put it there in order to increase his chances of surviving his training

"Giveis hard"

"On the contrary, flight is quite simple," Alera said Heris less so"

Tavi stopped hihed, closed his eyes, and focused on his windcrafting

Though the air of the cavern did not contain any discrete, manifest furies, such as windmanes or Countess Calderon's fury, Cirrus, it was full to bursting with furies nonetheless Each individual was a tiny thing, a athered together by the will and power of a windcrafter, their corains of sand

Gathering the nuht was a tedious process Tavi began to picture the furies in his h the air like a cloud of fireflies Then he began to picture each individual ht breath of wind, one by one at first, then two at a tile one of theathered in the air around him The first time he had successfully called the wind furies to him, it had taken him half an hour to accomplish the feat Since then, he'd cut that ti faster, but he still had a considerable way to go

He knehen he was ready The very air around hi Then he opened his eyes, called to the furies in his thoughts, and gathered theently fro him until the soles of his boots were about three feet fro in concentration

"Good," Alera said calet the windshield this tile of the windstreaainst hian to move slowly across the cavern The required concentration was enormous, but he made the attehts,a shield of solidified air in front of hian to press ahead with ht But seconds later, his concentration faltered, the wind furies flew apart like so ed down - directly into the center of the thirty-foot pool

The shock of the cold of near-freezing water sucked the breath out of his lungs, and he flailed wildly for a second, until he forced himself to use his mind rather than his li them to him in less than a quarter of a- and willed the him on the snowy floor of the ice cavern It did not particularly lessen the bitter, biting pain of the cold, and he lay there shuddering

"You continue to i down at him She considered his half-frozen state cal h-h-helpful," Tavi sta shivers

"Indeed not," Alera said She adjusted her dress as if it were any other cloth and knelt beside hi Gaius Iof flesh and blood I do not feel as you do, about any nu that would begin to build up the heat in his body, but there was so little left that it would be a lengthy process, assue it at all He needed an open source of flame to make it simple, but there wasn't one "W-what d-do y-you m-mean?"

"Your potential death, for exaht now It wouldn't particularly upseton his firecrafting "Wh-why not?"

She smiled at him and brushed a strand of hair back from his forehead It crackled, and a few bits of ice fell down over his eyelashes "All things die, young Gaius," she said Her eyes went distant for a s And I am old - far, far older than you could comprehend"