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ISBN 978-1-4197-3504-2
ISBN (B&N/Indigo edition) 978-1-4197-3991-0
eISBN: 978-1-68335-533-5
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Cover illustrations by Jung Shan Chang
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 FOREWORD
Any prequel story presents a unique challenge, never mind one set
in a fictional canonical universe like that of Avatar: The Last
Airbender. A common pitfall of prequels? Since the reader already
knows how things eventually turn out, they are one step ahead of the
hero. Done well, however, a prequel can expand and deepen a
beloved fantasy world by exploring its history and characters in new
ways. This is the case with The Rise of Kyoshi.
Readers familiar with the original Nickelodeon series might
recall that Avatar Kyoshi was a legend, even among the impressive
pantheon of Avatars. But how did she become a woman dedicated to
fighting injustice throughout the world? And why was she so feared
by her enemies? These were the questions left unexplored. In my
first talks with F. C. Yee, we discussed a few possible plots but also
asked ourselves: What kind of character is Kyoshi, what drives her,
and what kind of events in her past could have caused her to develop
into such a legendary figure?
I didn’t envy Yee the challenge of tackling these questions. I
knew he’d have to play within the conventions of an already-
established world while simultaneously marking it with his own
creative stamp. And the Avatar universe has no shortage of “must-
haves.” First, you must have an Avatar—the reincarnated being who
holds the ability to manipulate, or bend, all four elements, who has a
connection to the mysterious Spirit World, and who deals with
conflicts among the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and
Air Nomads. The Avatar can’t do all this alone and thus must also
have a core group of teachers and friends—a Team Avatar, as we
like to call it. Political conflict is also a must: Whether it’s a world
war or a revolution, the Avatar inevitably ends up in the center of the
fight before he or she is ready. And of course, there is never a
shortage of epic bending battles.
Though all Avatars share certain rites of passage—such as
mastering all four elements—each one must have a unique journey
and face different personal and political challenges on their way to
becoming a fully realized Avatar. In The Rise of Kyoshi, we meet a
young woman so unlike the legend she is to become that we wonder
how she could possibly transform into such a remarkable figure.
She’s not a great Earthbender. People don’t even believe she’s the
Avatar at the start of the book—a great conceit on Yee’s behalf, and
one that provides the crux of the conflict for the entire novel.
 Entrusting another writer with a world and characters that I
helped create is always fraught with anxiety for me. In the wrong
hands, it can be a disheartening experience. But when I read The
Rise of Kyoshi for the first time, I was immediately drawn into the
story and entranced by its intriguing new characters and backstory. I
was eager to read on to find out how Kyoshi would overcome all the
obstacles in her way (and Yee throws plenty of them in her path).
Working on this project with everyone involved has been a
pleasure, and I couldn’t be more excited about this incarnation of the
Avatar universe.
Michael Dante DiMartino
 THE TEST
Yokoya Port was a town easy to overlook.
Situated on the edge of Whaletail Strait, it could have been a
major restocking point for ships leaving one of the many harbors
that supplied Omashu. But the strong, reliable prevailing winds
made it too easy and cost-effective for southbound merchants to
cruise right past it and reach Shimsom Big Island in a straight shot.
Jianzhu wondered if the locals knew or cared that ships laden
with riches sailed tantalizingly close by, while they were stuck
elbows-deep in the cavity of another elephant koi. Only a quirk of
fate and weather kept piles of gold, spices, precious books, and
scrolls from landing on their doorstep. Instead their lot was fish guts.
A wealth of maws and gills.
The landward side was even less promising. The soil of the
peninsula grew thin and rocky as it extended farther into the sea. It
had disturbed Jianzhu to see crop fields so meager and balding as
he’d rode through the countryside into town for the first time. The
farmland lacked the wild, volcanic abundance of the Makapu Valley
or the carefully ordered productivity of Ba Sing Se’s Outer Ring,
where growth bent to the exacting will of the king’s planners. Here,
a farmer would have to be grateful for whatever sustenance they
could pull from the dirt.
The settlement lay at the intersection of three different nations
—Earth, Air, and Water. And yet, none had ever laid much of a
claim to it. The conflicts of the outside world had little impact on
daily life for the Yokoyans.
To them, the ravages of the Yellow Neck uprising in the deep
interior of the Earth Kingdom were a less interesting story than the
wayward flying bison that had gotten loose from the Air Temple and
knocked the thatching off a few roofs last week. Despite being
seagoers, they probably couldn’t name any of the dreaded pirate
leaders carving up the eastern waters in open defiance of the Ba Sing
Se navy.
All in all, Yokoya Port might as well not have been on the map.
Which meant—for Jianzhu and Kelsang’s desperate, sacrilegious
little experiment—it was perfect.
 Jianzhu trudged uphill in the wet, mucky snowfall, his neck
prickling from the bundled straw cloak around his shoulders. He
passed the wooden pillar that marked the spiritual center of this
village without sparing it a glance. There was nothing on the sides or
on top of it. It was just a bare log driven upright into the ground of a
circular courtyard. It wasn’t carved with any decorations, which
seemed lazy for a town where nearly every adult had a working
knowledge of carpentry.
There, the post grudgingly said to any nearby spirits. Hope
you’re happy.
Weathered houses lined the broad, eroded avenue, poking
steeply into the air like spearpoints. His destination was the larger
two-story meeting hall at the end. Kelsang had set up shop there
yesterday, saying he needed as much floor space as possible for the
test. He’d also claimed that the location enjoyed some auspicious
wind currents, using the very solemn and holy method of licking his
finger and holding it up in the air.
Whatever helped. Jianzhu sent a quick prayer to the Guardian
of the Divine Log as he pulled off his snow boots, laid them on the
porch, and ducked through the door curtains.
The interior of the hall was surprisingly large, with far corners
draped in shadow and thick-planked walls cut from what must have
been truly massive trees. The air smelled of resin. Ten very long,
very faded yellow cloths stretched across the worn floorboards. A
row of toys lay on each one, evenly spaced like a seedbed.
A bison whistle, a wicker ball, a misshapen blob that might
have been a stuffed turtle duck, a coiled whalebone spring, one of
those flappy drums that made noise as you spun it back and forth
between your palms. The toys looked as worn and beaten as the
outside of this building.
Kelsang knelt at the far end of the cloths. The Airbender monk
was busy placing more knickknacks with a carefulness and precision
that rivaled an acupuncturist setting their needles. As if it mattered
whether the miniature boat sailed east or west. He stayed on his
hands and knees, shuffling his great bulk sideways, his billowing
orange robes and wiry black beard hanging so low they made
another sweep over a floor that had already been scrubbed clean.
“I didn’t know there were so many toys,” Jianzhu said to his
old friend. He spotted a large white marble that looked too close to
the edge of the fabric and, with a graceful extension of his wrist,
levitated it with earthbending in front of Kelsang. It hovered like a
fly, waiting for his attention.
Kelsang didn’t look up as he plucked the marble out of the air
and put it right back where it had started. “There’s thousands. I’d ask
you to help, but you wouldn’t do it right.”
Jianzhu’s head hurt at the statement. At this point they were
well past doing it right. “How did you change Abbot Dorje’s mind
about giving you the relics?” he asked.
“The same way you convinced Lu Beifong to let us administer
the Air Nomad test in the Earth Cycle,” Kelsang said calmly as he
re-centered a wooden top. “I didn’t.”
Like a certain friend of theirs from the Water Tribe always said,
it was better to ask for forgiveness than wait for permission. And as
far as Jianzhu was concerned, the time for waiting had long since
passed.
When Avatar Kuruk, the keeper of balance and peace in the
world, the bridge between spirits and humans, passed away at the
ripe old age of thirty-three—thirty-three! the only time Kuruk had
ever been early for anything!—it became the duty of his friends, his
teachers, and other prominent benders to find the new Avatar,
reincarnated into the next nation of the elemental cycle. Earth, Fire,
Air, Water, and then Earth again, an order as unchanging as the
seasons. A process stretching back nearly a thousand generations
before Kuruk, and one that would hopefully continue for a thousand
more.
Except this time, it wasn’t working.
It had been seven years since Kuruk’s death. Seven years of
fruitless searching. Jianzhu had pored over every available record
from the Four Nations, going back hundreds of years, and the hunt
for the Avatar had never faltered like this in documented history.
No one knew why, though revered elders traded guesses behind
closed doors. The world was impure and had been abandoned by the
spirits. The Earth Kingdom lacked cohesion, or maybe it was the
Water Tribes in the poles that needed to unify. The Airbenders had to
come down from their mountains and get their hands dirty instead of
preaching. The debate went on and on.
Jianzhu cared less about apportioning blame and more about
the fact that he and Kelsang had let down their friend again. The
only serious decree of Kuruk’s before he’d departed from the living
was that his closest companions find the next Avatar and do right by
them. And so far they’d failed. Spectacularly.
Right now, there should have been a happy, burbling seven-
year-old Earth Avatar in the care of their loving family, being
watched over by a collection of the best, wisest benders of the
world. A child in the midst of being prepared for the assumption of
their duties at the age of sixteen. Instead there was only a gaping
void that grew more dangerous by the day.
Jianzhu and the other masters did their best to keep the missing
Avatar a secret, but it was no use. The cruel, the power-hungry, the
lawless—people who normally had the most to fear from the Avatar
—were starting to feel the scales shifting in their favor. Like sand
sharks responding to the slightest vibrations on pure instinct, they
tested their limits. Probed new grounds. Time was running out.
Kelsang finished setting up when the noon gongs struck. The
sun was high enough to melt snow off the roof, and the dripping
flow of water pattered on the ground like light rain. The silhouettes
of villagers and their children queuing up for the test could be seen
outside through the paper-screen windows. The air was full of
excited chatter.
No more waiting, Jianzhu thought. This happens now.

Earth Avatars were traditionally identified by directional

geomancy, a series of rituals designed to winnow through the largest
and most populous of the Four Nations as efficiently as possible.
Each time a special set of bone trigrams was cast and interpreted by
the earthbending masters, half the Earth Kingdom was ruled out as
the location of the newborn Avatar. Then from the remaining
territory, another half, and then another half again. The possible
locations kept shrinking until the searchers were brought to the
doorstep of the Earth Avatar child.
It was a quick way to cover ground and entirely fitting to the
earthbending state of mind. A question of logistics, simple to the
point of being brutal. And it normally worked on the first try.
Jianzhu had been part of expeditions sent by the bones to barren
fields, empty gem caverns below Ba Sing Se, a patch of the Si Wong
Desert so dry that not even the Sandbenders bothered with it. Lu
Beifong had read the trigrams, King Buro of Omashu gave it a shot,
Neliao the Gardener took her turn. The masters worked their way
down through the earthbending hierarchy until Jianzhu racked up his
fair share of misses as well. His friendship with Kuruk bought him
no special privileges when it came to the next Avatar.
After the last attempt had placed him on an iceberg in the North
Pole with only turtle seals as potential candidates, Jianzhu became
open to radical suggestions. A drunken commiseration with Kelsang
spawned a promising new idea. If the ways of the Earth Kingdom
weren’t working, why not try another nation’s method? After all,
wasn’t the Avatar, the only bender of all four elements, an honorary
citizen of the entire world?
That was why the two of them were wiping their noses with
tradition and trying the Air Nomad way of identifying the Avatar.
Yokoya would be a practice run, a safe place far from the turmoil of
land and sea where they could take notes and fix problems. If
Yokoya went smoothly, they could convince their elders to expand
the test farther throughout the Earth Kingdom.
The Air Nomads’ method was simple, in theory. Out of the
many toys laid out, only four belonged to Avatars of eras gone by.
Each seven-year-old child of the village would be brought in and
presented with the dazzling array of playthings. The one who was
drawn to the four special toys in a remembrance of their past lives
was the Avatar reborn. A process as elegant and harmonious as the
Airbenders themselves.
In theory.
In practice, it was chaos. Pure and unhinged. It was a disaster
the likes of which the Four Nations had never witnessed.
Jianzhu hadn’t thought of what might happen after the children
who failed the test were told to leave their selections behind and
make room for the next candidate. The tears! The wailing, the
screaming! Trying to get toys away from kids who had only
moments before been promised they could have their pick? There
was no force in existence stronger than a child’s righteous fury at
being robbed.
The parents were worse. Maybe Air Nomad caretakers handled
the rejection of their young ones with grace and humility, but
families in the other nations weren’t made up of monks and nuns.
Especially in the Earth Kingdom, where all bets were off once it
came to blood ties. Villagers whom he’d shared friendly greetings
with in the days leading up to the test became snarling canyon
crawlers once they’d been told that their precious little Jae or Mirai
was not in fact the most important child in the world, as they’d
secretly known all along. More than a few swore up and down that
they’d seen their offspring play with invisible spirits or bend earth
and air at the same time.
Kelsang would push back gently. “Are you sure your child
wasn’t earthbending during a normal breeze? Are you sure the baby
wasn’t simply . . . playing?”
Some couldn’t take a hint. Especially the village captain. As
soon as they’d passed over her daughter—Aoma, or something—
she’d given them a look of utter contempt and demanded to see a
higher-ranking master.
Sorry, lady, Jianzhu thought after Kelsang spent nearly ten
minutes talking her down. We can’t all be special.

“For the last time, I’m not negotiating a salary with you!” Jianzhu
shouted in the face of a particularly blunt farmer. “Being the Avatar
is not a paid position!”
The stocky man shrugged. “Sounds like a waste of time then.
I’ll take my child and go.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jianzhu caught Kelsang frantically
waving his hands, making a cut-off sign at the neck. The little girl
had wandered over to the whirly flying toy that had once entertained
an ancient Avatar and was staring at it intently.
Huh. They weren’t intending to get a genuine result today. But
picking the first item correctly was already improbable. Too
improbable to risk stopping now.
“Okay,” Jianzhu said. This would have to come out of his own
pocket. “Fifty silvers a year if she’s the Avatar.”
“Sixty-five silvers a year if she’s the Avatar and ten if she’s
not.”
“WHY WOULD I PAY YOU IF SHE’S NOT THE AVATAR?”
Jianzhu roared.
Kelsang coughed and thumped loudly on the floor. The girl had
picked up the whirligig and was eying the drum. Two out of four
correct. Out of thousands.
Holy Shu.
“I mean, of course,” Jianzhu said quickly. “Deal.”
 They shook hands. It would be ironic, a prank worthy of
Kuruk’s sense of humor, to have his reincarnation be found as a
result of a peasant’s greed. And the very last child in line for testing,
to boot. Jianzhu nearly chuckled.
Now the girl had the drum in her arms as well. She walked over
to a stuffed hog monkey. Kelsang was beside himself with
excitement, his neck threatening to burst through the wooden beads
wrapped around it. Jianzhu felt lightheaded. Hope bashed against his
ribcage, begging to be let out after so many years trapped inside.
The girl wound up her foot and stomped on the stuffed animal
as hard as she could.
“Die!” she screamed in her tiny little treble. She ground it
under her heel, the stitches audibly ripping.
The light went out of Kelsang’s face. He looked like he’d
witnessed a murder.
“Ten silvers,” the farmer said.
“Get out,” Jianzhu snapped.
“Come on, Suzu,” the farmer called. “Let’s get.”
After wresting the other toys away from the Butcher of Hog
Monkeys, he scooped the girl up and walked out the door, the whole
escapade nothing but a business transaction. In doing so he nearly
bowled over another child who’d been spying on the proceedings
from the outside.
“Hey!” Jianzhu said. “You forgot your other daughter!”
“That one ain’t mine,” the farmer said as he thumped down the
steps into the street. “That one ain’t anyone’s.”
An orphan then? Jianzhu hadn’t spotted the unchaperoned girl
around town in the days before, but maybe he’d glossed over her,
thinking she was too old to be a candidate. She was much, much
taller than any of the other children who’d been brought in by their
parents.
As Jianzhu walked over to examine what he’d missed, the girl
quavered, threatening to flee, but her curiosity won over her fright.
She remained where she was.
Underfed, Jianzhu thought with a frown as he looked over the
girl’s hollow cheeks and cracked lips. And definitely an orphan.
He’d seen hundreds of children like her in the inner provinces where
outlaw daofei ran unchecked, their parents slain by whatever bandit
group was ascendant in the territory. She must have wandered far
into the relatively peaceable area of Yokoya.
Upon hearing about the Avatar test, the families of the village
had dressed their eligible children in their finest garments as if it
were a festival day. But this child was wearing a threadbare coat
with her elbows poking through the holes in the sleeves. Her
oversized feet threatened to burst the straps of her too-small sandals.
None of the local farmers were feeding or clothing her.
Kelsang, who despite his fearsome appearance was always
better with children, joined them and stooped down. With a smile he
transformed from an intimidating orange mountain into a giant-sized
version of the stuffed toys behind him.
“Why, hello there,” he said, putting an extra layer of
friendliness into his booming rumble. “What’s your name?”
The girl took a long, guarded moment, sizing them up.
“Kyoshi,” she whispered. Her eyebrows knotted as if revealing
her name was a painful concession.
Kelsang took in her tattered state and avoided the subject of her
parents for now. “Kyoshi, would you like a toy?”
“Are you sure she isn’t too old?” Jianzhu said. “She’s bigger
than some of the teenagers.”
“Hush, you,” Kelsang said. He made a sweeping gesture at the
hall festooned with relics, for Kyoshi’s benefit.
The unveiling of so many playthings at once had an entrancing
effect on most of the children. But Kyoshi didn’t gasp, or smile, or
move a muscle. Instead she maintained eye contact with Kelsang
until he blinked.
As quick as a whip, she scampered by him, snagged an object
off the floor, and ran back to where she was standing on the porch.
She gauged Kelsang and Jianzhu for their response as intently as
they watched her.
Kelsang glanced at Jianzhu and tilted his head at the clay turtle
Kyoshi clutched to her chest. One of the four true relics. Not a single
candidate had come anywhere near it today.
They should have been as excited for her as they’d been for evil
little Suzu, but Jianzhu’s heart was clouded with doubt. It was hard
to believe they’d be so lucky after that previous head-fake.
 “Good choice,” Kelsang said. “But I’ve got a surprise for you.
You can have three more! Four whole toys, to yourself! Wouldn’t
you like that?”
Jianzhu sensed a shift in the girl’s stance, a tremor in her
foundation that was obvious through the wooden floorboards.
Yes, she would like three more toys very much. What child
wouldn’t? But in her mind, the promise of more was dangerous. A
lie designed to hurt her. If she loosened her grip on the single prize
she held right now, she would end up with nothing. Punished for
believing in the kindness of this stranger.
Kyoshi shook her head. Her knuckles whitened around the clay
turtle.
“It’s okay,” Kelsang said. “You don’t have to put that down.
That’s the whole point; you can choose different . . . Hey!”
The girl took a step back, and then another, and then, before
they could react, she was sprinting down the hill with the one-of-a-
kind, centuries-old Avatar relic in her hands. Halfway along the
street, she took a sharp turn like an experienced fugitive throwing off
a pursuer and disappeared in the space between two houses.

Jianzhu closed his eyelids against the sun. The light came through
them in scarlet blots. He could feel his own pulse. His mind was
somewhere else right now.
Instead of Yokoya, he stood in the center of an unnamed village
deep in the interior of the Earth Kingdom, newly “liberated” by Xu
Ping An and the Yellow Necks. In this waking dream, the stench of
rotting flesh soaked through his clothes and the cries of survivors
haunted the wind. Next to him, an official messenger who’d been
carried there by palanquin read from a scroll, spending minute after
minute listing the Earth King’s honorifics only to end by telling
Jianzhu that reinforcements from His Majesty’s army would not be
coming to help.
He tried to shake free of the memory, but the past had set its
jagged hooks into him. Now he sat at a negotiating table made of
pure ice, and on the other side was Tulok, lord of the Fifth Nation
pirates. The elderly corsair laughed his consumptive laugh at the
notion he might honor his grandfather’s promise to leave the
southern coastlines of the continent in peace. His convulsions
spattered blood and phlegm over the accords drafted by Avatar
Yangchen in her own holy hand, while his daughter-lieutenant
watched by his side, her soulless gaze boring into Jianzhu like he
was so much prey.
In these times, and in many others, he should have been at the
right hand of the Avatar. The ultimate authority who could bend the
world to their will. Instead he was alone. Facing down great beasts
of land and sea, their jaws closing in, encasing the kingdom in
darkness.

Kelsang yanked him back into the present with a bruising slap on
the back.
“Come on,” he said. “With the way you look, people would
think you just lost your nation’s most important cultural artifact.”
The Airbender’s good humor and ability to take setbacks in
stride was normally a great comfort to Jianzhu, but right now he
wanted to punch his friend in his stupid bearded face. He composed
his own features.
“We need to go after her,” he said.
Kelsang pursed his lips. “Eh, it would feel bad to take the relic
away from a child who has so little. She can hang on to it. I’ll go
back to the temple and face Dorje’s wrath alone. There’s no need for
you to implicate yourself.”
Jianzhu didn’t know what counted for wrath among Airbenders,
but that wasn’t the issue here. “You’d ruin the Air Nomad test to
make a child happy?” he said incredulously.
“It’ll find its way back to where it belongs.” Kelsang looked
around and paused.
Then his smile faded, as if this little blot of a town were a harsh
dose of reality that was only now taking effect.
“Eventually.” He sighed. “Maybe.”
 NINE YEARS LATER
To Kyoshi, it was very clear—this was a hostage situation.
Silence was the key to making it through to the other side.
Waiting with complete and total passivity. Neutral jing.
Kyoshi walked calmly down the path through the fallow field,
ignoring the covergrass that leaned over and tickled her ankles, the
sweat beading on her forehead that stung her eyes. She kept quiet
and pretended that the three people who’d fallen in beside her like
muggers in an alley weren’t a threat.
“So like I was telling the others, my mom and dad think we’ll
have to dredge the peakside canals earlier this year,” Aoma said,
drawing out the mom and dad intentionally, dangling what Kyoshi
lacked in front of her. She crooked her hands into the Crowding
Bridge position while slamming her feet into the ground with solid
whumps. “One of the terraces collapsed in the last storm.”
Above them, floating high out of reach, was the last, precious
jar of pickled spicy kelp that the entire village would see this year.
The one that Kyoshi had been charged with delivering to Jianzhu’s
mansion. The one that Aoma had earthbent out of Kyoshi’s hands
and was now promising to drop at any second. The large clay vessel
bobbed up and down, sloshing the brine against the waxed paper
seal.
Kyoshi had to stifle a yelp every time the jar lurched against the
limits of Aoma’s control. No noise. Wait it out. Don’t give them
anything to latch on to. Talking will only make it worse.
“She doesn’t care,” Suzu said. “Precious servant girl doesn’t
give a lick about farming matters. She’s got her cushy job in the
fancy house. She’s too good to get her hands dirty.”
“Won’t step in a boat, neither,” Jae said. In lieu of elaborating
further, he spat on the ground, nearly missing Kyoshi’s heels.
Aoma never needed a reason to torment Kyoshi, but as for the
others, genuine resentment worked just fine. It was true that Kyoshi
spent her days under the roof of a powerful sage instead of breaking
her nails against fieldstones. She’d certainly never risked the choppy
waters of the Strait in pursuit of a catch.
But what Jae and Suzu conveniently neglected was that every
plot of arable land near the village and every seaworthy boat down
at the docks belonged to a family. Mothers and fathers, as Aoma was
so fond of saying, passed along their trade to daughters and sons in
an unbroken line, which meant there was no room for an outsider to
inherit any means to survive. If it hadn’t been for Kelsang and
Jianzhu, Kyoshi would have starved in the streets, right in front of
everyone’s noses.
Hypocrites.
Kyoshi pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth as hard
as she could. Today was not going to be the day. Someday, maybe,
but not today.
“Lay off her,” Aoma said, shifting her stance into Dividing
Bridge. “I hear that being a serving girl is hard work. That’s why
we’re helping with the deliveries. Isn’t that right Kyoshi?”
For emphasis, she threaded the jar through a narrow gap in the
branches of an overhanging tree. A reminder of who was in control
here.
Kyoshi shuddered as the vessel dove toward the ground like a
hawk before swooping back up to safety. Just a little farther, she
thought as the path took a sharp turn around the hillside. A few more
silent, wordless steps until—
There. They’d arrived at last. The Avatar’s estate, in all its
glory.

The mansion that Master Jianzhu built to house the savior of the
world was designed in the image of a miniature city. A high wall ran
in a perfect square around the grounds, with a division in the middle
to separate the austere training grounds from the vibrant living
quarters. Each section had its own imposing, south-facing gatehouse
that was larger than the Yokoya meeting hall. The massive iron-
studded doors of the residential gate were flung open, offering a
small windowed glimpse of the elaborate topiary inside. A herd of
placid goat dogs grazed over the lawn, cropping the grass to an even
length.
Foreign elements had been carefully integrated into the design
of the complex, which meant that gilded dragons chased carved
polar orcas around the edges of the walls. The placement of the
Earth Kingdom–style roof tiles cleverly matched Air Nomad
numerology principles. Authentic dyes and paints had been imported
from around the world, ensuring that the colors of all four nations
were on full, equitable display.
 When Jianzhu had bought the land, he’d explained to the
village elders that Yokoya was an ideal spot to settle down and
educate the Avatar, a quiet, safe place far away from the outlaw-
ravaged lands deeper in the Earth Kingdom and close enough to both
the Southern Air Temple and Southern Water Tribe. The villagers
had been happy enough to take his gold back then. But after the
manor went up, they grumbled that it was an eyesore, an alien
creature that had sprouted overnight from the native soil.
To Kyoshi it was the most beautiful sight she could ever
imagine. It was a home.
Behind her, Suzu sniffed in disdain. “I don’t know what our
parents were thinking, selling these fields to a Ganjinese.”
Kyoshi’s lips went tight. Master Jianzhu was indeed from the
Gan Jin tribe up in the north, but it was the way Suzu had said it.
“Maybe they knew the land was as worthless and unproductive
as their children,” Kyoshi muttered under her breath.
The others stopped walking and stared at her.
Whoops. She’d said that a bit too loud, hadn’t she?
Jae and Suzu balled their fists. It dawned on them, what they
could do while Aoma had Kyoshi helpless. It had been years since
any of the village kids could get within arm’s reach of her, but today
was a special occasion, wasn’t it? Maybe a few bruises, in
remembrance of old times.
Kyoshi steeled herself for the first blow, rising on her toes in
the hope that she could at least keep her face out of the fray, so
Auntie Mui wouldn’t notice. A few punches and kicks and they’d
leave her in peace. Really, it was her own fault for letting her mask
slip.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a familiar voice snarled.
Kyoshi grimaced and opened her eyes.
Peace was no longer an option. Because now Rangi was here.

