Fortunate Son

by Overlithe

Summary:

A few weeks after Roku leaves the Fire Nation to begin his Avatar training, Sozin's grandmother Bao tells her grandson that, as the Crown Prince, it's time for him to travel around the Fire Nation and get a taste of dealing with his country and its problems. Bao, Sozin, and Sozin's guest Ta Min set out on their journey, during which they are plagued by strange accidents, meet a reclusive order of firebenders, and find themselves in the thick of a political dispute about to edge into war. After Sozin returns to the capital, tragedy befalls him and he is crowned Fire Lord, a few months before his seventeenth birthday—but he is soon targeted by a mysterious adversary and he finds that the palace may prove to be the most dangerous place of all. Action/adventure in the first half, mystery/political intrigue in the second half.

Chapter 1: Grandmother Bao's Advice

Warnings: Some moderately graphic violence; character death; minor references to sexual situations; oh, and if you really object to Sozin being portrayed in a sympathetic light, this is *so* not the fic for you. ;) (Note that individual chapters have their own warnings as needed.)
Links: Fanart by bobgangk || Fanmix
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my wonderful beta joyeuses, who provided endless suggestions, comments, and encouragement, and without whom I would never have been able to whip this behemoth of a fic into shape. I'd also like to thank bobangk for the wonderful art she created for the fic and shadowsong26 for her input on an early version of the plot. messageredacted helped me out with my outline and muffinbitch and btsxbeta not only provided many helpful comments on some of my chapters, they also put up with my endless chatter about the fic. This fic was originally written for the avatarbigbang fest and I'd like to thank the mods for putting the challenge together.

Author's Notes: Along with Hama, Sozin is my favourite one-shot character in A:tLA because, while I find cardboard cackling villains very, very boring, I love moral complexity/ambiguity and I tend to find characters who are firmly convinced they are acting for the greater good to be rather interesting and thought-provoking (especially if they are very charismatic—I find that far more unsettling than villains who are obviously, over-the-top evil). And yes, my reading of the canon is definitely that Sozin ends up as a Utopia Justifies the Means sort of character. So this fic and its sequels are an attempt to show Sozin's development from the goofy teenager we see at the start of his episode into someone so utterly convinced of the brilliance of his plans and rightness of his actions that... well, he does what he ends up doing, and to show this progression in a (hopefully) convincing and compelling manner.

With that said, on with the story, which I hope you'll enjoy.

*


Cover art by bobangk, click for full-sized version

++Fortunate Son++

 

Chapter One: Grandmother Bao's Advice

He sat under the ginnan tree, his mind as still as the pond and as drowsy as the day's heat. A few baby turtle-ducks swam close to him in a gaggle of quacks and splashes, but he barely noticed them. There was a rustle of footsteps in the grass behind him, but he didn't turn around. Above him, a bird flew towards the horizon, a little dark speck in the summer sky.

'A hawk in mid-air, two red-white wings turn to the sun.' His grandmother, then. He stood, turned, and bowed to her in a rather perfunctory fashion as she finished. 'How it flees the dullness.' The bow was not returned.

'I've never heard that one before, grandmother,' Sozin said.

'That one what?' She looked at him quizzically, then sat down and patted the bench. 'Here.'

He sat down, feeling awkward and hoping she didn't notice. Grandmother Bao seemed to spend most of her time receiving the occasional visitor or writing reams of correspondence while drinking too-sweet tea, and it was not usual for her to come into the gardens just to talk to her grandson. Worry flared inside him. 'Is anything wrong?' He didn't mention what might be wrong. He didn't have to.

'Oh, no. You weren't at your lessons today.' She stared at him, unblinking. Her hair had long since turned white, but her eyes still looked as young as his, the same shade of fine amber.

He couldn't suppress a sigh of boredom. 'I know all that backwards and forwards.' Besides, Roku wasn't around any more, to pass notes back and forth when they grew tired of listening or studying, or to laugh with him as Sozin joked his way through a problem they'd been assigned, or to test their latest firebending lesson.

'And, of course,' Bao said, the words cutting through his thoughts, 'your friend isn't here any more. And now the palace is just unbearably boring.'

He didn't answer. She folded her hands on her lap and her gaze remained fastened on him. 'Besides, it's not fair, is it? He was supposed to be your companion, to be always by your side.' Her tone turned a fraction softer. 'And all of a sudden he turns out to be the all-powerful Avatar, chosen like you weren't chosen, and you were no longer the one who always knew what to do and what to say. Off he went to do and learn things you can't even begin to understand and you had to stay behind. You can't even send him your letters.' She paused. The ginnan leaves whispered above them and the smell of sun-dry flowers wafted down. 'What a shame.'

Sozin felt his face grow hot. He thought of the letters he'd written, a small but growing pile he kept in his bedroom because he had no idea of how to get them to Roku. Then a memory bubbled up, as though pulled to the surface by his grandmother's golden gaze: a magician at his and Roku's tenth birthday, revealing the exact Pai Sho tile Sozin had picked, somehow transported into an empty teacup; something about the trick had bothered him, and he had spent several days trying to figure it out, only reluctantly giving up when Roku had said he was tired of hearing about it. 'How do you—?'

'Know all this?' Bao said. 'It's rather self-evident, wouldn't you say? It doesn't take a great intellect to figure out you miss your friend. Even if he weren't your doushun, you two boys were so joined at the hip I'm surprised people didn't start mixing your names up. Or didn't do it more often. Even your mother has called him son once or twice. As for the rest, well, it is a matter of simply knowing how to read. People, situations.' She paused and her eyes focused on him again. Some part of him wanted to turn away: her gaze lay as heavily on him as the sweltering heat and he could almost feel her rummaging about inside his head. The rest of him told him it was nonsense, and to hold firm. After a while her eyelids drooped again. 'Which brings me back to your lessons. Call for the koi.'

'I'm sorry?'

'There is a very old and very large—well, large for a regular koi, anyway—koi in the pond, isn't there?'

'You mean Old Mr Yu?' His grandmother's request was so absurd Sozin didn't even remember that he and Roku had come up with the name and it was almost certainly meaningless for Bao. They'd been ten and Sozin had ended up wading into the deeper part of the pond—he couldn't remember why, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time—and all of a sudden something even darker than the water had glided past him: a koi, old and huge like the world. Its head moved past Sozin and for a moment the barbels and eyes had looked like a wizened human face. Then the fish had swam back under one of the overhangs where the koi shielded themselves from the sun and birds of prey.

'Yes, that must be it,' Bao said. 'Call it.'

'You want me to call for a fish.' It wasn't a question. Sozin couldn't help but wonder if his grandmother was senile, but it wasn't a word that went well with Bao. She looked as composed and sharp as a swordmaster's blade, tucked away in its sheath.

'Yes. If you can't do it, I'll be happy to demonstrate.'

'I can do it,' Sozin grumbled, and kneeled on the grass. What was this for? He dipped one hand into the cool water and splashed it around a little. Some lesson in obedience, or— 'Hey, Old Mr Yu,' he said, his voice nearly cracking with embarrassment. The heat in his face was back, spreading all the way to his ears. 'Come here, fish.' The adult turtle-ducks turned doleful eyes towards him, but nothing else happened. Oh, this is stupid. He got up. Cold water dripped from his hand onto his clothes.

'Yes, thank you. You can sit down again,' Bao said in a neutral tone, as though she'd just seen her grandson demonstrate a firebending form. Sozin sat back on the bench, and told himself he was just being polite. 'Why did the fish not come when you called it?'

The words tumbled out of Sozin's mouth before he could stop them. 'Are you serious?'

'Very.'

'Because it's a fish.' He managed not to roll his eyes. 'They don't come when they're called.'

'Don't they?' Bao's hand retreated into her sleeve. When it emerged again it was holding something wrapped in a silk handkerchief. She undid it on her lap, revealing a few chunks of bread and slices of melon, glistening in the sun.

'Let's test that, then.' She flicked the bread onto one edge of the pond and the turtle-ducks rushed towards it, quacks and splashes growing more urgent as the ducklings tried to pick up the morsels. Then she threw the melon slices onto the water, where they bobbed for a few seconds before a cluster of colourful shades glided to the surface and began gobbling them up. A moment later the koi scattered again as a much larger shape ascended: an oversized black fish, its bulging eyes making it look rather mournful as it ate what was left of the melon slices with slow deliberation. It was even bigger than Sozin remembered.

'It seems you were wrong and I was right, grandson.' The fish finished feeding and sunk out of sight.

'That's not really fair. You told me to call it, you never said—'

'I never said what methods you could employ. So why limit yourself to the most ineffective?' She folded the handkerchief lying on her lap. 'And, again, back to your lessons. I fear one area of study has been sadly neglected.'

Sozin stared at the pond and tried to sound nonchalant. 'Yes, I never learned much about the feeding habits of koi. Go figure.'

A flick of the golden gaze, and again the feeling that she was rummaging through his mind. 'Rulership,' she said.

'That's not true. I know all about our nation's history, and its administration, and—'

'Yes, yes,' Bao said with a shrug of dismissal, 'and if I asked you, I am sure you could recite the names of every single Fire Lord from every single dynasty, and draw a map of the provinces and their boundaries and capitals. It would be very detailed and very accurate, I have no doubt. You have a fine hand.'

I know, Sozin thought, but didn't say it.

'But those are only dates and maps,' she went on, 'and dates and maps aren't enough. When you become Fire Lord, who will you draw on for support? Who will you be able to trust?'

His answer was prompt. 'Roku, of course.'

'Of course. I'm sure it will prove very useful, to be so close to the Avatar.' He wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or sincere. 'Even so—if two governors squabble, how will you solve it?'

'I'll find out which one is right.'

'And if they both are, or neither is? And how will you be sure the information you get is accurate? And what if the dispute is between the Fire Nation and, say, the Earth Kingdom? Or the Northern Water Tribe?'

He was starting to get annoyed. 'Then I'll figure something out. You make it sound like I've never sat in a council before. And what's all this about, anyway?'

She tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve. 'As I said, rulership. The difference between calling things from the depths and making sure they come when called.'

'Just add melon,' he said acidly, but Bao seemed to take it in stride.

'Quite so. And I think it's time you got some hands-on experience. As in firebending, theory is no replacement for practice.'

She folded her hands on her lap, and for a moment the only sound was the din of the cicadas. He recalled Roku waving goodbye outside the palace gates until he vanished from sight. What was he doing right now? Learning some arcane knowledge meant only for Avatars, in some place above the clouds? 'How am I going to do that?'

'Your aunt Iruza has written to me. Her children would like to visit the capital again and stay with us a while. Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't done it earlier; they're a royal Princess's children, after all.' Sozin thought of his father's younger sister, a bluff woman with the same boundless enthusiasm of a lion-dog. He had last seen her when he was little, but she wasn't the sort of person you forgot easily. 'I have written back to tell her,' Bao went on, 'that you'll stop over at Obsidian Island when you go on your tour of the Fire Nation.'

He wondered if he'd heard correctly. Maybe his grandmother's words had been distorted by the song of the cicadas, restless in the heat. 'Did you say my tour?'

'It's a long-standing tradition for children of the royal house to travel around our nation. Knowing one's country better, understanding the responsibilities of one's rank and all that. Did your tutors skip that as well?'

'They didn't skip it,' Sozin snapped. He had only been outside the capital twice, once when Roku's mother had remarried—again—and the two of them had been among the guests, snugly enclosed in a layer of Royal Firebender Guards, and another time when he was very little and his parents had taken him to Ember Island. He had trod on a broken seashell and the cut had healed into a scar that reminded him of the stroke of a calligraphy brush. 'They made it sound a bit—'

'Old-fashioned?'

'Something like that.' It did sound like something that required a time of warlords and earth-wandering spirits rather than theatres and indoor plumbing. 'Did my dad go?'

'He certainly did, and so did your aunt, just before your father married your mother. Back then I was talking to Fire Lord Ren about betrothing my daughter to his son,' she added with a glimmer of pride. 'That's when he went. He was older than you are now, but—' She trailed off. Sozin required no explanation of that "but". He had lain cheek and jowl to it since he was old enough to walk. 'And now it's time for you to go,' Bao added quickly. 'Would you like that?'

'Sure! Do you think I'll run into any pirates—or maybe bandits? Time for some real firebending.' His grin waned and he looked down at the ground. 'Only I'm not going to go, am I?'

'And why is that?'

'My parents are going to say I'm too young. Or maybe too inexperienced or—'

'Don't put blocks in your own path. That's other people's job.' Bao leaned back against the tree and half-closed her eyes again. When she spoke, she sounded gnomic. 'Besides, if you want to know what your parents will think, why don't you ask them?'

Sozin was about to answer—with what, he wasn't sure, but he had to say something—when voices wafted from the other end of the garden. He got up and hurried towards them, his grandmother and etiquette forgotten.

'Dad!'

'There you are,' Fire Lord Yunjin said, with a lopsided smile. His right hand was on his cane, but he raised his left arm a little and winked at his son. 'How about a little help for an old man?'

'Nonsense—you're not old at all,' Sozin said as he took his father's hand and slipped under his arm. Even through the layers of fabric, he could feel the twitches in his father's muscles, reminding him as always of the time he had wound up a clockwork toy too much and its wooden limbs had jerked and flopped until he couldn't stand it any more and pulled out the gears. He squeezed his father's hand, just enough to help him keep it still. The fingers didn't squeeze back.

'I know,' Yunjin said. 'I'm just very lazy and enjoy taking advantage of youth.'

'Son…' Fire Lady Sora said, then trailed off, golden eyes lit with worry. Two of the ministers flanked her, one of them carrying a pile of scrolls that rose nearly to his chin. Sozin couldn't help but feel a little annoyed; it wasn't as though he didn't know just how he had to handle his father. Hadn't he learned it from the time he was old enough to notice the way his father's hand shook around a pair of chopsticks, or to wonder why he had to rest so often?

'It's fine, mother,' he said.

'Sir, it is imperative that we revise this lending schedule,' the minister with the scrolls said. He punctuated his words with a thrust of his chin and the uppermost scroll rolled down, unfolding towards the grass. Sora snatched it up before it hit the ground.

'We have already agreed on this,' Sora said as she rolled the scroll back up after a quick skim of its contents. Sozin felt his father shift a little of his weight onto him and he put his arm around his back to support him better. 'Three years should be more than enough.' She glanced at her husband.

'I wouldn't say more than enough,' Yunjin said, 'but it's reasonable. I don't think we can do more.'

Another glance passed between him and Sora, a lighthouse signalling a ship. 'The Fire Lord wishes to be with the Crown Prince,' Sora said. 'I'll handle this.'

The ministers lowered their gazes and Yunjin nodded to Sozin. 'Come on, dumpling. If you don't mind propping up the nation for a few more steps, I'll tell you all about the year of the Great Comet and how we couldn't sneeze without setting things on fire.'

They moved laboriously towards the square pavilion standing a few yards away. 'Grandmother Bao was telling me about your tour of the country. Before you became Fire Lord.'

'Oh, yes. That was a long time ago.' He chuckled at some memory, then the smile turned into a wince as he moved onto the bench, even with Sozin's help; he covered it up quickly with another, stiffer smile. 'During the Second Western War.'

'That was when you toured the nation?' He couldn't keep the excitement off his voice. He had learned about the Western Wars, of course, and the knowledge that his father—

had been

—was the greatest firebender in the world was something so utterly ingrained in him that he couldn't even remember when and how he had first learned it, just like his own name or the fact that the sun rose in the east. Even so, it was a little hard to put the two things together in his mind. Especially the part where his father had been only a few years older than him.

'It sounds a lot more interesting than it actually was,' Yunjin said. 'For a start, the only reason it's called the Second Western War is because the Second Western Skirmish wouldn't sound good in the history books. It probably doesn't even rhyme with anything, and every war needs its war song.' His smile—a real one, this time—turned wry. 'It's to remind the people who missed out of how much they'd have enjoyed the war.'

'How about the battle of Kaze? That was then, wasn't it? What was it like?'

'Surprising. I mean, there we were, having just spent our whole trip dealing with the occasional bandit and thoroughly testing the quality of fire wine, and suddenly we were in the middle of a battle. Luckily, we figured out it wasn't a real battle when we noticed the koala-sheep. I'm sure you're not allowed to have those in a real battle and this one had at least a whole flock wandering around.'

Sozin laughed. 'So it wasn't the fearless Crown Prince against the mighty warlord of the Western Islands?'

'Well, it eventually got to that. If by "fearless" you mean "drunk", and if by "mighty" you also mean "drunk". When you are Fire Lord, do your best never to negotiate with an opponent who keeps offering you drinks. Not if they're long negotiations, at any rate. And if you can't avoid this, then at least try not to challenge your opponent to an Agni Kai at the end. Unless he is even more drunk that you. Then you'd be a fool not to exploit the strategic advantage. You'll know you have it if your opponent can no longer say "strategic" and you still manage to say at least half of it.'

'You're right,' Sozin said, in the most serious tone he could muster. 'The version in the history books sounds much better.'

'Now, now. What would your tutors say if they heard you impugn the Fire Nation's honour like that?' Yunjin's hand lifted to brush a lock of hair away from Sozin's forehead like he had done so many times before, but the hand stilled mid-gesture. The fingers shook, then the arm flopped down onto Yunjin's lap like a dead fish, the muscles jerking a little. Sozin placed his hand over his father's, a familiar hot pebble in the pit of his stomach. At eight, he had asked his father if it hurt. Yunjin had said "of course not", and then his expression had changed and he'd added "not enough to notice".

'Grandmother Bao also said I should go on the journey myself,' Sozin said, suddenly absorbed in the floor's lotus pattern. When he spoke again it was in a comically exaggerated version of his grandmother's voice. 'She said I've gone for too long without lessons in rulership. And also fish taming.' His voice turned back to normal. 'Yeah, I didn't get that part either.'

'Of course you're going to go. You must. In two or three years…' His voice trailed off, and then he glanced back at his son. For a moment Sozin looked into his father's eyes, the same golden-brown as Roku's, then he looked back at the pavilion's floor, the thing in his stomach now covered in an icy layer of misery.

'Grandmother said this year is best because of Aunt Iruza's letter,' he said. 'She wants her children to come to the palace, so maybe I could go pick them up. I'm not too young, really, I'm not.'

'Minister Guo wants something,' Yunjin said, with a slightly shaky nod of his chin. Sora and the two ministers were stepping up to the pavilion. Sozin took his hand off his father's, ready to help him stand up.

'I'm sorry,' Sora said softly when she got close enough.

Guo stepped up to the Fire Lord. 'I beg your pardon, sir,' he said, 'but I must inform you of the situation at Yulong.' He was holding a messenger hawk scroll with the leather ribbons still attached.

'This must be about Lord Yoshi, if I am not mistaken,' Yunjin said, and right now he was the Fire Lord again, his voice subtly different than when he had been talking with his son. Sozin was sure that even the faint trace of poppy smoke that seemed to cling to his father's clothes all the time had faded a little.

'Yes, sir,' Guo said, and unrolled the scroll in one neat gesture; everything about him was neat, like a well-oiled clockwork mechanism, and Sozin suddenly had an image of the minister being carefully packed in a box by his servants and then retrieved and wound up again every morning. He bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing. 'Lord Yoshi is not likely to last the year, and when he does die, well.' He handed the scroll to Yunjin. Sozin reached out for it and placed it on his father's lap. 'I think there's trouble already brewing in Yulong, sir.'

'There's always trouble brewing in Yulong,' Sora said. The look of worry had been replaced by a frown of displeasure. 'They seem to have a knack for it.'

'Even so, I expect we'll soon have to send someone,' Yunjin said.

'Father, send me.' Sozin paused for a second, then spoke again, this time with conviction. 'I should be the one to go. I'm the Crown Prince—I have to be able to handle this. And I'm supposed to travel through the Fire Nation anyway. I'm supposed to prove myself, right?'

'We'll see,' Sora said, her eyelids drooping just like her mother's. Sozin was very familiar with that tone; it immediately preceded a "no".

He got up. 'Why shouldn't I go? I should have a good reason, at least.' He had never thought all that much about his tour, but something about his grandmother's words had struck a spark, a fever.

'Prince Sozin, please remember yourself,' Sora said. Sozin felt like glaring back at her, but looked down at the ground and bowed to his mother.

'I am sorry, mother. It was not my place.'

'Minister Xiao… Minister Guo,' Sora went on. 'Please leave us.'

Sozin looked up from under his eyelashes. The two ministers turned to his father, who nodded, then bowed to the Fire Lord before walking away. Once they were out of sight, Sora let out a sigh and put her hand on Sozin's shoulder. He felt like shrugging her hand away, but knew that would just be childish. 'I'm sorry, son, but I don't think sending you to Yulong would be a very good idea. I don't think you have enough experience—'

'Mother, I'm sixteen. Roku is the same age as I am and he's off to do Avatar things.'

'He's off to train and study,' Yunjin said, with a smile that managed to be amused without being mocking. 'I don't think they're having him face angry spirits just yet.'

'I have to train too. And I have to get to know my country. How am I supposed to become Fire Lord if I haven't even left the capital?'

Sora took her hand off her son's shoulder. 'Of course you're going to leave the capital and go on your journey. In a few years' time…'

Why do they all say that? Sozin thought, before his father cut in.

'Sora,' Yunjin said. 'Maybe he should go now. Under other circumstances, I'd make him wait. It's just…' Another lighthouse-to-ship glance passed between his parents, but this time Sozin knew exactly what it meant.

'But he's so young.'

Yunjin was about to reply when his cane slipped from his grip and thudded onto the stone floor. His right hand slumped onto his knee, suddenly as useless as his left, and a shiver ran through his shoulders. 'I think I should lie down,' he said in a dry whisper.

Sozin moved towards his father but Sora was already at her husband's side, gathering everything and leveraging him up. 'It's all right,' she said. Yunjin looked back at Sozin, his golden skin blanching. 'I'm sorry, dumpling.'

'Do you want me to call for—' Sozin said, feeling useless. Even getting the words out was hard, each one sticking in his throat.

'I'll handle it,' Sora said, and in a few moments his parents were trudging out of the gardens and he was alone again. He sat down on the ground next to the pavilion and started pulling up blades of grass. For what seemed like the thousand thousandth time, he wished Roku were there.

'No luck, grandson?' Bao again, her shadow blocking out the sun. He looked up and for a moment all he could see was his mother and himself, round-faced and solid where his father was slender. Then she stepped closer and the effect was gone.

'Dad isn't feeling well.' Again. 'And they told me I was too young,' he said, and got up, wiping grass off his clothes. 'Well, mother told me I was too young.'

'Of course she did.' Bao reached forward and picked up a blade of grass still clinging to his sleeve. 'Do you think she did it just to annoy you? You don't know what kind of things she's been through.'

That was the other thing they never talked about: the three little altars in the alcove off the main shrine, under the figurine of the chubby, smiling spirit who was supposed to guide the souls of babies and the never-born to where they could be reborn under a luckier star. It wasn't a secret—he had been there more than once—but his mother always visited the altars alone, and when it was time to go to the main shrine and pay one's respect to the ancestors, she never even looked in the alcove's direction. 'I know she thinks she has to protect me. But I'm not a baby anymore. Can't she see—'

'Like I said, grandson, you don't know what kind of things she's been through.' She twirled the blade of grass in her hand. 'To have married the dashing young Crown Prince in the year of the Great Comet. How lucky. How fortunate. And then she was Fire Lady and with a child on the way, luckier still. Then your father started getting ill, and her child was born dead and nearly killed her in the process. Then it happened again. And again. I think three dead children is too much for anyone to bear.'

'I know it must have been hard for them,' Sozin said, but he was aware he didn't know at all. It was like trying to understand the first half of a play when he'd only come in after the break. 'But I'm not just going to keel over and die. I've been practicing firebending since I was three and—'

'No need to convince me, grandson. I'm the one who put the idea in your head, after all. But what did I show you just now? You have to give people what they want, or at least what they think they want. Otherwise you're just splashing about and talking to fish.' She twisted the blade of grass in her hands. 'See? Like this. Force just makes it bend. But if you apply the right pressure—' She started peeling strips off the blade. '—the right motivation, the right word at the right time, just so…' She wiped away the pieces of grass. 'Leave the matter of your parents in my hands. We'll soon be heading off to Obsidian Island.'

Oh. 'We?'

'Certainly. I'd like to see Princess Iruza again and you weren't expecting to go off without any guidance at all, were you?'

Actually, yes. Gone were the images of pirates and bandits; now all he could think of was trudging along at a snail-sloth's pace from governor's household to governor's household, growing more and more bored as his grandmother filled every well-appointed room in the country with chatter about mutual acquaintances and the smell of lotus tea.

'Thank you for the vote of confidence, grandson,' Bao said. 'It is overwhelming.'

He blushed. 'I'm sorry, grandmother. I—'

'You don't want to travel with your boring old grandma.' Her voice grew diamond-hard and suddenly her gaze was unfathomable, all-knowing. He nearly drew back before she blinked. 'You may find it less dull than you think. Now, practical matters: you must invite a guest to accompany us. Someone your own age. Do you have anyone in mind?'

'Sure—Roku,' he said. At least this time he had remembered Roku was gone before blurting out his name; he still often found himself instinctively turning towards or talking to a friend who was no longer there. 'But he's not around anymore.'

'Then think of someone else. And choose wisely—anyone who travels with the royal children in their tour of the country is a companion for life.'

'I already have a companion for life,' he grumbled.

'Yes, yes, chosen by fate on the day of your birth and whatnot.' She made a dismissive gesture. 'The thing about people on your side is that you can never have too many of them. Let me know how you decide, grandson.' She turned on her heel and walked away, white hair and pale red silk shining in the sun.

Sozin was alone again, the sound of the cicadas growing thicker in the mid-afternoon air. Who was he supposed to invite to travel with him? He had met plenty of the Fire Nation's most important young people, at parties and state functions, but he hadn't really got close to any of them, other than Roku. He pictured the two of them going off on this trip together, crossing the jungle and racing to the top of mountains. Then he pictured himself going up to one of the scions of one of the noble houses. 'Hello, you're Admiral Kung's son, aren't you? Would you like to come with me on my tour of the Fire Nation? Also, what's your name?' He kicked a pebble away. It was true what Bao had said: Roku said that he always knew what to say and do, like when—

He stopped and walked back inside. A few moments later he was leaving the palace.

*

His destination was a ten-minute walk away from the palace, but since it was an official visit, he let himself be carried in a palanquin, with two guards flanking it. Soon after he arrived, the door was opened by a haughty-looking butler who took one look at the golden trim on Sozin's clothes, the palanquin, and the royal guards, and promptly turned obsequious. Sozin might have given the Crown Prince headpiece to Roku, but the rest sufficed. 'It is our honour to receive the Crown Prince.' He drew back from the door, still bowing, to let Sozin pass.

'I'd like to speak with Lady Ta Min, if I may.'

The butler, who had just finished his first bow, bowed again. 'Certainly, my lord. I shall summon Lady Ta Min straight away.' He clapped his hands and a few servants came into the hallway. 'Please attend to the Crown Prince.' Another bow and he was out of sight. Sozin found himself wishing he had an order for the bevy of servants, just to give them something to do. At least they weren't bowing like someone with a nervous tic.

'You wished to speak to me, Prince Sozin?' Her manner was formal, but she had on the sideways glance Sozin remembered from his and Roku's party, the one that made it look like there was something amusing only she knew.

'Did I come at a bad time?'

'Not at all.' A pause. 'Would you like some tea?'

They moved wordlessly to a room decorated with several screens showing exquisitely detailed nature scenes. In fact, everything in the house was exquisitely detailed: the lacquered boxes, the vases, the tooled lamp stands. Even the wood polish smelled expensive. They sat at an Earth Kingdom-style table and Ta Min ordered some jasmine tea, after which they exchanged the usual wishes for each other's family's continued health. Like always, Sozin shared some polite lies about his father.

For the next few moments the only sounds in the room were the ticking of a mechanical clock and the distant chatter of birds.

'To what do I owe this honour?' she asked.

'Nothing in particular. I just wanted to speak to you.'

She raised her eyes towards him. 'I see,' she said, then went back to being as polished and silent as the objects decorating her home.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

'That's a very… interesting clock,' Sozin said when the silence grew heavy enough to squeeze something else out of him. What was he doing here, anyway? He was only speaking to Ta Min because Roku had had a crush on her, back when everything was different. As though Roku had transferred something to her by sheer force of blushing whenever she was in the vicinity.

'Yes,' she said, glancing at the corner of the room taken up by golden gears and spun glass. 'The figurines are from the Earth Kingdom. You can't see them right now but they come out when it strikes the hour.'

Sozin felt a sudden urge to take it apart to see how it worked. 'Have you ever been there?'

The charcoal eyes turned quizzical. 'I'm sorry?'

'The Earth Kingdom, I mean.'

'Oh. No. But my parents trade with the Earth Kingdom a lot. Those figurines came from Ba Sing Se.'

'The figurines I'm too early to see.'

A slight smile. 'Yes.'

The servant from before approached the table in silence and poured them their tea. Jasmine-scented steam rose from their cups. 'I'd like to go to Ba Sing Se,' he said when they were alone again. 'Stand on the outer wall and see if it's as tall as they say. I bet they're all exaggerating. At least a little bit.'

'Some people always exaggerate the size of their walls,' she said, deadpan.

He wasn't sure if he was supposed to laugh. 'You know, I'm going to travel through the Fire Nation soon. This year, I think.'

Ta Min's look of studied politeness turned into one of interest. 'Really? That sounds wonderful. I've never been outside the capital, not really.'

'I'm supposed to pick up my cousins at Obsidian Island. But I'm sure I'll stop at plenty of other places along the way.' It wasn't really a lie, he told himself, just a truth awaiting confirmation.

'I bet you'll see all kinds of things,' Ta Min said. Sozin wasn't sure if she was talking to him. Her eyes were focused on some point above his shoulder and he thought she felt like those clock figurines of hers when the hour struck, suddenly awake and lively. 'Like—the animals in the jungle. They must be amazing.'

'And all those cities. You know, when my father went on his tour he had to stop a warlord in the Western Islands. He told me all about it.'

'Really?'

'Yes.'

'That sounds—' She ducked her head and for a moment he thought she was going to say something like "frightening". '—Exciting.'

'I know.' Their eyes met over their cups of cooling, forgotten tea. 'Would you like to come with me?'

+

Notes: A doushun relationship is something I made up for my personal canon, and it's based on various real-life forms of contracted non-kinship relationships; there will be more about it in the rest of the story, but basically its purpose is to provide life-long friendship, companionship and emotional support without the dynastic and economic constraints of (upper-class) marriage. The word itself is something I made up and doesn't mean anything in RL, as far as I know, but I based it on the Mandarin Chinese tóng/仝 (same) and hún/魂 (soul, spirit) and also the Japanese prefix dou/同 (same). Bao's line about making sure things come when called from the depths, I borrowed from Henry IV ("I can call spirits from the vasty deep."/"Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?") In our world, a lion-dog is a Chow Chow. In AtLA-land… who knows? AtLA biology means never having to say you're kidding. :) The idea of Fire Nation royal youngsters travelling through their country proving their worth and so forth was something stated by the show's creators in an interview. The fact that Sozin's immediate reaction when the Fire Sages gatecrashed his party in The Avatar and the Fire Lord was to worry about something having happened to his father was what made me think that his father was chronically ill. Yunjin's illness is what we'd call a neurodegenerative illness (like, for instance, ALS or Huntington's) in real life. In his world, all he knows is that no one has been able to cure him and it will get progressively worse until it kills him. Regarding the clock at Ta Min's house, with the level of technology the Fire Nation has one hundred years later, it's impossible that they don't have clocks. I mean literally impossible, since you can't really accurately calculate longitude at sea without a clock, and in the series the Fire Nation navy doesn't seem to have any trouble with that. Also, yes, it's true: Sozin is a total dork. Come on, we're talking about the teenager who decided Dance Dance Revolution moves were just the thing to cheer his BFF up. (Yeah, I know they were supposed to be bending forms. I call them as I see them. ~g~)

Chapter 2: Into the West

Chapter Two: Into the West

Grandmother Bao lost no time in informing Sozin of her success, and his parents lost no time in informing him of their conditions for his trip. He just nodded, with the occasional "yes", as his mother and father—mostly his mother—talked to him in their private chambers. Bao sat by one corner, glancing at him once in a while as his parents told him to always obey his grandmother and to remember all sorts of things he was already forgetting, between one nod and another.

'Don't worry about doing something wrong,' Bao told him once they were out of the rooms.

'I'm not worried.'

She ignored him. 'Doing things wrong is what youth is for. Now go practice your firebending, it may prove useful.'

He didn't need to be told to practice; he already did, and his other fighting skills as well, until he was gleaming with sweat and each move was a muscle memory, precise and immediate. Later he found out that Ta Min's family had sent a message accepting his invitation during one of the times when he had been practising unarmed combat, and wished he'd been there to receive it; Ta Min hadn't come, but her family had made sure the message arrived with a great deal of pomp, and he was pretty sure that beat learning how to take blows by being slammed repeatedly against the walls and floor of the dojo.

He only saw Ta Min again on the day of their departure. She greeted him formally at the palace, and only spoke again when their carriage was crossing the Royal Plaza and several people cheered and waved at them as they drove past: 'They certainly seem glad to see the last of us.'

'Very droll,' Bao said in a completely flat tone, then nodded at Sozin. 'Wave back, child.'

It seemed to take forever for the dragon-moose to canter out of the city spread below the crater, and finally into the Western Road. Sozin looked out the window at the sea until it was only a radiant silver-blue line in the horizon, beyond the sprawl of red tile rooftops. Now they had been travelling for almost two hours and there were fewer and fewer buildings, rocky islands in a sea of grass, and the din of the city was lost in the distance, muffled by the clip-clop of hooves. Bao's maid took a basket from underneath their forward-facing seat and retrieved a piece of half-finished embroidery. Her mistress nodded in approval, then glanced out the window. 'You two, take a look at that.'

Sozin and Ta Min looked out. He couldn't help but feel a little disappointed; there was only a tree-covered hill rising from the forest, looking rather dry under the summer heat.

'That's a cursed place,' Bao said. Sozin leaned a little further out the window—he felt Ta Min press against him to get a closer look—but the hill remained unremarkable. Even at that distance, the trees weren't dense enough to picture ghosts hiding underneath. 'Oh, don't bother looking too closely,' Bao went on. 'The ghosts only come out in the moonlight, I'm sure.'

Sozin leaned back in his seat. 'Are there really ghosts?'

Bao's expression remained unchanged. 'Maybe. That's where Fire Lord Mizuka's children died. Probably.'

'She was Fire Lord before my grandfather,' Sozin said to Ta Min, but her attention was wholly focused on Bao.

'Lady Bao—what do you mean by "probably"?'

'Call me Bao, child. If we're going to be just ordinary travellers, we'd better not stand too much on ceremony. As for what happened over there…' She cocked her head slightly towards the hill, which was now almost out of sight of the road. 'Well, you two are old enough to know. You must have learned about the crisis of succession—the last one, I mean—in your history lessons. I was a young girl when it happened. A little younger than you, in fact.' She paused and her maid raised her head, then resumed her embroidering like an elephant-rat hurrying back into its hole. 'You must be familiar with the main events. If you're not, Ta Min, I'm sure my grandson has memorised them. Both of Fire Lord Mizuka's children died young—the oldest was just a few years younger than you—and the country nearly tore itself apart before she was succeeded by her cousin, Sozin's grandfather. This is the part they don't tell you in the history books: that's where it happened. That's where they vanished.'

Sozin glanced back at the hill. Only the very edge of its tree line was visible now. 'That's not a very big place. How could they have vanished? And besides, I always heard—' He fell silent.

'As I said: history is not always truthful about its subjects. One moment they were walking under the trees, not far from some other members of the court. And the next they had vanished off the face of the earth. It was as though they stepped out of sight and the hill itself swallowed them up.'

An icy spot formed between Sozin's shoulder blades. 'Can we go there?'

'Don't be absurd. I told you, it's a cursed place. Nobody goes any closer than the foot of the hill, and only to leave offerings at that. Whatever is there is best left asleep, and pacified.'

'They never found them?' Ta Min asked.

'Oh, they tried. Their mother combed the whole country looking for them. They went over every inch of that hill and those woods. Not a trace. There were all sorts of rumours flying around, of course. That they had been kidnapped, that they had offended a forest spirit, that Prince Ren—your grandfather, Sozin—had done away with them. And then—'

'He didn't,' Sozin said, 'did he?'

Bao shrugged. 'How should I know? But I doubt he would stoop to that sort of thing. He would probably find it lowering, and crass to boot.' Her eyes misted with memory. 'A scoundrel of a man, but one with standards. And a good Fire Lord, which is what matters. A great dancer too, which helps.'

'How can you say that being a good Fire Lord makes up for being a scoundrel?' Sozin said.

'Well, which one are you aware of? The folks in the Outer Islands do not care if the Fire Lord is nice to his mother, I assure you.'

'But his mother probably does,' he said. In his etiquette lessons, he had been taught to never raise his voice in polite conversation, and had been made to recite and debate for hours so that he'd be able to always speak with knowledge, refinement, and authority. But right now his years of lessons had gone out the window, and his grandmother's stare made him feel like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum. He spoke again, and couldn't help but let the volume of his voice creep up a little. 'Being a good Fire Lord doesn't make it all right to be a terrible person.'

'No—sometimes it merely requires it. After all, one does not rule by meditating on the sacredness of all life, child. I'd think you'd know that, at the very least.'

'My father is the best person I know,' he said rather huffily. 'That doesn't stop him from being a good Fire Lord.'

'That was not the point. The point is that rank—power—demands choices. And sacrifices.'

A flash of the Crown Prince headpiece sitting on Roku's palm, gleaming in the light from the oil lamps. The Fire Sages told me I won't need any worldly possessions anymore. He knew that power came with responsibility, and that it demanded sacrifices, but he also knew something was wrong about his grandmother's logic. 'Well, maybe some people don't have what it takes to be both a good ruler and a good person. But my father does, and I hope I do too.'

'Do you have what it takes to be a great dancer as well?' Ta Min asked. The sideways glance was back.

'Sozin is an excellent dancer,' Bao said before he could think of a reply. 'May we all be as thoroughly competent at everything as he is.'

He was sure she was mocking him, but she sounded absolutely sincere. Then Ta Min spoke again and whatever terseness there had been in the air dissipated.

'Lady Bao—Bao, I mean,' she added, 'what happened next? You were going to say that something happened after all those rumours, when Fire Lord Mizuka's children disappeared.'

'Oh, yes. Two children went to the hill—I believed they said they were trying to catch rabbaroos, but I think they went there on a dare, seeing how long they'd last on the haunted hill before they lost their nerve and ran—and there was a landslide. Nothing serious, just enough for them to find a small hole boring deep into the hill. They said they threw stones into it and couldn't hear them hit the bottom, no matter how long they waited. Soon after that, the story made its way to the palace and Fire Lord Mizuka sent people to the hill again; she even hired some earthbenders to open up the hole and see what was inside.'

She paused. A chill trickled down the back of Sozin's neck and he told himself he was just being silly. 'What did they find?'

'Bones.'

'Bones?'

'A cavern deep in the ground and covered in bones. Some animal, some human, a great assembly of remains carpeting the ground. No one could tell how long they had been there. Some looked fresh. Some were crumbling into dust. As for the prince and the princess, maybe they were in there, maybe they were not. But the easiest thing was to say they had fallen into the cave like so many others before, it seemed, and died there. And after that, no one went into the hill anymore. Only to the foot of it, and even then only to keep restless spirits at bay. Better to leave the place forgotten, and to leave whatever lies there, to lie alone.'

For a moment no one spoke. Even Bao's maid had stopped her motions with the needle. The carriage hit a shallow pothole and kicked up a cloud of dust.

'That can't really be the ending,' Sozin said. 'What happened to the prince and princess? And did they really find a cave full of bones? It just sounds like a—a ghost story.'

'Of course it's a ghost story,' Bao said. 'But that doesn't mean it didn't really happen. Though it must have been embellished in the telling. Tales always grow fast, like kudzu and children, and this one has had over sixty years to do so. As for the prince and the princess… who knows? Maybe they really did die from a fall. Maybe they never fell into that hole at all. Maybe all those bones were carried there.'

'By someone?' Ta Min's eyes had the same spark Sozin had seen at her house.

'Or something,' Bao said. 'Or maybe they just died in an accident and whoever was there covered it up. Accidents that befall princes tend to be bad for other people's health too.'

'Maybe someone did kidnap them,' Sozin said, 'and all that stuff about haunted hills and caves of bones is just some story.' At eleven he and Roku had dared each other to walk at midnight across one of the corridors in the west wing, the one that was supposed to be haunted. The dark had whispered and rustled and then he'd grabbed Roku's hand and rushed across the corridor with him. See? His heart had been pounding his ribcage. No ghosts here. 'I'd go into that hill. Even into that cave. I wouldn't be afraid—it's just a bunch of bones.'

'Maybe they ran away,' Ta Min said. 'The prince and the princess, I mean. They saw their chance when they were in the woods and ran. Maybe that's why nobody ever found them: because they didn't want to be found.'

Sozin looked at his seat-mate. 'Why would they do that?'

'I don't know.' Ta Min's face was blank. 'Maybe they just didn't like the kind of life they had to lead, being heirs to the throne. So they ran away to become someone else. Someone they wanted to be.'

Sozin tried to make sense of what she was saying. 'Like what?'

'I don't know.' A pause. 'Something different.'

'Well, who knows?' Bao said. Her maid was absorbed in the embroidery again, needle moving to and fro in her fingers, and they were back to being just a few travellers passing the time with stories as they moved along the Western Road. 'They wouldn't be the first in that family to be born under an unlucky star. Fire Lord Ren's uncle—' She fell silent, her lips suddenly pursing.

'Uncle?' Sozin rifled through his memory of his father's family tree. Roku was the one with the real talent for genealogy; he had one full sister and four half-siblings, and they all came with their own gaggle of relations. 'I don't remember ever coming across—'

'No, you wouldn't. We don't speak about him. They certainly don't in your father's family, but then that's hardly—look, let me tell you another story,' she added before Sozin could say anything. 'This one really is just a story, though it may have also happened, who knows? It's about a man who thought the flame of his love would never dim, but who forgot that a blaze can become a firestorm. What had been a dance turned into a battle. He and his beloved fought and fought, and after words that can't be taken back were spoken, he went in the dead of night to saddle his dragon-moose.

'"If you don't come back in three days," his lover told him, "you can never come back. Mark my words. I will be gone." Still angry, the man rode away into the jungle. The noise of their arguments was replaced by the sounds of lizard-parrots and badgerfrogs and the solitude soothed him. But after just two days in the forest, he was filled with regret. He wanted to return to the one he loved, and he wanted to return to the life he missed. So he found a shortcut through the jungle and took it, desperate to return, desperate to make his way back before it was too late, not knowing if someone would be waiting for him or if he would find only empty rooms in an empty house. His lover's threat hung around his head—and who can know when someone will be true to their word? He could feel his mount losing speed, as though it wouldn't make it through the night.

'The man came to the edge of a swamp, dark and unknown, and so large he couldn't even see the trees and vines on the other side. He had to make a decision: should he go around the swamp, or ride into it?

'Next to the swamp stood a boy. Maybe he was a ghost or a spirit of the forest or, more likely, he just lived nearby. Whatever he was, the man asked him: "Tell me—does the swamp have a hard bottom?" And the boy told him, "It does." So the man guided his dragon-moose into the swamp. And as he began to sink, deeper and deeper into the swamp, he said to the boy, "I thought you said it had a hard bottom!" and the boy replied, "It does. You're just not there yet."'

She fell silent. The dragon-moose continued to canter.

'So the man didn't make it back,' Ta Min said. She didn't sound entirely disappointed.

'He might have,' Sozin said, and turned to Bao. 'If he was a good enough firebender, he could have got out of the swamp. Or he could have swam across. Or maybe the swamp's bottom was just some inches below. Right?'

'I don't know,' Bao said with a shrug. Sozin couldn't help but feel a little annoyed at all these stories, their dangling ends itching like a pebble in his shoe. What was the point of a story without an ending? It was like having a sword with only half a blade: it didn't make it half-effective; it made it downright useless.

Bao looked through the window again. 'Look, children, it's the tower of Biao Yan. See how wonderful it looks in the sun.'

*

They stopped a little after midday, after riding past a stretch of farmland. Bao sat under a parasol and the two drivers, who had unhitched the four dragon-moose so they could graze, were now leaning back on their seat and chatting. Ta Min sat next to Bao, not a fold of her travel clothes out of place, staring at some undetermined spot in the horizon. Sozin wandered into the field, grass crunching underfoot, happy that for once he was just a traveller and not a prince. At the palace no one except his parents would have sat down before he did, much less ignore him while he wandered off.

He looked around him. They were far away enough from the city for the air not to have a sea tang anymore, and the road meandered through an ocean of grass and rolling wooded hills that stretched as far as the eye could see. Beyond the snatches of conversation there was only the rhythmic murmur of insects and the weight of the sunlight, warm and thick as molasses; he closed his eyes so he could feel its tide in his blood.

When he opened them again, he stepped closer to Ta Min. 'Do you want to go for a walk?'

'Excellent idea, grandson,' Bao said, placing a sliver of fire ginger back into her bowl. 'Better still, ask Lee and Shou to saddle a pair of the dragon-moose.' She turned to the two drivers. 'That's all right, isn't it? And Ta Min—I assume you ride, child?'

'Yes.' The spark was back and she was the first on the saddle once the dragon-moose were ready. They headed north at a morose canter, after Sozin had promised his grandmother they wouldn't go far and to take something to eat and to be careful, though he really didn't know what they had to worry about; he was a master firebender and he had his sword with him, for all that he didn't much care for it. 'What do you think so far?' he said to Ta Min.

'I like your grandmother,' she said, then looked ahead, to where the field sloped upwards into a tree-lined plateau. 'Her stories are a little… weird.'

'She's always a little weird,' he said. 'But I'm liking it. It's nice not to be treated like a prince all the time, you know? Not having everyone waiting on you hand and foot.'

'I can see that.' She was back to being her polished self, handling her dragon-moose as tightly as someone who feared failing a riding lesson. He had never had any trouble reading Roku's moods—sometimes he could even feel them in his own flesh. But Ta Min still reminded him of the clock at her house: someone who would come alive once in a while, but whose gears were an intricate puzzle kept out of sight.

'You're really good with that dragon-moose,' he said.

She blushed, but this time didn't lower her eyes. 'Thank you. My parents made sure I learned.'

'Yeah, but you're better than most. Want to go faster?'

'Sure.'

Dragon-moose were heavy animals, but some of their distant ancestors had raced across the skies and a part of them seemed to remember it; they ran to the top of the plateau at a trot so fast it sent Sozin's heart racing and they only stopped when the trees became too thick to run through. Ta Min laughed and drew in her mount, who shook its neck ridge and let out a smoky snort.

'That was fun,' Sozin said, and jumped down from his dragon-moose. Above him, the canopy rustled. 'Do you want to see what's beyond these woods?'

'That sounds good,' she said. He saw the tip of a short scabbard peeking out from under her hem as she dismounted. 'Dagger?'

'What? Oh.' She reached for the scabbard with her free hand, looking a little embarrassed. 'It's a pair of butterfly swords, actually.' She unsheathed the two blades single-handedly. The steel's edge caught the light even in the gloom of the woods. 'See? I'm not very good at firebending, so my parents had me learn other things as well.' She swung the knives in a semi-circle and sheathed them again in a smooth motion. When she spoke again her tone was a little bitter. 'With Sifu On Yan. He's supposed to be the best, and my family always has the best.'

'I bet you're really good with them,' he said. The forest grew thicker around them and the sound of the dragon-moose's hooves made the birds quiet. 'I don't like weapons very much. Firebending is so much easier.'

'Easy for you!' She shook a few tendrils of long brown hair off her face.

'Not just me, Roku is just the same. He's a bit clumsy but not when he's bending. He's pretty amazing when he's bending. I mean, not just because he's the Avatar, he was really good even before we—' He paused. 'He likes you, you know.'

The sideways glance again, this time with a half-smile. 'He doesn't even know me. I don't even know him.'

'You'd like him. When he gets back we're going to tell him all about our trip. If the all-powerful Avatar is interested, that is,' he said with a grin.

'You two are really close, aren't you?'

This time it was his turn to blush. 'Yeah. Well, he's my doushun, you know. We've been together since we were little kids. Since he came to live at the palace, we weren't apart even for one day. When our parents were drawing up our contract, the matchmakers told them it's pretty rare, to have such auspicious signs around a doushun pair. He was born just a few minutes after me. I guess that makes us really lucky.' He fell silent and for a moment the woods were full of shadows and the smell of damp undergrowth and mossy tree stumps.

'I'm sorry he had to leave,' Ta Min said.

'It's all right. We—hey, look at that.'

There was a small stone structure half-hidden by the trees, the stucco crumbled off in patches and overrun by climbing plants. Birds had made their nest on the roof.

'What's that?'

Sozin walked his dragon-moose closer to the structure. 'It looks like an abandoned shrine. People must have lived nearby.' He dusted cobwebs off the pillars holding up the small roof. Inside all that remained from the spirit figurines were a few shards of stained pottery, but the stone bowl for the flame was still mostly intact, filled with about an inch of dirty rainwater and a mass of leaves turning to mulch. A few flies buzzed in the syrupy air.

'Who do you think built it?' Ta Min said. She touched one of the shrine's sides and stucco crumbled under her fingers.

'I don't know. It must be really old.' The rounded shape of the roof looked distinctly old-fashioned. 'Maybe there used to be a village here.' He cleared away the leaves hanging off the sides of the fire bowl and lit a small flame with the tips of his fingers. The contents of the bowl were damp, but his fire was hot enough to make them burn, and in a few seconds a flame was crackling in the shrine again.

'It'll go out in a bit,' Ta Min said.

Sozin shrugged. 'I know. Maybe someone else will light it again.' He turned away. Something about the abandoned shrine still made him a little uneasy, even if it was a little better with a flame inside. 'Come on, let's see what else is out here.'

A few yards out, the woods grew thinner and thinner until they ended entirely and the plateau sloped down again into a vast grass plain where a river shone like polished silver in the sun. A herd of cow-hippos grazed by the water and beyond them lay stretches of farmland, nestled at the foot of a range of purple hills.

Neither of them moved for a while. Maybe this was silly, some part of Sozin thought, standing here staring at fields and a stretch of pasture. But this was his land, he realised with a shiver that went all the way to the bone; not something he owned, but something that was going to be placed in his hands, meant for him to cradle and watch over as though it were a tiny flame. He was bound to it, to the cotton fields and the rice paddies, to the far-away village and the river with its herd and moss-hung trees. Right now this was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, this bowl of jewel-bright world under a sky so blue it made his eyes hurt.

Ta Min spoke first. 'It looks wonderful.'

'Yeah—let's go down.'

This time they didn't ride on the dragon-moose, but just walked them by their reins down the slope leading to the plain. 'How about you?' Sozin said.

'I'm sorry?'

'I've told you about Roku and me, so you don't you tell me about yourself?'

'Well, there's not much to tell. My mother's people made a fortune in trade. My father is from one of the Five-Fold Flame families. I expect you know all that.'

They were getting closer to the herd now. The cow-hippos towered taller than a man and grazed or dozed in place while their tails shooed away flies.

'Yes, sure,' he said, but it wasn't entirely true. As the Crown Prince, he had had to learn the names of the scions of the Five-Fold Flame, the landed nobility, the provincial governors, but they had been just names on paper, or Pai Sho tiles sliding back and forth across a board. Not living, breathing people standing so close to him their arm brushed his. 'You don't have any brothers or sisters, do you?'

Her dragon-moose grew skittish and she turned towards it as she reined it in. 'No. Maybe we shouldn't get too close to the cow-hippos. I think these are half-wild. Probably not too fond of strangers.'

He halted his own dragon-moose, who huffed and shook its wide ears. 'How can you tell?'

'They're skinnier than the domestic ones and their horns haven't been filed down—you can tell by the yellow tinge. And they have too many little ones. If they were on a farm, the weaned calves would have been separated from the rest of the herd. With these, the villagers just have to cull a few for meat as needed; there aren't any really wild ones anymore, so they aren't very territorial. It's cheaper to raise them like this, even if the meat isn't as good.'

'You know a lot about cow-hippos.'

She turned her gaze away, but when she spoke again the confidence wasn't entirely gone from her voice. 'My mother's family made a lot of money in cow-hippos. I learned a few things.'

They walked up to a copse of magnolia trees that hid the river out of sight and tied the dragon-moose to a fallen trunk so they could graze without wandering off. Moss hung off the branches like silvery beards and bird calls filled the moist air.

'Do you want to sit down?' Sozin said. He flopped down onto a sunny spot in the grass. Ta Min sat down, smoothing down the folds of her travel tunic. Even her sash didn't have a thread out of place.

'I want to thank you for inviting me,' she said. 'I hadn't had a chance to do it personally.'

'It's all right,' he said, and then they sat quietly for a while. A bird cawed and moved above them in a flurry of feathers.

'This is a lovely place,' she said, but he could tell that she'd retreated back into herself and the moment they'd shared in the hill was gone. He felt like slapping his forehead in frustration—why was this so difficult? He thought back to when he and Roku had met for the first time, when they were nine, and his friend had been a shy, frightened child parted from his family by fate so he could be the Crown Prince's companion. Then Sozin had told him 'Do you have any brothers or sisters? I don't have any, but you can be my brother now', and had taken him everywhere in the palace, even places they weren't supposed to go, and soon they were laughing and playing together. He looked around. He could see the black and white shapes of cow-hippos looming outside the trees and there was a sound of rushing water.

'Does that sound like a waterfall to you?' he said. Ta Min looked up, suddenly alert. He got back on his feet. 'Hey, I bet I can walk right up to it.'

'The cow-hippos are in the way,' She didn't sound like she was particularly concerned.

'Well, of course. Otherwise it wouldn't be a very interesting bet.'

She got up and glanced at the herd. 'How much?'

He shrugged. 'A silver piece?'

'You're on.'

He slipped his sword off his back and handed it to Ta Min, then started walking towards the edge of the copse. The cow-hippos grazing and dozing by the stream looked bigger than ever, their heads half his size, their legs massive like tree trunks. For a moment he thought he must have gone insane: Ta Min had made them sound as skittish as mongoose-dragons, but at least those wouldn't stomp you flat if they panicked or decided you were threatening their calves. And they probably wouldn't eat you afterwards.

'Try not to be crushed by them,' Ta Min whispered. She sounded a little amused.

'Killed and eaten by lunch. How humiliating,' he said, but somehow her words decided it. He was Crown Prince Sozin and he wasn't going to be intimidated by a herd of animals, even boar-q-pines or tiger-crocodiles. He looked above the sea of black and white—there was the waterfall, a streak of white down a moss-covered cliff.

He stepped towards the herd. Its acrid smell filled up the air and he was so close to the cow-hippos he could see the splotches of mud on their hides. He edged closer to the river, moving stealthily between the animals. They carried on munching grass and any grasshoppers that didn't run away fast enough, or dozing placidly while their tails shooed dragonflies away. Their eyes didn't even turn towards him, even though he was walking right through the middle of the herd, where there were so many of them they made the ground cool with shadow.

Ha—they probably wouldn't notice me if I went up to them and said boo, he thought, and moved with more confidence through the tall grass bordering the river. He was getting close to the waterfall now; it was bigger than he'd thought at first and a cloud of mist rose from where it hit the river below.

There was a loud splash. A calf, already almost as tall as Sozin, wadded out of the river and onto the muddy bank, water dripping off its flanks. Sozin stopped. The calf stood right in front of him, eyes turned towards the intruder. It sniffed the air—Sozin suddenly realised just how huge their heads were—and let out a distressed moo.

The herd stirred.

'No, no, shush!' Sozin said, and stepped towards the calf, trying to calm it down. The calf took a step back and let out an even louder moo.

The herd panicked. Bellowing filled the air as the mass of animals started rushing downriver. Suddenly all around him there was kicked-up dust, horns, a press of massive bodies moving faster than he could have imagined. Three adults bore down on the calf and dragged it along as they rushed towards Sozin. For a moment that seemed to stretch forever he saw only the white in their rolled eyes, the foam flecking mouths larger than his head.

Then two white-hot jets of flame burst from his hands and he jumped off the bank, flew a few yards into the air, rolled his body forward and dove into the water.

River-silt stung his eyes. His arms scrapped on the rocky bottom. He swam back up and coughed up a little water as he broke the surface. There was a river weed hanging over his face. He shook it off.

Well, he was going to finish this. He wadded towards the waterfall. The river bottom rose up to meet it, so he soon emerged fully from the water. His clothes felt like they had soaked up half the river. His bangs dripped a month's worth of rain onto his face. He glanced around—the cow-hippos had moved downriver and were now back to their grazing, the whole incident seemingly forgotten; apparently they had the memory of a stunted carp—and saw Ta Min at the edge of the tree line. She had watched the whole thing from the safety of the copse. He stepped up to the waterfall, barely feeling the spray on his already-wet face, and slapped the roaring water.

He couldn't stop a satisfied grin. It didn't matter how often it happened—winning was wonderful.

He walked back to Ta Min's side, his clothes sloshing with every step, then hurried when he realised she was holding her face in her hands. Worry hit him—she had just seen him almost get squished by a herd of cow-hippos.

'I'm all right,' he said.

She looked up and he realised she was wheezing with laughter, not distress. He tried to look as dignified as possible, which wasn't easy when you still had river weeds in your hair and possibly a goldfish in your pants.

'I know,' she said, her body still quaking with laughter. She wiped away tears of mirth and cleared her throat. 'Here.' She reached into her coin purse and handed him a silver piece. 'It was so worth it.' Another eruption of laughter. 'Oh—you should have seen yourself.'

'Always glad to be amusing,' he snapped as he took the proffered coin, then started taking off his soaked vest and water-logged shoes. It was summer, and firebenders dried out quickly in any case. 'So you weren't betting to win, you were betting on an entertainment bargain.'

She blushed a little, but her eyes still met his. 'Well, I was sure it would be worth watching.'

'Well, I was sure I was going to win,' he said, serious, and shook out his vest. A tiny slug-frog dropped down onto the grass, let out a glum croak, and scampered away.

Sozin and Ta Min looked at it, then looked at each other and burst out laughing.

*

That night they stayed at an inn in a town whose sole claim to importance seemed to be the fact that it lay where two major roads crossed. The inn was nearly full with travellers going about their business and Sozin liked the dining room with its constant din of conversation, and simple dishes served by two women who managed to balance five bowls on each arm at once and carry out three conversations at the same time. It was all so different from what he was used to, gold-tipped chopsticks and an intricate dance of manners while servants glided about in silence; he even liked the way the dining room smelled of lime and pepper flakes and hot sesame oil.

Bao—just plain Bao here, just like they were just plain Sozin and Ta Min, she'd reminded them as they'd entered the town—sent them to their rooms right after dinner. 'We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow,' she said as she sipped some plain ginseng tea.

Sozin's bedroom was the smallest he had ever seen in his life, but he liked it as much as the dining room. The bedclothes were cotton, not the silk he was used to, the furniture was minimal, and he only had to take six steps to cross the whole width of the bedroom, but when he opened the window he looked at the clearest night sky he had ever seen, and the air outside was warm and full of the smell of night-blooming flowers and the song of crickets.

He leaned over the windowsill until all he could see were stars and the dark fields around the town. If he wanted to, he could climb out of the window and step into a road, any road, with only a sliver of moon to watch him… He wondered if the stars were different wherever Roku was, and if maybe he was looking at them too.

He stepped back into the room and stripped off his travel clothes until he was bare-chested, then started to wash. At the palace there was always someone to help him with his clothes, to bring him scented water and hot towels, but since he was going to be Fire Lord some day, he had to know more about how his people lived than just numbers and dates in ledgers and scrolls—wasn't that part of the point of this journey? Besides, he thought, splashing cool water on his face, he rather enjoyed taking care of himself. Like the little room and the plain travel clothes and the unmemorable town, it made him feel that, just for a moment, he could pretend to be anyone at all, just another person in the anonymous mass of travellers.

Once he was finished, he stepped into the patch of floor in front of the bed and sat down on the floorboards. One of his firebending instructors had told him often that calligraphy was the best preparation for a firebending session: the balance and clarity of mind required by each brush stroke, the precision of motion, even the smell of the ink, all put one's thoughts and the flow of one's chi in the perfect state for firebending. Their instructor had made him and Roku copy so many classics that they had started joking that calligraphy was indeed perfect for firebending, since after a while you started wanting to set all the brushes and paper on fire.

Still, it was certainly true that mastering firebending required a certain state of mind. He closed his eyes and focused on his breath and heartbeat until there was nothing else: not the night air, not the sounds of creaking wood and distant voices, not the soreness from travelling in a carriage all day. There was only the flow of air and blood, the little sun in his chest pumping out heat to every inch of his body. He rose to his feet and went through a series of forms; he couldn't do real firebending, not indoors in such a small room, but small orange flames bloomed from his hands with every motion and dissipated into the air. He was the fire, the living thing that flowed and rose and twisted, quick like a flame speeding over oil, precise and deadly like lightning. The Short Strike. The Fire Lily. The Dragon Cross-Step.

A knock on the door cut in halfway through one of the forms and he stopped in mid-twist. The flames in his hands went out. The knock came again, more insistent.

His grandmother's maid was standing in the corridor, looking even more elephant-rat-like than she had in the carriage. 'Prince Sozin,' she said. Even her voice was squeaky. 'Your grandmother requests your presence.'

A flash of annoyance. Hasn't she run out of stories yet? 'Did she—no, never mind.' His grandmother might not insist on strict formality during their journey, but he knew she would consider him appallingly rude if he did not follow proper etiquette when the two of them were alone. 'Please tell her I'll be with her right away.'

The girl bowed and scurried down the corridor.

A few minutes later, his topknot redone and not a stitch of clothing out of place, Sozin knocked on the door to his grandmother's bedroom, wedged between his own and Ta Min's.

'Come in, child.' He stepped into a room considerably larger and better appointed than his own. His grandmother sat at a small low table covered with playing cards, and her maid was tending to a teapot that filled the room with the smell of white lotus tea. A grey cat—he thought it was just a shadow until he saw its tail twitch—sprawled on the floor next to the little fire. 'Tea?' Bao said.

'No, thank you. You wished to see me.'

Bao placed another card on the table. 'Yes. Sit. Are you sure you don't want some tea?'

He took a place on the floor mat and glanced at the table while his grandmother studied the cards in her hands. 'Doesn't this game need more than one person?'

'Nonsense. All you need is the ability to make it interesting enough.' She took another card from the stack on one corner of the table, then took the cup proffered by the girl, who had silently materialised by her side. 'Now—we have things to discuss.' She folded up the fan of cards and turned her gaze towards him. 'Namely, your education. It is the purpose of this journey, after all.'

'Yes, grandmother.' He braced himself for whatever bizarre exercise was sure to come next. Maybe this time he was supposed to herd a flock of wild sparrowkeets, or teach arithmetic to the inn's cat. He would have laughed if it weren't for his grandmother's gaze; it punctured any hilarity as effectively as a well-aimed arrow.

She took a sip of tea. 'Please describe the people here to me.'

He blinked. 'You mean, the three of us?'

'No, no, I mean our fellow guests. The ones you've seen. Any detail you may remember.'

Ah, so it was to be a memory test. He couldn't help but smile, then thought back to the front of the inn when they had arrived, the setting sun striking red and gold sparks off the glass panes. He had never been able to explain to Roku how he did it, no matter how much he tried, because he simply couldn't understand how other people remembered things. For him, a memory was a picture; you just needed to glance back at it to see the details. He counted the windows in the front of the inn and did a quick calculation. 'There are a lot of people here: the place is more than three quarters full. When we were dining there were—' He thought back to the dining room. '—about twenty people there. Twenty-six, if you count us.'

'Very well,' Bao said, distinctly unimpressed. 'Tell me about them.' She sounded like she was asking him to do something as simple as counting to ten.

'All of them?'

Another sip of tea. 'As many as you can remember.'

'Well, there were the three of us at one table. Lee and Shou and your maid—' He glanced at her but she had already retreated to one corner and was absorbed in her embroidery again. '—in the table behind us. Then a woman, alone. She looked…' He fumbled for an answer. He always had trouble figuring out adult ages other than "old" and "really old". 'About the same age as mother. Behind her there were two men, one fat, one thin. They talked all the way through dinner.' He thought back to his memory of the dining room, focusing upon it so hard he could almost feel the smell of the hot oil again. The words came quicker. 'On the next table there was a man and a woman and three children, I don't think any of them was older than ten. Then there was another man, but he left before we finished. There were four women in one corner. They laughed a lot. Then three men. They were playing dice and they kept drinking and talking to the serving women. Oh, and one of the kids started pestering them to join their game just before we left the room. And then an old man and a girl. She looked just like him, so I think he was her grandfather. Eighteen people,' he finished, and almost expected a round of applause. 'I was off by two. Would you like me to describe them more?'

'No, that is quite enough. You have a decent memory, grandson.'

He thought "decent" was rather faint praise, but he wasn't going to complain. 'Thank you.'

'Of course, that wasn't what I asked for.'

What? 'I don't understand—you asked me to describe the guests. That's what I did.'

'And if I asked you to describe a wall scroll, would you tell me about what kind of wood was used for the rods and where the ink in the swallow's wings came from? No. Aki, come here.' Bao set down her cup of tea as the maid tidied her embroidery away and stepped up to her mistress. 'Tell me who you saw in the dining room.'

The girl spoke in a voice as colourless as the rest of her. Sozin tried to guess her age, but there were no clues in her smooth oval face; he realised with a jolt that she might be much older than he was, even though he had thought of her as a young girl since he'd first seen her. 'There was a lady sitting behind my table. She was wearing plain cotton clothes but I could see embroidered silk hems underneath and the headpiece in her topknot was real gold. Her manners were impeccable. Lower rank nobility, I'd say. She wasn't very thorough changing her clothes, so she either doesn't do this very often or absolute discretion wasn't required. She paid attention to her dinner and didn't seem nervous, so I'd guess the latter. I saw a carriage other than our own when we were walking past the stables. Ours is unmarked, that one was rented. I couldn't make out the characters and the seal on the side, but I can go find out where the carriage was rented from.'

'That won't be necessary,' Bao said. 'Please go on.'

'Yes, Lady Bao,' the maid said, and continued to describe the dinner guests, each detail a life history, a revealed secret. Sozin listened with a mix of amazement and annoyance. She couldn't really know all that, could she? She must be making it up—but each new revelation came from a fact he too had noticed. He had just been unable to read it, like a koala-sheep staring at a page of calligraphy.

His grandmother continued her card game. Aki reached the last of the guests.

'Then the man and woman and the three children. They have spent a lot of time in the sun, they were fairly dusty but didn't seem tired and they ordered very efficiently; they are used to travelling. The man's hands moved like a magician's but there isn't a circus in town, I didn't notice any posters announcing a magic show and I didn't see any kind of cart with stage equipment. I'm guessing his sleight-of-hand is used for something else. Pick-pocketing, perhaps? Maybe the shell game? The woman is the brains of the group: she looked at everyone in the room to get their measure and she knew what the three men are; she waited until they were into their cups a bit before sending one of the children into their dice game; I expect the child is even now cleaning them out quite nicely.

'Speaking of the three men, they are someone's hired soldiers. They scanned the room when they walked in and picked a place where they could sit with their backs to a wall and see the whole of the room. They had leather padding under their clothes and the hands and posture of people used to handling weapons. I—' A moment's hesitation under the mask-like face. 'I am sorry, lady Bao, I do not know who they work for nor what they're doing here.'

Bao placed a Fire card on the table. 'No, that's my job. Is that everyone?'

'Yes, apart from us, that was everyone there, Lady Bao.'

'Thank you, Aki. You may sit.'

Before the maid could return to her seat, there was a knock on the door. Aki opened it. One of the serving women from before stood at the doorway, a tray in her hands. 'The sweets you ordered, Mrs Bao.'

'Oh yes. Please bring them in.' Bao turned to Sozin. 'Plum blossom jelly. Local speciality.'

The woman stepped into the room, the smell of caramelised sugar and ripe fruit wafting from the tray, but before she could set the tray down, the cat jumped past like a streak of grey lightning, swiped one of the sweets and upended the tray before padding out into the corridor with a triumphant meow. The woman kneeled to pick up the sweets while letting out a torrent of apologies. 'I'm sorry—I do beg your pardon. Stupid fleabag.'

'Never mind,' Bao said as she got up, and a second later the woman was out of the room, still muttering "a thousand pardons" as Aki closed the door behind her. 'We'll try them some other time, grandson,' Bao said as she tossed the ruined sweets on the little fire under the teapot. She made the fire a little bigger and it turned blue for a moment; his grandmother and his father were the only people Sozin knew who could make blue flames, the colour of summer lightning.

'Well, then,' she said, as she finished burning the sweets and let the fire go back to a thread of flame. The air in the room smelled smoky and sweet. 'Are you beginning to understand what is required of you, grandson?'

Sozin shifted uncomfortably on his heels. Some part of him could scarcely believe that that girl who seemed as plain as uncooked dough and who blended so thoroughly into the background had done what he'd just seen her do. Another part of him, the bigger part, the one pounding every nerve ending, was saying what it always did when he saw someone—someone who wasn't Roku, at least—do something better than him: let me try, I can do it better! Except he had already been given his chance, and he hadn't done better. The thought made his skin feel too tight. 'I'm not sure I see the point,' he said, a little sullen.

'Don't you?' Bao sat down on the cushions with a rustle of cloth. She sounded a little disappointed, but Sozin was sure he saw a glint of amusement in her eyes. He got a little more annoyed; he was sure she was mocking him. 'You were meant to become the next Fire Lord since the day you drew your first breath. As such, certain things are demanded from you. The foremost of these is knowledge.'

'I can't know everything about everyone,' he said, but he was wondering about the people in the dining room as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He was still chagrined that he had been unable to put all the details he'd noticed together. He wondered if the grandfather managed to reconcile with his granddaughter, if the three little swindlers were even now relieving the soldiers from their money.

'No. Not every single detail. But it is your duty to know everything that matters. You are going to be Fire Lord for them all: the inn-keepers, the hired soldiers, the noblewomen, even, yes, the con artists. They will be required to obey you and be loyal to you, and in return you must always think first of what it best for them. What is best for everyone.' She laid more cards on the table: Water, Air. 'Power always demands responsibility.' She placed an Earth card next to the other two. 'You will have allies, you will have enemies. You will have a great mass of citizenry, all with their own goals and desires. You have power so that you may serve them. And all real power comes from knowledge.' She paused and turned her eyes towards him. 'Do you find all this a little intimidating, grandson?'

'No,' he said hurriedly, and only then realised it was true. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been training to become the Fire Lord. It was with him when he fell asleep, and with him when he woke up—but something about his grandmother's words made it real like nothing else before had, not even sitting at his father's side during a council. It was like he was expected to run through some complicated labyrinth full of hidden spikes and fire-blasting traps, and it was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

'Good,' she said, sounding like she didn't entirely believe him. 'A ruler must be a ruler in every situation. You must be in control even if other people don't realise it. In fact, it is often best if they don't realise it. And how do you gain control?'

'Uh…' He tried to think of something. 'Knowledge?' He grinned—in his studies, a good grin and confidence were often half the right answer—but most of him knew that wasn't going to work with his grandmother. His mouth drooped back into seriousness.

'Quite so. And where does knowledge come from?'

He tried to think. The weight of his grandmother's gaze and the smell of burnt sugar made it hard to think. 'Books. Reports. Other people.' He hesitated. The gaze continued to bore into him. 'Observation. Er…'

'Everywhere,' Bao said, and she tossed a handful of cards onto the table. Wood thudded on wood. 'Look at the cards.' Sozin glanced at the jumble. 'Knowledge comes from everywhere. Some of it is incomplete, some of it is unreliable. But good knowledge can come from anywhere. One ignores a source of information at one's peril. There—you've had enough time.'

Sozin looked back up. Bao was holding a strip of fabric in her hands. Enough time for what? 'Put the blindfold on. Now—why don't we begin?'

*

They had breakfast at the inn before they moved on. Ta Min crumbled the edges of her hot bean roll into her plate, her eyes glazed and a little puffy.

'Would you like some papaya?' Sozin said, hoping she wasn't homesick only two days out.

'What? Oh, I'm sorry—It's nothing. I didn't sleep very well.' She covered her mouth to suppress a yawn. 'Some sick cat spent all night yowling just outside my window.'

+

Notes: All the stuff about the Fire Nation's history and culture in this chapter (Sozin's ancestors, the Five-Fold Flame, the various firebending forms, etc) is my own invention, but based on suitable RL cultural elements as filtered by what we know about the Fire Nation's geography, society, fire bending philosophy, etc (I'll also say that, although of course personal interpretations are always going to vary, I got the strong feeling from canon that the Earth Kingdom was the unquestioned dominant power in AtLA-land probably up until Sozin's day, with the Fire Nation being deeply influenced by their culture, language, political organisation (until Sozin changed that) and so forth, but with a lot of the earlier indigenous Fire Nation aspects mixed in, of course). As you can probably tell, I've put waaay too much thought into this ;) and there will be more of that in subsequent chapters. Speaking of Fire Nation culture, I just have to add that, with regards to Ta Min's embarrassment when Bao asks her to drop the formal address, I was raised in a culture of shame (in the anthropological sense, not the shuuuuun the unbeliever sense ;)) where public face and correctly navigating social hierarchies are a big deal… and I'm squirming with sympathy over the thought of someone you're supposed to be deferential to perversely asking you to drop the formal way of address. My boring life: unexpectedly useful for fic-writing! :D The tale about the traveller and the swamp is taken more or less verbatim from the tale told by Rube in the Dead Like Me episode Ghost Story, which is in turn based on a passage from Henry Thoreau's Walden. Butterfly swords are actually about the same length as daggers, but they're usually called butterfly swords in English to avoid confusion with butterfly knives. If you do an image search for butterfly swords you'll find a bunch of illustrative pictures. I have assumed that cow-hippos are a lot more like cows than hippos, since hippos are a rather terrifying and not very domesticable (is that even a word?) animal. They do look completely adorable, though. ;)

Chapter 3: The City of White Rivers

Summary:

Sozin, Ta Min, and Bao continue their trip; Sozin learns some unpleasant realities; Fire Nation politics; and Ta Min has a secret.

Author's Note: Anyone doubting Sozin would behave as he does once they arrive at Shukai in the second half of this chapter should rewatch the scene in The Avatar and the Fire Lord in which he says "I had my own vision for a brighter future" and "Our nation is enjoying an unprecedented time of peace and wealth. Our people are happy, and we're so fortunate in so many ways." I really do read him as a Well Intentioned Extremist/Utopia Justifies the Means type in the canon and I can't imagine that popped out of nowhere when he was 28. (Also, if I had any vidding skills, I'd make one of him set to Faith No More's We Care A Lot… ;))

 

Chapter Three: The City of White Rivers

After a few days of travel, they settled into a pattern. During the day they would move at a leisurely pace, and Bao would often have them stop at this or that famous scenic view or historical site. At night they would stay in an inn, or in the house of a noble or one of the wealthier merchants. Sozin much preferred the inns; when they were someone's guests he was Crown Prince Sozin again and apart from the changing scenery, he might as well be back in the capital, in his gold-trimmed robes, being bowed to and feted over and having to talk politely about nothing.

Well, not always nothing: sometimes it was a chance to put his grandmother's lessons into practice. Bao continued to instruct him whenever possible. At times she would talk to him long into the night until all he could focus on were her eyes, two flame points in the half-dark, and then he would wake up exhausted after a few hours of fitful sleep, feeling as though all the things she'd said were squabbling for space inside his head. Other times she made it feel like it was a game and everything fell into place as satisfyingly as the gears in a mechanism snapping together. And at other times still, she said she was too busy with other matters and dismissed him early as she wrote what seemed to be an endless number of letters. Messenger hawks flew back and forth, and Sozin soon started looking out for them, his stomach doing a little flip every time he thought he spotted one with the black and gold ribbons indicating an urgent message from the Fire Lord.

They crossed rivers and the straits between islands in big flat-bottomed ferries with roofed decks and huge circular paddles that churned the water behind them into white foam. When they crossed from Spark Bay to Wing Ha Island, dark shapes darted underwater, away from the ferry. 'Seal-dolphins,' Ta Min said, leaning over the railing. 'See? They're breaching over there in the foam.' She pointed to where the boat drew a wave in the green water. Striped humps rose from the foam, then dove again. Water sprayed from their blowholes before they vanished into the mist clinging to the vine-covered cliffs.

'How do you always know all these things?' Sozin said, and before she could reply, he added, 'I know, I know, your mother's family made a killing on pipa with strings made of seal-dolphin guts and socks for pet squid-eels.'

'Don't be ridiculous,' she said, her voice serious, but a smile crept into her lips. It seemed that with every step in their trip she discarded more and more of her blushing and self-contained silence, like a set of clothes unfit for travel. 'You don't make pipa strings with seal-dolphin guts. You really want the freshest kitten guts for that.'

'Oh, yes. Of course. How could I have forgotten that?' They looked at each other in amusement, then Ta Min turned back to the sea.

'The ferry is driving them away. I guess they don't care much for the paddles.'

'Maybe we should have a different kind of ship.'

She looked amused. 'Are you going to buy a bunch of catamarans from the Northern Water Tribe when you're Fire Lord? I don't think they sell them.'

'I'm a very convincing buyer,' he said, but he was looking at the ferry's flat, plodding hull and imagining something he couldn't quite see: a sleek ship gliding through the waters like a ghost, with no oars or sails, no big paddle wheels having to be cranked forward. But how would it move? You could use firebending to push yourself upwards or forward, but that was only for short bursts, and if you did it underwater you mostly just made the water boil—

'What are you thinking about?'

The thought popped like a soap bubble. 'Nothing.' He looked back at the water that lapped a town huddled by the cliff and a beach that looked like fine yellow sugar. Toucan-puffins hovered in the air. 'Look, we're getting into the harbour.'

They saw red roofs covered with wind-blown indigo flowers, drank spiced tea while they watched a troupe perform the Sun Dance at dawn. They bought some spun glass souvenirs in the busiest, noisiest market Sozin had ever seen and in Red Mountain Island the whole party climbed to the Red Mountain foothills, amidst a gaggle of other visitors who had come to see the flame trees in bloom. Sozin couldn't help but feel a little satisfaction at the way he and Ta Min and his grandmother mingled with the other sight-seers, few people giving them even a second glance. If he were wearing his gold-trimmed court clothes and being carried around in a palanquin, everyone here would be on their knees, and some of them would even probably comment later on his aura of royalty. As it was, he'd likely need to queue for an hour to get a seat at one of the teahouses. He found the whole thing utterly hilarious.

'What's so funny?' Ta Min said. The corner of her mouth twisted upwards in a half-smile. The two of them were climbing the winding steps that ran up the mountain's least steep slope, under a tunnel of scarlet flowers. Bao had stayed below, stating that mountain-climbing was for youths and fools.

'I was just thinking that I'd better not pay any official visits here once I'm Fire Lord. Can you imagine carting a palanquin up all these steps?'

'Maybe you can put in some wheels and be rolled up.'

'No, that's for travelling down the steps. Much quicker.'

She cocked her heads towards a stone balcony carved into the mountainside and overhung with tree branches. 'Let's take a look at that.'

A few people were already enjoying the view, so they had to wait their turn before they could get close to the stone railing and look at the slope spreading below. When he had first laid eyes on the Fire Mountain, Sozin had thought he would be disappointed once he got up close; from a distance the mountain was the most intense red he'd ever seen, a vast mound of liquid, immovable flame rising up so high that clouds snagged in its white-capped peak. Up close it must be just a bunch of trees with red flowers, the effect spoiled like an optical illusion once you got too near. In fact, the trees were packed so densely that you always stood under a tunnel of a thousand thousand scarlet blooms that rustled like living flame and smelled of limes and summer. Just standing under them tinged your skin red. Looking down at the mountainside was like looking at an ocean where some vast sun was setting.

'Whoa,' Ta Min whispered. That seemed to sum it up.

'When I'm Fire Lord,' Sozin said, low enough for the person closest to them, a woman propping up a plump little girl, not to hear, 'everyone in the Fire Nation is going to be able to come here.'

A flick of the sideways glance. 'You're going to pay for a trip for everyone in the Fire Nation?'

'Why not?' He plucked a blossom from the branch closest to him. The red petals looked like the paper from a lantern. 'Better than building a statue to myself.'

'I hope you make an exception for people with a fear of heights.'

He spoke before he could stop himself. 'Why do you always do that?'

Ta Min's eyes turned quizzical.

'I'm sorry,' he said hurriedly. 'That was really rude. I apologise.'

Her look of puzzlement deepened. 'I… think I've missed half a conversation here.'

'It's just—' He sighed. His fingers started ripping up the petals. 'You always joke about things. And—oh, forget it, it's not like I go around all in white with my hair over my face, moaning all the time.' He turned his eyes away from her. His face felt so hot he was sure it must be glowing like a small sun. 'What I said was just stupid. I'm sorry.'

'It's all right,' she said. He looked back at her. Well, at least he wasn't the only one blushing. 'I like—I think that it's good you have all those plans and things you want to do. A Fire Lord has to be serious about those things. I don't have that, that kind of willpower.' She faced towards the mountainside again, so her face was in profile, and the sunlight careened off her topknot and burnished her hair. 'I guess that's why I'm not a very good firebender.'

'What are you talking about? You've got plenty of willpower. I've seen you practice with your butterfly swords. You're really good, and I know you do it every day.'

Her blush returned. 'Oh. Thank you. But that's persistency and discipline. Not willpower. I don't have that thing you do when you talk about how you want to do this and that. That "I am going to make this happen" thing. I don't have it, I never did.'

'But you must want something.' He grinned. 'Come on, we're Fire Nation, we build cities inside volcanoes. We all have some thing we want to do.'

'I…' Her gaze slid sideways again. 'I want to honour my family, I guess.'

'That's just what everyone wants. What do you want?'

'Me?' She hesitated, then flashed him a smile. 'Right now I want to climb to the top of these stairs. How about you?'

I want Roku back. I want this stupid Avatar thing never to have happened. The thought darted through his mind like a shooting star and was gone just as quickly, apparently sinking into the pit of his stomach. It was stupid, anyway. There was no balance in the world without an Avatar; to be so close to the one who was chosen was an honour and a privilege, and besides, Roku was kind, and smart, and thoughtful. He was going to be a great Avatar.

'Sozin?'

'I'm sorry, I was miles away.' He smiled back at her. 'I think the stairs are a great idea.'

*

Days stretched into weeks. Every place they passed seemed to have a story, and Bao seemed to know them all. She talked about battles Sozin had never heard of, about dead Fire Lords and long-lost cities. Sometimes he found the stories annoying or pointless. Sometimes he felt like falling asleep in the carriage's drowsy heat and his grandmother's stories were a thread keeping him awake. Some of them were full of blood and strife and death, and some of them were little pebbles of disquiet that nagged and nagged at him until he was awake well into the night.

'Avatar Rina opened up these caves when she stopped a river from flooding the towns in the valley. Then a few centuries after that, a whole army hid in here,' Bao said when they reached the Caves of Whispers. The entrance opened into an enormous cave, its ceiling so high the stalactites hanging down were barely visible. A walk of smooth flagstones had been installed on the cave's floor, dotted with lanterns that shone like fireflies in the cold, damp air. 'High Lord Kun said no one would defeat him unless the very ground rose up to fight him. That's really the sort of thing you should never say.'

'Why do they call them the Caves of Whispers?' Sozin asked.

'At a guess?' Ta Min gestured at him to be silent, and all of a sudden the background noise turned into a weave of whispers bouncing off the stone walls. He could hear the conversations of people many yards away, just like in the Room of Echoes at the palace. For the next hour or so they walked around the cave, exploring the walls and catching snippets of conversation here and there. Bao ignored them and moved along the paved paths in a leisurely fashion, stopping here and there to observe a rock formation while Sozin and Ta Min moved about between natural pillars bigger than any in the palace, alcoves where water dripped into pools dug into the rock through centuries, and ledges that wound around the walls like spiral staircases. At the far end of the cave there were several tunnels, leading deeper into the ground. A man carrying a lantern had gathered a small knot of people at the entrance to one of the tunnels. They were still a fair distance away from him, but the peculiar walls of the cave carried his voice towards them.

'… I can take two more people down, but no more, so if you…'

'Oh, it's a tour of the caves,' Ta Min said. 'Let's go.'

Sozin looked at the tunnel's opening. It was dark and looked horribly small. His pulse quickened. 'I don't know. We—' He glanced around, looking for some kind of excuse. Two women were approaching the tour party from another direction. He swallowed a sigh of relief. 'Look, we can't go—those two women are ahead of us.'

'No, that's three people, see?'

She was right. Once he stepped around an outcrop of rock jutting out of the ground, he could see the child wedged between the two women. Now they were close enough to hear the guide's voice directly. 'I'm sorry, I can only take two more people.'

Ta Min moved towards him in that hurried step Sozin had seen her do a few times, the one where she was rushing forward at high speed but somehow managed to make it look as though she were gliding along elegantly. 'Excuse me,' she said in a voice as sweet as sunlight, 'can my friend and I go?' She turned to the oldest of the two women. 'Perhaps you can see the larger cave while you wait for the next tour? That way you wouldn't have to split up.'

'Works for me,' the guide said, before either of the women could answer. Ta Min showed him the red wood token they'd all been given at the entrance and as Sozin stepped up to the group he had a sudden urge to throw his own behind the nearest pillar. Instead, he just berated himself for his own stupidity—he was Crown Prince Sozin, for goodness' sake, and this was just a hole in the ground. He wasn't afraid of going on a tour of some cave, of all things.

The very thought was ridiculous.

'Right, that makes twelve,' the guide said, and stepped into the tunnel. 'Everyone keep your eyes on the lantern and hold onto the rope. You wouldn't want to get lost down there, would you?' The group laughed. Sozin made himself join in.

'This looks exciting, doesn't it?' Ta Min whispered as they went into the tunnel. Sozin barely heard it. All his attention was focused on the glow of the lantern ahead of him, suddenly as small and flimsy as a dying ember. His hand clung to the rope attached to the wall of the tunnel as a sort of makeshift railing. The tunnel itself was a narrow stone cylinder, the ceiling so low he was sure he could brush it with his hand and he wouldn't even have to stretch his arm completely. No, he was being foolish, the ceiling was much higher than that. He looked up and the dark stone seemed to be barely a handspan above his face. The light trailed away and he hurried after it. His fingers clung to the rope so hard his knuckles hurt.

No, he just was being foolish. The guide said something. He tried to listen to the words, but they seemed to be coming from very far away. He looked at the people in front of him and tried to focus on them. His grandmother's voice threaded through his thoughts, another rope for him to cling to. Most people are blind to anything that does not concern them. The dark swelled around him.

A calligraphist looks at wall scrolls. A warrior considers threats and exits. A cook looks at the food. His pulse quickened. His heart drummed an anxious beat on his ribcage. The walls were getting closer and closer—no, that was stupid, of course they weren't closing in. Sweat pearled his forehead and cooled on his skin.

But you must be like a child and pay attention to everything. A child looks at everything because she doesn't know certain things are important. He looked at the people ahead of him and Ta Min. They were so hard to make out in the weak light. There was an elderly woman, and two people who were probably brother and sister, and a man with thinning grey hair… You must look at everything because anything could be important. You must—

The light bobbed up and down, and then the guide was talking again. 'The tunnel narrows a bit here, so you have to—' Sozin didn't hear the rest. His grandmother's voice was gone. The rope in his hand was an insubstantial as smoke. The light from the lantern had turned the size of a pinprick, closed off by the dipping ceiling and the encroaching walls. He was trapped in the dark, underground, in a space too small for him to move, or breathe, or scream.

'I have to get out of here,' he whispered.

'What?' Ta Min said.

'I'm not feeling well,' he managed, and turned around. His breath was coming in silent, panicked gasps. Oh, blast it—where was that rope? His fingers scrabbled at the rock wall. What if he couldn't find it? No, there it was. He grabbed it and ran out of the tunnel, out of the narrowing walls, not stopping until he was in the huge room above where there was light and air and room to breathe…

He stopped by a cluster of pillars and closed his eyes until his breathing was normal, his heart didn't feel like it was about to burst through his chest, and the cold, musty scent of the tunnel was no longer filling his lungs. When he opened his eyes again his stomach was leaden with embarrassment. No one seemed to have noticed him and the two women who hadn't gone on the tour were nowhere in sight, but he still felt like slapping himself over his ridiculous behaviour. What was wrong with him? It was just some stupid tunnel, for goodness' sake. Yes, he knew he didn't like confined spaces, but that was just normal, wasn't it? No one liked confined spaces. It was perfectly logical to avoid them. Sure, when he was a little kid he cried in a blind panic if he ended up in a small, cramped space, but that was just—

He pushed the thought out of his mind and wandered off in search of his grandmother, trying to look nonchalant. Bao sat at one of the tables near one of the cave's entrances, where a number of establishments sold things to the visitors. Her hair streamed down her back like a fall of white silk.

'Caves not all that interesting, grandson?' How did she know it was me? he thought. She turned towards him and pressed some money into his hand. 'Here—go buy us a lotus tea for myself and a watermelon juice for yourself. You're looking a bit peaky.'

'I'm fine,' he said, a little snappish, but he obeyed. Walking back, he glanced at the enormous carving of Avatar Rina taking up the whole wall at the cave's entrance, shaded from the sun by the lush thicket growing on top of the cliff. She was wearing a hairstyle Sozin hadn't seen outside a wedding and an expression like she'd just swallowed a scorpion-bee. He looked into the carving's empty stone eyes. She was one of Roku's past lives, but he didn't see anything there, just polished rock. He let his gaze drop.

Onto the grey-haired man who had been walking ahead of him in the tunnel.

He blinked and looked again, moving towards his grandmother's table in order not to draw attention to himself. Drops of icy water trickled down the watermelon rind and onto his hand. The man was waiting his turn at the counter of the same shop where Sozin had bought the drinks. Only, of course, it wasn't the same man—it couldn't be, he knew he would have noticed someone else leaving the tunnel when he had been—

blind breathless

—standing next to the pillars, and there was no time for someone to have raced out of the tunnel in order to… well, to buy flaming fire flakes, apparently. No, the whole thing was stupid.

'Anything wrong, grandson?'

He placed the cup of tea in front of Bao before sitting down next to her. 'Nothing.' He glanced back at the man, who was walking away from the counter. It was someone completely different from the man in the tunnel, shorter and fatter. There: it was perfectly reasonable to stay away from cramped, underground spaces. They were clearly bad for your vision.

'I'm not a great fan of caves myself, grandson,' Bao said, as though she had just read his thoughts. 'Can't really see the point. If I am going to look at rock, I'd rather do it indoors, where there's tea and cushions.' She took a sip of her own tea. 'Good tea, I mean. The hot springs at Mount Kiake, now—those would be worth an extended stop.'

Mount Kiake? He was sure he had heard that name before. His grandmother spoke again before he could finish scanning his memory.

'That's right on the way to Obsidian Island. You know, there's a Fire Temple there.'

Oh—so that was how he'd heard about it.

'Not that the Keepers of the Flame are likely to let us see it, mind you,' Bao went on.

'Why not? The Fire Sages—'

'These aren't the Fire Sages, child. I'm sure there's some deeply important spiritual reason behind their seclusion. Who knows, maybe they have a bunch of phoenixes cooped up in there.'

Sozin chuckled. 'Maybe they could sell a few feathers once in a while.' Everyone in the Fire Nation had heard of the phoenix, the firebird, the embodiment of the living flame that was ever reborn from its own ashes. There were stories and songs and poems about them. But that's all they were: stories. No one had seen a real phoenix in almost two thousand years. 'I bet they could make a fortune on genuine firebird feathers.'

'Oh, laugh all you want. That's where they were supposed to have lived: in the grounds of what's now the Mount Kiake Fire Temple. If there are any left, that's where they'll be.'

He searched for any traces of humour in his grandmother's face and tone, but as far as he could tell, she was perfectly serious. 'Can we go there?'

She took a drawn-out sip of tea. 'We'll see,' she said cryptically, then returned her attention to her tea. Sozin scanned the people around them again. His gaze fell on Lee and Shou, who were sitting and talking at another table, near the edge of the teahouse. He wondered about what Aki and the two drivers did whenever the travel party stopped: they all went off in different directions but somehow always managed to make it back to the carriage with perfect timing. He had assumed that Aki went off to do a full reconnaissance of the new sector, while the two drivers—

His thoughts skidded to a halt. There was something about the way and the place where the two men were sitting. Something stealthy, watchful. 'Shou and Lee are not just drivers, are they?' he said.

'Of course they're not just drivers,' Bao said as though it were the most self-evident thing in the world. 'You didn't think your father was going to send you off just like that, did you?'

He didn't answer. Some part of him resented the fact that his parents didn't seem to trust him to take care of himself after all, even if they had agreed to his journey. Another, smaller, part of him rather liked the idea of his father keeping a watch on him even at a distance. His grandmother spoke again before he could make up his mind about being angry or pleased.

'At least they don't follow you around like bodyguards. I'm sure you'll still have plenty of opportunities to get in trouble.'

Ta Min showed up a while later, her eyes bright. 'There you are,' she said.

'I take it you enjoyed your little trip more than Sozin did,' Bao said.

'Oh, it was amazing! There was this cave with an underground wind that made a noise like music, and there was a lake with some kind of glowing rock at the bottom and when the guide covered the lantern you could see the water just shining like lightning…' She paused. 'I'm sorry—are you feeling better? Would you like to go on the tour now? I don't mind going again if you want.'

Bao got up before Sozin could reply. 'Some other time, perhaps,' she said. 'It's getting late. We'll cross Seishou Forest next, and then we'll stop at Shukai. You'll want to wear your best clothes.'

Ta Min's enthusiasm went out like a blown candle. 'Oh, of course. That's too bad you can't go.'

'Yeah,' Sozin said. He glanced at the people around them again, not sure of who or what he was looking for. 'Too bad.'

*

As Bao had promised, they soon crossed Seishou Forest, the vast jungle spreading through the western Fire Nation. The roads were lined with trees so tall they nearly blocked out the sky, fleshy leaves and vines, brightly-coloured flowers the size of a human head. At some point they slowed down so they could see the forest spread out in a valley below, a volcano puffing up white smoke in the distance. The Land of the Undying Flame, Sozin thought. It had never seemed quite real until then.

They arrived at Shukai just as the sunlight turned into the warm, syrupy gold preceding sunset. The City of White Rivers had been built where—obviously—two rivers joined to form the Wan Po, and when they reached the hill-ringed valley where the city nestled, all Sozin could see at first was water. Silver-white water filled the horizon and the huge expanse of the Wan Po seemed to take up the entire plain. An immense herd of muddy cat-gators sunned itself on the banks, and flamingo-pelicans waded in the shallows. The river surface was dotted with vessels and a stretch of wooded swampland hid most of the city from view. Even the air felt wet, like the steam over a hot tub.

A few moments later the carriage reached the part of the road that sloped down into the valley, around the swamp, and Shukai came into view.

Sozin knew from his geography lessons that it wasn't as large as the capital, but right now he wasn't sure if he could see the difference. A sea of rooftops spread out in front of them, slate gleaming in the late afternoon sun. There were pagoda rising up several stories into the sky, a large bulk in the distance that he assumed was the Governor's house, a vast plaza with an elaborate fire fountain, the din of a busy harbour. The air smelled of water and fish and ripening fruit.

It was only when they got close that he saw what had happened to it.

'Wasn't there an earthquake here a while back?' Ta Min asked.

'Almost six months ago,' Bao said. 'They get them large and rare instead of small and frequent. At least this time the volcano didn't spew a huge ash cloud.'

Sozin remembered the earthquake. His father had sent the provincial army to help repair the damage done to the city and there had been a lot of councils about aid and how to rearrange the balance of trade. Right now, looking at the city scattered all the discussion about debt and commerce like so many specks of dust. They were in the east side, the one abutting the swamp, and everything around them looked like a wound that had just begun healing. There were houses where the walls and roofs had been freshly mended, and houses where walls and roofs had cracked and crumbled, still awaiting repair. Whole streets had been turned to rubble and tents surrounded the skeletons of new buildings. In some places he could see fading lines on stone and plaster and he realised with a swell of horror that those were waterlines—the earthquake must have caused the river and the swamp to flood.

He thought of being inside a building when the earthquake struck, walls and ceilings crumbling around him, trapping him under a great roar of rubble. He thought of the waters rising, his body shattered under a collapsed wall and his arms too trapped to even try to bend. How many people had died? He couldn't remember—one thousand? Two thousand? How could he become the Fire Lord if he didn't even remember that? He tried to picture the dead bodies, piling up in the flooded streets like cordwood. He saw a little girl in the corner of one of the tent streets, hurrying on crutches after a skinny dog, calling to it. Even at this distance he could tell something terrible had happened to her face.

'We have to do something about this,' Sozin said as they reached the plaza and were met by the Governor's escort. This part of the city had been less damaged, but he could still see the scars in some buildings.

'Of course. That's why your father sent the provincial army,' Bao said. 'Now do your part and wave at people. They'll be pleased to see their Crown Prince.'

Sozin looked out the window. Governor Cheng must have spread the news of their arrival beforehand, so there was a thickening crowd of people in the plaza, watching the carriage's progress as though it were a play that might yet prove interesting.

'I can't just sit here and wave,' he said.

'No?' Bao's tone was acerbic. 'What do you propose to do, then? Rebuild a house? Maybe do some doctoring?'

'I'm the Crown Prince. These are my people. I can't just—'

'Yes,' Bao said. 'You are the Crown Prince and these are your people. Quite so. Do you think your arms build walls faster than everyone else's? Does your touch cure broken legs or swamp fever? Do you think they're dying for want of an extra worker?'

He knew she had a point, but he also knew he was right. 'Even one person can make a difference. If they're powerful enough. We could have sent the whole army—'

'No. No, your father couldn't have and you know very well why not. The rest of the world doesn't stop having needs just because a part of it gets broken. Rescuing someone from a collapsed building is very dramatic. Making sure the town doesn't have too many debts and can afford to rebuild itself is not nearly as thrilling. When you're older you'll understand which one is more important in the long run.'

The air inside the carriage felt like a storm was about to break. 'So I'm just too young and ignorant to do anything other than wave at people.'

'And you're not even doing that, are you? I don't recall you being this interested in the matter when the earthquake happened,' she added before he could reply. Guilt cooled his anger, but didn't quench it. Maybe he was angry at himself. He had always known that there were people who had to beg in the streets, that there were crop failures and diseases and disasters. But until now it had been just another thing he knew about, like the name of a dynasty or the main exports of the Outer Isles. Not a skinny dog wandering down a street, or an eye blinded by scars.

'Look, grandson,' Bao said, her voice unexpectedly tender, if still patronising. 'I know you have never seen anything like this. But your job right now is to learn about the world. It is a complicated thing. It does not always react well to the passions of youth. By the time you are Fire Lord, you will understand how it works, and how you can keep it running smoothly. Consider this part of your education.'

Ta Min spoke before he could answer. 'You know what they say: give a man fire and he'll be warm for a day, but set him on fire and we'll be warm for the rest of his life.' Her tone was jokey as always, but hidden by their long sleeves, her hand touched his. He startled a little, and thought back to when he and Roku had sat on Roku's bed, just before his friend had gone off to Avatar training; Sozin had laid his hand on his when neither of them had known what to say. Now he squeezed Ta Min's fingers in gratitude.

Soon they were at the gate outside the Governor's house, and a small party was awaiting them. Once they were out of the carriage, Governor Cheng stepped forward to welcome them. He was a tall, rather imposing man, but something about him seemed insubstantial, as though a strong wind would knock him over. The governor and his party went down on one knee in front of Sozin. 'It is our deepest honour to receive you in our unworthy home, Crown Prince Sozin.'

The customary greetings over, they walked to the house through gardens full of dragon trees and weeping willows. There were spots where the walls had been recently patched, strips of grass that did not match the rest of the lawn, and areas where dead trees had obviously been cleared away. An area of damp earth remained where a pond had been drained; it was surrounded by young tree shoots.

'Please excuse the terrible state of our gardens, Prince Sozin,' said the governor's wife—what was her name? Sozin quickly flipped through the names in his memory; not knowing would be taken as an insult, the kind that made its recipients be even more stiffly polite in return. Mei: that was it, Lady Mei—but his grandmother spoke before he could reply.

'The earthquake was very hard on Shukai. The Fire Lord was most anxious to have the city recover.'

'Of course, of course, we are very grateful,' Governor Cheng said, and the conversation turned to the usual polite exchanges.

After a quick tour of the ground and the guest-house where the travellers were going to stay, they all sat in a pavilion to have some tea and appetisers while they watched the sun set and the fireflies start glowing in the twilight. You can't even tell there's a city outside the walls, Sozin thought. The whole world could be just the magnolia trees, the fireflies glowing amidst the hanging moss, the sound of crickets and the smell of grass and damp heat. But then, had he really thought about the world in his own gardens and servant-filled palace? He hadn't even noticed anything about Aki and Lee and Shou until his grandmother had pointed it out.

Maybe Bao wasn't right either, though, he thought as they moved indoors for dinner. A group of musicians was already awaiting them in the dining room, playing Fire Lilies on the erhu and flute. The scent of burning incense and sandalwood wafted from the lamps and candles. Bowls of petal-strewn warm water had been placed on the table. Sozin was directed to the best seat, and once everyone had sat down according to their rank, Governor Cheng made a toast to his guests. Sozin drank only a little of the spiced fire wine.

No, his grandmother wasn't right. Why shouldn't things change? A servant replaced the nearly-empty tray of red bean sauce tofu with one of bird's eye chilli lobster-crabs and Sozin politely pulled the second-best one onto his bowl with his chopsticks. The smell of saffron and paprika filled the air above the table. Why was he supposed to just keep the world running as it always had, like a half-broken clock mechanism that no one thought of repairing? Why shouldn't things run smoothly enough for a city to recover right away after an earthquake? Was it really just childish to think that he could make everyone in the country pull together instead of having to spend all the time smoothing down the feathers of squabbling factions? Everybody prosperous and happy, from a fisherman on the Wan Po banks to the Fire Lord himself.

The table shook. Liquid sloshed inside cups and the musicians stopped playing with a dissonant chord. 'Please don't worry,' Governor Cheng said, half-rising from his seat. 'We always have these after earthquakes.' A little plaster rained from the walls but the room soon stopped shaking like a dice cup rattled by the wind.

'That must be rather inconvenient,' Ta Min said. The musicians had resumed their play.

'Oh, you soon get used to it,' said Lady Mei.

'I suppose you'd have to, living in Shukai,' Sozin said as he was served a dish of pickled squid.

'Quite, quite,' Governor Cheng said. 'Still, we haven't had an earthquake this big since… now, when was it…?'

'Since Fire Lord Ren,' said a young woman whose name Sozin couldn't remember. Some sort of relative of the governor's, if he recalled correctly. 'That was before your time, Governor Cheng.'

'Fire Lord Yunjin has been most generous to us,' Cheng said.

Bao finished a mouthful of saffron rice. 'Generosity wasn't one of Fire Lord Ren's foremost qualities.'

'Well, he had that crisis of succession to deal with, didn't he?' Cheng said. 'It must have been a difficult problem to handle. Yes, quite difficult, I am sure.'

Sozin drank a little more fire wine. 'Apparently, harder than earthquakes.'

Everyone seemed to take it as a joke. No, not everyone—Bao was looking at him pointedly, even if she did chuckle once for politeness' sake. Well, that was just too bad.

'We like keeping ourselves occupied in our country,' Mei said. 'Take this situation in Yulong…'

'My father has sent me to handle it,' Sozin said.

'And I am sure you'll do a most excellent job, Prince Sozin,' said Cheng.

Ta Min laid down her chopsticks on her holder. 'Is this about Lord Yoshi? He may not die just yet.'

Mei let out a short, soft laugh. 'If he doesn't die, there's bound to be another thing to occupy the Crown Prince and the Fire Lord. More trouble in the Outer Islands, or some kind of rebellion, or another important noble getting too big for his shoes.' Sozin looked at her and for a moment he just saw eyes that glittered with an unpleasant kind of amusement. 'It wouldn't be the Fire Nation otherwise.'

Another collective laugh. Only Sozin remained silent. 'I am not sure I follow, Lady Mei,' he said.

She hesitated. Explaining a joke was the least funny thing in the world, but she clearly didn't want to disobey the Crown Prince. 'Well, it's the nature of fire, isn't it? Not the most serene of elements. It's bound to make our nation rather restless by nature.'

'I disagree,' Sozin said. 'It is possible to control fire. One just needs to be sufficiently skilled. I think the same goes for anything. Including the Fire Nation.'

'Oh yes, indeed,' Cheng said. He looked a little flustered. Bao's look turned more pointed, and Sozin looked away. 'It is always good to be skilled.' A servant brought in another tray and the governor changed the subject. 'Here, Prince Sozin, try some of these Earth Kingdom cherries. They only grown in the Ying Tao forest, we have to ship them packed in ice.' Sozin tried a bite of the liquor-soaked cherries, and found them bitter, though of course he promptly praised their flavour. The rare dish seemed to have given Cheng a sudden confidence boost. 'It is a tricky thing, ruling a country. Of course, I am sure you will do excellently.'

'I think it's just a matter of dedication.'

This time the short burst of laughter was at his expense. Except for Ta Min—she didn't laugh. She just looked at him from under her eyelashes, her chopstick hand suddenly still.

'It is a good thing that youth is so passionate,' Cheng said. 'But with experience…'

Sozin bristled inwardly. 'Surely experience just adds wisdom. It doesn't take anything away.'

'It teaches us that things are not so simple as we thought they were in your youth. The world is a rather complicated place.' Oh, not that again, Sozin thought, but everyone—even Ta Min, this time—just muttered in agreement.

'And not a very fair place, sometimes,' Mei added.

Sozin's stomach suddenly felt leaden, the cherry liquor tasting of ashes. Was that the lesson he was supposed to learn in this journey? That he was to eat ginger scented fish and expensive cherries and be lulled by flute-players while other people squatted in tents and that his job was just to keep things on an even keel? That he just had to accept the occasional war as a fact of life? That changing the world for the better was something impossible and best left untried? He thought of his father. 'I believe the world is what we make of it.'

For a few seconds there was only the sound of the musicians, busy with another tune. Then Bao spoke. 'It sounds like you're ready to ask the Air Nomads for some enlightenment, grandson.' More laughter. 'Speaking of nomads, do ships still travel straight through all the way to the delta? I had heard they had to stop at the new canal…'

The conversation went on around him.

*

Soon after dinner, Bao claimed tiredness and they retired to the guest-house. Ta Min went to her room soon after that, and Sozin was about to do the same when his grandmother threw him a warning glance and he stayed with her in the ground floor parlour, time oozing like slurry. He could practically smell tension under the scent of wood polish. Well, he wasn't going to be intimidated. He had obeyed all the rules of etiquette during dinner, and he wasn't going to apologise for having said something he knew was right.

Finally, after a few minutes, Bao turned on him, her tone sharp-edged. 'Child, here is another lesson for you: do not speak unless there's nothing to be gained from silence.'

Sozin felt himself grow hot. 'Did you want me not to have said a word during the whole dinner?' he said, trying to keep his voice even and powerful.

'Don't try to teach the old master how to play Pai Sho, child. You may think Governor Cheng is not smart enough or doesn't know you well enough to understand when you're making fun of him, but I assure you that both he and I knew exactly what you were doing.'

'I wasn't making fun of him! I was just—'

'You were just being unspeakably rude to someone in a very difficult position. Do try to think for a moment: Governor Cheng and his people have had to deal with a city that was badly wounded and is still bleeding. Then along comes the Crown Prince and they have to make a choice between spending money they can ill afford, or losing face by receiving you like paupers. But no, you had to act like you're the only person in the world with ideals. Improving our country? I'm sure no one ever thought of that.'

'That's not what I meant at all—' he started to say, but his grandmother was already speaking again.

'If you don't care about your own honour, that's your business. But I thought that, as the Crown Prince, you would at least care about what your actions mean for your father's good name and reputation. Your father may be prone to thinking that everything you do and say is perfectly wonderful, but believe me, even he can be disappointed.'

He froze in place. His grandmother's words had cut all the way to the bone. He was almost surprised when he looked down and didn't see any blood dripping to the floor. 'That's not fair,' he blurted out, in a small voice.

'Fair, hmm?' Bao crossed her arms and cast him a baleful look. 'I wonder what's your basis of comparison.'

He didn't reply, even though words were churning in his throat like boiling water. His grandmother stepped past him and placed a hand on his shoulder. It took all his willpower not to shrug it away. 'Let's go to my room. You still have some things to learn tonight. Or more things to learn, rather. If you can manage.'

This time he had to bite his tongue in order not to say exactly what he was thinking. 'I'm not feeling well,' he spat out instead.

'What is it?' She sounded sceptical.

He turned around to face her. 'I have a headache,' he said, looking her in the eye. It wasn't a complete lie: blood was pounding in his temples. 'I should go to bed.'

'No, you want to quench a fire when it's smallest. Come on, I will give you something.'

He nearly upended a vase when they climbed upstairs and down the corridor into Bao's room, which Aki had already filled with the smell of freshly brewed lotus tea. Dragon's bones, did his grandmother ever drink anything else? 'Fetch me my medicine chest,' Bao said, and Aki hurried to get a lacquered box.

'Here.' Bao took out a small glass flask full of a dark brown liquid. It looked like someone had scooped up a handful of mud and bottled it. She opened another, much smaller vial and emptied its contents into the first flask. 'Drink this up.'

Sozin took the flask and looked suspiciously at its contents. They smelled of week-old boiled cabbage and there was now something that looked like greasy mulch floating on top. He wondered if this was his grandmother's idea of a punishment.

'Go on,' she said, in a tone that brokered no disobedience. 'It doesn't taste as bad as a headache feels.'

He looked at her again, then downed the mixture in what felt like the longest gulp of his life. Once Roku had dared him to eat a whole naga pepper, but that had only threatened to burn a hole through his tongue. This had the consistency of pitch and tasted as though someone had chewed a chunk of despair and then had thrown up into the flask. He thought he was going to break a rib from the effort not to gag. 'Thank you,' he said, and handed the flask back to his grandmother.

'Now go to bed,' she said. 'Tomorrow you will wake up refreshed, and, hopefully, without a wish to show up your hosts. Good night, grandson.'

'Good night,' he said, and strode out of the room, waiting until he was outside the room to let his mouth twist with disgust.

Ta Min was waiting for him outside her room. 'Did you mean it?' she said.

He was going to say something sharp when he noticed her eyes, the down-turned mouth. 'What's wrong?'

'What you said about the world, did you mean it?' Her tone was anxious.

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Because being the Fire Lord has got to mean standing for something. When I was little, my father used to say—' He rubbed his forehead. 'Look, what's the point of having power if you don't do anything with it?'

'I see,' she said. 'Good night.' She started to turn back towards her room.

'Wait—why did you want to know?'

In the lamplight, her eyes looked damp. 'It's nothing. Good night.' She withdrew into the room and shut the door like a turtle-duck retreating into its shell. Sozin went to his room and had to use all his willpower to stop himself from setting something on fire. He wasn't sure if he wanted to kick something over and lob a fireball at it, or crawl into a corner and hope the whole day would have erased itself by morning. Instead he sat down on the bed and let out a groan of exasperation. Inside their glass lanterns, flames swelled with a whoosh. His grandmother's noxious concoction seemed to have coated his mouth and throat permanently. It tasted exactly like he was feeling.

The worst part was not knowing who exactly he was angry at.

After a few minutes, he undressed and crawled under the bedclothes. Whatever was in the appalling mixture Bao had made him drink, it was having some sort of effect: it wasn't making him drowsy, but his head felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton. His vision was starting to blur. He soon fell into a sleep thick like molten rock and ridden with dreams that kept him tossing and turning all night long.

+

Notes: Seal-dolphins: cross between a dolphin and an elephant seal and the second most awesome animal I've ever come up with (the most awesome is the tyrannosaurus-bear, but unfortunately I haven't yet found a way to work one into an AtLA fic ;)). The pipa (Chinese lute) and the erhu (Chinese fiddle) both appear in the show. The paddle-wheel ferry Sozin and Ta Min travel in is a more high-tech version of the paddle-wheel ships used in Song Dynasty China, which were hand-powered rather than steam-powered (though the ones in the fic have plenty of levers and whatnot to reduce the effort needed to move the ship). I think the heavy Fire Nation industrialisation we see in the canon only really started well into Sozin's reign… though hopefully you can see the seeds of that in this story. Flame tree is a name used in RL for a number of tree species, usually with scarlet flowers, and therefore obviously the Fire Nation's favouritest trees. ;) In my personal head canon, Avatar Rina is the nameless female Avatar we see in that montage in the Sozin's Comet: Avatar Aang ep (here's a screenshot). The timeline would be (going backwards) Roku->Kyoshi->Kuruk->Yangchen->Unnamed Fire Avatar (the one we see with the volcanoes in the Avatar State ep)->Unnamed Earth Avatar->Unnamed Water Avatar->Unnamed Air Avatar->Avatar Rina. Naga peppers and bird's eye chilli peppers exist in real life; I grew up on dishes containing astronomic quantities of the later, which makes me uniquely qualified to write about Fire Nation cuisine. ;) 'You may think Governor Cheng is not smart enough or knows you well enough to understand when you're making fun of him, but I assure you that both he and I knew exactly what you were doing' is slightly paraphrased from a line in the movie The Dark Knight (oh hai other fandom, fancy seeing you here :D). Bao's 'fair/I wonder what's your basis of comparison' lines come from the movie Labyrinth.

Chapter 4: Fire Maker

Summary:

Sozin and Ta Min tour Shukai, then bond while surrounded by a disaster movie.

Author's Note: The events in this chapter are based on the assumption that firebenders cannot use their bending to extinguish fire that has found a substrate to burn and is spreading naturally. I am aware that we're never actually outright told this in the canon, but I think it's fairly clear this is the case since we never once see a firebender extinguish fire (I'm not talking about generated fire dissipating naturally in the air) even when it'd be really handy, like Zhao and his burning ships, or Aang at Wulong Forest in the finale.

 

Chapter Four: Fire Maker

Whatever his grandmother had put in that foul-tasting mixture, it had ensured that, by next morning, Sozin's pretended headache had shown up for real, presumably out of spite. It started out as a painful buzz in his temples during his bath, and by the time they had finished breakfast it had grown into a pounding inside his skull. The fact that Governor Cheng then cheerfully announced that he would be deeply honoured if he could give his guests a tour of his humble city really didn't help.

Nor did the fact that they started in the docks, where the bustle and noise made by the large number of ships, animals, and humans gathered in a place where two large rivers met was even worse than Sozin had imagined. He tried to make polite conversation with his hosts but soon gave up before it all ended in incomprehensible shouting. The noise diminished once they stepped into the barge for a tour of the Wan Po river, though the din of a whole boatload of turkey-ducks being unloaded trailed behind them for a while.

After some time, though, the noise of the docks faded and there were only the sounds of ships gliding on the silver waters, sailors hollering to each other, flocks of wading birds taking to the skies with a series of splashes. Wisps of morning mist clung to the river trees.

'Your city is magnificent, Governor Cheng,' Sozin said. He wasn't just being polite; the governor had been busy pointing out bridges and buildings to his guests, and the gold-tipped roofs and white stone masonry surrounded by lush palm fronds certainly didn't need Sozin's flattery. 'I have no doubt the Fire Lord is pleased with your rulership of Shukai.'

'You are much too kind to our little city, Prince Sozin,' Cheng said, but a glimmer of fierce pride was evident in his face and stance. All of a sudden Sozin felt like he was looking at someone much smarter than he let on, someone who found it worthwhile to be underestimated. Unease wormed its way under his flesh. Maybe Bao was right. Maybe he didn't know as much as he thought he did.

He glanced at his grandmother, who was sitting on a cushion under the cloth sunroof. Her gaze was smooth and icy and neither the night nor what Sozin had just said to Governor Cheng seemed to have done anything to thaw it. Anger-laced pain clawed at his temples again. Maybe he did know enough. Maybe he knew exactly what he needed to know. One down, one to go—he moved closer to Ta Min, who was nodding along while Lady Mei monologued, and who had gone back to being the girl he'd talked to in the capital, polite, and self-contained, and cocooned in six inches of silence.

'Thank you so much for your hospitality, Lady Mei,' he said.

'You are most welcome, Prince Sozin,' she said, but his interest was wholly in Ta Min. Her gaze met his, then her eyelids half-closed and she turned to look at the river. He had been around her long enough to see through the mask and know she was still deeply unhappy about something, but he had no idea what. He knew she wasn't homesick—he talked about his parents all the time, but she had barely mentioned hers during the entire journey—and he had no idea why she had asked him those questions in the corridor the previous night. Had he somehow bothered or offended her with what he'd said? He felt a pang of guilt. Bao was family, but Ta Min was only the second friend he had made in his whole life: he had grown up surrounded by adults until Roku had arrived at the palace. Roku had already been taken away from him by fate; he didn't want to drive Ta Min away due to his own stupidity.

If she even thought of him as a friend.

Whatever he had done, he didn't have a chance to apologise until much later. When Governor Cheng promised a tour of his city, he clearly did not arrange things by half measures. After the trip down the river, they were taken on a tour of the Shukai glassworks, the Shukai market, the Shukai stone gardens, the Shukai flower gardens, and the Shukai fire fountain; they were spared a visit to the Shukai Theatre, as the building had been badly damaged by the earthquake and repairs were still underway. By the end of it Sozin was sure he was going to throw up if he ever heard the words Shukai-anything again, and he wouldn't even need the aid of one of Bao's remedies.

'I've saved the best for last,' Cheng said. 'I'm sure you've all heard of the Shukai fireworks.'

Sozin couldn't help but be excited despite himself, and when he looked at Ta Min he was sure he saw a glimmer in her eyes. Everyone in the Fire Nation had heard of the Shukai fireworks: the spinning wheels of gold and red sparks, the paper dragons that flew into the skies and opened in a burst of rainbow-coloured light. He suddenly felt less tired, and even his headache, which had gnawed at the inside of his skull all day long, seemed to have lessened a little.

The factory was a long, squat building separated from its surroundings by a wide ring of paving stone and grass. A row of workers awaited them at the main entrance, and above them a banner read We Welcome our Crown Prince and our Honoured Guests. When the tour party got near them, the workers bowed like a very disciplined wave. A constant drone of noise poured out from inside the building; clearly there was work that didn't stop even for the Crown Prince.

Once the usual courtesies were over, the man who had introduced himself as Foreman Hino stepped forward, looking a little like a badgerhog who objected to this intrusion into its burrow. 'I must ask you not to firebend inside the factory under any circumstances,' he said.

'Of course,' Bao said, as smooth and sweet as freshly-made honey, and they all stepped inside the factory. 'You use black powder, I assume.'

'The finest kind,' Hino said. 'It is under strict lock, I assure you…'

Sozin fell in with Ta Min at the back of the group and slowed their pace so they could have a little privacy. 'Hey.'

She didn't look at him. 'I heard you had a headache. Are you feeling better?'

The buzz of activity was even louder inside the factory: everywhere he looked there were people stuffing powder into cardboard containers, attaching ribbons and fuses to rockets, sawing wood, assembling metal frames by a forge. There were partitions between each section of the factory, but just they seemed to amplify the noise. Even so, he could still have a conversation. 'Was it something I said?'

Ta Min looked at him. 'I beg your pardon?'

'I know you're upset. Was it something I said? Because if it was, I apologise.'

'I'm not upset,' she said, but then she let her shoulders drop. 'All right. I am—but it's got nothing to do with you. You don't have to apologise.'

'You don't have to tell me, if it's something private,' he said. 'It would be dishonourable for me to enquire further.'

A wan smile. 'All right. It's something private.'

'Fine. I won't bother you again.' Now the two of them had walked up to a table where workers were picking their way through a huge mound of red paper. Another quick bow before they resumed their work.

'What are these for?' Sozin asked.

'We're making paper fire lilies, Prince Sozin,' a woman said in a trickle of a voice. Her topknot was a little lopsided, but each flower in the finished pile next to her was perfectly folded. 'They go inside the dragons' bodies. When they go up into the air, the head bursts and the flowers rain down.'

'That must be wonderful,' Ta Min said.

'Thank you, my lady.' She never lifted her eyes from her work.

There was a wooden barrel next to the table, half full of scrunched-up paper flowers. 'What are these for?' Sozin asked.

'They weren't good enough.'

'May I?' Sozin's hand was ready to scoop up some flowers.

'Please help yourself. We were only going to feed them to the boilers anyway.' The woman's tone suggested she thought that was far more consideration than they deserved.

Sozin grabbed a handful.

'What do you want those for?' Ta Min asked. They took a few steps away from the table.

'I don't know.'

Silence.

'You still want to know, don't you?' Ta Min said.

He looked at her and smiled. 'Yeah. Yeah, I do. I'm really nosy. It's a character flaw. I'd be a terrible messenger. I'd never be able to stop myself from reading all the messages. At least I'd never share them with anyone else. I'm very good at keeping secrets. I'd tell you all the things Roku's only ever shared with me, but I'm very good at keeping secrets.' He made his chi flow harder into his hands and a few of the flowers rose up in the heated air. 'I wonder if I'm also good at juggling.'

'Aren't we supposed to not firebend here?' She sounded more amused than censorious.

His blood grew hotter and the flowers rose further, as if picked up by a sudden gust of wind. 'This isn't firebending, it's just flapping my hands with style.' He tried to make the flowers swirl in the air, but they all rained at his feet. 'So it turns out I'm not very good at juggling.'

This time her smile was real, even if her eyes did look like they were prickling with tears. She opened her mouth to speak. 'I was—'

He felt the whoosh of air even before he heard the noise, and suddenly everything was flying.

*

Bao was not by nature an impatient woman, but she had to admit this tour of the city was beginning to grate on her nerves. There was no mystery as to why Governor Cheng had chosen this particular itinerary—the aim was to show off the city while still hoping that giving his guests a discreet look at the damage caused by the earthquake might help them persuade the Fire Lord to open the purse strings a little further—but she was quickly finding out that she did not like the smell of sawdust or sweat-tinged steam at all. She had also never had an interest in how things were made; who paid, bought, sold, stole, and bettered the spider-mouse-trap was far more interesting than its mechanics.

Besides, no one ever need worry about her son-in-law's generosity. If she hadn't trained her daughter half as well as she had, the Treasury would have haemorrhaged by now. The two of them would have to be careful with the boy; he was still at an age when he didn't think his passions would ever dim.

'Foreman Hino has kindly agreed to a private fireworks exhibition tonight,' the governor said. 'I am sure Prince Sozin will enjoy it. And yourself, of course.'

The foreman let out a grunt of acquiescence. However he had agreed to the display, Bao was sure "kindly" hadn't entered into it. One quick look at him had told her he wasn't married and didn't have a lover, female or male. He probably objected to people blowing up his fireworks at all, just on general principle.

'I am certain it will not disappoint,' Bao said. She glanced around. The factory's interior had been turned into a labyrinth by all the partitions, but she always kept track of where she was, in case she ever needed to retrace her footsteps, and she knew they were close to the main entrance. A group of workers were busy preparing crates for shipping. She noticed that Sozin and Ta Min were trailing far behind. 'Will you excuse me?' she said. 'I need to—'

The explosion knocked her onto the floor before she could react. The noise nearly tore her eardrums and was followed a second later by screams. Then her ears were ringing; everything seemed to be happening underwater. She saw Cheng's niece on the floor, her mouth open soundlessly. Hino was yelling something she couldn't hear. She tried to get back on her feet, but a second explosion rocked the building and she was slammed back on the floor with a red burst of pain. Flaming debris flew towards her; she rolled and punched them away with a fireball before she could think and fresh pain shot down her back. Black smoke filled the air.

Someone was pulling her to her feet. 'Wait,' she said, and realised she could hear again. 'Wait.' Cough racked her. Smoke blanketed everything, burned her lungs. Green and yellow sparks rained down like burning thorns. The air was full of loud pops but she could still hear Hino yelling something about water tanks and a boiler.

Fresh air. Her eyes stung with tears. She looked up into a freshly-scrubbed young face, one of Cheng's escort. They must have gone inside the building to pull them out. 'You're safe now, my lady,' he said. Close to her, Lady Mei was doubled over by cough.

She tried to squirm out of his grip. Behind her, flames and pitch-black smoke swelled inside the building. Something else blew up. 'Let me go,' she said.

More guards surrounded her. 'I'm sorry, my lady—'

Blue flames burst from her hands and they drew back. 'Let me go, you idiots!' she yelled. 'My grandson is still in there!'

*

Sozin felt his body slam against Ta Min's and the wall, and before he could think he swung his arms and a fire shield rose around them. The roar of flames filled the air. He changed his stance and tried to jab the flames back, but it was taking all his effort to stop the backdraught from blowing the two of them back against the wall and consuming them to cinders. Another explosion slammed against his shield like the blow of a giant fist. Flames licked the floor by his feet; heat seared his skin.

'Let's go,' he said to Ta Min, but he struggled to get the words out. The fire around him was sucking up the air. They edged along the wall, but despite all his skill, it was harder and harder to keep the fire at bay. Flames besieged them, devouring the wooden beams and rafters, filling his lungs with smoke. They were going to have to make a break for it and hope he could bend his way through the wall of fire around them—

'This way,' Ta Min yelled. Where was she? He realised she was standing right behind him, halfway down a trapdoor.

'I can bend us a path out of—'

Another explosion threw him back against the trapdoor. He had a split second to kick a fireball away, before smoke filled his lungs and flame-wreathed rafters started collapsing all around him.

'Come on!' She sank her fingers into his arm and they raced down stone steps into darkness. Something slammed the trapdoor shut behind them with a loud thump. Then all he could hear was the dimmed sound of the flames and something that sounded like screams.

*

Outside, the Fire Watch had arrived.

Bao hadn't gone back into the building, but they couldn't stop her from using her firebending to help contain the flames as much as possible. She worked through the blistering heat and soup-thick smoke, the piece of wet fabric tied over her nose and mouth barely helping her breathe, her eyes raw with pain, soot and sweat covering her skin and clothes. She helped hold the flames in place until her lungs and the flow of her chi felt like hot needles, but still the fire raged. Flames poured out the windows, danced onto the roof. Lit fireworks burst through the swelling smoke, as though the fire itself were engaging in some macabre celebration. At least the noise muffled the sounds of the wounded and the dying.

She drew back, biting her lips so she wouldn't start coughing. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to stop once she started. Governor Cheng was amidst the ever-increasing casualties, telling something to a doctor working under a makeshift tent. Bao had to give credit where credit was due: once they were all outside and the first moment of surprise had passed, the man had promptly sprung into action, sending for the Fire Watch, having his guards fetch all the doctors that could be fetched. He even had his wife and niece help triage the survivors. She filed the information away for future reference.

'The water pumps aren't working fast enough,' she said.

'Yes, yes, you did your best, now move on,' Cheng was saying to the doctor. A pair of badly injured legs protruded from under the tent, bits of clothing still attached to the angry red burns. The smell of charred flesh filled the air.

It reminded her a little of roasted pig-goat.

The doctor snuck out from the tent, wiping bloody muck off her hands, and moved on to someone lying on the ground, seemingly uninjured but struggling to breathe. There were a number of bodies lying all around them, their faces covered.

'The water pumps aren't working fast enough,' she repeated. Her fingernails dug into her palms. Control. Control is everything.

Cheng walked with her to the Fire Watch captain, who was yelling commands at his crew. Hino was standing close by, looking like a man who had just lost all his children.

Another rocket whooshed into the air and burst into a wheel of orange and yellow sparks. Inside the factory, something blew up in a huge cloud of hissing steam.

'There goes the last of the water tanks,' Hino said.

The Fire Watch continued to hose down the building and pull it apart little by little. They were a nation who understood fire, who had it as their companion from cradle to grave, and who therefore knew its life, its hunger, how to be its master rather than its servant. So when the Fire Watch arrived in their padded red uniforms, their job was to isolate whatever was burning as much as possible, then take the fire out, bit by bit. Pickaxes to break apart burning walls and floors. Firebending to blast the fire's fuel into cinders and consume the air that fed it. Water to put out the flames. A cloud of white smoke and steam rose from the building. Water sprayed on the ground. The smell and the heat felt almost like heavy hands.

'Get your people in there faster, captain,' Bao said.

'That's a black powder fire,' he said. 'There's poisonous smoke everywhere, heat hot enough to melt the skin off your bones. Even the best firebender in the—'

'The Crown Prince is still in there,' she said, struggling to keep her voice from turning into a shriek. 'Get more water, get faster pumps, but do something.' The three men looked at her. Afraid?—oh, yes, they were afraid. She felt like laughing. She was sure it would feel like broken glass in her throat.

Hino let out a grunt of sudden realisation. 'There's that woman who can waterbend.'

'Southern Water Tribe?' Please. Please.

Governor Cheng's face frowned in thought. 'I can't remember. She may not even be here. I think she's the wife of someone in the merchant navy and every year they go back to—'

'Go get her,' Bao said. 'Find out if she's here. Tell her the Fire Lord will give her whatever she wants. Tell her I'll cover her in gold. Just get that woman here.'

*

Ta Min had lit a flame and was cradling it in her hands at the bottom of the stairs. 'The walls are stone,' she said.

Walls. He hurried down to her side. The flame in her hands was small but its light was enough for him to see the tiny square cellar, half its space taken up by jars and crates. Heat poured down through the trap door but his skin shivered. He looked around for an exit but there was only stone, cutting off the air. 'We're trapped.'

'We'll just wait until the f—'

Another explosion shook dust off the walls, clinked glass jars together. The light in Ta Min's hands bobbed up and down. Sozin looked up. Fire lines spread across the trapdoor. 'Come on,' he said, and the two of them climbed onto the stairs, trying to delay the flames. Sozin could feel sweat pouring down his face from the heat and the effort, but the flames continued to swell. Burning embers rained down; he batted them away with short blasts and he heard Ta Min scuttling back down and stomping out fire on the earth floor. 'Get out of there!' she yelled.

'I can get us out of here,' he said through clenched teeth, and shot a plume of flame into the trapdoor. Burning wood splintered. Above it there was just more burning wood, fallen rafters and beams piled onto the basement's ceiling. A river of flame flowed down. He shielded his face with his hand and jumped down. It was only when Ta Min was batting at flames that he realised he was on fire.

'That was really clever,' she snapped, and pulled him a little closer to the wall under the stairs. Pain burst in his blistered hand, as though his flesh had only just realised it had been burned. Smoke poured into the basement.

'Look, this wall is weaker,' Ta Min said, and knocked on the wall under the stairs. The sound was faintly hollow. 'Maybe we can get out this way.'

'No,' he said. He didn't see the shower of flame coming down from the ceiling. The pain in his hand faded to a dull throb. The whole world was the size of that alcove under the stairs, barely high enough to stand up in, and the four walls around him, shutting him in. He thought of climbing into some hole in the dark, too small to even crawl in, rock brushing against his body, trapping him inside, unable to move, unable to breathe… 'No. Let's try to go back up—I can make us a fire shield, I can—'

A corner of the ceiling caved in a wave of flames; they bended it away purely by instinct. A blast of smoke and boiling heat filled the basement. Glass and planks shattered under a rain of burning wood and debris.

'Can you bend wood?' Ta Min said, coughing. 'Come on—there's no other way.'

Firebending came from the breath. The smoke was choking off his lungs, so when they moved together to blast the wall it was like trying to bend through a vat of hot tar. Behind them the ceiling continued to fall apart with an ear-splitting noise, filling the basement with flames and smoke and flesh-melting heat. Somehow they managed to lob a fireball at the wall.

A jet of cold water burst out and nearly knocked Sozin onto the pile of flaming rubble. He spun back onto his feet. Ta Min stood by the hole, trying futilely to hold the water back with her hands as it roared around her. 'It's a water line,' she shouted.

'I noticed!'

'Help me.'

The flow of water soaked and battered him. Water sprayed his eyes, got into his throat. It was like trying to cork a waterfall. The basement filled with hot steam as the water hit the burning debris. Smoke continued to pour in from above, searing his lungs. After a few seconds, he could barely see, or breathe. The water reached their knees and kept coming.

No. Not like this.

Not blind and trapped between flaming rubble and rising water.

Maybe there was a way out through the water line itself—a grate or something. He edged away from the hole and shot another blast of flame at the wall.

'What are you d—' Ta Min yelled, but she never finished; the sudden flow of water kicked them onto the fire, then sprayed them before they had time to burn. Splintered wood and shattered glass clawed at Sozin. Steam scalded his skin. He felt for Ta Min and grabbed a handful of her clothes. They managed to wade out of the way of the stream and edge into one corner under the stairs.

'Climb onto something,' he said over the roar of water. It was waist-high now, then another handspan, another… They tried to scramble onto a pile of crates, which promptly upturned into the rising water. Another wave of flame rained down and Ta Min pulled them both underwater.

*

The waterbender was a stout woman in her forties, wearing Fire Nation clothes and a carved bone necklace. The man next to her, eyeing the governor's men hesitatingly, wore another one. Gone native, Bao supposed. For a second all she could see was the woman's pale blue eyes. She felt horrible laughter rising in her throat again, like bile.

'My name is Nikka,' the woman said. Her words had the faintest trace of an unfamiliar accent.

The man next to her began to speak. 'And I'm—'

'I don't care,' Bao said. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, then looked at the waterbender again. 'I'm sorry. I don't have time for politeness. Nikka, my grandson and his friend are in there. Please help me.'

The blue eyes focused on her, blinked slowly. 'I've never done anything like this. I don't know if I—'

'I give you my word that the Fire Lord will cover you in gold if you want. Please try.'

Another slow blink, but something in Bao's face decided her. 'I'll do my best.'

She walked towards the water line where the Fire Watch had attached their pumps. Around her the air was hazy with heat and the building was still engulfed in flames. 'Everybody do what she says,' Bao shouted before Governor Cheng could say anything.

Nikka said something to the Fire Watch captain, who hesitated for a few seconds. Before Bao could intervene, he barked some orders and his screw stepped away from the building, dragging hoses and pickaxes. Now the waterbender stood alone in front of the blaze, looking terribly small.

Then she began to move.

*

They were being pulled towards the wall. Sozin couldn't tell what was happening—he couldn't even think—but something dragged him from under the debris that had trapped him underwater and rammed him against the wall. Pain filled his skull. Before he could react, he dropped to the floor with a splash and a thud. The water was gone.

Everything was dark, but his body felt the rush of air before his mind did, and he blasted away whatever was about to fall on him. In the light of his firebending he could see the pile of rubble towering above him—above the two of them—like some huge animal made of broken wood and stone and glass.

Then rain came crashing down.

He called for Ta Min. Their hands clasped for a moment, then she slipped out of his grip in the storm of debris and flowing water. Something fell on him and he tried to push it away, but he was pinned down. He heard Ta Min's voice, but he couldn't reach her.

He was trapped.

*

Bao hadn't seen waterbending in a long time. That was all she could think of when she saw the column of water burst from the ground like a living thing, an enormous serpent that followed the flow of Nikka's motions. A tentacle of water spun out at a motion of her arm and turned into a lengthening bridge of ice. She slid over it around the building, pulling the rest of the water around her in a huge dome that shook and wavered.

'Everybody stand back!' the Fire Watch captain yelled. The dome of water crashed onto the burning building with a roar and a burst of steam. For a moment Bao saw only the white cloud, liquid heat pouring off it in a wave. Then it dissipated and she saw Nikka again. She had raised a shield of ice to protect her from the heat. Water fell off it in rivulets. Then the waterbender moved again and another column of water burst from a grate. It rained on the building until it was it was only a smoking, water-logged husk. The stench of wet ashes filled the air.

Nikka limped back. Sweat dripped off her face and hair. 'I think it's out now,' she managed to say before her legs gave way. Her husband was at her side in an instant. The Fire Watch captain raised his arm. 'What are you all waiting for?'

Bao walked up to Nikka. 'Thank you,' she said.

The waterbender was now leaning against her husband. Her hair had come undone and stuck to her face. 'I've never done bending like that. I—'

'Excuse me,' Bao said, and started to walk away. 'I have to find my grandson.' She looked down at her hands. Her palms were streaked with blood where she'd dug her nails in. She hadn't noticed.

Or the way her heart felt like it had swelled into her throat.

A man in a red uniform tried to stop her from going into the building's remains. 'My lady, it's still dangerous.'

She looked him in the eye. When she spoke her tone was even. 'You will step aside. I have to find my grandson.'

The man was a handspan taller than her and probably twice as heavy. He had a pickaxe in his hands. After a few seconds he looked away. She moved past him and into the smoking ruins.

*

Everything was dark. Sozin tried to move. Water splashed; rubble shifted all around him, pressed down on his leg and arm. He froze in place. He could feel stone digging into his back; he guessed he must be pinned against a wall. He groped around in the dark with his free hand and just felt a few inches of water, the cold making the burns on his palm throb with pain.

'Ta Min?' he said. His throat and lungs ached, and all of a sudden, everything else did as well. 'Ta Min?'

She still didn't answer. Was she—maybe she had been knocked unconscious, maybe the whirlpool had pulled her to the other end of the room and a pile of debris stood between the two of them.

And now he was alone down here. Trapped in a hole, rubble pressing him against a wall. He gasped for air and tried to move; acrid-smelling wood scratched his face. He squirmed and the rubble held him down like tar. He couldn't escape—the rubble was just going to crush him against the wall little by little, pinning down his limbs, cutting off the air…

'I'm right here.'

Ta Min's voice. It sounded very far away.

'Sozin? Can you hear me?'

He tried to answer, but his breath was coming in ragged puffs, as though he had just finished a lengthy firebending session.

Ta Min spoke again. 'Are you all right?' Groans of wood and stone. Splashes. Something pressed on his burned hand and he let out a yelp of pain. His heart was racing too fast for him to be able to feel ashamed.

'Sorry! I'm sorry.' Her hand moved onto his arm. 'Can you move?'

'I—' The word barely made it out of his lips.

'Hang on. I'm stuck.' Another loud rustle. A wink of light appeared in the dark, cradled in Ta Min's hand, below her dirt-streaked face.

All he could see was the caved-in ceiling, the broken beams and rafters, the pile of smashed crates and jars. No—no, he couldn't stay here, waiting to be crushed, swallowed up… He tried to bend with his free hand but instead of fire a jolt of pain raked his flesh. 'I've got to get out of here.'

'What's wrong?' The little ball of light wavered. 'Are you hurt?' Rubble shifted as he struggled. 'Please stop it. Stop it! You're making it worse!' She clutched at his arm. He stilled. 'Look, it's not safe. If we try to bend our way out of here we'll end up buried in rubble. Or burning ourselves alive.' She let her hand fall down to his wrist. 'And you already got started on that,' she said with a forced smile. He didn't answer. 'We'll just have to wait until someone digs us out. Shouldn't be too long—they won't want to mislay the Crown Prince under a pile of rubble.'

All he could focus on was his breathing, as though he were three years old again and having his very first firebending lessons. His lungs felt like they were filled with soup-thick smoke, squeezed shut by the pounding of his heart.

'Are you scared?' she said.

'I'm not scared.'

She let the fire go out for a moment. 'It was my sister,' she said.

'What?'

She lit the fire again. 'When I was upset—I was thinking about my sister.'

*

It was like climbing a mud-covered mountain. The factory floor was strewn with sharp-edged, still-steaming rubble and a layer of ashes mixed with water. The stench was thick enough to slice with a knife. Most of the roof was gone, so the smoke was already fading into the air, even if there was still enough of it left behind to irritate her throat.

'We're not going to pull anyone alive from here,' Bao heard one of the Fire Watch crew say as two of them pulled out a body from under a pile of debris. Too tall to be Sozin. Too tall, she repeated to herself, and continued her search.

'Sozin,' she said. Her voice sounded thin. She called out again, louder. 'Sozin. Answer me.'