Rangi must have seen them from afar and stalked across the entire
great lawn unnoticed. Or lain in ambush for them all night. Or
dropped out of a tree like a webbed leopard. Kyoshi wouldn’t have
put any of those feats past the military-trained Firebender.
 Jae and Suzu backed away, trying to swallow their hostile intent
like children stuffing stolen candy into their mouths. It occurred to
Kyoshi that this might have been the first time they’d ever seen a
member of the Fire Nation up close, let alone one as intimidating as
Rangi. In her formfitting armor the color of onyx and dried blood,
she could have been a vengeful spirit come to cleanse a battlefield of
the living.
Aoma, rather impressively, held her ground. “The Avatar’s
bodyguard,” she said with a faint smile. “I thought you weren’t
supposed to leave his side. Aren’t you slacking off?”
She glanced to the left and right. “Or is he here somewhere?”
Rangi looked at Aoma like she was a wad of foulness the
Firebender had stepped in during the walk over.
“You’re not authorized to be on these grounds,” she said in her
charred rasp. She pointed upward at the jar of kelp. “Nor to lay your
hands on the Avatar’s property. Or accost his household staff, for
that matter.”
Kyoshi noticed she personally landed a distant third in that list
of considerations.
Aoma tried to play it cool. “This container is enormous,” she
said, shrugging to emphasize her still-ongoing feat of elemental
control. “It would take two grown men to lift it without
earthbending. Kyoshi asked us to help her bring it inside the house.
Right?”
She gave Kyoshi a radiant smile. One that said Tell on me and
I’ll kill you. Kyoshi had seen that expression before countless times
when they were younger, whenever a hapless adult blundered into
the two of them “playing” around town, Kyoshi badly scraped up
and Aoma with a rock in her hand.
But today she was off her game. Her normally flawless acting
had a plaintive, genuine tone to it. Kyoshi suddenly understood what
was going on.
Aoma really did want to help her with her delivery. She wanted
to be invited inside the mansion and to see the Avatar up close, like
Kyoshi got to every day. She was jealous.
A feeling akin to pity settled in Kyoshi’s throat. It wasn’t strong
enough to hold Rangi back from doing her thing, though.
 The Firebender stepped forward. Her fine jawline hardened,
and her dark bronze eyes danced with aggression. The air around her
body rippled like a living mirage, making the strands of jet-black
hair that escaped her topknot float upward in the heat.
“Put the jar down, walk away, and don’t come back,” she said.
“Unless you want to know what the ashes of your eyebrows smell
like.”
Aoma’s expression crumbled. She’d blundered into a predator
with much larger fangs. And unlike the adults of the village, no
amount of charm or misdirection would work on Rangi.
But that didn’t mean a parting shot was out of the question.
“Sure,” she said. “Thought you’d never ask.” With a fling of
her hands, the jar rocketed straight up into the air, past the treetops.
“You’d better find someone who’s authorized to catch that.”
She bolted down the path with Suzu and Jae close behind.
“You little—” Rangi made to go after them, fist reflexively
cocked to serve a helping of flaming pain, but she checked herself.
Fiery vengeance would have to wait.
She shook her hand out and peered up at the rapidly shrinking
jar. Aoma had thrown it really, really hard. No one could claim the
girl wasn’t talented.
Rangi elbowed Kyoshi sharply in the side. “Catch it,” she said.
“Use earthbending and catch it.”
“I—I can’t,” Kyoshi said, quavering with dismay. Her poor
doomed charge reached the apex of its flight. Auntie Mui was going
to be furious. A disaster of this magnitude might get back to Master
Jianzhu. Her pay would get cut. Or she’d be fired outright.
Rangi hadn’t given up on her. “What do you mean you can’t?
The staff ledgers have you listed as an Earthbender! Catch it!”
“It’s not that simple!” Yes, Kyoshi was technically a bender, but
Rangi didn’t know about her little problem.
“Do the thing with your hands like she did!” Rangi formed the
dual claws of Crowding Bridge as if the only missing component
were a crude visual reminder by a bender who wielded a different
element entirely.
“Look out!” Kyoshi screamed. She threw herself over Rangi,
shielding the smaller girl with her body from the plummeting
missile. They fell to the ground, entwined.
 No impact came. No deadly shards of ceramic, or explosion of
pickling liquid.
“Get off of me, you oaf,” Rangi muttered. She hammered her
fists against Kyoshi’s protective embrace, a bird beating its wings
against a cage. Kyoshi got to her knees and saw that her face and
ears were nearly as red as her armor.
She helped Rangi to her feet. The jar floated next to them,
waist-high above the ground. Under Aoma’s control it had wavered
and trembled, following her natural patterns of breathing and
involuntary motions. But now it was completely still in the air, as if
it had been placed on a sturdy iron pedestal.
The pebbles in the dusty path trembled. They began to move
and bounce in front of Kyoshi’s feet, directed by unseen power from
below like they’d been scattered across the surface of a beating
drum. They marched in seemingly random directions, little drunken
soldiers, until they came to rest in a formation that spelled a
message.
You’re welcome.
Kyoshi’s head jerked up and she squinted at the distant
mansion. There was only one person she knew who could have
managed this feat. The pebbles began their dance again, settling into
words much faster this time.
This is Yun, by the way. You know, Avatar Yun.
As if it could have been anyone else. Kyoshi couldn’t spot
where Yun was watching them, but she could imagine the playful,
teasing smirk on his handsome face as he performed yet another
astounding act of bending like it was no big deal, charming the rocks
into complete submission.
She’d never heard of anyone using earth to communicate
legibly at a distance. Yun was lucky he wasn’t an Air Nomad, or else
the stunt would have gotten him tattooed in celebration for inventing
a new technique.
What are my three favorite ladles doing today?
Kyoshi giggled. Okay, so not perfectly legible.
Sounds like fun. Wish I could join you.
“He knows we can’t reply, right?” Rangi said.
Dumplings, please. Any kind but leek.
 “Enough!” Rangi shouted. “We’re distracting him from his
training! And you’re late for work!” She swept away the pebbles
with her foot, less concerned with blazing new trails in the world of
earthbending and more with maintaining the daily schedule.
Kyoshi plucked the jar off the invisible platform and followed
Rangi back to the mansion, stepping slowly through the grass so as
not to outpace her. If household duties were all that mattered to the
Firebender, then that would be the end of it, and nothing more would
need to be said. Instead she could feel Rangi’s silence compacting
into a denser form inside her slender frame.
They were halfway to the gate once it became too much to bear.
“It’s pathetic!” Rangi said without turning around. The only
way she could manage her disgust with Kyoshi was by not looking
at her. “The way they step on you. You serve the Avatar! Have some
dignity!”
Kyoshi smiled. “I was trying to de-escalate the situation,” she
murmured.
“You were going to let them hit you! I saw it! And don’t you
dare try and claim you were doing neutral jing or whatever
earthbending hooey!”
Right on cue, Rangi had transformed from professional
Guardian of the Avatar, ready to scorch the bones of interlopers
without flinching, into the teenaged girl no older than Kyoshi who
easily lost her temper at her friends and was kind of a raging mother
hen to boot.
“And speaking of your earthbending! You were shown up by a
peasant! How have you not mastered the basics by now? I’ve seen
children in Yu Dao bend rocks bigger than that jar!”
She and Rangi were friends, despite what it looked like. Back
when the mansion was under construction—while Kyoshi was
learning her duties inside the skeleton of the unfinished house—it
had taken her weeks to figure out that the imperious girl who acted
like she was still in the junior corps of the Fire Army only yelled at
the people she let inside her shell. Everyone else was scum who
didn’t warrant the effort.
“. . . So the most efficient course of action would be to surprise
the leader—Aoma, was it?—alone somewhere and then destroy her
so messily that it sends a message to the others not to bother you
anymore. Are you listening to me?”
 Kyoshi had missed the greater part of the battle plan. She’d
been distracted by the collar of Rangi’s armor, which had been
mussed in the fall and needed to be straightened so it covered the
delicate skin of her nape once more. But her answer was the same
regardless.
“Why resort to violence?” she said. She gently nudged the
Firebender in the small of the back with the jar. “I have strong
heroes like you to protect me.”
Rangi made a noise like she wanted to vomit.
 THE BOY FROM MAKAPU
Yun couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was possible to
read their body language at this distance. Judging from the way she
gestured wildly in the air, Rangi was ticked off at Kyoshi. Again.
He smiled. The two of them were adorable together. He could
have watched them all day, but alas. He rolled over onto his back
and slid down the roof of the outer wall, using the edge of the gutter
to arrest his fall. He let the impact turn his motion into a vault, front-
flipped into the air, and landed on the balls of his feet in the marble
courtyard.
Eye-to-eye with Hei-Ran.
Shoot.
“Impressive,” the former headmistress of the Royal Fire
Academy for Girls said, her arms crossed behind her back. “When
the spirits ask for a circus clown to intervene on their behalf, I’ll
know our time together has paid off.”
Yun scrunched his face. His personal firebending tutor had a
knack for finding his moments of pride and then crushing them.
“I finished my hot squat sets early,” he said. “Five hundred
reps. Perfect form, the whole way.”
“And yet you chose to spend your spare time lounging on the
roof instead of moving on to your next exercise or meditating until I
returned. No wonder you can’t generate flame yet. You can train
your body as much as you wish, but your mind remains weak.”
He noticed Hei-Ran never tore into him like this while her
daughter was around. It was as if she didn’t want to diminish the
Avatar’s stature in Rangi’s worshipful eyes. His image had to be
carefully groomed and maintained, like the miniature trees that
dotted the garden. The spirits forbid he appear human for a moment.
Yun dropped into the Fire Fist stance. He paused for corrections
though it was unnecessary. Not even Hei-Ran could fault his body
placement, his spinal posture, his breath control. The only thing
missing was the flame.
She frowned at him, interpreting his perfection as an act of
defiance, but gave him the signal to begin anyway. As he punched at
the air, she walked slowly around him in a circle. Fire Fist sessions
were also opportunities for lectures.
 “What you do when no one is guiding you determines who you
are,” Hei-Ran said. The motto was probably engraved over a door
somewhere in the Fire Academy. “The results of your training are far
less important than your attitude toward training.”
Yun didn’t think she truly believed that. Not for a second. She
was simply picking on the parts of him that she couldn’t examine
and adjust for immediate improvement. If he couldn’t firebend yet
under her care, then his flaw resided deeper than in any of her
previous students.
His punches became crisper, to the point where the sleeves of
his cotton training uniform snapped like a whip with each motion.
He was a pair of images in a scroll, two points in time repeating over
and over again. Left fist. Right fist.
“Your situation isn’t unique,” Hei-Ran went on. “History is full
of Avatars like you who tried to coast on their talents. You’re not the
only one who wanted to take it easy.”
Yun slipped. An event rare enough to notice.
His motion took him too far outside his center of gravity, and
he stumbled to his knees. Sweat stung his eyes, ran into the corner of
his mouth.
Take it easy? Take it easy?
Was she ignoring the fact that he spent sleepless nights poring
over scholarly analyses of Yangchen’s political decisions? That he’d
exhaustively memorized the names of every Earth Kingdom noble,
Fire Nation commander, and Water Tribe chieftain among the living
and going back three generations among the dead? The forgotten
texts he’d used to map the ancient sacred sites of the Air Nomads to
such a degree that Kelsang was surprised about a few of them?
That’s who he was when no one was looking. Someone who
dedicated his whole being to his Avatarhood. Yun wanted to make
up for the lost time he’d squandered by being discovered so late. He
wanted to express gratitude to Jianzhu and the entire world for
giving him the greatest gift in existence. Taking it easy was the last
thing on his mind.
She knows that, he thought. Hei-Ran was purposely goading
him by calling him lazy. But an uncontrollable fury rose in his
stomach anyway.
Yun’s fingers plowed into the smooth surface of the marble,
crushing the stone into his fist as effortlessly as if it were chalk. He
would never lash out against a teacher. The only way he could put
up resistance against Hei-Ran was to disappoint her. To uphold her
accusation that he was a wayward child.
His next punch produced a swirling dragon’s belch of “flame”
worthy of the Fire Lord, each spout and flicker rendered lovingly,
mockingly in white stone dust. He let it rage and dance like a real
fire reacting to the eddies of the breeze, and then let the cloud of
particles fall to the ground.
To cap it off, make the performance complete, he added the
smirk that everyone always said reminded them of Kuruk’s. A clown
needed his makeup, after all.
Hei-Ran stiffened. She looked like she was about to slap him
across the face. The blast went nowhere near her, but it didn’t
exactly fly away from her either.
“In the old days, masters used to maim their students for
insubordination,” she said hoarsely.
Yun restrained himself from flinching. “What wonderful
modern times we live in.”
A single clap pierced the air. They both looked over to see
Jianzhu, watching from the sidelines.
Yun gritted his teeth hard enough to make them squeak.
Normally he could sense his mentor’s footfalls through the ground
and get his act together, but today . . . today was all kinds of off-
balance.
Jianzhu waved Yun over like he hadn’t just caught the Avatar
and his firebending master at each other’s throats. “Come,” he said
to his ward. “Let’s take a break.”

The training grounds had alcoves in the walls for stashing

weapons, water jars, and hollow discs made of pressed clay powder
that would explode harmlessly on impact. Enough supplies to train
an army of benders. Jianzhu and Yun took their tea in the largest of
these storage areas, surrounded by straw target-practice dummies.
The floor was thick with dust. While Yun poured, Jianzhu
plucked a twig that had snagged on a burlap sack and used it as a
stylus, drawing a simplified version of a Pai Sho board on the
ground between them.
 Yun was confused. The two of them had played the game
incessantly while first getting to know each other. But Pai Sho had
been forbidden to him for a long time now. It was a distraction from
mastering the elements.
Jianzhu contemplated the empty grid, his long face flickering in
recollection of past sequences, lines of shining brilliance and
outrageous risks unfolding in the tiles. The markers of age radiated
outward from his eyes. The troubles that gave him severe crow’s feet
and white temples had yet to reach the smooth flat line of his mouth.
“I have some news,” he said. “Our emissaries tell us that
Tagaka has agreed to sign a new version of her great-grandfather’s
treaty.”
Yun perked up. His master had been trying to pursue a
diplomatic solution with the queen of the seaborne daofei for years.
“What changed, Sifu?”
Jianzhu gestured at him. “You. She learned we finally found the
Avatar and that he was one of the strongest benders of this
generation.”
Yun knew that was true. For earth, at least. It might have been
arrogant of him to think so, but it was hard to argue with the
evidence left across the ground.
“The Fifth Nation fleet will cease raiding the coastlines along
the Xishaan Mountains,” Jianzhu said. “They’ve promised not to
raise a sail under her colors within sight of the Eastern Air Temple.”
“In exchange for what?”
“For official access to the timber on Yesso Island, though
they’ve been unofficially logging there for the better part of a
decade. The other sages are calling it a total diplomatic victory. So
much gained, for so little.”
The leaves of Yun’s tea lost their grip on the surface of the
liquid. Water was the last element he’d need to master. He’d always
suspected he’d have a better time of it than fire.
“Except it’s not a victory, is it?” he said, rolling the cup
between his fingers. “She’s promising to halt her operations in one
sector, but a fleet of marauders isn’t going to lay down their arms
and pick up the plow overnight. They’ll cause trouble in the other
oceans, maybe go as far north as Chameleon Bay or the Fire Nation
home islands. It’s just pushing the violence from one corner of the
world to the other.”
 “What would you do then?” Jianzhu said. “Reject Tagaka’s
offer?”
Yun took a turn staring at the blank gameboard, especially at
the sections where players usually laid their boat tiles. He shuddered
at the images that came rushing into his head.
Contrary to what many of the locals thought, Jianzhu did not
keep him locked up in the estate like a moon flower that would
wither in too much sunlight. In between training, they regularly took
trips around the world with Kelsang on his flying bison, Pengpeng,
to meet important people from around the Four Nations. The goal
was to make sure Yun had a cosmopolitan upbringing since the ideal
Avatar was also a diplomat, never showing bias to one people or the
other. He learned a lot by their side, exploring great cities and
talking with their leaders. Sometimes he had fun.
The last outing was not one of those times.
When Jianzhu told him they were obligated to survey the extent
of the damage inflicted by the largest coordinated pirate raid on the
southeast coast of the Earth Kingdom mainlands in over a century,
Yun had steeled himself for blood. Corpses amid smoldering ruins.
A scene of total devastation.
But as they flew low over the shores on Pengpeng’s back,
scanning the seaside villages for survivors, he was surprised to see
the driftwood houses and straw huts intact. Nearly pristine. No sign
of the inhabitants anywhere.
They had to touch down and investigate a few structures before
things fell into place. Inside the homes, they’d found spears left on
racks. Tables set with cooked food that hadn’t rotted yet. Fishing
nets in the midst of being repaired. There had been no massacre.
By complete surprise, the villagers had been taken. Like they
were livestock. Animals stolen from a herd.
Nothing else had been touched by Tagaka’s corsairs, except for
a common thread of items that Yun noticed at the last minute.
They’d stolen the bells. The drums and the gongs. The watchtowers
of any village lucky enough to have one were picked clean.
Cast bronze was extremely valuable and nigh irreplaceable in
that part of the country, Yun realized. So were the right quality hides
for drumskins. The pirates had made it so that the village warning
systems couldn’t be reused when they returned.
 Nearly a thousand people were unaccounted for. Conducting a
raid on this scale with such precision was not only a crime but a
message. Tagaka was more dangerous than her father, her
grandfather, and every other crude, bloody-minded pirate that ran the
Eastern Sea.
Yun had spent the better part of that night screaming and raging
at Jianzhu after his mentor calmly explained that the Earth King was
likely not going to do anything to protect his subjects, not ones of so
little marginal value. That they were largely on their own to deal
with the problem.
The emptiness of the Pai Sho board taunted Yun as loudly as
the missing, unrung bells. Not if they returned, but when.
He put his tea down and leaned back on his hands. “We should
take her offer and pretend we’re glad to do it. It’s our only chance of
rescuing the surviving captives. It’ll buy time for the coastal areas to
build up defenses. And if Tagaka is bold enough to sail northwest,
there’s a chance she’ll grow overconfident and pick a fight with the
Fire Navy. That’s an opponent ruthless enough to destroy her
completely.”
His proposal spilled out of his lips naturally, despite the unease
it created in his core. The idea of manipulating the nations he was
supposed to keep balance over was frightening, solely because of
how easy and effective it would be. He waited for a rebuke.
Instead he caught Jianzhu smiling at him openly. A rare
occurrence.
“See?” Jianzhu said, gesturing at the game board out of habit.
“This is why you are destined to be a great Avatar. You have the
insight to think ahead, to see where people are weak and strong. You
know which threads of the future to pull. There’s not going to be a
solution to the Fifth Nation through powerful bending. But there will
be a strategy, a line of play that minimizes the suffering they can
inflict. And you’ve spotted it.
“You’re everything Kuruk was not,” Jianzhu continued. “And I
couldn’t be prouder.”
That was meant to be a genuine compliment. Kuruk had been a
genius of the highest caliber when it came to Pai Sho. Bending too.
But according to Jianzhu, who’d known him best, the Water Avatar
had been unable to translate his personal talents into effective
leadership on the world stage. He’d squandered his time, pursuing
pleasures around the Four Nations, and died early.
 So I guess that means I’ll be unhappy and live forever, Yun
thought. Wonderful.
He looked across the courtyard where Hei-Ran had taken a
post, waiting for them to finish. The woman was a statue. Every
piece of grief he got from her was made worse by the fact that she
resembled her daughter Rangi so closely, with the same porcelain-
doll face, pitch-black hair, and eyes tending toward darker bronze
than the usual Fire Nation gold. Having a beautiful, adoring
bodyguard close to his own age like Rangi was ruined when her
spitting image beat the snot out of him on a regular basis.
“Hei-Ran thinks I’m a little too much like Kuruk,” Yun said.
“You have to be more understanding with her,” Jianzhu said.
“She resigned her commission in the Fire Army to teach Kuruk, and
then she left the Royal Academy to teach you. She’s sacrificed more
than any of us for the Avatar.”
Hearing that he’d ruined two different promising careers for the
same woman didn’t make him feel any better. “That’s more reason
for her to hate my guts.”
Jianzhu got up and motioned for Yun to do the same. “No, her
problem is that she loves you,” he said.
“If that’s true then she has a funny way of showing it.”
Jianzhu shrugged. “Fire Nation mothers. She loves you almost
as much as I do. Too much, perhaps.”
Yun followed his mentor toward the center of the training floor.
The transition from cool shade back to the outdoor heat was a harsh
swipe.
“You must know that you have the love of many people,”
Jianzhu said. “Kelsang, the visiting sages, nearly everyone who’s
ever met you. It’s my belief that the earth itself loves you. You feel
connected to it at all times, like it’s speaking to you. Am I right?”
He was, though Yun didn’t know where he was going with this.
Feeling connected to the earth was the first, most basic requirement
for earthbending. Hei-Ran joined them in the court.
“On the other hand, firebending is unique among the four
bending styles in that it typically does not draw from a mass of
elements separate from one’s own body,” Jianzhu said. “You don’t
form a bond with the element in your surroundings; instead you
generate it from within. Am I explaining that correctly,
Headmistress?”
Hei-Ran nodded, equally confused as to why they were
discussing the obvious.
“Take off your shoes,” Jianzhu said to Yun.
“Huh?” Like many Earthbenders, Yun never wore shoes if he
could help it, but for firebending training they’d forced him into a
pair of grippy slippers.
“Tagaka’s conditions are that any new treaties must be signed
on grounds of her choosing,” Jianzhu said. “I know I said that
diplomacy was more important than bending for this mission, but it
would be much more ideal if you had some mastery over fire. In
case the pirates need a little show of force. Take off your shoes.”
The sun beat down on Yun’s head. The buzz of insects grew
louder in his ears, like an alarm. He’d never disobeyed Jianzhu
before, so he yanked off the slippers, rolled down his socks, and
threw them to the side.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s happening here?”
Jianzhu surveyed the featureless training floor. “Like I said, the
earth itself loves you, and you love it. That love, that bond, could be
what’s holding you back, blocking off the different states of mind
necessary to master the different elements. We should try severing
that link so that you have nothing to rely on but your inner fire. No
outside help.”
For the first time in his life, Yun saw Hei-Ran hesitate.
“Jianzhu,” she said, “are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’s an idea,” Jianzhu said. “Whether it’s good or not depends
on the result.”
An icy knot formed in Yun’s stomach as his mind made the
connection. “You’re going to have her burn my feet?”
Jianzhu shook his head. “Nothing so crude.”
He put his hand out to the side, palm down, and then drew it
upward. Around them, the marble floor sprouted little inch-high
pyramids, each ending in a sharp point. The grounds were uniformly
blanketed in them from wall to wall. It was as if someone had
hammered nails into each space of a Pai Sho board and then flipped
it over, spikes up.
 “Now, let’s see you run through the first Sun Gathering form,”
Jianzhu said. The garden of caltrops surrounded them in a tight ring.
“Get out there, right in the middle of it, and show us your stuff.”
Yun blinked back tears. He looked at Hei-Ran pleadingly. She
shook her head and turned away. “You can’t be serious,” he said.
Jianzhu was as calm as a drifting cloud. “You may begin when
ready, Avatar.”
 HONEST WORK
Stepping through the gate of the mansion was like entering a
portal to the Spirit World. Or so Kyoshi imagined, from hearing
Kelsang’s stories. It was a complete transition from one set of rules
to another, from a dull, mindless place where the only currencies you
could spend were sweat and time, sowing your seeds and baiting
your hooks in the hope of staving off hunger for another season, to a
mystical universe where rituals and negotiations could make you
supreme in a single day.
Their passage was marked by the cool blip of shade underneath
the rammed-earth wall. Rangi nodded at the two watchmen, grizzled
veterans of the Earth King’s army who stiffened their necks and
bowed back to her in deference. Lured by better pay into Jianzhu’s
service, they’d kept their dished, wide-brimmed helmets but painted
them over with the sage’s personal shades of green. Kyoshi always
wondered whether that was against the law or not.
Inside, the vast garden hummed with conversation. Sages and
dignitaries from far-off lands constantly flowed in and out of the
estate, and many of them enjoyed conducting their business among
the flowers and sweet-smelling fruit trees. An overdressed merchant
from Omashu haggled with a Fire Nation procurement officer over
cabbage futures, ignoring the cherry blossom petals falling into their
tea. Two elegant Northern Water Tribe women, arm in arm,
meditatively walked a maze pattern raked into a field of pure-white
sand. In the corner, a morose young man with carefully disheveled
hair bit the end of his brush, struggling with a poem.
Any of them could have been—and probably were—benders of
the highest order. It always gave Kyoshi a thrill to see so many
masters of the elements gathered in one place. When the estate was
full of visitors, like today, the air felt alive with power. Sometimes
literally so when Kelsang was around and in a playful mood.
Auntie Mui, head of the kitchen staff, appeared from one of the
side hallways and bounced over to them, looking like a plum rolling
down a bumpy hill. She used her momentum to deliver a hard swat
to the small of Kyoshi’s back. Kyoshi yelped and gripped the jar
tighter.
“Don’t carry food around where the guests can see it!” Auntie
Mui hissed. “Use the service entrance!”
 She hustled Kyoshi down the steps of a tunnel, oblivious to the
hard bump Kyoshi’s forehead took against the top support beam.
They shuffled down the corridor that still smelled of sawdust and
wet loam through the plaster. It was more obvious down here how
new and hastily constructed the complex really was.
The roughness of the hallway was another of the many little
details that poked holes in the common illusion those under
Jianzhu’s roof tried to uphold, from his most exalted guest down to
his lowliest employee. The Avatar’s presence was an uncomfortably
recent blessing. Everyone was going through the motions at an
accelerated pace.
“You were out in the sun too much, weren’t you?” Auntie Mui
said. “Your freckles got darker again. Why don’t you ever wear that
concealer I gave you? It has real crushed nacre in it.”
Kyoshi’s skull throbbed. “What, and look like a bloodless
ghost?”
“Better than looking like someone sprinkled starpoppy seeds
over your cheeks!”
About the only things Kyoshi hated more than gunk on her skin
were the warped, infuriating values that older folks like Auntie Mui
held around complexion. It was yet another contradiction of the
village, that you should make an honest living toiling under the sun
but never in the slightest look like it. In the game of rural Yokoyan
beauty standards, Kyoshi had lost that particular round. Among
others.
They climbed another set of stairs, Kyoshi remembering to
duck this time, and passed through a hall for drying and splitting the
immense amount of firewood needed to fuel the stoves. Auntie Mui
tsk’ed at the splitting maul that had been buried in the chopping
block by the last person to use it instead of being hung up properly
on the wall, but she wasn’t strong enough to pull it out, and Kyoshi’s
hands were full.
They entered the steamy, cavernous kitchen. The clash of metal
pans and roaring flames could have been mistaken for a siege
operation. Kyoshi set the pickling jar down on the nearest clear table
and took a needed stretch, her arms wobbling with unfamiliar
freedom. The jar had been attached to her for so long it felt like
saying goodbye to a needy child.
“Don’t forget, you have gift duties tonight.”
 She was startled to hear Rangi’s voice. She didn’t think the
Firebender would have followed her this deep into the bowels of the
house.
Rangi glanced around. “Don’t waste too much time here.
You’re not a scullery maid.”
The nearby kitchen staff, some of whom were scullery maids,
looked at them and scowled. Kyoshi winced. The villagers thought
she was stuck up for living in the mansion; the other servants
thought she was stuck up for her closeness to Yun; and Rangi, with
her elite attitude, only made it worse.
There was no pleasing anyone, she thought as Rangi departed
for the barracks.
Kyoshi spotted an odd figure among the legions of white-clad
cooks pounding away at their stations. An Airbender, with his
orange robes rolled up to his blocky shoulders. His massive paws
were covered in flour, and he’d tucked his forest of a beard into his
tunic to keep it from shedding. It was like the kitchen had been
invaded by a mountain ogre.
Kelsang should have been aboveground, watching the Avatar.
Or at least greeting a visiting sage. Not cutting out dumpling
wrappers among the cooks.
He looked up and grinned when he saw Kyoshi. “I’ve been
banished,” he said, preempting her question. “Jianzhu thinks my
presence is causing Yun to prematurely dream about airbending, so
we’re trying to keep him focused on one element at a time. I needed
to feel useful, so here I am.”
Kyoshi sidled her way over to him through the crowded space
and gave the monk a kiss on the cheek. “Let me help.” She washed
her hands in a nearby sink, grabbed a ball of dough to knead, and
fell into work beside him.
For the past decade, Kelsang had essentially raised her. He’d
used what leeway he had with the Southern Air Temple to reside in
Yokoya as much as he could, in order to look after Kyoshi. When he
had to leave, he foisted her upon different families, begged alms to
keep her fed. After Jianzhu brought the Avatar to Yokoya for
safekeeping, Kelsang twisted his old friend’s arm to hire Kyoshi on.
He’d done all this, saved the life of a child stranger, for no
reason other than that she needed someone. In a part of the Earth
Kingdom where love was reserved solely for blood relations, the
monk from a foreign land was the dearest person in the world to
Kyoshi.
Which was why she knew his good cheer right now was
completely fake.
Rumors flew around the house that the once-legendary
friendship between Avatar Kuruk’s companions had deteriorated.
Especially so between Jianzhu and Kelsang. In the years since
Kuruk’s death, if the gossip was to be believed, Jianzhu had amassed
wealth and influence unbecoming of a sage who was supposed to be
dedicated solely to guiding Kuruk’s reincarnation. Bending masters
came to the house to pay obeisance to him, not the Avatar, and
decrees that were normally made by the Earth Kings instead bore
Jianzhu’s seal. Kelsang disapproved of such power-hungry actions
and was at risk of being completely shunted to the side.
Kyoshi didn’t have context around the politics, but she did
worry about the growing rift between the two master benders. It
couldn’t be good for the Avatar. Yun adored Kelsang almost as much
as she did, but ultimately was loyal to the earth sage who’d found
him.
Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t notice the little puff of
flour fly up from the table and hit her in the forehead. White dust
clouded her vision. She squinted at Kelsang, who wasn’t trying to
hide the second shot that spun around above his palm, chambered in
a pocket-sized whirlwind he’d summoned.
“It wasn’t me,” he said. “It was a different Airbender.”
Kyoshi snickered and grabbed the flour bead out of the air. It
burst between her fingers. “Quit it before Auntie Mui throws us out
of here.”
“Then quit looking troubled on my behalf,” he said, having
read her mind. “It’s not so bad if I take a break from Avatar business.
I’ll get to spend more time with you. We should go on a vacation,
the two of us, perhaps to see the Air Nomad sacred sites.”
She would have liked that very much. Chances to share
Kelsang’s company had gotten rarer as the Avatar and his teachers
sank deeper into the mesh of world affairs. But as lowly as her own
job was in comparison, she still had the same responsibility to show
up every day.
“I can’t,” Kyoshi said. “I have work.” There’d be time enough
in the future for traveling with Kelsang.
 He rolled his eyes. “Bah. I’ve never seen someone so averse to
fun since old Abbot ‘No-Fruit Pies’ Dorje.” He flicked another blob
of flour at her, and she failed to flinch out of the way.
“I know how to have fun!” Kyoshi whispered indignantly as
she wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.
From the head of the cutting board tables, Auntie Mui gave a
tongue-curled whistle, interrupting their debate. “Poetry time!” she
said.
Everyone groaned. She was always trying to enforce high
culture on her workers, or at least her idea of it. “Lee!” she said,
singling out an unfortunate wok handler. “You start us off.”
The poor line cook stumbled as he tried to compose on the spot
while keeping count of his syllables. “Uh . . . the-weath-er-is-nice /
sun-shin-ing-down-from-the-sky / birds-are-sing-ing . . . good?”
Auntie Mui made a face like she’d swigged pure lemon juice.
“That was awful! Where’s your sense of balance? Symmetry?
Contrast?”
Lee threw his hands in the air. He was paid to fry things, not
perform in the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se.
“Can’t someone give us a decent verse?” Auntie Mui
complained. There were no volunteers.
“I’ve got cheeks like ripe round fruit,” Kelsang suddenly
pitched forth. “They shake like boughs in the storm / I blush bright
red when I see a bed / and leap at the sound of the horn.”
The room exploded in laughter. He’d picked a well-known
shanty popular with sailors and field hands, where you improvised
raunchy words from the perspective of your object of unrequited
affection. It was a game for others to guess who you were singing
about, and the simple rhythm made manual labor more pleasant.
“Brother Kelsang!” Auntie Mui said, scandalized. “Set an
example!”
He had. The entire staff was already chopping, kneading, and
scrubbing to the raucous tune. It was okay to misbehave if a monk
did it first.
“I’ve got a nose like a dove-tailed deer / I run like a leaf on the
wind,” Lee sang, evidently better at this than haiku. “My arms are
slight and my waist is tight / and I don’t have a thought for my kin.”
 “Mirai!” a dishwasher yelled out. “He’s got it bad for the
greengrocer’s daughter!” The staff whooped over Lee’s protests,
thinking it a good match. Sometimes it didn’t matter to the audience
if they guessed right or not.
“Kyoshi next!” someone said. “She’s never here, so let’s make
the most of it!”
Kyoshi was caught off guard. Normally she wasn’t included in
household antics. She caught Kelsang’s eye and saw the challenge
twinkling there. Fun, eh? Prove it.
Before she could stop herself, the rhythm launched her into
song.
“I’ve got two knives that are cast in bronze / they pierce all the
way to the soul / they draw you in with the promise of sin / like the
moth to the flame to the coal.”
The kitchen howled. Auntie Mui clucked in disapproval. “Keep
going, you naughty girl!” Lee shouted, glad that the attention was
off him.
She’d even managed to throw off Kelsang, who looked at her
curiously, as if he had a spark of recognition for whom she was
describing. Kyoshi knew that wasn’t possible when she was simply
tossing out the first words that came to her head. She thumped a
length of dough onto the table in front of her, creating her own
percussion.
“I’ve got hair like the starless night / it sticks to my lips when I
smile / I’ll wind it with yours and we’ll drift off course / in a ship
touching hearts all the while.”
Somehow the improvisation was easy, though she’d never
considered herself a poet. Or a bawdy mind, for that matter. It was as
if another person, someone much more at ease with their own
desires, was feeding her the right lines to express herself. And to her
surprise, she liked how the inelegant lines made her feel. Truthful
and silly and raw.
“For the way I walk is a lantern lit / that leads you into the
night / I’ll hold you close and love you the most / until our end is in
sight.”
Kyoshi didn’t have time to ponder the darker turn her verse
took before a sudden pain shot through her wrist.
 Kelsang had grabbed her arm and was staring at her, eyes wild
and white. His grip squeezed tighter and tighter, crushing her flesh,
his nails drawing blood from both her skin and his.
“You’re hurting me!” she cried out.
The room was silent. Disbelieving. Kelsang let go, and she
caught herself on the edge of the table. A map of purple was
stamped on her wrist.
“Kyoshi,” Kelsang said, his voice constricted and airless.
“Kyoshi, where did you learn THAT SONG?”
 REVELATIONS
After Kelsang took her aside into an empty study and spent half
an hour tearfully apologizing for hurting her, he told her why he’d
lost control.
“Oh,” Kyoshi said in response to the worst news she’d ever
heard in her life.
She ran her fingers through her hair and threw her head back.
The library where they were hiding was taller than it was long, a
mineshaft cramped with scrolls, yanked off the shelves and put back
without care. Beams of sunlight revealed how much dust was
floating around the room. She needed to clean this place up.
“You’re mistaken,” she said to Kelsang. “Yun is the Avatar.
Jianzhu identified him nearly two years ago. Everyone knows this.”
Kelsang didn’t look any happier than she did. “You don’t
understand. After Kuruk died, the Earthen traditions around locating
the Avatar fell apart. Imagine if the seasons suddenly refused to turn.
It was chaos. After so many failures, the sages, Earthbenders
especially, felt abandoned by the spirits and their ancestors alike.”
Kyoshi leaned back against a ladder and gripped the rungs
tightly.
“There was talk of Kuruk being the last of the cycle, that the
world was destined for an age of strife, to be torn apart by outlaws
and warlords. Until Jianzhu labeled Yun as the next Avatar. But the
way it happened had no precedent. Tell me this—with the two of
you as close as you are, has Yun ever once told you the details?”
She shook her head. It was strange, now that Kelsang
mentioned it.
“That’s because Jianzhu probably forbade him. The full story
would cast the shadow of illegitimacy on him.” The monk rubbed
his eyes; it was abhorrently dusty in here. “We were in Makapu,
surveying the volcano. We’d honestly given up on finding the
Avatar, like so many others. On the last day of our trip, we noticed a
crowd growing in a corner of the town square.
“They were gathered around a child with a Pai Sho board. Yun.
He was hustling tourists like us, and he’d made quite a bit of money
at it too. To give his opponents confidence, he was running the blind
bag gambit. It’s when your opponent plays normally, picking their
tiles, but you dump yours into a sack and mix them up randomly.
Whatever you draw each turn is what you have to play. An
insurmountable disadvantage.”
Kyoshi could see it too easily. Yun’s silver tongue coaxing
money out of people’s wallets. A stream of banter and flashing
smiles. He could probably bankrupt someone and still leave them
happy to have met him.
“What most people don’t know, and what Yun didn’t know, was
that the blind bag is supposed to be a scam,” Kelsang said. “You’re
meant to rig the tiles or the bag itself so you have a way to find the
exact combinations you need. But Yun wasn’t cheating. He was
actually drawing randomly and winning.”
“We might have passed it off as a kid enjoying a string of luck,
but Jianzhu noticed he was drawing and playing Kuruk’s favorite
strategies, turn by turn, down to the exact placement of the exact tile.
Game after game he was doing this. He displayed tricks and traps
that Kuruk explicitly kept secret from anyone but us.”
“It sounds like Kuruk took Pai Sho pretty seriously,” Kyoshi
said.
Kelsang snorted and then sneezed, sending a little tornado
spiraling toward the skylight. “It was one of the few things he did.
And he was unequivocally one of the greatest players in history.
Depending on what rules you’re using, you have as many as sixty
tiles. There are over two hundred spots on the board where you can
put them. To randomly draw and then brilliantly execute a precise
line of play that only Kuruk was mad enough to win with in the
annals of the game—the odds of it are unfathomable.”
Kyoshi didn’t have a taste for Pai Sho, but she knew that
masters often talked about play styles being as individualistic and
recognizable as a signature. An identity contained within the board.
“After what Jianzhu went through with Xu Ping An and the
Yellow Necks, it was as if a mountain range had been lifted off his
shoulders,” Kelsang said. “Any doubts he might have had
completely vanished when we saw Yun earthbend. Granted, the kid
can move rocks like no one else. If we identified the Avatar solely
through a precision-bending contest, he’d be Kuruk’s reincarnation
hands down.”
Kyoshi thought back to this morning and Yun’s incredible
manipulation of the earth. In her mind only the Avatar could have
done that.
 “I don’t get it,” she said. “All of this is proof. Yun is the Avatar.
Why would you tell me that I’m—that I’m—why would you do that
to me!?”
Her anguish was absorbed, without an echo, by the masses of
faded, crumbling paper that surrounded them.
“Can we get out of here?” Kelsang said, his eyes red.