The only reply was the sound of wood being pulled apart.

'Sozin.' The children had been around here somewhere at the time of the first explosion. The roof and the walls had caved in. A little further away, she could see the remains of one of the forges, gutted and melted when the boiler had blown up.

'Sozin!' she called out again. Her foot pressed on something soft.

It took her a second to realise it was a hand. It was still clutching something Bao couldn't make out, some kind of red paper.

A young woman's hand.

*

'Your sister?'

'I lied about being an only child,' Ta Min said. 'When I asked you last night if you really believe all that you said, about how we can change things, I was thinking about my sister.'

He found himself able to think, just a little. 'Why didn't you tell me you had a sister? I don't think I ever—'

'You never heard about her. I know. You wouldn't have.'

'Did she—did she die?' He wanted to touch her hand, but all he could do was press his arm a little against hers.

'I don't know. Look, I can't keep this flame going forever. I'm going to put it out, all right? We don't need it while we're waiting.' The basement was plunged back into darkness. She spoke again before his panic could come back. Her hand never left his arm. 'Her name was—is Ai Li. She's twelve years older than me, so we weren't really close, not like sisters of the same age. Not like friends, even. Not like you and Roku.'

Her voice wavered. 'But she was—she was my big sister. She used to play Hide-and-Explode with me. Sometimes we'd go out and once she took me to a circus and she let me eat a whole bag of flaming fire flakes and another of fire sugar gums.' She chuckled. 'Afterwards I was so sick, but it was so worth it. When I was five she made a little glass doll for me, from sand. She was such a great firebender. She was great at everything she did. Always the perfect daughter. I still have it with me. The doll, I mean. It's in the shape of a sheep-hen, with a little hat. I didn't want to leave it at home.

'When I was nine, my parents found out she had been seeing this man. He was from the Earth Kingdom, a scholar from the University at Ba Sing Se. I only met him once, when he dined at our house. I don't even remember his name. He'd come to the Fire Nation to research—you know, I don't really know what it was. Some kind of animal, or plant, or maybe even a rock. I think we had some of it in our land. It doesn't really matter.

'I wasn't there when my parents talked to her. I was supposed to be in my room. They were in my mother's study. But I sneaked into the corridor and listened. My father wanted her to tell them it was nothing serious. Just a—a little fling between two young people. No harm in it, as long as she wasn't shouting it to the four winds and wasn't foolish enough to get pregnant, and they knew she wasn't. But she should end it as soon as possible. She shouldn't really waste time like that.

'Then she told them she was in love with him. She told them they were going to get married. My parents told her not to be an idiot. It was completely out of the question. You've got to understand—the man was the son of a clerk, he didn't have a tin pot to his name, and my family is… well, my family. They couldn't let their oldest daughter marry a penniless scholar. It would be…'

'I understand,' he said. Maybe it was just her story keeping him distracted, but his heart wasn't racing as fast as before.

'She told them she didn't care what they thought. She was going to marry him with their approval or without it.'

'I take it they didn't approve.'

'They did a lot more than that.'

*

Ta Min?

No, Bao realised almost immediately—the skin on the hand was a different shade of bronze. Even so, the sudden weight in her chest didn't ease up until she brushed away some of the debris covering the body. The stink of charred flesh hit her face. There wasn't enough of the body left to see who it was, but Bao could at least tell who it wasn't. She covered its face the best she could and continued her search.

*

'What happened next?' Sozin asked.

'Well, my parents told Ai Li they couldn't have any child of theirs behave like that—do such a thing to them. She said she didn't care. She was always stubborn, you know. Always knew what to do. She was never unsure. Not like me. I heard her tell them there were things more important in life than money or power, and my mother answered that there was duty and responsibility and honour. Then my father said she'd have to choose between being their daughter and that—that ridiculous fancy of hers. They all started arguing. I got scared. I ran back to my room. And then I never saw her again.'

For a moment Sozin thought he must have missed part of the story. 'She just… went away?'

'No.' Ta Min's hand clutched his arm a little harder. 'She did go away, but after that my parents… well, they erased her. You know how we have all these records in the Fire Nation. They got her erased from those. And afterwards they never mentioned her again. We just pretended she had never existed at all.'

He didn't answer, but Ta Min reacted as though he had. 'My parents just wanted the best for the two—for me. They always took care of me and gave me everything I ever wanted. What they did—it wasn't to hurt either of us. It was—'

'I know.' He did his best to put his arm around hers, even though the pain made him wince. He wasn't sure what he was saying, but said it anyway. 'I'm sorry.'

'That's why I wanted to know if you really meant it. When you said people could change the world. Because I always thought I just had to… things are one way and you just learn how to deal with them. You just have to accept them. Like a storm or the tides. But then you said that and I wondered if I hadn't been wrong all along. Maybe all that matters in the world is made by people and that means other people can change it for the better. Do you really believe that?'

'I do,' he said. She didn't answer, and after a few seconds all he could feel again was the several inches of cold water and the debris closing around his body. Panic crept in again. He tried to draw a deep breath.

'I told you the truth,' she said. 'Why don't you tell me the truth too?'

He sighed. 'I don't… I don't like small spaces. Especially underground. See? It's a very stupid secret. Not like yours.' He felt himself grow hot with embarrassment.

'I don't think it's stupid,' she said. She leaned her head on his arm. 'Do you mind? My legs are trapped. I can't sit up.'

'It's fine,' he said. When she spoke again, he could feel her breath on the skin of his neck.

'Was that why you didn't want to come down into the caves? You could have told me.'

'Yeah. But it's embarrassing. You won't tell anyone, will you?'

'I'm also good at keeping secrets,' she said. Her tone was a little jokey. Just a little bit.

He managed a sliver of a chuckle. 'I noticed.'

'Picture us back in the capital,' she said. She must be feeling his shallow breaths. 'Drinking mango juice and laughing about this.'

'Roku should be there as well. He prefers pineapple.'

'You'll have to make sure to order some for him.'

'Is this in Ba Sing Se?'

He could feel her head turn a little. 'Why Ba Sing Se?'

'I thought we could go to the Earth Kingdom and find your sister.'

'I don't know where she is. The Earth Kingdom is so huge. I don't even know if she's still alive.'

'Of course she's alive.' His voice was still wavering a little, but not as much as before. 'And between the three of us we won't have any trouble finding her. A week, tops.'

She laughed.

'Well, give or take a week,' he added. 'She's probably at the University. Studying rocks. Or fish, or whatever it is. And maybe you have little nieces and nephews. All tiny experts on calligraphy and geography and history.'

'And we're all celebrating?'

'Or hiding from the little brats. But mostly celebrating.'

'We can see the walls from where we're sitting, right?' she said.

He closed his eyes against the dark. He had only seen the Walls of Ba Sing Se in paintings and hangings, but he was looking at them right now, the light stone gilded by the sun. There was no icy water, no smoky air, no debris threatening to suffocate him. 'Yeah, we can see them.'

What's that?

'Listen.' He stirred. 'Is that—someone is calling us.'

It was his grandmother's voice, very faint but getting closer, calling his name. Ta Min lifted her head and began calling back. 'Down here! We're down here!'

*

Bao stood by as the Fire Watch crew pulled the rubble away. The children were in some kind of basement and the floor above them had partially collapsed. Chunks of masonry and beams from the nearby walls and ceiling had fallen into the hole and it took a while before enough of the rubble had been cleared away for a few of the Watch to climb down with ropes.

Let them be all right, she thought, a demand rather than a prayer. Not just well enough to speak. Let them be all right.

Ta Min was the first to be pulled up, from under a pile of broken crates. 'No, get him first,' she said, but Sozin was pulled out from under the rubble right after. Bao watched as the crew helped them onto the factory floor with surprising gentleness. They were both soaked, their clothes torn and streaked with dirt. A chunk of Ta Min's hair had been burned to a crisp—Bao doubted the girl had even noticed—and Sozin's left hand was covered in angry red blisters. They smelled like—well, exactly like two children who had been trapped in a fire, a layer of sweat and smoke that would probably take a week to wash off.

But they were unharmed.

'Grandson,' she said, and helped him to his feet. He coughed. She grabbed his shoulders. 'What in the name of the eighty-eight thousand spirits were you thinking, child?' He voice slipped out of her control. She shook him. 'Why did you dawdle behind us? Do you know how lucky you were? How close you came to dying? To costing the life of an honoured guest? Did that cross your mind at all, you foolish boy?' She stopped. Sozin's topknot had come undone and he looked at her from under his damp hair, eyes wide. 'Come here, child.' She pulled him tightly to her, until she could feel the beat of his heart. A few seconds later she pulled Ta Min into the hug with her other arm.

She wasn't sure how long she stood holding them. Too long, she supposed. She drew back and regained her composure. 'Come on, let's let these people to their work. Are you injured?'

He shook his head. 'Only my hand.'

She turned to Ta Min. 'And you, child?'

'Just smoke, Lady Bao.'

'There was a woman showing us paper fire lilies,' Sozin said as they walked out of the factory. 'Did she make it out?'

Red paper. 'You'll find out later, grandson. Personal isn't the same thing as important.'

A clutch of doctors was waiting for them outside. 'Take care of them,' Bao said.

'And you, lady—'

'I'm fine. I have a slight cough, that's all.' She looked around. Governor Cheng and the foreman were approaching her. They looked like they were suffering from far worse than a cough.

'Lady Bao, how is the Crown Prince?' Cheng asked.

'He and the Lady Ta Min are fine. Nothing a little rest and a bit of ointment won't take care of.'

Cheng looked like he was about to melt under her stare. 'Such a relief. The accident was terrible. Truly the Fire Lord's line is favoured by the very spirits of the flames.'

How terribly nice, she thought. Hino cleared his throat. 'I don't understand how this could have happened. The Fire Watch captain was saying it must have started in the black powder storage. Nobody would take a flame in there. They know I'd have their hides for it—if the blast didn't take them first.'

'Maybe some stray spark from firebending,' she said.

'Nobody firebends inside my black powder room,' Hino said. His tone made it clear that that was the last word on the matter.

'How about flames from the boilers and the like?'

'Walls are—were solid rock. A stray spark wasn't going to get in. And I checked everything personally this morning, before I took out the day's black powder supply. Then I locked it up.' He took out a key from his belt pouch. 'I always keep the key with me.'

'Who else has a key?'

'No one.'

'Well, we'll look into all that quite thoroughly,' Cheng said. She could feel the anxiety oozing off him. The Crown Prince might be lucky enough to be alive and well, but he had nearly died in Cheng's city, with the governor standing nearby. He must be feeling like a lobster-crab in a pot of boiling water. 'I can assure you that we'll get to the bottom of this. I'll put all my resources into this. If anyone's carelessness is found to be responsible…'

Bao glanced over at Sozin, who was sitting on a piece of cloth on the ground, close enough to hear every word. He was looking straight at them, amber eyes shining in the sun, and she felt a sudden, fierce, and somewhat surprising wave of protectiveness. You're smart as a whip and twice as sharp, aren't you, child? she thought. She turned back to Cheng and Hino.

'I am sure you'll do your best,' she said. 'But don't concern yourself overmuch with this. We are all fine, after all, and I am sure your city needs more of your attention. As does the Fire Lord,' she added. There, a touch of reassurance. 'I am sure there will be a simple explanation. Accidents happen.'

+++

Notes: The Fire Watch exists because there's really no reason for them not to. Fire brigades of some sort or another have existed in real life for thousands of years, so I can't imagine a country full of people with pyrokinesis wouldn't have some sort of equivalent, at least in the larger cities. Of course, they are a country full of people with pyrokinesis, so they'd have their own attitudes to firefighting: they don't call it firefighting, for starters, and their techniques incorporate firebending, like starting a second fire to burn up the available oxygen faster (this is actually used in real life, minus the "shooting fire from your fingertips" part ;)). The whole idea of taking the fire out little by little comes from the golem fire brigade in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, and the idea of using firebending to slow down a fire's progress comes from the canon itself: in The Deserter, Jeong Jeong instructs Aang to use firebending to slow down the flame burning up a leaf. Regarding Nikka marrying into the Fire Nation, no one in the canon bats an eye at transnational relationships (Aang/Katara, Sokka/Suki), so I think it's perfectly possible to have a waterbender (or several, even) living in the Fire Nation at the time the fic is set (and to be a bit of a local celebrity just due to the fact she can waterbend). Also, the reason why Bao is hoping Nikka is from the Southern Water Tribe is of course the fact that—as is shown in Hama's episode—female waterbenders in the SWT were historically trained in the full range of waterbending, not just healing (it's entirely possible this was only true in times of war, but I've obviously chosen the option that served my fic best). Regarding Ta Min's family's attitude to Ai Li's relationship with the scholar, and the Fire Nation's attitudes towards sexuality in general, I really don't see that they would care in the least about what anyone gets up to, provided the people in question a) keep things in the private sphere as necessary (really, in a shame culture who knows what you're up to is often far more important than what you're actually up to); b) don't do something catastrophically stupid. They are a fairly gender-equal culture, they clearly have reliable contraception, and they don't have any religious or ideological beliefs that put a premium on chastity or anything like that. As far as my personal interpretation of the canon is concerned, I can't imagine where they'd get any kind of Victorian attitudes towards sex, and in fact we see many, many examples in the canon of teenagers spending time together completely unchaperoned/unsupervised, like when Zuko and Mai stay alone at her house… and I'm pretty sure they weren't baking cupcakes (though it would be hilarious if they actually were ;)).

Chapter 5: Summer's End

Summary:

Sozin and Ta Min attend the Summer's End fair at Kiake and talk about the past and the future; Sozin makes his own luck at the Fire Temple. (Are there any Sozin/Ta Min shippers around? You'll enjoy this chapter. All three of you. ;))

Chapter Five: Summer's End

They left Shukai soon afterwards, and Sozin wasn't unhappy to see the City of White Rivers fade into the distance, even if he had spent the rest of their stay dropping hints—discreetly enough to save the man's face—to Governor Cheng that he wouldn't lose his status over the accident. A messenger hawk arrived from the capital on the last day of their stay, but the message from his parents wasn't unduly worried; he knew Bao had mentioned the accident in her endless stream of letters, but she had made it sound like the burst of a damp squib. The real news would reach his parents soon, in any case.

He shuddered to think of what his mother would say.

'I think we should—grandson, stop picking at that, it's not going to help.'

Sozin looked down at his hand. He had been worrying the bandage covering the wounds there. Firebenders' burns healed a little quicker than other people's, but that didn't stop them from itching like a whole hive's worth of scorpion-bee stings, and it was his favoured hand, to boot. At least Ta Min had only lost the last few inches of her hair. The new length even suited her a little better.

'As I was saying,' Bao went on, 'I think we've had our share of fellow nobles. I'm sure you both want to see our country as it truly is. It's not all that meaningful a journey if all we do is what we'd do at the capital, only with different people. We should go back to being anonymous travellers, staying at inns, mixing with other people in the market. See the real face of the Fire Nation.'

Sozin was about to answer, but something in his grandmother's face stopped him. At Bao's side, Aki was silent as usual, peering out from under her eyelashes. Absorbing everything, no doubt.

'That sounds good,' Ta Min finally said after a few seconds, and then the subject was closed.

It didn't take them long to reach Mount Kiake and the town perched on the hilly terrain below it. The name was a misnomer: instead of a single mountain, there was a whole range of them, peaks and valleys and plateaux interlaced like the ridges on the back of some immense dragon, its stone scales reddened by the sun. The town was the most hilly place Sozin had ever seen: some of the alleys were so steep they had steps built into them and even the wider roads were on some sort of incline. The only spot that was completely flat was a field a little outside the town where colourful tents had sprung up like flowers after rainfall.

'Just a few days until the Autumn Equinox,' Bao said. Sozin perked up. Despite what the calendar said, there were only two seasons in the Fire Nation, "summer" and "still summer, but wetter", but even children knew that the veil between the human world and the Spirit World was at its thinnest on the solstices and equinoxes. At home he always went to the capital's Fire Temple with his parents on the summer and winter solstices. He wondered if Roku would be doing some special Avatar thing on the autumn equinox. 'There'll be some kind of festival,' Bao went on.

'Can we go to the Fire Temple then?' Sozin asked. He'd been scanning the town for the temple as soon as the buildings were visible, but he couldn't see anything that seemed to be it. Maybe it was hidden in the mountains' folds.

'You seem very spiritually inclined lately, grandson,' Bao said, and changed the subject.

They stayed at an inn with several natural pools made by the hot springs that came down from the mountains and the next few days passed uneventfully. Sozin and Ta Min saw what little there was to see in the town and he spent most of his time having his grandmother fill his head with her unending teaching.

The day before the equinox she freed him soon after lunch and he went down to the hot spring pools again. The polished stone tubs were under an open-air pavilion hung with scarlet cloth partitions, and there were usually at least a few people there, but this afternoon the place was completely empty. He slipped out of his robe, still damp from his bath, and climbed down into the biggest pool, letting the steam and the hot and slightly bubbly water wash over him. He closed his eyes. The day was sweltering and windless and the air smelled of the coppery water. His muscles turned into overcooked noodles.

'Mind if we join you, grandson?'

He opened his eyes. Bao and Ta Min were standing over him in their bathing robes. The pool was big enough to swim in, but he scooted a little to the side anyway for politeness' sake.

'Nothing like hot water to a firebender, right, children?' Bao said once she had settled in on the other side of the pool, her hair spreading around her like pale seaweed. Sozin glanced at Ta Min, who had just ducked her head underwater. The steam frizzed her hair a little and water drops glistened on her bare skin.

'The equinox is tomorrow, isn't it?' Sozin said, trying to sound casual. 'Maybe we could go to the Fire Temple then.'

Bao cast him a knowing glance and splashed a little water on her face. Even in her bathing clothes and with her hair loose and the heat reddening her face she managed to look refined and dignified. He wasn't sure how she managed it. 'The Kiake Fire Temple isn't like the ones you know, grandson. Are either of you familiar with the Keepers of the Flame?'

'No.' The only time Sozin had ever heard of them was when his grandmother had mentioned them in the Caves of Whispers. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Ta Min shook her head. 'Me neither.'

'Then they're keeping to their purpose. They don't care about anything that doesn't pertain to firebending and its philosophies.'

'How come I've never heard of them before?' Sozin asked.

'I just told you. They don't concern themselves with worldly matters.' Bao's tone sounded like she rather disapproved of this. 'They seldom speak to strangers and they let outsiders into their temple even more rarely.'

'Sounds like a challenge,' Ta Min said.

'If they're so secretive, how come do you know so much about them, grandmother?' How come you've mentioned them to me before? He was sure he was being manipulated, but he couldn't do anything to dampen his curiosity nonetheless.

Bao poured a handful of water on her hair. 'It's my job. Listen, child, if you are so eager to visit the Fire Temple, the festival of summer's end is tomorrow. The townspeople will go to the Temple's outer courtyards to make offerings for good luck in the next season. If we join them, maybe the Keepers will be willing to speak to you.'

'Will I be able to go inside?'

'You'll have to find out, won't you?' She paused and turned to Ta Min. 'Why don't you and Sozin go to the fairgrounds this evening? The celebrations are going to be in full swing tonight.'

'That sounds like fun,' Ta Min said. Sozin wanted to ask more questions about the Fire Temple, but to his annoyance, the conversation had already moved on. A while afterwards Bao declared herself thoroughly refreshed and stepped out of the pool, dripping water. Ta Min followed her out.

'I'll stay here a little longer,' Sozin said. The day felt too hot and drowsy to do anything else.

'Don't oversoak in there,' Ta Min said, slapping him on the shoulder playfully. Her bare leg brushed his arm.

'I'll do my best not to drown.' A few moments later he was alone again. He rested his head against the stone rim and let himself sink a little further down into the pool, until the water was just under his chin. He closed his eyes. A breeze started up and rustled the cloth partitions around him. It made them sound like—

—footsteps.

He opened his eyes. Beyond the pavilion there was only the inn on one side and a bare, sloping mountainside on the other, a rim of yellowed grass at the bottom. There was no one else inside the pavilion, only the scarlet cloth wavering in the wind.

He waded out to the centre of the pool. The partitions whispered and billowed as though large shapes were hiding behind them.

The water was suddenly cold. There was a shape behind one of the partitions, not completely concealed by the way the wind shifted the cloth.

Who's there? The words swelled under his tongue before they were out of his mouth. There was no answer. Another gust of wind flapped the cloth back and forth and the shape was gone.

Something clanked on the other side of the pavilion.

'This is stupid,' he muttered under his breath and stepped out of the pool, snatching up his robe with one hand. The partitions moved around him like scarlet ghosts. He pulled at them.

Nothing.

He put his sandals on and walked around the pools, pushing the cloth out of the way. Blood pounded in his ears.

The pavilion was empty.

Of course it is, he though, feeling rather foolish. He wandered back to the inn, the cloth still rustling behind him. Maybe it was some kind of after-effect from the fire. He had had a few bad dreams after it. Hopefully he wouldn't be jumping at shadows for too long; he was the Crown Prince, not a five-year-old afraid of the monsters in the cupboard.

Once he was dressed he knocked on his grandmother's door and told himself he was just doing it because he had some questions.

As was her habit, Bao was playing a game of Pai Sho against herself.

'Come in, grandson. Care to join me for the next round?' She slid a lotus tile across the board.

He sat down in front of her. 'I just had some questions about the Fire Temple. You seem to know so much about it.'

She captured a tile and placed it on a little pile next to the board. 'The powers of flattery are overstated, child. I actually know very little about it. Firebending philosophy is not a subject on which I am an expert.'

'But you're a master firebender.'

'A matter of willpower and practice,' she said. 'The world is complicated enough without one turning one's attention to matters of the spirit.'

Sozin didn't know what to say. He had always been taught that the Fire Lord carried a sliver of the spirits of fire and lightning inside him or herself. They weren't like the Earth Kingdom or the Water Tribes, who didn't care if their leaders could bend or not. The Fire Lord was supposed to be the flame made flesh. He had not really thought about that meant until now. It was just something he'd been told and took for granted, like the names of cities. 'So you don't know what I can do to get into the Temple?' he asked.

Tiles slid across the board under the honeyed sunlight. 'I understand one is required to have a great deal of determination and a great deal of humility.'

'How can you have both?' Sozin asked. He had always had plenty of determination to reach a goal, even if it was just to win a game, but he was pretty sure that didn't go with humility.

'I told you, matters of the spirit are less straightforward than matters of the human world.' She made it sound like that was a failing of the spirit world. 'Since I have you here, grandson, why don't I teach you a little about diplomacy? It will be one of your most useful skills when you are Fire Lord.'

He looked at the spread of colourful tiles on the board and smiled. 'And it's exactly like Pai Sho, isn't it?'

She cast him an unimpressed look. 'Don't be unimaginative, child. It's far more like—'

*

'—like buying a bag of fire pops,' he said. Ta Min started digging into hers, paprika and cinnamon dust wafting around her fingers.

'What's like buying a bag of fire pops?' she asked between bites.

'It was something my grandmother said about diplomacy.'

She looked amused. 'I'm not sure I really see the connection.'

'It was a rather complicated metaphor.'

One of her sideways glances. 'That does sound like your grandmother.'

Like Bao had said, the fair was in full swing under a harvest moon that was round and huge and pale orange. There were booths selling food, drinks, and all kinds of trinkets, places where you could play games of skill and games of chance, betting tables, musicians, a puppet show, and in the middle of the fairground there was a stage, curtains still drawn, where there would be a firebending dance and a magic show. A thickening crowd milled under hundreds of colourful paper lanterns. The air was full of noise and the smell of dirt and burnt sugar. A man in a bright costume juggled a handful of throwing knives. They stood watching for a moment.

'That was pretty impressive,' Ta Min said as they resumed their walk down the booth-lined avenue.

'I bet you could do the same with your swords.'

'Only two at a time.'

'Hey, hotman,' a girl with a tattooed arm called from a booth. Sozin used to think that the only Fire Nation people with tattoos that big were criminals, but maybe that wasn't true. Or maybe the girl really was a criminal. He found the idea exciting rather than alarming. 'You and your girlfriend wanna see how much you burn at the game?'

'She's not my girlfriend.'

'I'm not his girlfriend,' Ta Min said at the same time. They looked at each other and laughed.

'Hey, it's none of my business,' the girl said with a painted grin the size of the world. 'It's three copper pieces a go—are you sizzling or fizzling?'

Sozin looked at Ta Min. 'Do you want to go first, or shall I—'

'I'll go first.' She paid up and the girl handed her three wooden balls to knock down a pyramid of painted cans at the back of the tent. 'You gotta knock them all down to win,' the girl said, and she stepped away to attract more players.

Ta Min took aim and lobbed a ball at the cans. The ball whistled past the top can, which wobbled but stayed in place.

'Oh, that was close,' Sozin said.

'That was practice.' She took aim again and the ball hit two of the cans on the bottom layer. Half the pile clattered to the ground. She didn't have any trouble knocking down the remaining three cans with the last ball.

'Nice going,' the girl said. She took a small paper-wrapped package from a shelf. 'Here you go—incense for tomorrow's festival.'

'Thank you very much,' Ta Min said, but by now Sozin knew her well enough to see the trace of disappointment on her face.

'What is it?' he whispered.

She blushed. 'Oh, nothing. I was just hoping for something else.'

'Want to go again?'

She shook her head. 'No—it's your turn.'

He thought for a moment. 'OK—pick a prize.'

Her eyes widened. 'What do you mean?'

'Come on—what would you like?'

She looked at the prizes on the shelves. 'How about those glass bracelets?'

'All right,' he said, and stepped up to the booth's counter. The girl was setting up more pyramids of cans. 'Hey,' he called. 'If I win my try, can I have those glass bracelets?'

The girl took his money and handed him the balls. 'You can have any prize you want if you knock the cans with just two balls.' She winked. 'You can have as many tries as you can afford.'

'Oh, I'll only need the one try,' he said, sounding as confident as he felt.

Another wide grin as she stood back. 'Suit yourself.'

He looked carefully at the pyramid of cans. There were ten of them in four rows, but that wasn't the most important thing. What mattered was that his grandmother had told him that there was a crack in everything. You just had to know how to find it, he thought as he scanned the pile in a split-second. The noise around him faded.

He threw the ball. It hit the weak spot in the pile and all the cans fell to the ground in a jumble.

'Great strike,' the girl said with a clap, and handed him the bracelets.

'Thank you,' Ta Min said as they walked away. Light careened off the black glass on her wrists.

'They suit you.'

'Why didn't you go again? Win a prize for yourself.'

He shrugged. 'It didn't seem that important.'

They passed a group of musicians playing a fast tune. A few people were dancing. She looked back at him, eyes glittering. 'Come on, Sozin. I think I know you well enough by now to know you love winning.'

'Of course I love winning. And I won, didn't I?' he said with a grin. 'It was a perfect strike. After that I don't need another.'

'What if you had missed?'

'Then I'd have to jump off the top of the highest peak in the mountains to hide my shame, of course.'

She laughed and put her hand next to his so their fingers brushed. It would be impolite for him to hold hands in public with someone other than Roku or a relative, but he liked the soft-hard feel of her fingers against his. A few yards ahead, a young man in an elaborate costume stepped in front of a tent. 'Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, for one night only you will have the privilege of experiencing Master Yumi's Amazing Picture-Making Machine.' The emphasised words continued as he went on with his patter.

'Hey, let's try out the Amazing Picture-Making Machine,' Sozin said.

Master Yumi turned out to be a skinny middle-aged woman who reminded Sozin a little of a stick-mantis, down to the rustling sound she made when she ushered them to a spot behind the tent where a cluster of paper lanterns hung. She ducked back into the tent and dragged out a machine mounted on a tripod.

'Oh, I know these,' Sozin said. 'I saw them back at the p—back home. But they take forever to make a picture.'

His words had only been meant to Ta Min, but it was Master Yumi who replied, oversized eyes shining like polished jewels. 'Children's toys. This is the Amazing Picture-Making Machine. Now stand very still and look… right… here.' She pulled out a cap covering a black, pupil-less eye in the machine. Sozin stared at it in silence. Was there going to be a flash of light or a puff of smoke? 'Done,' the woman said, and replaced the cap. Sozin blinked. It seemed terribly anticlimactic. 'Come back in an hour to collect your picture.'

'Was that it?' Sozin said as they were walking away, down an aisle of booths full of the sound of sizzling oil and the smell of fried beef-chicken and freshly baked sun cakes. 'I was expecting to see our faces drawn in the sky with lightning or something. Since it was supposed to be Amazing.'

'Can you bend lightning? Maybe you can do another picture if the real one turns out to be a disappointment.'

He shook his head. 'No. We'll have to made do with the real picture.'

'You really can't?' She turned her face towards his. 'I'm not sure I believe this. Crown Prince Sozin, son of the Fire Lord and master firebender, can't bend lightning? Consider me shocked.'

He was unembarrassed. 'I really can't. I guess I don't have the right temperament for it.'

They sat down on one of the benches laid around an enormous oak tree. 'You actually don't mind, do you?' she said.

'Are you talking about lightning bending?'

She stared at him from under her eyelashes and for a moment all he could see were her charcoal eyes, tinged gold by the glow of the lanterns, focused on him without blinking. 'You know, sometimes I don't get you at all.'

'I'm a complicated person.' He paused, and the jokiness faded from his voice. 'What's there not to get?'

She put her hands on the bench's edge. 'Well—why do you want to go to the Fire Temple?'

He was silent for a moment while the sounds of the fairground went on around them. A group of people walked past them, chatting about the magic show they'd just watched. Ta Min's glance had turned sideways, but it hadn't stopped focusing on him. Neither of them had talked again about their conversation in the factory's basement, as though what they'd shared only had a place down in the water-logged dark where they weren't Crown Prince Sozin and the Lady Ta Min, but something about the whole thing had changed her in a way that probably only someone who spent as much time with her as he did could notice; some barrier between them had peeled off like an onion's skin.

'I just have to,' he said, one hand emphasising his words. 'It's just… I've always had to do things. To be doing something. Ever since I was a little kid. You know, Roku used to joke that he never had to think of anything for us to do; I always came up with something.'

She grinned and pulled a strand of hair away from her face. 'You see, that's what I don't understand. I get doing something you're good at. I know why you like to win, because winning is great. But what you just said about lightning bending and the way you want to go to the Temple—it's like you don't even care if things are going to work out before you try them.' She looked away. 'Maybe I'm not making any sense.'

'Well, you had your turn at that booth without knowing if you were going to win.'

'No, that's not true,' she said with a shake of her head. 'I knew I was going to win, same as you. But if it were something I'd never done before, or something I'm not any good at, I probably wouldn't even have tried. Not in public, anyway. That's why I said I didn't understand you—that part, at least. It's just like…' She swung her legs a little, like a young girl. 'It sounds like a recipe for disappointment. I never expect anything. That way I'm never unhappy.'

She was smiling, but Sozin didn't think it was funny at all. 'Do you really mean that?'

She stopped moving and looked down at her feet. 'I'm not sure. I thought I did. Until now, anyway.' Her voice grew distant. 'You know why I wanted to come on this trip from the moment you asked me? Because I've always been the obedient, dutiful daughter. I mean, of course everyone is supposed to obey their parents, but I… I've never talked back to them, I've never got mad. I can't really bear it when people do—especially if they start shouting. Especially if they start shouting at me. So I never gave anyone an excuse to do it. I always put everything I had into all the things expected of someone like me: all those lessons in etiquette and history and combat. And I know that when I'm older I'll inherit my family's land and money, and I'll marry someone as wealthy and well-bred as me and be the perfect noblewoman and I'll keep making sure my family continues to be at least as rich and powerful as before.'

When she looked back at him, it was as though he could see something behind her face, steel and broken-edged glass. He felt a sudden urge to hug her, like he did with Roku when his friend was sad or upset. 'Only I don't know if that's what I really want to do,' she went on. 'I think… I think some part of me always wanted to do something different. Something big and important. Or just be someone else for a bit. Like an adventurer, or a pirate, or a bounty-hunter.' A self-deprecating grin. 'I guess that sounds stupid.'

'I don't think it sounds stupid at all. Who wouldn't want to be a pirate?'

'And put on an eyepatch.'

'And a lizard-parrot.'

'And a wooden leg,' they said at the same time, and laughed. For a moment, they were silent, listening to the din of the fairgrounds around them. Then she spoke again, in an even tone.

'So that's why I really wanted to come with you on this trip. Because I'd still be the dutiful daughter and I'd help my family by getting close to the Crown Prince. But I'd really be going off in some adventure.'

The jagged-edge glass was gone. Her eyes glittered. 'Though the part about nearly burning to death wasn't all that great.'

'The drowning was worse,' he said with a slight shudder. 'I can deal with fire. You know, maybe that's why you didn't get me.'

'Because you prefer to walk into a big room full of fire than stay in a tiny room full of water?'

'No, that's just being perfectly reasonable.' He ignored her exaggerated eyeroll. 'I mean because of what my family expects of me.'

'Having to become the Fire Lord doesn't sound like it's easy.'

His tone grew livelier. 'That's just the point—it actually is. I mean, sure, there's a lot of hard work. A lot of practice. My grandmother says it means having to study for the rest of your life. And, OK, when I put it like that it sounds horrible. But that actually always came easy to me—doing things. Knowing what to do. Making things go my way. That's why I don't mind that I can't bend lightning. Because if I ever need something like that, I'm sure I'll figure something out. I think it's the same thing with the Fire Temple. It's… like a challenge.' He let his hands drop on his lap. 'You know, my father is really ill.'

The words bobbed in the air in front of him. He hadn't realised he was going to say them until he did.

'I am very sorry to hear that,' she said softly.

'I know all the important families know he's ill. That's the kind of gossip people find worth knowing. But…' His throat felt like it was full of fishing hooks. 'Promise me you won't tell this to anyone else.'

'You know I won't.'

'He's a lot more ill than everyone else knows. My mother and my grandmother make sure to keep it under wraps.' He looked at his feet, his body very still, as though it were made of glass. 'His doctors have told him he's got the kind of illness that kills you. Not right away. He's been ill since before I was born. But someday. Not very far from now. My parents think I don't know. They never mention it in front of me. But I know. And I guess that's why I…' He looked up at the spread of booths and tents in front of him, red and orange and yellow cloth lit up with a ghostly sheen by the lanterns and the moonlight. Beyond the fairgrounds there was only night, dark and deep as water. 'People have always told me I was born under a lucky star, but it's not true. Not really. I just make my own luck.'

Fireworks burst in the sky above them before Ta Min could say anything. For a split-second he was surrounded by heat and lung-searing smoke. Ta Min made a sound of displeasure.

'Remind me to ban these once I'm Fire Lord,' he said. Now there was only the shower of colourful sparks in the night sky and the faces of the people who'd stopped milling about in order to watch them.

'Ah, so now the awful truth comes out,' she said. 'After all that talk, the real reason you're happy at being the Fire Lord some day is the fact that you'll be able to tell everyone what to do.'

'Well, of course,' he said, mock-serious. 'With great power comes great power. And it really is pretty great.' He stood up. 'Come on, that picture must be ready by now. You can tell me what you want changed in the Fire Nation. Do you think that's big and important enough for you?'

'Making the country completely perfect?' She feigned deep thought. 'It's a challenge.'

They reached the picture machine tent once they were done discussing which flavour to pick for the daily nation-wide ice cream parties, and the picture was indeed ready.

'Wow, this actually is amazing,' Sozin said. He turned to Master Yumi's assistant, who was busy calling up more punters. 'How can you make these so fast? What kind of machine do you use? There was a cap on the machine—does light make the picture? Does—'

'The Master does not reveal her secrets,' the carny said, and shooed Sozin away.

'That's another thing you can do when you're Fire Lord,' Ta Min said as they walked away. 'You can make her the Royal Picture-Maker. Then she'll have to tell you everything about her machine.' She looked at the picture in her hands, a rectangle of stiff paper showing two young people in various shades of grey. 'You look so serious.'

'You're not even looking in the same direction,' he said. They were out of the fairgrounds now, and despite the late hour there were still people in the winding town streets. 'Do you want to keep it?'

'Me? No, I think you should have it. Here.'

He took it from her and looked at it for a second under the lights in one of the town's squares. Did he really look that startlingly young? And he couldn't be that chubby-cheeked, surely? The grey tones of the picture had turned their golden skin into the colour of ivory, their red summer clothes into dark grey. Above them the paper lanterns looked like little bright spirits. Ta Min wasn't entirely right: he thought the him in the picture looked more curious than serious. Ta Min had been caught in a half-smile. The last night of their sixteenth summer trapped on paper forever like a butterfly under glass. He felt sad and wistful for a moment, and didn't even know why. 'Thank you,' he said.

'Well, you seemed so interested in it.'

'It's not that,' he said. The hooks were back in his throat, but this time every sharp point was made of embarrassment. 'I wanted to thank you for coming with me on this trip. And…' The night air, which had been hot to begin with, felt even warmer. How had they managed to talk about secrets and their families and all those things and now his tongue felt like it was covered in mud? 'We're friends, aren't we?'

'I really hope so.' Her blush was visible even in the weak light.

He stopped walking. They were at the bottom of the street leading up to the inn, the mountain range a cliff of sheer blackness under a sprinkling of stars. 'I don't think I'm ever going to be as close to anyone as I am to Roku. I mean, I don't think I even can—it's fate, isn't it? He's supposed to be the other half of my soul. And all that…' He looked away from her, then back. 'But I'm glad I got to know you. I'm not glad that Roku had to leave, but I'm really glad I got the chance to be your friend.' He ran his hand over his face. 'You know, this sounded way better in my head.'

She had on that sideways smile that he knew would always make him think of her. 'No. It sounded fine.' She slipped her arm into the crook of his. He thought she would have done it even if they weren't alone. 'And you know what else? I'm also really glad I got to be your friend.'

*

The following day every single person in town seemed to be headed to the Fire Temple. A throng of men, women, young people, and children who darted around or cried or bounced excitedly in place wound slowly out of the streets and up a path that spiralled into the mountains. Sozin, Ta Min and Bao, for once joined by Aki and Lee and Shou, mingled with the rest of the crowd. For all that it was the autumn equinox, the day was as hot and cloudless as every day before it and the sun shone like a piece of fired-up glass.

'How are you planning on getting into the Temple?' Ta Min whispered.

'I'll figure something out once we get there,' Sozin said, hoping he sounded as confident as he felt, but once they got to their destination, he couldn't help but feel a little foolish. The temple was nestled in a surprisingly vast plateau under the mountains' highest peak and the complex of buildings looked about as easy to get into as the royal palace. He could barely see any doors or windows in the stone buildings. The only accessible areas seemed to be the outer courtyards with their little pagodas and roofed gates and fire bowls.

'It looks a little different from the Fire Temple at the capital,' Ta Min said as they got closer to the buildings.

'Yeah—older, somehow.'

'That's because it is,' Bao said. 'From a certain point of view. Now, children, you know what to do.'

Sozin had been to enough Fire Temple season ceremonies to know what his grandmother meant. People were going to give the first of the harvest to the sacred fire, for good luck. The world was full of spirits, spirits of the depths, and the rivers, and the woods. Spirits that never left the foggy realms of the Spirit World and spirits that entered the mortal world and whom you might see just out of the corner of your eye. Spirits of blood and hunger and strife whose eyes you never wanted turned towards you and spirits whose luck and blessing you hoped for, the spirits of the flames and the lightning and the sunlight and the fire in the earth. Sozin had never thought about it much—he wasn't sure if he understood it, and he preferred not to think too much about things for which no amount of effort would bring comprehension—but he knew exactly what was going to happen.

The crowd had spread out through the courtyards when the drums and the tsungi horns sounded and the Temple's main gate opened. Everyone turned towards it. Four women carrying red banners stepped out, flanking a fifth who was cradling two handful of flames. Sozin knew what it was: it was a piece of the flame that burned in the temple's innermost fire pit, handed down by the dragons or by lightning, never extinguished from time immemorial, eternally young and undimmed. He felt his blood move faster as he laid eyes on it and he bowed down with the rest of the crowd. He would have even if he were completely alone.

The woman carrying the fire went around the courtyards, pouring the flame into the fire bowls and shrines before people moved forward to make their offerings, everything from oranges and fire lilies to paper trees and incense sticks. The air filled with sweet smoke. Sozin looked around the temple grounds.

The gate the women had walked through was still open.

No one was watching it. The drummers and tsungi hornists were following the women, moving through the crowd that rippled like a wheat field under a strong wind.

He started edging away.

'What are you doing?' Ta Min whispered.

'Making my own luck.'

No one spotted him as he rushed to the gates and into the coolness of the corridor inside. Dusty sunlight poured in from high panel windows and ran down golden carvings of dragons twisting around red pillars. He stuck to the shadows clumping by the walls, and froze when he saw a pair of eyes focused on him—but no, it was just one of the bas-reliefs on the walls, each as huge as one of the paintings back in the Palace's portrait gallery. His heart still pounded as he moved forward, but it was muffled by the sound of his footsteps on the stone floor.

The corridor opened into another one, equally huge and empty. Red curtains fluttered over the open windows. Even the air smelled like that of the portrait gallery, ancient and still. There was no one here, just the carved dragons and the bas-reliefs—

A voice rang out before he had enough time to turn around.

'You didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?'

+++

Notes: The photography technique used by Yumi is wet plating or tintype photography; if you're interested, you can see a step-by-step description of the wet plate process here. Since the Fire Nation, at the time the canon is set, has zeppelins and refrigeration (the Cooler), it's not much of a stretch that they'd have early photography technology 150 years earlier. They'd certainly have access to all the necessary materials and of course in a country where loads of people can make their own fire, they wouldn't need to wait for the sun to print the photos. ;) The line 'I just make my own luck' is slightly paraphrased from The Dark Knight. The fact that I have holding hands in public as being often considered impolite in the Fire Nation may appear to contradict my interpretation of the Fire Nation's attitudes to sex, but it actually doesn't at all when you consider the distinction between private face and public face and the importance placed on the latter. I'm not saying my interpretation of the canon is the One True Reading (tm) or anything like that, but I do think it's perfectly reasonable that they'd have a completely laissez-faire attitude towards people's private lives but find most (but by no means all) PDAs to be rude/inappropriate.

Chapter 6: The Keeper of the Flame

Summary:

At the Kiake Fire Temple, Sozin is willing to do whatever it takes to learn what the Keepers of the Flame have to teach about firebending... but are they willing to share their knowledge with him?

Notes:

A passage in this chapter will make a lot more sense in light of this canon screencap of Sozin kicking thermodynamics in the face.

Chapter Six: The Keeper of the Flame

Sozin turned around. The voice belonged to a woman standing in the middle of the corridor who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He couldn't tell how old she was: all he could see of her was the dark bronze skin where her robes ended. Her face was entirely covered by a headdress, draped cloth the colour and shape of slow-stoked flames.

'You shouldn't be here,' she said. Her voice rustled at the edges. She moved towards him unerringly, the headdress apparently doing nothing to impair her vision. Perhaps she had other means of guiding herself. He swallowed a lump in his throat and kneeled, a little unwilling. He was looking at the floor, but from the corner of his eye he could see her moving in circles around him, like a hyena-shark rounding up its prey. 'No, you shouldn't be here.'

A rush of pride. He lifted his head. 'I am the Crown Prince of—'

'No.' The word sounded like a whip-crack. Even with the cloth in the way, he knew her eyes were fixed on him, piercing him like the tip of a blade. He looked back down at the floor. The woman spoke again. 'Inside these walls, you are nobody.'

'Forgive me,' he said. He hoped he sounded sincere. 'I know I'm here without permission. My grandmother told me I'd have to be both humble and determined to be let into the Temple.' He glanced up, then turned his eyes back to the floor. 'I'm not humble, I've never been. I'm the Crown Prince. I was meant to rule a country from the minute I was born. I'm used to winning and being really good at all the things I do. But I am determined. I've never given up on something just because it's hard. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to learn what you have to teach about firebending.'

The woman resumed her slow motion around him. Sozin didn't know how, but he could tell she wasn't impressed. The rustle voice spoke again. 'Are you sure that is wise, young man? To be willing to do anything for the sake of something?'

He didn't know what she meant, so he didn't reply. He could feel the weight of her gaze on him, heating up his skin. Seconds oozed by, slow as cooling lava. 'Stand up,' she said, after an eternity. 'Follow me.'

He scrambled after her, trying to keep to the pace he had been trained to use in formal ceremonies at the palace. They moved down more corridors with ceilings so high the lamps were cast in shadow. Bas-reliefs eyed them from the walls. 'Your name is Sozin, isn't it? It is unusual. Did a relative of yours die before your birth?'

'My siblings,' he said. It was maybe the third time he had ever mentioned them out loud.

'Yes,' she said. 'I wondered why you had such an ill-luck name.'

What does that even mean? he thought, but she was speaking again.

'My name is no longer my own. When I became the Keeper of the Flame I shed my old life and my old name and took the name of sacred fire. I became Azara of the Kiake Fire Temple, as all others before me. And they were led out of the lost city by the woman of the fire, the servant of the flames…' she recited in a distant voice. The words sounded oddly familiar, like something he'd heard in a dream. 'Do you understand this?'

'Yes,' he said, sure it would be a bad idea to admit that he did not. There was a twitch of the headdress, but she did not reply.

'We are not like the Fire Sages,' she went on. 'They go into the world, but we stay in the heart of the flame. None of the women here have left the Temple's grounds since being judged worthy by the fire. We have all turned our backs on what lies outside so we can dedicate ourselves wholly to the study of the very deepest philosophies of firebending.' She paused and stopped walking. They stood at the end of a corridor where a vast red curtain hung.

Her head turned towards him. 'We do not share this knowledge easily. Not with anyone who isn't a Fire Sage, or the Avatar.'

'I understand,' he said. 'I am very grateful—'

'Grateful for what?' she said. The cloth over her face billowed almost imperceptibly with every word. 'I don't know if I'm going to teach you anything at all. I may just have you kicked out of the Temple. And you wouldn't even remember you were here at all.'

Under other circumstances he'd find the threat laughable. But something about her voice and their surroundings made it serious enough for him to tense up.

'So now we come to the real question.' Her hands cupped his face and he didn't even try to brush them way. Something whispered just on the edge of his hearing. He was sure that if he turned around he'd catch a glimpse of something in the shadows. 'Why are you here?' The unseen gaze dug into his skin and bone. A jumble of memories rushed through his mind, unbidden. He desperately wanted to look away. I won't. I won't. I won't. 'Are you really here because you want to learn? Hmm?' Her fingers were as slender as bird bones, but they felt like steel against his jaw and the edge of his throat. 'Or is it just because your doushun turned out to be the Avatar and you can't bear him having something you don't—you can't bear being the one who isn't chosen?'

No. It's not true! It's not—He tried to speak but his tongue was a chunk of sandpaper in his mouth. Only bone-deep stubbornness kept him from looking away. His thoughts slowed to a trickle.

She released him. For a second he was sure he was going to stumble.

'There is something utterly significant in you,' she said, turning away from him. 'Yes. Utterly significant. You will be taught. It is up to you if you will learn anything.'

She pulled the curtains open and for a moment his pride was back. Of course she hadn't read his mind. He had told her he was the Crown Prince and the fact that his doushun had turned out to be the Avatar was just common—

she said she'd left the world behind

—knowledge. The rest was just the same techniques Bao was teaching him. His grandmother had told him there was no way to defend yourself completely from them.

Besides, she wasn't even right. She wasn't.

He slipped after her through the opening in the heavy red curtains. 'Do you know the story of the first Fire Lord?' There was only darkness on the other side of the curtains. Fire bloomed on her fingertips.

'Of course.' He doubted there had ever been a royal child who hadn't known that story before they had learned to write their own name.

'Some stories are secret,' she said, and she sent the fire flowing with a quick jab. Two rows of lamps ignited, illuminating another set of bas-reliefs. 'The Fire Lady is your mother. A Fire Lord's wife. But there was a time when things were different. When the first Fire Lord left the Fire Sages and founded a dynasty, the woman who was Azara back then left the Keepers of the Flame to aid him and advise him. And out of the flames a new nation was born. Like a phoenix…' She trailed off just as he perked up at the mention of the firebird. The unseen eyes turned to him again.

'Have you ever heard of the Tale of Jikun and Tsue?' she asked.

Of course he had—it was a classic, his favourite book. Any cultured person in the Fire Nation had read it, or was at least familiar with the story, how Jikun, last-born daughter of five, the one nobody paid attention to or cared about, had built an empire with the aid of the magician Tsue, her sister-in-law, and friend, and lover. But that was just… 'That's just a story,' he said. 'Just something someone made up. Magic isn't real…'

The edge of her headdress covered her mouth, but he knew she was smiling, unknowable and all-knowing.

He looked at the walls again. The bas-reliefs flickered in his mind, carved stone daubed with scarlet and gold. A man standing by a row of four others, all wearing robes he recognised as oddly similar to the ones the Fire Sages wore. Across from him stood another row of five people, women in clothes that were clearly related to the ones the woman in front of him was wearing. Tsue met Jikun when Jikun married her brother, in the golden city, in the season of rain and mists. He recalled the images etched on the other walls. They told a story, he realised, wondering how he had missed it. The story of the first Fire Lord. The story of Jikun and Tsue. He recognised some of the plot points from the book, like someone recognising the face of someone long-dead in the features of their relatives.

He shivered despite the warmth in the corridor, and didn't know why.

'It is only a story,' she said. 'But all stories are real. That is the secret of fire.' A ball of fire swelled in the palm of her hand again, the flames going from orange to yellow to a blinding white. 'It is what is seen and what is unseen. It is the known and the secret. The beat of life and the bite of death. To kneel humbly before it and to have the will to master it.' She paused. 'You do not see yet.'

'I—'

'You already know all this,' she said. 'That's what you were going to say, isn't it? Or at least what you were going to think.'

He didn't answer.

'Come,' she said, and they walked out from the corridor into a room with a canopied fire pit at its centre. Inside there was nothing other than the crackle of the flames, the glow of the fire on the polished stone floor where a golden shape had been inlaid.

'This is one of the remnants of the very first fire,' Azara said. 'The Eternal Flame, ever-youthful, forever self-renewing.'

He stared at the flames, transfixed for a moment, his chi pulling towards them like a needle drawn by a magnet. Winged golden shapes glided across the floor. He could almost see the smoking tops of volcanoes, the streak of lightning across a dark sky. Dragons twisted around each other, the glow of their flames slipping over their scales. Almost without realising, he stepped towards the fire, and was himself again at the last minute. He turned back towards Azara, his mind swaying as though he had just drunk a whole bottle of fire wine. 'May I?'

'You may.'

The bandage had come off his left hand a few days previously and there was only a trace of redness still clinging to his skin. He scooped up a handful of fire with both hands. It felt like stinging kisses against his palm. It wasn't like any other fire he'd ever touched or made. It felt wild, intensely alive, an animal that could either break out and rage with claws and fangs, or calmly curl at his feet and lick his hands, and wasn't sure of what it was going to do yet. Both. Neither. A sound of amazement escaped his lips.

'Now you're beginning to see,' Azara said, and stepped towards him. Light shifted over her red robes. She gestured at him to return the fire to the pit and when it left his hands it was as though his own heartbeat had left him. 'What is the main principle of firebending?'

'Control,' he said automatically. The sheen of sweat on his hands felt cold.

'And how is control achieved?'

'Discipline, drive, willpower.'

'And how does one find and keep one's focus and self-control?'

He was starting to feel like he was six again, learning lessons by rote and repeating them over and over until his tutors were satisfied. 'Good thoughts, good words, good deeds,' he said. That was the threefold mantra all children who could firebend were made to say until it was second nature. Until fire was a tool and not a danger. It didn't seem to translate into practice all that well, but at least they hadn't burned down the whole country yet.

'Yes.' She ushered him to a spot behind the fire pit, where a large sand mandala lay on the floor. He nearly stepped on it by accident. 'That is one's first understanding of fire.' She sat down in the lotus position on the other side of the pattern and gestured at him to do the same. A number of candles burned to life around them, like stars appearing over the horizon. The air smelled older than ever. Somehow he was sure they'd done this many times before, leaves rustling against an indigo, star-ridden sky as a map of the world unfurled between them. The rest of him didn't even manage to raise any objections.

'But some of us require deeper understanding. Knowledge of what lies beyond the veil, at the heart of the flames, where the fire dies and is reborn a thousand thousand times. To see its true nature, and master it, and let it be your guide and your teacher. Good thoughts are not sufficient.'

Even in here he wasn't entirely subdued. 'I'll try to have some evil thoughts.'

She laughed. The sound bounced off the stone floor, rose up like smoke. 'So that is why you're here: because you think you already know everything and want to be proved right.' He felt himself flush with anger, but she didn't give him enough time to reply. 'What is evil, then, if you know so much? Is setting a house on fire evil?'

'Yes, of course.' He couldn't keep the annoyance out of his voice.

'What if instead of setting the house on fire, I just lit a fireplace inside? Would that be evil?'

Don't be ridiculous. 'Of course not.'

'What if a stray ember fell from the fireplace and started a great blaze? Would that be evil?'

'No.'

'But the house burned down just the same, didn't it? Perhaps even the same people died, or were injured.'

'It's not the same thing at all,' he snapped. Was this everything he was going to learn here? These childish riddles he would have found too simple at ten? 'You set a house on fire because you want to cause destruction. You light a fireplace because you want warmth, or light. Your—'

'"Intentions"? Is that the word you were going to use?' She paused. 'But some part of you knows better, doesn't it?'

The roar of flames. The throat-closing weight of smoke. Fire climbing upwards like a weightless, living thing. He opened his eyes. He hadn't realised he'd closed them.

'Fire is not water,' Azara went on. 'It is not earth, it is not air. It is not some object that you can pick up and then leave to lie quietly in some corner when you do not require it anymore. Do you know where the very first fire came from?'

'The dragons,' he said immediately.

'Yes. They were the first firebenders. But before that, the first spark came from the heavens as a bolt of lightning. It willed itself into being. That is what fire is. It is alive. It is wilful. It hungers and it wants. It does not care about human intentions, or our notions of good and evil. Did you ever burn yourself when you were first learning the basics of firebending?'

'Everyone does,' he said. There was no glibness in his voice. Something in her words made them buzz inside his flesh like an itch he couldn't scratch.

'Yes. Everyone does. And what did your instructors call those little burns?'

'They called them—'

'"Fire-kisses",' Azara finished at the same time as him. 'And they told you fire loves you so much it wants to touch your flesh, didn't they? And when you were older you realised that they were just telling you that so you wouldn't be afraid of your own element. But now… now you're beginning to see how truthful those words really were. How fire really yearns to embrace your flesh, to consume you utterly with its desire. It's the least judgemental of lovers, I assure you. It embraces the just and the unjust alike, and it sparks in all of us when we are born, takes us all back into it when we are dead, then sparks up again when we are reborn. And those of us who have been tasked with its keeping… well, those of us can give it life in return. And always risk losing it. That is our bargain. What is that in front of you?'

He looked at the mandala on the floor. The four nations were drawn in coloured sand, a complex pattern of yellow, blue, green, and red mapping out the elements. They spiralled together, blended into each other, created a maze where your gaze lost itself… 'It's a map of the world.'

'Yes.' Two fire plumes rose from her hands and flowed onto the sand pattern in a column of blindingly white flame that felt hot enough to sear off his skin. His split-second instinct was to jump back and bend the flame away, but he forced himself to remain perfectly still. He was sure this was all part of a test.

After what felt like an eternity, the flame dissipated. He could feel sweat pooling on his skin and under his clothes. The pattern on the floor was still incandescent, but it was already starting to cool.

'How about now? What is it now?' Azara said. She looked utterly unperturbed by the huge fire blast she'd just produced. He was sure she hadn't even broken a sweat.

He looked back down at the floor. The sand mandala was now a perfectly circular expanse of glass, still red and soft with heat. It hadn't yet settled into its final shape, but he could tell it was going to be impossibly complicated. It was lightly tinged with colour, pale green, faint gold. Surely it wasn't possible to firebend like this, to let out that much raw power while touching the sand lightly enough to make it keep its shape. 'It's a glass pattern,' he said.

'Something new, yes? But the sand pattern is gone. I could not have made the glass without burning the sand and destroying its pattern. Chaos in the service of order. That is fire's lesson to us: the world's eternal cycle of life and death, light and darkness. It is what lies at the heart of fire. It is its nature: a blade's edge of creation and destruction. Only understanding that can lead to true mastery. To go beyond the simple rules you've been taught and know when to use chaos in the service of a greater order. To know that firebending is a fight and a dance. A clash between your will and the fire's. A willingness to submit yourself to its power and a willingness to make it obey your will. Do you understand?'

Humility and determination. 'I think so,' he said. The scent of burnt sand spiralled around him.

'You're beginning to, at any rate.' He was sure that the hidden gaze was focused on him again. She held out one hand over the still half-melted glass, her fingers in a firebending move, but instead of fire pouring out of her hand, smoke drew upwards into her open palm. Her skin reddened. The air around him grew cooler and the glass cooled into solidity. She raised her other hand behind her and a haze of heat shot out from her fingers and dissipated into the air.

He touched the glass. He couldn't help himself. It was completely solid, cold as though it had been made a month instead of a minute ago.

No. 'It's not possible,' he said. He drummed his fingers on the glass, as though it would all be revealed as a trick if he touched it for long enough.

'And yet it has just happened in front of you,' she said. The redness in her skin was starting to fade, but she tucked her hands inside her sleeves. Despite her covered face, he was sure she looked smug. 'Heat is a part of fire. Understand fire well enough and you'll be able to bend it too. Understand fire well enough and you'll be able to achieve true mastery. Study it, listen to it, feed it, lie with it, take it into yourself…'

'You can't take it into yourself without burning up,' he muttered, almost without meaning to. Once the words were out of his mouth, though, he looked defiantly at Azara.

'Can't, can't, can't. Is that everything that comes out of your mouth? Are you just excusing failure in advance, or are you just unable to contemplate all the possibilities and think no one else can either?'

'That's not true! But—'

She leaped to her feet in one fluid move. 'But you're still thinking with your flesh. That's not where firebending comes from. It does not come from the muscles. It does not even come from the breath. That's merely the means to an end. Firebending comes from the will.' She stepped up to him and he stayed firmly rooted in place. Don't budge. Don't budge. His muscles tensed all the way into pain. His gaze remained fastened to where her eyes must be. 'You're no one. You're only human. Only flesh. Only something that can burn and bleed and be bought and will die. But firebending… firebending is will. It is an idea. And ideas are incorruptible. They are immortal. They are ever-lasting. Now stand up.'

He got back to his feet. His body ached. 'Can you do that?' she said. 'Can you bare yourself to the fire? Let it see that you are weak, and frail, and full of fear, a little bit of kindling for the flames?' She circled around him. 'Show it that your will is worthy of its power?'

I'm not weak. 'Yes,' he whispered, then spoke louder. 'Yes.' He was sure she'd be able to smell fear.

She ran a finger over his collar. 'Good.' She drew back and revealed two women in plain red robes standing a few yards behind her. Their faces were uncovered and one of them was holding a jar. He hadn't ever heard them come in. Sozin opened his mouth to speak, but Azara shushed him.

'I'm not the one who will teach you,' she said. 'The fire will, if you're willing. If you're worthy.' The two women stepped up silently towards the two of them and handed Sozin the jar. Their faces were perfectly blank. 'Take it,' Azara said. 'Fire burns away the self. The memories, the desires, the selfishness. Until only perfect truth and perfect knowledge remain. Or until it consumes you entirely.' She didn't sound entirely displeased by the possibility. 'Are you willing to do that? To look into the fire and have it look into you?'

The jar lay in his hands like an anchor. 'I am.' He realised his hands were shivering. He willed them to stop. 'I am.'

'Good,' she said, and turned around. 'Follow them. I won't see you again in this life.'

'Wait—what do I do with the jar? And how—'

She continued walking away. 'You will know what to do.'

'Is that why you wear that veil? Because you looked into the fire and were found worthy?'

She froze in place. 'I am always looking through the fire.'

'What would have happened if you hadn't been found worthy? What happens if I…' He trailed off. His blood pounded sluggishly in his chest.

She turned her head halfway towards him, very slowly. He was sure she was smiling under the scarlet cloth and that if he saw her face it would be beautiful, and wise, and terrible. 'I already told you.'

Or until it consumes you entirely.

Then she walked away, vanishing behind the fire pit, and for a moment it looked like some great city burning.

+++

Notes: 'An ill-luck name': Sozin = sū (蘇) jìn (進) = 'to revive, to live again' and 'to enter, to come in', which… do I really have to explain where I'm going with this? ;) I have assumed that the inspiration for names like Azulon and Azula was the Indo-Iranian “Asura”/the Avestan “Ahura”, and that, in AtLA-land, these are ultimately derived from the word Azara, which I have adapted from the term Azar/Atar, the Indo-Iranian/Avestan term for fire. The tale of Jikun and Tsue is based on the story of Axis and Kane from Patricia McKillip's Alphabet of Thorn, a novel I highly recommend... and yeah, Sozin would definitely love that particular subplot. Trust me on this. ;) Since firebending obviously doesn't exist in RL, most of the firebending philosophy detailed in this chapter is my own invention, extrapolating from what we're told in the canon and incorporating elements from RL beliefs/philosophies (for instance "good thoughts, good words, good deeds" comes from Zoroastrianism); it's a work of fiction and not meant to be a depiction of any RL religions or schools of thought. Some of Azara's lines were inspired by Ra's al Ghul's lines in Batman Begins, thus making this probably the first fic in the world to reference both Zoroastrianism and the goddamn Batman. ;)

Chapter 7: The Phoenix

Summary:

Still at the Fire Temple, Sozin tries to look through the fire. Conversations with fate ensue.

Notes:

There's some possibly disturbing imagery in this chapter.

Chapter Seven: The Phoenix

'What should I do with this?' Sozin asked. He shook the jar as though that might give him some sort of clue to its contents, but all he heard was a sloshing sound. One of the women gestured at him to follow. 'Where are we going?'

'Please stop jostling the jar,' she said. Her tone let him know she wouldn't ask again, and that the "please" was a mere force of habit. He stopped and followed the pair as they glided down the corridor, the only sounds his own footsteps and the rustle of their robes as they walked. The air was thick and slightly bitter.

Soon they arrived at a pair of golden doors two storeys high, full of entwined dragons and stylised flames. At the top, a great bird opened its wings in flight, the tips of its feathers turning to droplets of fire. The lock mechanism was an enormous complex of gears and wrought-iron wheels. He looked at the firebird's jewelled eyes, and for a second he was sure it looked back.

'We're going to put this on you now,' the first woman said. A strip of red cloth hung from her hands.

'What?'

'Close your eyes.'

He wanted to protest—to say that this was silly, that they didn't have to blindfold him in order to open a door, but he knew that was just the childish, scared part of him. Somehow a memory of all the stories he'd heard about the Avatars bubbled up: how they could go into a state of almost infinite age and almost infinite power. He wondered if Roku could make the earth open at his feet, knock the sun off its course.

He wondered if Roku would see him as anything more than a little mortal ant during those times.

'I can put the blindfold on myself,' he said.

'That won't be necessary,' the woman said, and then all he could see was red-tinged darkness. The cloth band was so tight it hurt a little, and he had to resist the impulse to—

peek

—loosen it.

He felt the heat and sound of fire streams and knew the two women must be using firebending to open the door. Metal clinked and groaned. A clang echoed across the room, then the silence seeped back.

'Come,' the first woman said. Somehow the blindfold made her voice sound different. Something touched his elbow. He had to fight an urge to bat it away.

They started walking again, this time slower. At times the hand on his arm would clutch him harder and guide him around some obstacle he couldn't see. The blindfold still shut everything out, but he could feel the sun on his skin and smell earth, so he knew they were outdoors. The terrain got rougher and rougher with each step, and it took all of his near-perfect balance, developed through years of practice and training, to stop him from landing flat on his face.

After what seemed like an eternity, the hand on his arm finally pulled him to a stop before releasing him. He shifted the jar in his hands.

A low, rhythmic sound started. It was moving away from him—

'Hey!' He turned around, hoping he was facing in the right direction. 'Where are you going?'

There was no answer. The sounds of footsteps continued to move away from him.

'Wait!' He pulled at the blindfold. 'What am I supposed to do now?'

'Please don't take the blindfold off yet,' one of the women said. He tried to turn towards the voice, but it seemed to have come from everywhere at once.

'Where are we?' he said in his most commanding tone. 'You can't just leave me in the middle of nowhere. How am I supposed to get back?'

'That's not our concern.'

'No, it's not our concern,' the other woman said.

'You'll soon have all the answers you need.' Her tone was lugubrious.

'If you're found worthy.'

'Yes. Only if you're found worthy.'

Enough of these riddles, he wanted to say. I am the Crown Prince and I demand a real answer! The words were on the edge of his lips and for a second he was sure he was going to get them out. Then they sunk down to his stomach, where they felt like a hot, heavy rock, and he was silent. It wasn't until he could no longer hear their footsteps that his muscles were under his control again. He rebuked himself and pulled the blindfold off.

He blinked in the sunlight until everything swam back into focus. He was standing on a stretch of the most barren terrain he had ever seen. In every direction he turned, he saw only rocky bare land, the red dirt and stone turned by the setting sun into the colour of blood. The whole place looked like nothing had ever or could ever grow here. Even the air smelled lifeless.

He jumped onto the nearest boulder, and then onto a higher one. An ocean of red earth and jagged rock surrounded him in all directions. He couldn't see the women, but he couldn't see very far, anyway. He was fenced in by hills sharp as dragon teeth. He couldn't even see the temple anymore, only the slope of what his body told him was Mount Kiake, the volcano.

He climbed back down from the boulders and thought about what to do next. His eyes turned to the jar in his hands. He could try to find his way back to the town, but he wasn't going to do that, was he? He had to find out what the Keeper of the Flame had meant when she'd told him he'd have to look through the fire. He wanted to see if he was worthy. Most of all, curiosity gnawed at him, hungry and full of little, needle-like teeth. No, he couldn't leave. He couldn't back down. And he couldn't not know.

He started with the jar. Obviously, there must be something inside it, otherwise the Keeper wouldn't have given it to him. He tried to pry the lid off until his fingers throbbed with pain, but it wouldn't budge, and when he tried to use the tip of his knife, he nearly snapped the blade off. He set it on the ground, frustrated. The stupid thing was made of stone, so there would be no point in trying to smash it against a rock, and if he tried to blast it apart with fire, he'd probably just melt what was inside.

A little annoyed, he pulled it a little closer to him and tried to think his way through this. Look through the fire, he thought as he paced, his hands behind his back. Look through the fire. Look through the fire.

You are a master firebender. Start thinking like one.

Yes—yes, that was an idea. He sat down on the ground and made a ball of flame in his cupped hands. He focused on it, feeling the flow of his own energy, the warmth of his blood in the sun. Air entered his lungs, mixed with the heat of his chi and poured out of his fingers and palms as fire. He stared at it until sweat poured down his knuckles and he could almost see his chi's pathways, glowing under his skin, a nerve map of lightning.

Look through the fire.

He had been holding the flame so long his skin was starting to blister, but he ignored the discomfort. The fire in his hands was alive, always changing, always newly born, wavering, dancing. Colourful blotches swam in his sight, but he didn't turn his eyes away from the flame. There was something there, wasn't it? Something at the heart of the fire…

A trilling noise sounded off to his right and in a split-second the flame dissipated and he jerked around. There was a gold flash just off the corner of his eye. He turned around completely.

Nothing.

There was only bare rock. The golden flash must have been the sun's dying embers; while he had been meditating, night had fallen almost completely and there was just a faint band of blue-tinged gold remaining in the sky. Just the dusk. That, and all the things the Keeper had said. He couldn't help but feel a little foolish about how he'd reacted to them inside the Temple. It was only firebending philosophy, after all.

It's only a test. And he'd never had any trouble with those.

The noise sounded again before he could sit back down. This time he swung around into a firebending stance, ready to launch a stream of fire.

Still nothing. There were only rocks, looking like open, tooth-filled maws in the darkness. The biggest one looked just like a tiger-crocodile's muzzle…

His kidneys were suddenly full of ice. Whatever it was, it was right behind him. He could feel its breath on his neck, hot and heavy. He spun around with a kick and a fire punch. The blast of fire hit a looming shape. Pebbles ran down to his feet.

Great. He had killed a boulder.

This time the golden flash was a little closer. He rushed after it, propelling himself onto a high rock ledge with two fire streams.

Still nothing. Except—

—there was always background noise everywhere, even in an empty field. You almost always ignored it after a while, but it was there nonetheless: the droning of scorpion-bees, the clicking of crickets, the whisper of wind through grass. Everywhere but here, in this utterly barren landscape. It had been silent when he'd arrived and it had been silent while he'd been meditating, as quiet as—he supposed—the bottom of the ocean or the surface of the moon.

But not anymore.

His flesh shivered as though cold claws were trailing down his skin. The noise was everywhere around him, just on the edge of his hearing: a wet sound like the gurgling of water rushing down a sinkhole. It grew in intensity little by little, as though something were approaching him very, very slowly.

Something brushed the skin of his neck.

He forced himself to stand still on the ledge. His stomach felt like a hot, steely hand was squeezing it. He closed his eyes. This is a test. There is nothing there. This is a test. There is nothing there. The touch on his neck returned, hot and cold at the same time, sending tiny shocks through his flesh. 'There is. Nothing. There,' he said out loud, in his most imposing voice. He opened his eyes. Whatever had been touching him was gone. The stretch of craggy land before him was empty and silent, and there were only the looming shapes of rocks under the weak moonlight.

His heart still pounding, he jumped back down to the ground. This was just part of the test, he told himself. Distractions to make him fail. He had to stop chasing after shadows and start figuring out what Azara had meant when she'd told him to look through the fire. He picked up the jar he'd left on the ground. There is nothing there. Think about the fire. Another noise sounded nearby, clicks of hard claws on stone. He went on repeating the thought like a mantra. Think about the fi—

Oh. He sat back down and placed the jar in front of him. It was so obvious when you thought about it. Flames poured from his hands, as slow and cool as he could make them. Orange fire enveloped the jar and characters started appearing on its surface. They glowed in the heat, each stroke blurry but increasingly visible. He extinguished the flames. The characters were darkening from incandescent yellow to red, but they were perfectly legible. Fire is a doorway. Let the embers feed it.

Well, that's a big pile of nothing, he thought. He lit a small flame in his hand so he could see the jar better and noticed a whitish liquid oozing from under the lid. Maybe the heat had melted whatever had been attaching it to the jar. He covered his fingers with the hem of his tunic and pried the lid off.

At first he thought there was nothing inside the jar. He picked it up—the stone was still painfully hot, but it had cooled just enough to be bearable—and upended it. A small ball slipped past his fingers; he grabbed it before it hit the ground. It was soft and sticky, and still a little warm. In the firelight from his hand it looked like a mix of twigs and grass scooped up from muddy ground. He sniffed it. It smelled like something his grandmother would use to cure a stomach ache. What was he supposed to do with it? Burn it? He drew down the fire in his hand until it was the size of candle flame and examined the ball, as though looking at it for long enough would give him an answer. Well, wasn't that what the jar had said? There was some kind of doorway, and he had to feed—

Let the embers feed it.

He sniffed the ball again. "Edible" wasn't the first word that came to mind. He picked out a small chunk of it and fed it to the fire cupped in his palm. It burned to a trace of cinders in an instant, and a wisp of the sweetest smoke he had ever smelled, sugar and cinnamon and fresh herbs, wafted up. His eyes and mouth watered. No, he wasn't supposed to burn it, he was sure. He was supposed to—

He took a small bite. It was hot and so bitter it squeezed tears from his eyes, and when he swallowed it, it felt like a live ember making its way to his stomach. Yes, this is what I'm supposed to do. The thought felt foreign, as though someone else had planted it in his mind, but he knew it was right. Whatever part of him was in charge of voicing objections was silent. Right now he was just absolutely sure he had to see this through.

He downed it in two or three bites, but the taste felt like it was going to linger in his mouth forever. He extinguished the flame in his hand and wiped the tears from his face, then sat in the dark for a while, whatever he'd just eaten churning in his stomach and making his skin slick with sweat. Under the starlight, the rocks around him looked more than ever like huge and hungry mouths, misshapen creatures with claw-tipped limbs. Tendrils of night swirled around them.

Nothing happened. He wasn't sure of how long he sat there, but it was long enough for his body to cool down and the certainty to vanish. Great. He was in the middle of nowhere, he was going to have to find his way back to town, and he had just eaten something that might even be poisonous. He stood up, grateful there was no one around to see his humiliation. Of course the Keeper of the Flame was never going to reveal secrets that were probably centuries old and which must have taken her decades to study and learn. Maybe that was the real lesson: that only a complete idiot would think he would be told any of their secrets. At least the Keeper wasn't watching from behind a rock and giggling to herself.

If she even could giggle. She hadn't struck him as the t—

He heard it before he saw it, a soft cry mixed with the whoosh of flames. It peeked out from behind a boulder like a tiny sun and flew along the rim of rock. A golden bird the size of a lizard-peacock, each feather wreathed in fire that shifted and glowed but did not burn.

A phoenix.

For a second he froze in place. The firebird turned its flame-haloed head towards him and darted away from crag to crag.

'Wait!' he cried out, and ran after it. The bird let out a cry, a tongue of red flame sliding out of its beak, and flew faster. Flame dripped behind it. Sozin followed it through the stone maze, running and jumping as fast as he could. It zigzagged and spun just out of reach. He tried bending it closer to him, but it just gained more ground. 'Come back!'

The phoenix dove behind a rock and there was only darkness. Sozin stopped, his eyesight full of glowing spots. He rubbed his eyes and tried to make a flame.

Nothing.

What? He looked at his palm, barely visible in the starlight, and tried again. Still nothing, not even a wisp of smoke. Panic, bitter and tight, shot through his chest. Maybe—maybe the phoenix had fed on his bending. Yes. He moved forward in the dark, feeling for the rocks with his hands. Golden light flared from behind a crag and he rushed towards it.

The phoenix lay on a stone ledge, curled up as though wounded. Its flame had grown smaller and had darkened into burnished bronze. The bird let out another cry. A handful of loose feathers lay around it, their fire extinguished. A sharp smell filled the air. 'It's all right,' Sozin said. He walked very slowly towards it, trying not to frighten it. 'I'm not going to—'

A wave of fire poured out of the phoenix's beak with a cry like tearing metal. He tried to run but he didn't even have time to scream. The fire blast swept over him, surrounded him completely. The phoenix burned up in front of him in an instant and the fire engulfed him. He tore at his own clothes and skin but the flames washed over him, consumed his flesh. The pain was too great to comprehend, but in seconds the flames had eaten his eyes and tongue, filled up his lungs.

He felt himself die.

Then he was burning again. He was the flame, a golden swirling shape in the endless dark. Constellations spun around him. The sun and the moon chased each other hundreds of times across the sky. Clouds thickened, shifted, melted into rain. The sky filled with the sound of thunder. Memories spun around him, flashes of colour, scraps of voices. He was the flame. He was the phoenix, killing itself to live. He was—he was—a babble of names rushed over the embers. He was the fire under the earth, criss-crossing the world in a map of scarlet blood-vessels. The ground cracked open around him, its bones filling him. He was—

He was—

The dead drifted around him, pale, moth-like ghosts. Forgotten Fire Lords spoke through him, their words echoing through his flesh, flowing through his blood. Liquid fire moved under his skin, under valleys and mountains. The whole world swelled, opened up inside him, a blooming flower of stone and teeth. Scarlet, eyeless fish swam in a chasm so deep it had never seen light, stormheads smelling of lightning caught on mountaintops. Voices, mouths, faces. An ocean of thoughts swallowed him up.

Time froze. The world's mechanisms ground to a halt and in the eternal second he understood it all, the gears of flesh and rock and steel, a great heart at the centre pumping out fire into a vast network of blood vessels.

Darkness.

He had a body again. Pain snapped back into his nerves and he doubled over inside the now unfamiliar flesh. Cold stung his skin. He waded through an ocean full of stars, his weak, half-blind human flesh stumbling with every step, choking on the icy water and the brackish scent. He had a name, didn't he? A name… He stepped out of the black water into a stone maze that stretched in every direction in an endless sea of impossible loops.

He had to find his way through the labyrinth. Yes, he was absolutely certain of that. He started walking down the twists and turns, picking up speed as he moved along. He ran into dead ends, nearly got stuck in paths that spiralled into themselves. As he got deeper and deeper into the maze the walls were increasingly covered in thick black roots that grew upwards and pulsed like veins. The sky was a pale green-yellow colour, full of heavy clouds, and the air smelled of old dirt. Beetles scurried away from him as he walked. Something was calling him from the centre of the labyrinth, a rhythmic summons that grew more intense as he got closer.

The fire came back as he climbed a stairway that ran upside-down. Curtains of flames burst on the steps, fierce enough to melt his skin, but this time the fire didn't hurt him. He stepped through it, and it enveloped him like a waterfall. Flames licked his eyelashes, ran down his hair and face. All he could see was blinding white, a light that kept drawing back from him, just outside his reach.

And now we come to the real question. The voice was everywhere inside the flames, and it fell like hail, like a lightning storm. He dropped down to his knees, the waves of fire closing over him. What do you fear?

The fire vanished. He was down on all fours on the stone landing under a cold black sky dotted with stars. He scrabbled back to his feet.

He wasn't alone.

'Roku?'

Sozin made a motion towards him, but stopped in place. It was Roku—down to the little freckle on the side of his jaw—still in the silk robes he had worn to their birthday party, but he looked as insubstantial as mist, an image reflected on foggy glass. The golden-brown eyes were focused on something beyond Sozin's shoulder.

'Roku? Can you see me?' Sozin lifted a hand to touch him, but he struck something invisible between them, hard and cold as a sheet of steel.

Roku's face turned towards his, very, very slowly. Sozin thought of rusty gears, some mechanism hidden under a mask of skin, and he shivered. Roku's eyes focused on him and his mouth stretched like melted wax into a smile.

His eyes filled up with blood.

Sozin bit off a gasp and before he could react, Roku's hand shot out and grabbed his. Cold seeped into his bones, oozed down his arm. Blood poured down from Roku's eyes in thick, syrupy threads that clung to his cheeks and stained his collar. Black vines crept out from the hand that was still clutching Sozin's and rushed down Sozin's arm, each thorn a stinging kiss. Blood oozed from between their entwined fingers, thick and salty.

'No.' Sozin took a step back, but Roku's hand was grasping his like the jaws of a mongoose-dragon. The thorns dug into his flesh, lapped at his blood with dozens of little mouths. 'No.' He yanked his hand back and Roku crumpled onto the ground, his flesh shattering with a loud snap into hundreds of cracks. Dark blood poured out.

'Oh.' Sozin kneeled down, unable to say anything else. He touched Roku's cold, blood-streaked face, the skin hard and brittle like porcelain. 'I'm sorry. Please don't be dead. Please—'

The body crumbled into ashes.

'No!' he cried out, and placed his hands on the mound of ashes, as though that would bring Roku back. Instead the burned-out shape collapsed entirely, the ashes spread by a wind he couldn't feel; all that remained were a few grey smears on his hands.

He looked up; there were other bodies around him, turned to clammy grey by blood loss, lying slumped on the ground. He stood up and walked between them in a daze. This is not real, he told himself. None of this is real, he added, as though repetition would make everything go away, but he couldn't erase the coppery scent of blood, the sickly-sweet smell of flesh just on the edge of decay, the glistening clots on the eyes of the bodies surrounding him: Ta Min, Bao, his mother, his father… His mother's lips parted a little and a beetle squirmed out of her mouth.

Sudden pain wracked his body and he dropped to his knees. Everything hurt; red clouded his eyesight. Blood pooled on the stone ground, cracks filled with dark sludge ripped through the stairs and the heavy green sky.

Who do you think you are, little mortal? The slurred voice boomed from everywhere at once, filled his head, battered his eardrums. The world swelled with unnatural bulges, as though something was trying to push its way in. His throat closed up and he wanted to shut his eyes, but his eyelids no longer obeyed him. He didn't want to look at it. He was sure he wouldn't be able to look at it, sure that he would go mad if he looked at it, that even if he drove nails into his eyes he would still see the most horrible colours… The voice sounded again, oozing and inhuman, and some last sliver of rationality told Sozin it wasn't speaking in any language that had ever existed. I am the all-seeing, the eternal, the blood-hungry, the devourer of worlds. It laughed and he tried to scream, but then a white foam of maggots was flowing from the bodies, and he was knocked back into the void and knew nothing again.

Darkness.

Flame.

Forever.

The world shook. When he screamed lava gushed out, glowing rivers that consumed valleys and cities. He walked under a sky the colour of tar. Ashes rained down, burned holes in the grass and his skin, filled the air with a biting scent. Armies moved across the face of the world, thorny with blades and heavy with death. He walked through oceans of gore where faces floated, dark and splotchy with decay. Rows of wheat rotted on their stalks, sickly-sweet fruit dropped from tree branches into mouldy piles on the ground, thick with flies. He walked through villages where the dead piled on the ground and animals screamed in their pens or fed on the corpses in wild-eyed hunger. He walked through cities where fire rained down and the air was heavy with the smell of burning. Smoke and ashes covered everything, choked him, blinded him.

Silence.

Then a heartbeat, faint. His own, he realised without thought. He let himself be lulled by it in the womb-like dark.

A line of light and the phoenix was back, radiant, serene. He turned to pure yearning, wanting to drown himself in the burning feathers. The phoenix turned an eye towards him, a scarlet sun that lit up his bones.

Its glow dimmed. The flames went from yellow to orange to red and the phoenix consumed itself to ashes with a drawn-out cry. The cinders beckoned him. Somehow he moved towards them, sunk hands he didn't remember having into the warm, soft pile. Inside there was a golden egg—no, an egg-shaped heart, beating. He touched it and it cracked open in a burst of white light, releasing a smaller phoenix that rose up with a cry of joy that made the world shake and a curtain of flame that flowed over him painlessly, in impossible colours.

He wasn't sure where he was or if he was. There was watery, unformed shadow, and a spark within it. There was no time, no memory, no past, no future, only the eternal flame, taking him into it, giving him life and taking it away. For an endless moment he could feel something inside the fire, something that was alive, and powerful, and all-knowing.

Flashes of distant lightning.

A city of glass glittering in the sun.

The smell of rain.

Nothing.

+++

Notes: The labyrinth Sozin walks through is based on the works of MC Escher, particularly his famous House of Stairs. Some elements of the vision were inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft, and the vision itself was inspired half by Iroh's own youthful vision as recounted in the series' finale, and half by Adrian Veidt's hashish-caused vision in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel Watchmen. And yes, Sozin is going to interpret it in the way you're thinking. I guess this whole family sucks at vision interpretation.

Chapter 8: A Brother to Dragons

Summary:

Ta Min and Bao engage in an elaborate bout of Politeness Judo. Plus: dragons, destiny, and pants (not necessarily in that order).

Author's Note: I feel like this chapter should include some sort of 'this is your brain on drugs' disclaimer. Also, my friends and I like to call this story The Pants Fic. The reasons for this should become obvious in this chapter. ;D

Incidentally, I've added this to the first chapter's author notes, but since we're almost at the halfway point, I thought I'd repeat it here for anyone joining us now and wondering what this whole story is about: along with Hama, Sozin is my favourite one-shot character in A:tLA because, while I find cardboard cackling villains very, very boring, I love moral complexity/ambiguity and I tend to find characters who are firmly convinced they are acting for the greater good to be rather interesting and thought-provoking (especially if they are very charismatic—I find that far more unsettling than villains who are obviously, over-the-top evil). And yes, my reading of the canon is definitely that Sozin ends up as a Utopia Justifies the Means sort of character. So this fic and its sequels are an attempt to show Sozin's development from the goofy teenager we see at the start of his episode into someone so utterly convinced of the brilliance of his plans and rightness of his actions that... well, he does what he ends up doing, and to show this progression in a (hopefully) convincing and compelling manner.

With all that said, on with the show:

 

Chapter Eight: A Brother to Dragons

Ta Min wasn't sure if she liked Lady Bao. It wasn't that she disliked her, not exactly. She had always had the irrational fear that if she disliked someone she saw often they would somehow be able to sense it in her, so she always tried to push that sort of feelings far deep and out of mind.

Besides, she wasn't sure that was an entirely irrational fear where Bao was concerned. The woman always seemed to know everything; when she looked at her, Ta Min was always sure Bao was making a thorough accounting, one that left her altogether unimpressed.

She wasn't like Ta Min's own maternal grandmother at all.

Or like Sozin, for that matter, she thought, and paced around the balcony. The latticework blocked out the view a little, but she could see the edge of the mountains and the streets leading up to the inn clearly. It was the time of night when the last pale blue trace of twilight had vanished from the sky and the starlight was just enough to tell her the streets were empty.

'Not much of a view on this side of the balcony.'

Ta Min turned to Bao. 'I was just—'

'You were trying to see if my grandson would finally return.' She stepped into view, her hair tinged blue by moonlight. 'You shouldn't worry about him. No one in a Fire Temple would ever harm the Crown Prince. I'm sure he's just poring over some dusty scroll or the other, or meditating on how time is an illusion of the self or something like that.' She ended the sentence with a dismissive gesture.

It's not the people at the Fire Temple I'm worried about, she nearly said, but held her tongue at the last minute. She had found herself having that kind of thoughts more and more lately, as though Sozin were rubbing off on her. It was easy when he was around: sometimes being with him felt a little like being caught in the tail of a shooting star, when all you noticed was the brightness and the exhilarating ride—and not even a little of the flames' heat, or the approaching ground. It wasn't the people at the Fire Temple she was worried about; she strongly suspected that if someone there challenged Sozin to jump into a fire pit to prove his worth they'd be sweeping up his ashes in no time.

'Yes, I'm sure he's fine,' she said, and then her mouth surprised her by adding more. 'Why did you want him to go to the Temple?' She paused; heat crept up her cheeks. 'I mean…'

'Ah.' Bao sounded a little impressed and Ta Min held her gaze. 'I'm glad to see Sozin isn't the only one who has been paying attention.'

That's not really an answer, is it? 'Well, no one else could have put the idea in his head. I'm sure it's important for the Crown Prince to meet with the people in the Fire Temples,' she added hurriedly. 'I mean, for spiritual guidance and all that…' She trailed off. Oh, well done, Ta Min, said the inner voice that sounded just a little bit like her mother, if her mother had ever been the sarcastic type.

'Well, it's important for a future Fire Lord to be able to speak to anyone,' Bao said in a rather pleasant tone. Even in the half-light her eyes looked as knowing and unyielding as ever, but Ta Min could feel her approval.

That was the other reason why Ta Min wasn't sure whether or not she liked Bao: sometimes it felt like the fact that she seemingly knew everything was going to work out in your favour, as though she were about to let you put your head on her lap, difficult as it was to imagine, and tell you she had the answer to all your problems.

'Don't worry about my grandson.' Bao put her hand on her shoulder and for a second Ta Min wondered if she'd read her thoughts. 'I'm sure he's fine. He'll turn up soon enough, no doubt.' She let her hand drop and turned away with a rustle of her dress. 'It's getting late. Perhaps we should both head off to bed. We'll have some things to discuss in the morning.'

Ta Min felt a hot lump in her throat. What things? 'Good night, Bao,' she said.

'Good night, Ta Min,' Bao said, and stepped out of the balcony, back into the gloom on the inn.

After another look at the empty streets and the bare mountain slope, Ta Min followed. The inn's upper floors were almost completely silent at this time of night; there was only the occasional groan of wood, a few snatches of distant voices. She made her way back into her room, instinctively avoiding the squeaky floorboards. The lump in her throat had moved down to her lower belly, already a little sore from her monthlies, where it churned like a stone in a pot of boiling water.

What could Bao possibly want to discuss with her? She got ready for bed and slipped between the cotton sheets, thoughts of what she'd told Sozin in Shukai mixing with memories of her own maternal grandmother. A breeze scratched at the glass window. Grandmother Jetsun had been born to the Air Nomads, but by the time Ta Min was old enough to talk to her, she could hardly be described as a free spirit. She had told Ta Min about how there were always spirits surrounding you and they knew everything bad that could ever happen to you, from tripping on a flight of stairs to being dragged under by a river spirit, and you could only hope to avoid all those things if you knew them all. How accidentally spilling seeds was an ill omen and how leaving grains of rice uneaten would give you spots.

She tossed and turned in the bed, as though she were still hemmed in by bad luck. We'll have to discuss some things in the morning. I make my own luck. It felt like it took her forever to fall asleep, and when she did she dropped into a jumble of sharp-edged dreams in which Sozin was under an unreachable pile of burning stone and Bao spoke with Grandmother Jetsun's voice, a blood-filled egg shattering in her hands.

*

Ta Min woke up at the crack of dawn from paper-thin sleep. Her body felt as though she had been running all night, but she went through her firebending forms—she might not be very good at it, but she had learned the stances until they were perfect, and the fact that it came so laboriously to her was no excuse not to train—and her sword practice, spinning and lunging with the short blades until sweat dripped down her face and back, and her muscles were throbbing. Afterwards she bathed and dressed as fast as she could and knocked on Sozin's bedroom door.

No answer.

She went to the balcony again. No one else was there, despite the beautiful dawn sky, pink and full of gold-dappled clouds. It was early, but there were already a few people in the streets, back to their daily lives after yesterday's festival. None of them were Sozin.

'Lady Bao is waiting for you in the dining room.'

Ta Min spun around. It was Bao's maid, standing by the balcony's sliding doors like a ghost who'd just become visible. Ta Min followed the other woman downstairs, unable to suppress a stray shiver. Bao was sitting on one of the floor mats in the outdoors pavilion adjacent to the dining room, several trays already on the table in front of her.

'Is Sozin not back yet?' Ta Min asked once she had sat down and they had gone through the usual greetings. The smell of fried dough and rice porridge wafting up from the table made her queasy, but she drank a few sips of soybean milk for politeness' sake.

'I'm sure he's perfectly fine,' Bao said. 'Bored, no doubt, but fine. I meant to ask you, child, how is your family? I don't know if you know this, but I knew your father quite well, some time ago.'

'They are in fine health, I believe,' Ta Min said, and picked at a berry tart.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries, then Bao's golden gaze fell on her like a hand pressing on her shoulder. 'It must have been hard for your parents to be parted from their only child for several months. Of course, getting to know the Fire Nation is not without its advantages. I trust your parents did not take long to accept my grandson's invitation.'

Ah. So that's what this is about. 'Not at all. They were quite willing to have me come along.'

Bao's expression remained blank. Even under the pavilion's roof, the sunlight gilded her hair. 'Oh, I have no doubt.' Then Bao's unblinking eyes turned towards her, very slowly. 'We've been travelling together for a while now. I think we have grown… accustomed to each other enough to speak rather frankly, haven't we, Ta Min? And after all, you are practically a grown woman. It wouldn't do to treat you as a foolish child.'

Now the gaze felt as warm and sweet as honey and for a moment Ta Min wanted only to tell her everything about her family and all they had told her and have Bao respond with that confident, reassuring smile that told you she had already known everything all along, and a lot more that you didn't, besides.

'I certainly hope that in this case familiarity hasn't bred contempt,' Ta Min said, automatically. She smiled without even noticing.

Bao's smile was deeper, but it didn't reach her eyes. 'Certainly not. But we are both of the world, aren't we? Unlike Sozin's hosts. We are both women with a certain position, and with certain responsibilities that come with it.' She took a sip of lychee-nut juice and nibbled delicately on the corner of a red glazed roll. 'Of course, you must be tired of hearing about this. Your parents no doubt impressed this on you quite thoroughly.'

A sudden flash of memory, so vivid she could even smell her mother's jasmine scent. We'll have to decide what you're going to take on your trip. No, not that, it doesn't suit you… The grey eyes, the very same shade as her own, turning towards her, the hand ruffling her hair. You're going to spend quite a lot of time with the Crown Prince—you must know how important that will be for all of us. But I know you're going to put our very best face forward, dear. Oh, is it that late already? We should have some tea…

'No doubt,' Ta Min said, then added, 'A lot of reminders not to choke in front of royalty.'

Bao just nodded slightly. 'Parents can be tiresome that way. There were also lots of instructions about how to get in the Crown Prince's good graces, I'm sure.' She turned a knowing gaze towards Ta Min. A fly wandered into the pavilion and she shooed it away. 'Surprising as this may be to learn, I was young myself once.' Ta Min tried to insert some polite remark about how young and hearty Bao still was, but the other woman was already speaking again. 'Of course my parents were always impressing on me my obligations and how I should act and think, but once their backs were turned, it was a very different story.' She chuckled. 'Sometimes I think I did half the things I did just to be contrary.'

Ta Min folded her hands on her lap. The only sounds in the pavilion were the clinks of chopsticks and plates, the soft chatter of the few other guests having breakfast, and, very faint, the buzzing of distant insects.

'My family just wants the usual—' she started, but Bao promptly interrupted.

'Oh, I am aware of that, my dear. Of course they wouldn't allow you to come on this trip so that you could tell the Crown Prince how much you hate him and so you could become a sworn enemy of the royal family.' Bao's smile invited her to laugh, but she could tell there was something far more serious and knowing under the surface. 'You're the important one now.'

The important one. Under Bao's golden gaze, it sounded wonderful.

'Sozin is a friend of mine,' she said, her hands still on her lap. And he's not exactly hard on the eyes, either. The thought sounded a little like her sister's voice—she remembered it perfectly, she realised with a pang—and was immediately followed by a vivid image involving herself, Sozin, the friend he couldn't stop talking about, and the inn's hot pools. The skin on her face flamed and her first instinct was to duck under the table or at least make herself quiet and unnoticeable enough to be invisible.

Instead, she looked Bao right in the eye. Bao stared back in silence, but for a second Ta Min was sure she saw something close to favour in her face. She turned her gaze back to the table only once the length of her stare had started pushing against rudeness.

'I am glad you are a friend of his, certainly,' Bao said, and took a sip of her drink.

Sozin's voice, speaking in Ta Min's memory. That's just what everyone wants. What do you want?

She realised that she could be exactly like Bao: always perfectly polite, always knowledgeable and respected, and always, always getting her own way. The sudden knowledge startled her; it was as though one of those curses Grandmother Jetsun had told her about had just popped out of existence like a soap bubble. 'I was wondering if I should head off to the Temple,' she said, surprised at the nonchalance of her tone. 'I could take one of the dragon-moose. I am sure Sozin would appreciate not having to return on foot.'

If he's even in the Temple; if you even manage to find him, her mind immediately added, but she ignored it.

Bao wasn't done confounding her expectations. Instead of objecting, all she said was: 'Good idea. I have some letters to write; I can do that while you retrieve my errant grandson.'

Ta Min glanced back at the pavilion as she stepped into the inn. Bao was still at her leisurely breakfast, her focus apparently drifting off as she took a tiny mouthful of spiced rice porridge, but all of a sudden Ta Min was sure that Bao had learned everything she had wanted to learn from the conversation, and that it had all gone according to some larger plan Ta Min would never be privy to.

*

It didn't take her long to ride back into the Fire Temple's courtyards. Without the festival day's crowd, the path to the Temple was a little hard to make out—in some spots it blended almost completely into the rocky terrain—but she had a good sense of direction and didn't have to backtrack even once.

She dismounted and walked around the Temple's grounds, leading her mount by the reins. There was no one in sight, and all that remained from the previous day's festival were mounds of ashes lying on the unlit fire bowls. The sound of her footsteps on the gravel filled up the air and the stone buildings towered above her, looking more than a little spooky without anyone else around. She thought of stories of lost cities inhabited only by vines and ghosts and wild animals. For a moment she was sure she could see the sculpted flames on the corners of each roof shake and waver.

'Hello?' she cried out. A few birds startled. 'Can anyone hear me?' She tied her dragon-moose to a carved pillar and walked up to a pair of closed doors set into the biggest building. This was where Sozin had slipped in the day before. 'I don't want to go into the Temple,' she shouted at the elaborately carved metal. 'I just need some help finding my friend.' The etched dragons looked at her silently, frozen flames streaming from their open mouths. She felt incredibly foolish.

'He only—' she started, but stopped herself halfway through. Sozin had sneaked into the Temple uninvited and unauthorised: what if the Keepers—that was their name, she recalled, the Keepers of the Flame—had found that a transgression deserving of punishment? What if… no, Bao was almost certainly right about that part; she was almost sure no one in a Fire Temple would harm the Crown Prince.

Almost sure is not completely sure, and not completely sure is the same thing as not sure at all, isn't it? As if to punctuate the inner voice, a hot cramp clenched her lower abdomen. She seldom had much trouble with her monthlies. Apparently this was going to be one of those days in which everything that could go wrong would go wrong.

There was a gong next to the doors. When she struck it, a metal cry sounded across the Temple's courtyards, bounced over the curving roofs and the stone walls, echoed against the mountainside. It should have been enough to wake up the dead, but there was still no answer. She walked around the grounds again, looking at the walls enclosing the inner courtyards and trying to think of ways to get in. When she was little she used to play a game whenever she accompanied one of her parents in a visit to someone else. While they had tea with a noblewoman or an important merchant, she would glance around her, unnoticed, and pretend she was a spy or an assassin and try to think of ways to get out of the building with guards in hot pursuit: running down roofs, somersaulting onto ledges. She had become very good at thinking of ways to get out of places.

She had never wondered about ways to get in.

After she finished a second inspection of the grounds—did you think there would be something different the second time around?—she went back to the dragon-moose, which was beginning to get skittish, and rode it out of the courtyards and into the mountain slopes surrounding the Temple. Peaks towered over her, high enough to make her dizzy and block out the sunlight, bare and dark as burnt bones. The mountain range was huge, but if Sozin had left the Temple he couldn't have got far on foot.

You don't even know if he left at all, let alone if he left on foot or riding a camelephant.

And if he was still inside the Temple, she could always try again when she rode back.

She drove the dragon-moose up the flattest slope at a quick canter and soon the Temple was out of sight. All she could see was dirt and rock, lifeless and unchanging, until she was up in some place where an ocean of stone met a plain of clouds and she had to guide herself by the sun. She turned towards the highest peak, its flat top ragged, as though a giant hand had torn off a chunk. It looked just like the rest of the mountains, but she was a child of fire: she knew in her bones and the flow of her breath and her chi that that was the volcano, Mount Kiake itself. She decided to try its slopes first.

Soon the terrain became too rocky for her dragon-moose to handle. Hills and valleys had come into view, seemingly out of nowhere, and the boulders and outcrops of stone had turned into wind-carved mazes. Mount Kiake was no closer than before, even though she had been riding for a while: it was like something out of one of those dreams in which you raced down a growing corridor towards a door that was always pulling out of reach.

And you know how those dreams end. You're just going to get lost in here.

Nonsense. They always end when you wake up. She dismounted and tied the dragon-moose's reins to a nearby rock. She patted its muzzle and it snuffled into her hands with a low whinny. 'I'll be back soon.'

Or so you think, anyway.

She was halfway up the slope when something crunched underfoot as she jumped down from a boulder. Small white slivers, stained light red by the dirt. She bent down to examine them. Egg shells. She picked up one of the pieces and brushed the dirt away; it was off-white, dotted with brown, and from its length and shape she could tell the egg it had been a part of had been about as long as her forearm.

Dragon eggs.

She looked around. Suddenly the evidence was everywhere: a few more broken eggshells scattered here and there; stones that had been dragged about to build and shield nests.

This was a dragon breeding ground. She practically expected one to fly overhead right then, as though to confirm her realisation, but of course the sky remained an empty, unbroken blue. The breeding season must be over. She wasn't really sure. Dragons were everywhere in the Fire Nation, from children's wooden toys to the Fire Lord's Dragon Throne, but she didn't have a lot of experience with the real thing. Most were wild and fiercely protective of their territories. A few lived with humans—chose to live with humans, was what she had been told, though she didn't understand it very well—but even those, she knew, were supposed to be like fire itself: you had to respect their danger and their power.

She quickened her pace. If there were still wild dragons around here, they might not take kindly to a human intruding in their nesting territory.

*

There was something wet on his face.

He stirred, but every motion felt like his muscles were flopping inside too much skin and his bones were made of rubber. He tried to roll onto—his back, wasn't it? His side—was it his right side? He was sure there was a difference between right and left but right now it felt like figuring it out was far beyond his abilities—his side was on the ground and after a few tries he managed to roll around. He opened his eyes, his eyelids gummy. Blobs of colour swam in his eyesight and fizzed in his mouth, plop, snap, crack.

The wet thing—though it was more of a slobbery thing, wasn't it, all sticky and gooey—returned, slopping onto his face. Something warm and scaly curled up around him. It tasted purple.

He blinked into the painfully bright light and tilted his head.

A pair of golden eyes looked back. A huge tongue darted out again and licked his face, covering in with warm saliva. He giggled.

He tried to roll onto his knees and elbows, but his body swayed like a rickety ship in a typhoon. He felt like he was about to throw up. The warm body shifted around his, scales brushing his skin. Something stirred in his mind, an itch just on the inside of his skull. It felt all fuzzy. With another bout of effort, he rolled back onto his side and lifted his head.

He was looking at a dragon.

It—no, she—was very young, maybe the size of a large dog, though it really depended on the dog, didn't it? He tried to count the kinds of dogs he knew, but his fingers kept swimming out of sight and soon he was distracted by her blue-purple scales, tendrils of colour filling up his eyesight. The dragon shook her head and damp barbels swung around her muzzle. Her huge eyes blinked, gold swirling around her slitted pupils.

It keeps swirling, he wanted to say, but it came out as 'Mmphgg.' He giggled again and tried to sit up.

His queasiness and lack of balance smelled bitter, pressed on his flesh with, with, what was that word he was looking for? Claws, wasn't it? But claws were sharp, weren't they? Could they be blunt? The dragon ignored him and flowed around him, propping him up. It was very pillow-like, if pillows were covered with scales.

Fish pillows! he thought, and slumped down onto her ridged back. She snuffled and went back to licking his face. He began counting the dog breeds again.

*

The terrain was getting rockier with each step, but at least the slope had tapered into an almost flat bowl filled with boulders and reddish earth. Ta Min made her way through the stone maze, climbing a few crags so she could see farther. There was only a desolate stretch of land in all directions, so empty even the air smelled lifeless and the sunlight felt strange. What if you get lost here? What if Sozin is already lost and you both end up wandering through the red rocks until you die of thirst…

She shook off the cold spot between her shoulder blades and her fingers brushed the water flask at her hip. Of course she wasn't going to get lost, she told herself as she walked on, kicking up red dust. This wasn't even big enough to lose yourself in. You just kept walking until you walked right out of the mountains. Unless you fall into a crevasse, said a voice that seemed to come from the alien, bone-white sunlight. You could break a leg, or your back. And then you'd lie at the bottom of a hole, unable to move, waiting to die as the sun cracked your lips and blistered your face. You wouldn't even scream because of what you might attract. You'd—

She heard the noise before she could tell the voice to shut up and let her watch where she was going. It was a soft sound—she probably wouldn't have heard it if it weren't bouncing off the rocks—and it reminded her a little of a snorting dragon-moose. She moved towards it, trying to be as stealthy as possible.

*

The sunlight tasted green. Definitely green. Sozin—oh yes, that was his name, wasn't it? It was good to remember, even if it did sound a little funny—was very sure of that. He tried to explain it to the dragon, but when he tried to speak she just licked his face again and let out another loud snuffle. Her nostrils tickled his chin.

'You feel—' he mumbled—it came out as yooflle, which actually sounded like a perfectly useful word—but suddenly the dragon reared her head and scrambled away.

'Where you going?' he said. The dragon stood a few yards in front of him, nose pointed at a gap between two boulders. 'I can feel you,' he said in a sing-song voice. He could feel the dragon's—no, no, not thoughts, not really, but she was a little nudge inside his skull, letting him know that she was picking up a scent and bristling at it. Hee. Nudge. He sniffed at the air to see if he could smell it as well, but he just smelled the sunlight. It made him a little giddy.

Ta Min—yes, he remembered her name too!—stepped out of the rocky gap like a springed toy popping out of a box and he laughed. The sound made colourful whirls around his face. She opened her mouth—he never knew she had such a wonderful aura—but the dragon stepped towards her, all growly and low-slung like a komodo rhino about to attack, small wings held close to her body. Not that komodo rhinos had wings, though that would be really funny, wouldn't it? If they had little wings, all shimmery like a dragonfly's.

'It's all right,' he said to the dragon. 'She's a friend.' The words came out slurred, but it was enough for the dragon. She reared up affectionately at Ta Min, who drew back a little but patted the dragon's muzzle. She should really do more of that. The dragon liked it.

'Am I glad I found you!' Ta Min said, and sidestepped the dragon. 'I—' She looked him up and down, then her eyes widened and she turned her gaze to some point in the horizon. He tried to see what was so amazing there, but it was hard getting his head turned in the proper direction. 'Er, why have you taken all your clothes off?'

He looked at himself. He could see his own aura, swirling around his body, and spent a few seconds counting his various body parts before he remembered her question. 'Oh. So I have.'

She edged closer to him, eyes still on the horizon. A blush on her cheeks tinged her aura red. 'Are you all right? Can you stand up?'

He took her hand and managed to get back onto his feet on the third try. 'The ground is all wobbly.' It was really amusing, the orange-y kind.

'No, that's—oh, never mind.' The dragon glided towards them and circled Sozin's feet. Her scales hummed. Ta Min looked at the ground around them. 'Can you stay right there for a second? I'll just—' She pulled away from him. The dragon curled tighter around him. Silvery waves wafted up from her. They were—what was that word? Profoundness?

'Protectiveness!' he said, to no one in particular, then added, 'Can you make the ground stop swaying like this?' He glanced at the sky. It shimmered like mother-of-pearl and sounded like a strummed pipa. For a moment he wondered if it was actually on top, like it was supposed to, or if it was actually on the bottom and he was looking up, but upside-down, which meant he was actually looking down…

'Here.' Ta Min was back, holding some fabric in her hands. 'Why don't you put your pants back on?'

It took him a while to figure out the complexities of the cloth tubes and Ta Min had to hold his hand to prop him up—her face was still turned away towards the very interesting thing in the horizon, red tendrils swimming in her aura—but he eventually figured it out. The fabric made his skin itch and felt too tight and too loose at the same time. 'They're all wrong. You've given me someone else's pants.' It sounded like shomeone elshe's pantsh.

Ta Min looked at him and the corners of her mouth curled up. The orange thread of amusement in her aura swelled and glowed like a small sun. 'No, see, you've just put them on backwards—look, it doesn't matter. Can you walk?'

'I think I'm going to throw up,' he said, and laughed again. His stomach sloshed about. Ta Min gave him some water from a flask and he ended up spilling half of it over himself.

'Come on,' Ta Min said, and put his arm around her shoulders. 'I'll help you. We have to head back to the town.'

'Yay! Hang on, which foot do I use first?' He looked down at his legs. He could feel every nerve, blood vessel and tendon, an impossibly complicated fire pattern under his skin. Taking a step seemed ridiculously difficult.

'Just do as I do. See, you put your left foot forward—no, your other left. Come on, I'll show you what to do.'

He wobbled onwards, his limbs flopping about in every direction. Ta Min put an arm around his waist to help guide him forward. Well, this wasn't so hard if you didn't think too much about right and left or how you took each step. The earth and rock tickled his feet. 'You're one of my favouritest people in the whole world.' He leaned his head on her invitingly warm shoulder and drooled a little. 'You and Roku. Well, and my dad, but that's different. And there's also my mother and my grandmother. Hang on, I should count them. You.' He held up one shaky finger. 'Two comes after one, right?'

'What did they give you at the Fire Temple?' Ta Min asked. Worry swirled in her aura. 'It's not going to be permanent, is it?'

'Worry is kinda blue. I saw through the fire.'

'That's nice.' Ta Min led them around a cluster of boulders.

He looked over his shoulder and nearly fell face-first on the ground. 'No, we have to tell…' He frowned, thoughts bubbling and popping against the insides of his head. Pop, pop, pop. Trying to remember was like moving through mud. Boiling mud. Could you boil mud? 'We have to tell the woman in the temple that I managed to look through the fire. I did, didn't I?'

'That little dragon is following us,' Ta Min said.

'Oh, I know!' The little nudge inside his mind hadn't gone away. A skein of coloured threads connected him to the dragon that scrambled behind them over the rocks. Across the rocks? No, over the rocks. Even if it was hard with the little komodo rhino wings. Hang on, they were the ones without wings, weren't they? And besides, he'd forgotten her legs.

'Is it going to go away?'

'She,' he said, then realisation popped out of his mouth. 'She's bonded to me. Like Fang. I mean, not to me. He bonded to Roku. Fang, that is. Not this one. This one is the one that bonded to me.' A memory bobbed up through the mud, a red and russet hatchling the size of a cat still smelling of egg fluids. They had been given the hatchling a while—how long was a while? There was a day, right, and then an hour, and he was sure a year fit in there somewhere, probably after the while—back, and he had bonded to Roku.

'That's… great,' Ta Min said. 'Look, there's my dragon-moose.'

'Haha, it's all yellow.' The dragon-moose pulled on its reins, letting out a snort of fright as it saw the dragon approach.

'It's all right.' Ta Min let go of him so she could calm down the dragon-moose and Sozin flopped down to the ground. The dragon rushed to his side. 'These pants don't even work,' he muttered, and looked at the red dust on the ground. It glittered so wonderfully. He patted his dragon's muzzle; she purred with pleasure. It made the air go all wavy.

'Huan,' he said once Ta Min had managed to push him onto the dragon-moose's saddle, after several tries and with the dragon's help. He nearly dropped right onto the other side and finally slumped onto the dragon-moose's ridged neck. The world swayed from side to side. He giggled.

'Who's Huan?' Ta Min said as she climbed onto the saddle behind him. She clung to his waist with one hand and handled the reins with the other. 'Do you think you can manage the trek back to town?

'She's the dragon.' Huan trotted by their side as they rode. The dragon-moose swayed back and forth. It made him dizzy. Dizzier. He wondered if he could make it all the way to dizziest. 'But happy-dizzy,' he added. He was sure it was important to clear these things up.

'Seriously, did they tell you how long you'd be like this?'

'Like what?' He leaned against her a little and let his head drop back. 'You have the most beautiful aura. It's all mixed up with mine now. Oh, look, all the rocks are singing. I can taste them, you know.'

At the inn, Ta Min had to be a spoilsport and stopped him from going into the various rooms. 'I just want to see what everyone looks like.' He slumped down on the stairs and waved his arms and legs. Huan climbed to his side, claws scrabbling on the steps. 'I know. Stairs are haaard. I'm sleepy.'

Ta Min pulled on his arm. 'Come on, I just have to tell your grandmother that—'

He jumped up and struck his shin on the edge of a step. Dark-red and sickly-green pain burst on his skin. It tasted— '—all spiky.' What was he going to do again? Oh yeah, there was his grandmother. He raced past Ta Min and burst into his grandmother's room. 'Grandmother Bao!'

She lifted her gaze from the sheets of paper lying on her table. A cloud of gold and silver swirled around her. 'Ah, grandson. Glad to see yo—'

'You're my favourite grandmother!' he said as he tackled her into a hug that nearly upended the table. 'You're the bestest weird grandmother.'

'What in the name of the Undying Flame do you think you're doing?'

'Hee! You're all shouty.'

Bao pulled away from his grip and stood up. Sozin slumped down to his knees and looked at the pattern of spilled ink on the floor mat. Huan hurried to his side, sniffing everything in the way.

'Is the dragon yours?' Bao said. He looked up at her. She had crossed her arms under her chest and her aura had darkened into bronze and iron.

'Yeeeeah.' He looked back at the spilled ink. It looked like butterflies.

'You'd better be the one to clean up after it. What happened to your clothes?'

'I think they gave him something at the temple.' Ta Min had stepped into the room. He could smell her voice.

'And the wrong pants,' he added.

'He should sleep it off, then.'

'I'm not sleepy anymore,' he said, but Ta Min and Bao ignored him. He studied the woven pattern on the cotton sheets once he was under the bedclothes. How did the threads warp like that? Huan laid his head next to him. 'I'm not sleepy,' he said again, but he was out before he could even notice.

*

His tongue felt like an unwashed furry animal had walked into his mouth and died there. He rubbed his eyes and tried to swallow, but his throat was so dry he could barely manage it. When was the last time he'd had something to drink?

The shutters were drawn, but he could tell he was back in his room at the inn. He sat up on the bed, his muscles groaning in protest. Something on the floor stirred, then jumped halfway onto the bed.

It was a dragon.

His dragon.

'Huan,' he said. His head throbbed with pain and trying to remember last night was like trying to find gold nuggets in silt, but he knew the dragon belonged to him somehow. No, not belonged—some dragons picked humans as companions, but they were never pets. All he knew what that this one was joined up with him. He touched the purple-blue scales on her muzzle and she snorted softly into his fingers. Her golden eyes blinked. He could feel her mood, as though she were whispering wordlessly into his ear. Roku had talked about something similar after Fang had bonded to him last year.

'You're all alone, aren't you?' He kneaded the spot between her eyes and she purred like an oversized cat. 'The others all left but you stayed behind.'

The door creaked open. He yanked the bedclothes up.

'Oh—I didn't know you were awake.' It was Ta Min, holding a tray of buns that filled the room with the scent of baked dough and fried meat. His mouth watered and his stomach growled with hunger. Huan darted around Ta Min's legs, making little yaps of demand. She was only a baby, Sozin realised. She couldn't be any older than Fang—barely a year old, at the most.

'I've been feeding her while you slept. She wouldn't leave your side.' She sat on the edge of the bed and tossed one of the buns at Huan, who snatched it out of the air and scarfed it down. 'She likes komodo chicken and meat buns. Then again, she tried to eat your sheets, so…' She paused. 'How are you feeling? You were out a long time.'

He glanced at the windows. Golden sunlight pearled the gaps in the shutters. 'Come on, it's not even been a whole day.' He rubbed his face. He remembered going to the Fire Temple. Something terribly important had happened there. 'What time is it, six o'clock? Seven?'

Ta Min looked at him. 'Sozin, you fell asleep yesterday morning.' She picked at one of the buns. Huan sucked up the crumbs. He started to say something jokey, but he could tell she was serious.

'I was out for two days?' He ran a hand over his face. 'It felt like I was asleep for five minutes.'

She focused back on the bun and the dragon fidgeting at her feet. 'So all the… effects are gone, then?'

'Effects?' He leaned back onto the cushions and his loose hair spilled onto his eyes. 'I remember going to the Temple. I remember… I saw something.' He sat up again. 'You found me, didn't you? Afterwards, I mean. I…' Memory flooded back. Embarrassing memory. 'I don't really remember that part,' he added hurriedly, but he couldn't stop his face from growing hot.

'Do you remember what happened in the Temple?' Ta Min said, and turned to him casually.

'A little,' he said, thankful for the change in subject. 'They taught me—I don't think I can talk much about it, though. I don't even know why they were willing to speak to me. It was—they told me they don't speak to outsiders.' He tickled Huan's barbels. 'I saw something. I'm not really sure what.'

'You mean, in the Temple?'

He shook his head. 'Outside. They—they gave me something that… Actually, I don't know how it worked. I think I took something. I had a vision.'

A half-smile. 'You were still having it when I found you.'

'No, it wasn't like that. I'm not sure I really—

fire darkness

—remember it.' Loose images spilled around in his mind like the pieces of a puzzle box. He saw some of them distinctively, colourful beads on white paper; others were fuzzy, shadows on a poorly-lit wall. They meant something: he knew that in the same way he knew that Huan wanted to play and was still a little hungry.

He just wasn't sure what they meant. 'I have to think about it a little more,' he said.

Ta Min opened her mouth, then shut it again. The smile was gone and she was serious but not sad. She edged closer to him and tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear. 'You really did see something, didn't you? You feel… different.' She was so close to him he could feel her breath on his skin. 'I can't really explain it. You just feel a little different. You probably think that sounds stupid.'

'No, not at all.' He smiled back. 'I just hope it's not the bad kind of different.'

She smiled with him. 'Just different.'

He took her hand and their entwined fingers lay on the coverlet for a little while. The only sound in the room was the clicking of Huan's claws as she shifted on the floor.

Ta Min was the first to turn her eyes away. 'Well, I'd better get going.' She slipped her hand out of his grasp and stood up. 'Let you get dressed and all that.'

'Wait,' he said.

She turned back towards him.

'I…' he looked at his hands, as though something utterly fascinating lay on his palms. 'Do you, umm, remember what happened after you found me?'

Her expression remained blank, but he could see a smile quivering in her lips. 'Do you?'

Now it was the ceiling that drew his attention. 'I… remember a few things. Did I really nearly tackle my grandmother to the floor?'

'Yes.' He looked back at her. Now she was definitely biting down a laugh. 'Maybe "tackle" isn't really the right word…'

'Look.' He wanted to close his eyes and cover his head with the sheets, but his body remained in place, his gaze fastened on her face. It was probably for the best. He was sure he'd ignite the bedclothes with his embarrassment if he dove under them. He had a sudden urge to hire an earthbender to make the world's deepest hole, just so he could hide in it. 'That whole thing with the pants… do you mind keeping it between the two of us?' Please.

He was sure she was going to burst out laughing, but when she spoke her voice was just mock-solemn. 'You have my word.' A pause. 'And, apparently, someone else's pants.'

+++

Notes: The chapter's title comes from extreme irony the KJV translation of The Book of Job, 30:29: 'I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.' Regarding Ta Min's little double fantasy, apart from just having to include my OT3 (and also embarrass my characters yet again) I don't think it's unlikely that sixteen-year-old Ta Min would find Sozin attractive; I know that, being a lesbian and all, I'm not exactly the best judge of these things, but come on… ;) Obviously stoned impaired Sozin isn't really speaking in English, but there's a lot of puns and word play in the canon itself, so just pretend he's doing the equivalent of slurred/drug-addled English in whatever is the show's spoken counterpart to Classical Chinese, OK? ;)

Chapter 9: Obsidian Island

Summary:

Sozin, Ta Min, and Bao arrive at Obsidian Island, where they meet Sozin's aunt, Princess Iruza, and his cousins, dashing, jokey Ryun and bookworm Lu Ling. But not everything is as it seems... (Plus: Sozin and Ta Min play detective. Sadly, no hats and pipes are involved.)

Chapter Nine: Obsidian Island

It didn't take them long to travel from Kiake to Mian Chu Cape, the point in the mainland nearest to Obsidian Island, even if they did have to slow their pace a little to accommodate Huan's frequent forays in and out of the carriage. Much to Sozin's gratitude, Ta Min kept to her word and didn't alleviate the boredom by referring to what he had come to think of as The Incident. Bao, unsurprisingly, seemed to have expunged it from her mind entirely.

The seaside town was a small stretch of buildings surrounded by mangroves on the land side and jutting out into the ocean on wooden stilts. A full three-quarters of it was harbour and adjoining buildings, and the air had the kind of salty, fishy smell that Sozin was sure never went away no matter how much you scrubbed. Macaw-gulls and puffin-toucans gathered in the cloudy sky and Sozin could see a few boats dotting the stretch of ocean between the town and the dark stain in the horizon he assumed was Obsidian Island.

The carriage drew to a halt by the largest pier.

'Shouldn't there be someone waiting for us?' Sozin said, peering out of the carriage window. There were a few fishing boats and a larger ship moored next to the pier, but the only person around was an old man sitting on the rocks, either fishing or passing the time with a fishing rod as a prop.

'Someone from the island should be here soon,' Bao said, and stepped out onto the pier. 'Princess Iruza replied to my letter confirming the day of our arrival. Down to the hour.'

'Well, there's no one else here,' Sozin said, and stepped out as well. The day was overcast and the sea was only a few yards away, but the afternoon air was still hot. 'Only that old man.'

Bao glanced at him over her shoulder. 'I'm sure we won't have to wait long.'

Minutes stretched into hours. Once in a while one of the spots in the sea would drift closer but it always ended up being just a fishing boat moving to a more favourable spot, or a cloud driven shoreward by the wind. The tide started flowing back, foam spraying on the rocks and the salt-stained pier.

Bao's expression remained serene, but Sozin could feel the waves of irritation radiating off her like steam off a hot tub. He had never seen anyone disobey Bao before; he hadn't even thought it was possible, anymore than it was possible to drive the sun off its course. At some point she sent Shou to enquire with the old fisherman about ways to get to the island.

'You island folk?' the man said. 'Haven't seen you around before. No, I think I'd remember having seen you around. Especially the dragon.'

Huan, who had been travelling most of the morning curled up on the carriage's floor, head lying on Sozin's lap, had scampered out the moment they had stopped and had spent several minutes sniffing and licking everything in sight.

'We have relations there,' Bao said, standing behind Shou, as if to inspect the conversation. Sozin watched from the spot on the pier where he had sat down with Ta Min so they could see the waves crashing under their feet, seaweed tossed about like a madman's hair. Huan lay right behind them, occasionally investigating the mussels covering the pier's wooden struts.

'You don't want to get to the island tonight, not from here,' the man said, clearly warming up to his subject. 'There's a ferry that does a run to the island, but that's already gone by. Next run is tomorrow at midday. You're in luck, though—it does daily runs this time of year, but that won't be for long because of the rainy season. It only does weekly runs in the rainy season, and that's if there isn't a storm. Won't catch anyone here out in the sea if there's a storm coming in.'

'Fascinating,' Bao said. 'Can we hire a boat to take us to the island?'

'Oooh, you don't want to try hiring a boat today. Dou would norm'ly be willing to hire his boat, on account of him only using it to set the octopus-shrimp traps, but this time of the year…'

'I think your grandmother is going to end up punching that man in the face,' Ta Min whispered to him.

'Please,' Sozin said. 'That would be so undignified. She's going to set him on fire.' He looked at the sea, which had gone from blue-silver to burnished gold as the sun sunk lower in the sky. 'Westwards.'

'Northwards.'

They had come up with a game to pass the time, guessing the direction in which the next moving spot would go. By Sozin's count, he was winning by a whisker, but Ta Min insisted that spot number five hadn't counted, since it had been a cloud that had parted in the middle and moved in two different directions.

This time neither of them was going to win, Sozin realised: the spot was moving southwards, towards the shore. A tangy wind rose up, as if to drive the spot quicker.

Huan lifted her head and let out a smoky snort. The fisherman had moved onto a detailed accounting of someone called Old Mother Kira, along with all her particulars and relations; apparently she usually had some free rooms for renting.

'She's sensing something,' Sozin said. Huan hurried to the end of the pier, wings raised. The spot moving shoreward was getting bigger and bigger, and soon resolved into a sailboat.

'Don't worry,' Sozin told Huan as he got up. The sailboat moved towards the harbour.

'Isn't that a bit of luck?' the fisherman said, and pulled his line in. 'Someone's coming in from the island. Well, I'd better head home.'

Huan was scrambling about excitedly when the sailboat finally drew into the harbour. A young woman in old-fashioned clothes stood up in it. 'Ahoy there. Doesn't that just sound silly?' She moored the boat and scuttled up the shore onto the pier. She paused to catch her breath for a second before adding 'I'm here to pick you up. At least I think it's you, right?'

For a moment, no one spoke. The girl—she must be only a few years older than him, Sozin thought—pushed her small round spectacles up her nose, then fidgeted a little with her long dark brown hair, as though she couldn't help but fill the silence with something.

'You must be Princess Lu Ling,' Bao finally said. Sozin remembered the name as belonging to his aunt's youngest child. 'I haven't seen you since you were a child. I am Lady Bao.'

'Oh.' The girl shrugged with relief. 'Just call me Ling-Ling, everyone does. I'm sorry you had to wait so long—there was some kind of mix-up—we though you were going to arrive tomorrow, everyone at the island is celebrating Jaya's pregnancy—that's my sister-in-law, she just shared the news she's pregnant—anyway, I had something in the back of my mind about your arrival—mother kept insisting it was tomorrow, but I decided to check the letters again and…'

Lu Ling's chatter continued through the introductions—I'm pretty sure I met you a long time ago, but you wouldn't really remember—oh my, is that a dragon? It's adorable—and while Bao decided that, since the sailboat was too small for everyone, Lee and Shou would stay behind with the carriage and the dragon-moose and travel to the island on next day's ferry.

The setting sun had turned the sea to ruby when the five of them—six, if you counted Huan—were finally underway. Sozin had never been in a sailboat and, one hand reassuring an apprehensive Huan, he sat at the boat's stern in silence while he listened to Lu Ling talk about the currents around the island and watched her handle the sails, the helm, and all sorts of boat-things whose names and purpose he had no idea about. Once again he got the impression of someone who had to fill the silence with bouts of speech or motion. He had a sudden image of her, almost startling in its vividness: Lu Ling poring over a book while twisting a strand of hair in her fingers and drawing an invisible pattern in the ground with the tip of her shoe.

'You'll love the island,' she said as the boat pulled towards a rock pier built by a sandy shore. In the twilight, the island's black rock shone like polished glass and a golden haze clung to the treetops. The breeze carried the scent of brackish water and snatches of music. 'We're having a party. For my sister-in-law, I mean. You'll join us, of course. That is, I hope you'll enjoy it after all your travelling.' She petted Huan, who was trotting enthusiastically at her side. 'How did you find her again?'

Once they'd walked past tree copses and vegetable gardens, all Sozin could see of Princess Iruza's island home were the bright points of paper lanterns. The grounds and the house had been covered with them and whole lines had been hung in the outer courtyards, like strings of fireflies. A swell of music and raucous conversation surrounded the house. Huan slunk beside Sozin, scales bristling. He could almost feel her heartbeat on his skin and touched her again.

'Hey, everyone,' Lu Ling cried out to no one in particular. 'Our guests are here.'

Sozin spent the next five minutes surrounded by a whirlwind of people. Every single person in the island—they all had eerily similar cheekbones and chins and introduced themselves listing complicated patterns of kinship—seemed to be at Aunt Iruza's house and Lu Ling made sure every one got to see him. He and the others were paraded from terraces where people were playing dice games to courtyards where rather haphazard performances of the phoenix flight were interrupted so the dancers could gather around him. Soon Sozin's head was spinning with the number of cousins, second cousins and cousins-in-law whose names and relations he was expected to remember, and Huan was grumbling at the amount of strangers who insisted on petting her. Even Bao seemed a little put off by the way in which everyone greeted them so informally, not even bothering to bow, offering them drinks and inviting them to join their games.

Lu Ling led them into the house, where the music and the fire wine were also flowing in copious quantities. On the inside, the building looked exactly like it did on the outside: it reminded Sozin a little of the beach house at Ember Island—what he could recall of it, at any rate—but it was much larger, and it looked like it had grown, like vines, rather than been built. Towers with layers of roofs had been built in inexplicable places and there were several balconies in mismatched styles. Sozin almost expected the stairs inside to loop on themselves or run into a ceiling.

'Mother,' Lu Ling said. A middle-aged woman stepped into the parlour, flanked by a man and a woman much younger than her. 'I've brought our guests. I did tell you they were going to arrive today, didn't I?'

'You certainly did,' the woman who wasn't Sozin's aunt said in a voice like honey and silk. Everything about her looked like it had been drawn with a master's brush, from her ink-dark hair piled in elaborate buns to her pink and black robes. Even the single step she took forward had the effortless grace of a cat. 'I am sorry, I am being rude.' She bowed. 'I am Princess Jaya, Prince Ryun's wife and Princess Iruza's daughter-in-law, so this party is for me, which I suppose makes me your host. And you must be Crown Prince Sozin and High Lady Bao and…' She tilted her head slightly to one side. It drew more attention to her brown eyes. 'Lady Ta Min, isn't it? Forgive me, I'm not very good with names.' Her smile was small, but contagious, a little sliver of sunshine and lacquered coral.

'Do you remember me, Sozin?' Iruza said. Sozin hadn't seen her for years, but she hadn't changed much from what memories he had of her, other than having a few more touches of silver in her hair. 'You were so little when I last saw you.'

'He's still little,' the man said. He must be his cousin Ryun.

'I'm short for my height,' Sozin said, but his tone wasn't sarcastic. Something about Ryun's face, which promptly opened into a chuckle and wide grin, made it impossible. It was as bright as his golden eyes, with the kind of winking handsomeness that made you want to join in on the joke, even if it was at your expense. Sozin wanted to resent it, but he couldn't even manage that.

'Good one, little cousin. I suppose now I should talk about how grown up you are.' He put a hand on Sozin's shoulder. 'Shall I reminisce about what a chubby toddler you were and all that, or shall we skip the embarrassing part and go straight to the drinks and a good card game?'

'Ryun, don't tease the young man,' Jaya said. 'You want to be in his good graces when he becomes Fire Lord.'

'Stop being silly, everyone,' Iruza said, and advanced on Sozin. She grabbed hold of his face before he had time to react and squeezed his cheeks. 'Look at you—I haven't seen you since you were maybe six years old and you're almost a grown man now.' She shook her head a little. 'You're the spitting image of your mother.'

When she released him, he nearly stumbled backwards. He was sure his cheeks were going to ache for at least a week. Huan let out a soft growl and edged towards Iruza, who just grabbed her by her scruff and unleashed a volley of petting that Sozin was sure was weaponised. 'Lovely animal.'

Ryun's face lit up with another winking, golden grin. 'Is this the part where one of us says it feels like it was only last week he was running around with no pants on?'

'Oh, I'm sure it does,' Ta Min said. Sozin had to feign a bout of coughing. His aunt slapped him on the back and just barely failed to crack one of his ribs.

'That's a cue for a drink if I ever heard one,' Ryun said, and pulled Sozin and Ta Min along with him. 'Let's give Jaya's baby all the good luck we can, shall we?'

Even Bao had a few drinks, though she declined to join in the dancing and sat with Aki at one of the tables. Sozin and Ta Min found their way to the largest of the inner courtyards, where, under the rows of paper lanterns, a group of amateur but enthusiastic musicians were playing fast tempo music and a number of people were doing the drum dance. Sozin and Ta Min joined in without needing to ask and were soon laughing as they whirled through the steps, hands touching and parting, until they were covered in a layer of sweat and the rhythm was joyful lightning in their muscles.

Sozin wasn't sure how much time had passed when he and Ta Min drew back from the main group of dancers and he spotted Lu Ling sitting in one corner, Huan curled at her feet. 'Would you like to dance?'

She was a little flustered. 'What? Oh, thank you, cousin, but I don't dance.'

He smiled, the heat from the several glasses of fire wine and rice liquor he'd drunk coursing through his veins. 'Sitting there watching other people dance can't be very fun.'

'I don't really know how.' Her hands patted the fall of hair over her shoulder. 'I mean, I had lessons, everyone does, but I was never really good at it. That is—'

He extended one hand to her. 'Come on—just do exactly as I do,' he said, and pulled her into a two-step dragon dance. Lu Ling laughed as she stumbled and Sozin steadied her through the spins and whirls.

The moon was already low in the sky when he and Ta Min finally sat down by a table. Sozin's head was swimming with the beat of music, the taste of alcohol, and the smell of sweet smoke and spices. He wasn't sure of how long he'd been dancing and drinking: the flow of song and drink had erased time. He thought, rather giddily, that this celebration was utterly unlike anything that would be allowed at the palace, and he found himself not minding.

'Has anyone seen my jacket?' a man close to them said, apparently to no one in particular. He wandered off towards a table where a group of people were playing a game of Water-Earth-Fire-Air, improved by numerous additions and generous amounts of rice liquor, and repeated his question before wandering back out and nearly tripping over Ryun, who had just entered the room.

'You haven't seen my jacket, have you?' the man said. 'I'd better head off late before it gets too home.' His brow wrinkled at that, as though he suspected he'd said something wrong but figuring out exactly what demanded far too much brainpower.

'You worry too much, cousin,' Ryun said, and slapped the other man on the shoulder before propelling him out of the room. 'I'm sure it'll turn up. Ask Jaya, she's going around playing the host.' He turned to Sozin and Ta Min. 'That's my second cousin Taro. Or he's my father's second cousin, I forget. He has a terrible habit: sobriety. That's no way to get a head for drink. I hope you're enjoying yourselves, but if you aren't… don't let Jaya know, OK?' He winked and walked away through the sliding doors, the end of the royal-gold sash in his own jacket shifting a little as he went.

Ta Min propped her head on her hand. 'Should I avoid telling Jaya I think I've had too much to drink?'

'Maybe It'll go down better if you address her as Princess Jaya,' Sozin said, and got up. His head swam and he wobbled a bit on his feet. Suddenly the drinks he'd had and the noise and the scented oils burning everywhere in the house were too much for him. 'Come on, let's go get some fresh air.'

They made their way to a terrace on the side of the house, its stone railing dotted with fire bowls and abutting a drop of several feet over the moon-silvered ocean. Lanhua trees murmured in the wind, their leaves and indigo flowers nearly black in the night, their scent sharp and sweet. The noise of music and laughter was still audible, but the sound of the crashing waves below buried it almost entirely.

Ta Min laid her arms on the railing and took a long breath of sea air before closing her eyes and leaning her head back a little. 'I needed that,' she said. Sozin had needed the cool, salty air too, but he said nothing. She opened her eyes. 'Hey, where's Huan?'

He focused a little. 'She's with Lu Ling. She likes her.'

She smiled. 'I wish I understood how you do that,' she said, then made a face and put her head back in her hands. 'Remind me to start saying no after the sixth drink.'

'It's all right,' he said, and patted her on the shoulder. 'The sea air will do you good. Just don't ask my grandmother for anything if you have a headache.' He grinned to himself. 'You know, Roku has an even worse head for drink. Once he threw up on my shoes.'

'I can promise you I'm not going to throw up on your shoes.' She turned her face towards him. 'Did he really?'

'You don't know the best part: this was before I put the shoes on.'

She laughed, then stopped mid-chuckle once she realised he hadn't joined in. 'You're not serious. You didn't notice this before you put the shoes on?'

He stood up and adjusted his high collar. 'I may have been slightly… fatigued myself at the time.'

'I see. I get inebriated, he gets three flames to the wind, but you just get fatigued.' She looked back at the sea. The breeze snatched up cobweb tendrils of her hair. 'You must be a better friend than I am. I think I'd draw the line at someone throwing up on my shoes.'

'Come on, he's my doushun. We're supposed to stand together through everything.'

'Including barfed-on shoes.'

'Exactly.' He turned serious and leaned back on the railing. 'You know, when our contract was being drawn up, I was told a lot of stuff about the true measure of a doushun pair and…' He hesitated and looked down at his hands. 'When he gets back and you two meet properly… you won't make fun of him, will you? I mean, don't get me wrong, he can take a joke. I mean, he has a great sense of humour. I mean…' He trailed off.

She turned towards him. One of her little knowing smiles was dancing on her lips, and in the weak light her eyes were the colour of heavy smoke. 'Why do you think I'd make fun of him?'

He blushed. 'It's not that,' he said hurriedly. 'I mean… I always…'

'It's all right,' she started. 'I think—'

'Good night, everyone!'

They both turned around. For a second, Sozin thought he was looking at Ryun. Then he realised it was Taro, wearing Ryun's jacket. Ryun must have tired of his cousin's quest for the lost garment. 'And speaking of being fatigued,' Sozin said. Taro was walking—stumbling, rather—out of the house and saying goodbye to the carved stone dragons flanking the terrace doors.

'Do you think we should help him?' Ta Min said. She couldn't keep a note of amusement off her voice.

'He seems to be doing all right.' Taro wasn't quite walking in a straight line, but he managed to walk along the wall, towards the path bordering the house. The golden sash on the jacket shone softly in the near-dark.

Sozin's eyes caught the tottering shadow before his brain had time to realise what was happening. When it did, time slowed to an oozing trickle, as though everything were happening underwater.

A lump of shadow far above Taro toppled and fell towards the man below it.

Sozin took a step forward. For one terrible, impossibly long second, he was sure he wouldn't be able to get any words out. 'Look out!' he cried.

Taro startled and tripped. The falling masonry crashed to the ground inches away from him with an eardrum-rattling noise.

The music stopped with a dissonant chord. Sozin took another step forward. His heart was racing. The whole thing had felt like forever, but it had really been only a fraction of a second, he realised.

People trickled out of the house. 'What happened?' 'Did anyone get hurt?'

Sozin and Ta Min hurried to Taro's side, who was trying to get up and whose face had blanched to ashy bronze. A two-foot long stone statue of a dragon lay at his feet, shattered into two large pieces and a spray of rubble. 'Are you all right?' Sozin said, and looked up; he was sure he could see the statue's twin high above, on one of the balconies.

'That must have come from the attic balcony,' someone said, and out of the corner of his eye, Sozin could see a group of people climbing the stairs nearest the terrace doors. He stretched out a hand to Taro, but before the other man could take it, Ryun strode in and helped his cousin up.

'That was some accident,' he said. Taro still shook a little, but this time Sozin was sure it had nothing to do with drink. He was staring at the broken statue at his feet, as though assessing the thing that had nearly crushed his head. Ryun put his hand on Taro's shoulder. 'So much for cards. This is the sort of luck you want to have.'

Taro peeled off the jacket with trembling hands and held the garment at arm's length. 'I was wearing—I was wearing your jacket. In the dark I must have looked just like you.'

Ryun's laughter shook a few strands of his dark brown hair. 'You're not saying what I think you're saying, are you?'

Jaya appeared at the doorway, followed by a group of people. 'Is everyone all right? I was on the second floor when I heard the noise and we went straight into the attic,' she said. 'The door was locked.'

'That's true,' a woman in the knot of people said. 'We ran into Jaya there and went straight up. If someone had come down from the attic, they'd have run into us in the stairs.'

'And the key?' Ryun said.

Jaya stepped forward. 'Usual drawer. Anyway, when we got into the attic, it was empty. Well, if you don't count the cobwebs.'

'Of course it was empty,' Ryun said. Inside the house, the music had started again, and a few of the people who'd rushed into the terrace when they'd heard the crash had started to wander away. 'It was just an accident. A pretty nasty one, granted, but you're all right, aren't you? Good. Let's just all head back inside and have a stiff drink, why don't we?'

Taro didn't move. He was still looking at the shattered statue. Ryun spoke again. 'You don't think that someone somehow walked through a locked door, pushed the statue over and then, I don't know, flew away, I guess. Come on.'

'Maybe it was an airbender,' a man joked.

'Taking a bold stance against non-violence, no doubt,' Ryun said, then put a hand on Taro's back and ushered him towards the house. 'Don't be silly—who would want to kill me?'

'That depends,' Sozin said. The handful of faces turned towards him. He glanced down at the broken statue. 'You're royalty. That's always a good reason. Especially if not everyone below you is gruntled.'

Ryun let out another peal of laughter and put an arm on Sozin's shoulders and another on Ta Min's. 'I think I'm going to like you, little cousin. Come on—let's have a few scales of the dragon who bit us,' he said, and pulled everyone back inside.

Sozin glanced back over his shoulder for a second.

*

It might be the rainy season, but the next day dawned dry and hot, and there wasn't even a breeze coming in from the sea. Sozin woke up from a dreamless sleep lulled by the tides, and by mid-morning, Iruza announced they were going to take a family trip to the beach. Soon they were all lying on the black sand and only Bao had refused to change into bathing clothes. She sat under a parasol as far away from the sea as possible, observing the proceedings like a queen watching from her throne.

'And that's why the sand is black,' Lu Ling finished, and let a handful of it fall back to the ground. She hadn't taken off her spectacles to come to the beach, and they glittered against her sun-browned skin.

'Don't give Ling-Ling an opening,' Ryun said from his comfortable perch on the dunes. 'She'll start reciting the complete works of Chiyo Tsu in no time.'

'Ha ha, you're so funny. Try for a career on the stage,' Lu Ling said, and made a face at her brother that would have earned Sozin a lecture on propriety if he'd been back at the palace.

'I don't mind it,' Sozin said. 'It's rather fascinating.' He picked up a handful of black sand. When he focused, he could feel something inside the rubble, like a heartbeat felt through layers of padded cloth. 'I can feel it—that echo of fire you were talking about.'

Lu Ling cleared her throat and her fingers started fidgeting with her hair. Sozin was sure she wasn't at all aware of her tic. 'I can tell you a lot more about the island if you want. I know all there's to know about it.' She sounded sincere rather than vain.