They walked in silence down the corridors of the mansion.

Kelsang’s presence justified taking the shortest route, where the
visiting dignitaries might see them. They passed works of
calligraphy mounted on the walls that were more precious than
bricks of gold. Vases of translucent delicacy held the day’s flowers
cut from the garden.
Kyoshi felt like a thief as they passed the casually displayed
treasures, no better than an intruder who might slip past the guards
and stuff each priceless item into a gunnysack. Even the servants’
dormitory, plain and poorly lit, seemed to whisper ingrate at her
from its dark corners. Not all of the staff were able to live on-site.
And she knew that a bed lifted off the floor and a wooden door that
shut tight were better than what many other servants around the
Earth Kingdom got.
She and Kelsang squeezed inside her room. It was cramped, the
two of them being the same height, but as sizable people they had
practice at minimizing themselves. Her quarters were small but still
technically more space than she needed. Besides a few knickknacks
from her street life, her only two possessions upon moving into
Jianzhu’s house were a heavy locked trunk that she’d stowed in the
corner, and on top, the leather-bound journal that explained what
was in it. Her inheritance from the days before Yokoya.
“You still have those,” Kelsang said. “I know how valuable
they are to you. I remember tracking you down to the little nest you
made around the trunk underneath the blacksmith’s house. You
hugged the book so tight to your chest and wouldn’t let me read it.
You looked ready to defend it to the death.”
Her feelings about the items were more complicated than he
understood. Kyoshi had never opened the lock, having thrown the
key into the ocean one day in a fit of spite. And she’d nearly burned
the journal several times over.
 Down the hall someone was moving about, making the pine
floorboards squeak, so they waited until the footsteps disappeared.
Kelsang sat on the bed, bowing the planks in the middle. Kyoshi
leaned against her door and braced her feet like an attacking army
was trying to beat it down.
“So you think I’m the Avatar because of a stupid song I made
up?” she said. Somewhere between the study and her room she’d
found enough backbone to say it out loud.
“I think you might be the Avatar because you pulled from thin
air the exact lines of a poem Kuruk wrote a long time ago,” Kelsang
said.
A poem. A poem wasn’t proof. Not like the cold hard
impossibility of what Yun did.
Kelsang could tell she needed a better explanation. “What I’m
about to tell you, you should keep to yourself,” he said.
“I’m listening.”
“It was about twenty years ago. Kuruk’s companions were still
very close, but without any real challenges, we drifted toward our
separate lives. Jianzhu started working on his family’s holdings. Hei-
Ran started teaching at the Royal Fire Academy and married Rangi’s
father, Junsik, in the same year. It was the happiest I’d ever seen her.
As for me, that was when Abbot Dorje was alive and I was still in
his good graces, so I was being groomed to take over the Southern
Air Temple.”
Assigning a past to the venerable benders was a strange mix of
satisfying and unnervingly voyeuristic. She was spying on things she
shouldn’t be privy to. “What was Kuruk doing?”
“Being Kuruk. Traveling the world. Breaking hearts and taking
names. But one day he showed up on my doorstep out of the blue,
trembling like a schoolboy. He wanted me to read over a declaration
of eternal love he’d composed in a poem.”
Kelsang inhaled sharply through his nose. Kyoshi kept her
room dust-free and spotless. “This happened two months after Hei-
Ran’s wedding and three months before Jianzhu’s father got sick,”
he said. “He used a more formal meter than a sailor’s ditty, and he
didn’t sing it, but its contents were exactly what you produced in the
spur of the moment.”
That only weakened the argument. “You seem to remember this
in overly specific detail,” Kyoshi said.
 The monk furrowed his brow. “That’s because he was going to
give the poem to Hei-Ran.”
Oh no. She’d heard stories of the Water Avatar’s lack of
propriety, but that was going several levels too far. “What happened
next?”
“I . . . meddled,” Kelsang said. Kyoshi couldn’t tell if he was
regretful or proud of his decision. “I berated Kuruk for his stupidity
and selfishness, for trying to ruin his friend’s happy relationship, and
made him destroy the confession while I watched. To this day I
don’t know if I did the right thing. Hei-Ran always did love Kuruk
with some piece of her heart. Maybe everything would have turned
out better if they had run off with each other.”
Kyoshi quickly did the math in her head—and, yes, if that had
happened, Rangi wouldn’t have been born. “You did the right thing,”
she said, with more ferocity than she intended to show.
“I’ll never find out. Not long after, Kuruk met Ummi. That
tragedy unfolded so fast that my memory of it starts to blur.”
She didn’t know who Ummi was, and she had no intention of
asking. Matters were complicated enough. And Kuruk . . . Kyoshi
was no advanced student of Avatar lore, but she was developing a
pretty dim view of the man.
“I wish I could be more certain,” Kelsang said. “But if there’s
anything the last two decades have taught me, it’s that life does not
work out in certain, guaranteed ways. I’m not supposed to talk about
this, but Yun is having problems firebending. I fear Jianzhu is
becoming . . . more extreme. He’s staked so much on creating his
ideal replacement for Kuruk that anytime he faces a setback, his
response is to dig in and push harder.”
Kyoshi was more shaken by the revelation that Yun couldn’t
firebend than anything else she’d heard so far. The image he
projected was of a boy who could do the impossible. Yes, Yun was
her friend, but she still had the same faith in the Avatar as anyone
else. Mastering fire should have been easy for someone as clever
and talented as he was.
Kelsang seemed to pick up on her fear. “Kyoshi, Yun still has
the strongest case for being the Avatar. That hasn’t changed.” He
worried the end of his beard. “But if the criteria we’ve lowered
ourselves to are ‘improbable things that Kuruk once did,’ then we
have to consider you as well.”
 The monk ruminated for a moment, fitting pieces together in
his head. “To be honest though, I don’t know if I’m entirely upset by
this new complication. You have Avatar-worthy merits that you
won’t acknowledge.”
Kyoshi scoffed. “Such as?”
He thought it over more before deciding on one. “Selfless
humility.”
“That’s not true! I’m not any more—” She caught Kelsang
about to laugh at her and scowled.
He got up, and her bed boards groaned with relief. “I’m sorry,”
he said. “I might have been able to answer this question years ago,
had I the chance to meet your parents like I did with the other village
children. More information could have made the difference.”
Kyoshi scrunched her face and kicked her heel back against the
trunk, releasing the sudden burst of anger that ran through her. The
wooden side made a drumlike thud. “I’m sure they would have
loved having a child as valuable as the Avatar,” she snapped. “A
once-in-a-generation prize.”
Kelsang smiled at her gently. “They would have been proud of
their daughter no matter what,” he said. “I know I am.”
Normally Kyoshi would have felt comforted by the
acknowledgment that she’d become as much of a fixture in
Kelsang’s life as he had in hers. But if he walked out her door and
told Jianzhu what happened, it could tear apart the little corner of the
world the two of them had marked off for themselves. Didn’t
Kelsang see that? Wasn’t he worried?
“Can we keep this a secret?” Kyoshi said. “Just for a while,
until I can get my bearings? I don’t want to be rash. Maybe you’ll
remember Kuruk’s poem differently in the morning. Or Yun will
firebend.” Anything.
Kelsang didn’t answer. He’d been suddenly transfixed by her
tiny shelf.
It held a gold-dyed tassel, a few beads, a coin she’d pilfered
from a shrine donation box and felt too guilty to spend and too afraid
to return. The clay turtle she couldn’t remember exactly how she’d
gotten, other than that it was a present from him. He stared at the
junk for a long time.
“Please,” Kyoshi said.
 Kelsang looked back at her and sighed. “For a little while,
perhaps,” he said. “But eventually we have to tell Jianzhu and the
others. Whatever the truth is, we must find it together.”

After he left, Kyoshi didn’t sit down. She thought best on her feet,
motionless. Her wooden cell of a room was good enough for that.
This was a nightmare. While she wasn’t an important political
dignitary, she wasn’t an idiot either. She knew what kind of bedlam
lay behind the precarious balance Jianzhu and Yun had set up, the
mountain they’d suspended in the air.
From around corners she’d spied on the bouts of ecstatic
sobbing, the sense of utter relief that many of the visiting sages went
through when they first laid eyes on Yun. After more than a decade
of doubt, he was a solid body, a sharp mind, a belatedly fulfilled
promise. The inheritor of blessed Yangchen’s legacy. Avatar Yun
was a beacon of light who gave people confidence the world could
be saved.
“Avatar Kyoshi” would simply be dirt kicked over the fire.
Her eyes landed on the journal lying on the trunk. Her pulse
quickened again. Would they have left her behind if they knew there
was a chance, no matter how slim, that she held some worth?
A knock came from outside. Gifting duty. She’d forgotten.
She shoved the entire conversation with Kelsang to the back of
her mind as she opened the door. She knew from experience there
was no trouble so great that she couldn’t pack it away. Kelsang
wasn’t certain, therefore she didn’t need to worry. What she needed
to worry about was Rangi having her hide for—
“Hey,” Yun said. “I was looking for you.”
 PROMISES
“You know, this is much harder when you’re around,” Kyoshi said
to the Avatar.
She and Yun sat on the floor in one of the innumerable
receiving rooms. The freestanding screen paintings had been folded
up and pushed to the walls, and the potted plants had been set
outside to make room for the giant piles of gifts that guests had
brought for the Avatar.
Yun lay on his back, taking up valuable free space. He lazily
waved a custom-forged, filigreed jian blade around in the air,
stirring an imaginary upside-down pot with it.
“I have no idea how to use this,” he said. “I hate swords.”
“A boy who doesn’t like swords?” Kyoshi said with a mock
gasp. “Put it in the armory pile, and we’ll get Rangi to teach you at
some point.”
There were a lot of guesses around the village about what,
exactly, Kyoshi did in the mansion. Given her orphaned, unwanted
status, the farmers’ children assumed she handled the dirtiest, most
impure jobs, dealing with refuse and carcasses and the like. The
truth was somewhat different.
What she really did, as her primary role, was pick up after Yun.
Tidy his messes. The Avatar was such a slob that he needed a full-
time servant following in his wake, or else the chaos would
overwhelm the entire complex. Soon after taking her on, the senior
staff discovered Kyoshi’s strong, compulsive need to put things back
in their rightful place, minimize clutter, and maintain order. So they
put her on Avatar-containment duty.
This time, the pile they sat hip-deep in was not Yun’s fault.
Wealthy visitors were constantly showering him with gifts in the
hope of currying favor, or simply because they loved him. As big as
the house was, there wasn’t enough room to give each item a display
place of honor. On a regular basis Kyoshi had to sort and pack away
the heirlooms and antiques and works of art that only seemed to get
more lavish and numerous over time.
“Oh, look,” she said, holding up a lacquered circle set in a
crisscross pattern with luminous gems. “Another Pai Sho board.”
Yun glanced over. “That one’s pretty.”
 “This is, without exaggeration, the forty-fourth board you own
now. You’re not keeping it.”
“Ugh, ruthless.”
She ignored him. He might be the Avatar, but when it came to
her officially assigned duties, she reigned above him.
And Kyoshi needed this right now. She needed this normalcy to
bury what Kelsang had told her. Despite her best efforts, it kept
rising from below, the notion that she was betraying Yun and
swallowing up what belonged to him.
As he lounged on his elbows, Kyoshi noticed Yun wasn’t
wearing his embroidered indoor slippers. “Are those new boots?”
she said, pointing at his feet. The leather they were crafted from was
a beautiful, soft gray tone with fur trim like powdery morning snow.
Probably baby turtle-seal hide, she thought with revulsion.
Yun tensed up. “I found them in the pile earlier.”
“They don’t fit you. Give them over.”
“I’d rather not.” He scooched backward but was hedged in by
more boxes.
She crawled over to peer at the boots from a closer angle.
“What did you—did you stuff the extra space with bandages?
They’re ridiculously too big for you! Take them off!” She got to her
knees and grabbed his foot with both hands.
“Kyoshi, please!”
She paused and looked up at his face. It was filled with pure
dread. And he rarely ever raised his voice at her.
It was the second time today a person important to her had
acted strangely. She forced herself to acknowledge the two incidents
weren’t related. So he’d suddenly developed an intense taste for
footwear. She’d make a note of it.
Yun sat up and put his hands on Kyoshi’s shoulders, fixing her
with his jade-green eyes. She’d long since become inured to his
flirty smiles whenever he wanted a rise out of her, his puppy-dog
pout when he wanted a favor, but his expression of earnest desire
was a weapon he didn’t pull out often. The way his troubled
thoughts softened the sharp edges of his face was heart piercing.
“Spill it,” she said. “What’s bothering you?”
 “I want you to come on a journey with me,” he said quietly. “I
need you by my side.”
Kyoshi nearly choked on her surprise. He was offering a taste
of the world that only an exalted few got to sample. To be a
companion of the Avatar, even for a moment, was an honor beyond
reckoning.
Flying into the sunset, huddled close to Yun, the wind in their
hair—if Aoma and the other villagers were jealous of her before,
they’d go foaming-mad with envy now. “What kind of trip is this?”
she said, unconsciously lowering herself to his volume. “Where is
this taking place?”
“The Eastern Sea, near the South Pole,” he said. “I’m signing a
new treaty with Tagaka.”
Well, so much for fantasy. Kyoshi knocked Yun’s hands off her
shoulders and sat back on her knees properly. The motion felt like it
helped drain the heat out of her face.
“The Fifth Nation?” she said. “You’re going to sit at a table
with the Fifth Nation? And you want me to come with you?” What
was she going to do surrounded by a band of bloodthirsty pirates
that was bigger than most Earth Kingdom provincial militias? Sweep
up their . . . cutlasses?
“I know how much you hate outlaws,” Yun said. “I thought you
might appreciate seeing a victory over them up close. It’s only
political, but still.”
Kyoshi puffed her cheeks in frustration. “Yun, I am basically
your nanny,” she said. “You need Rangi for this mission. Better yet,
you need the Fire Lord’s entire personal legion.”
“Rangi’s coming. But I want you as well. You won’t be there to
fight if things go wrong.” He stared at his own feet. “You’ll just
stand around and watch me as things go right.”
“For the love of—why?”
“Perspective,” he said. “I need your perspective.”
He pulled out a Pai Sho tile he’d nicked from the set she’d put
away and squinted at it like a jeweler in the light.
“Is it sad that I want a regular person there?” he said. “Someone
who’ll be scared and impressed and overwhelmed just like me, and
not another professional Avatar monitor? That afterward I want you
to tell me I’m as good as Yangchen or Salai, regardless of whether or
not that’s true?”
He laughed bitterly. “I know it sounds stupid. But I think I need
the presence of someone who cares about me first and history
second. I want you to be proud of me, Yun, not satisfied with the
performance of the Avatar.”
Kyoshi didn’t know what to do. This idea sounded mind-
numbingly dangerous. She wasn’t equipped to follow the Avatar into
politics or battle, not like the great companions of past generations.
Her stomach wound into a knot as she thought of the secret
between her and Kelsang. They wouldn’t get the time they needed to
figure that matter out. The world demanded an Avatar or else.
“It’ll be safer than it sounds,” Yun said. “Oddly enough, most
daofei gangs hold quite a bit of respect for the Avatar. Either they’re
superstitious about the Avatar’s spiritual powers or intimidated by
someone who can drop all four elements on their heads at once.”
He tried to sound lighthearted, but he looked more and more
pained the longer she kept him waiting in silence.
Then again, was it so dire of a choice? Jianzhu would never risk
Yun’s life. And she had a hard time believing Yun would risk hers.
Really, the situation wasn’t as grand or complicated as she made it
out to be. Avatar business and the fate of the Earth Kingdom was for
other people and other times. Right now, Kyoshi’s friend was
depending on her. She’d be there for him.
“I’ll come,” she said. “Someone has to clean up whatever mess
you make.”
Yun shuddered with relief. He caught her fingers and brought
them gently to his cheek, nuzzling into them as if they were ice for a
fever. “Thank you,” he said.
Kyoshi flushed all the way down to her toes. She reminded
herself that his casual tendency to be close to her, to share touches,
was just part of his personality. She’d caught glimpses and heard
stories from the staff that confirmed it. One time he’d kissed the
hand of the princess of Omashu for a second longer than normal and
scored an entire new trade agreement as a result.
It had taken her a very, very long time after starting at the house
to convince herself she was not in love with Yun. Moments like this
threatened to undo all of her hard work. She let herself plunge under
the surface and enjoy being washed over by the simple contact.
 Yun reluctantly put her hand down. “Three . . .” he said,
cocking his ear at the ceramic-tiled floor with a smile. “Two . . . One
. . .”
Rangi slid the door open with a sharp click.
“Avatar.” She bowed deeply and solemnly to Yun. Then she
turned to Kyoshi. “You’ve barely made any progress! Look at this
mess!”
“We were waiting for you,” Yun said. “We decided to burn
everything. You can start with those hideous silk robes in the corner.
As your Avatar, I command you to light ’em up. Right now.”
Rangi rolled her eyes. “Yes, and set the entire mansion on fire.”
She always tried as hard as she could to remain dignified in front of
Yun, but she cracked on occasion. And it was usually during the
times when the three of them, the youngest people in the complex,
were alone together.
“Exactly,” Yun said cheerily. “Burn it all to the ground. Reduce
it back to nature. We’ll achieve pure states of mind.”
“You would start whining the moment you had to bathe with
cold water,” Kyoshi said to him.
“There’s a solution for that,” Yun said. “Everyone would go to
the river, strip down naked, grab the nearest Firebender, and—
pthah!”
A decorative pillow hit him in the face. Kyoshi’s eyes went
wide in disbelief.
Rangi looked utterly horrified at what she’d done. She’d
attacked the Avatar. She stared at her hands like they were covered
in blood. A traitor’s eternal punishment awaited her in the afterlife.
Yun burst out into laughter.
Kyoshi followed, her sides shaking until they hurt. Rangi tried
not to succumb, clamping her hand over her mouth, but despite her
best efforts, little giggles and snorts leaked through her fingers. An
older member of the staff walked past, frowning at the trio through
the open door. Which set them off further.
Kyoshi looked at Yun and Rangi’s beautiful, unguarded faces,
freed from the weight of their duties if only for a moment. Her
friends. She thought of how unlikely it was that she’d found them.
This. This is what I need to protect.
 Yun defended the world, and Rangi defended him, but as far as
Kyoshi was concerned, her own sacred ground was marked by the
limits where her friends stood. This is what I need to keep safe above
all else.
The sudden clarity of her realization caused her mirth to
evaporate. She maintained a rictus grin so the others wouldn’t notice
her change in mood. Her fist tightened around nothing.
And the spirits help anyone who would take this from me.
 THE ICEBERG
Kyoshi’s nightmare smelled like wet bison.
It was raining, and bales of cargo wrapped in burlap splashed in
the mud around her as if they’d fallen from great heights, part of the
storm. It no longer mattered what was in them.
A flash of lightning revealed hooded figures looming over her.
Their faces were obscured by masks of running water.
I hate you, Kyoshi screamed. I’ll hate you until I die. I’ll never
forgive you.
Two hands clasped each other. A transaction was struck, one
that would be violated the instant it became an inconvenience to
uphold. Something wet and lifeless hit her in the shins, papers sealed
in oilcloth.
“Kyoshi!”
She woke up with a start and nearly pitched over the side of
Pengpeng’s saddle. She caught herself on the rail, the sanded edge
pressing into her gut, and stared at the roiling blue beneath them. It
was a long way down to the ocean.
It wasn’t rain on her face but sweat. She saw a droplet fall off
her chin and plummet into nothingness before someone grabbed her
by the shoulders and yanked her back. She fell on top of Yun and
Rangi both, squashing the wind out of them.
“Don’t scare us like that!” Yun shouted in her ear.
“What happened?” Kelsang said, trying to shift around in the
driver’s seat without disturbing the reins. His legs straddled
Pengpeng’s gigantic neck, making it difficult for him to see behind
himself.
“Nothing, Master Kelsang,” Rangi grumbled. “Kyoshi had a
bad dream is all.”
Kelsang looked skeptical but kept flying straight ahead. “Well
okay then, but be careful, and no roughhousing. We don’t want
anyone getting hurt before we get there. Jianzhu would have my
head on a platter.”
He gave Kyoshi an extra glance of worry. He’d been caught off
guard by Yun’s sudden mission, and her agreeing to tag along had
amplified the strain. This treaty signing was too important to cast
doubt on Yun’s Avatarhood now. Until it was over, Kelsang would
have to help her shoulder the burden of their secret, their lie by
omission.
Below them on the water’s surface, trailing only slightly
behind, was the ship bearing Yun’s earthbending master, as well as
Hei-Ran and the small contingent of armed guards. Aided by the
occasional boost of wind that Kelsang generated with a whirl of his
arms, the grand junk kept pace with Pengpeng, its battened sails
billowing and full. Kelsang’s bison was dry and well-groomed for
the occasion, her white fur as fluffy as a cloud underneath her
fancier saddle, but the stiff salt breeze still carried a hint of beastly
odor.
That must have been what I smelled in my dream. It had been a
very long time since Kelsang had taken her for a ride, and the
unfamiliar environment rattled her sleeping mind. The titanic, six-
legged animal stretched its jaws wide and yawned as if to agree with
her.
And speaking of dressing up, Jianzhu had given Kyoshi an
outfit so far beyond her station that she’d almost broken out in hives
when she saw it. She’d thought the pale green silk blouse and
leggings would have been enough finery, but then the wardrobe
attendants brought in two different pleated skirts, a shoulder-length
wraparound jacket, and a wide sash with such exquisite stitching that
it should have been mounted on a wall rather than tied around her
waist.
The other servants had to help her into the clothing. She didn’t
miss the looks they shared behind her back. That Kyoshi had abused
the master’s favoritism—again.
But once the pieces were assembled, they melded to her body
like she’d been born to wear them. Each layer slid over the next with
ease, granting her full mobility. She didn’t ask anyone where the
clothes that fit her so well came from, not wanting to hear a snippy
answer like Oh, Jianzhu ripped them off the corpse of some fallen
giant he defeated.
And the serious nature of the task ahead made itself clear as she
finished dressing. The inside of the jacket was lined with finely
woven chainmail. Not thick enough to stop a spearpoint with a
person’s entire weight behind it, but strong enough to absorb a dart
or the slash of a hidden knife. The weight of the metal links on her
shoulders said to expect trouble.
 “Why are the four of us up here and not down there?” Kyoshi
said, pointing at the boat, where more preparations were
undoubtedly being made.
“I insisted,” Yun said. “Sifu wasn’t happy about it, but I told
him I needed time by myself.”
“To go over the plan?”
Yun looked off into the distance. “Sure.”
He’d been acting strange recently. But then again, he was a new
Avatar about to enact a decree in one of the most hostile settings
imaginable. Yun might have had all the talent and the best teachers
in the world, but he was still diving into the abyss headlong.
“Your master has good reason for his reluctance,” Kelsang said
to him. “At one point it was somewhat of a tradition for the Avatar
to travel extensively with his or her friends, without the supervision
of elders. But Hei-Ran, Jianzhu, and I . . . the three of us weren’t the
positive influences on Kuruk that we were supposed to be. Jianzhu
views that period of our youth as a great personal failing of his.”
“Sounds like a failing of Kuruk’s instead,” Kyoshi muttered.
“Don’t criticize Yun’s past life,” Rangi said, whacking her
shoulder with a mittened hand. “The Avatars tread paths of great
destiny. Every action they take is meaningful.”
They meaningfully passed another three dull, meaningful hours
in southward flight. It got colder, much colder. They pulled on
parkas and bundled themselves in quilts as they swooped over otter
penguins wriggling atop ever-growing chunks of floating ice. The
cry of antarctic birds could be heard on the wind.
“We’re here,” Kelsang said. He was the only one who hadn’t
put on extra layers; it was theorized around the mansion that
Airbenders were simply immune to the weather. “Hold on for the
descent.”
Their target was an iceberg almost as big as Yokoya itself. The
blue crag rose into the air as high as the hills of their earthbound
village. A small flat shelf ringed the formation, presumably giving
them a place to set up camp. Most of the far side was obscured by
the peak, but as they flew lower Kyoshi caught a glimpse of felt
tents dotting the opposite shoreline. The Fifth Nation delegation.
“I don’t see their fleet,” Rangi said.
 “Part of the terms were that the negotiating grounds be even,”
Yun said. “For her that meant no warships. For us that meant no
ground.”
The compromise didn’t feel even. The vast iceberg was one of
many, drifting in an ocean cold enough to kill in minutes. A dusting
of fresh snow gave every surface flat enough to stand on a coat of
alien whiteness.
Kyoshi knew that though the Southern Water Tribe had long
since disowned Tagaka’s entire family tree, she still came from a line
of Waterbenders. If there was ever a location to challenge an Earth
Avatar, it was here.
Kelsang landed Pengpeng on the frozen beach and hopped
down first. Then he helped the others off the huge bison, generating
a small bubble of air to cushion their fall. The little gesture stirred
unease in Kyoshi’s heart, the playful bounce like cracking jokes
before a funeral.
They watched Jianzhu’s ship come in. It was too large and
deep-keeled to run aground, and there wasn’t a natural harbor
formation in the ice, so the crew dropped anchor and lowered
themselves into longboats, making the final sliver of the journey in
the smaller craft. One of them reached the shore much faster than the
others.
Jianzhu stepped out of the lead boat, surveying the landing site
while straightening his furs, his eyes narrowed and nostrils flared as
if any potential treachery might have a giveaway smell to it. Hei-
Ran followed, treating the water carefully, as she was decked out in
her full panoply of battle armor. The third person on the longboat
was less familiar to Kyoshi.
“Sifu Amak,” Yun said, bowing to the man.
Master Amak was a strange, shadowy presence around the
compound. Ostensibly, he was a Waterbender from the north who
was patiently waiting his turn to teach the Avatar. But questions
about his past produced inconsistent answers. There was gossip
around the staff that the lanky, grim-faced Water Tribesman had
spent the last ten years far from his home, in the employ of a lesser
prince in Ba Sing Se who’d suddenly gone from eleventh in the line
of succession to the fourth. Amak’s silent nature and the web of
scars running around his arms and neck seemed like a warning not to
inquire further.
 And yet the Avatar had regular training sessions with him,
though Yun had told Kyoshi outright that he couldn’t waterbend yet
and wasn’t expected to. He would emerge from the practice grounds,
bloodied and mussed but with his smile blazing from new
knowledge.
“He’s my favorite teacher other than Sifu,” Yun had said once.
“He’s the only one who cares more about function than form.”
There must have been strategy at work with Amak’s
attendance. Instead of the blue tunic he wore around the complex,
they’d dressed him in a set of wide-sleeved robes, dark green in
Earth Kingdom style, and a conical hat that shaded his face. His
proud wolftail haircut had been shaved off, and he’d taken out his
bone piercings.
Amak took out a small medicine vial with a nozzle built into
the top. He tilted his head back and let the liquid contents drip
directly into his eyes. “Concentrated spidersnake extract,” Yun
whispered to Kyoshi. “It’s a secret formula and hideously
expensive.”
Amak caught Kyoshi staring at him and spoke to her for the
first time ever.
“Other than Tagaka herself, there are to be no Waterbenders
from either side at this negotiation,” he said in a voice so high-
pitched and musical it nearly startled her out of her boots. “So . . .”
He pressed a gloved finger to his lips and winked at her. The
iris of his open eye shifted from pale blue to a halfway green the
color of warmer coastal waters.
Kyoshi tried to shake the fuzz out of her head. She didn’t
belong here, so far from the earth, with dangerous people who wore
disguises like spirits and treated life-and-death situations as games to
be won. Crossing into the world of the Avatar had been exciting
back when she took her first steps inside the mansion. Now the
slightest wrong footing could destroy the fates of hundreds, maybe
thousands. After Yun told her last night about the mass kidnappings
along the coast, she hadn’t been able to sleep.
More boats full of armed men landed ashore. They lined up to
the left and right, spears at the ready, the tassels of their helmets
waving in the frigid breeze. The intent must have been to look strong
and organized in front of the pirate queen.
“She approaches,” Kelsang said.
 Tagaka chose a relatively undramatic entrance, appearing on
the edge of the iceberg as a faraway dot flanked by two others. She
plodded along a path that ran around the icy slope like a mountain
pass. She seemed to be in no hurry.
“I guess everyone dying of old age would count as achieving
peace,” Yun muttered.
They had enough time to relax and then straighten back up once
Tagaka reached them. Kyoshi stilled her face as much as possible
and laid the corner of her eyes upon the Bloody Flail of the Eastern
Sea.
Contrary to her reputation, the leader of the Fifth Nation was a
decidedly unremarkable middle-aged woman. Underneath her plain
hide clothing she had a laborer’s build, and her hair loops played up
her partial Water Tribe ancestry. Kyoshi looked for eyes burning
with hatred or a cruel sneer that promised unbound tortures, but
Tagaka could have easily passed for one of the disinterested southern
traders who occasionally visited Yokoya to unload fur scraps.
Except for her sword. Kyoshi had heard rumors about the
green-enameled jian strapped to Tagaka’s waist in a scabbard plated
with burial-quality jade. The sword had once belonged to the
admiral of Ba Sing Se, a position that was now unfilled and defunct
because of her. After her legendary duel with the last man to hold
the job, she’d kept the blade. It was less certain what she’d done
with the body.
Tagaka glanced at the twenty soldiers standing behind them and
then spent much longer squinting at Kyoshi, up and down. Each pass
of her gaze was like a spray of cold water icing over Kyoshi’s bodily
functions.
“I didn’t realize we were supposed to be bringing so much
muscle,” Tagaka said to Jianzhu. She looked behind her at the pair of
bodyguards carrying only bone clubs and then again at Kyoshi.
“That girl is a walking crow’s nest.”
Kyoshi could sense Jianzhu’s displeasure at the fact she’d
drawn attention. She knew he and Yun had fought over her presence.
She wanted to shrink into nothingness, hide from their adversary’s
gaze, but that would only make it worse. Instead she tried to borrow
the face Rangi normally used on the villagers. Cold, inscrutable
disdain.
Her attempt at looking tough was met with mixed reactions.
One of Tagaka’s escorts, a man with a stick-thin mustache in the
Earth Kingdom style, frowned at her and shifted his feet. But the
pirate queen herself remained unmoved.
“Where are my manners,” she said, giving Yun a perfunctory
bow. “It’s my honor to greet the Avatar in the flesh.”
“Tagaka, Marquess of the Eastern Sea,” Yun said, using her
self-styled title, “congratulations on your victory over the remnants
of the Fade-Red Devils.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You knew of that business?”
“Yachey Hong and his crew were a bunch of sadistic
murderers,” Yun said smoothly. “They had neither your wisdom nor
your . . . ambition. You did the world a great service by wiping them
out.”
“Ha!” She clapped once. “This one studies like Yangchen and
flatters like Kuruk. I look forward to our battle of wits tomorrow.
Shall we head to my camp? You must be hungry and tired.”
Tomorrow? Kyoshi thought. They weren’t going to wrap this up
quickly and leave? They were going to sleep here, vulnerable
throughout the night?
Apparently, that had been the plan all along. “Your hospitality
is much appreciated,” Jianzhu said. “Come, everybody.”