'I'd really like that,' he said.

Her smile was a little lop-sided. It reminded him of his father, Sozin realised with the familiar lump in his stomach. He leaned back and edged closer to Ta Min, who was, as you'd expect from any child of the Fire Nation, soaking up the sun. 'We have to get back in the house,' he whispered to her.

Ta Min hoisted herself up onto a sitting position. 'Why do you want to do that?' she whispered back, and before he could reply, added: 'Oh—you want to look at the scene of the accident.'

'Exactly,' he said, and felt a little touch of reassurance. He would have gone anyway, but it was good to know he wasn't alone in his fancy. It wasn't like having Roku backing him up—nothing could be, and then he realised with a dull ache and some surprise that it had taken him this long to understand this, that having to be parted from Roku had been like losing a hand or one of his senses—but he appreciated it nonetheless.

Iruza stood up and strode towards the shoreline, where a jewelled blue sea flowed and ebbed. 'Why don't we go for a swim?' she said. 'You don't want to laze about on the sand all day, do you?'

'Actually, yeah, we kinda do,' Ryun said with another of his rakish grins. Iruza launched into something about clam hunting and the advantages of swimming during a pregnancy. Sozin turned to Ta Min again. 'Here's our chance. Quick, say you forgot something at the house.'

'Can't you just tell them you forgot your pants?' she said, and before he could do anything more than turn what was no doubt a violent shade of red and start protesting, Ta Min doubled over with a coughing fit.

'Hey—are you all right?' Before he could pat her on the back, she winked at him, then redoubled her coughing. He helped her to her feet.

'I just have a sore throat,' Ta Min said between coughs. Everyone else was staring at her, and Iruza was about to advance, no doubt full of advice about sea air and vigorous exercise. Even Huan had lifted her head from the sand where she'd been basking contentedly. 'It's nothing. I have some medicine in my luggage.' Another spasm. 'I'll be right back.'

'I'll—I'll help you,' Sozin said, and they started walking back towards the house. 'I didn't know you were such a good actress,' he said once they were out of earshot.

'You didn't ask.' Huan trotted behind them.

'I'll certainly bear it in mind if a great play is ever the only thing standing between me and certain death.'

She cast him an amused glance. 'Well, you never know. Why do you think the thing with the statue wasn't an accident?' she said once they were back at the house. Aunt Iruza had few servants, but even so she kept her voice low. 'Your cousin Ryun sounded pretty certain about it.'

'I'm not really sure—I don't believe in coincidences, I guess. And I don't think Ryun takes anything seriously.' He looked around. Without the blur of the party and its lights and noisiness, the inside of the house looked even more like the outside: constant additions and haphazard construction had turned it into a labyrinth of narrow corridors, rooms, and sliding doors. The air smelled of wood polish, burned cedar oil, and very faintly of alcohol. 'Jaya said she took the key from a drawer. See if you can find a cabinet or something.'

'Here—how about this?' Ta Min said once they had made their way to a second floor landing. There was a wooden cabinet against one wall, a large picture on top of it. When he stepped closer he saw it was of his parents and his aunt; a twelve-year-old Ryun, already looking as though he was winking at the viewer, stood next to his mother, and his five-year-old sister was standing at the other end of the group. Sozin nestled on his father's lap. That had been back when his father had still been well enough to sit up for a picture. The thought stuck in his throat like a fishing hook.

'That's your family, isn't it?' Ta Min said. She pointed at the baby. 'Is that—is that you?'

'Yeah.'

She shook her head. 'You cannot possibly have been this fat.'

He frowned. 'Babies are supposed to be chubby, you know.'

'You don't look chubby. You look like a Kuai ball with a nappy.' She looked at the picture again. 'And a tiny little topknot.'

'Look, are we going to try to find that key, or are we going to keep talking about my astonishing resemblance to a Kuai ball?'

She didn't turn to him. 'I could always make another joke about your pants.'

'Kuai balls. Please.' They were both talking in mock-serious tones, but the joke ended once they started trying the drawers on the cabinet. 'I thought you'd promised not to talk about the… incident to anyone else.'

Ta Min was finished with the top row of drawers. 'I did. I never said I wouldn't mention it to you.' She managed to find an unlocked one. 'Here.' She grabbed a small silvery key. 'Let's try this one.'

The stairs to the attic were a rickety flight of narrow steps wedged between two walls. The crevices on the wooden door were grey and fuzzy with dust.

It was the right key, even if Sozin had to rattle it in the keyhole a few times before he managed to unlock the door. The air inside was thick and dusty and smelled very faintly of soap. Even the sunlight looked stale. Cobwebs filled the corners, clung to the trunks and boxes piled up on the floor. They stepped over to the balcony doors. The remaining dragon statue stood on one of railing's corners, its twin's broken base on the opposite corner looking like the root of a tooth that had rotted off.

'If it wasn't an accident, how do you think it happened?' Ta Min said as she stepped up to the railing. 'There were all those people who saw the door was locked and would have seen someone coming down the stairs. And when they went into the attic, there was no one here.' She leaned over the railing and looked to one side, then the other. 'There aren't any windows around.'

Sozin looked up at the curved eaves above the balcony. 'I'm sure I could jump from that railing onto the roof. Maybe someone else could also do it before Jaya and the others got here,' he said, but he didn't sound convincing even to himself. He had looked up at the balcony right after the statue had fallen on the terrace, and he was sure he would have seen someone leave that way, even if they had been wearing dark blue from head to toe. 'Or maybe they just hid behind some of those boxes. I'm sure Jaya just took a quick look at the room. The door was locked now, but we don't know if Jaya locked it again before she came downstairs.'

'Or maybe coincidences and accidents do happen,' Ta Min said. She was looking at the fallen statue's base. He stepped closer to her.

The base was stained and damaged by what had probably been rainwater and sea air. He stepped up to the other statue, taking a quick glance at the ground below. The broken statue had already been cleared away, though the paper lanterns were still hanging on their strings like dull pearls. Both statues must be quite old: the remaining one's features were weather-beaten, the dragon's scaly ridge and fangs worn down to rounded stumps. 'Huan, leave those boxes alone.'

The dragon—the real one—stepped up to him, looking contrite. Her tail wagged from side to side.

'And again, I really, really wish I understood how you do that,' Ta Min said.

'I just have a bond with her,' he said with a shrug and turned back to the statue. Its base had the same water damage as its twin. He pushed it with both hands and it moved forward a few inches. A shower of crumbled stone fell from the base.

'You see what I mean?' Ta Min said. She had stepped close to him and he was suddenly very aware of the flimsiness of her beach clothes. He focused back on the statue as she spoke again. 'This doesn't look very solid. Maybe the statue really did just topple over. Maybe your cousin was right.'

'About no one wanting to kill him?'

She shook her head and looked down at the terrace. 'No. I'm sure some people always have a reason to kill someone. Jealousy, or resentment, or—or even just boredom, I guess.'

He didn't know what to say. It was like in the basement at Shukai, or the night of the fair: as though she had upturned a rock hiding any number of dark-borne, misshapen things that she was intimately familiar with and he knew nothing about. He felt the urge to comfort her again, but he was sure she'd find it odd and unwarranted.

'I meant right about it being an accident,' Ta Min went on. 'Can you think of any way in which someone could have pulled this off?'

His silence was an answer in itself. She turned back to him. 'We should probably head back. Your aunt must be about to send a search party.'

'Ha. Knowing her she'd be the one leading it.' He pulled the statue back to its original place and glanced at the empty terrace again. The air was almost completely still, but a few of the paper lanterns swayed back and forth in a weak breeze.

'Sozin—are you coming?'

'Yeah,' he said, and followed her out of the attic.

*

'Look—catfish-sharks!'

Days had stretched into weeks, but it was hard to keep track of time in Obsidian Island. It seemed to exist in its own rhythm of tides and winds and occasional soft rain. Despite all of Sozin's training, his habits, and Bao's teaching regime, he had soon found himself living Obsidian Island's peculiar life. They would lounge on the beach, or splash about in the sea while Huan darted about in the crashing waves, tongue lolling. Lu Ling took them on walks around the island, even when it was raining, and when she said the rain just made it more wonderful, it was actually true. His cousins thought nothing of dropping into other people's houses uninvited, and their unexpected hosts just had them join their meals or set up impromptu games of Kuai ball or snap-dragon. If Sozin had thought that was only a result of Ryun and Jaya's golden charm, he was disabused of the notion when he nearly lobbed a fireball at a stranger in Iruza's kitchen; he turned out to be one of her neighbours, wandering in to borrow some eggs. In Obsidian Island, the rules of etiquette were more like guidelines.

That morning Ryun had suggested another party.

'We have quite a lot of parties these days,' Iruza had said. Jaya stepped into the parlour right then, holding a cup of tea, and let out a yelp when she sat down on a cushion. She pulled a stone from the cushion's folds.

'Hey, that's one of my petrified animals,' Lu Ling said. She was about to say something to Sozin and Ta Min, closed her mouth, then opened it again. 'Do you want to go for a ride in my sail boat?'

So now they were in Lu Ling's boat, slicing through a sea so clear Sozin was sure he could see the blue-tinged sand at the bottom. A shoal of dark shapes glided under the hull. Huan leaned over the side and lapped at the water. Lu Ling beamed at Ta Min, obviously approving of her enthusiasm.

'I'll show you the islet where I got my rocks,' Lu Ling said, and started manoeuvring the rigging again. The sails groaned in the wind and the boat moved towards a dark spot on the horizon that soon sharpened into a stretch of rock dotted with sea birds.

'There are so many things in the rocks here,' she said as they circled the islet, its ragged edges looking like a giant's fingers half-sunk into the sea. The birds filled the air with cries and an acrid scent. 'Plants and animals, all turned into rock. They look like nothing you've ever seen before.' She paused and dropped anchor several yards away from a bowl-shaped depression in the rocky shore where the sea swirled and foamed. 'You know, my mother doesn't like me coming here.'

'Why not?' Sozin said. He glanced up from the underwater landscape he'd been looking at; even with the churn of the waves he could see a slope of colour stretching down towards the ocean bottom, shoals of purple fish drifting through yellow coral, green jellyfish-urchin hovering like ghosts. Ta Min's face was almost expressionless, but he had spent so many days with her he could tell she looked knowing, and a little sad. He laid his fingers on hers.

'My father died somewhere around here,' Lu Ling said. Her tone was unusually flat.

'I'm sorry,' Sozin and Ta Min said at the same time. It sounded like the punch line to some macabre joke and they looked at each other awkwardly. Lu Ling seemed to either not notice or not care. She just glanced at the ocean.

'It's all right,' she said. 'It happened a long time ago. I don't really remember it. Ryun does, but I don't.'

Well, that might explain a few things about his oldest cousin, Sozin thought, but said nothing. Lu Ling went on.

'He loved the sea, you know. And one day he was out sailing and a typhoon landed. It was so sudden. He was a really good sailor, but it all happened too fast, otherwise he would have come ashore when he saw the first signs. They never found his body, but they found bits of his boat right here in this islet.' She turned back to them. Her eyes were dry, but one of her hands had curled into a fist so tight the skin over her knuckles was almost white. The sailboat swayed from side to side. 'That's why mother doesn't like me coming here, but I can't really stop. There are amazing things up here. Once I found a skeleton of something that looked like an oversized cow-sow. Can you imagine?' Her eyes glittered. 'That means this was part of land at some point. I can't not come here. I…' She trailed off. 'You must think that's silly.'

'I don't,' Sozin said.

'He really doesn't,' Ta Min said. 'I don't either.'

Lu Ling smiled. 'I—' Her gazed moved up and the smile vanished like water draining out of a leaky bucket. 'That's not good.'

Sozin turned around. Fire was flaring at intervals from one of the beaches in the island. 'There's something urgent going on. And it can't be anything good,' Lu Ling said, and pulled the anchor up before clambering across the sailboat like a hog-monkey. 'You two, grab the oars.'

Sozin didn't answer, and just put his back into the rowing. A hot hand clutched at his insides, made his muscles ache twice as much. His skin was cold, as though what Lu Ling had said had turned from a sad story into a drizzle of ice-cold rain. A string of possibilities raced through his mind, each more awful than the previous.

It wasn't a beacon, he realised as they approached the island. At his side, Ta Min worked her oar, face gritted in concentration. It was someone firebending.

The sailboat's prow sliced into the swell of waves. Bao stood on the beach, wearing shoes and her full-length travel clothes as always. 'I was starting to think you were never going to see my signal.' A small scroll unfurled in her hand, the characters dark slashes against the pale paper.

Sozin's blood slowed to a trickle.

No. The ribbon is red, not black. He blinked, as though he didn't quite believe it at first. But yes, there it was, he saw with a swell of relief, the scarlet ribbon hanging from the message. 'What is it?' he said.

'A message from Yulong,' Bao said. 'We've spent enough time here. Lord Yoshi is dead.'

+++

Notes: The line 'I'm short for my height' comes from the movie Lucky Number Slevin. And yes, according to the art book (not to mention the canon), teenaged Sozin really is that, er, fun-sized. The thing with Ryun's jacket/Taro's accident (or is it?? ;)) is loosely based on Agatha Christie's book Peril at End House, though the book's plot is completely unlike that of my fic. Snap-dragon is a real life game involving pulling raisins from a bowl of flaming brandy; I'm guessing the Fire Nation version is more… intense. 'The rules of etiquette were more like guidelines' is paraphrased from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

Also, I'm wondering if anyone is reading this. If so, are you enjoying it?

Chapter 10: Yulong

Summary:

The travel party arrives at Yulong, where Sozin has to solve the dispute between Lord Kazu and Lady Yin before they start a war, and for the first time in his life, he finds himself facing a problem he has no idea how to solve.

Chapter Ten: Yulong

'What is this dispute about? Specifically, I mean?' Sozin leaned back into his seat and steepled his hands, hoping he was sounding authoritative. The tropical forest rolled past the carriage window. Somehow the landscape made the whole thing feel as inconsequential as any of the problems and questions he and Roku had had to solve throughout his education at the palace, when success would mean the approval of his tutors and the only consequences of failure would be extra work and a few rebukes. 'Property? Money?'

'A statue,' Bao said.

'A… statue,' Sozin repeated in a flat tone.

'Is it a ruby-encrusted statue?' Ta Min asked.

'I believe it is small, hollow, and inlaid with jade.'

'That doesn't sound all that valuable,' Sozin said.

Bao leaned back on her seat and tucked her hands back into her sleeves. 'It isn't,' she said in the tone of someone chastising a particularly slow pupil. 'Like many things in life, its true price has little to do with what it's made of.'

'What is its true price, then?' Sozin said. Ta Min looked at him from under her eyelashes.

His grandmother took a second to answer. 'I am sure the ruling families of Yulong would say it has no price.'

Sozin glanced out of the window. They were moving through a valley that gleamed with recent rain and smelled of damp earth. He could hear the motions of the second carriage behind them and Huan's snuffles as she trotted outside alongside them. He turned back to Bao. 'Isn't that the same thing as saying it has no value?'

Hearing that human life was priceless had always bothered him in a way he couldn't really put his finger on: it seemed that you ended up just accepting the loss of a parent as "fate" or as "being their time" but making a fuss about the loss of an expensive mongoose-dragon. A sudden memory bubbled up: him and Roku talking about the meaning of everything until the moon had vanished below the horizon. It was so vivid he could smell the palace gardens and see the white trail of a shooting star, and for a split second he was sure he would touch Roku's skin if he reached out with his hand.

The corners of Bao's mouth turned into something that wasn't quite a smile but which Sozin had learned indicated approval. 'I believe its commonly-agreed price is the rulership of Yulong and all its lands.'

'So it's just a symbol, then,' Sozin said, glad he was on firmer ground.

'Like the Fire Lord headpiece,' Ta Min added. Or the Crown Prince headpiece, Sozin thought.

Bao looked away. 'No. Not exactly.'

He brought up the subject again when he was travelling in his cousins' carriage; they took turns between the two vehicles to break up the monotony.

'I think they're all fighting over the city's single brain,' Ryun said, one ankle on his knee, lounging back in his seat like someone lying on a hammock.

'I read about it, actually,' Lu Ling said, pointedly ignoring her brother.

'You read about everything.'

'It's supposed to be from the Spirit World,' she went on, increasing the volume of her voice a little. As an only child, Sozin still found the dance between the two siblings intriguing, like a complicated mating ritual done by a kind of bird he'd never seen before. 'The city's founder came across a gate into the Spirit World in the forest and he did some sort of favour for the forest spirit. It's not actually all that clear what he did, you get one story in The Annals of the Era of Bright Abundance and a different version in the third volume of Rites and Records of the Zhang Province.' She picked at the edge of her sleeve as she warmed to her subject. 'I ordered that one specially from—'

They jostled in their seats as the carriage hit a pothole. Jaya's hand went to her stomach, its growing bulge just barely protruding through the folds of her clothes, and Ryun turned to her, a concerned look on his face. She gave him one of her polished smiles; he placed a hand on her shoulder.

'Anyway,' Lu Ling went on, 'the forest spirit then gave him the statue as a reward for his service, and with the blessing and the protection of the forest spirit, he went on to found the city of Yulong. From then on no one ruled in Yulong without having the statue in their possession.'

'I guess the forest spirit might come back to repossess it otherwise,' Ryun said. The drollness was back.

'And now his descendants are arguing about who owns the statue—and who owns the city,' Sozin said. Well, that was straightforward. It was no different from two siblings arguing over who owned a house, or a farm, or a gold necklace. All that stuff about the Spirit World made little difference. He just had to figure out who really owned the statue, or at least who had the better claim. He smiled to himself; it was good to be right.

'I'm—I'm not sure about that,' Lu Ling said, and pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.

'Of course not,' Ryun said. The carriage rolled past a copse of trees and leaves and twigs scratched the windows. 'No one has written a book about it yet.'

'Maybe you can write one once we're done in Yulong,' Sozin said before anyone else could speak. Lu Ling let out a pleased chuckle.

'Ling-Ling is my little sister by marriage,' Jaya said, and even thought Bao was all blue fire and diamond edges and his cousin-in-law was silk and warm orchids, Sozin couldn't help but being reminded of his grandmother. 'If you're going to make promises to her, I'll have to make sure you keep them.'

'I always keep my promises,' Sozin said.

That evening, Sozin lost no time sharing the new information with Ta Min when they stopped for the night. 'I really don't understand why my father's ministers were making such a fuss about all this,' he said as they walked past the stables. The rain clouds were back, dimming the sunset. 'I just have to figure out who has the best claim to the statue.'

'What if they don't accept your decision?' Ta Min gave him her usual sideways glance, but this time it was completely humourless. 'I mean, if these people were good at compromising, you wouldn't be going there in the first place, would you?'

'Maybe they need to hear it from someone who has authority over them,' he said. They stopped by the path leading to the building's orchard and garden. A slurry of fallen petals and leaves lay at their feet. Huan nibbled on it delicately, then spat it out with a displeased snort.

'Maybe they need someone to send them to their rooms without dinner.' Her tone was a little jokey, but he knew she wasn't mocking him. Even in the cloud-thinned light, he could tell her eyes were tinged with worry.

'You know I have to solve this,' he said. 'I have to prove myself; that's the whole point of this trip. Just—' He laid a hand on her arm. 'You have to trust I can handle this. Well, that we can handle this. You're going to give me advice, aren't you?' He chuckled, but she didn't join in.

'It's not either of us I'm worrying about,' she said.

*

They arrived in Yulong under a sky bearing a flock of clouds the colour of faded charcoal. Seen from the road, the city seemed to reflect the weather: the building style was similar to what Sozin had seen in the other western parts of the country, a mix of the architecture he was used to in the capital and a style that reminded him a little of the Fire Temples. Here, however, the roofs were dark slate instead of red tile and the city seemed somehow guarded, as though it were a huge snail-sloth sunk into its shell, lying in the middle of a forest-ringed plain filled with orchards and rice paddies and flower fields.

The sun was blazing through a thin shower of rain when they entered the city proper, but that did nothing to dispel Sozin's first impression. The people in the streets barely looked at the carriages; mostly they hurried towards wherever they were going. Most people in the Fire Nation disliked rain, but even the plazas with parasols and covered terraces were almost empty. The only people that moved at a somewhat leisurely pace were—

'There are an awful lot of hired soldiers here,' Sozin said.

'Of course,' Bao said. 'Did you expect Lord Kazu and Lady Yin to have their little dispute around a Pai Sho board?'

'It would certainly be convenient for us if they did,' Ta Min said.

'They would probably find a way to maim each other with the tiles.' Bao's tone wasn't entirely dour. 'At least the provincial army is headquartered somewhere else. It would be rather distasteful if we had to pay for their little war as well as endure it.'

The skin on Sozin's shoulders suddenly felt too tight. A jumble of images: the tents at Shukai, the councils he'd attended at the palace with people talking until he was drowsy, Lady Mei holding a glistening cherry with her chopsticks, the Keeper of the Flame and his grandmother speaking with a single voice over a game board made up of constellations. Then a memory from his studies, all kinds of figures and numbers about Yulong and its role in the complicated pattern of politics and trade in the Fire Nation.

I can't do this. I'm only sixteen.

He took a moment to realise the thought was his own. Doubt was unfamiliar, down to its taste in his mouth, like bitter almonds and a handful of copper coins.

Of course I can do this. I'm the Crown Prince. He leaned back in his seat and tried to feel confident again. The Keeper returned, breath rippling a flame-coloured cloth. Firebending is will. A green-yellow sky where the stars were strange. He had been found worthy of learning something utterly important, hadn't he, even if he didn't quite understand what it was just yet.

Even if the memory sent a cold trickle down the nape of his neck.

Bao's voice jerked him out of his thoughts. 'Where are we staying, grandson?' The carriage had slowed to an almost somnolent pace.

'I'm sorry?' Bao had always taken care of their travel arrangements. Some part of him had thought of them like something that just happened, like sunrises and the weather.

'You heard me,' she said. 'You are in charge of this entire… operation. I may advise, I may offer suggestions, but you have the Fire Lord's authority, and therefore you will make the decisions.' Her tone belied her statements a little. 'So, first point of order: where are we staying?'

He thought for a moment. 'We can't stay with either of the families. The other would take that as an insult and a declaration of favouritism. We need to stay in neutral territory, like an inn. One that isn't owned or connected to any of them.'

Bao laid her hands on her lap and the corners of her mouth curled into the thinnest sliver of a smile.

That was enough for Sozin. He popped his head out the window and told Shou to keep going until they found a decent-looking inn, where, if worst came to worst, they could at least ask for directions to a more suitable establishment. Then he drew back inside and leaned back in his seat.

This is going to be a piece of sun cake.

*

The day after Sozin's party arranged for their accommodation at The Scarlet Parrot-skink, he answered the welcome messages Lord Kazu and Lady Yin had sent him once he had arrived in the city. He thanked them for their attention, casually mentioned the dispute about the Jade Dragon as though it were an argument about whether or not to have stewed sea-prunes for lunch, and expressed his hopes that he might aid with a quick resolution of the matter. He finished with an invitation to join him so that they might discuss the issue in confidence.

He neglected to mention that he had scheduled both invitations for the same time.

So now he was looking out one of the windows overlooking the inn's entrance, waiting for the two parties to arrive. Bao sat behind him, working on some embroidery. She had kept a constant eye on him while he had written the letters, saying nothing but making him feel like she was noting down all his mistakes for future reference. 'Here they are,' he said. 'They don't look very happy.'

'Were you expecting them to rush into each other's arms?' Bao said behind him.

'I wasn't expecting them to barely avoid coming to blows in the middle of the street.' He looked down again. The two groups had managed not to start a fight, and the few bystanders, realising there would be nothing to either see or flee from, went back to what they'd been doing.

'What are they like, grandson?'

Another test. That had been another of his grandmother's lessons, even if she hadn't voiced it out loud yet: everything was a test, but that didn't make its consequences any less real. He looked out of the window at the two groups entering the inn's courtyard, making a point of standing as far away from each other as possible.

'They don't like each very much,' he said.

'Understatement,' Bao said. 'And self-evident; we wouldn't be here if they were paragons of love, friendship and understanding.' She peered over his shoulder. 'They are almost inside. Get better fast, grandson.'

'I meant that this isn't just politics,' he said with another look out the window. 'It's also personal.'

'Of course it's personal,' Bao said. 'Few people in this world can be fully dispassionate. You are supposed to be one of them, incidentally. Carry on.'

Sozin looked down again. The two groups had almost reached the place where one of the slate roofs would block them from view. He turned back to the room. 'Lord Kazu is only a little younger than Lady Yin. He's of a higher class than her, but she's wealthier.'

'I believe she controls most of the manufacture of Yulong's perfumes,' Bao said. 'A very lucrative business.'

'You know all this?' He couldn't keep a note of annoyance from his voice.

'Of course I know all this,' Bao said, focused on her embroidery again. 'The point is whether you know it or not. Please continue.'

'Kazu has a limp. From his stance I'd guess it's a childhood injury and he's worked very hard against it; he doesn't even use a cane. He's a well-trained firebender. Those two younger men with him are his sons. And his entourage doesn't include any servants or attendants, just hired soldiers. Same with Lady Yin, except for her daughter.' He couldn't suppress a little chuckle. 'Actually, the daughter looks a little bit like—'

Oh.

No wonder it was personal.

Bao's face was unchanged, but he could see smugness in her eyes. 'You also knew this part,' he said. It wasn't a question, and he wasn't surprised. He tried to remember if he'd ever learned anything about Lord Yoshi apart from the fact that he was one of the land-owning nobles and he ruled the city of Yulong. He must have vaguely supposed the man had a family, but he was sure he had never wondered about it.

'You can learn all kinds of interesting things when you're having one of those very dull teatimes. Or writing letters to enquire about everyone's children and health.' Sozin was sure it was a rebuke, but he didn't have time to be bothered by it. 'Come, child, we'd better attend to our guests.' She rolled up the fabric and stood up. 'And, Sozin? That was reasonably decent work.'

A few moments later, they were sitting in one of the inn's parlours, which had been reserved for the occasion. After the greetings—Kazu and Yin must truly be on a knife's edge, Sozin thought; they were the most scrupulously polite people Sozin had come across during the whole trip—Aki glided silently through the room, serving tea. Bao pulled out her embroidery again. Lady Yin's daughter, whom her mother had introduced as Yoon, cast a suspicious glance towards Ta Min and Sozin's cousins.

'You may speak freely in front of my relatives and the Lady Ta Min,' Sozin said. The ginseng-scented steam rising from the teapot and cups made the air heavy. 'I trust you both wish to resolve this matter as quick as possible.'

'There is little to resolve,' Lord Kazu said. His voice was gravely, as though purposefully designed to go with the granite-grey streaks in his hair and features that looked like they'd been chiselled from a rock face. 'Lord Yoshi was my father. The Jade Dragon was given to his forefather. It has remained in the hands of our family for generations, from the time the city first existed. When my father died, the Jade Dragon should have passed to me. There is no question of that.'

'There is every question of that,' Yoon said. She set down her teacup on one of the tables hard enough to spill a few drops. Her braids shook a little. Her mother raised a hand and she sat back on her heels. Her eyes were still narrow with anger.

'I was Lord Yoshi's wife,' Yin said. She was a large woman with powdery features, black hair peppered with silvery white, and swaddled in richly embroidered silk; like Kazu, she was still wearing a few strips of mourning white. Had she really built a fortune on scent? Sozin had never thought much about perfumes and scented oils. They were just something servants at the palace rubbed in his hair and skin after his bath, laundered into his clothes and bedding. He hadn't even made the connection when he'd learned about the trade in sandalwood and flower oils and grey amber. Now Lady Yin's face gave it the stamp of reality. He put the thought away as she spoke again. 'When he married me, he brought the Jade Dragon with him to our household. He meant for Yoon to have it.'

Kazu let out a snort of derision. 'He took the Jade Dragon with him because the Jade Dragon goes where its keeper goes. He never meant to deprive his son of his rightful inheritance.'

Sozin cleared his throat. 'That is the question here, then, isn't it?' He set down his own teacup and laid his hands on his chair's arms. He wasn't sitting on one of the cushions on the floor mats; the Crown Prince and envoy of the Fire Lord had to be above everyone. 'Who can claim rightful inheritance.'

'Mother already told you,' Yoon said, not bothering to conceal her irritation. 'Prince Sozin,' she added hurriedly, and dropped her gaze. 'My father—'

Kazu rolled his eyes. He didn't make a sound, but Yoon whipped her head towards him like a snake-owl spotting a field mouse. 'You wouldn't dare.'

He ignored Yoon and addressed her mother. 'Dare to do what? Talk about whatever your mother did to convince my father to marry her?'

Sozin was sure that if Yin hadn't put a hand on her daughter's arm, Yoon would have jumped straight at Kazu's throat. His whole party tensed. Now the air was thick not with tea steam but hostility.

'I did nothing,' Yin said. Her voice was as hard and flat as a paring knife. 'I assure you he married me of his own free will. Or are you going to add deceit or blackmail to the list of your ridiculous accusations? It won't make your case better, I assure you.'

'No, the fact that I am Lord Yoshi's oldest child is what makes my case better than yours,' Kazu said, clearly unimpressed. 'The fact that he was fool enough to fall for the patter of someone young enough to—'

'Ah, we finally come to the real point,' Yin said with a bitter chuckle. 'You can't bear the fact that—'

They started arguing over each other. 'Quiet,' Sozin said. They stopped and looked at him, and for a moment he was sure they weren't going to obey him, that the only thing they saw was a child forty years younger than themselves. What could he possibly know about their problems? Then they quietened, even if it was reluctantly. 'Your personal issues are not my concern, and arguing won't solve anything.' He thought for a moment. 'I take it neither of you would like the Fire Lord—or me, rather, as his representative—to simply appoint a ruler for Yulong.'

'No.'

'Certainly not.'

Well, at least you agree on something, Sozin thought, rather tartly. 'The rightful owner of the Jade Dragon has always been the ruler of Yulong,' Kazu said. 'It carries the blessing and protection of the spirits. It has always been that way, and it will be that way for as long as Yulong endures.'

'Really?' Sozin said. 'What would happen if someone were to lose it?'

'Lose it?' Yin sounded like she hadn't understood what Sozin had just said. He glanced over at his cousins. Lu Ling was picking at the skin around her fingernails and Ryun looked like he was biting down a particularly nasty joke.

'No rightful owner of the Jade Dragon would lose it,' Kazu said, and cast a withering look towards Yin and her entourage. 'I can't really speak for anyone else.'

Yoon opened her mouth, but Sozin spoke before she could get out what would no doubt be a yell or a challenge. 'That's enough. If you'd like to fight, I suggest you do it outside, and for the statue's ownership. But that's not what you want, is it? If you were willing to fight an Agni Kai for it, you'd already have done it and I wouldn't be here right now.'

'None of us are going to fight over something that is ours by right,' Kazu's oldest son said. It was the first time he had spoken since they had exchanged greetings.

'What he means is that none of them would dare to go up against Yoon,' Yin said, her tone still flat. 'Isn't that the truth,' her daughter muttered. Sozin jumped to his feet before another argument—well, a worse argument—could break out.

'I said that would be enough,' he said, and walked between the two parties. All of them looked as taut as drawn bowstrings, and the air had that subtle bubbling quality that preceded a firebender's strike. For a second, Sozin felt as insubstantial as a scrap of rice paper, one they would burn up and trample underfoot in their eagerness to get at each other. Then he was Crown Prince Sozin again and the feeling was gone. He kept pacing, hands behind his back.

'Let me summarise the facts,' he said. 'Lord Yoshi inherited the Jade Dragon, and with it the rulership of Yulong.' He spun around. 'Was your mother his first wife, Lord Kazu?'

'Yes.' He could tell Kazu wasn't pleased with having to answer to and obey a sixteen-year-old. Well, that was too bad.

'So you were in line to inherit the Jade Dragon. Did she die?'

Another bitten-off answer. 'She did. Thirty years ago. Almost five years befo—'

'Yes, thank you, Lord Kazu. Then Lord Yoshi married Lady Yin and took the Jade Dragon with him to her household. Is this correct, Lady Yin?'

'That is correct. He didn't want to—'

'That is not important,' Sozin said. He turned around to Lu Ling. 'Lu Ling, you must know the answer to this. What does Fire Nation law concerning inheritance say in these cases?'

Lu Ling startled a little. 'Oh. I—well, as a rule, the oldest child inherits.' An angry mutter rose from Yin's party, but Lu Ling pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose and carried on. 'But the intentions of the parent can supersede that.'

'That's what we've been saying—' Yoon said, but her mother quietened her again before speaking. 'My husband brought the Jade Dragon with him to our home. I think his intentions in the matter are fairly clear.'

'I don't have to listen to this nonsense,' Kazu said. He turned to Sozin. 'Prince Sozin, I have already explained that the Jade Dragon goes wherever—'

'Where its owner goes, yes,' Sozin said with a dismissive gesture. 'Even so, I think Lord Yoshi's decision to join Lady Yin's household and take it with him is certainly… suggestive. I take it there is no will,' he added before anyone could protest.

'No,' Yin said. For the first time, her tone wasn't completely devoid of emotion. 'He slipped into a coma all of a sudden and he… well, he didn't really regain consciousness again.'

Kazu made a sound of derision. 'Yes, you would say that, wouldn't—'

'I have already asked for your silence twice, haven't I?' Sozin said. He didn't sound angry; he sounded like his father when he sat on the Dragon Throne and issued an order, and for a moment he didn't feel annoyance, or uncertainty, or apprehension, just a stray glimmer of pride.

Kazu and Yin turned to polite acquiescence and reassurances. They weren't being sincere, but Sozin appreciated it nonetheless. He walked back to his seat. 'I believe I have heard enough for now.' He laced his fingers under his chin. 'We will discuss this matter further very soon. Please understand that the Fire Lord wishes to see this matter resolved in the most satisfactory fashion possible for your city and our nation.' He made sure to emphasise the last few words; let them know what his priority was.

His guests started readying their exit. 'Thank you for your invitation and for gracing us with your presence, Crown Prince Sozin,' Lord Kazu said. 'And for taking the time to help us with our problems, even though they are unworthy of your attention. Of course, I am sure you agree there is only one possible outcome.'

'Yes,' Lady Yin said. 'There is only one possible outcome.'

The air in the room almost hummed.

*

'That could have gone better,' Sozin said once Kazu and Yin's parties were out of the inn and out of sight.

Ryun leaned back against a wall and laced his hands behind his head. 'In the same way that setting yourself on fire is a sign that your firebending could have gone better, yes.'

'Now, now,' Jaya said, and stood up to retrieve the teapot. 'Sozin did his best with a hard problem. It was hardly that bad. Who would like some more tea? It's such a lovely brew it seems a shame to waste it.'

'Actually, it really was that bad,' Bao said from her corner. She began putting her embroidery away. 'Oh, I'm not blaming you, grandson. There's only so much even the best firebender can do with little air. Even if you do have to learn how to work with it.'

Sozin remained in his spot. 'What would you do in my position?'

'Be unhappy that we suddenly found ourselves in your position?' Ta Min said. She had one of her usual amused looks on, but she managed to make it sound sympathetic.

'Thank you for your honesty, child,' Bao said, and folded her hands on her lap. 'But you are right.' Her gaze, flat, turned to Sozin. 'Unfortunately, no matter what you decide, I doubt the other family would accept your judgement. I do not envy your position, grandson.' Something in her tone made Sozin wonder if she had the solution and was just waiting to see how long he'd take to figure it out.

'They wouldn't dare to go up against the Fire Lord,' he said. His words rung hollow even to himself.

'Certainly. Civil wars and assassinations are completely unheard of in Fire Nation history,' Bao said. Everyone fell silent. It was the first time Sozin had heard her use that sort of sarcasm. When she spoke again, her tone turned a little mellower. 'No, they probably won't risk going against the Fire Lord directly. But whoever does not get that statue will not accept your decision. They will fight the other family for the Jade Dragon. And then your father will wish to send the provincial army to deal with them, but he will have to wait until doing so outweighs their other obligations and the downsides of having the army intervene. And even then both families will fight for the statue for as long as they can. Which means that when all is over bar the shouting, the casualties… well, that is a good question, isn't it, grandson? What kind of figures do you think we're looking at? Mid-hundreds? High-hundreds? Something in the low thousands?'

Sozin didn't answer.

'Surely, it won't get to that point?' Jaya said. 'Are they really more willing to start a local war than to reach a compromise?'

'Yes,' Ryun said. He got up and helped himself to a cup of tea. 'Yes, they are. Do any of you really think this is all over some trinket? No, the statue is just an excuse. It might as well have been Lord Yoshi's imaginary friend.'

'Well, obviously the rulership of the city—' Sozin started, but Ryun interrupted him once he'd downed a gulp of tea.

'No, no, it's not the rulership. That just makes them more dangerous. But they would still be fighting if one was a clerk and the other a cook. That's what people are like.'

'I find that hard to believe,' Sozin said. Ryun laughed.

'You're something else, you know that, little cousin? No, no, I don't mean it's something bad,' he added once he saw Sozin's expression. 'It's just that you think that everyone else is as noble as you—'

'I don't—'

'Or at least as reasonable as you.'

'That's new,' Sozin said, and walked to one of the windows. 'I've never been accused of being reasonable. Naive, yes. Full of myself, yes. Reasonable is a new one.' He ran a hand over the sill. He wasn't sure what to think, so he thought nothing. He was still reeling a little from the meeting, he supposed.

'But you think they can talk it over, that they can compromise,' Ryun said as he paced around the room, teacup still in his hand like a bottle of wine. 'That would be the reasonable—the sensible thing to do. But that's not what people want. They just want an excuse to fight. Statues, power, jealousy, bad blood.' He drank down the last dregs of his tea. 'If you give someone a choice between gaining something or losing something but getting one over someone they dislike, they'll pick the latter every time. Trust me. Sometimes the world is like a bad joke. You just don't see it for what it is.'

Sozin shook his head. 'I'm sorry, but I can't believe that.' It might even be true. Maybe he didn't see the world as it was; but how could anything get better if you didn't see it as it could be? 'Lu Ling, what do you think about this? Who should I give the statue to?'

'Oh, I don't really know,' she said with a sigh, and twirled a lock of hair around her fingers. Clearly this was going to be a day of firsts. 'I think—maybe if you found something, some piece of evidence about who really owns the statue. Something that no one can argue with. Or… something,' she added feebly, then sunk back into uncharacteristic silence.

'Oh, nonsense, Ling-Ling,' Ryun said. 'They wouldn't accept any kind of evidence, up to and including the statue racing down from its pedestal, kicking its rightful owner in the butt and then reciting a rhyming epic about it all.'

Sozin didn't reply. He didn't even smile. Something that no one can argue with…

Ta Min got up from her seat and stepped up to him before he could address his question to her. 'Come on,' she said. 'Let's go for a walk in the city. Maybe that will help you think.'

'Do you really think so?'

The sideways gaze and smile again. 'It will certainly help me think.'

*

There had been a little rain in the morning, so a lace of glittering water drops clung to the magnolia and lanhua leaves, to the moss hanging down like grey-green beards. Sozin and Ta Min walked down streets and plazas full of widows shuttered against the damp and the sweltering afternoon heat. The air smelled of wet greenery and of flowers starting to decay.

'This doesn't look good,' Sozin said as they walked across a plaza where a few people were buying things from stalls and hurriedly storing them in their baskets. An elderly man glanced at them and pulled a little girl closer to him before walking away.

'I know. Do you think your grandmother was right when she said all that about casualties? No, never mind, of course she was right. She wouldn't have brought it up otherwise.'

'I didn't mean that,' he said. They moved into an avenue lined with trees, the foliage so thick it made a green tunnel high above them. A carriage rolled past them, its noise muffled by the heavy air. 'Not that that looks any better; but I was talking about the city.'

She gave him a sideways glance. 'You don't think it looks good?'

'I don't think it feels good. It feels… scared. Wary.' He wiped a little sweat off his forehead. He was a firebender and had never been out of the Fire Nation, and was therefore used to heat, but this was unlike any he had ever experienced, even the swampy heat in the heart of the tropical forest. It wasn't all that intense—it was the rainy season, after all—but it made the air feel like it had been locked indoors for too long. 'Like everyone is sure something awful is about to happen. I mean, there was plenty of bad stuff in Shukai, but that was just because they were still recovering from an earthquake. But this… this is the difference between a dog with a broken leg and one waiting for the next blow.' He thought of Huan, left behind in the inn. He couldn't really feel her like usual at this distance, but she was a feather-touch in his mind.

'It just seems so stupid,' he went on. They walked past a fountain and he splashed a little water around. 'This whole place is edging towards war and all this over some stupid statue.'

Ta Min led them towards a winding street. 'Actually, I think your cousin has a point about that.' She tucked a stray strand of hair back into her topknot. 'No, I'm not saying I necessarily agree with what he thinks about the world. It's just that—look, you saw what they were like. Lord Kazu thinks Lady Yin married his father to get her hands on the city—and he'd probably say something involving the words "feminine wiles".'

He turned to her. 'Does anyone really say "feminine wiles"?'

She chuckled. 'Don't you think Lord Kazu is the type to say it? "Wiles", at least.'

'Good point.'

The street opened into another plaza standing at the intersection of a number of roads. There were several shop fronts with plucked turtle-ducks, jars of molasses, boxes of swamp eels. 'And Lady Yin thinks Lord Kazu is just acting out of jealousy and the fact that he disapproves of his father marrying someone only slightly older than his own son.'

'I know,' he said. He walked towards the road on the western side of the plaza. 'You'd think they'd be able to get over it, though. Put it aside, I mean. For the sake of the city. Can't they see what they're doing to it?' He paused. 'Who do you think I should give the statue to?'

She shrugged. 'Maybe you should just cut it in half.'

'And then Lord Kazu would want it cut width-wise and Lady Yin would want it cut lengthways.' They chuckled, but when Ta Min spoke again her tone was serious.

'Maybe you should give it to someone else entirely. A third party who'd be loyal to your father.'

'It wouldn't work,' he said. The road was narrowing into a warren of alleyways. 'You heard them—Kazu and Yin would never accept it. They'd just gang up on the poor unfortunate. Either way, we'd still have war. Then again, the same can be said for everything else. It might be worth a try.' He sighed and threw his hands in the air. 'I wish Roku were here.'

There was a wryness to her face, even though she didn't smile. 'He could knock some sense into them with his Avatar powers, I'm sure.'

He stopped by a stone alcove set into the alleyway. Above them the roofs on each side of the alleyway almost touched, and the afternoon's humid heat pooled over the paving stones. 'It's not that,' he said, and leaned against the alcove's corner. 'I'm not saying that wouldn't help. I'm sure it would. But I'm not talking about him being the Avatar. It's just… he's really smart, you know. He sometimes doesn't think he is, but that's not true—he's one of the smartest people I know. And…' He looked at the ground, where the tip of his shoe was busy trying to dislodge a stone. 'I think better when he's around. I know it sounds silly, but it's true. When we were being tutored and we were given a problem to solve, just having him work with me made me think… oh, I don't know. It was as though I could think faster. Better. Do you think that can be true, or am I just imagining things?'

'No, I don't think you are. Sometimes other people make us better.' She pulled on his sleeve. 'Come on, we should probably head back to the inn.'

'Yeah,' Sozin said, and all of a sudden he realised two things: the first was that he had no idea where he was.

The second was that there were footsteps close behind them, and they didn't sound like people just walking somewhere; they sounded like the footfalls of a cat stalking a spider-mouse.

He stayed perfectly still.

'Don't move,' he whispered to Ta Min, his heartbeats almost louder than his voice. 'There's people almost right behind us and they don't sound—'

The tip of a blade touched his lower back. He sensed at least two people right behind him, large and heavy.

—friendly.

'Give us all your money and there won't be any trouble,' said a voice that sounded like the kind of trouble that involved broken bones and missing fingers.

A flash of steel so fast it nicked one of the muggers and sprayed a little blood on the ground. He didn't even have time to wince. 'Gentlemen,' Ta Min said. The tip of one of her butterfly swords was a few inches away from the throat of the man nearest to her. 'You will unhand us.'

Sozin spun around with a kick that knocked the assailant's blade away and blasted him with a small fireball before the man even had time to react. The man stumbled back with a groan and patted down the fire on his midsection. White-hot flames burst from Sozin's hands and he dropped into an attack stance. 'No one needs to get hurt,' he said. At his side, Ta Min held her swords professionally low, ready to strike.

'Fuck this,' one of the men said, and the duo ran off, vanishing down one of the alleyways. Sozin didn't even have time to get a good look at their faces. He let the fire in his hands go out. Ta Min sheathed her swords.

The whole thing had only lasted two seconds, but they were both panting, he realised. As much as firebenders could pant, anyway. His heart thudded against his breastbone.

'That was… new,' Ta Min said, and pulled a stray strand of hair away from her face. The air in the alleyway was full of the acrid aftermath of fire.

'Are you all right?' he said.

'Yeah.' A deep breath. 'You?'

'Sure. Well,' Sozin said, and he couldn't help but look down to see if all of his body parts were there and accounted for, 'at least I got to see how good you are with those blades.'

+++

Notes: The bit with Sozin thinking about the implications of saying human life has no price borrows from another character's similar considerations in one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. The scene where Sozin and Ta Min almost get mugged (and really, is there a better example of the Mugging the Monster trope? ;)) is loosely based on a similar scene involving Dan and Laurie in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel Watchmen.

Chapter 11: The Jade Dragon

Summary:

Sozin visits Lord Kazu and Lady Yin to learn more about them and their dispute over the Jade Dragon, then comes up with a Cunning Plan that involves... well, let's just say that the fact that I'm posting this on Halloween is a happy coincidence.

Chapter Eleven: The Jade Dragon

He ended up asking Bao for help, but not with the statue. He wanted to make sure nothing in the phrasing of his next set of letters would raise Kazu and Yin's suspicions.

So now he was at Lord Kazu's home in the oldest part of the city, an austere building surrounded by rock gardens and rows of perfectly symmetrical willow trees. As a gesture of good will, he had come accompanied only by Lee and Shou, who were now waiting for him in the carriage house as he walked down corridors lined with portraits of Lord Kazu's ancestors. A lot of them, he noticed, had been painted with the Jade Dragon in the frame.

'I am glad you have decided to hear my case in person, Prince Sozin,' Lord Kazu said. The ceiling lamps cast a sickly yellow light on the corridor, and the air smelled of wax and heavy fabric.

'Yes,' Sozin said, and paused to look at a portrait of a woman whose only similarity to his host was a certain cast around the eyes. He turned back to Kazu, who was flanked by his two sons. 'I was actually hoping you might be able to tell me more than what you said at our previous meeting.'

Kazu opened his mouth, then turned to his sons. 'Noru, Ito… leave us, please.'

'Father…' Noru—the eldest—began, but Kazu interrupted him.

'Please, son.' It was a request, not an order. Noru hesitated for a moment and exchanged a glance with his brother, then both men bowed to Sozin and excused themselves. Their steps echoed down the corridor. Kazu waited until they were out of sight before he spoke again and resumed his walk.

'I didn't want to discuss this matter in front of the children.' The youngest of the "children" looked at least five years older than Sozin, but he said nothing. This close, the stiffness in Kazu's leg looked more pronounced than ever. Sozin wondered why he didn't use a cane. 'My wife lives elsewhere. She has… health difficulties.'

A polite way of saying she's insane, Sozin thought, and couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. He also wondered why Kazu felt compelled to bring it up. He didn't see why it mattered for the situation at hand, but it clearly mattered to Kazu, and he remembered every single one of Bao's lessons. He filed the fact away for future reference. 'I am sorry to hear that,' he said. 'Hopefully she will have a speedy recovery.'

Kazu just nodded and they stepped into a room that opened into one of the gardens. Thin curtains billowed in the weak breeze. A servant approached, bearing a tray with golden glasses. 'Star fruit liquor,' Kazu said, and offered Sozin a glass. 'A speciality of Yulong.'

The amber liquid tasted overly sweet at first but had a sour kick once Sozin swallowed. He said nothing and waited for Kazu to talk. The older man had walked to the garden doors and stood silhouetted by the afternoon light. Inside, the room was full of shadows, and silence, and age.

'Do you know how I injured my leg?' It was clearly a rhetorical question. Kazu turned back to the room. 'I was a child. It was my father's fault.' He gestured with his hand before Sozin could say anything. 'Oh, it was an accident, of course. Nothing could have prevented it. But my father blamed himself. It is not easy to reason with guilt, and I was not at an age to do so.' He looked at Sozin, his gaze blank and steady. Sozin needed all his self-control not to look at Kazu's leg; it was like that game in which you tried not to think of a pink camelephant. 'And once I was old enough to do it, well… it had happened too long ago, it was always there. Do you know what it's like, to have something that's both too big and too small to talk about?'

A memory flashed instantly in Sozin's mind: his father teaching him to play Pai Sho. At some point he had needed to switch to his left hand, and after a while, Sozin had had to help him move the tiles. 'Yes,' he said.

A brief dismissive glance, then Kazu regained his poker-faced composure. 'Yes, I do believe you do.' He set his glass down. 'If you speak with Yin, she'll tell you I am jealous of her. That I think it was that old melodrama story of the wealthy old man without a drop of common sense chasing after a wily younger woman with a good figure and an interest in money.'

Sozin had to bite his tongue to suppress a peal of laughter. "Wily" wasn't exactly "wiles", but it still counted. 'I was under the impression that Lady Yin was a woman of considerable means before she married Lord Yoshi.'

'She was. She also wasn't a twenty-year-old fake innocent looking for a rich old man. I said that's her idea of what I think, not what I really think,' he added with a mechanical touch of arrogance. 'But there's a kernel of truth to it. My father was an intelligent man, but she made him lose his good sense, even if it wasn't with youth and beauty. It was…' He turned away from Sozin and paced across the room. 'My mother had died, and then my wife began having her… problems. So then there were only the two of us and his young grandsons.'

He fell silent for a moment. Outside, a bird let out a mournful cry and flew off in a rustle of wings. Sozin thought of the two men locked together in this house with its shuttered windows and whispering corridors, like two sharp-edged pebbles thrown together in a cup. Some part of him couldn't help but feel a little angry. He would have given everything to have Roku remain with him, but he'd always been told that the world needed an Avatar, and the world was more important than his personal feelings.

'That was the kind of bait Yin offered him, you see,' Kazu went on. 'Some sort of second chance. The kind of family that… oh, who knows? I am sure she worked very hard to surround him with something out of a child's storybook. Something impossibly perfect and reassuring. Enough to keep him with her, and keep him from thinking.'

Sozin laced his hands behind his back. 'It seems like a great deal of work just for the sake of marrying Lord Yoshi.'

Kazu turned to him, a flash of something in his dark eyes. 'Of course. If that were her only purpose.'

'So you believe her intentions from the start were to gain the rulership of Yulong,' Sozin said, his voice flat. It wasn't a question.

'Perhaps.' He shrugged. 'But as a merchant she certainly benefited from marrying my father. Having the ruler of Yulong on your side gives you quite an edge in business negotiations,' he said, and resumed his pacing. His limp made the rhythm of his footfalls sound a little jarring. 'Who knows what her true motives were? I am not privy to her thoughts. She certainly tried to ingratiate herself with me after the marriage. She turned rather cold once she realised I saw right through her.' He stopped and looked back at Sozin. The hardness in his eyes was half gone, like a pair of curtains pulled back a little to reveal something Sozin couldn't quite name. 'My father never took the statue into her house, you know.'

'But during the meeting it was stated—'

Kazu nodded. 'He took the statue into her household. He never took it inside her house.' He paused. 'My family has been ruling Yulong for generations untold. That was what my father raised me to do. I know the nobility of this region and province, and they know me.' His gaze slid towards Sozin. 'But I don't need to explain this to the Crown Prince, do I?'

The bird in the garden was back. 'No. You do not.' He was telling him he'd have the support of the nobility if hostilities broke out between him and Yin.

'My father and I both made mistakes. Our city shouldn't have to suffer for their sake.'

*

Lady Yin and her daughter lived in one of the walled estates enclosed by the city's tree-lined avenues. The house sat like sculpted ivory set into jewelled gardens full of leaves and flowers glistening with dew. Colourful birds flitted in an aviary at the back of the house, where there were also glass sheds full of flowers with petals the size of his palm.

'When I was a child, my mother and my aunt owned a small perfumer's workshop in the city's west side,' Lady Yin said as she took him on a tour of the grounds. 'That was a long time ago, of course. But even today I like to select some of the flowers and oils myself. Habit, I suppose.'

They moved to a covered terrace on the side of the house. 'I understand you have had great success in the perfume business.'

'I have been blessed with a great deal of luck,' Yin said with the usual polite modesty.

'Mother is brilliant,' Yoon said, unable to keep fervour off her voice; Sozin didn't think she bothered to keep her emotions in check all that much. 'She's talented and smart. She's the wealthiest person in the city and she did it all herself. She didn't rely on—' She glanced at Sozin and hesitated mid-word.

'May I see the Jade Dragon?' Sozin said. Yoon's expression turned blank again.

Yin stopped before they reached the terrace. 'Would that help you make your decision?'

'I believe I should have as much information about the situation as possible,' he said.

Yin thought for a moment. Yoon's gaze slid between him and her mother. 'Very well, Prince Sozin,' Yin finally said. When she spoke again her tone was still as flat as ever, but it had acquired a drop of the personal. 'Kazu wouldn't like knowing that you're at my estate, let alone that I'm showing you the statue.'

They walked down a curving garden path surrounded by heavy vegetation. Sozin caught a glimpse of a spider-monkey scrambling above the palm fronds. A pair of armed guards parted to let them pass and they stepped into a stretch of lawn surrounding a round stone pavilion. There were guards everywhere: around the pavilion, in the paths leading up to it, by the high wall surrounding the gardens. She must be expecting an attack at any time.

'Precautions,' she said, as though she had read his mind. 'This way, please.'

'Lord Yoshi didn't take the Jade Dragon into your house when he married you?'

They stepped into the pavilion under the gaze of a dozen guards who, Sozin was sure, were ready to strike at the first false move, Crown Prince or no Crown Prince. The pavilion was full of cool shadows despite the sunlight outside, so at first he could barely make out the statue. Then he stepped closer and his eyes adjusted to the dark and he saw it.

It was much smaller than he expected, and covered in jade so dull it was almost grey instead of green. Its features were rather coarse, unlike the exquisite carvings in the palace. A war over this? he thought. It sounded like a bad joke, as Ryun would put it; the statue looked like the sort of thing you'd find in the corner of a shop selling second-hand junk, next to a vase with a crack, a fan with a rip, and a cupboard missing a drawer.

And yet… there was something about it, wasn't there? Something that drew you in, like a poorly done picture that was nonetheless fascinatingly ugly.

Only that wasn't the right word either. He stepped closer to it. Its features seemed to shift, like the shimmer on a dragonfly's wings. He felt his lungs swell with each breath. Had this really come from the Spirit World? From some place where—no, that was only a legend, surely. Cold sweat pearled his forehead. He took another step and the statue's pupilless eyes followed his motion. Something was whispering with a tongue of dried leaves, very far away…

'—be frank about it.'

He turned to Lady Yin, the spell broken. The statue was only a statue again. He glanced at Yoon, trying to figure out what he'd missed and cursing himself for his silliness.

Yin misinterpreted his glance at her daughter. 'I have no secrets from Yoon,' she said, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Yoon's hand went to her mother's. 'I am sure,' Yin went on, 'that Kazu would tell you that I married his father out of greed and self-interest.'

He turned his back to the statue and let his gaze slide over the walls and the guards. Once his back was turned to the thing it was hard to figure out why it had affected him at all. 'It was clear in our meeting that he objected to the marriage.'

'If there was self-interest involved, it was on my husband's part,' she said. 'If you have seen enough, Prince Sozin…'

He didn't mind stepping back into the sunlight. 'I know what my marriage must have looked like to outsiders,' Yin said, her tone still flat. Her silk clothes rustled with each step. 'But that was not what it was like at all. I was married once before, you know.'

'I wasn't aware of that,' Sozin said. The house was back in sight and a gaggle of birds were chattering to each other in the nearby aviary.

'Few people are. It was a rather… bad marriage.' This time she couldn't keep a shudder from her voice, even if her expression remained unchanged. 'After my divorce, I wasn't keen on repeating the experience. And I hardly needed to. I was wealthy, a successful perfume merchant respected by almost everyone I did business with. There was nothing Yoshi could offer me that I didn't already have.'

'Except for the rulership of Yulong,' Sozin said. Yoon glared at him, then quickly turned her eyes away. Yin just smiled wryly.

'Yes, there is that,' she said, then looked at the terrace right in front of them. 'But the truth is that money is power.' Ah, here we go, Sozin thought. He'd been wondering how long Yin would take to mention who'd back her against Kazu. Yin carried on. 'And the truth is that Yoshi fell in love with me. That's all there was to it, and that was what his son couldn't deal with.'

'You sound rather certain about that,' Sozin said.

They didn't sit down. 'I am certain that Kazu felt that his father favoured Yoon and me over his first family, yes. That was not true…' She paused. 'Or maybe it was. I think I am old enough to admit the fact that parents are no better than anyone else. My husband certainly wasn't. Love doesn't make you blind. It just makes you accept other people as they are, not as you'd wish them to be.' Her head turned towards the Jade Dragon's pavilion, hidden behind the rows of trees. 'I am not responsible for whatever lay between my husband and his son, and I am certainly not responsible for his son's resentment of me.' She took a few steps around the terrace, towards nowhere in particular. Her daughter's gaze remained fastened on her. She stopped and looked at Sozin again, the sunlight gilding her hair. 'I tried to be on good terms with Kazu, for the sake of the family, but he wouldn't have it, and I am not the sort of person who is kind to those who are unkind to me.' She paused.

'That was why my husband wouldn't bring the Jade Dragon into the house, you know,' she said. 'Right now, Kazu would take it as a declaration of war, so I can't do it until this matter is solved. But when my husband was still alive, he did it to mollify his son's resentment, even though he meant for me and Yoon to have it all along. He wanted the Jade Dragon to go the best possible owner, and I intend to respect his wishes. This shouldn't be decided based on someone's resentment—should it?'

*

When Roku had still been living at the palace, talking to him had always made their problems feel smaller, as though putting them in words made them shrink like puddles under a summer sun, into little puzzle pieces that Sozin always knew what to do with.

This time, when he returned to the inn and laid out what he'd learned to Ta Min and his relatives, it had the opposite effect. Maybe it only works with Roku, he thought, and glanced at the roofs of the city around him. From the inn's window, it was hard to imagine a war was brewing. The slate tiles shone softly in the autumn sun, and the only sounds were the usual distant babble that you heard in every city, the noise of thousands of people living close together.

'So all you learned is that they really, really hate each other,' Ryun said behind him. 'Well, that was a waste of an afternoon.'

Sozin ran a hand over the windowsill. 'You know, if they worked together I don't think there would be anything they couldn't do for their city,' he said. 'Kazu has been raised since birth for rulership and responsibility. I am sure the city respects his family's authority, and he struck me as the sort of person who knows what it entails. And Yin, well, Yin is a brilliant merchant. She knows the city's merchant class and she turned a small store into a fortune. Together—'

He turned around in time to see Ryun laugh, and once again he didn't mind it, even though it was at his expense. 'Together, they could do anything! They could rule the world!' He stopped in mock puzzlement. 'Hang on, maybe that's not such a good idea.'

'That's not very helpful, Ryun,' Jaya said, one hand on her bump.

'I know,' Ryun said, and he flashed a golden smile at Sozin. 'I'm sorry, little cousin. I just—'

'I know, I know, you see things as they really are,' Sozin said, and took a few steps across the room, the last few days churning in his mind. Ta Min shifted on her heels and Bao appeared absorbed in her embroidery. 'And I am terribly naive and just see everything as I think it should be and don't even notice the gaping chasm between the two.'

'Hey, I didn't say—'

'No, it's all right,' Sozin said, and before he could add anything, Ta Min spoke.

'It's a shame they aren't willing to fight an Agni Kai for the statue.' She smiled wanly. 'Why couldn't their mutual hatred work for you for a change?'

'I think their main objection is that an Agni Kai wouldn't last for nearly long enough,' Ryun said. 'For—'

'Wait.' The word was out of Sozin's mouth before he could even think about it. He wasn't seeing the room. There is only one possible outcome. My family has been ruling Yulong for generations untold. Our city shouldn't have to suffer for their sake. He wanted the Jade Dragon to go the best possible owner, and I intend to respect his wishes. Faded jade glistening with an odd white light. He looked back at the room, at the faces of his friend and his relatives. Their expressions ranged from blank to curious to mildly worried.

'I have an idea,' he said.

No one said anything. 'I mean I have a plan to handle all this. But I'm going to need your help.'

A twinge of interest rushed across Bao's expression like summer lightning. 'Do you mean you've decided which family will get the statue?'

'No,' he said. 'But I know how to solve the whole thing. Just hear me out.'

He told them. When he was done, there was a moment of silence. Ryun was the first to react. 'I'll tell you what, little cousin,' he said with a half-grin, 'no one can say you lack daring. Sense, maybe. Daring, no.'

'Yes, yes,' Sozin said with a dismissive gesture. 'That's not the point. Are you all going to help me or not?'

Lu Ling spoke up, one hand pulling at the strands of golden thread in her collar. Her spectacles made her eyes look even wider. 'How—even if this works, how are you supposed to pull this off? How—'

'I memorised the place's layout. And the supplies should be easy to get. Look, I know I can handle that part and I know the three of you can handle your part. Actually, you don't even need to be there if you don't want to. I think that if Ryun—'

'I'll do it,' Ryun said, and stood up with a fluid motion that reminded Sozin a little of a cat stretching in the sun. 'I mean, why not?' he added with a shrug.

Sozin turned to Ta Min. A little unease darkened her eyes. 'You don't have to help me. I know you can do it, and I know I can trust you, but it will be dangerous. If you—'

'I think your plan is crazy.' She sighed. 'Just a bit. But you're my friend. And right now crazy is all we have. I'll help you.'

'Thank you,' he said, and let out half a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He turned to Bao, who hadn't set her embroidery aside throughout the whole conversation. Her needle glittered as she moved it back and forth. 'Grandmother,' he said. 'Is the garrison close enough?'

Bao stuck the needle into the scarlet fabric, tied up the black thread and rolled up her work before putting it away. Her motions were leisurely; the whole process seemed to last forever. Finally, she looked up at Sozin. Her features were still. Her golden eyes were empty, but Sozin was sure there was something underneath, something she didn't want him to see. When she spoke, her tone was dry. 'Yes, the garrison is close enough. But I'm going to need a really good messenger hawk.'

*

It was several hours after sunset, and Lady Yin couldn't remain indoors. She had always been a light sleeper, but it had become worse since her husband's death. After that, sleep had turned into a sheet of rice paper that tore easily and was hard to repair. Once it had become clear that she was going to stay awake for the rest of the night, she had slipped out of her room and gone over her ledgers. When the figures had started to blur together, she had checked on her daughter—Yoon had always been a heavy sleeper—then stepped into the gardens.

Outside, the night was a warm blanket dusted with stars and the flowers and trees were a dark blue dotted here and there with lanterns ringed by clouds of insects. She closed her eyes and focused on the scents around her, trying to block out the noise of crickets. As a child, her aunt had noticed her talent for picking out smells. She had taught her in the back of the workshop until she could tell the contents of a dozen open vials with her eyes closed. Even all these years later, the exercise calmed her. She drew a long breath. Ylang-ylang, firebird flowers, a few lime trees past flowering, a touch of aniseed.

These days she needed anything that could calm her down.

She walked towards the flower pavilions, thinking of the child who had come to see her the previous day. He might be the Crown Prince—he certainly had the clothes and the manners to go with it—but he must be almost ten years younger than Yoon. When Yin looked at him, she didn't see the flame insignia or the Dragon Throne; she only saw someone a few inches shorter than herself with a face still unbearded and round with baby fat. She had to resist the impulse to offer him sweeties and send him to play in the gardens. What could he possibly know about—

A yell.

She stopped walking. The night was full of the cries of cockapigeons and the croaks of badgerfrogs. The gardens were as undisturbed as ever. She must have ima—

More yells, the clash of metal on metal. She gathered the hem of her dress and raced towards the noise. Her breath hitched in her throat.

The Jade Dragon.

She ran, tripped over something on the ground, steadied herself, and started running again. The lights from the lanterns were the size of pinpricks and the gardens seemed suddenly full of bushes and thorny vines ready to snatch at her.

No. He wouldn't dare.

A stitch burned in her side as she raced around the last few rows of trees and bushes enclosing the Jade Dragon's pavilion. Why was it so far away from the house? She tripped again, nearly dove headfirst into a rubber tree. She saw plumes of flame out of the corner of her eye.

'Mother?'

Her daughter's voice, very far away. Yin struggled to her feet and rushed towards the pavilion.

She took a second to understand what was happening.

A figure dressed in midnight blue from head to toe kicked one of her guards, slashed at another two with a sword, and somersaulted onto the pavilion's roof. Stop him, she thought, but the words stuck in her throat. The figure dodged a fire-kick—blast him, he's faster than greased lighting—swung down from the edge of the roof and rammed one guard into another with a kick before he jumped down, then grabbed another guard's spear and used it to spin the man into the path of another fireball before he slammed the weapon into two other guards and ducked inside the pavilion.

'Stop him.' It came out in a thread of voice, and then she was running again and her voice swelled into a yell. 'Stop him! The statue! Be careful with the—'

Her guards only hesitated for a fraction of a second, but it was enough. The thief swung out of the pavilion with a blast of fire that raced down the grass with a roar. One of the guards drew back and rammed into her, knocking her to the ground. More yelled orders from her captain. She raised her head, her breath ragged. The figure was on the other side of the fire line, the statue cradled in his left arm. He raced towards the wall.

'Stop him—stop him! Don't let him get to the wall!' She struggled to her feet. Crossbow bolts rushed through the air and hit the wall just behind the thief, who jumped over a sword-strike, twisted around in mid-air, blocked a flow of fire that nearly hit him and planted a foot on a guard's shoulder so he could propel himself onto the wall.

'No!' Yin turned around. It was her daughter, still in her night-clothes, one hand raised to strike. A volley of fire rushed towards the thief, who just swung over a forest of blades, dodged a few more fireballs, and spun over the high wall as fire smashed against the masonry.

'Get the gate!' Yoon cried, and raced towards it, but her mother knew she was going to use firebending to jump the wall. Yin turned away from her and raced after her guards, barely noticing the pain in her lungs. Her breath was coming in strangled puffs.

The guards nearly splintered the moon gate getting it open and she rushed outside just as her daughter jumped onto the ground. The thief stood in the alleyway behind the house, keeping the outside guards at bay with his sword.

'Ge—' Before Yin could get the words out, before even her daughter could deliver another blow, a mongoose-dragon raced out of nowhere, rammed the two guards out of the way and its rider grabbed the thief's hand while tossing something to the ground.

Smoke erupted in the alleyway as Yoon released twin waves of fire and Yin's guards let out a volley of crossbow bolts. Yin staggered back, her eyes burning. She doubled over, racked with cough. 'Don't let—' It was like trying to speak through mud. No. Not the Jade Dragon. Things couldn't end up like this, with Kazu just taking it from her just because he was Lord Yoshi's son and thought he could take everything he wanted.

The yelling and the noise of fighting had stopped, she realised. Now there were only sounds of confusion, like the baas of a flock of lost koala-sheep. Her daughter was at her side, propping her up. 'Mother—mother, are you all right?'

Yin opened her eyes. The smoke had mostly dispelled and the alleyway was empty. For one mad second, she was sure she had imagined the whole thing—but no, there were the scorch marks and the fallen bolts on the ground. The alley stunk of smoke. Pain hit her, making her muscles wobble. The whole thing had lasted only a few minutes, at most.

'My lady!' One of her guards was running towards her, a piece of paper in his hands. His face was streaked with sweat and guilt. 'The thief dropped this inside the pavilion.'

Of course. None of her guards would firebend in there. Not while the statue—

She snatched it from him. Her hands shook.

The characters were legible even in the weak light in the alleyway. Lady Yin—If you want the Jade Dragon, come to the House of Blue Leaves tonight. There was no signature. Well, there wouldn't be.

She crumpled the paper in her hands. Her daughter spoke to her but she didn't hear it.

She didn't feel the pain in her legs and back anymore. She didn't feel the scratching in her lungs and throat. Right now, all she could feel was anger, not the kind that made you rage and scream, not the kind that had sent her to bed with a churning stomach when she was a child.

The kind that was cold and made her press her lips together until they hurt.

'Mother? What is it?'

Yin let the paper ball fall into her daughter's hand. 'Get everyone together,' she said. 'We're going to pay a visit to Lord Kazu.'

*

They never reached their destination. They came across Lord Kazu's household halfway there. They looked almost as dishevelled as herself and her people, Yin thought. All around them, the city was waking up, and people stared at them from behind shuttered windows. Dogs barked.

Kazu strode towards her. Between all of them, they almost filled up the plaza. 'What is the meaning of this, Yin?' He tossed a piece of paper at her. She caught it in mid-air and knew what the characters said before she finished reading it.

Lord Kazu—If you want the Jade Dragon, come to the House of Blue Leaves tonight.

'Do you think I am going to fall for your tricks?' she said. 'I know you sent someone to steal—'

Kazu snatched the paper back from her hands. 'We didn't steal anything,' he said. 'Someone threw a stone through one of my windows tonight. This paper was wrapped around it.' His voice turned even harder. 'Look, I don't know what kind of scheme you're trying to pull here—'

'Come here, Yoon.' Her daughter stepped up to her, almost shaking with the urge to strike. She was still clutching the paper in one hand and Yin retrieved it from her. 'Someone broke into my estate and stole the Jade Dragon. They left this message behind.'

Kazu's frown deepened as he read the message. He looked up. 'It's in the same hand,' he said. 'You must have—'

Yoon stepped forward. The street lanterns cast a sickly orange light on her light brown skin and she was holding a finger up. 'We? We? You're the one who sent someone to steal the statue.'

'Don't you dare call me a thief,' Kazu snapped. 'You probably arranged the theft yourself to throw suspicion on us. You—' His son stepped up to him and whispered something in his ear. 'What's the House of Blue Leaves?'

She blinked in surprise.

Kazu cocked his head to one side. A few strands of hair escaped his hastily done topknot. 'You don't know, do you?'

Yin thought for a moment. She could feel the tension in her guards. They had failed to get their prey tonight and they were hot with humiliation and hungering for a rematch. It didn't matter with whom. 'If you'd written this, you would have picked a place I'd be sure to be familiar with,' she said. 'There's plenty of those. You wouldn't pick something like this.'

'Mother,' Yoon said, but Yin shushed her, her eyes still on Kazu. His face was hard but betrayed nothing. 'You're not a fool, Kazu. I may not have any great regard for you, but I'd never think you're stupid.'

'Why, thank you,' Kazu said. His tone wasn't sarcastic—it wasn't in his repertoire—but it let her know, once again, that the feeling was mutual.

'It's a teahouse.' She turned around. It was one of her guards, his face starting to swell where the thief had kneed it. He sank a little into his armour. 'The House of Blue Leaves, I mean. It's a teahouse. It's not very far from here.'

Kazu and Yin looked at each other. Cold anger. Not even the orange-yellow light was enough to warm it.

'It's a trap,' Yoon said.

'That's why we're going together,' Yin said. 'Right?'

'Right,' Kazu said, after a moment's pause.

Like two hyena-sharks circling each other in the depths.

*

Just as the guard had said, the House of Blue Leaves was not far from the Western Plaza. At that late hour, the squat building was empty and shuttered, the tables outside looking like the deck of a ghost ship. Everything was—

No, not everything was dark. There was a weak light coming from inside. 'Come on,' Yin said to Kazu.

The building's front door was ajar.

All of a sudden Yin wasn't sure if this was a good idea.

'After you,' she said.

'Oh, no,' Kazu said, his tone grim. He touched the door, which swung back a little with a creak. 'We're doing this together. Just like you said.'

The first thing Yin saw inside the tearoom was a dragon. It must be very young—it was only six or seven feet long, too small to fly or firebend—and under the lights, its blue-purple scales almost sparkled.

The second thing Yin saw was two young people next to the dragon, one standing, the other sitting and holding—her heart lurched—the Jade Dragon in one hand. He was leaning back, one ankle on his knee, and still wearing the dark blue outfit, but he'd taken off the hood and Lady Yin recognised him despite the black face-paint he was still wearing around his eyes like a half mask.

It was Crown Prince Sozin.

He grinned, shook the Jade Dragon like a juggling ball, and spoke before anyone else could react. 'Looking for this?'

+++

Notes: Do I really have to explain where Sozin's little stunt with the Jade Dragon comes from? ;) I swear, the genetics of this family would make Gregor Mendel turn to drink.

Chapter 12: Severing the Knot

Summary:

Sozin learns that the end justifies the means, provided the means are sufficiently Crazy Awesome.

Chapter Twelve: Severing the Knot

'Looking for this?'

For a moment, no one reacted. There are quite a lot of them, Sozin thought, rather giddily. What he'd done tonight had been the scariest and most exhilarating thing he'd done in his life and his blood was still pounding. More than when he sparred with Roku, more than in the darkness of the basement in Shukai, more than when he and Roku had—

Lady Yin stepped forward.

Time for another go.

'Get the Jade Dragon,' Yin said. Sozin jumped up on the chair and Ta Min raced to the end of the room, her pinned-up hair bouncing as she ran. Huan flowed after her. Sozin threw the statue towards her just as Yin and Kazu's soldiers approached him. The statue spun through the air and Sozin leaped onto a table.

'Don't let it f—'

Ta Min caught the Jade Dragon one-handed. Huan stood in front of her and growled, baring razor-sharp teeth.

Kazu yelled 'Get the statue back!' but his and Yin's guards hesitated for a moment. Don't hurt her, Sozin thought. Ta Min drew one of her butterfly swords. The guards advanced on her. 'I've got a dragon and I'm not afraid to use her,' she said, and in the second that afforded her, she spun around and tossed the statue back at him.

Sozin ran down the table, jumped onto another one, grabbed the statue—it nearly slipped out of his fingers—and kicked a chair at a knot of guards before taking a flying leap onto one of the struts holding up the rafters, his body slamming against the wood.

'Don't let him drop it,' Yin shouted. Sozin laughed and swung himself up onto one of the rafters using the statue for balance. 'Don't worry,' he said, 'I won't dro—'

A fire whip lashed at him and he bended it away, though it still stung his ankle. 'Not really the greatest place for firebending, is it? So full of wood. So likely to go up in flam—'

Yoon jumped onto a table and blasted another fire stream at him. He punched at it with a fireball and raced down the rafter. The air was full of the stench of fire and smoke and out of the corner of his eye he saw Ta Min and Huan, now ignored, rush out of the tearoom's back door. 'Oh dear, I thought you didn't want me to drop it,' he said, and pretended to let the statue fall from his grip.

'Get up there!' Kazu said, but it was Yoon who scrambled up the wooden struts and onto the rafter nearest to his. A few of the guards were also making their way up.

'You really want this, don't you?' he said, and jumped towards the next rafter, caught it with his free hand, the sharp edge gouging the flesh of his palm. Control your breath. He swung forward and somersaulted onto the rafter, tottering on the edge for a second. 'You're sure working together now.' He dodged one of Yoon's lunges and spin-kicked the guard who'd got closest to him. The man slammed back into his fellow, and they both swayed for a second before they fell onto one of the tables with a crash loud enough to make him wince. 'You're even willing to fight the Crown Prince. Oh, no you don't. I know you're not allowed to hurt me,' he said with a peal of laughter as he dodged another strike from Yoon. The fire stream burst a wooden beam into a shower of splinters and a cloud of smoke.

He tossed the statue in the air, dove over a spear thrust, and caught the Jade Dragon again as he cartwheeled onto another rafter. A wave of yelling rose up below him. 'Are you getting tired yet?' he said. Yoon jumped onto the rafter he was standing on. There were guards on the two rafters bracketing his, blades glinting. Sweat pooled under his clothes. He looked down at the back door. He had timed this perfectly. Down to the last detail.

'Because I have to say I'm starting to get tired.' He looked at the people advancing on him. 'I'd like to finish this—

Ta Min and Huan ran back into the tearoom, Huan at her side. No one noticed them. Don't do anything, girl, he thought at the dragon and hoped she picked it up. Ta Min raised one hand.

—right now,' he said, and jumped off the rafter, spinning out of Yoon and the guards' reach.

Time stretched. He let go of the statue and it tumbled through the air, then he brought his fist down and blasted it with the strike he had been charging up for the last few seconds. Flames burst through the jade.

The statue struck the floor and shattered like a mirror, with a loud crack and a shower of shards.

He landed amidst the rubble and smoke, his mind starting to feel the night's aches. He wasn't tired yet: hot blood still pumped through his body, and he felt a little as though he were drunk on Kazu's star fruit liquor.

Silence.

He straightened up, sure that he'd hear a pin drop or a flame point burst to life. Huan growled and scampered to his side. All he could see were wide eyes focused on him, disbelieving.

Then Yoon jumped down from her rafter. She walked towards the shattered statue with the slowness of someone injured, as though she could delay realisation that way.

'That's—' Kazu said, and his mouth stayed open. That was all he could say.

'You can't have done that,' Yin said, her voice cracking. Yoon had kneeled on the floor and was touching the broken pieces. A carved scale fell through her fingers. 'You can't.'

Sozin said nothing. He let out the breath he'd been tightly controlling for the last hour.

'You can't,' Yin repeated, but this time her voice was hard. Sozin looked around him and saw the mood shift. They weren't shocked anymore.

They were angry enough to make the air thick, and they were armed, and looking at him. He looked at Yoon; she had dropped into a firebending stance and she was obviously charging an attack. Huan bristled and curled around him, ready to defend him.

The sound of heavy footsteps surrounded the tearoom and burst through both doors.

'Let's not do anything stupid,' a cheerful voice said; everyone turned towards it.

It was Ryun, bearing a grin so wide it looked like it was going to split his face in two. A group of heavily armoured soldiers wearing the Fire Nation's military insignia stood next to him, lead by a grey-haired man. Jaya stood next to her husband, arms crossed above her stomach.

A wave of relief swelled inside Sozin, and he told himself he was being silly. After all, everything had simply gone according to plan. He had asked Bao, who knew everyone worth knowing from the Outer Islands to the westernmost edge of the Fire Nation, to write to the general of the Zhang Province's army and tell him to come with enough of his soldiers to make an impression. He knew she had been specific down to the hour and minute of their arrival.

'I'll handle this,' the commander said, and stepped forward. 'I'm General Moro of the Fire Nation's provincial army. Everyone stay right where you are.' He had a voice made to boom across training grounds, but the fact that he was backed up by elite firebenders and heavily armed soldiers certainly helped. He strode forward, past Kazu and Yin's guards and around the few tables that hadn't been pushed to one side. 'The Crown Prince and High Lady Bao sent an urgent message requiring my presence right here—' He whipped his head around towards Yin like a badger-jaguar spotting prey. She froze in place. '—And I'd really prefer not to have any trouble.'

'We won't have any trouble, will we?' Sozin said. Moro cast an odd look at him and he wondered what he must look like, dressed all in dark blue like an assassin, his hair loose, and black paint streaking down his cheeks in sweaty rivulets. That doesn't matter, he told himself. You only need to remember you're the Crown Prince to look like it. He stepped forward and nudged a fragment of the Jade Dragon with the tip of his shoe. 'You can't fight over nothing.'

Yoon's glare was accompanied by a rustle in the assembled crowd. 'You can't get away with this,' she said. 'You destroyed it. The embodiment of the rulership of Yulong. A gift from the Spirit World. It carried—'

'We're still here.' Sozin turned around. It was Bao, standing by a group of soldiers at the tearoom's front door. Lu Ling stood at her elbow, looking worried. Sozin wasn't sure what Bao had meant, but it was clear from her expression that she wasn't going to explain it to him. This was going to be entirely his responsibility.

'Yes,' he said, his gaze sliding over Yoon, Kazu, and Yin in turn. 'Don't you get it?'

Yoon's anger was momentarily replaced by puzzlement.

'We're all still here,' Sozin repeated, and took a few steps around the broken statue, Huan slinking next to him. The burnt smell had mostly dispelled and the shop's scent of years of tea was back. 'No angry spirits. No forest out for revenge.' He paused for a moment, and he knew everyone was listening for mouthless voices in the night, wind-like moaning. There was nothing.

'That's irrelevant,' Kazu said, his voice hard enough to cut diamonds. 'You had no right to destroy my family's heirloom, Crown Prince or not. I won't stand for this.'

Kazu's gaze bore into him, and for a strangled second Sozin was sure he hadn't prevented the war at all, he'd just made it come sooner, a three-way fight between the provincial army, and Lord Kazu and Lady Yin and their supporters. Bao's voice sounded in his mind, golden eyes candlelit. Confidence is no guarantee of success, but hesitancy is the first step towards defeat. He stepped forward and the moment was over. He'd see this through.

'I had every right,' he said, crossing his arms over his chest. 'I am the Crown Prince, the Fire Lord's envoy. You—' He looked from Kazu to Yin. '—are citizens of the Fire Nation. It is my duty to remind you that your first allegiance is to the Fire Nation and the Fire Lord, not to some object. And I did what I had to do make sure you understood this.'

He looked around the room. Nocturnal insects had sneaked in through the open doors and were now darning the air around the lamps. Ta Min looked uncertain. Ryun looked amused, as though everything going on were part of a rather dark joke. Jaya and Bao's faces were blank, and Lu Ling still looked worried. The soldiers, hired and otherwise, looked like they were waiting for a single false move. The air was soupy with tension.

'You can't do this,' Yoon said, shaking her head. 'You can't expect to come here and destroy the Jade Dragon and expect no consequences. Who's going to rule over Yulong now?'

'Actually, that's exactly what I expect,' he said, and flicked away a gob of face-paint that had fallen onto his eyelashes. 'Or rather, I expect the consequences to be far more… agreeable that what they were likely to be until now.' He turned to Yoon and her mother, and a voice deep inside him repeated his father's titles over and over like a mantra. Child of the Undying Flame, fire made flesh, undoubted— 'As for who rules Yulong, well, the Fire Lord does. The Fire Lord has ultimate authority over every strip of land in the Fire Nation. He may need the support of the governed and he'd prefer their consent, but I assume none of you wish to contest the fact that he is our ultimate authority.' He paused for a moment, as if giving Kazu and Yin time to object. No one spoke, of course; doing so would publicly brand them as traitors.

He started talking again. 'That includes Yulong, the last time I checked. And since I'm the Fire Lord's heir and envoy, I expect you to put aside your now…' He kicked up a chunk of the Jade Dragon into his hand. It was still hot from his fire blast and the edges had melted a little, and right now it looked like nothing more than a chunk of old, faded jade. No oddness here, no light from a place where the stars were strange. He let it drop. '—entirely moot dispute,' he finished, and looked back at Kazu and Yin. 'Maybe now you can look beyond your personal disagreements and put your city first.'

'Personal?' Kazu said. Icy fury dripped from his voice, and his eyes were hard with something Sozin couldn't quite identify. 'This was about who'd have title to the city. This was about—'

Sozin held his gaze. 'Yulong. Yes. I know. But you were so caught up in your fight over the Jade Dragon that the good of the city slipped your mind almost completely, didn't it? It never occurred to you to work together.'

Kazu and Yin spoke over each other. General Moro tensed, clearly ready to bark an order.

'Yes, I do expect you to work together,' Sozin said, his voice entirely flat, and let his gaze slide over the sea of faces around him. His blood beat slowly under the skin at the base of his throat. He wasn't hesitating or worried any more; it was like he was sneaking over the wall into Lady Yin's estate again, his mind and senses sharpened to a single bright point. 'The Fire Lord will certainly raise no objections, and you no longer have anything to fight about.'

Now he did recognise the look on both Kazu and Yin's faces: displeasure at what he was saying, contempt at the fact that it was being said by a sixteen-year-old. Anger flared inside him. Yes, maybe he was too young to understand the complicated disputes of adult life. But maybe sometimes age didn't give you wisdom, it just made you more and more blinkered to your own foolishness, like two elephant-rats fighting inside a trap instead of helping each other get out. 'I never said you have to like each other. You just have to be willing to put the welfare of your city first.'

Their attention was focused on him. In fact, everyone's attention was focused on him: Kazu's, Yin's, Yoon's, Kazu's sons', their guards', Moro's and his soldiers', Ta Min's and his relatives'. The tension had ebbed a little and now they were looking at him like a crowd at a circus about to watch some impossible balancing act. He wasn't really going to do this, was he? Yes. Yes, I am. The thought made him a little giddy. He took a few steps to the side. Huan followed in her sinuous gait.

'Think about it.' He turned to Kazu. 'Lord Kazu, your family has been ruling Yulong for generations. You know the nobility of the Zhang Province. You are one of them.' He looked at Yin. 'And you, Lady Yin, you are a successful and respected merchant. Think for one moment about what you can accomplish together.' He stopped, crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the two families. 'I didn't destroy the Jade Dragon so that I'd deprive you of a priceless artefact. I did it so I could erase a barrier between you. Now you have a clean slate. Do you understand?'

No one answered, but Sozin could see they had lost most of the will to attack him—well, almost all of them. Yoon still had an expression like a storm cloud. They might not be willing to agree, not yet, but he could tell they were mulling it over, or at least open to the idea of mulling it over.

I've done it, he realised, and for some reason the ache and tiredness from tonight's efforts started spreading through his body, like a drop of ink in water. It didn't matter: right now he was feeling more elated than when he won a sparring session, when he solved a problem or performed a lesson especially well, when Bao gave him an especially approving look, even than when his father told him how clever and resourceful he was. He had to use all of his self-control to stop himself from pumping his fists in the air in triumph.

'Even if—if—we go along with this,' Yin said, and her emphasis on the "if" told Sozin all he needed to know, 'and we do rule Yulong together, who will rule after us?'

'When that becomes a concern, my father and I will expect you to do what you're being asked to do now: come to an agreement as to which of your descendants would be most suitable.' He paused and looked at Kazu and Yin's guards and Moro's soldiers, and when he spoke he was just Sozin again, not the Crown Prince. 'Do you all want to go home, or do you want to fight over nothing?' He turned his gaze to Kazu and Yin. 'How about you? Do you want to reach a compromise, or do you think your dispute is worth tearing a city apart, even if you do have to fight over nothing? You have all night to decide, if you wish; I paid this place's owner a very generous amount for its use.'

No one answered. The hum of insects was audible again, punctuated by the occasional mutter and cough. Before anyone could say anything, Ryun stepped up to him and started speaking before Sozin could protest.

'Let me explain to you how this is going to work,' he said, his tone making him sound like he thought Kazu and Yin were the butt of a joke only he knew. 'My little cousin here—sorry, the Crown Prince—thinks that everything can be solved if people want to. You may think that's foolish, but the thing is, in this case, he's actually right. You don't have to like what he has to say. Feel free to grit your teeth and complain as much as you want while you work together, feel free to insult each other as much as you want, but make sure you understand something very important: what you do tonight is no longer about who gets to clobber who over your precious jade prize.' He cocked his head a little to the side and his lips curled into a rather grim smile. 'It's about whether you're willing to accept what the Crown Prince is saying… or if you wish to go against the Fire Lord instead.'

He took a few more steps around the room. 'Because that's what it's going to come to if you don't accept the Crown Prince's idea. My uncle may not be willing to intervene right away if you decide to start beating each other up, but he won't take it kindly if you decide to go against him. And going against Sozin here is the same thing as going against him. Trust me on that. And since General Moro is already here…'

'I am here to serve the Fire Lord,' Moro said, with a step forward. 'And the Fire Lord wants peace in his country.'

Sozin understood the double meaning in the man's words, but Ryun seemed entirely pleased by them.

'Well, you heard him,' he said, and looked at Yoon, whose stormy countenance hadn't dispelled even slightly. 'So right now you can admit that the Crown Prince is right and work together like good little scorpion-bees, or one of you can decide that the family honour is best served when you're dead or imprisoned, and do something incredibly stupid—'

Yoon stepped towards Sozin, sparks in her eyes. 'I challenge you to an Agni Kai,' she cried out.

'Like that,' Ryun finished.

+++

Notes: This was one of the most fun chapters to write in this whole fic, not just because of the foreshadowing, but also because it's pretty much a chapter of tropes, starting with the way that Sozin's face-paint is basically a superhero-esque (or supervillain-esque, for that matter ;)) domino mask… Even the name of the teashop is a pop culture reference, as one of the chapters in Kill Bill vol. 1 is called Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves. The chapter's title is of course a reference to Alexander the Great's handling of the Gordian Knot; both his and Sozin's solution for their particular problems are clever, out-of-the-box thinking from one perspective… and from another perspective they teach you that destroying stuff solves everything. Anyway, I hope you have all enjoyed reading this chapter at least as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Chapter 13: The Duel

Summary:

If you lose an Agni Kai in Yulong, you lose in real life; the travel party returns to the Fire Nation capital and Sozin finds politics harder to handle than adventure.

Chapter Thirteen: The Duel

'An Agni Kai,' Sozin repeated.

'Yes,' Yoon said, sounding as though she were replying to the dumbest thing she'd ever heard. 'You have taken my family's most precious possession.' Lord Kazu made a dismissive noise, but she ignored him. 'I am entitled to demand reparation.'

'Well, technically, he could take all your stuff, being the Crown Prince and all,' Ryun said, rather nonchalant.

'Even the tallest flame needs a willing pedestal,' Yoon said. Sozin had heard the proverb often, acted it out with his hands every he bowed formally: even those born to rule needed the support of those below them.

'Yes,' he said. 'Are you sure you want to do this?'

Yoon's smile was humourless. 'I'm not afraid of you. I've fought five Agni Kai so far. And I always win.' There were murmurs of approval from her party. Even her mother didn't look entirely worried.

Sozin glanced at the crowd. Their eyes turned towards him like a shoal of glittery fish. He drew a breath and warmth spread through his body. 'I accept your challenge.' He raised one hand. 'On these conditions: if I win, you will have no further claim against the Fire Lord's household. You will accept my judgement and my orders.' He looked at Lord Kazu. 'You will all accept my orders.' A little part of him protested in fear and hesitation, and was instantly silenced. Right now he could have stood against an army. He could have stood against the fire of the heavens themselves. He half-expected white heat to halo his skin.

Yoon just nodded.

A chorus of mutterings rose through the crowd.

Bao stepped forward. 'I trust you all accept my position. The challenge is valid. Do you agree to be bound by it, Lady Yin? Lord Kazu?'

It was only a formality, Sozin knew. An Agni Kai was sacred. Fire's own justice. 'Very well,' she said. 'General Moro, I believe everyone here would be willing to have you preside over the duel.'

Moro stepped forward, hands on his belt. 'I am willing, High Lady Bao.'

'Good,' she said. 'We lack a proper arena, so that outside garden will have to do. Mind you, we should be doing this at noon to start with, so we're hardly keeping to the formalities here.'

Expectation rose around Sozin like steam as they all walked out to a large stretch of paved ground surrounded by grass and shrubbery and enclosed by a low wall. Ta Min stepped up to him. 'Have you ever fought an Agni Kai? A real one?' she said, her worry undisguised. A few people lit the outside lamps. Insects rushed towards the haze of light, their buzzing sounding like an echo of the crowd's silent enthusiasm.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'I've got loads of experience fighting mock duels with Roku.'

'Mock duels?' She raised her hands in exasperation, propriety forgotten. 'This isn't some game! If you lose this Agni Kai, you'll actually lose for real.'

'I'm going to be fine,' he said, and he tried to imbue his grin with as much confidence as he could muster. She just looked at him, the worry in her eyes undimmed. He spoke again, serious. 'Look, this way everyone will have to accept my solution and no one needs to get hurt.'

Bao edged closer to him before she could reply. On the other end of the walled garden, Yoon was conferencing with her mother.

'This is your first Agni Kai, grandson,' Bao said. 'Advice is perhaps not altogether useful in these circumstances, but I am going to give you some nonetheless.' She glanced over at Yoon, then put her hands on Sozin's shoulders. 'You are very good, grandson,' she said. 'I've seen you practice. But she must also be very good, and she has the advantage of experience. Remember what I've taught you.'

He frowned. His grandmother had never told him much about firebending.

'No, not about firebending,' she said, and by now Sozin couldn't be surprised. 'About strategy. About people. What are her flaws?'

'She's impulsive,' Sozin said promptly. 'Over-confident. And she's angry.'

Bao's mouth curled into a grim smile. 'So, apart from the anger, exactly the same as yours, then?' She went on before he could protest. 'No, listen to me. If you want to win, you have to strike at her with the opposite of those things. Be calculating. Hold back.'

'Hold back?' The idea felt completely alien. Combat firebending was based on offence, on being the first to deliver the most powerful strike. 'Do I just… stand there while she lobs fireballs at me?'

'Don't be absurd, child. You have to make her think you are not as good as you are. Tire her out. Make her complacent. And when she's at her weakest—then you strike. Do you understand?'

He wanted to snap back with of course I understand, but instead he just nodded. 'Good,' she said, and looked into his eyes for a second before she reached into her sleeve and pulled out a handkerchief. 'Here.' Her voice was a little mellower than usual. She brushed his face with the handkerchief with surprising gentleness. 'Let's get this paint off your face.' He wanted to say he could do it himself, but something in her eyes stopped him. When she finished cleaning him up, the handkerchief was streaked with black. She let go of his face and tucked the dirty handkerchief away before reaching into her topknot and removing the tie holding it together along with the flame-shaped gold headpiece. A fall of white hair spilled around her face. 'Put your hair up. This isn't a royal headpiece, but it will have to do. You shouldn't go into this bareheaded.'

All around them, people were falling into place, edging away from the centre of the courtyard to give the two duellists enough space. Sozin could feel the anticipation spicing the air as he finished putting up his hair and stripped down. He wasn't afraid, he realised, and adjusted his wrist-guards before glancing at Yoon and her group again. Her mother was still telling her something. Kazu stood off to one side, no doubt unsure about whom he should root for.

No fear; just that half-feverish bubbling in his muscles he always felt before a firebending sparring session. He wasn't even tired anymore.

'Come here,' his grandmother said, and pulled him closer to her. 'Be mindful of all your firebending lessons, grandson. Now go show these people what a Crown Prince of the Fire Nation can do.'

'Smash her like a lychee nut,' Ryun said, then hurriedly turned serious and spoke again after his wife glared at him. 'I mean, good luck, little cousin.' Jaya nodded. Lu Ling had twisted her hair in knots around her fingers. Ta Min walked up to him, her eyes wide and glittering a little.

'I still think you're being an idiot,' she said, and before he could reply, she threw her arms around him. 'But you have no choice, do you?' she whispered into his cheek. 'Please be careful.'

He hugged her back. Her hair brushed his nose and cheeks; it was a little sweaty. She pulled back and he looked into her eyes. 'I'm not sure I can be careful. But I promise I'll try to be the best.' He didn't tell her not to worry; what would be the point, after all?

'I know,' she said, and her eyelids drooped. 'You make your own luck.'

He turned around and looked at the courtyard that was now doubling as an arena, taking quick stock of his surroundings—the paving stones, the oil lamps on their stands, the low wall, the tables off to one side—as Yoon got into position. Everyone had drawn away as much as possible. He stepped forward, the bubbling in his muscles reaching fever pitch. Be calculating. Hold back. Make her think you are as not as good as you are. He breathed in and out, very deliberately, feeling his chi ebb and flow. 'You can end this right here and now,' he said to Yoon. She just threw him a contemptuous look.

General Moro walked to the spot between the two of them. 'I assume you both know how this works,' he said. Sozin nodded, then turned around and kneeled. There were only two rules in an Agni Kai: you didn't use any weapons other than firebending, and you didn't attack anyone who wasn't part of it. Everything else was up to the fire. His heart thudded somewhere around his stomach; moonlight silvered his arms and the stone ground below him.

A metallic sound rang out. He turned around and went into a firebending stance as Yoon did she same on her end. He saw her hand start to move and made himself pull back, wait for the strike instead of getting the first hit. Pretend he wasn't as good as her.

Then lightning raced towards him and he knew he wouldn't have to pretend at all.

*

He jumped out of the way and the lightning bolt earthed itself a few feet from him with a crash. Not lightning. Not at night, he thought, but reality was barrelling towards him, about to throw a fire punch. He swept his leg forward and sent a wave of fire rushing towards her. Yoon leaped over it but he'd thrown her off-course long enough to jump to his feet.

Hold back. Hold ba—

A fire lash leaped at him and he bended it away from him as he ran past Yoon and blasted several fireballs at her. She dodged, blocked, and sent more fire barrelling at him. He spun it around him in a fire shield and threw it back towards her. She pushed against it and dispelled it with a counter-attack. He leaped out of the way.

Make her angry. Make her tired. He wove out of the way of her attacks, sweat pouring down his face and chest, his skin blistering from the heat, and all of a sudden he realised what he had to do.

Bao had been right. But she'd also been wrong.

'Not enough juice for more lightning?' he said in a mocking tone as he sent fire arcing towards her. She raced out of the way and lightning burst from her fingertips again. Sozin dodged it, but not fast enough to avoid the sting; the bolt struck a bush, which burst into flames.

The lightning had been weaker than before.

'Not getting any better, are we?' he said, and laughed as she sent another furious blow towards him.

They were dancing, he realised, moving in a deadly rhythm under the moonlight. He led her around the arena, spinning and dodging her blows and flying kicks, blocking increasingly angry attacks. His skin grew slippery with sweat. Somewhere, there was pain, but he barely felt it. She's getting tired, he thought as he bended a fire wheel out of the way. Her breath control was starting to slip. He took quick stock of their surroundings as he sent a fire lash at her. There—she was standing right next to one of the garden lamps. Throw wind and sand in her eyes.

His lungs were red-hot, but he had saved his breath so tightly he had no trouble getting the words out loud and clear. 'So are you going to actually strike me, or are we—'

Flames erupted from her hands and enveloped him on all sides, a ring of fire that sucked out the air around him and seared his skin.

One.

He held himself back for a split-second and Yoon hit him with a fire stream. He dropped to the ground as the fire wall dispelled and the stream roared a few inches above him. Yoon jumped towards him like a bird of prey, ready to deliver the final blow.

Two.

He spun out of the way, and in one move that made his muscles scream, hit her with a fire kick and jumped to his feet fast enough to deliver another blow that drove her back towards the wall. He raced towards her and before she could charge up—

this time she's not going to mess around it'll be lightning strong enough to burn you to a crisp

—another strike, he threw all his chi into the flame burning inside the lamp close to her. A plume of blinding fire rose up. She yelped and stumbled back. Now—strike her now!

Three.

He fired a blow at her hard enough to ram her into the wall, then rushed forward and swept her leg from under her. She fell to the ground with a thud and a gasp. He dropped on her, slammed a knee into her stomach and a hand onto her throat, and held a closed fist above her face, ready to strike. Her ribcage rose and dropped under his leg, each breath thick with exhaustion. She glared at him through eyelashes gummy with sweat.

'Do you yield?'

She didn't answer. For a moment he was sure she was going to spit on him, but she did nothing. He spoke again, louder. 'Do you yield?' He drew his closed fist back a little.

He could see the hesitation in her face. 'Yoon!' her mother cried out, and she closed her eyes. Her lips pursed, then parted. 'Yes,' she said in a whisper. He released her. She let her head drop to the ground with a groan.

He got back on his feet. The pain and exhaustion spread through his body with a vengeance. He walked across the courtyard, limping a little. His right foot had got a little burned in the Agni Kai; he hadn't noticed that until now, nor the angry red blisters in his chest and arms. He stopped and looked at General Moro, who advanced into the middle of the courtyard.

'Prince Sozin is victorious,' the man said, but there was hardly any need. Sozin turned to Kazu's and Yin's parties. They were starting to kneel, one by one, and in the moonlight they reminded him of a flock of birds. He felt like laughing. Yin stopped hugging her daughter and pulled her to the ground by her side.

'You will accept my ruling,' he said, and his voice sounded strange to himself, ringing over the courtyard like the clang of a silver bell. It was neither a question nor an order: they would never publicly challenge him now, unless they really wished to plumb the depths of humiliation, and to have everyone else draw away from them, lest it prove contagious. Losing was bad enough without being a sore loser in public. Both Yin and Kazu offered polite reassurances that they would comply, in voices as smooth and brittle as glass. He drew in a deep breath. The air around him was still heavy with smoke and sweat; it smelled unexpectedly sweet. 'Let this be a lesson to all of you on the Fire Lord's will.'

Before he turned around he caught a glimpse of Yoon's eyes, starting at him from under her eyelashes, two glints of white-hot heat under the silver moon.

*

The glory was still with him as they drove back to their inn, the six of them packed into the same carriage with Huan following outside and a few of General Moro's men escorting them.

It didn't stop him from feeling the most tired he'd ever been in his life. His head lolled onto Ta Min's shoulder. She was wedged between him and the window, so close to him he could feel her heartbeats through her clothing. 'Sorry,' he said, and covered up a yawn that felt wide enough to dislocate his jaw.

'It's all right,' she said. 'Does it hurt?'

He blinked heavily. 'What?'

'You're a bit singed, little cousin,' Ryun said. He looked like he'd just watched a very amusing play where most of the entertainment had come from the spectators throwing rotten tomato-carrots at the actors.

'I have some ointment to take care of that,' Bao said. That made him lift his head right away; he was sure Bao's ointment would distract him from the pain of his burns by making him wish he could rip off his skin. ''M fine,' he said.

Bao crossed her arms. Her elbow didn't dig into Lu Ling; his cousin just edged out of the way. 'I should hope so,' she said. Her voice had lost the edge of softness from before the Agni Kai, and it had gone back to all its usual hardness. 'You nearly got yourself killed by Lady Yin's guards—'

'I knew what I was doing…'

She disregarded him. 'You stole an immensely valuable artefact, then proceeded to destroy it, you bet your ability to persuade people three times your age against the possibility of starting a minor war right there and then, and then almost made everything be for nothing when you gambled it all on an Agni Kai you came within a whisker of losing—'

'I wouldn't say a whisker.'

'On the other hand,' she went on, slower this time, and a mote of amusement danced in her amber eyes, 'you did solve everything in the end. General Moro and his soldiers are going to remain here for the next few days, but I am almost certain Yulong won't give us any more trouble for the near future. So, all things considered…' A smile, small but like a diamond shining in the dark. 'Well done, grandson.'

*

The New Year—it started a dragon year, and was therefore especially lucky—came when they were still travelling back to the palace, and even the tiny village they were staying at celebrated enthusiastically, the paper and wooden dragons making Huan snap at them in confusion until she decided to pointedly ignore them. On the third day, after every single fire had been put out and the ashes swept out along with the last year's ghosts, bad luck, ill deeds, hurtful words, and broken promises, Sozin was the one to relight the flames. 'You know,' Lu Ling said as they and the villagers walked through the streets, spreading the new fire, 'in the old Fire Nation calendar the year used to start on the summer solstice, so the year of the rabbit would actually have ended last summer…'

'What kind of rabbit?' Ryun asked. 'A rabbaroo or a—'

A small child of indeterminate sex pulled on Sozin's sleeve. 'Are you really the Crown Prince?' it said, in between explorations of its mouth with a grubby thumb.

'I am,' Sozin said, but before he could say anything else, the child ran away, obviously pleased with itself.

'Making friends everywhere you go,' Ryun said with a chuckle.

'That's the general idea,' Bao said, and took another sip of her spiced chilli tea.

A heavy rain had just lifted as they finally reached the capital. From a distance, the city was a vast haze of red under a glimmering early morning sea, and the palace and its surroundings were hidden out of sight in their mist-ringed volcano.

'The air smells different,' Ta Min said, her smile making her eyes shine.

She was right. Sozin leaned towards the window and breathed in a lungful, his eyes closed. 'It's good to be back home,' he said, and it was.

He'd been back at the palace for a few hours before he finally saw his parents again. First, his grandmother had a surprise for him.

'Here,' she said, and pulled out an elaborate embroidered robe from a basket. A golden dragon unfurled down red silk. 'It's finally finished.'

'It's a dragon robe,' he said, and grabbed a handful of the silk. 'This is what you were working on all those times you were embroidering in the trip.'

'Of course.' She shook the robe so it billowed down to the hem and it made a noise like a pair of wings. 'What did you think I was doing?'

He didn't answer. Some part of him had thought of Bao and Aki's embroidering as a sort of prop.

'You've grown a few inches in these past few months. It will fit perfectly.' She looked into his eyes, her golden gaze warm as sunlight and just about as powerful. 'Something worthy of a Crown Prince.'

So now, swaddled in layers of silk and gold thread, he was finally about to see his father again. Only moments previously he had walked into the terrace overlooking the Coronation Plaza so the crowd could see their returning Crown Prince, but the cheers and the voices of the heralds had blurred into a single wordless wave of sound and all he had made out had been the feel of his heart against his ribcage and the trickle of ice in the pit of his stomach.

The doors to the throne room opened. They didn't use to be this slow, did they?

'Crown Prince Sozin, heir to the Fire Nation throne.' The voice echoed through the enormous room. He started walking across the carpet, his father and mother just two shapes atop the golden steps. 'He has gone into his nation and been acknowledged by it. He went into the city of Yulong and the city bowed to his authority. He was challenged to an Agni Kai and proved victorious. He returns to sit at the Fire Lord's right hand.'

Eyes still downcast, he kneeled. Absurdly, he thought that the most important part had been his night at Mount Kiake, which hadn't even been mentioned. His eyes started following the patterns in the scarlet carpet.

'Welcome back, Prince Sozin.' His father's Fire Lord voice. 'Arise and take your place.'

His heart swelled. He got back on his feet and looked up the flight of steps leading up to the throne. His mother was sitting at the throne's left hand, looking almost exactly as she did when he'd left. His father sat on his throne, leaning back on a pile of cushions. The Fire Lord robes hid his body, but Sozin was sure he was even thinner than before. The steps seemed to stretch forever.

'Come here, dumpling.' This time he wasn't the Fire Lord, just Yunjin. Sozin sat down at his side. His father turned his face towards him, his head jerking a little as he moved. His hand slipped over the throne's arm and Sozin reached out to hold it. The skin felt clammy and the fingers twitched a few times. He smiled at Sozin, then turned over to Sora.

His mother didn't need to be told anything. 'We would like to retire to our rooms,' she said to the servants waiting in the wings. 'Please tell Prince Ryun and Princess Lu Ling that we will receive them in private.'

A wheeled chair was brought out for his father. 'Do you need…' Sozin trailed off as his mother helped his father off his throne; he didn't know what to say. He hurried to help his father down the steps and onto the chair.

'My laziness has finally had the best of me,' Yunjin said, sounding a little short of breath. 'I wish I'd done it ages ago. Think of how many races down the palace corridors I could have had.'

'That doesn't sound very dignified,' Sozin said as they moved out of the throne room and towards his father's rooms. The corridors looked larger than he remembered—wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?

'Only if you lose.'

Sora leaned towards her husband. 'Can you give us a moment, dear?' Before Sozin could say anything, his mother pulled him back. He glanced at his father, a few feet ahead of them.

'What it is?' he said, but instead of answering, his mother pulled him into her arms. He startled a little at first. His mother had never been the sort of person who'd do something like that without complete privacy, at least since he'd been old enough to dress and feed himself. Then the oddness was over and he leaned into her shoulder and her scent. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed her.

She pulled back, her hands still clutching his upper arms, and looked him up and down. 'You're taller,' she said.

Less short, he thought, and smiled at his own joke, which all of a sudden sounded terribly funny. 'A few inches.'

Her fingers cupped his chin, and in that moment, her amber eyes were exactly like Bao's. 'Did it help you? The trip, I mean. The whole idea was to prepare you to become the Fire Lord.'

'Yes,' he said. She released him and turned away from him.

'I see,' she said, and laced her hands over her waist. She looked at him again and for the first time he noticed the faint dark shadows under her eyes, the thin lines bracketing her mouth. His mother had always been as polished and as efficient as clockwork. When she spoke to him she often reminded him of some rule of etiquette he had forgotten, some flaw he had to correct. Right now he wondered about the strain under the smooth surface, then wondered about why he'd never thought of it before.

She looked back at him. 'You're right,' she said, and he thought of Bao again. 'You do look different. More serious. More driven. I am glad it proved useful,' she added, every inch the Fire Lady again, then gestured at him to follow her. 'Come on, I am sure your father would like to hear more about your trip.'

They hurried to his father's side. 'I hear you have a dragon, dumpling,' Yunjin said. Even in the chair, he couldn't turn his head properly.

'I do,' he said, and leaned forward so he could place a hand on his father's shoulder. 'I found her at Mount Kiake. I went to the Fire Temple there. She's in the stables now, eating about half a cow-hippo, but I'll show her to you once she's fed. She helped us out at Yulong, actually.'

Yunjin strained again to look at him, and for a moment all that Sozin could see were the slight tremors in his father's flesh, even in his chair, the way the skin was stretched so taut and thin he could almost see the bones and veins underneath. Then his father smiled, warm and joyful as sunshine, and their uncomplicated intimacy was back. 'Tell me all about it,' Yunjin said.

*

Ta Min came to visit him the following day and they sat talking in one of the bigger pavilions, the ones with low chairs and embroidered cushions, where poetry readings and music sessions were held. She was back to her formal clothes, the same perfect manners as when he'd visited her at her house before their trip, a lifetime ago. This time they had no trouble filling the time with endless talk, and when she fell silent, it was no longer a hard shell around her; they were comfortable enough to sit together without saying anything.

'You know, our trip wasn't really like I was expecting,' she said after a while, and wiped a little powdered sugar from her lips. It was winter, which meant the heat wasn't as drowsy and intense as in the summer, and a balmy wind came in from the sea.

Sozin took another spiced green tea cake from the plate between them. 'I thought you wanted to have an adventure. Maybe I could have hired additional bandits.'

'Highway robbers; more entertaining,' she said, mock-serious, then smiled. 'It was an adventure. I just… didn't quite expect an adventure to go like that.'

He finished his bite-sized cake. A few sparrowkeets darted into the grass outside, in search of insects he couldn't see. 'You mean, with the almost dying, and all that?'

She let out a chuckle and leaned back in her cushions. 'Yeah. It wasn't like watching an exciting play at all. When someone dies in those they always have such beautiful speeches. I could only think about how much I hate wet clothes.'

'We should prepare some beautiful speeches for the next time we're near death. It'd be rather embarrassing to be caught in another deadly trap without those.' He fell silent, and looked back at the gardens. Heat crept into his face. 'You didn't like the trip?'

'Sozin.' She cast him an amused sideways glance. 'Who said I didn't like it? Sometimes it was terrifying… and also exciting. I suppose that's what real adventures are like. You don't really know how they're going to turn out, or when they'll be over.' She edged closer to him. 'I didn't enjoy just the adventure, you know.'

Neither of them spoke. One of the sparrowkeets chirped angrily at the others. 'We're still going to be friends, aren't we?'

Another amused look. 'Why would you think we wouldn't be?'

'I don't know.' He looked down. 'Don't adventures always have an end?'

'Maybe not if you don't want them to.' Her tone turned a little more serious. 'I like being your friend.'

'Me too,' he said, and their hands reached out for each other. Their fingers entwined over the cushions and they sat for a while in companionable silence. She was the first friend he'd made other than Roku, he thought. It could never be the same thing: he and Roku were bound by fate, by the seven years sharing almost every moment. But it was a good thing.

He let go of her hand and rose to his feet.

'Come on,' he said. 'We should go thank my grandmother.'

*

It was almost a full month after their arrival at the palace and the hot, heavy rains had turned into the light showers announcing the coming of spring. Sozin had been busy most of the time—he was now expected to take part in every council and meeting and his mother insisted on having him continue with the same schedule of lessons he'd had before going on his trip, despite his protestations that he knew all those subjects backwards and forwards—but right now he had some free moments and he wandered through the gardens under a sky dotted with fluffy white clouds.

He found Lu Ling by the pond where he'd sat with his grandmother an eternity before. Huan, who had grown a couple more feet but hadn't yet begun firebending, lay curled at her feet, the sunlight casting iridescent specks on her scales. She made a sound low in her throat and lifted her head to nuzzle Sozin's stomach.

'Hi,' Lu Ling said, and tossed a few bread crumbs into the pond. The turtle-ducks—they were all adults now—remained on the side of the pond furthest away from Huan.

He sat down next to his cousin. She smiled weakly at him and looked back into the pond. 'Huan likes to chase birds.'

'I know,' he said, and scratched the scales between her ears. 'We can't let her. That would be cruel.' He paused. Birds chirped and the air was full of the sharp scent of young flower buds. 'You don't like the palace.'

'No, no, it's great,' she said hurriedly, her hand going to a strand of her hair, then promptly deflated like a pile of egg whites. 'Is it really that obvious? I'm sorry. I don't want to be rude or ungrateful. Your parents have been so welcoming and generous and… and…'

And Ryun and Jaya had taken to palace life like a koi to water. They were always right in the middle of the painting sessions, the poetry recitals, the dinners with important guests. And Lu Ling was always on the edge of things, like a flea-moth caught in a screen curtain, away from the light. 'It's all right,' he said, and got up. 'Come on.'

She startled a little. 'What?'

He reached out one hand to her. 'Come on, I have something I want to show you.'

'What is it?' She sounded a little hesitant, but got up.

'It's a surprise.' He led her out of the gardens and through the palace, Huan trotting at their side. 'You'll like it.'

It didn't take them long to reach their destination, past the portrait gallery and down a set of staircases that Sozin had always found uncomfortably tight. Huan's claws clicked on the stone floor. 'What is this place?' Lu Ling asked.

Sozin opened the double doors. The room inside was full of dusty light from high windows and myriad lamps, but he knew that Lu Ling had barely noticed that. Instead, she was focusing on the books. There were thousands of them, reaching all the way to the ceiling, scrolls, bound books, reams of paper tied with ribbons, filling the air with that peculiar scent you only found in libraries.

'Do you like it?' he asked.

She took a few steps into the room, eyes on the shelves. 'This is amazing.' She turned to him. 'May I—'

He stepped up to her, Huan by his side, her heavy tread echoing. 'You can do whatever you'd like.' He ran his fingers over a number of scrolls placed in cubby holes. 'Most of the royal family's archives are kept here. Annuals, account books, inventories, decrees, proclamations...' His hand dropped and he turned to her. 'You're a member of the royal family, so you can come here whenever you'd like. There's a room with private records which you can only open with firebending. You can go in there too. And of course there's the sort of books you'd find in any library. Poetry and history and str—'

'You have a copy of Under the Western Flame Trees!' She pulled a book from one of the shelves with the giddiness of someone drunk on fire wine. 'You have no idea how long I've spent looking for this book. I wrote everywhere trying to find a copy—I thought there'd only be one left in the lost library of Wan Shi Tong, and that's just a legend.' She pulled more books and scrolls from the shelf until she had a pile that almost reached her chin. Then she stopped and stood very still, her excitement fading.

'What is it?' he said.

She turned back to him, very slowly. Behind the lenses of her spectacles, her eyes looked a little misty. He stepped up to her. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' she said, but he could tell her smile was forced. Maybe bringing her here had reminded her of home, where she could spend all her days reading and looking at tides and interesting rocks. He wondered if she'd ever been apart from her mother for even one day. She let her head drop a little, then lifted it again, the artificial smile gone. 'I think I could hug you right now.'

He leaned against one of the bookshelves. 'You'll have to put those books down.'

This time there was nothing forced about her smile. 'Yeah, that's not happening.'

*

The days had turned drier and a little longer with the sun of mid-Spring when a delegation from the Earth Kingdom requested a private audience with the Fire Lord, and Sora requested Sozin's presence at it.

'They made a point of saying it would be an informal discussion,' Sora told him as they walked to one of the private parlours in their second most formal clothes, 'so you'll have to be in your absolute best behaviour. You know how these Earth Kingdom dignitaries are.' She turned to him, light careening of her golden hairpiece, and brushed his bangs away from his forehead—her own bangs hung perfectly down each side of her face, of course—and he almost pushed her hand away. Didn't she realise he wasn't a little kid anymore?

Her hand ran gently down his cheek and settled on his shoulder. He looked into her face, so much like his own; the bags under eyes were faintly visible despite the powder she'd used to conceal them, and her golden eyes still carried that cast of shadow he'd noticed before. For a moment he was three years old again, wanting to sit on her lap and cuddle. Then she withdrew her hand and her gaze, and the moment was over. 'I'd like you to lead the negotiations,' she said as they started walking again.

He was sure he'd misheard. 'I'm sorry?'

She kept looking forward. 'Your grandmother told me you learned a great deal during your trip. She also told me a great deal about what happened in Yulong. And what happened in Shukai, young man,' she added with a sharp sideways glance. 'We'll have to have a talk about that one of these days, incidentally.'

'I was fine,' he grumbled.

'That's hardly the point,' she said, in her sternest maternal tone, then her voice returned to normal. 'Anyway, you did well in Yulong and you've been in plenty of councils since coming back. I think you've learned enough to handle this. You are the Crown Prince, after all, and your father…' She trailed off, as though a hand had choked off the last few words.

Yes. My father. I know. He looked down at the floor and said nothing until they entered the parlour. A few seconds later, the Earth Kingdom delegation was let in, a group of men dressed in green and yellow from head to toe. Their seating protocol was far more complicated than what he was used to, and it took a few minutes before everyone was sitting down, and a few more before they had finished exchanging greetings. He offered them ginger tea and a sampling of delicacies from the capital. They accepted the former after two refusals and took a few polite nibbles of the latter. Sozin stole a few glances at their eyes; he didn't remember ever meeting someone with eyes like that, the colour of summer grass or new leaves. They looked oddly delicate in these rock-solid people.

'I understand you would like to discuss the situation with the land claims on the Outer Islands,' Sozin said after they had enquired about each other's health and talked about the weather.

'Yes,' said the delegation's leader. He cradled his teacup in his hands. 'A trivial matter. The Earth King regrets he has to bother the Fire Lord with such small things. No doubt we will solve it quickly. To everyone's satisfaction.' His politeness was wrapped around a voice like an uncut diamond. Sozin was sure that when he said to everyone's satisfaction, what he meant was to mine and the Earth King's satisfaction, and that he wouldn't budge until this happened.

Sozin flicked an invisible speck of dust off his robes. 'The lease on Arrowhead Island has come to an end, if I remember correctly.' Arrowhead Island was the point in the Fire Nation closest to the Earth Kingdom. Only a short stretch of sea separated them.

A flicker of the green eyes. 'I am sure the Fire Lord is very familiar with the matter.'

'The Fire Lord is… indisposed,' his mother said. 'But he has fully authorised the Crown Prince and me to act in his stead in this matter.'

A ripple that was somewhere between thought and motion passed through the delegation. 'We are sorry for taking your time,' the leader said, and set down his teacup. 'We hope the Fire Lord recovers soon. We'll see him at his convenience.'

'Perhaps the Fire Lady wasn't clear enough,' Sozin said with what he hoped was a winning smile. 'The Fire Lord is more than happy to have us handle this matter. We'll inform him of everything we discuss, of course. If he wishes—'

'I am sorry.' The delegation got to their feet. 'We are sure you are both most capable. But the Earth King and the Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se wish us to discuss this matter with the Fire Lord, not his wife or his child. We regret the delay. Please let us know when the Fire Lord would like to see us; we'll remain in the city.'

'Wait,' Sozin said, but it was like attempting to stop a landslide. He was soon alone with his mother again. 'Come on,' Sora said, and gestured to the servant standing outside the parlour that it could now be cleaned up. She put her hand on his shoulder. 'You did your best.'

'Clearly my best wasn't good enough,' he said, looking away from her.

'Didn't you hear them?' Her voice was a little brittle. 'This has nothing to do with anything you or I said. They wanted to see your father and that's all there is to it.'

'I know, but—' He looked at her. Her mouth was only a little more downcast than usual and all of a sudden he wondered what it must have been like for her all these years, propping up his father's throne. In the Fire Nation, the word of a Fire Lady or a Fire Consort was law, second only to that of the Fire Lord him or herself. He was sure he had never thought about how people from other nations might deal with this; if he had, it had only been a moment's idle wondering.

Now he wondered how many more times he'd have to become intimate with this knowledge. 'I see,' he said.

'I'm sure we'll be able to handle this,' Sora said, in the tone she'd used when he was a child and she wanted to reassure him. 'Your father will get…' She trailed off and focused on the corridor's carpet.

Tension bubbled in his limbs. He felt a sudden urge to run or firebend until his muscles throbbed with pain and his mind just longed to sink into sleep. 'There's something I need to do,' he said, and pulled away from his mother. She just nodded, once.

Despite his urge to tire himself out, he ended up in the portrait gallery, feeling like an animal who'd just wandered out of a cage and didn't know in which direction to run. The sensation was alien. He had always been the one who came up with what to do next, the one who had looked forward to each new day on the road.

Roku isn't here any more.

And you're no longer travelling with Bao and Ta Min.

He looked up at his father's portrait. The ceiling lamps cast a sickly gloss on the lacquered paint and filled the air with a faint smell of smoke. He let his gaze slide over the row of dead Fire Lords. His grandfather, his grandfather's cousin, his great-great aunt. Painted eyes stared down at him blindly, following him as he took a few steps down the impossibly vast corridor. After his great-great-grandmother, the portraits turned into blurs of gold and red. Had they really spoken to him in that endless night? He remembered shadows, a city that didn't exist, the bones of the earth. He remembered Roku and Ta Min and his family, and whenever he thought of that part his heart felt tight for some reason he couldn't figure out. Trying to put it all together was maddening.

He was supposed to do something. He had been given some wordless, elemental meaning that still ricocheted around his body and memory, and he was meant to do something with it. Something beyond being the Crown Prince or even the Fire Lord.

'Am I glad to find you, cousin.'

He turned around. Jaya was walking towards him, the contrast between her unchanged slenderness and the huge bulge of her stomach making her look almost comical. Had it really been five months since he'd first set foot in Obsidian Island? She was a little over eight months pregnant now. 'Contemplating the past?' she said, and stepped close to him. She even managed to keep the waddle to a minimum.

'I was thinking of the future, actually.' He let his arms fall at his sides, the tension in his flesh gone. Maybe it was her voice. 'Duty, I guess.'

'Is that why you liked your trip so much?' She was close enough for him to feel her subtle orchid perfume. A smile danced on her lips.

He wasn't sure he understood the question. 'Because of duty?'

'I mean because you were there to prove yourself. So that was your duty, yes. You should have seen yourself at Yulong. I don't think I ever saw anyone so happy in the same way. Not in the same Ryun and I were happy at our wedding, or when I told him I was pregnant. But I never saw someone as happy about something they were about to do. Not even when Ling-Ling gets her hands on a new book.'

He grinned. 'Are you sure about that? Nearly starting a war wasn't exactly a cheerful experience.'

'Oh, I don't mean that.' Her hand rose in dismissal and settled on the swell of her belly. 'It's just that you were so sure. I think that's why everyone went along with what you wanted us to do. Because you had so much certainty that everyone could believe everything was going to work out. So that's why I wondered about duty. Because you seemed to be happiest when you had some duty to fulfil.'

Once again she reminded him of Bao. She must have seen something in his face, because hers turned amused, and a little expectant. 'There's something I have to do,' he said. 'Something—'

accidents

'—happened in the trip. Before I got to Obsidian Island. I found out there's something I have to do.'

'Just… something?'

They looked at each other, his smile broad, hers slight. 'Something,' he repeated.

'Speaking of the future, duty, and having something to do,' she said, and turned her face slightly away from his, 'I should ask you what I first meant to ask you before I forget and have to bother you again. Will you light the fire at my child's naming ceremony?'

He cocked his head to one side. 'Me? Are you sure you don't want your sister-in-law? Or my father?'

'We would be honoured by either of those choices.' She turned towards him again. 'But Ryun and I would like you to do it. Will you? The baby is due soon.'

'Have you picked a name yet?'

She smiled. He wouldn't have asked his question if he hadn't decided to acquiesce to her request. 'Jian if it's a girl, Jing if—'

Footsteps rushed towards them. He turned around to see a servant running down the corridor, his face a knot of worry.

You're not really supposed to run like that in the palace. That was all he could think, even as the man came to a halt by their side. You're not really supposed to run like that.

'Prince Sozin, you must come quickly.' The man stopped for a breath. 'It's your father.'

+++

Notes: Ta Min knows that if you lose an Agni Kai in Yulong, you lose in real life, as this xkcd strip teaches us. Since firebending is strongest at noon, it made sense to me that an Agni Kai would be ideally conducted then (though of course they can be conducted at any other time if necessary, as shown in the canon). The new calendar the characters refer to is the one we see briefly in the episode The Library (and which is shown in more detail in the art book); the exchange about the old (indigenous to the Fire Nation) vs the new (Earth Kingdom) calendar is another reference to my theory about the Earth Kingdom's history of cultural and political dominance in the AtLA-verse.

Chapter 14: Inheritance

Summary:

Sozin gets one of the foundations of his life knocked out from under him. Twice.

Notes:

Warnings/Notes: There's nothing above a PG-13 rating in this chapter, but it does deal (realistically, I hope) with death and other depressing/painful issues.

Chapter Fourteen: Inheritance

'You're going to get better in no time.'

His father swallowed a gulp of air and smiled. His right hand rose, shook, and finally flopped onto the coverlets like a dead animal. Sozin took it in his and squeezed. His father's skin felt like something that had just been pulled from the ocean depths. Sozin let heat flow from his flesh to warm him up.

'You always...' Yunjin said in a thread of voice, then a cough bit off the rest of the sentence. Sozin helped him lean forward as the cough continued to wrack his body. He could feel his father's bones even through the layers of fabric and flesh, hot like live coals. Finally the coughing stopped and he helped his father lean back on the pile of cushions. Yunjin looked at him, eyes fever-bright. 'Sorry. I wanted to say—' His breath hitched, resumed. '—you always said you were going to do something and then did it.' Each drawn-in breath sounded painful. 'Even when you were really little. So willful. I'm so—' Another bout of cough.

Sozin helped him up again until the attack was over. 'Dad, are you in pain? Do you want some water? Are you—' He let his hands drop down, useless. 'What can I do?'

'I just need a little rest.' The hand on top of the coverlets jerked again. Sozin picked it up with both of his as gently as he could and brought it to his face. His father closed his eyes. The lids were the colour of bruises.

'I'll be right back,' Sozin said. 'Just call me if you need me.' He rose from the bed and stood for a moment, watching his father's chest rise and fall, before he stepped into the room where his mother was talking to his father's doctors.

'—to make him as comfortable as possible,' a grey-haired woman as thin and dried out as a stick-mantis said. What was her name? He'd seen her often enough to remember. Oh yes—Doctor Oyan.

'I understand,' his mother said. Her hand lay on her chest, curled into a fist.

'That's all very well and good,' he said, and stepped forward, 'but what are you going to do to help him?'

The doctors looked at him for a moment. What's wrong with you? Why don't you answer?

'Prince Sozin,' Oyan said in a voice that was probably meant to be soothing. Instead, it sounded smothering. 'Your father's illness is very serious.'

'I know that.'

She ignored him. 'We have been helping him as much as we can, but there is no cure.'

'How do you even know that?'

Another doctor stepped forward. Blast it, why couldn't he remember any of their names? 'Prince Sozin, I have some experience with this illness. It is a very rare condition, but—'

Sozin heard his own voice rise. 'If it's so rare, how can you possibly know there's no cure?' His face grew hotter. 'Maybe you just didn't see enough cases to see the ones where the patients got better. Maybe…' He trailed off. All the doctors were looking at him, the weight of their gazes making him feel like he was four again, a child that had to be coddled and protected from knowledge too great and heavy for him. He had to fight the urge to stand on tiptoe and raise his arm in the air to make the grown-ups notice him. Don't you dare pity me.

'Prince Sozin, there is no cure for this illness. It moves through the body and makes the sufferer slowly lose control of his muscles.'

'I know how it works,' Sozin said. 'Then the chi stops flowing and they stop working entirely. I've seen it, I know what it's like. But there must be something you can do. Something someone can do.' He tried to pretend he was back at Yulong, but all his mind came up with was You're not really supposed to run like that, repeating over and over, as though powered by mocking clockwork. He brushed one of his bangs away from his forehead. 'I know there's people who can block chi—maybe someone can make it flow again. And I've always heard some waterbenders can use their bending to heal people. Burns, open wounds… things that can't be healed any other way. I… we can…'

The pity didn't leave their eyes.

'We are very sorry,' the man who'd spoken before said. He had a voice smooth like the surface of a summer pond, and Sozin pictured him giving the same bad news to family after family, telling them he was sorry in the same understanding tone. Anger flared inside him. 'Unfortunately there is no cure for this illness. All we can do is help the sufferer through its progress. Right now it has reached the Fire Lord's chest and heart.' He hesitated for a second. 'As we were explaining to the Fire Lady, we can make him more comfortable—'

'Comfortable?' When had his father ever been comfortable? He thought of muscles twitching like the limbs of a bleeding, dying animal, breaths that sounded like they were being drawn through shattered glass. 'Comfortable,' he repeated.

The doctor didn't seem to hear the jagged edges in his voice. 'We will give him certain medicines that—'

'No.' He drew himself up. 'You will do all those things, but you will also do everything you can to help him get better.'

'Sozin,' his mother said, and he turned to her. She was still holding her clutched fist over her chest. He looked away.

'He's your Fire Lord,' he said, and before turning on his heels and returning to his father's room, added, 'nothing less can be expected from you.'

His father had begun to wake up from his dust-light sleep, his body stirring and twitching. He gulped for air, then stilled, and for one moment Sozin was sure he wasn't going to draw another breath. Then it came, slow and laboured.

He dragged a chair next to the bed. 'Dad,' he whispered, and picked up his hand again.

Yunjin opened his eyes. Sozin had to help him turn his head. A corner of his father's mouth shook and pulled upwards. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I think I… dozed off.'

'It's all right,' Sozin said, and brushed some of his father's hair away from his face. The air in the room was hot and heavy, but he was starting not to notice. 'You should rest.' He tried to chuckle, but it rang false. His father didn't seem to mind. 'You need to get doctors that are less lazy. I had to order them to take better care of you.' He trailed off and lowered his eyes, the familiar lump in his stomach turned into a churning soup of misery. It clogged up his throat.

'I want…' Yunjin said, and his head jerked to one side.

Sozin found out he could, somehow, speak. 'Do you need help?' He turned his father's face towards him, very gently. The skin was sticky with sweat. It wasn't the kind that washed over you after exertion; it was the kind that clung to you when you were feverish, the kind you only found in sick rooms. His father's eyes focused on him, the golden-brown dulled, the lids rimmed with red, bruised with tiredness.

'It's all right,' Yunjin said. 'It's all—' He gasped for air again, sounding like his lungs were full of swampy water.

Sozin sat on the bed and laid his head on the pile of pillows, next to his father's. He took his hand in his again. 'Don't worry,' he said, and the lump in his throat was back. It felt like it was made of thorns, and broken glass, and needles, and getting out each word made his eyes prickle with tears. 'I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here with you. Until you get better.'

The edges of his father's mouth shook, then stretched into a weak smile.

*

He stayed. The doctors came and went, examined his father and gave him medicine after medicine. His mother sat by the other side of the bed as much as she could, but people would come in often, whispering about this or that piece of urgent business.

He stayed. He insisted on being the one giving his father the thin soups and rice porridge that were the only things he was able to eat, helped the doctors' assistants wash him and change his bedclothes, read to him until his throat was dry while his father drifted in and out of his drugged sleep.

Yunjin didn't get better. His breathing grew more laboured, the twitches and jerks in his muscles worsened, then stopped entirely, little by little, like a city's lights going out as the night came in. It doesn't matter, Sozin told himself; if his father couldn't move his hands, he'd move them for him.

'Fireflies,' Yunjin muttered. Sozin glanced at the windows. It was early afternoon and the sunlight was a mocking gold. He had lost track of time a little.

'It's too early for them, daddy,' he said, and tried to feed his father another spoonful of papaya juice. Most of it dribbled down his chin and Sozin promptly moved to clean it up.

Yunjin spoke again in a raspy voice. 'Should do it again.' His eyes closed. 'Soon.'

He's remembering us catching fireflies, Sozin realised and all of a sudden he was five again, lying in the gardens under twilit willows and an impossibly deep summer sky. His father had taught him to use his firebending to attract fireflies. Just a little flame is enough, Yunjin had said, and had gently taken Sozin's small, chubby hands in his much larger ones and shown him how to make sure his little flame didn't slip out of his control. You don't want to burn them. He breathed in, and instead of the smell of the sick room, he felt the scent of dry grass and night-blooming flowers.

The thorny lump in his throat was back—no, that wasn't true; it never really left, just moved partly out of sight like a rock half-covered by the tide.

'Son.' His mother laid a hand on his shoulder and brushed her lips against his hair. 'You look exhausted. Go bathe. Go take a nap. I'll stay here with your father.'

'He needs me,' he said, his voice uncomfortably close to a whine, but his hands didn't resist as his mother took the juice and the spoon away from him.

'He's asleep now,' she said. He looked down at his father. His eyes were closed and his head had lolled back onto the pillows, but he didn't sound like someone asleep; he sounded like someone who'd just ran up a steep hill with a weight on his back.

Sora edged close to the bed and leaned down to touch her husband's forehead. 'It's all right,' she whispered. 'He's going to sleep for a while. Go on.'

Sozin struggled out of the chair. Exhaustion hit him like a well-aimed fire stream. His mother had been right: he was too tired to raise objections, and he nearly fell asleep while trying to soak away the ache in his muscles in one of the hot tubs. He returned to his father's room as soon as he could, cleansed and wearing freshly laundered clothes, his muscles as sore as before.

Someone was talking inside, he realised before he opened the door.

'—can't do that.' His father's voice, very faint. He froze in place.

Then his mother was talking: 'I can't bear seeing you like this.' Her voice gained a tearful edge. 'Don't do this. Not for my sake. I know… I know how much this has cost you. I know you'd rather…'

Sozin edged closer to the door, all his exhaustion dispelled. His blood rang in his ears.

'I'm… I'm sorry. Can't do it to him.'

What were they talking about? He strained to listen, and worried that his breath was loud enough for them to hear.

'Sozin will understand. He…' She paused and he heard a rustle. When she spoke again her voice was so low he could barely hear it. 'No, he won't understand. But he will accept it. He will…' She choked something, a sob or a gasp. 'He loves you.'

'That's why… I can't. I love him.'

A pause, long enough for him to know they weren't going to talk again. He opened the door, making sure to be as loud as possible. His mother startled and looked up, then a forced smile appeared on her lips. 'There you are,' she said. 'Feeling better?'

He nodded and went back to his seat, his face hot, as though someone had written fire script on his skin. Could his mother see it? He looked at his father's face, the skin over the cheekbones sallow, paper-thin. Could he see it? He felt like the fact that he'd overheard their conversation was flowing off him in waves, but his father's eyes remained dull from the poppy drops.

He's dying.

And he wants to die faster.

The voice was like cracked glass, twisted steel. He pushed it down as though it were something he had to smash to pieces with firebending, and bile rose in his throat. He couldn't even think about losing his father: the idea was visceral in its intensity, like having a limb torn off, leaving him bleeding and in agony. He wanted to sink into his father's arms and lay his head on his shoulder as though he were a little child again, needing to be comforted. Instead, he just held his father's hand, clutching to it like a drowning man to a lifeline. Don't leave me. Please don't leave me.

The voice was back, a whisper of icy wind. He's suffering. He's unravelling. You're being—

'Here.' His mother was back in the room along with two of the doctors. He hadn't noticed her leaving. 'It's time for—'

Sozin let go of his father's hand and jumped to his feet. Firebending is will. He didn't know why he was remembering the Keeper of the Flame, but she had been right. It was will, everything was will. He had solved the situation in Yulong through willpower. Maybe he could solve this through willpower too. 'His medicine, I know,' he said. 'I'll take care of it.'

He had been by his father's bedside long enough for his doctors to raise no objection.

'Here you go, dad,' Sozin said. Yunjin tried to smile at him while Sozin fed him the various drops and powders, rubbed an unguent on his throat and chest. Medicine for his pain and discomfort. Medicine to help the flow of his chi. Medicine to strengthen his blood. Medicine to help him breathe, because the medicine for his pain made him breathe even worse.

'Thank you,' Yunjin rasped when Sozin was done.

'It's all right, dad,' he said, then added, 'I'm going to make you better,' but the words tasted like a handful of ash.

*

It was night again, and the open windows couldn't dispel the smoky smell inside the sick room. His father was still gasping for breath even though Sozin had used up a whole jar of the unguent that helped clear his airways. One of the doctors' assistants had dozed off in a chair in the corner, and his mother was crumpled on a couch bed. She hadn't dozed off, just collapsed from exhaustion, extinguished like a blown-out candle.

'Dad.' The word was out before he could think about it. He brushed Yunjin's sweat-pearled forehead.

His father's eyelids rose a little, shakily. The pupils didn't focus on him, but the lop-sided grin was back, even if it was just a crinkle in the corner of his mouth by now.

'Dumpling.' The voice was a croaky whisper. The next breath sounded like it was drawn through cheesecloth.

Sozin's tongue and lips were moving again, treacherous. 'Does it hurt?'

An idiotic question; they didn't give you poppy drops for the taste.

His head stirred over the pillow. 'A—a little.'

'I know you must be suffering.' Blast you, why can't you shut up? Because it was true, that was why. Because he could see the skull under his father's skin, hear the rattle with each in-drawn breath. Misery bloomed inside him like some terrible flower full of sharp teeth and flesh black with decay. 'I know it must be hard for you.' He lowered his eyes, and when he spoke again it was in a thread of voice that hurt his throat like steel wire. 'You shouldn't have to endure it. If you don't want to.'

The golden-brown eyes sharpened and Yunjin nodded with his chin. At first Sozin thought it was only another spasm, then his father repeated the gesture and he got up from his chair, lay down on the bed and put his arm around his father's. Yunjin's face flopped towards him. Sozin reached out and brushed a few strands of hair away from his forehead.

'Hard,' Yunjin rasped. 'It's true. It's hard. It's taken everything…' He gasped and a little spittle dribbled down his lips. Sozin wiped it off. 'The illness. Took everything.' Each sentence sounded painful to get out, and Sozin wanted to tell him to not tire himself out, to rest, to stop. He stayed silent. 'Everything I enjoyed. Cared for. Except… except your mother. You. And now it's taking… my breathing. Isn't it… funny? The first thing a firebender… a firebender learns to use.'

Sozin was sure he was supposed to be tearful, but his eyes were bone-dry. That was funny too. Maybe. 'Does it hurt?' he asked, his voice almost as hoarse as his father's. 'When you breathe.'

'Like doing it… through sand. Wondering if you're going to manage the next one. But…' He tried to turn his head, and Sozin had to help him. Their faces were only inches apart across the pillows. He could smell his father's skin, hot with fever. 'I'm not… leaving you. Not until I have to.' He closed his eyes, the lids heavy with strain. 'Sorry. I'm selfish.'

Yes, stay while you can. Don't leave me.

No. I don't want you to suffer.

'It's all right, dad,' he said instead, his voice so thick it stuck to his mouth. 'Everything is going to be all right.'

But it wasn't. The night was neverending; sometimes Sozin would look up at the windows and the sliver of moon seemed to have stuck in place. The doctor's assistant woke up, obviously embarrassed about having dozed off, and came to check on his father before returning to her seat. Yunjin drifted in and out of his foggy sleep. Sometimes he spoke, eyes damp with fever, memories from when Sozin was a child, from when Yunjin was a much younger man. At some point he held a long conversation with his dead mother while Sozin and the doctor's assistant laid out damp cloths on his face and chest.

Now the assistant was back in her seat, leafing through a thin book, and Sora was still slumped down on the couch, sleeping like a doll laid on its side. Sozin had to stare for a bit to make sure she was breathing. He glanced at the candles, and was surprised to find out it had only been a few hours.

'We did right,' Yunjin muttered.

Sozin sat up. 'Daddy?'