It was a very, very awkward dinner.

Tagaka had set up a luxurious camp, the centerpiece a yurt as
big as a house. The interior was lined with hung rugs and tapestries
of mismatching colors that both kept the cold out and served as
markers of how many tradeships she’d plundered. Stone lamps filled
with melted fat provided an abundance of light.
Low tables and seat cushions were arranged in the manner of a
grand feast. Yun held the place of honor, with Tagaka across from
him. She didn’t mind the rest of their table being filled out by the
Avatar’s inner circle. Jianzhu’s uniformed guardsmen rotated in and
out, trading sneers with the pirate queen’s motley assortment of
corsairs.
The Fifth Nation described themselves as an egalitarian outfit
that disregarded the boundaries between the elements. According to
the propaganda they sometimes left behind after a raid, no nation
was superior, and under the rule of their enlightened captain, any
adventurer or bender could join them in harmony, regardless of
origin.
In reality, the most successful pirate fleet in the world was
going to be nearly all sailors from the Water Tribes. And the food
reflected that. To Kyoshi, most of the meal tasted like blood, the
mineral saltiness too much for her. She did what she could to be
polite, and watched Yun eat in perfect alignment with Water Tribe
custom.
As Yun downed another tray of raw blubber with gusto, Tagaka
cheering him on, Kyoshi wanted to whisper in Rangi’s ear and ask if
they should be afraid of poison. Or the prospect of the dinner party
stabbing them in the back with their meat skewers. Anything that
reflected the hostilities that must have been bubbling under the
surface. Why were they being so friendly?
It became too much once they began setting up Pai Sho boards
for members of Tagaka’s crew who fancied themselves a match for
the young Avatar’s famous skills. Kyoshi nudged Rangi in the side
and tilted her chin at the merriment, widening her eyes for emphasis.
Rangi knew exactly what she was asking. While everyone’s
attention focused on Yun playing three opponents at once, she
pointed with her toe at two men and two women who had silently
entered the tent after the party had finished eating, to clean up the
plates.
They were Earth Kingdom citizens. Instead of the pirates’
mismatched riot of pilfered clothing, they wore plain peasant’s garb.
And though they weren’t chained or restrained, they carried out their
duties in a hunched and clumsy fashion. Like people fearing for their
lives.
The stolen villagers. Yun and Rangi had undoubtedly spotted
them earlier. Kyoshi cursed herself for treating them as invisible
when she knew what it was like to move unnoticed among the
people she served. The entire time, Yun had been putting on a false
smile while Tagaka paraded her true spoils of war in front of him.
Rangi found her trembling hand and gave it a quick squeeze,
sending a pulse of reassuring warmth over her skin. Stay strong.
They watched Yun demolish his opponents in three different
ways, simultaneously. The first he blitzed down, the second he’d
forced into a no-win situation, and the third he’d lured into a trap so
diabolical that the hapless pirate thought he was winning the whole
time until the last five moves.
 The audience roared when Yun finished his last victim off.
Coins clinked as wagers traded hands, and the challengers received
slaps and jeers from their comrades.
Tagaka laughed and threw back another shot of strong wine.
“Tell me, Avatar. Are you enjoying yourself?”
“I’ve been to many places around the world,” Yun said. “And
your hospitality has been unmatched.”
“I’m so glad,” she said, reaching for more drink. “I was
convinced you were planning to kill me before the night was
through.”
The atmosphere of the gathering went from full speed to a dead
stop. Tagaka’s men seemed as surprised as Jianzhu’s. The mass
stillness that ran through the party nearly created its own sound. The
tensing of neck muscles. Hairs raising on end.
Kyoshi tried to glance at Master Amak without making it
obvious. The hardened Waterbender was sitting away from the main
group, peering soberly at Tagaka over the edge of his unused wine
cup. The floor was covered in skins and rugs, but underneath was a
whole island of weaponry at his disposal. Instead of freezing up like
everyone else, Kyoshi could see his shoulders relaxing, loosening,
readying for a sudden surge of violence.
She thought Jianzhu might say something, take over for Yun
now that the theatrics were off course, but he did nothing. Jianzhu
calmly watched Yun stack the Pai Sho tiles between his fingers, as if
the only thing he cared about was making sure his student displayed
good manners by cleaning up after a finished game.
“Mistress Tagaka,” Yun said. “If this is about the size of my
contingent, I assure you I meant no harm or insult. The soldiers who
came with me are merely an honor guard. I didn’t want to bring
them, but they were so excited about the chance to witness you make
history with the Avatar.”
“I’m not concerned about a bunch of flunkies with spears, boy,”
Tagaka said. Her voice had turned lower. The time for flattery was
over. “I’m talking about those three.”
She pointed, her fingers forming a trident. Not at Amak or any
of the armored Earth Kingdom soldiers, but at Jianzhu, Hei-Ran, and
Kelsang.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Yun said. “Surely you know of
my bending masters. The famed companions of Kuruk.”
 “Yes, I know of them. And I know what it means when the
Gravedigger of Zhulu Pass darkens my tent in person.”
Now Yun was confused for real. His easy smile faded, and his
head tilted toward his shoulder. Kyoshi had heard of various battles
and locations associated with Jianzhu’s name, and Zhulu Pass was
one of many, not a standout in a long list. He was a great hero of the
Earth Kingdom after all, one of its leading sages.
“Are you referring to the story of how my esteemed mentor
piously interred the bodies of villagers he found cut down by rebels,
giving them their final rest and dignity?” Yun said. The game tiles
clacked together in his palm.
Tagaka shook her head. “I’m referring to five thousand Yellow
Necks, buried alive, the rest terrorized into submission. The entire
uprising crushed by one man. Your ‘esteemed mentor.’”
She turned to Jianzhu. “I’m curious. Do their spirits haunt you
when you sleep? Or did you plant them deep enough that the earth
muffles their screams?”
There was a hollow thunk as one of the game pieces slipped out
of Yun’s grasp and bounced off the board. He’d never heard of this.
Kyoshi had never heard of this.
Now that he was being addressed directly, Jianzhu deemed it
proper to speak up. “Respectfully, I fear that rumors from the Earth
Kingdom interior tend to grow wilder the closer they get to the
South Pole. Many tales of my past exploits are pure exaggerations
by now.”
“Respectfully, I gained my position through knowing facts
beyond what you think a typical blue-eyed southern rustic should
know,” Tagaka snapped. “For example, I know who holds the Royal
Academy record for the most ‘accidental’ kills during Agni Kais,
Madam Headmistress.”
If Hei-Ran was offended by the accusation, she didn’t show it.
Instead Rangi looked like she was going to leap on Tagaka and cook
the woman’s head off her shoulders. Kyoshi instinctively reached
out to her and got her hand swatted away for the trouble.
“And Master Kelsang,” Tagaka said. “Listen, young Avatar.
Have you ever wondered why my fleets stay cooped up in the
Eastern Sea, where the pickings are slim, engaged in costly battles
for territory with other crews? It’s solely because of that man right
there.”
 Of the three masters, only Kelsang looked afraid of what
Tagaka might reveal. Afraid and ashamed. Kyoshi already wanted to
defend him from whatever charges the pirate might levy. Kelsang
was hers more than anyone else’s.
“My father used to call him the Living Typhoon,” Tagaka said.
“We criminal types have a fondness for theatrical nicknames, but in
this case, the billing was correct. Grandad once took the family and
a splinter fleet westward, around the southern tip of the Earth
Kingdom. The threat they presented must have been great indeed,
because Master Kelsang, then a young man in the height of his
power, rode out on his bison and summoned a storm to turn them
back.
“Sounds like a perfect solution to a naval threat without any
bloodshed, eh?” she said. “But have any of you pulled a shivered
timber the size of a jian from your thigh? Or been thrown into the
sea and then tried to keep your head above a thirty-foot wave?”
Tagaka drank in the Airbender’s discomfort and smiled. “I
should thank you, Master Kelsang. I lost several uncles on that
expedition. You saved me from a gruesome succession battle. But
the fear of a repeat performance kept the Fifth Nation and other
crews bottled up in the Eastern Sea, my father’s entire generation
terrified of a single Air Nomad. They thought Kelsang was watching
them from the peaks of the Southern Air Temple. Patrolling the skies
above their heads.”
Kyoshi looked at Kelsang, who was hunched in agony. Were
you? she thought. Is that where you went between stays in Yokoya?
You were hunting pirates?
“A lesson from your airbending master,” Tagaka said to Yun.
“The most effective threat is only performed once. So you can
imagine my distress when I saw you bring this . . . this collection of
butchers to our peace treaty signing. I thought for certain it meant
violence was in our future.”
Yun hummed, pretending to be lost in thought. The Pai Sho tile
that he’d fumbled was now flipping over his knuckles, back and
forth across his hand. He was in control again.
“Mistress Tagaka,” he said. “You have nothing to fear from my
masters. And if we’re giving credence to gruesome reputations, I
believe I would have equal cause for concern.”
“Yes,” Tagaka said, staring him down, her fingers lying on the
hilt of her sword. “You absolutely do.”
 The mission hinged there, on the eye contact between Yun and
the undisputed lord of the Eastern Sea. Tagaka might have been
looking at the Avatar, but Kyoshi could only see her friend, young
and vulnerable and literally out of his element.
Whatever Tagaka was searching for inside Yun’s head, she
found it. She backed off and smiled.
“You know, it’s bad luck to undertake an important ceremony
with blood on your spirit,” she said. “I purified myself of my past
crimes with sweat and ice before you arrived, but with the stain of so
much death still hanging over your side, I suddenly feel the need to
do it again before tomorrow morning. You may stay here as long as
you’d like.”
Tagaka snapped her fingers, and her men filed out of the tent, as
unquestioningly as if she’d bent them away. The Earth Kingdom
captives went last, ducking through the exit flaps without so much as
a glance behind them. The act seemed like a planned insult by
Tagaka, designed to say they’re more afraid of me than they’re
hopeful of you.
Jianzhu swung his hands together. “You did well for—”
“Is it true?” Yun snapped.
Kyoshi had never heard Yun interrupt his master before, and
from the twinge in his brow, neither had Jianzhu. The earth sage
sighed in a manner that warned the others not to speak. This matter
was between him and his disciple. “Is what true?”
“Five thousand? You buried five thousand people alive?”
“That’s an overstatement made by a criminal.”
“Then what’s the truth?” Yun said. “It was only five hundred?
One hundred? What’s the number that makes it justified?”
Jianzhu laughed silently, a halting shift of his chest. “The truth?
The truth is that the Yellow Necks were scum of the lowest order
who thought they could plunder, murder, and destroy with impunity.
They saw nothing, no future beyond the points of their swords. They
believed they could hurt people with no repercussions.”
He slammed his finger down onto the center of the Pai Sho
board.
“I visited consequences upon them,” Jianzhu said. “Because
that’s what justice is. Nothing but the proper consequences. I made it
clear that whatever horrors they inflicted would come back to haunt
them, no more, no less. And guess what? It worked. The remnants of
the daofei that escaped me dispersed into the countryside because at
last they knew there would be consequences if they continued down
their outlaw path.”
Jianzhu glanced at the exit, in the direction Tagaka had gone.
“Perhaps the reason you’ve never heard about this from decent
citizens of the Earth Kingdom is because they see it the same way I
do. A criminal like her watches justice being done and bewails the
lack of forgiveness, conveniently forgetting about what they did in
the first place to deserve punishment.”
Yun looked like he had trouble breathing. Kyoshi wanted to go
to his side, but Jianzhu’s spell had frozen the air inside the tent,
immobilizing her.
“Yun,” Kelsang said. “You don’t understand the times back
then. We did what we had to do, to save lives and maintain balance.
We had to act without an Avatar.”
Yun steadied himself. “How fortunate for you all,” he said, his
voice a hollow deadpan. “Now you can shift the burden of ending so
many lives onto me. I’ll try to follow the examples my teachers have
set.”
“Enough!” Jianzhu roared. “You’ve allowed yourself to be
rattled by the baseless accusations of a pirate! The rest of you get
out. I need to speak to the Avatar, alone.”
Rangi stormed out the fastest. Hei-Ran watched her go. Maybe
it was because they used the same tight-lipped expression to hide
their emotions, but Kyoshi could tell she wanted to chase her
daughter. Instead Hei-Ran walked stiffly out the opposite side of the
tent.
When Kyoshi looked back, Kelsang had vanished. Only the
trailing swish of an orange hem under a curtain betrayed which way
he’d gone. She gave a quick bow to Jianzhu and Yun, avoiding eye
contact, and ran after the Airbender.
She found Kelsang a dozen paces away, alone, sitting on a stool
that had presumably been abandoned by one of Tagaka’s guards. The
legs had sunk deep into the snow under his weight. He shivered, but
not from the cold.
“You know, after Kuruk died, I thought my failure to set him on
the right path was my last and greatest mistake,” he said quietly to
the icy ground in front of his toes. “It turned out I wasn’t finished
disgracing myself.”
Kyoshi knew, in an academic sense, that Air Nomads held all
life sacred. They were utmost pacifists who considered no one their
enemy, no criminal beyond forgiveness and redemption. But surely
exceptional circumstances allowed for those convictions to be put on
hold. Surely Kelsang could be forgiven for saving entire towns along
the coasts of the western seas.
The strain in his voice said otherwise.
“I never told you how far I fell within the Southern Air Temple
as a result of that day.” Kelsang tried to force a smile through his
pain, but it slipped out of his control, turning into a fractured, tearful
mess. “I violated my beliefs as an Airbender. I let my teachers down.
I let my entire people down.”
Kyoshi was suddenly furious on his behalf, though she didn’t
know at whom. At the whole world, perhaps, for allowing its
darkness to infect such a good man and make him hate himself. She
threw her arms around Kelsang and hugged him as tightly as she
could.
“You’ve never let me down,” she said in a gruff bark. “Do you
hear me? Never.”
Kelsang put up with her attempt to crush his shoulder blades
through the force of sheer affection and rocked slightly in her
embrace, patting at her clasped hands. Kyoshi only let go when the
sound of a plate shattering pierced the stillness of the night.
Their gazes snapped toward the crash. It had come from the
tent. Yun and Jianzhu were still inside.
Kelsang stood up, his own troubles forgotten. He looked
worried. “Best if you head back to camp,” he said to Kyoshi. The
muffled sound of arguing grew louder through the felt walls.
“Are they all right?”
“I’ll check. But please, go. Now.” Kelsang hurried to the tent
and ducked through the curtain. She could hear the commotion stop
as soon as he re-entered, but the silence was more ominous than the
noise.
Kyoshi paused there, wondering what to do, before deciding
she’d better obey Kelsang. She didn’t want to overhear Yun and
Jianzhu have it out.
 As she fled, the moonlight cast long, flickering shadows, making
Kyoshi feel like a puppeteer on a blank white stage. Her hurried exit
took her too far in the wrong direction, and she found herself among
the outskirts of the pirate camp, near the ice cliff.
She slammed against the frozen wall, trying to flatten herself
out of sight. Tagaka’s crew was in the midst of retiring for the night,
kicking snow over dying campfires and fastening their tents closed
from the inside. They had guardsmen posted at regular intervals
looking in different directions. Kyoshi had no idea how she’d come
so close without being noticed.
She edged as quietly as she could back the way she came,
around the corner, and bumped into the missing sentry. He was one
of the two pirates who’d accompanied Tagaka to greet them. The
man with the mustache. He peered up at her face like he was trying
to get the best view of her nostrils.
“Say,” he said, a rank cloud of alcohol fumes wafting out of his
mouth. “Do I know you?”
She shook her head and made to keep going, but he stuck his
arm out, blocking her path as he leaned against the ice.
“It’s just that you look very familiar,” he said with a leer.
Kyoshi shuddered. There was always a certain kind of man who
thought her particular dimensions made her a public good, an oddity
they were free to gawk at, prod, or worse. Often they assumed she
should be grateful for the attention. That they were special and
powerful for giving it to her.
“I used to be a landlubber,” the man said, launching into a bout
of drunken self-absorption. “Did business with a group called the
Flying . . . Something Society. The Flying Something or others. The
leader was a woman who looked a lot like you. Pretty face, just like
yours. Legs . . . nearly as long. She could have been your sister. You
ever been to Chameleon Bay, sweet thing? Stay under Madam Qiji’s
roof?”
The man pulled the cork from a gourd and took a few more
swigs of wine. “I had it bad for that girl,” he said, wiping his mouth
on his sleeve. “She had the most fascinating serpent tattoos going
around her arms, but she never let me see how far they went. What
about you, honey tree? Got any ink on your body that you want to
show meeeaggh!”
 Kyoshi picked him up by the neck with one hand and slammed
him into the cliffside.
His feet dangled off the ground. She squeezed until she saw his
eyes bulge in different directions.
“You are mistaken,” she said without raising her voice. “Do
you hear me? You are mistaken, and you have never seen me, or
anyone else who looks like me before. Tell me so.”
She let him have enough air to speak. “You crazy piece of—I’ll
kill—aaagh!”
Kyoshi pressed him harder into the wall. The ice cracked
behind his skull. “That’s not what I asked you.”
Her fingers stifled his cry, preventing him from alerting the
others. “I made a mistake!” he gasped. “I was wrong!”
She dropped him on the ground. The back of his coat snagged
and tore on the ice. He keeled over to his side, trying to force air
back into his lungs.
Kyoshi watched him writhe at her feet. After thinking it over,
she yanked the gourd full of wine off his neck, snapping the string,
and poured the contents out until it was empty. The liquid splashed
the man’s face, and he flinched.
“I’m holding on to this in case you change your mind yet
again,” she said, waggling the empty container. “I’ve heard about
Tagaka’s disciplinary methods, and I don’t think she’d approve of
drinking on guard duty.”
The man groaned and covered his head with his arms.