But his father wasn't speaking to him. His eyes had grown bright again, but with delirium, not awareness. They focused on some invisible point below the ceiling and for a moment Sozin wondered if there was something there.

'Sora,' Yunjin went on. She's asleep, dad, Sozin wanted to say, but his father was already speaking again. 'I'm so glad. You needn't… have worried. You thought I'd regret it.' He struggled for the next breath, then went on, in the same damp, raspy voice. 'After he was born. That I would… resent him. Always think about what we had to do. Always see… someone else's face. But I'd never. He's wonderful. I know it was… hard. But worth it. Did… the right thing. I am… glad.'

'Dad?' Sozin said, and touched his father's forehead. What was Yunjin saying? They'd done the right thing in having him? That would go without saying: after all, they were the Fire Lord and the Fire Lady. Maybe he'd been talking about his siblings; Sozin had never been told much about his birth, but perhaps after three dead children, a fourth pregnancy would be dangerous for his mother. But in that case, why would anyone regret it after his birth? And what was all that about resenting him? It didn't make any—

His father's eyes focused on him. 'It's Sozin, dad. What were you—?'

'Sozin,' Yunjin muttered. 'That's my little boy's name.' He closed his eyes again, and Sozin knew he wasn't going to get any more answers, at least for now.

It doesn't really mean anything, he thought. He was just delirious from the fever and the medicine.

He wasn't exactly babbling about glowing purple platypus-bears, was he? The same voice from before.

He couldn't lie down on the bed anymore, even though he was sure the whole thing was really nothing. His skin itched and felt suddenly too tight, and it didn't get any better on the chair. You thought I'd regret it. Always see someone else's face. You thought I'd regret it. It doesn't mean anything. It means everything.

He was on his feet before he could think about it. The air inside the room was as heavy and uncomfortable as a soaked blanket. He looked at the bed, where his father was back to his dreamless sleep. He just needed fresh air. Just a little fresh air.

He walked up to the assistant, who sat too far away from the bed to have heard anything. 'If my mother wakes up, tell her I…' He hesitated. 'Tell her I just needed to clear my head.'

He didn't go outside, though. Somehow his legs ended up taking him to Roku's room while his mind busily replayed everything his father had said.

Maybe he just wanted to go somewhere that reminded him of when everything had been much happier and less complicated.

The room was dark and silent and empty. He lit a few of the lamps and one of the braziers, and sat on the bed, in the very same place where he had given Roku the Crown Prince headpiece. We did right. You thought I'd resent him. After his birth. This wasn't doubt; he didn't think there was a name for what he was feeling. Not knowing and knowing too much at the same time. It made his body hurt as though he'd been cut with a sharp blade very, very slowly. It made his stomach churn with nausea.

What had his father meant? What had they done before his birth that he might regret? That might make him resent his own son? His aunt at Obsidian Island, holding his face in her hands, the memory of her voice so sharp that for a split-second he was sure she was in the room with him. You're the spitting image of your mother.

Well, what of it? He did look just like a younger, male version of his mother. Same nose, same long-lashed amber eyes, same black hair, same high cheekbones that made their faces round like sun-cakes, even if the years had sharpened his mother's. And what was so extraordinary about that? Some children looked like their mothers, some like their fathers, some like some other relative, some—

Someone else's face.

Another memory, from when he had first started to understand the nature of his father's illness. Is what's happening to you going to happen to me? he had asked, aged eight and almost shaking with misery. Don't worry, dumpling. It's not in the blood. It can't hurt you.

He sounded awfully certain, didn't he? That terrible voice again, thin, mocking. Shut up. His doctors told him the illness didn't run in families, that's all.

Either that, or he knew there was no chance he could have passed it on to—

Shut up shut up shut up—

And you don't look even a little bit like your father. Not even the bits that don't look like your mother.

He ran his fingers over his jaw and his dimpled chin, as though he'd find some secret knowledge written on his skin. Those weren't like his mother's, but they weren't like his father's, either. He could tell despite his father's beard.

The lump in his throat was back, but this time it snagged thoughts along with words. All he managed to think about was how the thing in his throat would look like if it had physical substance, a lump of mud and mould full of sharp bone slivers and rusty hooks. He lay down on the bed. The room was cleaned regularly, but a little of Roku's scent still clung to the bedclothes. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the pillows until his doushun's smell was his whole world.

*

He wasn't sure how long he'd been in Roku's room when he heard the knock on the door.

'It's me, son.' His mother's voice, soft as the firelight. He lifted his head; he was sure he hadn't fallen asleep, but he felt like he'd been jolted awake. His face was damp and the spot between his eyes throbbed with pain. He didn't remember that either, and just wiped his eyes hurriedly before turning to the door.

'How's…' He trailed off.

'He's asleep,' Sora said, and walked to the bed. 'I was surprised not to find you at your father's side. Then Tien told me you said you needed to clear your head.' She sat down. Her clothes were still rumpled. 'Where else would you be?' She paused and looked at his face. Even in the weak light, he could see her eyes darken with worry. 'I'm sorry. I know this must be very hard on you. Roku is gone and your father…' She trailed off and reached for his hand, but he pulled away. He looked at the dragon pattern on the screen in front of him.

Shut up. Go back to your father. Don't say anything and that'll be the end of it.

No.

He couldn't not know.

'He spoke to me,' he said, not taking his eyes from the screen. A lifetime ago he had jumped around in front of it, trying to cheer Roku up. Now the lump in his throat was gone and the words flowed out, as though made slippery by fire wine. 'When you were asleep. He said… he said something about how you and him did the right thing. Before I was born. He thought he was talking to you. He wanted you to know that you did the right thing. He said you were afraid he'd regret it once I was born, that he'd resent me. He said he never did. He never could. I…' He turned towards her. Her face was blank. 'What did he mean?'

If she said it was just some meaningless fever-babble, he would let it go.

If she said she had no idea what that meant.

If she said anything at all.

If she didn't force her mouth to curve into a smile.

'Don't lie to me,' he said, and couldn't keep anger from his voice.

Say you don't have any idea what I'm talking about.

But she didn't. Instead she sighed, looked at the fire sputtering inside one of the lamps, and placed her hands on her lap. When she spoke, her voice sounded like it was coming from very far away. 'You have to understand, son. All I—all we did, we did for the sake of our country. For your sake.'

His body felt encased in ice. He was surprised by the sound of his own voice; it didn't feel like any of the words were coming from him. 'What are you saying?'

Sora didn't turn her gaze away from the lamp. 'I don't know what your grandmother told you about us, about—about our marriage, but I want you to know I love your father. Every bit as much as I love you. We were, oh, a few years older than you are now. But after some years we had spent so much time together that we stopped knowing what to do when we were apart. Just because my mother and his father arranged it, it doesn't mean it's not real.'

Her eyes turned brittle with tears. In the firelight, they shone like diamond dust.

'He was so handsome. Or at least that's what I thought,' she said with a half-smile that was somehow dreadful. 'You should have seen him then. Before he… He was dashing, that's the right word. The Fire Nation's golden prince. You should have seen what he could do with his firebending. We got married. We had so many plans for when he became Fire Lord. He was always a dreamer, you know. He used to say that was what made us just right for each other: he was the dreamer and I was the planner, the practical one. It felt like a good omen. Everything felt like a good omen those days. Especially the comet.' She trailed off. Her eyes were focused on something Sozin was sure wasn't in the room.

'Why are you telling me all this?' he croaked.

She sighed. 'I just want you to understand. I want you to know that all we did, we did for love.' She looked at her lap, then picked at something on the palm of her hand, as though she had a scar there. 'I became pregnant for the first time after your father became Fire Lord. Everything was so perfect. I should have known that was too much luck for anyone. I should have…' A pause. Her voice was bone-dry. 'The birth didn't go well. When it was over I only had a dead son. Your brother Daoshi. We grieved, but it wasn't so terrible at first. It wasn't really… we had never got to know him. We could only mourn for what had never been. But after that… after that your father started getting ill.

'You only knew him after he had resigned himself to it. After we knew it was deadly and incurable. But back then… back then we thought it was—' She paused. The edge of tears had vanished from her eyes, but they still glittered in the low light. He could only stare and listen, as though his mind had been trapped in a doll of flesh and bone. He was sure he wouldn't be able to speak or move, even if he wanted to. 'He was seen by so many doctors,' she went on. 'The best ones. Discreetly, of course. It wouldn't be good for people to start wondering about the Fire Lord's health. But he just got worse.'

She ran a hand over her forehead and let out a chuckle. It didn't sound like laughter. 'It was so silly at first, you know. Such a small thing. He started getting clumsy. Dropping things. Missing firebending steps. We thought it was nothing. Then the pain started. And he started losing control of his body. Little by little.' She turned towards him. Her eyes were empty and the firelight cast an orange glow on her skin. 'But you know how that works.' She looked away again, and he turned his head towards the spot she was focusing on. He didn't think about it; his body moved from its own volition. He looked at the waves of hot air above the flames in one of the lamps. His mother spoke again.

'I got pregnant again soon after that. This time I wasn't going to have a dead child. I surrounded myself with doctors and midwives from the first day. I did everything to attract good luck and keep away bad. And my daughter was born alive. She was perfect. So unfussy. She always started feeding right away. Just after she was born, when I held her in my arms for the first time, she grabbed my finger and looked right into my eyes. Most babies' eyes are all milky, but hers weren't.

'She lived for almost two days. Then she stopped breathing and… Her name was Suzuma.' She made a croaking sound low in her throat. 'It's funny—this is the first time I've said her name since she died. I never did that until now. I couldn't bear to say it. I couldn't even write it down. You remind me of her the most, you know. Out of all my dead children. The ones I loved but couldn't keep.'

For a moment the only sound in the room was the faint crackle of the fire. Sozin couldn't even hear himself breathe.

'Your father kept getting worse. And after a while we tried for another child. I think some part of me thought it wouldn't work. When I got pregnant again, I nearly went mad. I just wanted to get rid of it. I just wanted to curl up in some corner and die. I couldn't go through that again. I couldn't bear carrying another child just to watch it die. But in the end that was exactly what I did. What your father and I did. We had to. We knew our duty. You don't choose your burdens, they choose you.'

She crossed her arms over her chest and placed her hands on her shoulders, as though she were cold. 'You know, people think there's things they can't bear. That's not true. In the end there's almost nothing you can't bear. Almost nothing you can't endure and lose the will to keep breathing. Like an animal in a trap. I don't know how much I could have endured if it hadn't been for your father, though. Afterwards… after your brother Shirou was born dead, he told me it was all his fault. That maybe his illness was the reason why the babies died. Maybe it was something in the blood. Maybe he had been born with the illness and passed it on to the babies. Or maybe the illness affected his body in some way that meant he could never father a healthy child. You see that with animals, sometimes.'

Her face turned towards him and her gaze felt heavy on his skin. She spoke again. 'And then he said that maybe he wouldn't have to.'

'What.' It wasn't a question. He wanted to say What are you talking about? but "what" was all he could manage. It was so low he was sure his mother didn't hear it.

'It sounded crazy at first. We couldn't do something like that, could we? We weren't even sure if the reason why we couldn't have healthy children had anything to do with him. It might be me. It might be something in both of us. And he did have heirs already: your aunt Iruza and her children. But after a while we started talking about how things would be much easier for everyone if we had a child. About how much we wanted one, especially your father; by then we knew the illness was incurable, and it wasn't going to get better. It was going to get worse and worse, and then kill him. But he didn't want a child just because of that. And not just out of duty, either. I want you to know that. We wanted a child. And maybe we could have one. Maybe…' She paused and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before going on. When she spoke again, her voice was still tearless.

'We talked about it. We came up with a plan. There was someone who… We arranged it between the three of us. Very discreetly. No one ever would find out. And if that didn't work, well, that would be that. I didn't expect it to work. I don't really know why. But it did. I can't really recall how many nights I spent with him. It doesn't really matter. But afterwards I was pregnant. And at the end of nine months I had a child.' She looked at him. 'I had you.'

*

I had a child. I had you.

He blinked once, twice.

She was going to say she was joking. Any moment now she was going to say she was joking.

She doesn't joke. Least of all now.

The ice was back in his body, filling up his veins, muffling his heart, clogging up his throat. This couldn't—it was like a flying cow-sow, something absurd, something impossible. Except—

He couldn't stay here. He stumbled to his feet, his head swimming like a drunkard's and his stomach twisting with nausea. He glared at Sora and the flames inside the room swelled with a roar. 'How could you have done such a thing?' Anger, yes; that, he understood. It tasted sweet and terrible and wonderfully bitter. 'What does this make me? What does this even—'

She reached for him with her hand, but he yanked his body away. 'Don't touch me!' he yelled. He put his face in his hands, as though that would block out the whirl of memories. The Crown Prince headpiece sitting on Roku's hand. Kazu and Yin kneeling to him under a silver moon. His ancestors—no, Fire Lord Yunjin's ancestors—speaking to him with the voice of the earth. Only he was no one, and that had only been a drug-dream, coming from nowhere and meaning nothing. He felt like crying. He felt like screaming.

'Son.' Sora stood up, and when she spoke again it was with the Fire Lady's voice. 'Look at me.'

His body obeyed, even if his mind didn't want to.

'I know you must be confused and angry…'

Angry? He focused on her, the only other living thing in this room, and felt a sudden and almost painful urge to strike at her and then himself. 'You lied to me,' he said, the words stinging his tongue like poison. 'You just—who am I? Answer me!'

'You're my son. Mine and Fire Lord Yunjin's. You're the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation.' She stepped towards him and he pulled back.

'How can you say that?' he spat out. 'How can you stand there and—and say that—'

She grabbed his wrist and he almost slashed at her with a fire dagger. 'Don't touch me! Don't—don't you—' He pulled away but her hand remained clamped on his wrist like the talons of some bird of prey. She pressed her body against his and he struggled for a moment before his body slackened, too tired and sickened to resist. 'How could you?' He couldn't tell if he was sobbing the words or spitting them out. 'How could you?' I hate you. Let go of me. No, don't.

'I'm sorry,' she said, and ran a hand over his hair. He let out an angry groan, muffled against her shoulder. Thorns twisted inside his mouth. 'I know it must be hard to understand. You're young, and I know you must be too hurt right now—'

He swore. Not hurt. A liar. A fraud. A cowbird-cuckoo in a nest.

'We never meant for you to find out,' she went on. All of a sudden, he was too tired to protest. He just wanted to lay his head down and sleep for a thousand years. He wanted his shame to burn through his skin, until he was just ash. 'Sometimes the truth is not something people can talk about. Sometimes people have to lie for the sake of something greater than themselves. We thought you deserved something better than the truth. And it worked. We—'

He pulled away from her, fresh anger spilling into his blood. 'It worked? It worked? I am not the Crown Prince. I'm just some… some… What if I had looked like—what if I couldn't firebend? What if—' The words clotted in his throat.

'But you can. And you are.' She looked down at her hands and in the firelight her face looked like a wax mask. 'The only thing that matters is what people think matters. Willpower is everything. It matters far more than blood. You are the Crown Prince because you and everybody else think you're the Crown Prince. Come on—your father needs you right now.'

'He isn't—'

'Of course he is.' Her tone was grim. 'You were his from the moment you were born. Far more than you were ever mine. Do you remember when you were three and hurt yourself firebending?'

He wanted to bite off a "no", but the memory was there, undeniable: he had been a toddler having his first firebending lessons, just learning how to breathe properly and how not to accidentally send sparks flying every time he was upset or excited. That hadn't been enough for him; didn't everyone always say he was a prodigy? He hadn't been sure about what that meant, but it must be something good. So one day he had tried more advanced moves and had ended up setting himself on fire. His father had been the one to pick him up while he sobbed with pain and fear, to gently rub ointment on his wounds while he told him a story to distract him from the sting, to keep him in his lap where it was warm and safe and tell him that he didn't have to be afraid of fire. It was in his soul, after all.

He lowered his gaze. 'Yes,' he whispered.

*

It was night again. Sozin had lost track of the time that passed outside the room. The only important thing was the moods of the man on the bed. My father, Sozin thought to himself, and if the words rang hollow, for a moment it didn't matter. Yunjin was fading. He spent more and more time in his drugged sleep. Whenever he woke up, he could barely speak, and his breathing sounded like a gargle of muddy water. Sometimes he spoke, snatches of words, dream-ridden, meaningless.

Sozin lay down next to him on the bed, warming his flesh with his body. His father was almost sitting up on the pillows; it was the only way he could breathe.

'Daddy?' For a moment Sozin was sure that something would happen once the word was out of his mouth, some clash of thunder, but all that followed was a twitch in Yunjin's lips.

'He wants to look at you,' his mother said, lying on the other side of the bed. As gently as he could, Sozin turned his father's face towards his. The eyelids rose, very slowly. Earlier, grandmother Bao had been in the room and Yunjin hadn't recognised her, but this time the eyes lit up for a second with love and awareness. The lips twitched again into the tiniest ghost of a smile.

'We love you,' Sora said, and kissed her husband's forehead. Sozin said nothing and just laid his head next to his father's, pressed his body against his. Yunjin's eyelids dropped down like slabs of marble.

He could feel his father's heartbeat against his own flesh, the tremors that accompanied each breath.

In.

Out.

A long pause.

In.

Out.

A much longer pause.

In.

Out.

Silence.

His mother shifted position to kiss Yunjin's forehead again. Sozin remained in place, still pressed up against the now-silent flesh. Some part of him was sure he could feel it starting to cool.

Outside, a few birds chirped at the incoming dawn.

*

He stayed with what everyone was now calling the body, as though it were just a carcass or a slab of meat. People came and went and talked to him, and he said nothing. His grandmother, holding his mother's hand, her hair almost as white as her mourning clothes. Lu Ling, telling him Jaya had just given birth to twins, a girl and a boy. Someone told him that he needed to leave now: the handlers of the dead were here to take care of—those words again—the body. His own body turned towards the speaker like a thing made of clockwork and told him to get out and leave him alone.

He stayed. His eyes went to the curtains rippling softly in the morning breeze, the lotus bowls. The people from the Dragon Bone Catacombs came into the room. He didn't see their faces. Someone spoke to him again in a voice like crackling leaves, told him that it would be improper for him to handle his father's body. He said nothing, and stayed.

He helped them wash and dress his father. The water smelled of roses. His father had always hated that scent; he was the only person Sozin knew who didn't like it.

Outside there was sunlight, glinting off the pools, and the gathered crowd was a vibrant shade of scarlet. Sozin looked at his father, laid out on the cremation chamber, his hands crossed over his waist. He looked like he was asleep. The sun made the golden roof above him glow, and the sky was a cheerful, unbroken blue.

Sozin stood off to one side with his family. Time must have passed. Someone must have given him the white mourning clothes he was now wearing. He couldn't remember it.

'Yunjin, Fire Lord to our nation for thirty-one years. You were our guide—' The Head Sage went on, listing his father's titles and accomplishments, his voice ringing across the plaza. 'You were father of Daoshi, now passed. Father of Suzuma, now passed. Father of Shirou, now passed. Father of Sozin.' Sozin stirred at that, then stood still. There was no rumbling of disagreement from the crowd. He looked back at his father. He had heard more than once that dead bodies looked different from live ones, that there was something in death that mere unconsciousness could never mimic, but right now he couldn't see the difference. 'Husband of Sora. Brother of Iruza. Uncle of Ryun and Lu Ling.' He didn't mention Ryun and Jaya's babies. That would have been bad luck, Sozin thought, and, inexplicably, felt like laughing.

The Head Sage held the Fire Lord's headpiece in his hands. 'We lay you to rest.'

Fire bloomed from the hands of the other two Sages and Sozin looked from under his eyelashes as the flames consumed his father's hair, blistered his flesh, peeled off his skin. The smell was sickeningly sweet. He fell to his knees, suppressing a bout of cough, and was sure he wouldn't be able to get up again.

The Head Sage stepped up to him, scarlet robes rustling. Behind them the roar of the flames grew louder. 'You are now succeeded by your only surviving child.' Sozin felt the man slide the headpiece into his topknot. The smell of burning flesh made his eyes water. 'Hail, Fire Lord Sozin!'

He did manage to get up. The headpiece remained firmly in place; he had expected it to slide off and clatter to the ground.

Below him, the crowd started kneeling, the words repeated like an echo. Hail, Fire Lord Sozin. Fire Lord Sozin. Fire Lord Sozin. He stood silent, watching the scarlet banners billow in the wind.

+++

Notes: The thing with Sozin's parentage is part of a plot-line that will show up in the sequels to this story. For now, let me just say that I hate the whole It's In the Blood trope with the fiery intensity of ten thousand Sozin's Comets, but I love deconstructing it with extreme prejudice (and I love the concept of families of choice); secondly, characters like Sozin always strike me as having some sort of repressed insecurity that must be compensated for with OTT attempts at making themselves/their career/their family/whatever perfect, so… well, there you go.

Chapter 15: Fire Lord Sozin

Summary:

Crimebusters meeting; or, in other words, Sozin deals with loss, decides to try to solve all of the Fire Nation's problems, finds that's easier said than done and that being the Fire Lord means you always have enemies.

Chapter Fifteen: Fire Lord Sozin

The next several hours went by in a blur.

After the cremation, the Fire Sages escorted Sozin to one of the antechambers adjoining the throne room. He wanted to stay behind. How long did a human body take to be consumed to ash? He had been to his—

Fire Lord Yunjin’s mother’s

—paternal grandmother’s funeral as a child, but he remembered little more than a ceremony that seemed to last forever and smoke rising from the cremation chamber.

He didn’t stay, though. He just let his body follow the Fire Sages.

‘Before taking the Fire Lord robes and sitting on the Dragon Throne,’ the Head Sage said in a voice like a clanging bell, ‘you must be rid of everything from your previous life.’

I know all that, Sozin thought, but said nothing, and stood still while he was stripped of his white mourning robes, neither hindering nor helping. His gaze went to the walls, covered in gold and scarlet scrolls bearing the names and dates of all past Fire Lords. There was an empty spot after Fire Lord Ren’s scroll. Sozin filled it in mentally. Fire Lord Yunjin, dead in the Year of the Dragon. He had always heard that dragon years were some of the luckiest for the Fire Nation, but that was a lie, wasn’t it? Another one. He was starting to become an expert.

He almost laughed, but instead he shivered a little in the shuttered, dusty air when the last stitch of clothing was removed. He realised he did not even mind his nakedness. The Head Sage stepped forward to remove the Fire Lord headpiece.

Good. You shouldn’t even be wearing it.

His body moved mechanically to the curtains being held open for him. Flames veiled the next chamber. ‘You must pass through the fire into your life as Fire Lord,’ the Head Sage said in the same clanging, monotonous voice. Sozin wondered if he’d done the same for his father, if he repeated it over and over in some room in the Fire Temple, as practice.

The flames only parted for him on the second try, and for a moment he thought he heard whispering behind him. But there was nothing, only the crackle of the flames behind him, the still air in the room he’d just stepped into. The Fire Sages lost no time in redoing his topknot, dressing him in the Fire Lord clothing and shoes. The robes fit perfectly, even though his father was—had been—more than a head and a half taller. Had someone been sewing and hemming them even as his father lay dying? The thought clung to him like smoke as he walked into the throne room, where a sea of faces was already assembled. Rhythmic music marked his progress; the drums and tsungi horns sounded horribly dissonant to his ears.

The Head Sage read from a scroll as Sozin neared the throne steps, the fourteen golden fire bowls already laid out for him.

‘All hail Fire Lord Sozin, child of the Undying Flame, fire made flesh, undoubted ruler of the Fire Nation. May he guide us with honour.’

Sozin spread out his hands and two thin streams of flame flowed into the first two fire bowls. Sunlight, dreadfully sweet, fell on his face.

The Head Sage didn’t miss a beat. ‘May he lead us with courage.’

Sozin continued up the steps as the Head Sage went on—truth… sacrifice… vision… knowledge… will…—his firebending barely improving with each new pair of bowls. The crowd was going to start muttering, he told himself as he climbed off the last step and onto the dais where the throne sat, under the blind eyes of an enormous carved dragon. Someone was going to step forward and point an accusing finger at him, shouting that he didn’t belong there, that he had no right… He sat on the throne, a swirl of laughing, disembodied mouths swimming in his mind as the Head Sage said something else and the crowd kneeled.

No one stepped forward, and he realised he felt no relief.

When the Head Sage was done, a stream of people began moving to the foot of the steps, where they kneeled before stepping away. His mother. Ryun and Lu Ling. His grandmother. Ta Min and her parents. Nobles according to rank. Generals. Faces and names blurred together; he barely made out Lord Kazu and Lady Yin, Governor Cheng and his family. He answered the greetings almost without realising it, the words pouring out automatically, from some place beyond his control. He wanted to cover his face and say nothing. He wanted to scream and run from the room. He wanted to start laughing until he couldn’t stop. He knew exactly what it would sound like, too, like shattering glass and nail tips scratching slate.

He got through the rest of the ceremony and the day’s festivities without doing any of those things, and then, somehow, it was late at night and he was in the Fire Lord’s bedroom, lying on the bed that had been his father’s. Not the one where he’d died—the Fire Lord one, with its canopy and whispering draperies, so vast he felt like a little hog-vole in a plain where there was no place to shelter from the sun and the eyes of birds of prey.

You don’t belong here.

It was my father’s. Now it’s mine.

You just keep telling yourself that.

The voices went on in his head, back and forth. They were only him, he knew, but somehow they felt like strangers, arguing amidst the shadows and cobwebs with no rhyme nor reason. Around him the palace shifted and groaned like a dreamer whimpering in their sleep. He stared at the dragon canopy above his head. In the gloom cut by a single lamp, the carved coils looked monstrous, the scarlet accents glistened the colour of freshly-spilt blood. He pulled the bedclothes over his face and drew in a mouthful of his father’s smell.

Memories flooded in, each as sharp and cruel as poison. He fumbled for one, himself at eight, his father placing the Crown Prince headpiece on his topknot; afterwards his father had told him… the memory slipped out of his grasp, like foam melted by the wind. Instead the thought of someone making sure the Fire Lord robes would fit him snuck in again, unwanted and uninvited. Blast it all, he thought, but he couldn’t make himself angry. It was as though his insides had been scooped out and replaced with malfunctioning clockwork that made his body move when it wasn’t cutting him with loose gears, burning him with rust.

This did make him laugh and he looked at the canopy again, the swell of shadows clinging to it. He thought of cobwebs and dust thickening in the corners and cracks on the wood and the gold foil. He could almost see them, the hair-thin lines reminding him of words written by someone with a poor hand. Waste. Malice. Wicked. Another voice showed up, unknown, a clicking of loose gears. You’re going mad, aren’t you? You may be able to fool everyone, but here in the dark, between the two of us, you and I both know what’s happening. Grief won’t kill you, and it’s not going to make you stronger, is it? It’s just going to drive you mad, here in this place with the dust and the cracks.

He rolled onto his side. Maybe it will. He heard the nightingale floor squeak and didn’t even bother turning towards it.

Huan popped her head onto the bed. Her barbels drooped down.

He didn’t sit up. ‘How did you get here, girl?’ He hadn’t seen her all day. She made a soft noise in her throat and hoisted the top half of her body onto the bed, which groaned a little under the weight despite its huge size. Her tongue slid out and licked his face. Her eyes, dark bronze in the gloom, turned towards him.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. Her protectiveness brushed his mind, warm and uncomplicated. He sat up and cradled her head in his arms, her scales scratching his skin. She purred, sounding like an oversized cat. He kneaded the scales between her ears. ‘I’m going to be all right.’ Tears dampened his eyes but didn’t spill down.

You can’t even firebend properly anymore.

‘I’m going to be all right,’ he repeated, his face pressed against Huan. The words came out as sobs.

*

He wasn’t all right, but he got through the night, and the next day, and the one after that. His ministers spoke to him and he turned to his mother, who instantly took charge, smoothing things over, doing what needed to be done like she always had. All he needed to do was place the Fire Lord’s seal and signature on the documents his mother put in front of him. At those times he felt like he was just watching from a prison of flesh and skin, a ghost trapped in some other boy’s life.

He lit the fires for Jaya and Ryun’s babies’ naming ceremony, thin streams of orange flame dripping from his fingers. No one commented on it, but he could feel their stares. When he picked up Jian, the baby squirmed in her sleep, removed one tiny, sticky fist from her mouth, and spat up an impossible amount of milk all over Sozin. Before he could do anything more than wrinkle his nose at the bitter smell, the baby’s forehead wrinkled like an old woman’s and she turned into a small bundle of alarming red that wailed like a wounded boar-q-pine, boneless limbs and neck flopping about. Sozin was sure he was going to drop her. Why didn’t anyone take her off his hands?

‘Here,’ Ryun said, finally, clearly amused, but before he could pick up his daughter, the baby’s still birth-hazy eyes focused on Sozin and she quietened in mid-wail. ‘Hey, she likes you,’ Ryun said as he picked her up and cradled her in one arm. Sozin stepped back, trying to wipe off the vomit on his clothes, thinking nothing. ‘Come here.’ His cousin pulled him to one side, away from the rest of the family. The baby settled into the crook of his arm, gurgling with contentedness.

‘Listen, little cousin, I lost my father when I was ten,’ Ryun said. ‘Everybody is probably telling you to keep yourself busy with all the things you have to do, but that’s not going to help.’

‘I’m fine,’ Sozin said.

Ryun shook his head, and Sozin caught a glimpse of something in his eyes that, for once, wasn’t a hypnotic golden spark, or dark amusement at the world. He looked away, at the room’s carved pillars. ‘No you’re not,’ his cousin said, ‘but I guess nothing I say can change that. It gets better, though. The funny thing is that you not believing it doesn’t change that either.’

Sozin said nothing.

Days and nights passed, each the same as the one before, and the one after. Minister Guo asked to retire. His mother handled it. Servants were pensioned off. He signed more documents, each a blur of characters. At night the dust and cobwebs still spoke to him. One evening he found himself sitting in one of the palace’s indoor gardens, Huan basking at his feet in the last glow of twilight coming in through the glass and the open roof. His gaze caught on the flame pattern on the tile floor and stuck there as moths hovered in the air around the flames.

‘I was told I’d find you here.’

He turned around to see Ta Min walking towards him. She had been to the palace often since they’d returned to the capital, but he couldn’t remember her visits after his coronation, even though he was sure they’d happened.

‘This was my father’s favourite spot in the whole palace,’ he said, and went back to looking at Huan, who perked up as a toucan-puffin flew in from outside, and thrummed with barely repressed prey-drive as the bird flitted from branch to branch in a colourful blur. Sozin scratched her neck. ‘Go on, girl,’ he said, and an over-excited Huan barrelled down the garden. The bird flew off. ‘It’s all right if she can’t catch them,’ he said, and looked back at the fountain with its murmuring water. Above him insects buzzed and tiny hummingfrogs croaked in the hot air.

Ta Min sat down beside him. ‘I know you must miss him a lot.’

‘Yes,’ he said, and didn’t look away from the fountain. Huan trotted back, wings held out at her sides. Soon they would be large enough for her to learn to fly.

They sat with only the water’s babble for a moment. Then Ta Min picked up his hand and held it between hers. He didn’t move; his gaze remained fastened on the fountain.

She sighed. ‘I’m worried about you. You haven’t been—’

He pulled his hand away from her. ‘My father is dead. Should I light some fireworks and dance around?’

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it,’ she said, sounding hurt and angry at the same time. When she spoke again, her tone had softened a little. ‘I know you’re grieving. I know how much it hurts. And I… I don’t want to make it sound like it’s not important, but—’

He turned towards her. The foliage cast a latticework of shadows on her face. ‘But he had been ill for a long time, and it was only going to happen sooner or later, and he’s better—’

‘No,’ she said, and the jagged edge was back in her voice, like metal wrapped in layers of silk. ‘You lost someone. There’s nothing I can do or say that will change that. But you can’t grieve forever.’

He turned away from her. I can, his mind snapped. I will. How could he not? His father had been laid out in a gold-roofed fire pit until his flesh was ashes and his bones were as black and crumbly as coal, then scooped up and pressed into an urn. He was never going to talk again. He was never going to call him dumpling. He was never going to see the fireflies with him in the garden or teach him firebending moves, or tell him funny stories from when he was young. All that was left of him was lying in a stone jar underground, in some dark place full of cobwebs and dust. Something burrowed deep inside Sozin’s flesh, cold and full of sharp points.

‘You’re my friend,’ she said, and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I just want to help you. I don’t know what to say or do, but I can’t watch you just go around like—like—’

‘Like what?’ He still didn’t look at her. His voice didn’t sound angry, or sad, or annoyed. It sounded like fog, a grey sky.

She shifted position with a rustle of fabric. ‘You’re not well.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m fine.’

She stood up. ‘Do you think you’re the only person who’s ever lost someone? Your mother—’

Anger flashed inside him like scarlet lightning. He jumped to his feet and Huan bristled with shared anxiety. A wide leaf brushed his face; he batted it away. ‘What do you want me to do, exactly? Fall down on my knees? Break something?’

Her eyes flashed. He had never seen her like this, not at Shukai, not at Kiake, not even when they’d stolen the Jade Dragon at Yulong and her face had almost glowed with intensity. When she spoke, her tone was deceptively soft. ‘Yes. Break something. Fall on your knees and shout at the unfairness of fate, because it is unfair. I don’t know. But just do something. Because I don’t think I can bear another minute of seeing you go around as though they entombed you along with your father’s ashes.’

He didn’t answer. The thing in his throat was back, the thorns spreading through his flesh, burning him up with anger, and shame, and ache. His hands balled into fists. He wanted to—he wanted to—

Whatever it was, it smashed through his bones and ripped through his skin in a white-hot wave. The torches in the garden erupted into pillars of flames that roared to the edge of the roofs. Animals scampered away. Huan curled up around him, hissing in distress.

He brought his fists to his face. Flames burst between his fingers, so close to his face he nearly flayed his own skin off. He fell to his knees with a groan. Fire spun around him, blinded him. Something poured off him in waves, batted him about like a boat in a storm.

‘Sozin—Sozin! Stop!’

The fire around him vanished and he dropped to the floor with a gasp. Sweat dripped down his skin and a few blisters were already swelling in the skin of his hands. He didn’t mind them; they felt intensely real like nothing else had in the past few weeks, as though he’d spent the time since his father’s lengthy death wrapped in cotton and fog, buried deep underground. The pain was bright and hot and red. Good pain.

Ta Min kneeled down on the floor by his side. This time the worry in her tone was undisguised. ‘Are you all right? You frightened me a little. It looked like you were going to set yourself on fire.’

He lifted his head. He was lying on his side on the floor, the stench of fresh smoke clinging to his clothes and skin. Huan licked the wounds in his hands. It didn’t sting like he might expect—instead something in her tongue just made his flesh cool and a little numb.

‘I’m sorry I frightened you,’ he said, and sat up. His muscles ached. Everything hurt and felt like he’d just ripped off a scab and let the blood underneath flow. Maybe he had. ‘I didn’t meant to. I don’t really know what I was doing.’

She edged closer to him and put her hand on his arm, and for a moment they were back in the basement at Shukai, bedraggled and clinging to each other in the dark.

‘Maybe the fire helped,’ she said, her head almost on his shoulder. ‘It’s our element, so maybe using it helped change… I don’t know. But it’s in our soul.’

He startled. She had used the very same words as his father, he realised with a fresh bout of pain. Whatever the fire had done, it hadn’t made things better. Just more real, so now his flesh hurt as though it had just been slashed to ribbons and he had to gasp for breath. He shivered and laid his head on his knees. ‘I wish Roku were here,’ he whispered.

She pulled away from him. ‘Well, I’m sorry I’m not him,’ she snapped.

‘That’s not what I meant. It’s just—’

‘I know.’ Her tone softened, then turned bittersweet. ‘He’s your doushun. I know. I’m sorry. I’m not very good at comforting people.’

He reached for her hand. His face was sticky with tears but he wasn’t sobbing. ‘I wanted him to come back and make everything better with his Avatar powers,’ he whispered. All around him the garden had returned to its babble of water and soft insect noises. ‘Isn’t that… silly?’ This time he did begin to sob, low noises in his throat like the whimpers of a wounded animal.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t hug him like she had at Yulong. She just leaned her head on his as he laid his face on her shoulder and cried in fits and starts. It wasn’t like what happened in stories and plays. There was no dramatic flow of tears, no sighing in someone’s arms. His nose had clogged up and he had the start of a headache. He didn’t stop crying because he was no longer sad; his throat was just too dry and his eyes were beginning to swell.

He turned his face towards hers and squeezed her hand.

‘I am sorry your father died,’ she said, her own voice damp. ‘I didn’t know him very well but I think he was a good man. I always heard he was a good Fire Lord.’

He wiped a little of the dampness off his face. ‘Your sister is alive,’ he said. ‘I know it.’

She said nothing. They sat in silence for a while, clutching at each other, Huan curled up around them.

Finally, he stood up. His muscles felt rusty, as though he’d just woken up from a deep sleep. Ta Min scrambled to her feet. ‘Are you feeling better?’ she said.

‘Better?’ The pain hadn’t subsided. He was sure they lied, those who said time cured all wounds. And it wasn’t better. Not now. But it might be, a little, soon. He found out the thought didn’t make him hate himself.

‘No,’ he said, then held out his hand and a ribbon of nearly white fire curled up above it. ‘But I’ve got my firebending back. And…’ The fire vanished. He turned to her and held her hands in his, then blushed, eyes downcast. ‘I’m sorry. Thank you. I know I haven’t been… easy. Lately, I mean.’ He tongue lay still, a useless lump inside his mouth.

She just squeezed his hands. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, and for a little while, it was.

*

‘I’m sure you must be wondering why I’ve called this council.’

Sozin looked across the room at the faces of his ministers and detected few traces of curiosity. As the Fire Lord, it was his prerogative to call councils whenever he desired—he could order them all to dress up as purple rabbaroos if he wished—but it was best to keep to the rules of etiquette. ‘I am here to gather information,’ he went on.

Minister Xiao cleared his throat. ‘Information, Fire Lord Sozin?’

The title still sent shame coursing through his veins, as though each word were a slap. He glanced at his mother, sitting at his right hand and a thousand miles away, then back at his ministers. If there was something of his mood in his face, they either did not notice it or found it unremarkable. All around them, carved dragons twisted in elaborate patterns and the fire crackled in its bowls.

‘Yes,’ he said, and brushed a speck of dust away from the edge of the lacquered table. ‘As the Fire Lord, it is my responsibility to know everything that happens in our nation. After all, one can hardly make good decisions without good information to support them.’ His ministers nodded politely at the platitude—no, not all of them nodded. There was one who looked as though he was feeling an intense urge to roll his eyes. Who was he? Oh, yes, General Zan. ‘The palace ledgers and account books are not as detailed as they should be. Minister Xiao—I would like a full inventory of everything and everyone in the palace, and one of all my possessions as Fire Lord.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ Xiao said, then his tone turned less deferential and more business-like. ‘However, I fear I am a poor choice for this task. As it comes to the Fire Lord’s household, Minister Guo handled—’

‘Someone will be appointed to his position soon,’ Sora said, which didn’t seem to mollify Xiao much, even if everyone else assumed expressions of barely-disguised interest. Well, everyone except Zan; his urge to roll his eyes had clearly only increased.

‘I have confidence in your abilities as my finances minister, Minister Xiao,’ Sozin said, then laid his hands on his lap. When he spoke again, it was with as much authority as he could muster. None. You’re not really the Fire Lord, as you well know. He batted the thought away, but it remained at the edge of his thoughts like an animal stalking prey, fangs at the ready. ‘As for the rest of you, I would like you to keep me informed of everything that happens in our nation.’

No one answered. He could hear his mother shifting a little at his side. Then his overseer of the courts and prisons spoke. ‘Everything, Fire Lord Sozin?’

‘Everything of any consequence. If two villages decide to redraw their boundaries, I want to know about it. Public transactions. Commerce between the provinces. Between nations.’

‘If someone buys an egg in the Western Islands, should we inform you of it, sir?’ General Zan’s voice sounded exactly like Sozin had expected it to. He made “sir” sound like it had been pulled out of him under pain of death. ‘And I can’t imagine how we’d find that out in the first place.’

Sozin rose to his feet. Silk and cotton rustled as everyone else prepared to follow. He thought of Aki talking in a monotonous tone about an inn’s guests, all those months ago. ‘I trust you will all be able to find the information I require and sort the coals from the ashes.’

The ministers said nothing, but he could feel their unwillingness curdling the air. That’s just too bad, he thought, and took a step back. Everyone else bowed to him, even General Zan. He started walking away, then stilled. ‘Incidentally, I would like to arrange another meeting.’

Looks of puzzlement. His mother looked at him, eyes wide, but he looked away. ‘I thought that since so many of the Fire Nation’s most important people already came to the capital for my coronation—’ Something hitched in his throat; he swallowed it quickly and went on. ‘—we should take the opportunity to discuss some of the issues facing our nation. That will be all.’

His mother stepped up to him as they walked out of the room, but he glared at her and pulled away, his mind full of the last time he had sat in that room with his father, so close to him he could feel his scent.

*

There was something he had to do. Some knowledge that had been given to him and him alone. It didn’t matter who he actually was. What mattered was that he was the only one meant for this. Dragons coiled around him with a noise like tearing fabric. One of them looked just like Huan, fully grown, outstretched wings blocking out the sun. Her golden eyes turned towards him and she opened a mouth full of teeth the length of his forearm.

‘Sozin,’ it said. ‘Wake up.’

He came to with a jolt and a wad of papers cascaded to the floor. Fire nearly burst from his hand before he realised he was looking at his mother’s face. He’d fallen asleep in one of the chairs in his father’s study. No, his study now. For a moment he was shocked at how fresh the pain still was, then he looked at his mother’s face again and frowned. Anger was better than pain. He could at least channel it. ‘What is it?’ he snapped. ‘I was working.’

Ta Min stepped into view. ‘You were sleeping.’ Her customary amusement was back in her voice, even if it was tempered with a little sadness. ‘Pretty soundly, actually.’

He got up and walked around the study, ignoring his body’s protests. Papers piled high on the writing table, on the shelves, on the cabinets, gathered in neat stacks on the floor, as though they had bred while he slept. When he spoke again, his tone was considerably softer. ‘I was just resting my eyes. I should head back to work.’ He wondered about what his mother and Ta Min had been talking about. The thought of his mother spending time with his friend bothered him on some level, even though he knew he was being childish.

‘It’s late, son,’ his mother said. She took a few steps around the study, looking at the piles of paper. ‘How long have you spent going through these?’

‘I read most of them last night,’ he said, and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I am the Fire Lord now, as you well now,’ he said to his mother, rather pointedly. Ta Min looked at them from under her eyelashes, and he felt a trickle of shame. What did she make of this exchange? What would she said if she knew—no, don’t think about that. ‘It does not leave me much free time.’

Sora leaned towards the table and lifted a few of the papers. ‘Did they really send you all these?’

Ta Min’s eyes brightened with curiosity—her expression changed little, but by now Sozin could read her moods almost as well as he could read Roku’s—but she said nothing.

‘I asked my ministers to let me know about everything that happens in the Fire Nation,’ he said.

Curiosity shifted into amusement. ‘Everything?’

‘Well, obviously not every single detail.’ He took a few steps across the carpet, his hands tucked into his sleeves. ‘But everything important.’

Ta Min shook her head. ‘Oh, dear.’ She paused. ‘Don’t you see it? They’ve given you so much information you won’t be able to do anything with it. You’ll be too busy trying to keep up with everything.’

He pursed his lips, too annoyed for embarrassment. ‘Why would they do that?’

‘Son, there are certain ways to do things in the Fire Nation…’ his mother said.

‘I know that,’ he said huffily, and looked away from her. ‘I’m not trying to—to ruin them, or ruin the country or anything like that. I love our nation.’ It was true. It wasn’t like the love he felt for a person, but it was a slow-burning flame that had been stoked into a steady glow by his journey, by seeing it in full, in its ugliness and wonders and flaws and exquisite beauty. ‘I just want to do right by it. To solve its problems. Just because things have always been done one way, that doesn’t make it the best way.’

Ta Min stepped closer to him. The amusement wasn’t completely gone from her voice, but her tone was soft. ‘Maybe they also think they’re acting for the best.’

Sozin said nothing, but he couldn’t help but think of how foolish that was, if Ta Min was right. How could anyone convince themselves they were acting for the best if they were just making sure things stayed the same? Did they think everything was perfect already? That what he’d seen at Shukai and Yulong was as good as it got? Maybe you could only think like that if you never saw those things, or pretended you didn’t see them. Or if you thought of them as none of your business.

A lot of things were going to change around here.

*

The chief delegate from the Earth Kingdom was looking distinctively uncomfortable. He reminded Sozin a little of an ill-disposed mountain. ‘I’m not really sure I understand the purpose of this meeting, Fire Lord Sozin,’ he said.

They were all sitting in one of the largest of the palace’s halls, filling up a table large enough to accommodate a lavish banquet. Instead of roast turkey-duck and pepper-stuffed fish, an enormous map of the Fire Nation lay on the table. Servants were at the ready to serve tea and other refreshments. Fire Nation banners rippled a little in the hot air coming from the constellation of lamps and fire bowls.

Sozin placed his hands on the table and looked down at the rows of faces. They were all here: his ministers, a good chunk of the most important nobles in the Fire Nation, Ta Min, his cousins. Only his mother and grandmother had declined to attend. Bao had said she didn’t believe in meetings. A few of his guards, Shou amongst them, stood to the back of the room. Lee had left the capital with a generous pension and had joined a sister and a gaggle of nieces and nephews to, of all things, breed sheep-dogs. Shou had stayed, to do what Yunjin had first hired him to do: guard his son. Sozin didn’t remember these things, he just carried their knowledge. They had happened while he’d been in the fog.

Now everything was much, much clearer. ‘It’s simple,’ he said. ‘Here we are, all gathered together for my coronation. Normally, most of you would be heading home soon after swearing your allegiance to the new Fire Lord. And yet, isn’t this an excellent opportunity to discuss the problems facing our nation? We seldom get the chance to talk together face-to-face like this.’ He turned to the Earth Kingdom delegation. ‘And, of course, this is also an opportunity to solve the problem you brought up about Arrowhead Island. I am sure there are people here with an interest in that matter.’

The delegate’s brow furrowed like a crumbling rock formation. ‘I take it this does not mean we may not discuss this further in private, Fire Lord Sozin,’ he said.

Sozin smiled softly. ‘I was hoping we might reach an agreement here.’

‘Forgive me, sir.’ It was an elderly woman sitting at the far end of the table. ‘I do not wish to speak out of turn, but I hope we are not being unsatisfactory in our running of our lands and provinces.’

Murmurs of agreement rose across the room. ‘No, not at all,’ Sozin said hurriedly. ‘But I am sure we all agree that, despite our best efforts, there are still problems affecting our nation. Poverty, crime, conflict… surely we all want to make our nation as happy and prosperous as possible.’

More muttering. The lead Earth Kingdom delegate spoke again. ‘I am sorry, Fire Lord Sozin, but I still do not see how that concerns—’

General Zan got up. Sozin groaned inwardly. The man gave him as withering a glare as politeness allowed and for a moment Sozin knew he was just a sixteen-year-old who’d been sheltered all his life and had been Fire Lord for less than a month, surrounded by people thrice his age. ‘With all due respect, sir,’ the general went on, his voice making clear just how much respect he thought Sozin was worth, ‘I do not see how this meeting can solve any of those problems. It feels more like some kind of… stunt.’

‘I don’t think any problem is too big for people to solve, if they are willing,’ Sozin said, but he had lost control of the meeting, and he knew it. Up and down the table, people were talking to each other, stopping only to hear what Sozin had to say before resuming. A few were very pointedly not talking to each other. It didn’t matter that he was the Fire Lord, supposed to have near absolute power over them. It was true what Yoon had said in Yulong: he might be the flame, but these people were his pedestal, and they weren’t willing to have him turn things upside down, or inside out, or whatever it was that they feared he’d do. Right now the only person who wasn’t arguing was Minister Xiao, and he seemed to be absorbed by some preoccupation that had nothing to do with the meeting.

‘Please, let us have order,’ he said, trying for his most commanding tone, but he sounded unconvincing even to himself. ‘If we just focus for a moment—’

Zan crossed his arms over his chest, dislike flowing from every disciplined inch. The Earth Kingdom delegate, who had clearly been waiting his turn amidst all the back and forth with decreasing patience, spoke again. ‘Fire Lord Sozin, if we could discuss the end of the lease on Arrowhead Island…’

‘Oh, a plague of ice on your island,’ the governor of the Outer Islands said. ‘You can’t just let that little chunk of rock in the middle of nowhere go, can you?’

It took all of Sozin’s self-control to resist the urge to sink into his seat and put his face in his hands. ‘Please don’t take offence, delegate W—’

The delegate and the rest of his group stood up. Sozin was surprised they didn’t send boulders flying. ‘We are sorry, Fire Lord Sozin, but we are not willing to stay here and be insulted.’ They stepped away from the table and cast a withering glance at the people around them. ‘Certainly not by some upstarts who only have sparks and arrogance going for them. Good day.’

They might as well have thrown a fireball into a keg of black powder. The muttering rose to argument. ‘We can solve this misunderstanding…’ Sozin said to the Earth Kingdom delegation, but they were already on their way out of the room.

‘Should I add war to the list of problem to solve, sir?’ Zan said, the contempt in his eyes barely disguised. A few of the attendees were just staring vacantly into nowhere, no doubt waiting for the meeting to end. A servant hurried to Xiao’s side, whispered something in his ear and left; the minister visibly relaxed.

Well, at least someone is happy, Sozin thought rather venomously. He sat down in defeat. ‘This meeting is over,’ he said.

Soon he, his relatives, and Ta Min were the only people remaining in the room, which looked almost ghostly. The fires whispered, and the huge table with its oversized map and teacups lying forlornly on it reminded Sozin a little of the debris left behind by a shipwreck.

Failure. That was all he’d managed to achieve since his father had taken to his bed for the last time. The sensation was alien and unwelcome, and it didn’t even have the totality of grief; it just made him feel small and useless.

‘That… did not go well,’ Lu Ling said.

Ryun smirked. ‘You think?’

Sozin got up and paced alongside the table, his hands behind his back. ‘I just wanted everyone to work together. Surely that’s not too much to ask, is it?’ He stepped past Minister Xiao’s seat and caught sight of a scrap of green on the floor. Xiao must have dropped it. He leaned down to pick it up but saw it was just a torn-up stub, probably some play ticket. Just trash. It figured. He threw his hands up in frustration and turned to his friend and relatives. ‘Why must every little thing be like—like trying to sort out a bag of cats sinking into a river?’

Ryun leaned back and laughed. ‘Because it is sorting out a bag of cats sinking into a river, little cousin. I know you expected something else, but this is just how people are. Yes, yes, I know you don’t believe that. If we all managed to burn the world to a cinder, you’d be the first to try to get the three starving survivors to improve the cinder. It would work about as well, by the way. You’d still be telling them to work together while they brained each other over the last chunk of bread or a handful of rice.’

‘Oh, let’s not exaggerate, Ryun,’ Jaya said. ‘You know cousin Sozin has a point: sometimes it’s easier to catch mosquito-flies with honey than with vinegar.’

Ryun gave her one of his golden smiles. ‘Only if they’re not out for your blood.’

Sozin walked back to the group and turned to Ta Min. ‘What do you think?’

She smoothed out a fold of her dress before answering. ‘I think Ryun also has a point.’

Somehow those words managed to sting more than anything else anyone had said all day. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said. ‘Not a single one of you is on my side.’

‘I never said I wasn’t on your side,’ Ta Min said with a frown. Sozin immediately regretted what he’d said. Why couldn’t things be as uncomplicated as they’d been when they were travelling? The crackle of the fire answered him. Destiny. Roku, sitting by his side, telling him everything was going to be different now. ‘I know what you were trying to do and I think it’s admirable,’ she went on. ‘It just that I don’t think putting all these people together in the same room was very advisable. And people don’t—’

‘—much like having things change,’ he finished with a sigh. ‘I know, I know.’ He looked down. The fingers of his left hand were still clutching the stub Xiao had dropped. He glanced at it. Most of it had been torn off, but he could still make out a few characters saying “lighting-footed”, or something like it; the edge of a character had been obliterated by the tear. One flick of his hand, and the piece of paper turned to a smear of ash. ‘Maybe all of you are right.’

‘Maybe?’ Ryun said, but Jaya shushed him.

‘I think I need to meditate for a while,’ Sozin said, and thought of his grandmother twisting blades of grass in her fingers, telling him about how to bind things to his will.

+++

Notes: The scene between Sozin, his mother, Ta Min, and the piles of documents that ate the world was partly inspired by, of all things, a Yes, Minister episode. In our world, sheep-dogs (as you all probably know) are dogs bred for guarding/shepherding sheep; In AtLA-land, they believe in cutting out the middleman. :D Sozin’s Epic Fail meeting is pretty much lifted wholesale from the Crimebusters meeting in (once again) Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen (though, sadly, I didn’t have the chance to set Sozin’s map on fire, but then again, it’s far less objectionable than Captain Metropolis’). Sozin is, of course, Adrian Veidt, down to what he takes from it all. (“It was educational… very educational.”) Seriously, can we put those two in the same room already? Or would the consequences be too terrifying? ;) Oh, and I just have to say that I agree with quite a few things Sozin says in this chapter; I always find that sort of villain (not that he’s a villain at this point, he’s firmly in White Hat territory, but you know what I mean) far more unsettling (and effective) than the Cackling Moustache-Twirler… because, at least for me, there’s nothing like characters who make me go “I totally see your point… hang on, you want to do what?”

Chapter 16: The Secret Adversary

Summary:

In an anonymous room in the Fire Nation capital, two people plot an assassination... Meanwhile, Sozin is sure someone is targeting him and his family—but how do you fight an unknown, unseen enemy?

Chapter Sixteen: The Secret Adversary

Mr Su made his way to the upper floor of The Lucky Lion-Dog and nodded to himself in approval of his would-be employer. Most people who could afford his services had a lamentable predilection for the seedy. He could count on the fingers of one hand the ones who hadn’t conducted their meetings in the grimiest part of the docks, or in the basement of some dingy tavern, or even in one of the larger sewers. This person, however, had picked a respectable restaurant in a neighbourhood full of shops and anonymous foot traffic, and the upper floor would allow them plenty of opportunities to, should worst come to worst, leave discreetly and blend in with the midday crowd without being noticed. Mr Su didn’t mind the mistrust of him; his profession did not favour the naive and he appreciated competence.

The room was just under the attic and the din of the restaurant was almost completely muffled, but the smell of noodles and stir-fried vegetables still permeated everything. He knocked on the door and let himself in; inside, the shutters were drawn and a paper screen curtained off one end of the room. There was only a thread of sunlight, but it was enough for him to see.

‘Hello. I am Mr Su,’ he said. ‘I understand you are in need of my services.’

‘Yes,’ a voice said from behind the paper screen. There was a heavy lace veil hanging off one end. It twitched once, then lay still. A little cloak-and-daggerish, but Mr Su didn’t mind, nor did he mind the fact that the other person could see him without being seen. He had the most unmemorable looks he had ever come across: five minutes after seeing him most people couldn’t remember if he was tall or short, or the colour of his hair or eyes. Perhaps this anonymity had fated him to his occupation, but then again, he had never been the sort who could afford philosophical speculation.

‘Have a seat,’ the voice went on. Its owner had clearly gargled with something that made it neither male nor female, a rough, sticky whisper that would no doubt prove impossible to recognise. Mr Su found himself approving again as he sat down at the round table in the middle of the room. It was always reassuring to deal with professionals. ‘I’m afraid I cannot offer you anything to drink. I didn’t think it would be… appropriate, under the circumstances.’

‘Of course,’ Mr Su said in a conciliatory tone. ‘What shall I call you?’

There was a second’s hesitation before the voice answered. ‘Just call me Yami,’ it said.

How original, Mr Su thought, and couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. His face remained completely still; clients didn’t take well to him rolling his eyes at them. ‘How can I be of assistance?’

‘You’re an assassin,’ the voice said flatly. Good, Mr Su thought. He didn’t much care for people who minced words when hiring his services, as though they could wash off their culpability with obfuscation.

‘Not quite,’ he replied. ‘But I can procure the right people for the job. Of course, that depends on who you wish to eliminate—was it Mrs?—Yami, as well as the amount you are willing to pay.’

‘Just Yami.’ It had been a very elementary trap, but in Mr Su’s experience, quite a few people fell for it. ‘And I am willing to pay a great deal, provided I get the best.’

‘Very well.’ Mr Su glanced discreetly around the room. In addition to the table and the paper screen, there was a cupboard off to one side and a small shrine with a little pile of recently burned incense. The sun glinted off the spirit figurine. A calligraphy scroll hung between the two windows. This meant Yami probably had no connection to the place—otherwise he or she would have removed all those distinctive objects—but Mr Su hadn’t thought otherwise in the first place. ‘There are, of course, other considerations. The difficulty of the task will drive the price up. Age, too, is a factor. If you wish to eliminate a child—’

‘A child?’

Ah, here comes the moral itch, Mr Su thought. It was something his customers often felt a necessity to assuage before they committed themselves. As an observer of human nature, Mr Su had long since realised many of his costumers needed to pretend to themselves that they had been convinced against their objections by Mr Su’s persuasion. It was irritating, but a hypocrite’s money was just as good as anyone else’s. He launched into the little speech he had prepared for just these occasions. ‘Certainly. Often a child will—for instance—stand to inherit something that, as we well know, would often be far better off in the hands of a third, more capable, party. Naturally, disposing of a child must almost always look like an accident. They have few enemies, as a rule, and it is most inconvenient to have suspicion fall upon my clients. Hence the added surcharge. In other—’

‘He’s not a child,’ Yami said. ‘The target, I mean.’ Prospective target, rather, Mr Su thought. He was after all, highly selective. Still, he said nothing as Yami went on. ‘He is young, but he’s been out of nappies for a while, I assure you. And we—’ Few other people would have spotted the slight note of hesitation there, Mr Su observed with some satisfaction. ‘—my associates and I do not want anything that looks like an accident. In fact, we’re looking for someone capable of making it as… spectacular as possible.’

Mr Su’s artistic side perked up. Contrarily to what popular plays and stories would have you believe, his field did not offer many opportunities for the theatrical. ‘May I inquire further about this target?’

‘He’s a firebender, and very, very good at it. But he’s overconfident. Cocky, even. He’s also very well guarded, but there are ways to get around that.’

He propped his hands on the table. ‘I can assure you the people whose services I procure have high expertise in dealing with such considerations.’ Even so, it was always good to deal with prospective customers who had done their homework.

A rustle from behind the screen. ‘I don’t want that sort of people. I want people who don’t mind that they’re probably not going to survive this job. They mustn’t, under any circumstances, be captured alive.’

Ah. Most of the people Mr Su contracted were no different from any other kind of worker. They did their jobs, collected their payment, and went home to friends, lovers, children. They worried about their grandfathers’ illnesses and their daughters’ performance at school. But a few—well, a few had what might be called a very specialised temperament. ‘I believe that can be arranged. Of course, this particular kind of professional warrants a premium.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie. As a rule, the sort of people Mr Su had in mind didn’t have a lot of use for money, but most of them had some sort of notion of its usefulness, and there was always the issue—the often expensive issue—of cleaning up after their… excesses.

Mr Su always made sure they were worth it.

‘Naturally,’ Yami said. ‘How does five hundred thousand sound to you?’

Mr Su was not a man used to being surprised. Even so, he found himself raising an eyebrow. ‘Five hundred thousand, you say?’

‘Yes. I was told you’d want half upfront. The other five hundred thousand would be paid upon… completion? Is that the right word? After the murder part is done with, to put it bluntly.’ Yami’s voice remained a throaty whisper.

Mr Su swallowed, but his businesslike side, which was most of him, was in charge again. He made a quick mental calculation. His was not a profession that encouraged a collegial spirit, but even though he and his fellows did not belong to that sliver of the population who was wealthy enough to afford moral niceties, there was a certain degree of understanding between them. As such, there was a sliding scale of cost they more or less kept to. And there was no target worth a million. Well, except for—

Oh.

He cleared his throat. ‘May I ask the identity of the target?’

Yami told him.

‘I see,’ he said, and steepled his hands under his chin.

‘Will that be a problem?’ For the first time, Yami’s voice held a trace of emotion. It didn’t make it any more pleasant, or recognisable, though by now Mr Su had narrowed his or her identity to a handful of people. It was always good to know as much as possible about one’s employer.

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘It will be a… professional challenge.’ Mr Su liked those. He stared at the paper screen and let his eyes wander over the rather lovely pattern of willow branches and fire lilies. ‘Let’s talk business.’

Forty-five minutes later Mr Su was in the streets again, a colourless face in the crowds. He pulled the challenge he had been given from his mental ledger and pinned it in front of him, pondering as he walked, only his senses dedicated to spotting any possible threats around him. Yami had given him most of the information he required, with promises of more in the future, and they had arranged payment terms. While they had talked, he had already started thinking of people who might be suitable for the job, and by now he had a fairly good idea of whom he’d hire.

Which left just one problem.

How did you kill the Fire Lord?

*

He found Lu Ling, unsurprisingly, in the archives. She was sitting at a table piled high with books and papers, poring over a scroll so old it was torn in places and had turned yellow with age. She rolled it back up as Sozin sat beside her.

‘You startled me a little,’ she said, then a spark lit up in her voice. ‘I was just reading about the eclipse. Only a few weeks to go. I never saw one before. Isn’t it exciting?’

‘I want you to work for me,’ he said. His fingers adjusted a strip of paper covered in Lu Ling’s handwriting. Something in the air made him drop his voice to a whisper.

She blinked. ‘I’m sorry?’

He leaned back on his heels a little. Someone was walking beyond the shelves right behind them, no doubt an archivist clearing things away. ‘I am the Fire Lord. There are things I need to know.’ Snatches of his vision at Kiake swirled through his thoughts, settled. ‘Things I need to do. I tried getting my ministers to help me. But—well, you saw how that turned out.’ He looked back at a table and touched the corner of a book cover. ‘So I need… other strategies, I guess. My grandmother told me the only path sure to lead nowhere is the one left untried.’

She smiled. ‘Other strategies like the one you used at Yulong?’

‘Well, it worked, didn’t it?’ he said with a chuckle, then turned serious. ‘I told my ministers to tell me everything that’s going on in the Fire Nation, but they just drowned me with information. And you saw how that meeting went. I need to try something else.’ He smiled and lowered his eyes, then looked up at her again. ‘I was wondering if you’d be willing to sort through all I’m having my ministers send me, and my papers, and all that. I can’t think of anyone who’d be better at it.’

‘Oh. I—’ She took her spectacles off and wiped them with a handkerchief. It was the first time he’d seen her eyes without the glass lenses covering them up, he realised; they were the colour of pale honey, almost startling in the way they focused on some invisible point. She put the spectacles back on. ‘Do you really think I’m the right person for that sort of thing?’

He grinned. ‘Who else? I know you’ve spent so much time here you might as well move in. No, no, it’s great,’ he added as she began to protest. ‘You must know the place top to bottom by now, and I know you have no trouble finding out what you want—and remembering stuff! I couldn’t believe the things you were bringing up when we were getting to Yulong. You remembered every important detail from those books, and I bet you hadn’t just read them in the past week, had you?’ She shook her head. ‘So, you see, there’s no one who could do this better. You don’t have to if you don’t want to,’ he said hurriedly, ‘but I know you’d be perfect for it: sorting through all those things, finding what matters. And you’re someone I can trust. I’d have to give you access to everything.’

He took his hand off the table. Lu Ling swallowed, blushed, and gazed down at her lap before looking up again. ‘All right,’ she said, with a weak smile.

‘Thank you,’ he said, feeling himself almost glow with satisfaction. He realised with a jolt that this was the first time since his father had died that he’d felt it again, that delight in winning he had been so familiar with. He had missed it, and the admission made him feel only half as guilty as he’d expected.

Her smile faded. ‘How do you do it?’ she asked.

‘How do I do what?’

She hesitated a little. ‘People have always… dismissed me. That sounds bad, I know. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining over… well, nothing, really.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said, softly, and she went on.

‘But people don’t really take me seriously. Almost never. And I always thought it was because I’m young, because I’m not like my brother. But you’re younger than me, and…’ She looked back at her papers and took her hand off her hair so she could begin sorting them out for no purpose he could see. ‘I’m sorry. That must sound really stupid.’

He laid his hand on her arm. She stopped moving but her gaze didn’t leave the table. ‘Actually, it makes perfect sense,’ he said, then grinned again. ‘You’ll be the Fire Lord’s trusted advisor now. Like—like the first Fire Lord and the Five-Fold Flame. Everyone will have to take you seriously now.’

She smiled again. ‘I guess.’

‘Good.’ He got to his feet. ‘Oh, before I forget, can you find something out for me? I was wondering who’s after you in the line of succession.’

She looked at him, a frown in her face. ‘You mean, if we all, I don’t know, dropped dead? You, and my mother, and—’

‘And Ryun, and Jian and Jing, and you, yes. Who would inherit the throne?’ His tone was nonchalant, as though he were discussing the weather instead of the death of most of his relatives.

The frown didn’t leave her face. ‘That sounds a little…’

‘Macabre?’ A corner of his mouth curled up. ‘I know. We’re not all going to drop dead. I’d just like to know.’

She clearly found the request odd, even despite her own unstoppable curiosity. ‘I’ll find it out. But—why?’

He shrugged and looked at the sunlit latticework in the library’s walls. ‘I’m just curious.’

*

It was after sunset when Sozin made his way back to the archives to see what Lu Ling had found. He was sure she had come across something; she had been deep in thought throughout dinner.

She was putting some books away when he found her. Huan, who would sometimes follow Lu Ling around when she wasn’t following him around, lay curled up on the floor at her feet. Sozin kneeled down to pet his dragon’s muzzle. She had fallen asleep, he realised; he could feel her slumber inside his mind. ‘Wake up, girl.’

Lu Ling stepped away from the shelf. ‘She must be tired.’

‘She’s not tired,’ Sozin said. He shook her again. The dragon made a gurgling noise in her throat but did not wake up. She wasn’t hurt, though, he told himself, and touched her head and neck. His fingers brushed solid glass. Something was lying on the floor next to Huan, tucked out of sight under her scales. ‘She’s… drugged?’ He held up an uncorked vial. It was empty, but a faint bitter scent still clung to it.

Lu Ling rushed to his side and took the vial from his hands. ‘This was mine,’ she said, a look of puzzlement in her face. ‘I got it from the palace doctors. I had a headache before dinner, so I asked them for something mild to help with that. I must have knocked it to the floor without noticing. I hope it’s—’

‘This isn’t mild,’ Sozin said, and got up. The air inside the library was suddenly cold and the vial’s smell still clung to his nose. The only sounds were the sputter of the fire in the lamps and the drugged breathing of the dragon at his feet. Her sides rose and fell rhythmically, light shifting on her scales. ‘It was strong enough to knock out a dragon.’ He looked at Lu Ling, the vial still in her hands, a look of incomprehension in her face. ‘I think that if you’d drunk it, you might have—I’m pretty sure it would have killed you.’

‘Killed me?’ She repeated the words as though that would give them some other meaning. Her eyes were so wide that her spectacles made them look jewelled and huge, like the eyes of a stick-mantis. ‘But… why?’

Something stirred in Sozin’s mind, then was still. ‘Come on,’ he said, and gestured at her to follow him. ‘Where did you get the medicine from? The apothecary room?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, hurrying after him. The royal doctors had a room full of preparations that could be dispensed straightaway. As a child, Sozin had found the place both fascinating and intimidating, with its glass bottles full of pickled plants that looked like the body parts of very small monsters, jars where things that looked like eyeballs floated in greenish water, vials with powders and liquids in the most unnatural colours. Now its smell just reminded him of his father and all the medicine he had taken throughout his illness. Sozin pushed down the ache in his chest; he had something to do.

A counter separated the room’s entrance from its shelves and the screened-off areas where the concoctions were prepared. Sozin rang a small gong and a man stepped out, wiping his hands on a blue-stained cloth. He immediately spirited the cloth away and bowed when he saw his guests. ‘Fire Lord Sozin. Princess Lu Ling, I hope the medicine was of assistance.’

Sozin nodded at Lu Ling, who held out the empty vial. ‘You prepared this draught for the princess?’ Sozin said.

The man picked up the vial to examine it and turned the glass in his hands with a frown. ‘No, my lord. This isn’t one of our vials. Ours are smaller and have a different shape.’ He ran a finger over the vial’s opening. ‘And we seal them with wax.’ Sozin said nothing. He had never come into the room to fetch anything; in the few occasions when he’d been ill enough to need medicine, the palace doctors had brought it directly to him, ready for him to drink or swallow. The man sniffed the empty vial and his nose wrinkled. His eyes widened. ‘This isn’t something we’d—it’s far too strong.’ His skin was a deep bronze, but even so it blanched a little. ‘I’ll show you, my lord,’ he said hurriedly, and rummaged through the shelves. ‘See?’

The full vial the man held in his hand couldn’t be mistaken for the empty one. Like he’d said, it was a few inches smaller, and its corners were square instead of rounded. A wax seal bearing a row of small characters encircled the stopper. ‘We have no vials like this one,’ the man said, and placed the empty vial on the counter. ‘I will be glad to show you all our flasks if you wish.’

‘But I got the vial from here,’ Lu Ling said. ‘Only a couple of hours ago.’

‘Someone here gave it to you?’ Sozin asked.

‘Well, no.’ Her eyes went from him to the other man. ‘I came by to pick it up and someone had put it out on the counter for me. It had a note attached to it with my name.’

‘That’s right,’ the man said. ‘The princess came by earlier to ask for this draught and I told her it would take about an hour to prepare.’ His tone turned professorial. ‘You see, this preparation is most effective when it’s freshly—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Sozin said. ‘So you placed the vial on the counter for Princess Lu Ling to pick up?’

The man nodded. ‘Yes, that’s the usual procedure. But I assure you that wasn’t the vial I left out for the princess.’

Sozin turned to Lu Ling, who picked at the fabric of her dress. ‘I came here and didn’t see anyone. I just picked the vial up. I—burned the note.’ She looked down at the floor. ‘I didn’t think it was important.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sozin said. He turned to the man. ‘If any of my relatives asks for anything again, make sure someone hands it to them in person.’

In the corridor, Lu Ling looked at him so wide-eyed with misery that he instantly reassured her. ‘Maybe it was just some mix-up,’ he said, and knew he was lying. He thought of Yoon’s eyes, glittering with cold fury under the moonlight, of the shattered dragon statues, one at Obsidian Island, the other at Yulong, like different props used for the same play. He smiled at her, hoping he looked sincere.

‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ she said, but her tone sounded as grim as she looked. He stopped walking and put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Lu Ling,’ he said. He was the only one in the family who called her by her full name. She seemed to prefer it. ‘Don’t be afraid. I’d never let anything happen to you.’

She pulled away. ‘Hey, who said anything about being afraid?’ The corners of her mouth curled up, but Sozin could tell the smile was forced; he said nothing, though. Her mouth drooped back down and she looked away. When she spoke, she was clearly trying to make herself sound nonchalant, but her voice was shaky. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot—I found out who is next in line for the throne after me.’

He perked up with curiosity but tried not show it. ‘Yeah?’

She picked at the skin around her fingernails with her thumb. ‘Your father’s paternal half-cousin once removed.’ He blinked in incomprehension—he was still not very good at genealogy, even after becoming the Fire Lord—and she turned to him again. ‘General Zan.’

*

Whatever had been in the vial, Huan woke up from it after a few hours with no more ill effects than a little grumpiness, and when Sozin brushed her mind he could feel nothing out of the ordinary. She didn’t even remember it. Now she was with him in his private parlour, taking up most of the black-and-scarlet carpet, the tip of her tail wagging softly from side to side as she stared at one of the fires in the room. Ta Min sat on the largest couch, light gilding her hair and the glass of fire wine in her hand.

Sozin stepped back from the cabinet, holding a package wrapped in scarlet paper and gold cloth, and sat down next to his friend. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said. ‘I know it’s not until tomorrow, but I wanted to give you this now. Just from me to you. Not from the Fire Lord to the Lady Ta Min, I mean.’

She laid down her glass and picked up the gift. ‘For me? Is that why you invited me over?’ He nodded and she gave him an utterly unguarded smile. It made her eyes sparkle. ‘That’s so kind. Thank you.’

He grinned and shrugged. ‘What are friends for?’

‘If not for giving you stuff?’ she finished, and pulled the wrapping away to reveal a lacquered box inlaid with scarlet patterns that shone the colour of old wine in the firelight. She ran her fingers over it. ‘Sozin, it’s beautiful—wait, is it a puzzlebox?’ She pressed on camouflaged panels, twisted secret hinges, muttering all the while. ‘This goes here, and—no, it must be this corner—ah, I see…’ The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place and she opened the lid.

‘That was fast,’ Sozin said, but Ta Min was focused on the contents of the box. She pulled out a rectangle of stiff paper.

‘It’s the picture of the two of us at Kiake,’ she said. Sozin could see most of the picture, and he was suddenly sure that the two of them couldn’t possibly look that young now. Kiake had been less than a year ago. It felt like a dozen lifetimes.

She turned her face towards his. ‘I thought you wanted it.’

‘I want you to have it,’ he said, and laid his hand on couch, between the two of them. ‘So you won’t forget.’

She ran a finger over the picture before placing it back in the box, the firelight dampening her eyes. She smiled, happy and wistful. ‘How could I ever forget?’

‘I’m going to be rude now,’ he said, and rose from his seat so he could pour himself a glass of fire wine. ‘It’s your birthday and I’m going to ask you for something.’ He turned back to her.

‘As long as you don’t ask me for the box back,’ she said, but something in his face made her amusement dim a little as he sat down again.

‘You’re from one of the families of the Five-Fold Flame,’ he said. ‘You must be familiar with their history. How it started—’

‘When the first Fire Lord began ruling the Fire Nation, he had five people who were his most trusted and valued supporters,’ she said, in the tone of someone repeating a lesson heard a thousand times. ‘Who were closer to him than brothers or sisters and so on…’ She trailed off. ‘You know you don’t have to ask me if I’ll help you.’

He took a sip of wine, as though that would make things easier. It only burned his throat. ‘I’m not asking you to help me as a friend. I mean, I am. But I need you to help me with the Fire Lordship. I want… if you’re willing, I’d like you to… well, listen to things.’

‘What kind of things?’ she said as she placed the box on the small table next to the couch, then stilled and blinked. ‘This is about my family, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ he said hurriedly, and ran a hand over his face. ‘That is… it just sounds so bad when you put it like that. Spying on your own family. But I just want you to—to, well, to tell me things that may be important. To…’ His skin grew hot. He took another sip, bigger this time, then set his glass down and leaned back on the couch next to her. ‘I wish things could have stayed the same. Less complicated. Back when we didn’t have to think about politics and all this… stuff.’

Her sideways glance was back. ‘No you don’t.’

He frowned, a little put out. He had always hated people telling him what he was thinking. ‘I’m pretty sure I—’

‘You love being the Fire Lord. Not becoming one at sixteen, sure, but other than that, you love it.’

‘It’s not exactly easy, you know,’ he said, a little grumpily, then stopped. His annoyance ebbed away. ‘Yeah, I do. Maybe not “love”, but—’

‘But it’s what you’ve trained for all your life.’ Her eyes brightened. ‘I know you need to be doing something. And at Yulong—it was like you knew so much about what to do that nothing could possibly go wrong. Even if it really was a crazy plan.’

‘Hey, it worked.’

‘I know.’ She looked at one of the lamps and her tone turned serious. It reminded him of when they had sat under the paper lanterns at the Kiake fair. I never expect anything. That way I’m never unhappy. ‘And I know that learning about what my family gets up to is useful. We’re wealthy, we know people. We…’ She moved closer to him, until their arms bushed, and spoke again before he could say or do anything. ‘“Spy” sounds so dashing, doesn’t it?’

A knock on the door. Shou stepped in, holding a folded piece of paper in his hand. ‘Forgive me for interrupting, my lord,’ he said, ‘but I believe you should take a look at this.’

‘What is it?’ Sozin picked up the proffered paper.

‘Someone tied it to an arrow and shot it into the palace grounds,’ Shou said as Sozin unfolded the paper, Ta Min peering over his shoulder. It was water-stained and slightly ripped in places. ‘It’s probably nothing, my lord, but a threat…’ He trailed off.

‘Is a threat,’ Sozin said. The paper was covered in large characters and for a split second Sozin was sure that had been some mistake: this was one of the posters from his coronation. They had been put up everywhere. How could this be a—

His breath stopped.

The characters in his name had been inked out and replaced, in a rather slapdash pun, with similarly-sounding characters reading vulgar pretender.

Someone knows.

Impossible.

His hands tightened on the paper until the skin over his knuckles turned nearly white. His fingernails ripped through the poster and pressed into the flesh of his palm. Shou was talking again, but for a moment all his senses felt was the cold fist squeezing his chest.

‘—double the patrols, my lord?’

He found himself able to speak. ‘No. Not for now, at least. I’ll talk to the captains of the guard tomorrow.’

He resumed ripping up the poster once Shou was out of the room, tinier and tinier pieces until all that was left was a flurry he burned up in his hands with white-hot flames. He wiped the ashes off as though they were something disgusting he had to remove as thoroughly as possible. When Ta Min laid her hand on his arm he nearly batted it away.

‘Sozin.’

He turned to face her. Ashes rained to the floor. ‘You were shaking,’ she said, and shook her head a little. ‘It’s not worth it.’

Tell her. Never. ‘Should I just, what, ignore it?’

‘Some trash someone wrote because they think everyone is as nasty-minded as they are?’ Her voice turned brittle. ‘There are always people like that, and they’re always the ones who talk. After my sister had to go away…’ She looked down and sat on the couch again, and after a second he joined her. Huan turned to him and cocked her head to one side, sensing—if not understanding—her human’s moods.

‘It’s not just someone’s stupid joke,’ he said, finally, and turned back to Ta Min. A weak wind moaned against the shutters. He told her about the incident with Lu Ling and the vials.

Her eyes widened. ‘You think someone tried to kill her.’

‘Yes,’ he said, and was silent. Flames hissed softly. ‘And I don’t think it’ll stop there. I assigned a guard to my baby cousins, you know.’ He let out a half-chuckle that tasted like bile and thorns, then looked down at his hands, as though some fascinating thing lay there. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. I really don’t. And I’m… afraid. I think. A little.’ He turned to her, and despite their friendship, was surprised to realise he felt no shame when he looked into her eyes. ‘You’re the only person I can say that to. You and Roku.’ A sharp edge of fear hit him before he remembered that Roku was far away, and safe.

‘I’ll help you,’ she said. He turned to her in time to see her seriousness shift into a wan smile. She laid her fingers on his arm, squeezed gently. ‘But you’d better come up with a secret code name.’

*

Even though he hadn’t done it for months, pretending to be just an ordinary citizen was like putting on a comfortable, familiar garment. Maybe it was because it reminded Sozin of his journey: an echo of the old carefreeness simmered in his blood as he made his way out of the palace through one of the secret exits, and into the city below. It made him a little giddy, like the times when he’d performed new firebending moves perfectly on the first try.

He wandered aimlessly through the city he ruled, trying to immerse himself in its rhythms. His grandmother had taught him well, and one of her most frequent lessons had been about how all information was valuable, and how most of it could be found in places most people ignored. He had learned about his country first hand; how else should he learn the moods of his capital?

He went along with the flow of the crowds, pausing here and there so he could overhear conversations. He looked at some pottery in one of the markets while one of the sellers justified his prices to a would-be buyer by mentioning the increased cost of Wanhai clay; he bought roasted ocean kumquats on a stick when he walked around the harbour and heard two fishermen talk in annoyed tones about the mess with the fishing routes around the Outer Islands. The streets were still dotted with the posters from his coronation and he wondered if he would come across some high-ranking person to whom he’d be invisible. At some point he had to step away to avoid being jostled by a group of soldiers from the capital forces and he had to feign some coughing to hide his amusement.

For a few hours, he didn’t have to—

fear

—think.

A little after noon, he stopped at a noodles shop for a quick lunch. The place was so packed with people much of the clientele had spilled into the tables outside and the air was thick with spicy steam and the din of conversation, cooking, and barked orders. This was certainly a place where he could listen to his citizens, possibly at more length than he cared for, he thought as he squeezed himself into a spot near the restaurant’s door.

‘—new Fire Lord?’

His ears pricked up. He was halfway through his bowl of fire flake clams and so far he’d only heard people talk about their occupations, family, health, amusing or unfortunate events concerning all of the above, and the weather. He picked at his noodles with his chopsticks and tried to listen in.

‘I don’t know. Seems all right, I guess.’ A man’s voice. Sozin looked at the speakers from under his eyelashes, feigning preoccupation with the contents of his bowl. Two men and two women, all fairly young, sitting at a table close to his.

One of the women spoke. ‘I think he’s cute.’

‘You think every kid is cute,’ the other man said. ‘Child Fire Lords are bad news.’

The second woman spoke up. ‘Well, as long as they let us keep our coronation money.’

They all laughed at that. The first man picked up a few noodles with his chopsticks. ‘Those people aren’t like us. They have advisors and ministers and stuff. He probably doesn’t even need to do anything, just sign some papers and he’s done.’

‘Man, I wish I had advisors.’ More laughter.

‘Like you don’t do even less.’

‘Shut up.’

Sozin’s attention flagged. They were going back to talking about things that were of no relevance to him, he was sure. He—

‘At least you don’t have people trying to bump you off.’

Heat trickled under his skin. He stole another glance at them, but the woman who’d spoken was sitting with her back turned to him.

‘Who’s trying to bump him off?’

‘Everyone,’ the second man said in a knowing tone. ‘That’s what happens when you’re royalty. They’re always kicking each other out of the way. Like that Fire Lord who lost her children. I bet someone helped them on their way out.’

‘Oh, you always know everything.’

‘Just ask my grandmother.’ A note of annoyance had crept into the man’s voice. ‘She was around back then, she remembers it just fine. Those two kids and that stuff with the Lost Prince.’

‘Who’s that?’

A second’s silence. ‘I’m—I’m not really sure. That was before her time. But the point is—’ He tried to protest, but the conversation had already turned to good-natured ribbing.

*

He had been back to the palace and the Fire Lordship for a few hours before he had a chance to speak to Lu Ling. For once, she wasn’t in the archives, but rather at Huan’s enormous paddock in the palace’s stables, where a handler was feeding the dragon large slabs of cow-hippo meat on a pole. Yes. She’s safe here.

‘I just wanted to make sure she’s all right,’ Lu Ling said. Her tone was back to its usual cheerfulness, but something about it felt forced, and her eyes clouded with some secret worry when she thought he wasn’t looking. He wondered if she was afraid after what had happened with the vial and made a mental note to assign her a bodyguard.

‘She’s fine,’ he said, and grinned. ‘See?’ Huan kicked up sand as she chased the meat the handler was manoeuvring out of her reach. You didn’t need to be bonded to her to pick up on her obvious excitement at the game.

Lu Ling propped her arms on the railing and for a moment neither of them said anything. The day was bright and hot and the sunlight struck silver sparks off Lu Ling’s hair and the lenses of her spectacles. For a moment he thought he thought he saw tears in her eyes, but when he looked again her eyes were dry, her face serene. He must have been mistaken. He groaned inwardly. How far was he from starting to think the spider-flies were conspiring against him?

In the paddock, Huan caught the meat and scarfed half of it down with a happy grunt. After a while, Sozin spoke again, trying to sound as casual as possible. ‘Hey, have you ever heard of someone called the Lost Prince?’

Her brow wrinkled and a little of the worry dispelled. ‘The Lost Prince? Where did you hear that?’

He looked back at the paddock, where Huan was chasing another slab of meat. ‘I heard something about it when I was travelling,’ he said; it wasn’t really a lie. ‘It sounded like some kind of legend.’ He shrugged. ‘I was just wondering if you’d ever heard about it.’

Lu Ling said nothing for a moment, her face drawn in concentration. ‘Come on,’ she said, and gestured at him to follow.

‘Where are we going?’

They went to the archives again, but not to the area Sozin was expecting, the shelves and tables filled with details of his family’s history and genealogy, or even the private area that was off-limits to everyone else. Instead she led him to a poorly-lit corner that was visited infrequently enough to be streaked white with dust here and there.

Clearly she was one of those infrequent visitors.

‘What are we looking for?’ Sozin said. The dust tickled his nose.

Lu Ling was trawling through the shelves, scholarly again. ‘This is where the odd stuff is kept,’ she said as she pulled a few books and scrolls off the shelf, took a quick look at them and put them back. ‘Record books that don’t belong anywhere. Very strange poetry. Books written in code.’ She brightened. ‘By the way, they say it’s impossible to decipher some of these, but I—ah, here we go.’

She handed him a slender volume, barely larger than his hand, its cover frayed with age. He flipped through it. It didn’t have a title, just pages of densely-packed text, the characters laid out rather sloppily. He skimmed through it. ‘This claims to be written by someone who lived at the palace. About—’ He frowned. ‘Fire Lord Izumi’s son? She didn’t have a son, did she? She had two daughters, the Crown Princess and my grandfather Ren’s mother. She—’

His grandmother’s voice, sounding like a clang at the bottom of a well. We don’t speak about him. They certainly don’t in your father’s family. She had said it when they’d just left the capital on their journey, but he hadn’t forgotten the words. They had just been out of sight, sleeping.

What exactly was so secret about Fire Lord Izumi’s son? He skimmed further ahead in the book.

Oh.

‘It says here he couldn’t firebend.’ Of course lots of people couldn’t firebend, but everyone in the royal line was supposed to be—

you got lucky there, didn’t you?

—a natural-born firebender. Even so, he had heard that sometimes, a royal child would be unable to firebend. It was something you might see once in a century, maybe, like some rare astronomical event. ‘And… his parents hid him away from everyone outside the palace?’

Lu Ling’s enthusiasm was gone and a pall of gloom hung over her. ‘Maybe it was to protect him.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, but he was already skimming further ahead in the book. It didn’t sound like they were trying to protect him. It sounded like they were ashamed of him. He wondered what it must have been like, to be the child of a Fire Lord, cast away into some cobweby corner because of an accident of birth.

The voice of the dust returned, unexpected and unwelcome. Ironic, isn’t it? Maybe you and him can compare notes.

His grip on the book tightened. Go away. He flipped to the end. ‘Is this it? It just says he went to live to the west of Seishou Forest when he grew up. It can’t end like that.’

He must have hated them, he thought. His sisters, my grandfather…

Hate enough to hurt them.

No, that was ridiculous. The man was obviously long-dead. He snapped the book shut. ‘Did he have any descendants?’

Lu Ling’s eyes widened. ‘I… I have no idea. I haven’t even read that book. I just came across it one—’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘But he must be in the copies of the provincial records. I mean, they wouldn’t erase him from that.’

He flashed on the flooded basement at Shukai, Ta Min telling him about her sister in fits and starts. I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Lu Ling, he though, but said nothing. When they went over the records, they turned out to live up to their reputation.

‘Here,’ Lu Ling said, a note of excitement in her voice. He found it a little odd. Didn’t she see what this might mean? That they could have some shadow sibling out there, grown to vengeance and bitterness in some far-flung corner of the nation while the favoured line sat on the Dragon Throne.

That’s such rubbish! The man probably ended up as a farmer. If he had kids, he probably raised them to farm beets or something.

Like General Zan?

He looked at line of writing in the enormous ledger. Yes, everything matched: name, dates, location. He read to the end and smiled to himself. His great-great-uncle had become a cotton merchant.

His eyes skimmed the next few lines.

A very wealthy cotton merchant. One who’d left behind a fair number of grandchildren.

He read through the names. Zhou, Ming, Cheng, Xue…

Hang on—Cheng?

He skipped a breath as he backtracked through the oversized page, the line suddenly lost.

It couldn’t be. It had to be a coincidence. Lots of people had the same name.

He found the line again. The characters unfurled across the page, black on paper the colour of ivory.

He turned to Lu Ling. 'You never came across this before?'

She blanched a little and shook her head. He looked back at the page.

Cheng—governor of Shukai.

+++

Notes: “Yami” (闇) means darkness/shady in Japanese. Obviously, they don’t speak Japanese in the Fire Nation, but, following the same logic underlying the apparent hilarity of Momo’s name, the word itself struck me as being a good basis for just the right sort of meaningless in itself but really ridiculously overused/over the top alias, like calling yourself James Bond, or better yet, Dracula von Bloodstein. ;) The chapter title comes from the Agatha Christie novel of the same name, and the Lost Prince name comes from the BBC historical drama miniseries called (shockingly ;)) The Lost Prince (the plot-lines are completely different, though). Oh, and regarding the mocking message shot into the palace, I imagine that, given the circumstances of Sozin’s birth (his parents have three dead children in quick succession, then, years later, a live one) those sort of rumours would have been flying around for a while, but Sozin would have no reason to come across them until he becomes Fire Lord.

Chapter 17: Darkest Day

Summary:

The Darkest Day in Fire Nation History.

Notes:

Warnings/Notes: There is some moderately graphic violence in this chapter, including some gruesome imagery. I don't think it merits an M rating, but reader discretion is advised.

Chapter Seventeen: Darkest Day

He woke up right before dawn, the tides of the sun in his blood pulling him away from sleep. ‘You have an audience with the Fire Sages at eleven,’ his grandmother said, holding the morning’s first messages in one hand as his servants helped him wash and dress.

‘Just before the eclipse. And about it, I'm sure,’ Sozin said as a servant brushed his hair into a topknot. He couldn’t keep a little trepidation off his voice; he had never seen an eclipse, much less a total one. The idea filled him with both disquiet and excitement. What would it be like, to be cut off from the sun? Even at night, the feel of it was only dimmed, never absent.

Bao unrolled another message. ‘Lady Heian would like a reply to her previous enquiry about—’

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Sozin said, and adjusted the band that had just been placed on his arm. No one except Roku ever managed to place it just as he liked. ‘How polite is she?’

‘Very,’ Bao said dryly as she rolled the message scroll back up.

Sozin rose from his seat. ‘Then it’s urgent. I’ll handle it before the eclipse. No, make that after.’ They walked out of his rooms and towards the firebending training grounds. The sunlight filtering into the palace made the eclipse appear utterly impossible: the summer sun was so strong it burnished his grandmother’s hair with an eerie golden glow. ‘I have a meeting with Admiral Kung at ten. Pirates. Again,’ he added with a grimace. ‘Maybe he’ll dedicate himself to hunting cockroach-fleas when he retires.’

Not as many people as usual came to watch his firebending practice. Presumably they were all preparing for the eclipse, even though it was still hours away and the moon had just appeared in the sky, a silver arc made nearly invisible by the sun. He went through his forms; fire spun and whirled around him, and occasionally some of the watchers would clap, though he barely heard them. When he was done, sweat dripped off his bare chest and arms. Someone rushed to his side with a towel. One of his secretaries followed him as dried himself a little and made his way to his weapons practice. He might not like them; that didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to master them.

‘My lord, there seems to be a… discrepancy in the household accounts,’ the secretary said.

Sozin flipped through the ledger book as he walked to the dojo. He had to go over it three times before he spotted it: the way the numbers didn’t add up had been very cleverly disguised.

‘I see,’ he said, and handed the book back to the man before wiping his face with the towel. ‘Bring me—no, bring me the latest figures from the treasury.’

The secretary struggled to keep up with Sozin’s pace. ‘My lord, they haven’t been tabulated yet…’

‘Just bring me the documents. They still write things down at the treasury, no?’

‘Y-yes, my lord.’

Lu Ling rushed towards him from the other end of the passageway and her breath hitched in her throat as she stopped by his side. ‘Sozin,’ she said in a thread of voice. ‘I have been thinking…’

He heard a gong strike the hour. He had to hurry if he wanted to handle the accounts business and the meeting with Admiral Kung before the eclipse. ‘Is it urgent?’ he asked, then quickly spoke again when he saw the drop of hurt in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just very busy right now. Can it wait?’

She lowered her gaze. ‘I… I suppose.’

*

His weapons practice was, as always, far more gruelling than his firebending practice. When it was over his muscles ached and the sweat was hot enough to sting his skin. A few moments later, he was at the palace spa, going over the day’s schedule in his head while he was lathered, washed, groomed, and massaged; if he was quick, he could take a look at the treasury’s accounts before his meeting with the admiral. Afterwards he should probably make some small talk with some of the nobles; they’d all be out in force to watch the eclipse.

No, scratch that, he thought as one of the spa attendants washed his hair. The air smelled of freshly spilled perfume. He had the meeting with the Fire Sages at eleven. If that went quickly enough, maybe he could join the nobles for eclipse-watching with enough time to make sure they all got enough personal attention. He should probably schedule the inevitable meeting with his finances minister after the eclipse. He had found out some rather… peculiar things about Xiao when he’d gone to the city.

The attendant lathered his hair with scented oil and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. There was still the issue of General Zan and Governor Cheng. There had been no further incidents since that arrow shot into the palace, not a trace of anything that could be constructed as a threat. But, of course, if either General Zan or Governor Cheng were conspiring against him, they would try to act in as normal a way as possible, wouldn’t they? He closed his eyes. It was like trying to fight a ghost. You couldn’t even be sure it was really there.

When he opened his eyes again, Lu Ling was looking down at him, her head haloed by the golden carving in the ceiling. ‘You’re busy right now, aren’t you?’ she said, her face almost droopy with unhappiness.

‘No, it’s all right,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

She smiled, over-bright. ‘Nothing. I just—’

Someone hurried across the room, footsteps echoing over the noise of running water. ‘A message from Wanhai, Fire Lord Sozin.’

*

Right now, she didn’t have a name.

For the past twenty-four hours her name had been Wei and she delivered fresh produce to the royal palace. She had earned that temporary self; she had watched the real Wei for over two weeks like a badger-jaguar stalking a fawn who had wandered too far from the herd. She had watched the woman’s comings and goings, had sat in the shadows while her target worked her way through some soup or a bowl of noodles. She had spent days and nights watching the woman’s lodgings and her place of business, following at a distance as she went through her morning rounds.

Yesterday morning, she’d only had to wait. It had all been over very quickly.

Afterwards, she had no trouble getting into the palace. The wagon laden with cabbages had been disguise enough. Nobody gave her more than a cursory glance.

Once she was inside, she disappeared.

Now she sat in a tiny room that had been partly walled off at some point in the past, alone with the cobwebs and the dust and the scurrying of spider-mice. She had had no trouble finding the hiding place; the floor plans she’d been given along with her target's schedule were very accurate. She appreciated it.

She unrolled the package containing her tools, few but thorough. The light from a tiny candle stub glinted off blades and edges; she wouldn’t dim the spark of steel until it was absolutely necessary.

She understood the tools like she had never understood people. She could lose herself amongst the latter without being noticed—most of the time, anyway; a few people grew skittish around her, like rabbaroos sniffing a pack of wolf-bats—but they weren’t very interesting. She could imitate the way they acted, but she had never figured them out all that well. They often reacted in ways she didn’t expect, and once she was done with them they all looked the same.

They also didn’t look like people anymore.

Not so with her tools. She picked up a steel-tipped crossbow bolt and opened a flask full of a pale yellow liquid. Her father had been a surgeon, and they reminded her a little of his instruments, she thought as she dipped the tip of the bolt in the liquid, only beautiful.

Very beautiful.

She thought of what she’d do to the Fire Lord. She didn’t care about how much money she was being paid, nor did she concern herself with her employer’s reasons. She only regretted the fact that, after the eclipse reached totality, she was only going to have five minutes with him, and she was going to have to share with two others.

She started coating the blade of one of her throwing knives. The tiny flame flickered in a draft and cast fantastic shapes on the cobweb-ridden walls, thin clawed hands, snouts full of teeth. If she had enough time with the Fire Lord, in a place where he couldn’t escape, she’d start by cutting off his fingers. She wanted to know if he could firebend without them, so she’d have to do it slowly, one at a time. She supposed his tongue would have to go at some point; he’d probably last longer than most other people and the noise started to get boring after a while.

Idly, she wondered if she would get out of the palace alive, and finished preparing her weapons.

*

‘Fire Lord Sozin, we have come to collect you.’

Sozin looked down from his throne. The Fire Lord didn’t receive the Fire Sages around some nice cups of ginseng tea. ‘Collect me?’

‘It is customary for the Fire Lord to spend a total solar eclipse meditating in the Temple,’ the Head Sage said. Neither his nor the other Sages’ expressions changed, but when he spoke again Sozin knew they would be frowning if they could. ‘Perhaps you have heard of this.’

Sozin steepled his hands under his chin. ‘There hasn’t been a total eclipse in the capital in over one hundred years.’ He paused. The Fire Sages said nothing. ‘That would be a “no”.’

The Head Sage spoke again. ‘It is an occasion of great spiritual significance.’

‘I am sure,’ Sozin said, and rose from his throne. Everyone at the palace who could afford to do so was going to mark the day’s spirituality by going outdoors to watch the sun vanish. Folding chairs and mats had already been brought out into the gardens, presumably so that people could be spiritual in comfort. He climbed down the steps. Even all of the Fire Sages’ training couldn’t suppress faint looks of surprise. ‘Unfortunately, I have previous engagements.’

This time the surprise in the Head Sage’s face was entirely undisguised. ‘Fire Lord Sozin, this is unprecedented—’

He was sure it was. Until now he hadn’t thought it was possible for a Fire Lord to go against the will of the Fire Sages in the matters of their purview. And yet, the world didn’t stop spinning. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, ‘but our nation remains here even when the sun doesn’t.’

They couldn’t even muster a protest as he went through the usual courtesies and sent them on their way.

His blood and chi stirred. He couldn’t see the sun, but he didn’t have to; the flows in his body that let him firebend were telling him that the moon had begun blotting out the sun. The sensation disturbed him: it was as though some vital part of himself were being painlessly but inexorably removed.

Lu Ling found him as he walked down the nearly-empty corridors towards the gardens. Everyone who wasn’t already outside was either heading that way or, if they did not have the privilege of leisure, making sure the palace was locked and barred against any outside threats; there might be little risk, but while they were cut off from the sun, not even a spider-mouse would be able to squeeze in.

‘There you are,’ he said, and put his hand on her arm. A knot of noblewomen hurried ahead of them and rounded the corner in a rustle of silk and conversation. ‘Let’s go watch the eclipse.’ He shivered a little. ‘You can feel it too, right?’

She slowed her pace a little. Her fingers had twisted hair strands around themselves so thoroughly he was sure her hand was going to be permanently entangled. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’ She bit her lower lip, released it. ‘Something very important.’

They were nearly out of the portrait gallery. ‘Is it about that missing sum from the treasury?’ He lowered his voice, even though the only people around were a pair of guards stationed at the end of the corridor. ‘Did you find it too? I spent some time this morning going over the most recent records. I think I’m going to have a very serious conversation with Minister Xiao,’ he said, trying to make his tone sound a little jokey.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she balled her hands into fists and held them nervously at her sides. ‘No. It’s something else,’ she said, looking at some point in the far distance. She stopped, just a few yards away from the end of the gallery. ‘I…’

The eclipse was almost total, but he stopped as well and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘You can tell me what’s wrong,’ he said, softly.

She was lost in concentration for a second, then looked up and gave him a real smile. ‘It can wait.’ She grabbed his hand. ‘Come on. If we hurry, we can still catch the eclipse.’

They rushed into the next corridor as fast—or a little faster, in Lu Ling’s case—as propriety allowed. ‘We can’t miss this,’ she said as she hurried forward. ‘It’s the astronomic event of a century.’ She reached for his hand. ‘Come on, we’d better run. We’ve got to get outside. We—’

Something crashed behind them. Sozin stopped halfway between two vases almost as tall as him. The lamps in the corridor were weak, miring everything in shadow, but they were enough for him to see the corridor’s door had been shut. He looked at the other end; that one had been shut too.

The cold in his body had nothing to do with the eclipse. He turned around and grabbed Lu Ling’s arm. ‘Something’s wrong.’

The firelight cast a pale gold shimmer on her skin. She stepped in front of him. ‘It’s—’

Something hot sprayed on his face. His fingers brushed it automatically. It smelled salty.

Blood.

He looked back at Lu Ling. She was frowning, the colour draining off her face. A steel tip poked out of her chest and a dark stain spread through the front of her clothes. ‘I…’ she gasped. That’s not possible, his mind said, delirious. You couldn’t get shot through the chest and just… just stand there, not making a—

She stumbled forward. ‘Lu Ling!’ he cried out, and caught her; her weight tipped him onto his knees.

He didn’t even see the second bolt as it slashed through the air and ripped through his right arm.

*

Outside, the stars were visible at noon and crickets had started singing. In the sky a black disc hung like a tear into absolute darkness. A halo of white light surrounded it, impossibly bright.

Totality.

*

Pain exploded in his arm and he nearly crashed backwards into a vase. ‘No,’ he gasped. Then the searing pain dragged him forward and his face slammed on the carpet as a thin cable ripped the bolt clean off his flesh. No. I can’t firebend. I can’t—

He rolled onto his side and another bolt shattered the vase next to him. Stilettos tore the air just above his head. He got on his knees, blood spurting from his arm. Something—someone jumped down from the shadows in the ceiling, two blades at the ready. Time stretched like the sap of a rubber tree. He swung out his leg at the dark-clad figure and it spun out of the way.

He didn’t see the second one until it slashed his back.

His legs failed him as he tried to get up and he went sprawling over the broken vase. He couldn’t feel the pain. He couldn’t even feel his body. There must be something on the blades… Get up. Get up. Get up! He twisted around and rammed a shard of pottery into his attacker, striking blindly. Someone gasped and kicked him in the face.

Another blade slashed at him and he jumped back and unsheathed his knife. Blood dripped down his body and fell on the floor, very, very slowly.

The two figures moved towards him and his body took over. He struck one, spattering blood in a wide arc, and dodged out of the way of the other.

Blood poured down his left shoulder. His grip on the knife faltered. A foot swung to kick it out of his hand but he managed to slice at the hamstrings and he and his attacker went sprawling on the floor.

He wanted to close his eyes.

He was so tired.

Steel swam in and out of view.

Something was making crashing sounds, very far away…

Willpower is everything.

He grabbed the assassin who was scrambling on the floor next to him, trying to deliver another strike, and rammed his head against the floor as hard as he could. The other threw a knife at him, but missed him by a whisker. Sozin fell to the floor. Willpower… willpower. He tried to move but he was too weak with poison and blood loss. He stumbled backwards and the assassin yanked him up by his hair, exposing his throat, blade at the ready—

A loud crash, and a roar echoed down the corridor. The assassin hesitated, half a second only, but it was enough. Huan raced past Sozin, grabbed the assassin’s leg between her teeth and flung him into the air. He hit the wall with a sickening crunch and slid down to the floor.

Sozin flopped down bonelessly. There were people all around him, moving, shouting…

‘The Fire Lord—get the Fire Lord!’

He had to—the sound of his heartbeats filled his head. He crawled on a floor sticky with his own blood and clawed at cloth covering the other assassin’s face with his fingertips. ‘Who sent you?’ The words were a thread of sound. He could feel his throat closing up. ‘Who sent you?’ The cloth slid back to reveal a woman’s face, surprising in its blandness. She couldn’t look like this, could she? Just like anyone else. Green-flecked foam spilled from her mouth and her body jerked once, twice, then was still. Poison—she’d swallowed poison so she wouldn’t be caught alive.

Someone was speaking to him. ‘We caught the other assassin just outside the corridor—search the palace from top to bottom—’

No, not to him. But—three? There were three of them? How many more? How many—he caught a glimpse of Lu Ling out of the corner of his eye. She was lying on her side like someone sleeping and he tried to crawl towards her. He could feel his skin tear.

‘Forgive me, my lord.’ He was being picked up, gently. Shou’s face swam in, then out, of view. ‘I have failed you.’

‘No,’ he tried to say, but all he managed was a soundless gasp. He was somewhere else now, no longer in the corridor, but his eyes couldn’t focus long enough for him to figure it out. The pain started flowing in again, inch by inch. Lights blinded him.

His mother’s voice. ‘For goodness’ sake, just make him sleep already!’

Sleep? No. No, he couldn’t. There were things, important things—

‘I don’t want to,’ he whispered, but a damp cloth was pressed against his nose and mouth. Its smell stung him. ‘I don’t—’

+++

Notes: At the risk of opening myself up to eternal mockery, I must confess that the bit in which the assassin is about to slash Sozin’s throat open only to be stopped by Huan at the last minute is lifted straight from Jurassic Park (the movie). Now I must write something in which Sozin is about to be eaten by utahraptors velociraptors and Huan comes down on them like a flying, fire-spitting pet T-Rex. :D Also, regarding the mechanics of the assassination attempt, I looked at relevant canon screenshots carefully and I’m pretty sure Sozin is left-handed.

Chapter 18: Unmasked

Summary:

Secrets are revealed, masks come off, and Sozin shows a little of what he'll become later on.

Notes:

There’s some mild sexual content in this chapter. In a manner of speaking.

Chapter Eighteen: Unmasked

‘—want to.’

He was in the sightless, soundless dark, not knowing how much time had passed. Pain washed over him and he drifted deeper.

Then sounds, even nowhere.

Gulls. He opened his eyes. They glided through the storm clouds, their cries sharp enough to wound. Waves crashed upon the shore.

He got up. He couldn’t really remember lying down on the damp sand. Fog swirled around him, clung to his clothes. There was something very important he had to do, he thought as he looked around; the fog was thick as smoke, but he could see the beach with its brown-sugar sand.

Or something very important that had just happened. He was Crown Prince—

no, Fire Lord

—Sozin and he had to—

He stopped. The macaw-gulls still hovered above him. His feet were bare on the fog-wet sand, but he didn’t feel the cold. He knew this place, didn’t he? The beach and the cliffs and even the macaw-gulls flocking above. As if on cue, the fog parted over the kudzu-covered slope. A house was perched halfway up, shutters drawn, curving eaves covered with leaves. He thought of himself at the window, hands pressed against the glass, watching the fog and the sea roll over the crescent-shaped beach. Yes, he remembered this. Ember Island.

He must have climbed the steps leading up to the house, because he was at the front door now, pushing it open. The wood was covered in limpets and barnacles, stained dark by water.

Inside, there were only shadows. He stepped forward and stumbled several feet down onto a stone floor. He scrambled back to his feet. This wasn’t the corridor in the house at Ember Island. This was—

a dream just a dream only a dream

—a well, he realised as he fumbled over the wet stone walls, barely five feet apart. He looked up. There was a faint light high above; it held still for a few seconds, then started to dim, as though someone were sliding the well’s cover shut.

‘No. No! Wait!’ He tried to firebend but something was—

like during the eclipse

—blocking it. Above him the light thinned to a white rim. He yelled again and tried to climb up the walls, but he quickly lost his purchase and dropped down onto the well’s floor. Black goo sprayed around him. He tried to get back to his feet, but it pinned him down like tar. He struggled to free himself, but the black mud just sucked him down more. The light pulled farther and farther away from him and the walls started closing in.

Something grabbed his foot. He let out a yelp and tried to kick it away, but it just clamped on harder. Black water rained from the walls. ‘Let me go!’ He was yanked down and choked on the goo. ‘Let me—’

The darkness closed over him. Cold slurry filled his throat and lungs. He couldn’t—

But he could, he realised. He wasn’t drowning, just in some place thick with shadows. He tried to firebend again, but when he moved the shadows swarmed over him, slid over his flesh, leaving trails of goosebumps behind them.

‘Do you really want us to let you go?’ The voice was warm as the shadows were cold and he was sure he wasn’t hearing it; it moved over his skin like a caress, bypassed his ears and went straight to his brain. ‘Why would you ever want to leave this place?’

The cries of the gulls again. He looked up.

His father looked back at him. There were no gulls, just songbirds, and grass underfoot. He reached for his father, but everything around him blurred. He’s not real. He’s dead. Darkness poured back.

The shadows swelled, raw silk against his skin, and when the voice returned it was a honey-dipped blade, a mix of pain and gentleness that made his muscles slacken and tense with arousal. ‘Why don’t you want to stay here, where you can have anything you want? Everything you want?’

The blackness turned to velvety red, and he was no longer alone. Roku edged closer to him, bare skin pressed against his. His doushun’s fingertips traced the underside of his chin, sending little shivers through his flesh. Sozin closed his eyes, and before he could make a sound of pleasure, Roku pulled him into a kiss, then drew back so he could nuzzle the hollow at the base of his throat. Ta Min ran a fingernail down his back, maddeningly slow, just on the edge of pain. She pressed her body against his. ‘Everything you want,’ she said in a dewy whisper against his ear.

‘This is all a lie,’ he said, and the red unravelled back into cold shadows. ‘It’s not real. None of this is real!’ He punched and grabbed at the darkness, but it just whirled about him like a flock of ill-luck birds. ‘You can’t even make it feel real!’ He kicked and yelled at the fog. ‘Roku doesn’t taste like that. Ta Min doesn’t sound like that. It’s all—’ The shadows clung to him again, swarmed and grabbed and stung. ‘Lies,’ he spat out.

And what if they’re lies? The shadow spoke deep inside him, in every corner and crevice of his mind, in places where he dared not look. It’s safe here. Why would you ever wish to go back?

Yes, why? Another voice, his own. He felt himself slacken in the shadow’s embrace. It would be so easy to just give up. Give in. To close his eyes and not have to…

‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’

The shadow laughed. ‘And why should you get to leave?’ This time the voice was outside him, brushing his skin like dreadful kisses.

Because he was Fire Lord Sozin and he knew exactly what to say.

‘Because I have what everyone desires.’ He felt the shadow starting to retreat, flaking into soot and ashes and nothing. ‘Answers.’

A flow of icy water hit him and he let out a yelp of shock. But this time he wasn’t in the well: there was glass in front of him, stained and mottled with age. He struck it as the water rose around him. The glass shattered into shards that slashed his flesh, but there was a way out, there was a way—

out—

*

His body returned, unwieldy and pain-wracked. When he tried to move, he let out a whimper instead. But at least he could open his eyes, couldn’t he?

Yes.

The world wasn’t foggy. For some reason he’d expected it to be. His mother’s face was looking down at him, her eyes red-rimmed. Her bottom lip looked as though she’d been chewing it. She did that sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, but this time it seemed she hadn’t cared about that.

‘Sozin,’ she said, in a thread of voice. Her hands went to his, lying over the bedclothes. He tried to take his right arm from under the coverlets but scarlet, sharp-fanged pain shot up his muscles. Yes, he remembered: someone had hurt him there. A flash of memory: Lu Ling’s blood on his face, a crossbow bolt tearing up his arm. ‘I thought I had lost you,’ his mother said. Her voice was still damp with tears. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

‘How long?’ he said, in a throaty whisper. It didn’t sound like his voice.

‘Yesterday at noon.’ Bao’s voice. He turned his face towards her. It hurt, but he managed it. ‘It’s past midnight now.’ His grandmother didn’t look like she’d been crying—her face and stance were as unruffled as ever—but two locks of white hair had escaped her topknot. For Bao’s standards, that was overwrought and dishevelled. He glanced around the room. Ta Min was sitting next to Bao, a handkerchief in her hands. She’d burned holes through it. Ryun and Jaya were off to one side, looking like a fireplace whose flames had burned out and been smothered in ashes. ‘Lu Ling?’ Sozin asked. Bao shook her head. He glanced back at Ryun. He could tell his cousin had been crying, though his tears had stopped now. It made him look as though his face had been replaced with an impostor’s.

‘Oh.’ For a second, his mind was blank. Then it reached out for Huan and she popped out from below the bed, resting her head on the coverlets and licking his fingers. He petted her nose. She was worried—no, she wasn’t just worried, she was ashamed. He could feel her distress ricocheting around his skull like a headache's echo. It’s all right, girl. It’s all right. You did well. The dragon let out a mournful whimper.

Ta Min stepped forward. ‘The doctors said the assassins’ blades were coated with some kind of poison. They just barely got to you in time. If they’d taken a few more minutes or if—if anything got closer to your heart…’ She stopped, made a sound low in her throat, and held her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart. ‘This close. You must be the luckiest person alive. Don’t ever let anything like that happen to you ever again. Don’t—’ She leaned forward and touched his shoulder, her composure regained. ‘I’m so glad you’re alive,’ she whispered.

‘Me too,’ he said.

Ta Min smiled, sad and happy at the same time, then pulled back. ‘I am sorry, Fire Lady Sora, I—’

‘It’s all right, child…’

Ta Min and his mother were speaking, but he barely heard them.

The pain in his body turned to anger, each nerve a burning wire. Why hadn’t he put guards around Lu Ling after the first attempt on her life? Why had he let people treat the eclipse like a party? Why hadn’t he—he should have locked down the place when he started suspecting things, place guards everywhere, confine everyone to their rooms. He should have—

Agony throbbed in his muscles.

Forgive me, Lu Ling. He closed his eyes.

And then he saw it.

Accidents happen.

Some sick cat spent all night yowling just outside my window.

Who would want to kill me?

There’s something I have to tell you. Something important.

It’s a puzzle box.

A—

No.

But it was.

So clear.

So obvious.

‘Sozin?’

He blinked. His mother was looking at him, the worry in her face mingled with a drop of wariness. ‘I know who did it,’ he whispered.

No one answered. Sozin tried to sit up in bed. Pain shot through his back, sharp enough to squeeze tears from his eyes; he ignored it. ‘I have to get out of here.’ His legs refused to move. ‘Help me.’

His mother and two doctors he hadn’t spotted before hurried towards him. ‘Sir, you mustn’t—you’re still badly injured—your stitches—’

Firebending is will. Willpower is everything. ‘Stop,’ he said, an order. His voice rang across the room. ‘I will go to the throne room. With or without your help. If you’d prefer the latter—’

The doctors hurried forward to help him. ‘Son, this is foolishness,’ his mother said, but he was already up, the stitches in his back feeling like something with blunt teeth had bitten off a chunk of his flesh. He could feel a hot trail of blood, trickling down to his leg. ‘The palace has been locked down. You nearly died—’

‘I must do this,’ he said. ‘Just dull the pain a little and I’ll be fine. Someone get me a robe. Come on, there’s no time to waste.’

Something in his feverish urgency was contagious. He took a drop of poppy extract, slipped on a silk house robe. Moments later he was padding barefooted to the throne room, doctors and relatives in tow. Huan trotted at his side. ‘Get me General Zan, Minister Xiao, Governor Cheng, Lord Kazu, and Lady Yin and her daughter,’ he said, and stumbled a little. The doctor he was clinging to propped him up. The pain was mind-wracking, but the poppy drops made him not care, as though it were happening to someone else entirely.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Ta Min whispered.

‘Trust me,’ he said.

Shou was waiting for him in the throne room with a knot of other guards, looking like a man who’d just gained a reprieve from death. He rushed to help Sozin up the steps. ‘My lord,’ he said, his voice hollow, then trailed off.

‘I will have a task for you,’ Sozin said. The pain cut through the poppy haze a little. ‘Soon.’

It might be past midnight, but the people he’d summoned didn’t take much time to appear in the throne room, surrounded by stony-faced guards. No one was being allowed to walk around the palace without an escort, he guessed, and he was sure none of them had been getting much sleep. He looked at them: anxious, annoyed, angry. He was wearing a flimsy house-robe, he was barefoot, his hair was down, and some part of him just wanted to curl up under some blankets until the pain went away. But he was Fire Lord Sozin, child of the Undying Flame, and he had heard the secret voice of the fire at Mount Kiake. The fires inside the room rose for a moment.

‘Someone tried to kill me,’ he said, his voice a little slurred from the poppies. ‘Someone did kill my cousin.’ He looked down at his right hand. Blood stained his sleeve, dripped down his fingers. He heard it splatter on the floor. He looked up again. Zan barely managed to suppress a glare of irritation. I’ll make sure to give you something worth your while, general, he thought, and, for one terrible moment, felt like laughing. He glanced at Ta Min, standing close to the throne, her expression utterly blank. He thought of the clock at her house; gears could grind things so exceedingly fine.

‘Today—yesterday,’ he corrected himself, ‘was actually the third such attempt. It was the most spectacular, it has to be said. The other two were made to look like accidents. Almost… ridiculously simple: poisoned sweets at an inn, an explosion at a fireworks factory at Shukai.’ He turned to Bao. ‘What do you think happened, grandmother? Maybe a little alcohol and lamp oil spilled out of sight, and then a lit candle placed on that?’

Bao was silent for a moment before answering. ‘Maybe.’

‘My lord—’ Governor Cheng said.

Sozin cut in. ‘I will get to you in a moment, governor, don’t worry.’ He wiped a little sweat off his forehead. It smelled of rust, but maybe that was just his blood. ‘Then, when I was at Obsidian Island, another nearly-fatal accident happened. Another really simple one. Someone almost got brained by a statue that fell off a balcony in a locked room. The thing is, he was wearing my cousin Ryun’s jacket. My cousin Ryun’s very distinctive jacket. In the dark, the man must have looked just like him.’

‘Cousin, I told you…’ Ryun started, but his heart wasn’t in it. Apparently the joke wasn’t as funny when you were the butt of it. Sozin thought of Lu Ling again, her eyes wide with shock, blood spreading over her chest like some dreadful blooming flower.

‘That no one would try to kill you,’ Sozin said. ‘I know. But I think what happened yesterday puts rather a different… spin on things, doesn’t it?’ Another wave of laughter rose in his throat, and he bit it down again. People would think he was delirious, with fever, with pain, with shock. But he wasn’t. His mind was clearer than it had ever been.

Yoon stepped forward. ‘If you know who did this, just have them arrested. I don’t understand these charades—my lord,’ she added as her mother clamped a hand on her wrist. She lowered her eyes and drew back.

‘It’s simple,’ he said. His right hand was sticky with blood, and his arm was numb. ‘The person who did all that was the same person who arranged the assassination attempt. It may have been much more elaborate and more…’ He hesitated for a moment, his feverishness suddenly making his mind blank. ‘—overt than the other attacks, but they were both planned by the same person. A very clever person. Someone who can use simple methods when called for. Which brings me to you, General Zan.’

The guards closest to Zan tensed. Undisguised anger flashed in the general’s face. ‘My lord, if you wish to accuse me—’

Sozin’s voice was younger, softer, dulled with pain and medicine. Even so, it filled up the room, forced Zan into silence. ‘You don’t like me, do you, General?’

‘No one has ever doubted my loyalty to the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation,’ Zan said.

‘That doesn’t really answer my question, does it?’ A note of amusement crept into his voice. ‘But you don’t like me. I’m young, I’m pampered, I’m soft, I’m inexperienced. You’re a man of discipline and hard work, and here is a child telling you what to do. Am I close?’ Zan’s expression didn’t change. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you stand in line to inherit the throne, should I die, and my aunt die, and my cousins die. That’s quite a number of bodies, but people have killed more for less reward, haven’t they?’

He went on before Zan could protest, his eyes shifting to his next target. ‘How about you, Governor Cheng?’

The governor had on an expression like a plump rodent that had just felt the gaze of a snake-owl. ‘Me? I—’

‘You’re a cousin of mine,’ Sozin said. ‘Your grandfather was a Fire Lord’s son. But his mother barred him from succession because he couldn’t firebend. In fact, she and the Fire Consort tried to hide him away from the public as much as possible. What do you think? Was that to protect him, or to hide their shame?’ Cheng didn’t answer, but Sozin could glimpse the intelligence behind the appearance of befuddlement. He went on. ‘But I am sure your family has a long memory. That’s a good reason to have no love lost between them and my side of the family, isn’t it?’ He turned to Xiao. ‘And speaking of bad blood, how far deep are you in debt, Minister?’

Xiao opened his mouth, then looked at Sozin and closed it again. Sozin’s flesh was hot with fever and his head was woozy, but he was sure no one felt like laughing at his blood-stained robe, or how he hadn’t bothered to disguise the fact that he’d just got out of bed. No, he was sure that right now, no one was finding it even slightly amusing. ‘How did you know?’ Xiao asked. He didn’t sound afraid, just a little relieved. Grandmother Bao had said that was always reliable: the urge to confess.

‘Which part? That you’re a gambler, or that you’ve been skimming from the treasury to cover your losses?’ Sozin brushed a lock of sticky hair away from his face. ‘You accidentally dropped a stub from a betting parlour. It had the name of a race-mongoose-dragon still on it. And I noticed you getting anxious at certain times—then, after only a few minutes, you’d relax again. Those are the times when the mongoose-dragon races take place, aren’t they? You must have lost far more than usual in the last few months; this time you weren’t so good at covering your tracks. Enough to kill someone over it?’

The minister blanched. ‘My lord, I swear—’

‘Be quiet,’ Sozin said, and Xiao’s mouth promptly closed. ‘And you, Lord Kazu, and you, Lady Yin. No great intelligence needed to see why you might dislike me. Maybe not to the point of murder, not at first, but those things grow, don’t they? Especially if you have two people to encourage each other, to convince each other that drastic action is increasingly more… reasonable. It would be rather ironic if I managed to get you working together for my downfall, wouldn’t it?’

Yoon spoke again, despite the guards and his stare. ‘That’s preposterous. We didn’t have—’

‘Of course it’s preposterous,’ Sozin said. His voice bounced across the room, over the carved pillars, towards the high ceiling. ‘If either of you caught even the slightest suggestion that the other was planning something against me, you’d denounce them so fast they wouldn’t have time to blink. Especially you, Lady Yoon; you just want to help and protect your mother. Why work with your enemy when you can destroy them utterly? Besides, you had no motive for the earlier attacks. Neither did you, Minister Xiao. You had no reason to think that your deceit would be found out. After all, it had been working for years. Why should it fail you now?’

If they were relieved, their faces didn’t show it. All their expressions were utterly blank.

‘As for you, Governor Cheng, you may be smarter than everyone gives you credit for, but that serves you well, doesn’t it? I know you like your city. You like it far more than you care about what your grandfather might or might not have been. You wouldn’t risk a position you like for the sake of lashing at a family you really bear no ill will against. You’re quite happy at Shukai, aren’t you?’

‘Oh, quite, quite, Fire Lord Sozin.’ His voice held a trace of smugness. ‘And that family hist—’

Sozin ignored him. ‘And you, General Zan, the reasons you dislike me are the reasons you didn’t try to kill me. You like order, you like discipline, you like things in their place. I doubt you have a problem with a great deal of people dying—it’s just that me and all my cousins being killed would plunge everything into chaos, and I’m pretty sure you know that. You’d never waste your soldiers’ lives like that. That’s why you were so angry at me when it looked like we were going to have a little war with the Earth Kingdom. Besides, accidents are not your style, are they? Not quite straightforward enough, I suspect…’

No one said anything for a few seconds. Then Ryun spoke. His voice was still laced with shock. ‘So… none of them did it? Then why—’

‘None of them did it,’ Sozin said, not taking his eyes from General Zan. ‘But I know who did. The only people who could. The people who made Xiao’s embezzling look worse that it was, so someone would be sure to find it sooner or later and he could be blamed.’ He glanced quickly at the minister, whose face had turned ashen. ‘The people who needled Yoon into challenging me to an Agni Kai at Yulong.’ He turned his head to Ryun and Jaya, very slowly. ‘Of course I know who did it, big cousin.

It was you.’

Silence. Then Jaya spoke, face hot with indignation. ‘That’s ridiculous. Do you think we’d harm our sister—’

‘Lu Ling was an accident,’ Sozin snapped, and for a moment the ache in his body had nothing to do with his wounds.

Jaya opened her mouth again, but her husband placed his hand on her arm. A look of understanding passed between then. A second trickled by, two, three. Then Ryun turned back to Sozin. ‘How did you know? When—’

There were mutterings in the room, but no one dared to speak above a whisper. ‘When? Just today. And there were a number of things,’ Sozin said. ‘Once I realised that the accidents weren’t accidents, it was obvious that the best person to arrange them was someone on the inside. Someone who knew the details of our journey and who could ask for further information without raising suspicion. And Aunt Iruza and my grandmother had exchanged plenty of letters about the trip. If you got your mother to write asking for more details, who would think anything of it? The mix-up with the dates when we got to the island was a nice touch, by the way. But I think you exaggerated a little with all the parties to make me think you only cared about enjoying yourselves. Even your mother commented that you’d been having quite a lot of those. Far more than usual, right?’

Ryun spoke again. ‘It wasn’t—’

‘Shut up,’ Sozin spat out. Anger was starting to burn inside him again, like embers fanned back to life, but when he spoke again his voice was cold. ‘But the statue was where you first miscalculated. I know why you did it: you wanted to draw suspicion away from yourself. You knew someone would realise the accidents weren’t accidents, sooner or later, so you wanted to make it look like as though you were a target yourself, and then acted as though the whole idea of someone trying to kill you was ridiculous, to draw suspicion away from you even further. How could you be the sort of person to pull that sort of thing off? But of course you are, aren’t you? You and Jaya. With the statue, though, you were too clever by half. The whole thing was too impossible—unless of course, Jaya pushed it down herself, then rushed downstairs and pretended to be looking for the key.’ He turned to his cousin-in-law. ‘You probably didn’t even waste time locking the attic door behind you. And of course one of you hid Taro’s jacket so that Ryun could give him his own. You even made sure to clean the floor beforehand so Jaya wouldn’t leave any footprints.’ He paused. ‘There was still a smell of soap.

‘That’s the only way it could have happened, so that’s what must have happened. And if you did that, you were the people behind the other attacks as well. They were all rather similar to each other, weren’t they? Deceptively simple; you could have hired almost anyone to carry them out. Easy to pass off as accidents. And all planned by someone who had inside information, just like the assassination itself. And then—then you had to drag Lu Ling into your scheme, didn’t you? What was that business with the vial for?’

Ryun took a few seconds to answer. ‘We wanted to know what we’d need to knock out your dragon.’

‘I see. Clever,’ Sozin spat out. ‘Did you enjoy the fact that you were making her an accomplice in my death? Did you tell her she had to do all this to be a good sister? That she’d condemn you to death if she spoke? That she’d condemn herself to death if she spoke? Did you find it funny, having her watch while I went in those wild lion-turtle chases after General Zan and Governor Cheng? She knew about his heritage, didn't she? If I hadn't come across it by chance, was she supposed to hint at it?'

Ryun didn’t answer. Sozin’s voice caught in his throat and all he could feel around him was the cloying, salty scent of blood. The anger had risen to his head, where it drummed in his temples. ‘I was such an idiot,’ he said. The fingers of his left hand tightened on the throne’s arm, hard enough to hurt; his right arm had gone entirely numb. ‘Lu Ling told me everything, in so many words. The way she was unhappy. The way she hesitated before she made sure I found out about Minister Xiao’s skimming. She even kept trying to warn me yesterday.’

Guilt clutched at his insides. He nearly gasped at its unfamiliar bitterness. He glared back at Ryun and Jaya; anger was better. ‘That was where you miscalculated for the second time. She didn’t go along with your treachery. She didn’t even feed Huan your precious drug. It turns out she loved your country more than she loved you.’

Ryun’s mouth stretched into a terrible smile. It looked a little like someone had slashed it into his face. ‘Oh, you think it was her country she was thinking of?’

Sozin didn’t understand what he meant, but that hardly mattered. He no longer felt the pain, the numbness, the fever spreading through his flesh. He didn’t even feel the betrayal, gnawing at him with hundreds of little needle-like teeth.

All that mattered right now was that he right, and everyone knew he was right. Conviction sustained him, terrible and radiant. ‘What I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Is why you did it. I’m pretty sure about what you were planning: after I died, tragically murdered at a young age, Aunt Iruza would become Fire Lord. She had nothing to do with your plan, I’m sure, so even if someone suspected her of being involved, they’d find nothing to incriminate her. As for you two, I’m sure you’d be the ones restoring order after my death. No one likes a child Fire Lord, after all. Oh, and of course that would be a great opportunity to get rid of anyone who might create any possible complications.’ He whipped his head around. ‘Like you, General Zan. Maybe you should be glad I survived, even though you don’t like me. At least with me, you get to live.’

The general said nothing, but for a moment Sozin was sure he saw a touch of grudging respect in his eyes. It didn’t matter. He looked back at Ryun and Jaya, some inner fire propping him up, never-ending, all-consuming. ‘And then, down the line, Ryun would inherit the throne fair and square. Am I right?’ He didn’t wait for them to reply. He knew he was. Their silence said everything. ‘So tell me, was it out of greed? Was it just for the sake of the Fire Lordship? Was it worth that much to you? Were you thinking of it while you were pretending to be my friend? When you talked to me about my father? Answer me.’

They didn’t answer. They didn’t even dare to meet his eyes.

He tried to steeple his hands, but his right arm wouldn’t move. No matter. ‘You know what? If you envy me so much you want the Fire Lordship, you can have it.’ His voice didn’t sound angry. It didn’t sound mocking. It sounded like steel, like fire. If anyone in the throne room was shocked at his words, they didn’t show it. ‘My grandmother taught me everyone can have exactly what they want if they’re willing to give the other person exactly what they want. So how about it, Ryun? Jaya?’ He made their names sound like insults. ‘Do you want the Fire Lordship? Because I want my father back. And I want Lu Ling back, so that I can tell her none of it was her fault. Can you give me that, you bastards?’ His words echoed across the throne room. Then silence. He shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t think so.’

Jaya looked up. Her eyes were still red, but all her sleekness was back, as though she were welcoming a guest into her home instead of standing in the throne room, admitting treason and murder. ‘It’s fair,’ she said. Her voice was steady. ‘We took a gamble. We knew the risks. We lost. You won. Fair and square. So be it. We will accept our punishment without complaint.’ She smiled, bitter and beautiful. ‘Like a prince and princess of the Fire Nation. What is it going to be? Banishment? Execution?’

Sozin didn’t answer. He looked at the people around him, the motion making his shoulder throb. Ta Min, her face set with slow-burning anger. Grandmother Bao, her arms crossed, her expression blank. His mother, her eyes wide with shock and betrayal and her lips pressed together so hard they were nearly white. Huan crouched at the foot of the steps leading up to the throne, and he knew that at one word from him she’d jump on his cousins and tear them apart.

For one terribly long second, he though of letting her.

No. His own voice, mixed with the voice of the Keeper of the Flame, with the eternal, wordless voice that he’d heard in the fire that night, in the machine powering the world. He must be like the flames themselves. He must be terrible and merciful.

‘I won’t execute you,’ he said. ‘I won’t banish you. I am going to send you to jail, and you will rot there for the rest of your lives. But don’t worry, cousins. I’m not cruel. No. I’m not. You won’t be hurt. You won’t be starved. I’ll make sure you’re comfortable. I want all your needs attended to. I want you to have time to think. You’ll be doing a lot of thinking.’

‘About Ling-Ling?’ Ryun said. His voice sounded infinitely weary.

‘Yes. And your children.’

Jaya’s eyes widened. She began to protest, but he cut her short in a voice like the crack of a whip.

‘Shut up. Do you think I am like you? Of course I’d never harm a child. They’ll be barred from succession, but that’s your own doing, isn’t it?’ His voice turned soft and sweet. ‘I want you to know that from this day onwards, you’ll think of your children every single day of your lives, but they won’t think of you for a second. I want you to know that while you’re waiting for death in some cell, I will be raising them as my own. They will be living lives of luxury and privilege and opportunity. And I will raise them to be loyal to me first, last, and only. To live for me. To be willing to die for me, if it ever comes to that. They will be the most faithful of my citizens. As for you two… they won’t even know your names.’

Jaya said nothing. Her face was utterly, perfectly still, but Sozin could see something inside her crumple. Her hands dropped to her sides. Her head shook, once, very slowly.

Ryun laughed.

At first Sozin didn’t recognise the sound. It was disjointed, a madman’s belly-laugh. Then his cousin spoke. ‘Oh, do you get it? Do you see the joke yet?’ A few of Sozin’s guards edged forward, but he stilled them with one gesture as Ryun went on. ‘I was aiming for you—and I actually like you, you know. I never pretended. Trust me, it was never personal. Only it was, wasn’t it? In the end? I aimed for you and hit my little sister. Ruined myself. Lost my children. But now I get it. Now I see the funny side.’

‘I don’t see anything amusing about this,’ Sozin said. Ryun shook his head.

‘No, you wouldn’t. You still think it has to be pleasant. But when the universe laughs, it’s never pleasant. Poor Ling-Ling.’ His breath hitched in his throat for a moment, then he smiled again, full of teeth. ‘That’s the funny thing about consequences. They don’t care whether or not you intended them. You still don’t get it, do you, little cousin? But you will. Yes. That’s the thing. We all pay. Sooner or later, we all pay. Deserve has nothing to do with it.’

Sozin didn’t answer him. He looked straight ahead, at the pillars and the carved dragons. ‘Get them out of my sight, Shou. And make sure no one harms them. Make sure they get to live.’

His body was a patchwork of pain and nerves red-hot with fever. He had burst some of his stitches. The throne was slick with his blood. In moments, he was going to lose consciousness again. But right now he was only seeing what he’d glimpsed at Kiake, that knowledge behind the fire, veiled and remote.

‘I’m done here,’ he said.

+++

Notes: Only the epilogue to go now! I hope you liked Sozin’s Poirot Lecture and the Big Reveal (and the fact that I apparently think that if there’s one thing any good mystery needs, it’s a threesome ;)) What Sozin decides to do with his cousins’ children was inspired by a scene in Pan’s Labyrinth, and the line “they won’t even know your names” is lifted almost verbatim from the movie. “Deserve has nothing to do with it” is, appropriately enough, from the movie Unforgiven. Also, I feel compelled to say that I actually like Ryun and Jaya a lot. I don’t really like writing cackling baddies, and I think the problem with those two is how close they were to the throne. If they were more distant cousins, or if Sozin had become Fire Lord much later than he did, nothing would have happened. As it was, their personalities mixed with their family connections, Yunjin being fatally ill, and Sozin ascending to the throne so young, combined into this perfect storm of ambition, circumstances, and opportunity. And, hopefully, it made for an entertaining fic… :) (Poor Lu Ling, though. She only wanted to be left in peace and quiet with her books!)

Chapter 19: Epilogue

Summary:

The last loose ends are tied, and the times are changing.

Epilogue

They waited a week to hold Lu Ling’s funeral in order to give Princess Iruza enough time to reach the capital. She had sent Bao and Sora a messenger hawk to let them know she didn’t need more time than that: she was planning to travel day and night, as fast as she could. When she finally reached the palace, she went straight to her rooms, not even stopping to greet her nephew. Later that day, Sozin paid a visit to his grandmother, despite his doctors’ protests, and asked her if she’d known.

‘That Ryun and Jaya were plotting against you? Don’t be ridiculous.’ She’d made him sit down on a pile of cushions and now stood by him, looking down. ‘Just because everything is a test, that doesn’t mean I’d set you up for fatal failure. Who do you think I am, grandson?’ Then she sat down at his side and surprised him by running a gentle hand down his cheek. When she spoke again, her tone had softened. ‘I am sorry you had to deal with this. I suspect that one day you’ll deal with worse, I’m afraid. But you did well. I am glad to have been the one teaching you.’

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

So now he stood in a room sombre with incense and soft talk, looking at a portrait of Lu Ling. His right arm was still mostly useless. The half-healed wounds on his shoulder and back still throbbed with pain. But right now all he could think of was how the portrait was all wrong. It didn’t include her spectacles, or her lop-sided grin, or the way her eyes sparkled when she had caught a whiff of something interesting. He felt a swell of anger, at her for not confiding in him, at her brother for letting her burn with his terrible secret, at all these people who had known nothing of her in life and had shown up for the sake of politeness.

At himself for living and letting her die.

Heads turned around and the room’s mood shifted from serious to wary. He looked at the entrance in time to see Aunt Iruza striding into the room, clothes dishevelled, hair hanging down loose, reminding Sozin of a rabid dog entering a banquet hall. Her gaze fixed on him and she stepped up to him, pointing an accusing, shaking finger. ‘You! You did this to us!’ she howled. ‘You brought this on my family!’

Before he could react, her hand whipped out and struck his face. He stood open-mouthed as his aunt fell to her knees and shook with sobs. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, her face buried in her hands. It made her voice sound like the moan of a dying animal. ‘Forgive me.’

All around him, people tried not to stare. He couldn’t lean forward, so he just laid his hand on his aunt’s hair. ‘Aunt Iruza,’ he whispered. ‘I am sorry. I know I can’t make it better.’ What was it like, to lose a child? He thought of his mother, who had gone three times through that most unnatural of tragedies. His aunt lifted her tear-blotched face. ‘Lu Ling was no traitor. She died trying to help me. A hero. Her memory will be cherished for as long as our nation endures.’

Cold comfort, he supposed, but something in his words had dampened her rage. Or maybe it was only the grief, claiming her entirely. She rose to her feet, tottering a little, eyes empty. Sozin gestured to the doctor and her assistant standing at the back of the room, ready to help him if needed. He ushered them towards his aunt. ‘Take care of her,’ he said.

‘How are you feeling, son?’

He turned around with some difficulty. Ta Min stood by his mother’s side, her clothes trimmed with mourning white. She had liked Lu Ling.

‘Better,’ he said, and had to remind himself not to shrug. ‘I guess.’

‘Your doctors told me you are healing well,’ Sora said. She hesitated for a moment. ‘There will be some…’

‘I’ll always have the scars,’ he said. ‘I know. I’ll live.’ He smiled, and knew it didn’t look genuine.

For a moment, no one spoke. He could tell his mother was longing to touch him, and it wasn’t just his injuries holding her back. Then she looked into his eyes and spoke again. ‘That was a good thing you just did.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, and reached for her hand. A little surprise crossed her face and was gone in an instant. He squeezed her fingers. ‘Mother, I…’ He looked down at their entwined hands and the words clung to each other under his tongue. He had to coax them out. ‘I want you to know that—that you always did right by me. I know you love me and you always put me first. I…’ he trailed off, his throat suddenly too clogged up for speech. Sora said nothing, and just squeezed his hand back.

Moments later, he and Ta Min stepped out into the balcony. The fresh air washed away the last of the sting from where Iruza had hit him, chased away the sticky scent of incense. He drew in a lungful before he remembered the wounds on his back and shoulder and had to put a hand on the railing to steady himself through the dizzying pain.

Ta Min was at his side instantly. ‘Are you all right? Do you need a doctor?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Really, I am.’

She placed her hand over his, some of the worry still clinging to her face. Below them lanterns dotted the palace grounds and above them a flock of reddish clouds gathered in the deepening sky. Tomorrow was going to be a beautiful day.

‘She was wrong, you know,’ she said after a while. ‘Your aunt, I mean. It wasn’t your fault.’

He took another deep breath, carefully this time. The air tasted like a sweet liquor. ‘Actually, she was right. I should have been able to figure things out before it was too late. I should at least have listened to Lu Ling. I can’t—three times she tried to warn me. Three times. If I hadn’t been an idiot and listened. If I had been quicker and smarter—’

‘No,’ she said, and edged a little closer to him. The dusk darkened her eyes. ‘No. Of course not. Were you really supposed to know that your cousin was planning to kill you? You’re good, Sozin, but not reading minds and seeing the future good. You did the best you could. Better than—I don’t think many people would have survived. Let alone find out who did it only a day later.’

He looked away, to the hazy gold in the horizon. ‘Is that good enough?’

‘I believe so.’ Her voice was steady with conviction. ‘And I believe in you.’

His gaze turned back towards her. He lifted his left arm as much as he could and she slipped it around herself, then put her own arm around his waist. Her scent mingled with the night air.

‘Things are going to be different from now on,’ he said.

They talked of the future. Of the things the three of them would do once Roku came back. Of the future, again, more distant.

Then said nothing as they held each other and watched the sun set over the Fire Nation.

 

+++The End+++

 

Notes: That’s right, I couldn’t resist getting an I Believe in Harvey Dent Fire Lord Sozin joke in my bittersweet ending. ;) (Bittersweet in the context of the fic, that is; in the context of what we know happens later on (i.e., “Kill Millions… FOR UTOPIA!”) it’s more Funny Aneurysm/Horrifying in Hindsight, I suppose.) Anyway, I hope all you brave souls who made it this far liked the fic. It was tremendously fun to write and I hope you enjoyed reading it at least as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you!