Kyoshi collapsed facedown outside her tent. Her forehead lay on

the ice. It felt good, cooling. The encounter had sapped her of
energy, left her unable to take the last few steps to her bunk. So
close, and yet so far.
She didn’t know what had come over her. What she’d done was
so stupid it boggled the mind. If word got back to Jianzhu somehow
...
A bright light appeared over her head. She twisted her neck
upward to see Rangi holding up a self-generated torch. A small
flame danced above her long fingers.
 Rangi looked down at her and then at the liquor gourd still in
her hand. She sniffed the night air. “Kyoshi, have you been
drinking?”
It seemed easier to lie. “Yes?”
With great difficulty, Rangi dragged her inside by the arms. It
was warmer in the tent, the difference between a winter’s night and
an afternoon in spring. Kyoshi could feel the stiffness leaving her
limbs, her head losing the ponderous echo it seemed to have before.
Rangi yanked pieces of the battle outfit off her like she was
stripping down a broken wagon. “You can’t sleep in that getup.
Especially not the armor.”
She’d taken her own gear off and was only wearing a thin
cotton shift that exposed her arms and legs. Her streamlined figure
belied the solidness of her muscles. Kyoshi caught herself gawking,
having never seen her friend out of uniform before. It was hard for
her to comprehend that the spiky bits weren’t a natural part of
Rangi’s body.
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping with Yun?” Kyoshi said.
Rangi’s head turned so fast she almost snapped her own neck.
“You know what I mean,” Kyoshi said.
The redness faded from Rangi’s ears as quickly as it came.
“The Avatar and Master Jianzhu are reviewing strategy. Master
Amak only ever sleeps in ten-minute intervals throughout the day, so
he and the most experienced guardsmen will keep watch. The order
is that everyone else should be well-rested for tomorrow.”
They settled beneath their furs. Kyoshi already knew that she
wouldn’t be able to sleep as she’d been told. Her former life on the
street in conjunction with her privileged place in the mansion these
days meant that, improbably, she’d never had a roommate before.
She was acutely aware of Rangi’s little movements right next to her,
the air rising in and out of the Firebender’s chest.
“I don’t think they did anything wrong,” Kyoshi said as she
stared at the underside of their tent.
Rangi didn’t respond.
“I heard from Auntie Mui about what Xu and the Yellow Necks
did to unarmed men, women, and children. If half of that is true,
then Jianzhu went too easy on them. They deserved worse.”
 The moonlight came through the seams of the tent, making
stars out of stitch holes.
She should have stopped there, but Kyoshi’s certainty buoyed
her along past the point where it was safe to venture. “And accidents
are accidents,” she said. “I’m sure your mother never meant to harm
anyone.”
Two strong hands grabbed the lapels of her robe. Rangi yanked
her over onto her side so that they were facing each other.
“Kyoshi,” she said hoarsely, her eyes flaring with pain. “One of
those opponents was her cousin. A rival candidate for headmistress.”
Rangi gave her a hard, jostling shake. “Not a pirate, or an
outlaw,” she said. “Her cousin. The school cleared her honor, but the
rumors followed me at school for years. People whispering around
corners that my mother was—was an assassin.”
She spit the word out like it was the most vile curse imaginable.
Given Rangi’s profession as a bodyguard, it likely was. She buried
her face into Kyoshi’s chest, gripping her tightly, as if to scrub the
memory away.
Kyoshi wanted to punch herself for being so careless. She
cautiously draped an arm over Rangi’s shoulder. The Firebender
nestled under it and relaxed, though she still made a series of sharp
little inhalations through her nose. Kyoshi didn’t know if that was
her way of crying or calming herself with a breathing exercise.
Rangi shifted, pressing closer to Kyoshi’s body, rubbing the
soft bouquet of her hair against Kyoshi’s lips. The startling contact
felt like a transgression, the mistake of a girl exhausted and drowsy.
The more noble Fire Nation families, like the one Rangi descended
from, would never let just anyone touch their hair like this.
The faint, flowery scent that filled Kyoshi’s lungs made her
head swim and her pulse quicken. Kyoshi kept still like it was her
life’s calling, unwilling to make any motion that might disturb her
friend’s fitful slumber.
Eventually Rangi fell into a deep sleep, radiating warmth like a
little glowing coal in the hearth. Kyoshi realized that comforting her
throughout the night was both an honor and a torture she wouldn’t
have traded for anything in the world.
Kyoshi closed her eyes. She did her best to ignore the pain of
her arm losing circulation and her heart falling into a pile of ribbons.
 They survived the night. There had been no sneak attack, no
sudden chaos outside the tent, as she’d feared.
Kyoshi couldn’t have slept more than an hour or two, but she’d
never felt more alert and on edge in her life. When they breakfasted
in their own camp at the base of the iceberg, she declined the
overbrewed tea. Her teeth were already knocking together as it was.
She looked for signs of trouble between Yun and Jianzhu,
Rangi and Hei-Ran, but couldn’t find any. She never understood
how they managed to wound each other and then forgive each other
so quickly. Wrongs meant something, even if they were inflicted by
your family. Especially if it was family.
Kelsang stayed close by her during the preparations. But his
presence only created more turbulence in her heart. Any minute now
they were going to walk up that hill and watch Yun sign a treaty
backed by the power vested in the Avatar.
It’s not me, Kyoshi thought to herself. Kelsang admitted there
was hardly a chance. A chance is not the same thing as the truth.
Jianzhu signaled it was time to go and spoke a few words, but
Kyoshi didn’t hear them.
He’s jumping to conclusions because Jianzhu sidelined him. He
wants to be a bigger part of the Avatar’s life. Any Avatar’s life. And
I’m the closest thing to a daughter he has.
She had to admit the line of reasoning was a little self-
important of her. But much less so than, say, being the Avatar. It
made sense. Kelsang was human, prone to mistakes. The thought
comforted her all the way to the top of the iceberg.
The peak came to a natural plateau large enough to hold the key
members of both delegations. For Yun’s side, that meant Jianzhu,
Hei-Ran, Kelsang, Rangi, Amak, and—despite the foolishness it
implied—Kyoshi. Tagaka again deigned to come with only a pair of
escorts. The mustached man was not part of her guard this time,
thankfully. But one of the Earth Kingdom hostages, a young woman
who had the sunburned mien of a fishwife, accompanied the pirates.
She silently carried a baggage pack on her shoulders and stared at
the ground like her past and future were written on it.
The two sides faced each other over the flat surface. They were
high enough up to overlook the smaller icebergs that drifted near
their frozen mountain.
 “I figured we’d use the traditional setting for such matters,”
Tagaka said. “So please bear with me for a moment.”
The pirate queen wedged her feet in the snow and took a
shouting breath. Her arms moved fluidly in the form of
waterbending, but nothing happened.
“Hold on,” she said.
She tried again, waving her limbs with more speed and more
strain. A circle rose haltingly out of the ice, the size of a table. It was
very slow going.
Kyoshi thought she heard a scoff come from Master Amak, but
it could have been the creak of two smaller ice lumps sprouting on
opposite sides of the table. Tagaka struggled mightily until they were
tall enough to sit on.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” she said, out of breath. “I’m not
exactly the bender my father and grandfather were.”
The Earth Kingdom woman opened her pack and quickly laid
out a cloth over the table and cushions on the seats. With quick,
delicate motions, she set up a slab inkstone, two brushes, and a tiny
pitcher of water.
Kyoshi’s gut roiled as she watched the woman meticulously
grind an inkstick against the stone. She was using the Pianhai
method, a ceremonial calligraphy setup that took a great deal of
formal training and commoners normally never learned. Kyoshi only
knew what it was from her proximity to Yun. Did Tagaka beat the
process into her? she thought. Or did she steal her away from a
literature school in one of the larger cities?
Once she had made enough ink, the woman stepped back
without a word. Tagaka and Yun sat down, each spreading a scroll
across the ice table that contained the written terms that had been
agreed upon so far. They spent an exhaustive amount of time
checking that the copies matched, that phrasing was polite enough.
Both Yun and the pirate queen had an eye for small details, and
neither of them wanted to lose the first battle.
“I object to your description of yourself as the Waterborne
Guardian of the South Pole,” Yun said during one of the more heated
exchanges.
“Why?” Tagaka said. “It’s true. My warships are a buffer. I’m
the only force keeping a hostile navy from sailing up to the shores of
the Southern Water Tribe.”
 “The Southern Water Tribe hates you,” Yun said, rather bluntly.
“Yes, well, politics are complicated,” Tagaka said. “I’ll edit that
to ‘Self-Appointed Guardian of the South Pole.’ I haven’t abandoned
my people, even if they’ve turned their backs on me.”
And on it went. After Tagaka’s guards had begun to yawn
openly, they leaned back from the scrolls. “Everything seems to be
in order,” Yun said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to proceed
straightaway to the next stage. Verbal amendments.”
Tagaka smirked. “Ooh, the real fun stuff.”
“On the matter of the hostages from the southern coast of
Zeizhou Province as can be reasonably defined through proximity to
Tu Zin, taken from their homes sometime between the vernal
equinox and the summer solstice . . .” Yun said. He paused.
Kyoshi knew this was going to be hard on him. Rangi had
explained the basics of how people were typically ransomed. At best
Yun could free half of the captives by sacrificing the rest, letting
Tagaka save face and retain leverage. He had to think of their lives
in clinical terms. A higher percentage was better. His only goal. He
would be a savior to some and doom the rest.
“I want them back,” Yun said. “All of them.”
“Avatar!” Jianzhu snapped. The Earthbender was furious. This
was obviously not what they’d talked about beforehand.
Yun raised his hand, showing the back of it to his master.
Kyoshi could have sworn Yun was enjoying himself right now.
“I want every single man, woman, and child back,” Yun said.
“If you’ve sold them to other pirate crews, I want your dedicated
assistance in finding them. If any have died under your care, I want
their remains so their families can give them a proper burial. We can
talk about the compensation you’ll pay later.”
The masters, save for Kelsang, looked displeased. To them,
these were the actions of a petulant child who didn’t understand how
the world worked.
But Kyoshi had never loved her Avatar more. This was what
Yun had wanted her to see when he’d begged her to come along. Her
friend, standing up for what was right. Her heart was ready to burst.
Tagaka leaned back on her ice stool. “Sure.”
Yun blinked, his moment of glory and defiance yanked out
from under him prematurely. “You agree?”
 “I agree,” Tagaka said. “You can have all of the captives back.
They’re free. Every single one.”
A sob rang out in the air. It was the Earth Kingdom woman.
Her stoic resolve broke, and she collapsed to her hands and knees,
weeping loudly and openly. Neither Tagaka nor her men
reprimanded her.
Yun didn’t look at the woman, out of fear he might ruin her
salvation with the wrong move. He waited for Tagaka to make a
demand in return. He wasn’t going to raise the price on her behalf.
“The captives are useless to me anyway,” she said. She stared
out to sea at the smaller icebergs surrounding them. Despite her
earlier patience, she sounded incredibly bored all of a sudden. “Out
of a thousand people or more, not one was a passable carpenter. I
should have known better. I needed to go after people who live
among tall trees, not driftwood.”
Yun frowned. “You want . . . carpenters?” he said cautiously.
She glanced at him, as if she were surprised he was still there.
“Boy, let me teach you a little fact about the pirate trade. Our power
is measured in ships. We need timber and craftsmen who know how
to work it. Building a proper navy is a generational effort. My
peaceable cousins in the South Pole have a few heirloom sailing
cutters but otherwise have to make do with seal-skin canoes. They’ll
never create a large, long-range war fleet because they simply don’t
have the trees.”
Tagaka turned and loomed over the table. “So, yes,” she said,
fixing him with her gaze. “I want carpenters and trees and a port of
my own to dock in so I can increase the size of my forces. And I
know just where to get those things.”
“Yokoya!” Yun shouted, a realization and an alert to the others,
in a single word.
Tagaka raised her hand and made the slightest chopping motion
with her fingers. Kyoshi heard a wet crunch and a gurgle of surprise.
She looked around for the source of the strange noise.
It was Master Amak. He was bent backward over a stalagmite
of ice, the bloody tip sprouting from his chest like a hideous stalk of
grain. He stared at it, astonished, and slumped to the side.
“Come now,” Tagaka said. “You think I can’t recognize kinfolk
under a disguise?”
 The moments seemed to slowly stack up on each other like a
tower of raw stones, each event in sequence piling higher and higher
with no mortar to hold them together. A structure that was unstable,
dreadful, headed toward a total and imminent collapse.
The sudden movement of Tagaka’s two escorts drew everyone’s
attention. But the two men only grabbed the Earth Kingdom woman
by the arms and jumped back down the slope the way they’d come,
dodging the blast of fire that Rangi managed to get off. They were
the distraction.
Pairs of hands burst from the surface of the ice, clutching at the
ankles of everyone on Yun’s side. Waterbenders had been lying in
wait below them the whole time. Rangi, Jianzhu, and Hei-Ran were
dragged under the ice like they’d fallen through the crust of a frozen
lake during the spring melt.
Kyoshi’s arms shot out, and she managed to arrest herself
chest-high on the surface. Her would-be captor hadn’t made her
tunnel large enough. Kelsang leaped into the air, avoiding the
clutches of his underground assailant with an Airbender’s reflexes,
and deployed the wings of his glider-staff.
Tagaka drew her jian and swung it on the downstroke at Yun’s
neck. But the Avatar didn’t flinch. Almost too fast for Kyoshi to see,
he slammed his fist into the only source of earth near them, the stone
inkslab. It shattered into fragments and reformed as a glove around
his hand. He caught Tagaka’s blade as it made contact with his skin.
Kyoshi stamped down hard with her boot and felt a sickening
crunch. Her foot stuck there as the bender whose face she’d broken
refroze the water, imprisoning her lower half. Above the ice, Kyoshi
had the perfect view of the Avatar and the pirate queen locked
together in mortal knot.
They both looked happy that the charade was over. A trickle of
Yun’s blood dripped off the edge of the blade.
“Another thing you should know,” Tagaka said as she traded
grins with Yun, their muscles trembling with exertion. “I’m really
not the Waterbender my father was.”
With her free hand she made a series of motions so fluid and
complex that Kyoshi thought her fingers had telescoped to twice
their length. A series of earsplitting cracks echoed around them.
 There was a roar of ice and snow rushing into the sea. The
smaller icebergs split and calved, revealing massive hollow spaces
inside. As the chunks of ice drifted apart at Tagaka’s command, the
prows of Fifth Nation warships began to poke out, like the beaks of
monstrous birds hatching from their eggshells.
Yun lost his balance at the sight and fell to the ground onto his
back. Tagaka quickly blanketed him in ice, taking care to cover his
stone-gloved hand. “What is this?” he yelled up at her.
She wiped his blood off her sword with the crook of her elbow
and resheathed it. “A backup plan? A head start on our way to
Yokoya? A chance to show off? I’ve been pretending to be a weak
bender for so long, I couldn’t resist being a little overdramatic.”
Waterbenders aboard the ships were already stilling the waves
caused by the ice avalanches and driving their vessels forward.
Other crew members scrambled among the masts like insects,
unfurling sails. They were pointed westward, toward home, where
they would drive into fresh territories of the Earth Kingdom like a
knife into an unprotected belly.
“Stop the ships!” Yun screamed into the sky. “Not me! The
ships!” That was all he could get out before Tagaka covered his head
completely in ice.
Kyoshi didn’t know whom he was talking to at first, thought
that in his desperation he was pleading with a spirit. But a low rush
of air reminded her that someone was still free. Kelsang pulled up on
his glider and beelined toward the flagship.
“Not today, monk,” Tagaka said. She lashed out with her arms,
and a spray of icicles no bigger than sewing needles shot toward
Kelsang.
It was a fiendishly brilliant attack. The Airbender could have
easily dodged larger missiles, but Tagaka’s projectiles were an
enveloping storm. The delicate wings of his glider disintegrated, and
he plunged toward the sea.
There was no time to panic for Kelsang. Tagaka levitated the
chunk of ice Yun was buried in, threw it over the side of the iceberg
toward her camp, and leaped down after him.
Kyoshi grit her teeth and pushed on the ice as hard as she
could. Her shoulders strained against her robes, both threatening to
tear. The ice gripping her legs cracked and gave way, but not before
shredding the parts of her skin not covered by her skirts. She lifted
herself free and stumbled after Tagaka.
She was lucky Yun’s prison had carved out a smooth path.
Without it, she would have undoubtedly bashed her skull in,
tumbling over the rough protrusions of ice. Kyoshi managed to slide
down to the pirate camp, her wounds leaving a bloody trail on the
slope behind her.
Tagaka’s men were busy loading their camp and themselves
into longboats. An elegant cutter, one of the Water Tribe heirlooms
she’d mentioned, waited for them off the coast of the iceberg. Only a
few of the other pirates noticed Kyoshi. They started to pick up
weapons, but Tagaka waved them off. Packing up was more of a
priority than dealing with her.
“Give him back,” Kyoshi gasped.
Tagaka put a boot on the ice encasing Yun and leaned on her
knee. “The colossus speaks,” she said, smiling.
“Give him back. Now.” She meant to sound angry and
desperate, but instead she came across as pitiful and hopeless as she
felt inside. She wasn’t sure if Yun could breathe in there.
“Eh,” Tagaka said. “I saw what I needed to see in the boy’s
eyes. He’s worth more as a hostage than an Avatar, trust me.” She
shoved Yun off to the side with her foot, and the bile surged in
Kyoshi’s throat at the disrespectful gesture.
“But you, on the other hand,” Tagaka said. “You’re a puzzle. I
know you’re not a fighter right now, that much is obvious. But I like
your potential. I can’t decide whether I should kill you now, to be
safe, or take you with me.”
She took a step closer. “Kyoshi, was it? How would you like a
taste of true freedom? To go where you want and take what you’re
owed? Trust me, it’s a better life than whatever dirt-scratch existence
you have on land.”
Kyoshi knew her answer. It was the same one she would have
given as a starving seven-year-old child.
“I would never become a daofei,” Kyoshi said, trying as hard as
possible to turn the word into a curse. “Pretending to be a leader and
an important person when you’re nothing but a murderous slaver.
You’re the lowest form of life I know.”
 Tagaka frowned and drew her sword. The metal hissed against
the scabbard. She wanted Kyoshi to feel cold death sliding between
her ribs, instead of being snuffed out quickly by water.
Kyoshi stood her ground. “Give me the Avatar,” she repeated.
“Or I will put you down like the beast you are.”
Tagaka spread her arms wide, telling her to look around them at
the field of ice they were standing on. “With what, little girl from the
Earth Kingdom?” she asked. “With what?”
It was a good question. One that Kyoshi knew she couldn’t
have answered herself. But she was suddenly gripped with the
overwhelming sensation that right now, in her time of desperate
need, her voice wouldn’t be alone.
Her hands felt guided. She didn’t fully understand, nor was she
completely in control. But she trusted.
Kyoshi braced her stomach, filled her lungs, and slammed her
feet into the Crowding Bridge stance. Echoes of power rippled from
her movement, hundredfold iterations of herself stamping on the ice.
She was somehow both leading and being led by an army of
benders.
A column of gray-stone seafloor exploded up from the surface
of the ocean. It caught the hull of Tagaka’s cutter and listed the ship
to the side, tearing wooden planks off the frame as easily as paper
off a kite.
A wave of displaced water swept over the iceberg, knocking
pirates off their feet and smashing crates to splinters. Out of self-
preservation, Tagaka reflexively raised a waist-high wall of ice,
damming and diverting the surge. But the barrier protected Kyoshi
as well, giving her time to attack again. She leaped straight into the
air and landed with her fists on the ice.
Farther out, the sea boiled. Screams came from the lead
warships as more crags of basalt rose in their path. The bowsprits of
the vessels that couldn’t turn in time snapped like twigs. The groan
of timber shattering against rock filled the air, as hideous as a chorus
of wounded animals.
Kyoshi dropped to her knees, panting and heaving. She’d meant
to keep going, to bring the earth close enough to defend herself, but
the effort had immediately sapped her to the point where she could
barely raise her head.
 Tagaka turned around. Her face, so controlled over the past two
days, spasmed in every direction.
“What in the name of the spirits?” she whispered as she flipped
her jian over for a downward stab. The speed at which Tagaka
moved to kill her made it clear that she’d be fine living without an
answer.
“Kyoshi! Stay low!”
Kyoshi instinctively obeyed Rangi’s voice and flattened herself
out. She heard and felt the scorch of a fire blast travel over her,
knocking Tagaka away.
With a mighty roar, Pengpeng strafed the iceberg, Rangi and
Hei-Ran blasting flame from the bison’s left and right, scattering the
pirates as they attempted to regroup. Jianzhu handled Pengpeng’s
reins with the skill of an Air Nomad, spinning her around for
perfectly aimed tail shots of wind that drove away clouds of arrows
and thrown spears. Kyoshi had no idea how they’d escaped the ice,
but if any three people had the power and resourcefulness to pull it
off, it was them.
The fight wasn’t over. Some of Tagaka’s fleet had made it past
Kyoshi’s obstacles. And from the nearby sinking ships, a few
Waterbenders declined to panic like their fellows. They dove into the
water instead, generating high-speed waves that carried them toward
Tagaka. Her elite guard, coming to rescue her.
Rangi and Hei-Ran jumped down and barraged the pirate queen
with flame that she was forced to block with sheets of water. Rangi’s
face was covered in blood and her mother had only one good arm,
but they fought in perfect coordination, leaving Tagaka no gaps to
mount an offense.
“We’ll handle the Waterbenders!” Hei-Ran shouted over her
shoulder. “Stop the ships!”
Jianzhu took a look at the stone monoliths that Kyoshi had
raised from the seafloor, and then at her. In the heat of battle, he
chose to pause. He stared hard at Kyoshi, almost as if he were doing
sums in his head.
“Jianzhu!” Hei-Ran screamed.
He snapped out of his haze and took Pengpeng back up. They
flew toward the nearest formation of stone. Without warning,
Jianzhu let go of the reins and jumped off the bison in midair.
 Kyoshi thought he’d gone mad. He proved her wrong.
She’d never seen Jianzhu earthbend before, had only heard Yun
and the staff describe his personal style as “different.” Unusual.
More like a lion dance at the New Year, Auntie Mui once said,
fanning herself, with a dreamy smile on her face. Stable below and
wild on top.
He hadn’t been able to earthbend on the iceberg, but now
Kyoshi had provided him with all of his element that he needed. As
Jianzhu fell, flat panes of stone peeled off the crag and flew up to
meet him. They arranged themselves into a manic, architectural
construction with broad daylight showing through the triangular
gaps, a steep ramp that he landed on without losing his momentum.
He sprinted toward the escaping ships, in a direction he had no
room to go. But as he ran, his arms coiled and whipped around him
like they had minds of their own. He flicked his fists using minute
twists of his waist, and countless sheets of rock fastened themselves
into a bridge under his feet. Jianzhu never broke stride as he traveled
on thin air, suspended by his on-the-fly earthworks.
Fire blasts and waterspouts shot up from the benders manning
the ships. Jianzhu nimbly leaped and slid over them. The ones aimed
at the stone itself did surprisingly little damage, as the structure was
composed of chaotic, redundant braces.
He raced ahead of the lead ship, crossing its path with his
bridge. Right as Kyoshi thought he’d extended too far, that he’d run
out of stone and thinned his support beyond what it could hold, he
leaped to safety, landing on top of a nearby ice floe.
The precarious, unnatural assembly began to crumble without
Jianzhu’s bending to keep it up. First the individual pieces began to
flake off. Chunks of falling rock bombarded the lead ship from high
above, sending the crew members diving for cover as the wooden
deck punctured like leather before an awl.
But their suffering had only begun. The base of the bridge
simply let itself go, bringing the entire line of stone down across the
prow. The ship’s aft was levered out of the waterline, exposing the
rudder and barnacled keel.
The rest of the squadron didn’t have time to turn. One follower
angled away from the disaster. It managed to avoid crashing its hull,
but the change of direction caused the vessel to tilt sharply to the
side. The tip of its rigging caught on the wreckage, and then the ship
was beheaded of its masts and sails, the wooden pillars snapped off,
a child’s toy breaking at its weakest points.
The last remaining warship bringing up the rear might have
made it out, assuming some dazzling feat of heroic seamanship.
Instead it wisely decided to drop anchor and call it quits. If Tagaka’s
power was in her fleet, then the Avatar’s companions had destroyed
it. Now they just had to live long enough to claim their victory.
“You did good, kid,” said a man with a husky voice and an
accent like Master Amak’s. “They’ll be telling stories about this for
a long time.”
Kyoshi spun around, afraid a pirate had gotten the drop on her,
but there was no one there. The motion made her dizzy. Too dizzy.
She sank to her knees, a drawn-out, lengthy process, and slumped
onto the ice.
 THE FRACTURE
It was warm. So warm that when Kyoshi woke up in the
mansion’s infirmary, she thought it would be Rangi sitting in the
chair by the bed. She hoped it was.
Instead it was Jianzhu.
Kyoshi clutched her blankets tighter and then realized she was
being silly. Jianzhu was her boss and her benefactor. He’d given
Kelsang the money to take care of her. And while she’d never
crossed the courteous distance that lay between them, there was no
reason to feel uncomfortable around the earth sage.
That was what she told herself.
Her throat burned with thirst. Jianzhu had a gourd of water at
the ready, anticipating her need, and handed it over. She tried to gulp
it as decorously as she could but spilled some on her sheets, causing
him to chuckle.
“I always had the hunch you were hiding something from me,”
he said.
She nearly choked.
“I remember the day you and Kelsang told me about your
problem with earthbending,” Jianzhu said with a smile that stayed
firmly on the lower half of his face. “You said that you couldn’t
manipulate small things. That you could only move good-sized
boulders of a regular shape. Like a person whose fingers were too
thick and clumsy to pick up a grain of sand.”
That was true. Most schools of earthbending didn’t know how
to deal with a weakness like Kyoshi’s. Students started out bending
the smallest pebbles, and as their strength and technique grew, they
moved to bigger and heavier chunks of earth.
Despite Kelsang’s protests, Kyoshi had long since decided that
she wouldn’t bother formally training in bending. It hadn’t seemed
like a problem worth solving at the time. Earthbending was mostly
useless indoors, especially so without precision.
“You didn’t tell me the reverse applied,” Jianzhu said. “That
you could move mountains. And you were separated from the ocean
bed by two hundred paces. Not even I can summon earth from
across that distance. Or across water.”
 The empty gourd trembled as she put it on the bedside table. “I
swear I didn’t know,” Kyoshi said. “I didn’t think I could do what I
did, but Yun was in danger and I stopped thinking and I—where is
Yun? Is he okay? Where’s Kelsang?”
“You don’t need to worry about them.” He slumped forward in
his chair with his elbows on his knees, his fingers knotted together.
His clothes draped from his joints in a way that made him look thin
and weary. He stared at the floor in silence for an uncomfortably
long time.
“The Earth Kingdom,” Jianzhu said. “It’s kind of a mess, don’t
you think?”
Kyoshi was more surprised by his tone than his random change
of subject. He’d never relaxed this much around her before. She
didn’t imagine he spoke this informally with Yun.
“I mean, look at us,” he said. “We have more than one king.
Northern and southern dialects are so different they’re starting to
become separate languages. Villagers in Yokoya wear as much blue
as green, and the Si Wong people barely share any customs with the
rest of the continent.”
Kyoshi had heard Kelsang express admiration for the diversity
of the Earth Kingdom on several occasions. But perhaps he was
speaking from the perspective of a visitor. Jianzhu made the Earth
Kingdom sound like different pieces of flesh stitched together to
close a wound.
“Did you know that the word for daofei doesn’t really exist in
the other nations?” he said. “Across the seas, they’re just called
criminals. They have petty goals, never reaching far beyond personal
enrichment.
“But here in the Earth Kingdom, daofei find a level of success
that goes to their heads and makes them believe they’re a society
apart, entitled to their own codes and traditions. They can gain
control over territory and get a taste of what it’s like to rule. Some of
them turn into spiritual fanatics, believing that their looting and
pillaging is in service of a higher cause.”
Jianzhu sighed. “It’s all because Ba Sing Se is not a truly
effective authority,” he said. “The Earth King’s power waxes and
wanes. It never reaches completely across the land as it should. Do
you know what’s holding the Earth Kingdom together right now, in
its stead?”
 She knew the answer but shook her head anyway.
“Me.” He didn’t sound proud to say it. “I am what’s keeping
this giant, ramshackle nation of ours from crumbling into dust.
Because we’ve been without an Avatar for so long, the duty has
fallen on me. And because I have no claim on leadership from noble
blood, I have to do it solely by creating ties of personal loyalty.”
He glanced up at her with sadness in his eyes. “Every local
governor and magistrate from here to the Northern Air Temple owes
me. I give them grain in times of famine; I help them gather the
taxes that pay the police salaries. I help them deal with rebels.
“My reach has to extend beyond the Earth Kingdom as well,”
Jianzhu said. “I know every bender who might accurately call
themselves a teacher of the elements in each of the Four Nations,
and who their most promising pupils are. I’ve funded bending
schools, organized tournaments, and settled disputes between styles
before they ended in blood. Any master in the world would answer
my summons.”
She didn’t doubt it. He wasn’t a man given to boasting. More
than once around the house she’d heard the expression that Jianzhu’s
word, his friendship, was worth more than Beifong gold.
Another person might have swelled with happiness while
looking back over the power they wielded. Jianzhu simply sounded
tired. “You wouldn’t know any of this,” he said. “Other than the
disaster on the iceberg, you’ve never really been outside the shelter
of Yokoya.”
Kyoshi swallowed the urge to tell him that wasn’t true, that she
still remembered the brief glimpses she’d seen of the greater world,
long ago. But that would have meant talking about her parents.
Opening a different box of vipers altogether. Just the notion of
exposing that part of her to Jianzhu caused her pulse to quicken.
He picked up on her distress and narrowed his eyes. “So you
see, Kyoshi,” he said. “Without personal loyalty, it all falls apart!”
He made a sudden bending motion toward the ceiling as if to
bring it crashing down onto their heads. Kyoshi flinched before
remembering the room was made of wood. A trickle of dust leaked
through the roof beams and lay suspended in the air, a cloud above
them.
“Given what I’ve told you,” he said. “Is there anything you
want to tell me? About what you did on the ice?”
 Was there anything she wanted to tell the man who had taken
her in off the street? That there was a chance he’d made a blunder
that could destroy everything he’d worked for, and that her very
existence might spell untold chaos for their nation?
No. She and Kelsang had to wait it out. Find evidence that she
wasn’t the Avatar, give Yun the time he needed to prove himself
conclusively.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I truly wasn’t aware of my own limits. I
just panicked and lashed out as hard as I could. Rangi told me she
often firebends stronger when she’s angry; maybe it was like that.”
Jianzhu smiled again, the expression calcifying on his face. He
clapped his hands to his knees and pushed himself up to standing.
“You know,” he said. “I’ve fought daofei like Tagaka across the
length and breadth of this continent for so long that the one thing
I’ve learned is that they’re not the true problem. They’re a symptom
of what happens when people think they can defy the Avatar’s
authority. When they think the Avatar lacks legitimacy.”
He peered down at Kyoshi. “I’m glad there’s at least one more
powerful Earthbender who can fight on my side. Despite what I said
earlier, I’m only a stopgap measure. A substitute. The responsibility
of keeping the Earth Kingdom stable and in balance with the other
nations rightfully belongs to the Avatar.”
The unrelenting pressure of his statements became so great that
Kyoshi instinctively tried to shift the weight onto someone else. “It
should have been Kuruk dealing with the daofei,” she blurted out.
“Shouldn’t it?”
Jianzhu nodded in agreement. “If Kuruk were alive today, he’d
be at the peak of his powers. I blame myself for his demise. His poor
choices were my fault.”
“How could that be?”
“Because the person who has the greatest responsibility to the
world, after the Avatar, is the person who influences the way the
Avatar thinks. I taught Kuruk earthbending, but I didn’t teach him
wisdom. I believe the world is still paying for my mistake in that
regard.”
Jianzhu paused by the door as he left. “Yun is down the hall.
Kelsang across from him. You should rest more though. I would hate
to see you not well.”
 Kyoshi waited until he was gone, enough time for him to exit the
infirmary completely. Then she burst out of bed. She pounded down
the hallway, rattling the planked floor, and after a frantic moment of
hesitation, entered the Avatar’s room first.
Yun sat in a chair next to a copper bathtub with his right sleeve
rolled up to his shoulder. His arm rested in the steaming water.
Rangi stood behind him, leaning on the windowsill, staring at the far
corner.
“I keep telling the healers I don’t have frostbite,” Yun said.
“This must have scared them.” He raised his dripping hand. It was
still stained with black ink, giving it a pallid, necrotic look. Yun
picked up a teapot of hot water from the floor and poured it carefully
into the bath to maintain the temperature. He dunked his hand back
under the surface and swirled it around.
Kyoshi’s first instinct was to run over to them and embrace
them joyfully, to thank the spirits that they were alive. To see a bit of
that happiness reflected back in their eyes. The three of them had
made it home, safe, together.
But Yun and Rangi looked like their minds were still floating
somewhere in the Southern Ocean. Vacant and distracted.
“What happened?” Kyoshi asked. “Is everyone okay? Is
Kelsang hurt badly?”
Yun waved at her with his dry hand to be quiet. “Master
Kelsang is sleeping, so we should keep it down.”
As if she were the biggest detriment to Kelsang’s health right
now. “Fine,” she hissed. “Now will you tell me what happened?”
“We lost a lot of the guardsmen,” Yun said, his face shifting
with pain. “Tagaka’s hidden Waterbenders dropped an avalanche on
them. Rangi and Hei-Ran managed to save those they could by
burning through the side of the iceberg after it thinned.”
Rangi didn’t budge at the mention of her name. She refused to
lift her head, let alone speak.
“They freed me, and between us, we managed to knock Tagaka
out,” Yun went on. “Losing their ships and seeing their leader
defeated was too much for the rest of the Fifth Nation forces, and
they fled. You should have seen it. Pirates clinging to wreckage
while Waterbenders propelled them away. The loss of dignity
probably hurt more than the falling rocks.”
“What happened to Tagaka?” Kyoshi asked.
“She’s in the brig of an Earth Kingdom caravan heading for the
capital, where she’ll be taken to the prisons at Lake Laogai,” he said.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do about the lake part of it if
she can waterbend like that, but I have to assume at least someone in
the Earth King’s administration has a plan. In the meantime, the
Fifth Nation is no more.”
At her look of confusion, Yun gave her the exact same wan,
forced smile that his master did a few minutes ago. “Their ships
have been damaged beyond repair,” he explained. “Tagaka said it
herself—her power lies in her fleet. After what you did, it’ll be
nearly impossible for her successors to rebuild. They won’t pose a
threat to the Earth Kingdom anymore.”
Kyoshi supposed that was true. And that she should be happy to
hear it. But the victory rang hollow. “What about the captives?”
“Jianzhu caught one of her lieutenants and interrogated their
location out of him,” Yun said. “Hei-Ran pulled a few strings—well,
maybe more like the whole rope—and now the Fire Navy is
mounting a rescue operation in an act of goodwill. It’ll be the first
time they’ve been allowed to fly military colors in the Eastern Sea
since the reign of the twenty-second Earth King.”
He was giving her answers but nothing else. No emotion she
could hook her fingers around. Hadn’t he wanted her there as a
confidant? Someone who would be awed by his successes?
“Yun, you did it,” she said, hoping to remind him. “You saved
them.”
In her desperation she borrowed a line from the imaginary
voice that had spoken to her on the ice. “People will talk about this
for ages to come!” she said. “Avatar Yun, who saved whole villages!
Avatar Yun, who went toe to toe with the Pirate Queen of the
Southern Ocean! Avatar Yun—”
“Kyoshi, stop it!” Rangi cried out. “Just stop!”
“Stop what?” Kyoshi yelled, feeling nearly sick with
frustration.
“Stop pretending like everything’s the same as it was!” Rangi
said. “We know what you and Kelsang were hiding from us!”
 The floor spiraled away from Kyoshi’s feet. Her foundations
turned to liquid. She was grateful when Rangi marched up to her and
planted an accusing finger in her chest. It gave her a point to
stabilize on.
“How could you keep that from us?” the Firebender shouted in
her face. “Was it funny to you? Making us look like fools? Knowing
there’s a chance that all of our lives are a gigantic lie?”
Kyoshi couldn’t think. She was enfeebled. “I didn’t . . . It
wasn’t . . .”
Rangi’s finger began to heat up and smoke. “What was your
angle, huh? Were you trying to discredit Yun? Jianzhu, maybe? Do
you have some kind of twisted secret desire to see the world fall
apart at the seams?”
The burn reached her skin. She didn’t pull away. Maybe she
deserved to be punched straight through, a red-hot hole in her chest.
“Answer me!” Rangi screamed. “Answer me, you—you—”
Kyoshi closed her eyes, squeezing out tears, and readied herself
for the blow.
It never came. Rangi stepped back, aghast, hands covering her
mouth, realizing what she was doing, and then barreled past Kyoshi
out the door.
The room swayed back and forth, threatening to force Kyoshi
down on all fours. Yun stood up, navigating the thrashing floor with
ease. He came closer, his lips parting slightly. She thought he was
going to whisper something reassuring in her ear.
And then he sidestepped her. Slid right by, with a layer of
empty space between them as impenetrable as steel.

She had one more stop to make.

Kelsang was waiting for her, propped up to a sitting position in
his bed. There was a half-eaten bowl of seaweed soup on his bedside
table, a remedy for blood loss. His skin was paler than the bandages
swaddling his torso. Even the blue of his arrows seemed faded.
“We woke you up.” Kyoshi was surprised at how hard her voice
was. She should have been relieved to pieces that he wasn’t dead,
and instead she was on the verge of snarling at him. “You need to be
resting.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had to tell them.”
“Did you?”
“What I said about Yun having the greater chance of being the
Avatar isn’t true anymore. Not after what you accomplished on the
iceberg.” Kelsang ran his hand over his shaved head, feeling for the
ghost of his hair. “You were asleep for three days, Kyoshi. I thought
your spirit had left your body. There was no more pretending.”
Something delicate inside her snapped at hearing “pretend.”
The people closest to her were suddenly calling the years they’d
spent together fake, imaginary. A made-up prelude to a different,
more important reality.
“You mean you couldn’t wait any longer to make your move,”
she said, unable to control her bile. “You wanted to teach an Avatar
who depended on you more than Jianzhu, and you lost your chance
with Yun. That’s what I am to you. A do-over.”
Kelsang looked away. He leaned back against his pillow.
“The time when any of us could have what we wanted passed
years ago,” he said.
 DESPERATE MEASURES
If she needed evidence things were different now, the food was
enough.
On days when Kyoshi had time to eat breakfast, she usually
helped herself to a bowl of jook from the communal pot bubbling
away in the kitchen, garnished with whatever dried-out scraps from
the upstairs tables Auntie Mui deemed fit to save from the previous
night. Today, another servant surprised her outside her door and led
her to one of the dining halls reserved for guests.
The room she sat in by herself was so big and empty that
drinking her tea made an echo. The grand zitan table held such an
array of boiled, salted, and fried delicacies that she thought the place
setting for one had to be a mistake.
It was not. Without knowing which of the children under his
roof was the Avatar, Jianzhu seemed to have decreed that Kyoshi
was to be fed like a noble until he figured it out. She tried to
accommodate his generosity, but a small bite of each artfully
arranged dish was all she could manage with her rice. Including, she
noted with chagrin, the spicy pickled kelp she’d carried to the house
herself, now nestled in a lacquered saucer.
Her waiter checked back in. “Is Mistress finished?” she asked
with a bowed head.
“Rin, I went to your birthday party,” Kyoshi said. “I chipped in
for that comb you’re wearing.”
The girl shrugged. “You’re not to show up for work anymore.
Master Jianzhu wants you by the training grounds in an hour.”
“But what am I supposed to do until then?”
“Whatever Mistress wishes.”
Kyoshi staggered out of the dining room like she’d taken a
blow to the head. Leisure? What kind of animal was that?
She didn’t want anyone to see her up and about the house. Oh,
there’s Kyoshi, taking in the flowers. There she goes now, pondering
the new calligraphy from the Air Temple. The prospect of being on
display horrified her. In lieu of a better option, she ran to the small
library where she’d spoken to Kelsang and latched the door behind
her. She hid there, alone with her dread, until the appointed time
came.
 Kyoshi was as unfamiliar with the flat stone expanse of the
training ground as she would have been with the caldera of a Fire
Nation volcano. Her duties never brought her here. Jianzhu waited in
the middle of the courtyard for her, a scarecrow monitoring a field.
“Don’t bother with that anymore,” he said when she bowed
deeply like a servant. “Come with me.”
He led her into one of the side rooms, a supply closet that had
been hastily emptied of its contents. Straw dummies and
earthbending discs had been tossed without care outside, irking her
sense of organization. Inside, Hei-Ran waited for them.
“Kyoshi,” she said with a warm smile. “Thank you for
humoring us. I know it’s been a trying past couple of days for you.”
Kyoshi felt like there would be no end to the awkwardness.
Despite her friendship with Rangi, she and the headmistress were
more distant than she and Jianzhu. Hei-Ran was acting much
friendlier than she’d expected. But Kyoshi looked down and noticed
that the woman had been pacing trails in the dusty floor. Rangi often
did that when she was upset.
“I’ll help in any way I can,” Kyoshi said, her throat feeling
suddenly parched. Her tonsils stuck to the back of her tongue,
causing her words to catch in her mouth.
“Sorry, that’s my doing,” Hei-Ran said with a gentle laugh. “I
dried the air out in this room for an exercise. Please, sit.”
There were two silk cushions borrowed from the meditation
chamber on the floor. Kyoshi was horrified at the finery thrown on
the dirty ground, but she took a position across from Hei-Ran
anyway. She was keenly aware of Jianzhu standing behind her,
watching like a bird of prey.
“We perform this test on newborns in the Fire Nation to see if
they’re capable of firebending,” Hei-Ran said. “We have to know
about our children quick, as you can imagine, or else they risk
burning the neighborhood down.”
It was a joke, but it made Kyoshi more nervous. “What do I
have to do?”
“Very little.” Hei-Ran reached into a pouch and pulled out what
appeared to be a ball of tinder. “This is shredded birch bark and
cotton mixed with some special oils.” She fluffed the material with
her fingers until it was wispy and cloudlike. “You just need to
breathe and feel your inner heat. If the tinder lights, you’re a
Firebender.”
And therefore the Avatar. “You’re certain this will work?”
Hei-Ran raised an eyebrow. “Newborns, Kyoshi. It’s essentially
impossible for a true Firebender not to make some indication with
this method. Now hush. I need to get a little closer to you.”
She held the tinder puff under Kyoshi’s nose as if she was
trying to revive her with smelling salts. “Relax and breathe, Kyoshi.
Don’t put effort into it. Your natural fire, your source of life, is
enough. Breathe.”
Kyoshi tried to do as she was told. She could feel strands of
cotton tickling her lips. She took in deep lungfuls of air, over and
over.
“I’ll help you along,” Hei-Ran said after two minutes without
results. The air around them grew hotter, much hotter. Trickles of
sweat ran down Kyoshi’s face, drying out before they reached her
chin. She was desperately thirsty again.
“Just a tiny spark.” Hei-Ran sounded like she was pleading
now. “I’ve done most of the work. Let loose. The slightest push.
That’s all I’m asking for. Your thumb on the scale.”
Kyoshi tried for ten more minutes straight before she collapsed
forward, coughing and hacking. Hei-Ran crumpled the tinder in her
fist. A puff of smoke drifted from between her fingers.
“It takes children, babies, a few seconds at most under these
conditions,” she said to Jianzhu. Her voice was unreadable.
Kyoshi looked up at the two masters. “I don’t understand,” she
said. “Didn’t Yun already pass this test?”
Jianzhu didn’t answer. He turned around and stormed out of the
room, slamming his fist into the frame as he left. The earthbending
discs stacked by the door exploded into dust.

Someone had seen Kyoshi coming and going from her new hiding
place in the secondary library and ratted her out. There was no other
way Yun would have found her, curled up beside a medicine chest
that had over a hundred little drawers, each carved with the name of
a different herb or tincture.
 Yun sat down on the floor across from her, leaning his back
against the wall. He scanned over the labels next to her head. “It
feels like way too many of these are cures for baldness,” he said.
Despite herself, Kyoshi snorted.
Yun tugged on a strand of his own brown hair, perhaps thinking
ahead to the day he’d have to join the Air Nomads for airbending
training at the Northern or Southern Temple. They wouldn’t force
him to shave it off, but Kyoshi knew he liked to honor other people’s
traditions. And he’d still be good-looking anyway.
But then, maybe he would never get the chance, Kyoshi
thought miserably. Maybe it would be stolen from him by a petty
thief who’d burrowed into his house under the guise of being his
friend.
He seemed to pick up on her swell of self-hatred. “Kyoshi, I’m
sorry,” he said. “I know you never meant for this to happen.”
“Rangi doesn’t.” Saying it out loud made her feel ungrateful for
his forgiveness. She could count on Yun’s easygoing nature and
inability to hold a grudge. But if Rangi truly believed Kyoshi had
wronged them, then there was no hope.
It was clear. Kyoshi needed both of them in order to feel whole.
She wanted her paired set of friends put back into its original place,
before the earthquake had knocked everything off the shelf. This
state of not-knowing they were trapped in was a plane of spiritual
punishment, separating them from their old lives like a sheet of ice
over a lake.
“Rangi’ll come around,” Yun said. “She’s a person of faith, you
know? A true believer. It’s hard for someone like her to deal with
uncertainty. You have to be a little patient with her.” He caught
himself and twisted his lips.
“What is it?” Kyoshi said.
“Nothing, I was just acting like Sifu for a second there.” The
smile faded from his face. Yun plunked the back of his head against
the wall at the thought of Jianzhu. “It’s him I’m really worried
about.”
That seemed backward. The student anxious about the well-
being of the teacher.
“I didn’t realize it when I first met Sifu, but determining who
should train the Avatar and how is a cutthroat business,” Yun said.
“You’d think the masters of the world are these benevolent, selfless
old men and women. But it turns out that some of them simply want
to use the Avatar’s power and reputation to profit themselves.”
Jianzhu had told her something similar in the infirmary, that
whoever taught the Avatar held immense influence over the world.
Kyoshi regretted what she’d said to Kelsang the day before. He
might have had reasons for wanting her to be the Avatar, but
material gain was certainly not one of them.
“It’s especially bad in the Earth Kingdom,” Yun went on. “We
call the prominent elders ‘sages,’ but they’re not true spiritual
leaders like in the Fire Nation. They’re more like powerful officials,
with all the politicking they do.”
He held up his hands, comparing his clean one to the one
stained with ink during the battle with Tagaka. The color still hadn’t
faded from his skin.
“But that’s partly why Sifu and I have been working so hard,”
he said. “The more good we do for the Four Nations, the less chance
that another sage tries to take me away from him. I don’t think I
could handle having a different master. They would never be as wise
or as dedicated as Sifu.”
Kyoshi looked at his darkened hand and wondered if she
couldn’t hold him down and scrub the ink off his skin. “What would
happen to the work you’ve done if—if—” She couldn’t finish the
thought out loud. If it wasn’t you? If it was me?
Yun took a deep, agonized breath. “I think nearly every treaty
and peace agreement Sifu and I brokered would become null and
void. I’ve made so many unwritten judgments too. If people found
out that it wasn’t the Avatar who’d presided over their dispute, and
only some street urchin from Makapu, they would never abide by
the outcome.”
Superb, Kyoshi thought. She could be responsible for the
breakdown of law and order around the world and the separation of
Yun from his teacher.
That was the worst prospect of all. For as long as she’d known
him, Yun had staunchly refused to talk about his blood relations. But
the reverent way he looked at Jianzhu, despite any arguments or
bouts of harsh discipline, made it very clear: He had no one else.
Jianzhu was both his mentor and his family.
 Kyoshi knew what it was like to founder alone in the dark,
grasping for edges that were too far away, without a mother or father
to extend a hand and pull you to safety. The pain of having no value
to anyone, nothing to trade for food or warmth or a loving embrace.
Maybe that was why she and Yun got along so well.
Where they differed, though, was how long they wallowed in
sadness. Yun sniffed the air and his gaze wandered until it landed on
a porcelain bowl resting on top of the chest. It was filled with dried
flower petals and cedar shavings.
“Are those . . . fire lilies?” he said, a wide, knowing grin
spreading across his face.
Kyoshi flushed beet red. “Stop it,” she said.
“That’s right,” Yun said. “The Ember Island tourism minister
brought a bunch when he visited two weeks ago. I can’t believe you
simply shred the flowers once they dry out. I guess nothing goes to
waste in this house.”
“Knock it off,” Kyoshi snapped. But it was too hard keeping
the corners of her lips from curling upward.
“Knock what off?” he said, enjoying her reaction. “I’m just
commenting on a fragrance I’ve come to particularly enjoy.”
It was an inside reference that only the two of them shared.
Rangi didn’t know. She hadn’t been there in the gifting room eight
months ago while Kyoshi arranged a vast quantity of fire lilies sent
by an admiral in the Fire Navy, one of Hei-Ran’s friends.
Yun had spent the afternoon watching Kyoshi work. Against
every scrap of her better judgment, she’d allowed him to lie down on
the floor and rest his head in her lap while she plucked deformed
leaves and trimmed stems to the right length. Had anyone caught the
two of them like that, there would have been a scandal that not even
the Avatar could have recovered from.
That day, entranced by Yun’s upside-down features dappled
with the flower petals she’d teasingly sprinkled over his face, she’d
almost leaned down and kissed him. And he knew it. Because he’d
almost reached up and kissed her.
They never spoke of it afterward, the shared impulse that had
nearly crashed both of their carriages. It was too . . . well, they each
had their duties was a good way to put it. That moment did not fit
anywhere among their responsibilities.
 But since then, whenever the two of them were in the presence
of fire lilies, Yun’s eyes would dart toward the flowers repeatedly
until he was sure Kyoshi noticed. She would try unsuccessfully to
keep a straight face, the heat coloring her neck, and he’d sigh as if to
mourn what could have been.
Today was no different. With a wistful blush on his own
cheeks, Yun stared her down until her defenses broke and she let out
a giggle through her nose.
“There’s that beautiful smile,” he said. He pressed his heels into
the floor, sliding up against the wall, and straightened his rumpled
shirt. “Kyoshi, trust me when I say this: If it turns out not to be me,
I’ll be glad it’s you.”
He might have been the one person in the world who thought
so. Kyoshi had to marvel at his forbearance. Her fears were
unfounded—Yun could still look at her and see a friend instead of a
usurper. She should have believed in him more.
“We’re late,” Yun said. “I was supposed to find you and bring
you to Sifu. He said he has something fun planned for us this
afternoon.”
“I can’t,” she said, out of ingrained habit. “I have work—”
He raised his brows at her. “No offense, Kyoshi, but I think
you’ve pretty much been fired. Now get up off that maybe-Avatar
rear of yours. We’re going on a trip.”
 THE SPIRIT
“Master Kelsang needs more time to heal,” Jianzhu said over his
shoulder. “In the meanwhile, we can perform a spiritual exercise that
might shed light on our situation. Think of it as a little
‘Earthbenders-only’ outing.” He adjusted Pengpeng’s course, the
breeze blowing her tufts of fur in a new direction.
The group was the unusual combination of Jianzhu, Yun, and
Kyoshi. They’d borrowed Kelsang’s bison, leaving Rangi and Hei-
Ran behind. There should have been nothing wrong with the concept
of three Earth Kingdom natives bonding over their shared
nationality, but Kyoshi found it unnerving. Without Rangi or her
mother present, it felt like they were sneaking away to do something
illicit.
She glanced at the terrain below. By her best reckoning, they
were somewhere near the Xishaan Mountains that ran along the
southeastern edge of the continent, the same ones that the Earth
King incorrectly considered a sufficient barrier to waterborne threats
like the pirates of the Eastern Sea.
Kyoshi still wasn’t fully comfortable addressing Jianzhu in a
casual manner, so it fell on Yun to ask what the point of this trip was.
“Sifu,” he said cautiously, an idea forming in his head. “Is the reason
we’re going to a remote area because we’re trying to invoke the
Avatar State?”
His master scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What’s the Avatar State?” Kyoshi whispered to Yun.
Jianzhu’s sharp ears intercepted her question. “It’s a tool,” he
said. “And a defense mechanism. A higher state of being designed to
empower the current Avatar with the skills and knowledge of all the
past ones. It allows for the summoning of vast cosmic energies and
nearly impossible feats of bending.”
That sounded definitive enough. Why wouldn’t they try it, after
the failures they’d suffered?
“But if the Avatar can’t maintain conscious control over so
much power, then their bending can go berserk, causing elemental
destruction on a grand scale,” Jianzhu continued. “They’d turn into a
human natural disaster. The first time Kuruk practiced entering the
Avatar State, we went to a small, uninhabited atoll so we wouldn’t
hurt anyone.”
 “What happened?” Yun said.
“Well, after his eyes stopped glowing and he came down from
floating twenty feet in the air inside a sphere of water, the island
wasn’t there anymore,” Jianzhu said. “The rest of us survived by the
skin of our teeth. So, no, we’re not triggering the Avatar State. I
shudder to think what would happen if an Earth Avatar started
hurling landmasses left and right with abandon.”
He took them lower. The westward side of the mountainous
ridge was dotted with empty mining settlements. Scapes of brown
dust spread from the operating sites like an infection, eating into the
treeline and displacing the natural vegetation. Kyoshi looked for
signs that the land was growing back, but the scars were permanent.
The wild grasses kept a strict cordon around the areas touched by the
miners.
Jianzhu set Pengpeng down for a landing in the center of a
mud-walled hamlet. Whoever originally earthbent the structures into
shape had been so sloppy that it seemed intentional, as if to remind
the occupants that they weren’t going to stay long. Kyoshi was
surprised they didn’t cause any further collapses by jumping down
from the bison.
“This is an important locus of Earthen spiritual energy,”
Jianzhu said.
Yun dug his toe into the dust as he surveyed their surroundings.
“It looks more like a wasteland.”
“It’s both. We’re here to commune with a particular spirit
roused from its slumber by the devastation. I’m hoping one of you
can help ease its suffering.”
“But talking with spirits is no guarantee,” Yun said. “I’ve read
of past Avatars who’ve had trouble with it. And then there’s people
like Master Kelsang who have been able to communicate with the
spirits effortlessly at times.”
“I didn’t say the method was perfect,” Jianzhu snapped. “If it
was, I’d have used it on you long ago.”
Yun frowned and bit back more questions. Kyoshi was glad that
he shared her apprehension at the very least. The desolate town was
eerie, the bones of a once-living thing.
But on the other hand, she was slightly comforted by the
knowledge that it would all be over soon. She knew nothing about
spirits. In her opinion, being spiritual simply meant acknowledging
the power of forces you couldn’t see and coming to terms with the
fact that you didn’t have control over every aspect of your life. The
rituals of food and incense placed at sacred shrines were gestures to
that worldview. Nothing more, nothing less.
The stories about strange translucent animals and talking plants
might have been true, but they weren’t for her. The Avatar was the
bridge between the human world and the Spirit World, and whatever
test Jianzhu had in mind would settle the matter. Yun would glow
with energy or some other final proof, and she would lie there inert,
listening for sounds she couldn’t hear.
After leaving Pengpeng with some dried oats to chew, they
walked up the slope of the mountain on a tiny path that ran alongside
a gouged-out sluice canal. It was steep going, and Yun remembered
there was a faster way to climb. “You know, I could make a lift and
—”
“Don’t,” Jianzhu said.
Eventually, the incline revealed a large terrace carved into the
mountain. It was bigger than the entire settlement below, and it had
been constructed with more care. It was perfectly level, and empty
postholes indicated it had once held some very heavy equipment.
“Go sit in the middle,” Jianzhu told them.
Kyoshi felt the same prickle on the back of her neck as she did
when stepping onto the iceberg with Tagaka. It made little sense,
seeing as how she was surrounded by her native element.
“Come on,” Yun said to her. “Let’s get this over with.” He
seemed to have a better understanding of how this might escalate.
She followed him to the center of the terrace.
“It’s not the solstice, but it is almost twilight,” Jianzhu said.
“The time of day when spiritual activity is at its highest. I will guide
you two in meditation. Yun, help her if she needs it.”
Kyoshi had never meditated before. She didn’t know which leg
you folded over the other or how your hands were supposed to
touch. Fists pressed together or thumb and forefinger?
“You’ve . . . basically got it,” Yun said after they sat down.
“Tuck your tailbone in a bit more and don’t hunch your shoulders.”
He stayed facing her, taking up his own pose not too far off. She
could have reached out and poked him.
 Jianzhu produced a small brazier and a stick of incense, which
he placed between them. “Someone help me light this with
firebending?” he said.
They stared blankly at him.
“It was worth a shot,” Jianzhu said. He lit the incense with a
precious sulfur match and backed away until he reached the edge of
the terrace, positioned like the high mark of a sundial.
The air took on a sweet, medicinal note. “Both of you, close
your eyes and don’t open them,” Jianzhu said. “Let go of your
energy. Let it spill from you. We want to let the spirit get a taste of it,
so to speak, so it knows it can come forth.”
Kyoshi didn’t know how to control her energy. But if Jianzhu
was telling her to throw away the idea of containing herself, to stop
minimizing the space she took up, to let herself grow and rise to her
full dimensions . . .
It felt wonderful.
The next exhalation she made seemed to go on forever, drawing
from a reservoir inside her that had no end. Her sense of balance ran
wild, the pull of the earth coming from each and every direction in
turn. She swayed within the stillness of her own body. Her eyelids
were a theater of the blank.
A rasping noise came from the mountain. The sound of
millstones with no grain between them.
“Don’t open your eyes,” Jianzhu said softly. “Hear sounds,
smell smells; take note of them naturally and let them pass. Without
opening your eyes.”
The breeze picked up for a moment, dispersing the incense
smoke. In the time it took to settle back down, Kyoshi thought she
detected a whiff of something damp. Almost fungal. It wasn’t so
atrocious as it was . . . familiar.
Familiar to whom? she thought, giggling silently as the incense
took over again.
“You know what would be funny?” she said. “If it was . . . you
know . . . neither of us.”
“Kyoshi,” Yun said. His voice sounded slurred. “I need to tell
you. Something important. Me and you.”
She tried to speak again but her tongue was too big for it.
Jianzhu hadn’t told them to shut up yet. That was weird. Jianzhu was
Master Shut Up. Was he okay? She had to check if he was okay. It
was her duty as a member of his household. She disobeyed and
peeked.
Yun was meditating peacefully. Had he spoken at all, or had she
imagined it? She tried to turn her head toward Jianzhu but went the
wrong way, looking at the mountain instead.
A hole had been opened in the rock, a tunnel of pitch-darkness.
In its depths, a great glowing eyeball stared back at her.

Her shriek caught in her throat. She tried to scramble away, but
her muscles failed her as if her joints had been sliced by a butcher.
Nothing connected to anything.
The eye floating in the mountain was the size of a wagon
wheel. It had a sickly, luminescent tinge of green. A web of pulsing
veins gripped it tightly from behind, giving the sphere an angry
appearance, as if it would burst under its own pressure at any
moment.
It swiveled over to look at her, her futile struggle catching its
attention.
Yun! her mind screamed. He wasn’t moving. His breathing was
slow and labored.
Jianzhu was unfazed by the horrific spirit before them. “Father
Glowworm,” he called out in greeting.
A cordial, mellifluent voice rumbled from deep within the
mountain, the echo concentrated by the walls of the tunnel.
“Architect! It’s been so long.” The eye darted between the three of
them. “What have you brought me?”
“A question.”
The spirit sighed, a low, nauseating hum that Kyoshi felt in her
bones. “That chatty little upstart Koh. Now every human thinks they
can march up to the oldest and wisest of us and demand answers. I
thought you had more respect, Architect.”
Jianzhu stiffened. “This is an important question. One of these
children is the Avatar. I need you to tell me which one.”
The spirit laughed, and it felt like the earth bounced. “Oh my.
The physical world is in poor shape indeed. You do know I’ll need
their blood?”
 Kyoshi thrashed back and forth. But whatever Jianzhu had
drugged them with rendered her flailing into mere twitches of
movement, her cries into halting breaths. Yun’s eyes opened, but
only by the smallest degree.
“I know,” Jianzhu said. “I’ve read Kuruk’s private journals. But
you’ve tangled with many of the Avatar’s past lives. I must have the
unerring judgment of a great and ancient spirit such as yourself.”
A carpet of slime spilled from the hole in the mountain, flowing
over the terrace. It was the same moldy, rotting green as the eye, and
it reached toward Yun and Kyoshi in tendrils, the shadows of fingers
against a curtain. There was a scraping noise against the stone floor.
It came from pointed flecks of debris floating in the wetness, bone-
yellow roots and crowns.
The slime was full of human teeth.
Kyoshi was so scared that she wanted to die. Her heart, her
lungs, her stomach had been turned into instruments of torture,
clawing and biting against each other like frenzied animals. She
wanted to reach the void. Pass into oblivion. Anything to end this
terror.
As the ooze reached for her knee, Yun opened his eyes.
Summoning his strength, he lunged at Kyoshi, shoving her away,
throwing his body between her and the spirit. He choked in surprise
as the rasping slime shot underneath his clothing. A damp crimson
spot bloomed on the back of his shirt.
Kyoshi’s foot lay next to the brazier of incense. A meager
contribution after what Yun did, but she screamed with her whole
body this time, instead of her vocal cords, and kicked at the little
bronze vessel. The burning ash landed on the slime and fizzled out.
The plasm nearest them shrank from the heat and the spirit hissed
angrily.
Yun struggled to his knees beside her.
“I’m surprised you can move,” Jianzhu said to him, more
impressed than anything else.
“Poison training,” Yun spat through clenched jaws. “With Sifu
Amak, remember? Or did you forget every darker exercise you put
me through?”
They were distracted from the slime regrouping, wrapping
around Kyoshi’s ankle, until it latched on tight and ground away,
sanding her skin off with the rows of teeth. Her blood formed clouds
inside the living mucus.
Yun saw her writhe in pain. He grabbed her hand and tried to
pull her away from the spirit, their palms clasped hard enough that
Kyoshi felt their bones roll over each other. But the tendril held her
fast, tasting her, lapping at her wound.
“It’s this one,” the spirit said. “The girl. She’s the Avatar.”

Kyoshi and Yun were looking each other in the eye when it
happened. When she saw Yun’s spirit break inside him.
He had been lying to her with his body and his smile and his
words this whole time. He’d thought it was him. Truly and utterly.
He’d never once entertained the notion that it might not be him. Any
kindness and warmth he’d shown to Kyoshi since the iceberg hadn’t
been signs of his acceptance—they’d been layers of armor that he’d
furiously assembled to protect himself.
And that armor had failed. Piece by piece, Kyoshi saw the only
Yun she’d ever known, the boy who was the Avatar, slough and
flake into nothingness. His mantle had been stripped from his
shoulders, and the shape underneath was merely wind.
He let go of her.
Jianzhu was on top of them in a flash. He sliced at the branch of
slime with a sharp, precise little wall, and using the care of his own
two hands, dragged Kyoshi away to safety.
Just Kyoshi.
He laid her on the ground and turned around. But it was too
late. The spirit’s slime reared into the air between them and Yun, a
snake guarding its prey. The eyeball in the tunnel swelled with fury.
“You call me forth, ask for my boon, and then assault me?” Its
roar nearly shattered the bones in Kyoshi’s ears.
Yun, she tried to shout. Run. Fight. Save yourself. The Avatar—
it never meant anything.
Jianzhu took an earthbending stance, cautiously settling his feet
the way a swordsman might slowly go for his blade. “I couldn’t risk
you taking your revenge on Kuruk’s reincarnation. You had your
blood, Father Glowworm. Your price has been paid.”
“I’m raising it!”
 Instead of attacking the two of them, the tendril wrapped
around Yun from neck to hip. His face was as pale as clay. He
wouldn’t move his limbs. Every fear Kyoshi had of taking from him
what he treasured most had come to pass in a thundering instant.
There was only one more thing left for him to lose.
No, Kyoshi sobbed. Please, no.
The spirit pulled, and Yun flew backward into the tunnel,
disappearing into the darkness. As Jianzhu punched his fist upward
to seal the passage shut once more with solid mountain, Kyoshi
found her voice again.
She screamed pure fire.

The flame shot out of her mouth like the rage of a dragon, in a
single explosive burst. It doused the terrace and rendered swathes of
lingering ooze into blackened, flaking char. But the tunnel was
closed. Her fire washed impotently against the mountainside, until it
petered out entirely.
Kyoshi stumbled to her feet, barely able to see past her sticky
eyelids. The inside of her mouth was blistered. She could sense
Jianzhu’s presence in front of her, looming.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This could have been avoided if you had
—”
She surged forward and tackled him off the edge of the terrace.
The trip down this time was worse than the iceberg. Kyoshi lost
her grip on Jianzhu the instant her shoulder smashed into a withered,
hardened tree root. She tumbled wildly, tail over tea-kettle, and came
to a stop at the bottom of the slope.
Ignoring the pain, she looked around for Jianzhu. He wasn’t to
be found in the thin scrub surrounding the base of the mountain. She
snapped her head upward at the sound of stone moving.
The earthbending master descended casually, stepping down a
flight of stairs that he created himself. Where a more orthodox
bender would simply raise a solid platform from the ground, Jianzhu
gathered planks of stone and assembled them at will beneath his
feet, using the same technique he’d reached Tagaka’s ships with. It
looked like the earth itself was bowing to him, prostrating under his
immense power.
 Kyoshi spotted a boulder behind him large enough for her to lift
and rooted her feet to the ground. She pulled it toward them, not
caring that she was also in its path.
Jianzhu didn’t bother turning his head. He reached behind him
with one arm and the room-sized rock split along its grain, letting
him pass through the gap. The two half spheres kept going and
narrowly missed clipping Kyoshi as well. She forced down a yelp as
they collided with the ground behind her.
Jianzhu looked at her with the same thoughtful expression he
once reserved for Yun. “I’ll have to teach you to do more than
simply go big,” he said.
Kyoshi tried the only other basic tactic she knew of, breaking
the opponent’s foundation. She aimed her intent at the base of his
stairs. She’d take them out along with a huge chunk of the slope.
But after rooting herself again and throwing the mother of all
arrow punches at the mountainside, the only movement she got was
a geyser of dust. The stairs barely trembled. She tried again. And
again.
Jianzhu was taking deeper stances now, spiraling his arms in
time with hers, and suddenly she knew why. He was reading her.
Smothering each movement of earth she attempted. Nulling her out.
She was a child pulling on a door an adult was holding closed.
Jianzhu stopped right in front of her, his platform raising him
up so that he was eye level with her. Aside from the dust on his
clothes, he could have been leaving a meeting in his house. She’d
been unable to touch him in the slightest.
“Kyoshi,” he said with a warmth that made her sick to her
stomach. “You are the Avatar. Don’t you know what that means?
The responsibility that you now have?”
He ran a hand through his hair and bared his teeth like he
regretted what kind of bushes he’d planted in his garden. “Kyoshi,
I’m not a fool, and neither are you. We’re not going to pretend you’ll
ever truly forgive me for what happened here. What I’m asking you
to do is weigh our loss against the future of the world. Don’t let
Yun’s sacrifice be in vain. Embrace your duty and let me teach you.”
Yun’s sacrifice?
Our loss?
 Her teeth crushed fresh wounds into her lips. She’d thought
she’d known hate before. Hate had been a hollowness inside her, the
dull ache that she’d been forced to cradle as she stumbled through
the alleys of Yokoya, dizzy with hunger and sickness. Hate had been
reserved for her own flesh and blood.
But now she understood. True hatred was knife-edged and
certain. A scale that begged for perfect balance. Yun lay on one side
of the fulcrum. Her only responsibility in this life, as far as she was
concerned, was to even the weight.
She swore to herself. One way or another, she was going to
know what Jianzhu looked like when he did lose everything he held
dear.
Kyoshi hurled a Fire Fist, a move she knew nothing about. But
whatever firebending she had in her had been used up. It came out as
a normal punch, stopping short of his face.
Seeing her so desperate to harm him cracked his mask of
serenity. He frowned an ugly frown and clenched his fingers. Two
small discs of stone slammed into Kyoshi’s wrists from the left and
right.
It happened so fast she didn’t have time to flinch. The stones
shaped themselves around her hands and joined each other in front
of her body, forming a set of thick shackles. They were as snug as a
bone-doctor’s splint and as unbreakable as iron.
The bands of rock rose into the air, taking her with them. Her
shoulders clicked painfully under her own weight, and she writhed
like an insect caught on sticky paper, madly kicking her feet without
purchase.
Jianzhu held her like that, a carcass for inspection, before
slamming her back down. The stone shackles merged with the
ground, and she struggled on all fours. He’d forced her into a full
kowtow, a student’s posture of submission to their master.
“Had you the essentials of earthbending, you could free
yourself,” Jianzhu said. “You’ve gone neglected long enough,
Kyoshi. You’re weak.”
Her palms sunk deeper into the ground the more she tried to
resist. There was no denying that he was right. She was weak, too
weak to fight him the way she needed to. The distance between them
was simply too great.
 “So much wasted time,” Jianzhu said. “I could have taught you
sooner, if only I hadn’t been distracted by that little swindler.”
That he wasn’t done being cruel to Yun was a final kick to her
gut. It was incomprehensible. She couldn’t keep the tears from
flowing down her face. “How could you say that?” she screamed.
“He worshipped you, and you used him!”
“You think I used him?” Jianzhu’s voice grew dangerously
quiet. “You think I profited from him somehow? Let me give you
your first lesson. The same one I gave Yun.”
He stamped his foot, and a thick layer of soil clamped itself
over Kyoshi’s mouth, a muzzle with no holes for her to breathe. She
began to choke on her own element, her lungs clogging with grit.
Jianzhu swept his arm behind him in a wide, encompassing arc.
“Out there is an entire nation crammed full of corrupt, incompetent
people who will try to use the Avatar for their own purposes.
Buffoons who call themselves ‘sages’ when all it takes in the Earth
Kingdom is having the right connections and paying enough gold to
plaster such a title on your brow.”
The map of Kyoshi’s vision curled in on itself. Her toes gouged
furrows in the dirt, trying to push her body toward air. The pounding
in her head threatened to burst her skull.
“Without my influence, you’d turn into nothing more than a
traveling peddler of favors, flopping here and there with your
decisions, squandering your authority on petty boons and handouts,”
Jianzhu said, unconcerned that she was losing consciousness before
his eyes. “You’d end up a living party trick, a bender who can shoot
water and breathe fire and spit useless advice, a girl who paints the
walls a pretty color while the house rots at its foundations.”
She barely made out Jianzhu crouching down beside her,
bringing his lips close to her ear. “I have dedicated my life to
making sure the next Avatar won’t be used in such a manner,” he
whispered. “And despite your every attempt to fight me, I will
dedicate my life to you, Kyoshi.”
He suddenly ripped away the earthen gag. The rush of air into
her lungs felt like knives. She collapsed onto her chest, her hands
freed but useless.
For several minutes she lay there, despising each pathetic gulp
she took, each time she tried to stand but could not. Finally, she
heaved herself to her feet, only to see Jianzhu backing away from
her, glancing over her head. A gale of wind washed them in dust and
desiccated leaves.
Kelsang landed his glider on the slope and slid down on his feet
the rest of the way. Relieved as she was to see him, Kyoshi knew
right away that he shouldn’t have come. His wounds had reopened,
staining his bandages red. He’d traveled too far on his own without
his bison. The journey by glider would have been arduous for an
Airbender at full health.
“How did you find us?” Jianzhu said.
Kelsang closed the wings on his staff. They’d been repaired so
hastily that they wouldn’t fold completely into the wood, lumps of
glue sticking out of the seams. He leaned heavily on it for support,
staring hard at Jianzhu the whole time. “You left a map out on your
desk.”
“I thought I locked my study.”
“You did.”
Jianzhu’s composure broke fully for the first time today.
“Really, Kel?” he shouted. “You think so little of me these days that
you panicked when I took the Avatar on a trip by myself and broke
into my room? I can’t trust the people closest to me anymore!?”
Kyoshi wanted to run to Kelsang, hide behind his robes, and
sob like a child. But fear had closed her throat and glued her feet.
She felt like the slightest word from her could prove to be a spark
thrown on the oil.
She didn’t have to say anything though. Kelsang took one look
at her trembling form and grimaced. He stepped carefully between
her and Jianzhu, leveling his staff at his old friend.
It looked much more like a weapon than a crutch now. “No one
in the house could tell me where you went, Rangi and Hei-Ran
included,” he said to Jianzhu. “You’re saying I had no reason to be
suspicious? Where’s Yun?”
“Kelsang,” Jianzhu said, thrusting his hands toward Kyoshi,
trying to get his friend to see the bigger picture. “That girl is the
Avatar. I saw her firebend with my own eyes! Your hunch was
correct! After so many years, we’ve found the Avatar!”
Kelsang hitched, his body processing the revelation. But if
Jianzhu thought he could distract the monk to his advantage, he was
mistaken. “Where is Yun?” he repeated.
 “Dead,” Jianzhu said, giving up the ruse. “We tried to
commune with a spirit, but it went berserk. It took him. I’m sorry.”
“No!” Kyoshi shrieked. She couldn’t let that go. She couldn’t
let him twist what had happened. “You—you fed us to it! You threw
Yun to that spirit like meat to a wolf! You murdered him!”
“You’re right to be upset, Kyoshi,” Jianzhu said softly. “I got so
carried away with finding the Avatar that I lost my pupil. Yun’s
death is my fault. I’ll never forgive myself for this accident.”
He wasn’t wailing with sorrow. That would have been too
obvious an act. He kept the face that most people knew, the stoic,
plain-speaking teacher.
This was a game to him. With Kelsang as the piece in the
center. Kyoshi was gripped by a fresh bout of despair. If the monk
believed his friend—the adult, the man of good repute—over her,
Jianzhu’s crime would be buried along with Yun.
She needn’t have worried. “Kyoshi,” Kelsang said, never taking
his staff off Jianzhu. “Stay behind me.”
Jianzhu rolled his eyes, his ploy having failed.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Kelsang said. “But I’m
taking Kyoshi and we’re leaving.”
He staggered, still weak from his injuries. She caught him by
the shoulders and tried to keep him upright. The only way they could
keep stable was by holding on to each other.
“Look at the two of you,” Jianzhu said. “What you’re doing is
you’re coming home with me. Neither of you are in any shape to
argue.”
Kelsang felt Kyoshi tremble through her hand on his back. Felt
her fear. He ignored his own pain and drew up to his full height.
“You will have nothing to do with Kyoshi for the remainder of
your life!” he said. “You are no longer fit to serve the Avatar!”
The cut landed deep on Jianzhu. “Where will you go?” he
roared, frenzied and frothing. “Where? The Air Temples? The abbots
will hand her back to me before you can finish telling your story!
Have you forgotten how far you’ve fallen in disgrace with them?
Didn’t Tagaka jog your memory?”
Kelsang tensed into a solid carving of himself. The grain of his
staff squeaked from how tightly he held it.
 “I know everyone in the Four Nations who could possibly help
you!” Jianzhu said. “I put out the message, and every lawman, every
sage, every official will be tripping over their own feet to hunt you
down on my behalf! Being the Avatar will not protect her from me!”
“Kyoshi, run!” Kelsang shouted. He pushed her away and
leaped at Jianzhu, bringing his staff down to create a gale of wind.
Jianzhu brought earth up to meet him.
But they weren’t fighting the same fight. Kelsang meant to
blast his friend away, to knock the madness out of him, to
overwhelm him with the least amount of harm done, in the way of
all Air Nomads.
Jianzhu shaved off a razor of flint no longer than an inch, sharp
and thin enough to pass through the wind without resistance and
slice at where his victim was exposed and vulnerable.

A spurt of blood came from the side of Kelsang’s neck, from a

finger-length cut so clean and precise it was almost elegant.
Jianzhu’s expression flickered with a sadness that was deeper
and truer than what he’d given to Yun, as he watched his friend fall.
Kelsang collapsed to the ground, his head bouncing lifelessly
off the hard-packed earth.

Those were the last things Kyoshi saw before the white glow
behind her eyes took over her entire being.
 THE INHERITANCE
One time, when she was ten or thereabouts, a traveling fireworks
vendor came to Yokoya. The village elders, in an unusual fit of
decadence, paid him to put on a show celebrating the end of the first
harvest. Families packed the square, gazing up at the booming,
crackling explosions racing across the night sky.
Kyoshi did not see the display. She lay on the floor of
someone’s toolshed, twisted by fever.
The morning after, the heat in her skull forced her awake at
dawn. She staggered around the outskirts of town, seeking cool air,
and found the field where the vendor set his explosives the night
before. The ground was scorched and pitted, utterly ravaged by a
fiend born of no natural element. It was covered in a layer of ash and
upturned rocks. Water creeping in slow, black rivulets. The wind
smelling like rotten eggs and urine.
She remembered now being suddenly terrified that she’d catch
blame for the destruction. She’d run away, but not before scuffing
her footprints off the path she’d taken.

When Kyoshi regained her vision, she thought for a moment she’d
been thrown back in time to that unreal, violated landscape. The
trees were gone behind her, snapped at their trunks and torn by their
roots to expose damp clumps of soil. Before her, it was as if some
great hand had tried to sweep away the mountainside in a convulsion
of fear and shame. Deep rips crisscrossed the stone like claws. The
hilltops had been pushed over, the traces of landslides pouring down
from their crests.
Kyoshi had the vague notion that she was too high up. And she
couldn’t see Kelsang anywhere. She’d wiped away his existence.
There was an animal howl floating on the wind, the scream of
rosin on warped strings. It came from her.
Kyoshi dropped to the ground and lay there, her face wet with
tears. She pressed her forehead to the earth, and her useless cries
echoed back in her face. Her fingers closed around the dust, sifting
for what she’d lost.
It was her fault. It was all her fault. She’d pushed Kelsang away
instead of listening to him, allowed cowardice to rule her thoughts
and actions. And now the source of light in her life was gone.
She had nothing left. Not even the air in her lungs. The heaving
sobs coursing through her body wouldn’t allow her to breathe. She
felt like she was going to drown above water, a fate she would have
accepted gladly. A just punishment for an unwanted girl who’d
squandered her second chance: Kelsang, a miraculous, loving father
conjured from thin air. And she’d cursed him with death and ruin.
There was a tremor in the distance. The rubble around a certain
spot was sinking, parting. Someone had escaped the havoc she’d
wreaked in the Avatar State by burrowing deep down in the earth.
Now he was tunneling back to the surface, ready to claim his
property.
Kyoshi scrambled to her feet in a blind, wild panic. She tried to
run in the direction they’d come, stumbling past landmarks she
prayed she remembered correctly. The baked ruins of the mining
villages were so similar in their crumbling appearance that, for a
second, she thought she was caught in a loop. But then, right as her
legs were about to give out, she found Pengpeng waiting where
they’d left her.
The bison took a whiff of Kyoshi and bellowed mournfully,
rearing on her back four legs before crashing down hard enough to
shake the dirt. Kyoshi understood. Maybe Pengpeng had felt her
spiritual connection with Kelsang dissipate, or maybe Kyoshi simply
smelled of his blood.
“He’s gone!” she cried. “He’s gone and he’s not coming back!
We have to leave, now!”
Pengpeng stopped thrashing, though she looked no less upset.
She allowed Kyoshi to climb on her back, using fistfuls of fur as a
ladder, and soared into the air in the direction of home, without
being told.
Yokoya, Kyoshi corrected herself. Not home. Never again home.
Yokoya.
She stayed back in the passengers’ saddle. She was unwilling to
straddle Pengpeng’s withers in Kelsang’s place, and the bison didn’t
need guidance for the return journey. From high up in the sky, she
could see dark, rain-filled clouds approaching over the ocean in the
opposite direction. If they flew fast enough, they could reach
Yokoya before meeting the storm.
 “Hurry, please!” she shouted, hoping Pengpeng could
understand her desperation. They’d managed to strand Jianzhu in the
mountains, but the man’s presence felt so close behind. As if all he
needed to do was reach his arm out for her to feel his hand clamping
down on her shoulder.

That same year she’d caught sick and suffered through the
fireworks, Kelsang had returned to the village. He looked askance at
the farmer who swore that Kyoshi had been well taken care of with
the money he’d left behind. The weight she’d lost and her pallid skin
told a different story. Afterward, Kelsang promised Kyoshi that he’d
never leave her for so long again.
But Kyoshi had long forgotten about any nights she’d spent ill
without medicine. She’d been more concerned with the new kite-
flying craze that had taken hold of the village children. For weeks,
brightly colored paper diamonds and dragons and gull-wings had
hypnotized her from the sky, dancing on the wind. Not surprisingly,
she hadn’t the supplies or guidance to make one of her own.
Kelsang noticed her staring longingly at the kites dotting the
sky while they shared a meal outside. He whispered an idea in her
ear.
Together, they scavenged and spliced enough rope for him to tie
one end around his waist. That afternoon, he took off soaring on his
glider while Kyoshi held the other end from below. They laughed so
loud they could hear each other across the great heights. For her, he
was the biggest, fastest, best kite in the whole world.

She’d misjudged the weather. The first drops of rain pattered on

her cheek, waking her from her slumber of exhaustion. She and
Pengpeng still had some ways to go when it quickly became a
torrent that blotted out the sun. They narrowly managed to get down
to Yokoya in time to avoid the lightning spreading its fingers across
the sky.
They arrived at the mansion. Kyoshi jumped off Pengpeng near
the stables and landed ankle-deep in mud. She waded through the
blinding rain to the house. The staff and the guests had been driven
inside to their quarters.
The ride had given her time to think. And she’d concluded that
every decision from here on out was easy. An inevitability she would
follow into the darkness.
The only person who could have made her falter was waiting
inside the servants’ entrance for her, under the archway of the wall.
Rangi looked like she had confined herself to this area the entire day.
She’d worn out a groove in the floor with her pacing back and forth.
“Kyoshi, where were you?” Rangi said, a scowl on her face
from having been left in the dark for so long. “What happened?
Where are the others?”
Kyoshi told her everything. About the powerful and terrible
spirit that had identified Kyoshi as the Avatar. About the way
Jianzhu had offered Yun up as a sacrifice and murdered Kelsang
when he came to rescue them. She even included how she’d entered
the Avatar State.
Rangi stumbled backward until she knocked her head against a
support beam. “What?” she whispered. “That’s not—What!?”
“That’s what happened,” Kyoshi said. She dripped rainwater on
the floor, each plip another precious second lost. “I have to go. I
can’t stay here.”
Rangi started pacing again, running her fingers through the
ends of her hair, which had fallen loose. “There’s got to be a
misunderstanding. An explanation. You said there was a spirit? It
must have played tricks on your mind—that’s been known to
happen. Or maybe you simply got confused. Master Jianzhu can’t
have . . . He wouldn’t . . .”
She watched Rangi attempt to will a different reality into
existence. It was the same trap Kyoshi had fallen into the day
Kelsang told her she might be the Avatar.
“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this,” Rangi said. “When
Jianzhu gets home, we’ll make him explain himself. We’ll find out
what really happened to Yun and Master Kelsang.”
“RANGI! THEY’RE DEAD! I HAVE TO GO!”
Throughout the journey back, Kyoshi had been thinking only
about the shards of her life buried on that mountain. She’d forgotten
there was still one more piece, and Rangi’s stunned silence let her
know she’d lost that too. Kyoshi pushed past her without saying
goodbye and headed to her room.
 It was easy to fill a sack with her clothes. She barely had any. She
was going to leave everything on her shelf behind, but the thought of
Kelsang made her grab the clay turtle and throw that in. The item
that gave her pause was the beautiful green battle outfit that she’d
worn on the iceberg and was now hanging on her wall.
For some reason Jianzhu had let her keep it in her room. The
thought of taking, of using, a gift from him made her insides clench.
But she would need armor like that where she was going. A
protective shell.
She took it down, hastily rolled it up, and stuffed it in the sack.
The leather journal went on top. She was truly grateful she’d never
given in to her urge to destroy the book. In the past it may have been
incriminating evidence, but now it was a war plan.
Tucking the bundle under one arm, she stooped down, grabbed
the handle of her trunk with the other, and dragged it out into the
hallway.

The corners of the trunk screeched as they gouged out a trail in

the polished wooden floors. She supposed the reason that no one
stopped her was that they were scared. She saw the hems of robes
disappearing around corners, frightened whispers behind closed
doors as she passed.
The guardsmen, she remembered, had been decimated on the
iceberg. And there had always been an undercurrent of suspicion in
the way the other servants looked at her. Now her aberrant behavior
must have pushed it over the edge into fear. She looked like a
swamp ghost dripping with the water she’d drowned in. She could
only imagine what terrors her face held.
Each fork in the hallway brought another flash of raw, saw-
bladed pain to her heart as if she were one of the target dummies in
the courtyard, collecting jagged arrows with her body. The routes
she’d taken in her daily life unfolded down the corridors of the
mansion, leading inevitably, over and over again, to the dead.
The way to Yun’s room, the one area he never let her clean,
flustering over his privacy. The path to the little nook where Kelsang
would meditate when the weather was too harsh. The grass where
the three of them had spat watermelon seeds, only to run away when
Auntie Mui yelled at them for making a mess.
 She would never tread these lines again. She would never arrive
to see Yun and Kelsang’s smiling faces at the end of her steps.
By design, Kyoshi took the long way past the wood-chopping
station. The splitting maul was there, the wedge buried in the block.
Kyoshi placed her bag between her teeth and picked up the maul
with her free hand. The entire block came with it, stuck to the blade,
so she smashed the whole agglomeration against the wall until the
heavy tool was freed from the wood.
She kept walking.

Outside, the rain had doubled. The interval between lightning and
thunder was nonexistent. She dropped her bag and flung the heavy
wooden trunk in front of her. It slid in the mud before coming to a
stop.
The chest had been a focal point for her anger in the past,
collecting the flows of her hatred like the water barrels positioned
under the gutters of the house. It had been left behind in Yokoya,
like her, by the people who’d relegated her to the life of a starving,
desperate, unloved creature for so many years before Kelsang came
into her life.
Her parents would have to take a lower place on the shelf for
now. She had someone new to focus on.
Another lightning flash illuminated which side the iron lock
was on. Raising the maul high above her head with both hands, she
swung it down, aiming for the weakest point.
The wedge of the maul bounced off the metal. The trunk sank
deeper into the mud. She struck it again. And again and again.
The thunder and rain drowned out her senses, leaving her with
nothing but the painful vibrations rebounding up the haft of the maul
into her hands. She struck again and felt a crunch.
Rather than the lock breaking, the trunk had splintered where
the metal was fastened to the wood. But it was open. Kyoshi tossed
the maul aside and raised the creaking lid.
Inside were two ornate metal war fans the color of gold alloyed
with bronze. The weapons were packed in a softer wood frame that
held them open while protecting them from rough treatment like the
sort she’d just doled out.
 A headdress made out of the same material rested in between
them. It complemented the fans by mounting smaller versions of
them on a band, forming a semicircular crest at the forehead.
Lastly, there was a plain leather pouch with a case that she
knew contained makeup. A lot of makeup.
She snatched each item from its moorings. The headdress and
fans were much sturdier than they appeared—they were meant to be
worn and wielded in combat, after all. They and the pouch went
inside her bag. The trunk served no further purpose and would be
left in the mud.
With that, Kyoshi was finished. She was taken aback at how
completely and utterly finished she was. How little she had put on
display how much she’d lost, like the black night sky around the
burst of a firework. She’d held on too hard to a treasure that might
have been shaped like a home and a family, only to discover that her
touch had dissolved it entirely. She wiped her eyes with her forearm
and ran around the edge of the mansion, slipping and falling in the
rain at least twice, and reached the stables.
There was a shock waiting for her.
Rangi was busy securing bedrolls, tents, and other bales of
supplies to Pengpeng’s saddle. She looked up at Kyoshi from under
the hood of her raincloak.
“Let me guess,” she shouted over the downpour, pointing at
several waterproof baskets and sacks of grain. “You didn’t pack any
food, did you?”
She reached down, grasped Kyoshi’s hand, and pulled her onto
Pengpeng’s back. Then she hopped into the driver’s seat and took up
the reins. “We’ll have to fly low and head southwest, out of the
storm.”
Kyoshi’s throat was a solid lump. “Why are you doing this?”
“I have no idea what’s going on right now,” Rangi said over her
shoulder. She flicked rain off her brow. Her face underneath looked
like she was heading into combat. “But I’m not going to let you ride
off on your own and die in this storm. You won’t last an hour
without help.”
Kyoshi nodded, stricken dumb with gratitude to Rangi. For
Rangi. She pleaded with the spirits that it wasn’t a final cruel trick,
the form of her friend sitting before her. She maintained a safe
distance so as not to dispel the precious vision.
 The Firebender snapped Pengpeng’s reins with authority. “Up,
girl!” Rangi shouted. “Yip yip!”
 THE DECISION
The sunrise after the storm had no idea what Kyoshi had been
through. It shined its warm hues of orange through the clouds like a
loud boor of a friend insisting that everything would work out. The
waves below flowed neatly under the steady breeze, making it
appear that they were flying over the scaled skin of a giant fish.
Fighting the weather throughout the night had blasted them,
body and mind. Pengpeng’s flight path was starting to ramble. But
they were no longer in danger from wind and lightning. It was as
good a time as any to address the other life-shattering piece of news.
Rangi rubbed at the dark shadows under her eyes. “You’re the
Avatar,” she said. She spread her fingers and stared at the back of
her hands, checking whether she was intoxicated. Or dreaming.
“After all of this, it’s you. You really had no idea until now?”
Kyoshi shook her head. “I don’t know what went wrong with
the search when we were younger, but from what Kelsang told me, it
sounded like a complete mess. No one knew. Not even . . .” It was
difficult to spit out his name. “Not even Jianzhu.”
“I’ve never heard of this happening before,” Rangi said. She
closed and opened her fists to make sure they were still working. “At
least not in Fire Nation history. When the Fire Sages reveal the
Avatar, it’s a done deal.”
Kyoshi fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course, in the Fire
Nation the caravans arrived on time, and the identity of the most
important person in the world was never in doubt.
“And then there’s a festival,” Rangi said, lost in thought.
“According to tradition, there’s a celebration bigger than Twin Sun
Day. We eat special foods like spiral-shaped noodles. School is
canceled. Do you know how rare it is for school to be canceled in
the Fire Nation?”
“Rangi, what does that have to do with anything?”
The Firebender stretched her elbows behind her back, her mind
made up. “My point is that there are set ways this is supposed to pan
out,” she said. “If you’re the Avatar, you need the trappings of the
Avatar. We need to find masters who know what they’re doing to
recognize your legitimacy and give you the right guidance.”
Rangi vaulted over the saddle edge onto Pengpeng’s neck and
took up the reins. The bison dipped lower over the shimmering
water. Up ahead, a small crag jutted from the surface, a finger of
rock poking through the ocean sheet. It was too steep for ships to use
it as a dock, but there were a few level surfaces near the top, covered
in soft green moss.
“I’m going to drop you off here, where you can camp safely,”
Rangi said. “There’s a protocol in the event the compound came
under attack and I had to flee with the Avatar. Those bags were
prepacked; there’s everything you need for a week in them. Once I
return to the village and figure the situation out, I’ll bring someone
who can help.”
“No!”
She couldn’t go to another master, especially not a well-known
one. Any earthbender in a position to aid her was more likely than
not to be part of Jianzhu’s web. Looking back on her time at the
house, she’d seen the evidence of his reach every day. The gifts, the
ceremonious visits, and the dictated letters were simply tokens that
marked the flow of power and control in the Earth Kingdom. And
for as long as she’d known, it all filtered up to Jianzhu.
Kyoshi scrambled over to Rangi and yanked the reins out of her
hands. Pengpeng swerved to the side and roared in complaint.
“Stop that!” Rangi shouted.
“Rangi, please! You’d only be sending me right back into his
hands!” Kyoshi nearly bit through her tongue as she remembered the
horror Jianzhu unleashed from deep within the mountain and his
complete callousness while he did so. Rangi couldn’t have known
the extent of her fear. Kyoshi was certain the man hadn’t shown that
side of himself to anyone but her and Yun.
Rangi fought with her for the reins. “Let go! You’re being
ridiculous!”
“Rangi, as your Avatar, I command you!”
The Firebender recoiled like she’d been struck by a whip. The
order wasn’t one of Yun’s jokes. It was an exploitation of Rangi’s
oath to protect and obey the Avatar. An attack on her honor.
Rangi blew a long strand of black hair out of her face. It didn’t
go very far, the end of it sticking to her mouth. “I suppose I have to
get used to you saying that.”
There was an agonizing distance in her voice, and Kyoshi
despised it. She didn’t want a professional bodyguard obeying her
orders. She wanted her Rangi, who scolded her without hesitation
and never backed down.
They spent a long time in silence, listening to the breeze pick
up.
“Yun is gone,” Rangi said. “He’s really gone.” Her voice
seemed thin, drawn out by the passing wind, like the notes of a flute.
She sounded hollow inside.
Kyoshi had no comfort to give her. Both of their lives had
centered around duty. Kyoshi’s for the sake of survival, Rangi’s for
pride and glory. But Yun had managed to pierce both their shells.
Their friend had been stolen, and as far as Kyoshi was concerned,
there was a single path laid out before her that she could take in
response, lit by the clean, bright fires of hatred.
“I’m not ready to confront Jianzhu,” Kyoshi said. “I’m not
nearly strong enough yet. I have to find bending masters who can
teach me to fight and who aren’t in his pocket.”
In fact, it was more than that. She’d need teachers who were
completely unknown to Jianzhu. If he suspected she was after
training, he’d look for her in schools around the Four Nations.
And she’d have to conceal she was the Avatar. That news
would spread so fast it would act as a beacon for Jianzhu, allowing
him to close in on her before she was prepared. She didn’t have a
good idea how she’d obtain instruction in all four elements without
giving the game up, but she’d make it work somehow.
The idea sounded ludicrous in her head. It was ludicrous. And
yet Kyoshi knew she would walk off this cliff without hesitation.
She would stick both hands into a dragon’s mouth if it meant the
slightest chance she could pay back Jianzhu what she owed him.
Rangi dragged her hand down her face. “Fine. Bending
masters. Where do you want to look first? You’re talking like you
have a plan, so let’s hear it.”
“You’re not coming with me,” Kyoshi said. “I have to do this
alone.”
The Firebender gave her a look of such utter contempt for that
notion that it could have been grounds for an Agni Kai. Kyoshi was
afraid this might happen. Rangi’s powerful faith, her need to fulfill
her duty, would spiral around with no spot to land on but her.
 She had to stand strong. She’d lost so much already, and she
wasn’t going to risk her one remaining connection to this world on a
fool’s quest. “You’re not coming with me,” Kyoshi repeated. “As
your Avatar I command you to stay behind. Rangi, I’m serious.”
She wanted to sound angry, but the effect was ruined by the
overwhelming tide of relief she felt at Rangi’s rejection of her
demand. A strictly professional servant of the Avatar couldn’t
disobey her, but a companion might.
“I have no idea how long this journey will take,” Kyoshi said.
“And there are secrets about me that I haven’t told you.”
“Oh no, Kyoshi’s keeping a secret from me,” Rangi moaned an
octave lower than normal. “I think I’ll be okay with whatever your
little revelation is, given the last thing you sprung on me was only
the most important piece of information ON THE PLANET.”
The crag passed them by, a silent onlooker that wanted no part
of the conversation. The last marker of reason in an ocean of
uncertainty. From this point onward there was nothing but trouble
ahead.
But at least Kyoshi had her friend back.
“We need rest, or we’ll lose effectiveness,” Rangi declared,
nestling herself under the corner of a tarp that had come loose. “If
you’ve got a destination in mind then I’m taking the first sleep shift.
You owe me that much.”
“Rangi.” Kyoshi tried one last time to growl in threat. Instead
the name came out like a dedication of thanks to the spirits for this
fiery blessing of a girl. It was futile trying to mask how Kyoshi felt
toward her.
“Where you go, I go.” The Firebender rolled to her side and
yawned. “Besides, there’s only one bison, rocks-for-brains. We can’t
split up now.”

Despite how tired they were, Rangi only dozed fitfully, shivering
though it was no longer cold. Watching her from a distance, Kyoshi
had an answer regarding the little snips of breath she’d listened to
for so long in their shared tent on the iceberg. It was how Rangi
cried in her sleep. Every so often, she would burrow her face into
her shoulders to wipe her tears.
 With their eyes on each other, it was easy to be brave. Maybe
that’s the only way we get through this, Kyoshi thought. Just never
look away.
She stared at the water until the sun’s reflection became too
much, and then reached for her single bag of belongings. Digging
around, she found the clay turtle. It was made of earth. It was tiny.
She could use it for practice.
Small, she thought as she cradled it with both hands. Precise.
Silent. Small.
She curled her lips in concentration. It was like crooking the tip
of her pinky while wiggling her opposite ear. She needed a whole-
body effort to keep her focus sufficiently narrow.
There was another reason why she didn’t want to seek
instruction from a famous bending master with a sterling reputation
and wisdom to spare. Such a teacher would never let her kill Jianzhu
in cold blood. Her hunger to learn all four elements had nothing to
do with becoming a fully realized Avatar. Fire, Air, and Water were
simply more weapons she could bring to bear on a single target.
And she had to bring her earthbending up to speed too.
Small. Precise.
The turtle floated upward, trembling in the air.
It wasn’t steady the way bent earth should be, more of a
wobbling top on its last few spins. But she was bending it. The
smallest piece of earth she’d ever managed to control.
A minor victory. This was only the beginning of her path. She
would need much more practice to see Jianzhu broken in pieces
before her feet, to steal his world away from him the way he had
stolen hers, to make him suffer as much as possible before she ended
his miserable worthless life—
There was a sharp crack.
The turtle fractured along innumerable fault lines. The smallest
parts, the blunt little tail and squat legs, crumbled first. The head fell
off and bounced over the edge of the saddle. She tried to close her
grip around the rest of it and caught only dust. The powdered clay
slipped between her fingers and was taken by the breeze.
Her only keepsake of Kelsang flew away on the wind.
 ADAPTATION
Jianzhu pushed open the doors of his house to find it in static,
silent chaos.
The servants lined up in rows to the left and right, bowing as
the master entered, forming a human aisle of deference for him to
walk through. It was overly formal, a practice he’d dismissed long
ago.
He hadn’t bothered to clean himself before entering, so he left a
trail of dust and rubble in his wake. There was an ache in his chest
as he passed the bashed-in door to his study, a testament to his
Airbender friend’s great strength and personal conviction.
He had no time to grieve for what had happened to Kelsang. He
went straight to the Avatar’s room in the staff quarters, followed the
path of damage outside to the empty bison pen and then back to his
cowering servants in a loop.
“Can someone tell me what happened here?” he said in what he
thought was an admirably neutral, collected tone given the
circumstances.
Instead of answering they shrank further into their shoulders,
quaking. Whoever spoke up first was sure to take the blame.
They’re afraid of me, he thought. To the point they can’t do
their jobs properly. He cursed the fact that the girl had no official
supervisor watching her, and pointed at his head cook, Mui. He’d
seen the Avatar doing favors for the woman in the kitchen.
“Where is Kyoshi?” he said, snapping his fingers.
Mui went crimson. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Master. None
of us had ever seen her act that way before. She—she had a weapon.
By the time we could find a guardsman, she was gone.”
“Did any of the guests see her leave?”
Mui shook her head. “Most of them left early to try and beat the
storm, and the others were in their rooms in the far wing.”
He supposed it wasn’t the middle-aged cook’s fault that she was
unable to stop a rampaging, axe-wielding teenager who could break
a mountain whenever she remembered she had the ability. Jianzhu
dismissed the staff without another word. Better to have them
uncertain, fearing his next command.
 He drifted through the halls of the house until he found himself
in an aisle of the gallery, staring at some of his artwork but not
seeing it. That was where Hei-Ran found him after she returned
from an offshore meeting with the delegation from the Fire Navy.
She frowned at his appearance, ever the disciplinarian. “You
look like you were spat out by a badgermole,” she said.
Better to tear off this bandage quickly. He told her the version
of events she needed to hear. Kyoshi being the true Avatar. The
disappearance of both Yun and Kelsang, caused by a treacherous
spirit. The Avatar holding a grudge against him for it.
She slapped him across the face. Which was about as good a
result as he could get.
“How can you stand there like that?” she hissed, her bronze
eyes darkening with fury. “How can you just stand there!?”
Jianzhu worked his jaw, making sure it wasn’t broken. “Would
you rather I sit?”
A less-controlled person than Hei-Ran would have been
tempted to scream her disbelief to the skies, letting the secret out.
You had the wrong Avatar? You introduced a boy to the world as its
savior and then got him killed? You let the real Avatar run off to who
knows where? Our oldest and closest friend is dead because of you?
He was grateful for Hei-Ran’s iron character. She thought those
things at him instead of saying them, fuming strategically. “How are
you not going to lose face over this?” she whispered. “All of your
credibility? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” He leaned against the gallery wall, as surprised
at his own response as she was. Out of Kuruk’s companions, he had
been the planner. Normally Jianzhu had every contingency, every
fork in the road mapped out to its logical end. He found the change
of pace rather liberating.
Hei-Ran couldn’t believe he was drifting like this. She pulled
her lips back over her teeth.
“We can minimize the damage if we get her back quickly,” she
said. “She can’t have gone far on her own—she’s a maid, for crying
out loud. I’ll send Rangi to hunt her down. The two of them are
friends; she’ll know where Kyoshi would run to.”
Hei-Ran found the nearest summoning rope and gave it a yank.
The soft yellow cables ran throughout the house, held by eyelets
across certain walls. The bells at the other ends let the staff know
where help was needed.
Given that his employees were busy avoiding him like the
plague, it was a minute or two before someone answered. Rin or Lin
or whatever. The girl was out of breath, and she limped slightly, like
she’d stubbed her toe in her hurry to arrive.
“Rin, please fetch my daughter,” Hei-Ran said kindly. “Tell her
it’s very important.”
“I’m so sorry!” Rin shrieked. She was trying so hard not to
mince her words in fright that she erred on the side of earsplitting
volume. “Miss Rangi’s disappeared! One of the stablehands said he
saw her leave with Kyoshi last night!”
“Rin, please leave my sight immediately,” Hei-Ran said with
warmth of a different kind this time.
The girl bowed and backed away, eyes lowered, her socked feet
thumping a pattern down the hallway that was almost as fast and
loud as her heartbeat. Jianzhu waited until she vanished around the
corner.
“Before you hit me again,” he said to Hei-Ran. “I believe
whatever Rangi does is your fault, not mine.”
Her face contorted like she was living a thousand lifetimes right
then and there, in most of which she melted his eyeballs using his
skull as a cauldron.
“This is a positive,” Jianzhu said. “Your daughter will keep her
safe until we find them.”
“Until we find them?” Hei-Ran screamed in whisper. “My
daughter is an elite warrior trained in escape and evasion! We can
already forget about an easy chase!”
She thrashed in place, the waves of bad news buffeting her
around, challenging her equilibrium. When she came to a stop, her
face was lined with deep sorrow.
“Jianzhu, Kelsang is dead,” she said. “Our friend is dead. And
instead of mourning him, we’re standing here, plotting how to
maintain our grip on the Avatar. What has happened to us? What
have we become?”
“We’ve grown old and become responsible, is what,” Jianzhu
said. “Kelsang made the same promise to Kuruk that we did. We can
honor his memory, both of their memories, by continuing on our
path.”
He found his usual energy coming back, his dalliance with
helplessness finished. There had been too many futures to consider
before. The individual degrees of catastrophe were overwhelming.
But really he only needed to focus on one solution. The piece that
was critical to every scenario.
“We’ll get the Avatar back,” he said. “Finding her ourselves
would be ideal, obviously, but it’ll be fine if she turns up on the
doorstep of another sage to seek refuge. I’ll find out and respond
quick enough to smother the news from traveling further.”
He wasn’t worried about the Avatar hiding in the other nations
either. His personal networks extended further than the Earth King’s
diplomacy. If anything, his foreign contacts would inform him faster
and with more discretion, hoping to avoid an international incident.
“And what if she falls in with one of Hui’s allies?” Hei-Ran
asked.
Jianzhu grimaced at the mention of the chamberlain’s name. “I
suppose that’s always a risk. But I’m fairly certain she wouldn’t
know who he is or which masters he’s got his hooks into. I don’t
even know who’s sided with him yet.”
Jianzhu got off the wall. “My reputation will certainly take an
unavoidable hit once we have to reveal her identity to the world, but
that won’t matter in the end,” he said. “As long as the girl is back
here when we do it, under my roof, following my orders, it will all
work out. I have capital to burn within the Earth Kingdom. Time to
put it to good use.”
Hei-Ran grudgingly appreciated her friend’s return to his usual
self. “It doesn’t sound like the girl wants to be here.”
“We’ll worry about that later. Besides, she’s still a child. She’ll
learn what’s in her best interests.”
He dusted himself off, the first attempt he’d made to get rid of
the filth of the mining town so far. The plan molded itself together in
his head, like clay under the guidance of an invisible tool. “I need
you to write a letter for me.”
Hei-Ran looked at him sideways.
“I know, I know,” he said. “You’re not my secretary. But there
has to be a Fire Nation stamp on this message.”
 “Fine. Who’s it to?”
“Professor Shaw, Head of Zoology at Ba Sing Se University.
Tell him you’re interested in borrowing some specimens he brought
back from his latest expedition. You want to display them in the Fire
Nation, because they’re so very adorable and cuddly, as part of a
goodwill tour between our countries.”
Jianzhu eyed the piece of art behind him, a painting of the
Northern Lights on vellum by a master Water Tribe artist. He
grabbed its wide frame with his outstretched hands and ripped it off
its moorings. “Send him this as well, to butter him up. It’s worth
more than what he makes in a year.”
Hei-Ran seemed slightly disgusted by his reliance on bribery,
but that was an Earth Kingdom cultural quirk that people from the
other three nations often had trouble getting used to. “Which
adorable and cuddly animals are we talking about?” she said.
Jianzhu twisted his lips and sniffed. “The shirshus.”
 THE INTRODUCTION
Kyoshi struggled to open the small metal box. She’d opened the
visible latch, yes, but no matter how hard she gripped and twisted
the container, the false bottom that concealed the true contents
wouldn’t budge.
“You can’t force it,” a gentle voice said. “Use too much
strength, and it’s liable to break. The goods would spill everywhere.
You don’t want to leave a trail behind, do you?”
Kyoshi looked up from the floor to see a tall, beautiful woman
with freckles splashed across the tops of her cheeks and serpent
tattoos running down her arms. Next to her was a man, stocky and
strong, his face bedecked in red-and-white makeup. The streaks of
crimson met each other to form a wild, animalistic pattern, but his
expression underneath was warm and mirthful.
The metal box suddenly grew hot, singeing Kyoshi’s flesh, and
she dropped it. She tried to shout and found her teeth loose and
swimming in her mouth. The painted man wiped his face, and in the
streaks between the colors, his features had turned into Jianzhu’s.
Kyoshi surged forward with rage but couldn’t close the
distance. The woman found her helplessness amusing and winked at
her with a green glowing eye. Her eyeball swelled and swelled,
growing so large that it burst out of its socket and kept expanding
until it consumed her other eye and then the entirety of her face and
then the four corners of the world. Kyoshi flailed in terror inside the
cavernous darkness of its pupil, trying to reach solid ground.
We’ll never leave you, Jianzhu whispered. You will always have
us, in the distance, behind you, right next to you, watching you. The
two of us will always be there for you.
At the height of her panic a hand gripped Kyoshi by the
shoulder. The warmth and solidness of it told her not to flinch, not to
worry. She sat up slowly and blinked in the fading daylight.
“Wake up,” Rangi said. “We’re here.”

Rangi insisted on making a single pass over Chameleon Bay

before landing. She leaned off Pengpeng’s side, drawing in the
layout of the ramshackle port town with the single-mindedness of a
buzzard wasp, as if every trash-strewn alley and patchy roof were
vitally important. Kyoshi let Rangi take her time. She needed a
moment to make sure she’d fully climbed out of the depths of her
nightmare.
After she collected her thoughts, she joined in on looking. To
Kyoshi the mass of buildings was indistinguishable, a curving scab
around the bay that should have been picked off long ago. There was
only one location that she was interested in, the one that matched the
description in her journal.
“There,” she said, pointing at one of the few structures that rose
above a single story. The yellow roof stood out among its green
neighbors like a diseased leaf. “That should be Madam Qiji’s
teahouse.”
They pulled up, retracing their route through the sky. There was
no place to land Pengpeng within the town limits, and a sky bison
with no Airbender on it was surely one of the first signs Jianzhu
would order his network to search for. The reconnaissance sweep
itself had risks.
The small copse they found on the outskirts felt like a dose of
luck. Perhaps their reserves of good fortune would be drained by the
simple act of hiding Pengpeng in the trees.
“We’ll be back, girl,” Kyoshi said to her, stroking the beast’s
nose. Pengpeng gently bumped her with her skull, telling her they’d
better.
Kyoshi and Rangi set out on foot, the pressure of firm ground
against their soles a welcome sensation after so much flying. As they
followed a dirt path into Port Chameleon Bay, they were treated to a
ground-level view of the town in all its glory.
It was a miserable sight.
For the past nine years, Kyoshi had never laid eyes on open
flatland going to waste without some attempt to grow food on it. But
the dusty, hard-packed fields they passed through made it clear it
wasn’t worth trying. The ground here was rawhide, impenetrable.
The port sustained life, in the barest sense. They encountered a
surrounding band of slums, wooden lean-tos and moth-eaten tents.
The inhabitants stared at them with glassed eyes, not bothering to
adjust their bodies from where they sprawled. The few who stood
up, in wariness that they might be hostile, were hunched by
malnutrition and sickness.
“People shouldn’t live like this,” Rangi said.
 Kyoshi felt her sinews tying into knots. “They can and they
do,” she said as casually as she could.
“That’s not what I mean.” Rangi rubbed her own elbow,
considering the pros and cons of what she was about to say. “I know
about the time you spent in Yokoya on your own, before Jian—
before Master Kelsang took you in. Even though you tried to hide it
from me.”
Kyoshi’s stride faltered, but she gathered herself and kept
going. They couldn’t stop here simply because her friend wanted to
have a heart-to-heart about one of the oldest, deepest scars running
through her soul.
“Auntie Mui told me,” Rangi said. “Kyoshi, you should never
have been put through that experience. The thought of the other
villagers ignoring you when you needed them, it makes me sick.
That’s why I was always pushing you to fight back.”
Kyoshi laughed bitterly. She’d long laid the blame for those
years on a different party than the Yokoyans. “What was I supposed
to do, drop the mountain on them? Smack around a bunch of
children half my size? Anything I did would have been completely
disproportionate.”
She shook her head, wanting to change the subject. “Anyway, is
the Fire Nation so perfect that prosperity gets shared with every
citizen?”
“No,” Rangi said. Her lips scrunched to the side. “But maybe
one day it could be.”
They entered the town proper, the edges marked by a change to
brick and clay shanties, some of them earthbent into being and
others laid by hand. The streets twisted and angled like they’d been
set over animal paths instead of following human needs. If it hadn’t
been for the landmark of the teahouse jutting above the roofline,
Kyoshi would have been lost after a few steps.
The merchants who’d closed up shop for the night had done so
with vigor, coating their storefronts in so many locks and iron bars
that she wondered how some of them afforded the expense. A
number of deer dogs, hidden behind walls and fences, set off barking
as they passed.
No one bothered them. Thankfully. Reaching the teahouse felt
like making it through a field of trip wires. Madam Qiji’s was an
island in the haphazard layout of the town, ringed by the broadest
avenue of open space they’d seen so far. It was as if someone had
aggressively claimed the public square and plunked down the
wooden building in the center.
Light flickered through the paper windows. They stepped onto
the large, creaking porch, approaching cautiously. There was an old
man sprawled across the doorway, wrapped in canvas blankets,
blocking their entry. His loud snores caused his wispy white beard to
flutter like cobwebs in the breeze.
Kyoshi was debating whether to prod him gently or try leaping
over him when he woke up with a start, grumbling at the impact his
shoulder made with the doorframe. He blinked at her and frowned.
“Who’re you?” he mumbled.
She noticed his hands shaking as they poked out from his
cocoon. From hunger, no doubt. She hadn’t given enough thought to
money as she made her getaway from the mansion, but there were a
few coppers in the pockets she’d sewn into her dress long ago. She
fished the coins out and placed them on the porch in front of him. If
the instructions in her journal were correct, she and Rangi wouldn’t
have any need for money once they were inside.
“Get yourself something to eat, Grandfather,” she said.
The old man smiled at her, his wrinkles clawing over his face.
But his happy expression turned to outright shock when Rangi added
a silver piece to the pile.
Kyoshi glanced back at her.
“What?” Rangi said. “Weren’t we just talking about this kind of
thing?”

The inside of Madam Qiji’s was only halfway finished.

The ground level was dedicated to serving food and drink.
Tables for visitors were arranged over a layer of straw and sand. But
where there should have been a second floor with rooms for
overnight guests and weary travelers, there was no floor. Doors
floated in the walls twelve feet off the ground with no way to reach
them. No mezzanine, no stairs.
The handful of hooded figures sitting in the corners didn’t seem
to think that was unusual. Nor did they look up as Kyoshi and Rangi
came in. If anything, they leaned farther into their cups of tea, trying
to remain inconspicuous.
 Kyoshi and Rangi took seats in the middle. Near them was an
exquisite, heavily constructed Pai Sho table, by far the nicest object
in the room. It sat on four sturdy legs, surrounded by ratty floor
cushions, a jewel nestled in the petals of a wilted flower.
They were in the right place. And they were in the right chairs.
It was supposed to be only a matter of time before someone came
over and said the phrase she was waiting for.
For Kyoshi it was an eternity. The Pai Sho table was an
agonizing reminder of Yun. And she didn’t need a visual aid to feel
the raw wound of losing Kelsang. That pain was a bleeding trail
leading back to Yokoya. It would never wash away.
Rangi kicked her chair. A man made his way over to them. A
young man, really. A boy. Each step he took into the better-lit center
of the room regressed how old he looked. His sleeves were bound
with thin strands of leather, and he wore headwraps in the style of
the Si Wong tribes. They hung loose around his face and neck,
framing his barely contained fury. Kyoshi could sense Rangi getting
ready for the worst, gathering and storing up violence to unleash if
things went wrong.
“What would you like to drink?” the boy said through his teeth.
Here it was. The moment of truth. If the instructions in the
journal were wrong, then her vaunted single path forward would be
cut off at the first step.
“Jasmine picked in fall, scented at noon, and steeped at a boil,”
Kyoshi said. Such a combination didn’t exist. Or if it did, it would
have tasted like liquid disaster.
The reply came out of his mouth like it needed to be dragged by
komodo rhinos, but it was the reply she was looking for. “We have
every color blossom known to man and spirit,” he said.
“Red and white will suffice,” she replied.
He clearly had been hoping for any response but that one. “Lao
Ge!” the boy suddenly shouted toward the door. “You were supposed
to keep watch, you useless piece of dung!”
The old man who’d been lying across the porch leaned halfway
inside. He was suddenly much less infirm than when they’d first
met.
“I was standing guard, but then those two lovely young women
gave me enough money to buy a drink or ten,” he said with a big,
toothy grin. “They must have slipped by me while I stepped out to
the wineshop. Quite the tricksters, those two.” He tilted a liquor
bottle to his lips and drank deeply, his ragged sleeve falling down his
arm to reveal sheaves of corded muscle under papery skin.
The boy ground the heel of his hand into one of his eyes. He
stormed away to the kitchen, muttering expletives at the old man the
whole way. Kyoshi could sympathize.
Rangi leaned on the table. Though her pose was relaxed, her
eyes fluttered around the room, sizing the occupants up, including
and especially Lao Ge, who was busy finding the bottom of his
second bottle of drink.
“You know,” she whispered to Kyoshi. “You told me we were
going to a daofei hideout; you told me you were going to get access
to help through daofei code; here we are, I heard you speak it, and
yet I still can’t believe this is happening.”
“It’s still not too late for you to get out of here and save your
honor,” Kyoshi said.
“It’s not my honor I’m worried about,” Rangi hissed.
Before they could get further into the matter, the boy returned
with a tray of steaming cups. He placed one in front of Kyoshi,
Rangi, and then himself, taking a seat across from them. He was
much calmer now. It may have had less to do with the tea than with
the backup that slowly filed in behind him.
A huge man in his thirties, as tall as Kelsang and half again as
thick, blotted out the lamplight coming from the kitchen. He had a
smooth, clean-shaven face over a body that threatened to burst from
expensive robes, his clothes having been chosen for flash over fit.
Kyoshi saw Rangi’s eyes dart to the man’s feet instead of his scarred
knuckles or protruding gut, and realized why. As big as he was, he
hadn’t made the floorboards creak.
One of the doors suspended in the wall above the ground flew
open. A young woman stepped out of the room, not caring about the
drop that awaited her.
She was dressed in an Earth Kingdom tunic, but with a fur skirt
over her trousers. Kyoshi had seen pelts like that worn by visitors
from the poles. The stronger indication of the woman’s Water Tribe
heritage was her piercing, sapphire-blue eyes that no amount of
spidersnake formula could possibly hide.
 She landed on the ground with her toes pointed like a dancer’s.
Kyoshi could have sworn she’d fallen slower than normal, a
feather’s descent. It was the only way to explain how she made the
journey from the second story to the table without breaking stride or
the bones in her foot. She stood behind the other shoulder of the boy,
her wolflike features unreadable as she assessed Kyoshi and Rangi.
I’m not afraid, Kyoshi told herself, finding to her surprise that
it was true. She’d tussled with the Lord of the Eastern Sea. A single
street-level daofei crew wasn’t going to intimidate her.
The boy in the desert hat tented his fingers. “You come in here,
total strangers, unannounced,” he said.
“I have the right,” Kyoshi said. “I gave the passwords. You are
obligated to provide me and my partner succor, by the oaths of blood
you have taken. Lest you suffer the punishments of many knives.”
“You see, that’s just it.” The boy slouched back in his chair.
“You’re using these big, old-timey words like you’ve got these grand
ideas of how this is supposed to work. You rattle off a senior code
that we haven’t heard in years like you’re pulling rank on us. You
did it like you were reading from an instruction manual.”
Kyoshi swallowed involuntarily. The boy noticed and smiled.
He tilted his head at Rangi. “Coupled with the fact that
Gorgeous over here practically screams ‘army brat,’ it makes me
think the two of you are lawmen.”
“We’re not,” Kyoshi said, swearing silently inside her head at
how badly this was going. “We’re not abiders.”
There were three men scattered around the teahouse who were
not part of their little confrontation. They all hastily plunked down
coins and beat it out the door, eyes wide with fright.
The boy placed a small, hard object on the table with a click.
Kyoshi thought it was a Pai Sho tile at first, but he withdrew his
hand to reveal an oblong stone, polished smooth by a river or a
grinder.
“I’m pretty good at spotting an undercover,” the boy said. “And
I think this is your story. Your daddy bought you an officer’s
commission from a crooked governor, and the first thing you
decided to do with it is play detective and come knocking on our
door.” He thumbed at Rangi. “She was assigned to watch your back,
but she didn’t do a very good job, because you’re here now, and
you’re going to die. The cause will be recorded as acute terminal
stupidity.”
Kyoshi could almost hear Rangi’s thought process, counting the
limbs of the three people across from them, calculating out the
sequence of damage she’d inflict. “I’m telling you, we’re not
lawmen.”
The boy angrily kneed the underside of the table hard, knocking
over the teacups and spilling the liquid across the surface.
Kyoshi acted before she thought. But in retrospect, it was more
about stopping Rangi than anything else. She kicked upward as well.
The entire foundation of the teahouse, the patch of earth it was built
on, jumped by half an inch.
The boy nearly fell out of his chair. His two bodyguards
wobbled. The shocked looks on their faces said that didn’t happen
very often, not with the large man’s stability and the Water Tribe
girl’s impeccable balance.
Kyoshi spoke over the groans of resettling wood and the dust
drifting in clouds around them. “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t
belong here.”
They didn’t bum-rush her immediately, deciding that she
needed to be attacked with caution. That bought her time to speak.
“The truth is that I despise daofei,” Kyoshi said. “I hate your
kind. It makes me sick to be in your presence. You’re worse than
animals.”
“Uh, Kyoshi?” Rangi said as the big guy and the woman sidled
into better flanking positions. “Not sure where you’re going with
this.”
The boy remained where he was. Kyoshi could tell he wanted
to put up a brave front. So did she. “But that doesn’t matter right
now,” Kyoshi said, staring through the hardening layer of rage in his
eyes. “You are going to give me everything I demand, because you
are bound by your outlaw code. You will do as I say because of your
idiotic, clownish, make-believe traditions.”
Her blood sang in her ears. Her hand went to her belt. The man
and woman would certainly interpret that as the signal to attack. She
was aware of Rangi leaving her seat.
Only by moving faster did Kyoshi prevent complete disaster.
She slammed one of the war fans on the table, its ribs spread wide to
reveal the golden leaf. The Waterbender and the big guy stopped in
their tracks. The boy looked like someone had reached into his chest
and seized his heart.
“Spirits above!” Lao Ge said. “That’s Jesa’s fan!”
The sudden appearance of the old man at the table startled both
sides equally. He’d managed to squeeze in between Rangi and
Kyoshi without them noticing, and he leaned inward, giddily
examining the details of the weapon.
The boy leaped out of his seat. “Where did you get that?” he
shouted.
“I inherited it,” Kyoshi said, her pulse racing. “From my
parents.”
The Water Tribe girl looked at her with wonder. “You’re Jesa’s
daughter?” she said. “Jesa and Hark were your mother and father?”
Kyoshi didn’t know why she was getting more worked up over
simple facts than the prospect of a brawl earlier. “That’s right,” she
said. It felt like her mouth had become her stomach, unwieldy and
sour. “My parents founded this group. They’re your bosses.”
“Our baby has come home!” Lao Ge crowed. “This calls for a
drink.” He stepped back so he could have room to pour a third bottle
into his gullet.
The boy was still angry, but in a different flavor now. “We need
to confer for a minute.” He snatched up his rock from the table and
pointed accusingly at Kyoshi. “In the meantime, I suggest you get
your story straight, because you have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Yes,” Rangi said. “She does.”

Lao Ge perched on a table off to the side with his containers of

booze, like a strange bird arranging shiny objects in its nest. The rest
of the gang filed back to the kitchen without him. Given that they
seemed to treat him like background furniture, Kyoshi could only do
the same. She turned to Rangi and found the Firebender giving her a
critical stare.
“What?” Kyoshi said. “This happened exactly the way I said it
would. We’re in. This is the first step to gain access to this world.”
Rangi remained unmoved.
 “I told you everything before we landed,” Kyoshi said. “The
truth about my parents being daofei smugglers who abandoned me
in Yokoya. Rangi, you came in here with me knowing this.”
The words poured out of her in a churning waterfall. Her knee
was jogging rapidly up and down. The motion did not escape
Rangi’s notice.
“As bizarre as it is for me to say this, your secret family history
is not the issue,” Rangi said. “Don’t you think you played that
situation a little . . . aggressively?”
That was news to Kyoshi, coming from her “burn it first and
ask questions later” friend. “It’s the kind of behavior these people
respect,” she said. “Tagaka knew we were calm and rational, and
look what she tried to do to us.”
Rangi’s teeth clicked. “You didn’t see yourself back there. It
was like you were begging them to attack you. There’s being brave,
and then there’s having a death wish.”
She reached out and clamped her hand on Kyoshi’s leg to still
the shaking. “We’re not in our element,” Rangi said. “You might
have the keys to certain doors, but this is not our house. You have to
be more careful.”
And if I back down from a few daofei, I have no chance of
standing up to Jianzhu. “I’m sorry, all right?” Kyoshi said. This
argument wasn’t going to resolve anytime soon, and the gang was
coming back. The last thing they needed was to show a fractured
front to the criminals they were trying to coerce.
Rangi let it go, seeing the same value in unity. The Si Wong
boy, Water Tribe woman, and bulky man arranged themselves in
front of Kyoshi with great formality. She had often stood that way to
greet important guests, always in the back of the group due to her
height.
The man made a gesture with one open palm down, and the
other hand clenched into a fist on top. It was unlike any other
greeting Kyoshi had witnessed and made it seem like his right side
was smashing the left for trying to steal food off a table.
“Flitting Sparrowkeet Wong,” he said, bowing slightly. If he
seemed embarrassed by having such a delicate-sounding nickname,
he didn’t show it.
The lithe Waterbender stepped forward and made the same
pose, though in a slouchy way to let everyone know she thought the
concept of professional names silly. “Kirima,” she said. “Just
Kirima.”
“Bullet Lek,” the boy snapped with great pride. He had
rearranged his headwraps behind his ears to a more dignified, indoor
style. “Though some call me Skullcrusher Lek, or Lek of the
Whistling Death.”
Kyoshi made sure not to mirror the faces that Wong and Kirima
made behind Lek’s back, or the boy would have certainly been
insulted. “Kyoshi,” she said. “This is my associate, Rangi.”
Rangi made a little snort of disapproval that Kyoshi took to
mean: Oh, so we’re giving them our real names now?
“How did you come to us tonight?” Kirima asked. “Start as far
back as you can.”
That far, huh? “I don’t remember much from when I was little,”
Kyoshi said. Though her legs had settled down, the front of her neck
now ached with tension. “Only that my parents and I never stayed in
one place very long, and they never told me where. You could say I
grew up in ‘the Earth Kingdom.’”
“That would have been before any of you joined,” Lao Ge said
to the others. “Jesa and Hark slowed down considerably for several
years and barely ran any jobs. They never told me why they stopped
gathering the old crew for so long. I thought maybe they’d quit the
game.”
The old man’s memory helped Kyoshi fit pieces together into a
completed puzzle. The result was uglier than she’d imagined.
“Well, they must have wanted back in very badly, because they
abandoned me in a farming village when I was five or six,” she said.
“I can’t be sure exactly when. I never saw them after that.” Or
forgave them.
“That can’t be,” Lek said. “Jesa and Hark would never do that
to family. They were the most loyal bosses anyone could ask for.
You must be mistaken.”
Kyoshi wondered what it would be like to pick him up, like she
did to that pirate, and shake him until he saw spots. Kirima
intervened before she could explore the idea.
“Are you telling their own daughter what happened to her?” the
Waterbender snapped at Lek. “Shut up and let her finish.”
 “There’s not much more to tell,” Kyoshi said. “I nearly died of
neglect in that village before I was taken in by the household of a
rich and powerful man. A sage. The only possessions I had to my
name were my mother’s gear and her journal, which had information
about my parents’ daofei customs, obligations I could call on. It was
an instruction manual. Like you said.”
She glanced at Rangi. “I kept my parents’ past a secret from the
village the whole time. Given how I was treated as an outsider, I
don’t think I would have fared well if the townsfolk knew I was also
the spawn of criminals.”
Rangi clenched her jaw. Kyoshi could tell she was thinking
about the what-ifs, how their relationship might have been different
had she known Kyoshi was a tainted child from the start. Would she
have looked past that and befriended Kyoshi all the same? Or would
she have condemned her to the rubbish heap like she’d done to
Aoma and Jae and the others?
“And one day you just decided to leave and come here?” Lek
said. He was still incredulous, like a sequence of events that started
with Kyoshi’s parents being anything but perfect was not possible.
“I did not just decide,” Kyoshi snarled, turning her attention
back on him. “The man whose house I lived in decided, when he
murdered two people dear to me. I swore by the spirits that turn this
world on its axis that I would make him pay for it.
“That’s why I’m here,” she said, pounding her fist on the table
for emphasis. “He’s too powerful and influential to be brought down
by the law. So I need the opposite side of the coin. I need my
parents’ resources. If they can give me one gift at all in this life, then
let it be revenge for those I’ve lost.”
Her face was red. Kyoshi felt ready to explode. She didn’t
know what she’d do if another door in the wall opened and her
mother and father stepped out. It would have been as volatile and
uncharted as her encounter with the cave spirit.
Lek solemnly took his headwraps off and wrung them between
his hands. His hair was sandy and cropped underneath. “You came
all this way to find Jesa and Hark,” he said in a mournful mutter.
“Kyoshi, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to break this to you, but . . .
but . . .”
Relief came like a monsoon. She did not have to meet them.
She didn’t have to discover what kind of person she was when the
past unearthed itself and took solid form.
 “What, are they dead or something?” Kyoshi said, waving her
hand at him flippantly. “I don’t care.”
A lie. Had they appeared in front of her, she might have had to
run screaming from this room.
Lek’s grief was replaced by outrage, a funeral guest who caught
her stealing the altar offerings. “We’re talking about your mother
and father! They were taken by a fever three years ago!”
She found it so easy to be cruel now that she knew for certain
they couldn’t defend themselves. “Wow,” Kyoshi said. “I guess
there’re some things you can’t outrun, huh?”
His eyes goggled out of his head. “How can you be so vile? No
one in the Four Nations disrespects their own kin like that!”
“They left me behind because I took up too much cargo space,”
Kyoshi said. “So I would say it’s a family tradition.”
She snapped the war fan closed, intending to punctuate her
sentence in an intimidating way. Instead the arms fell out of
alignment and the leaf folded the wrong way, ruining the effect. She
would need to learn how to use it properly at some point.
“I’m not here to confront my parents, or their ghosts,” Kyoshi
said. The raw nervous energy coursing through her bones had
slowed. “I’m here to seek what’s owed me by blood ties.”
She counted off on her fingers. “I want access to safehouses in
the bigger cities where I can stay hidden at length. I want
introductions with the rest of the network, starting with the strongest
benders. And, most of all, I want training. Training until I’m strong
enough to take down my enemy personally.”
A silence fell over the group.
Kirima made an awkward little choke. Kyoshi thought maybe
she’d gotten some saliva down the wrong pipe, but then the
Waterbender burst out laughing.
“Other cities!” she guffawed. “Let me guess. Your journal
mentioned secret bases in Ba Sing Se, Omashu? Gaoling maybe?
Filled with a brotherhood of bandits who honor the old ways?”
“I’ll blow my trumpet,” Wong said. “I’m sure they’ll come
running.”
Kyoshi frowned. “What’s so funny?”
 Kirima spread her arm. “This is our one and only base of
operations. This is the network. Us. Whatever assistance you thought
you could personally demand outside the law ends here, within these
walls.”

Kyoshi remembered the most tired she’d ever been in her life. It
was not long after she’d been dropped in Yokoya, when she still saw
the journal and chest as her birthright treasures and not as
incriminating evidence her parents wanted to ditch alongside her.
She’d been chased away from every door, forced to drag the
heavy trunk with her. It was a lot for a child to carry back then, even
one as outsized as her. As the day wore on, the exhaustion had
seeped into her fingernails and teeth. Her thoughts had turned gray.
There had been no room in her body for hunger and thirst. It was all
given over to fatigue.
Kyoshi felt the same fragments of weariness threatening to
undo her now. They drove into her joints like nails, beckoning her to
give up. Looking at the daofei before her, she saw it clearly now.
They weren’t the vanguard of some shadow army she could use to
march upon Jianzhu. They were haggard, hunted people. Like her.
“We’ve fallen on hard times,” Wong said. She gathered he
didn’t speak much, so when he did, it was likely true and to the
point. “Crackdowns on smuggling across the Earth Kingdom have
been pretty severe in recent years. We’ve been cut off from gangs in
other cities without much news or any jobs to speak of.”
“Your journal must be at least a decade old, with entries that go
back further,” Lek said. “In those days, groups like ours had real
influence.” He stared at his hands like a deposed king longing for the
grip of his scepter. “We had territory. The governors asked us for
permission to do business.”
“Lek, you would have been three years old during our heyday,”
Kirima said. “We hadn’t even picked you up yet.”
He wheeled on her furiously. “That means the rest of you
should be more upset than me!”
“We understand,” Rangi interrupted. “It’s painful to know what
should have been.”
Kyoshi detected a streak of satisfaction in her voice at the way
things had turned out. The hole went no deeper than a dilapidated
teahouse and a few cutpurses. As far as Rangi was concerned, they
could still extricate themselves.
“Kyoshi, we tried,” she said. “You did what you could. But this
isn’t what we came for.” She glanced at the room doors and their
unusual placement. “We could stay here overnight, perhaps, but it’d
be no safer than camping. We should get back to Pengpeng and fly
to the nearest—”
Lek slammed his hands on the table. “Fly?” His voice broke
with excitement. “You flew here?”
The rest of the group perked up. “Are you telling me you have
a sky bison?” Kirima said. There was an interested gleam in her eye.
Rangi cursed at her slipup. “Why?” Kyoshi said. “What
difference would it make?”
“Because now you have something we want,” Kirima said
while Lek bounced off the walls. “Being Jesa and Hark’s kid means
we’re obliged to keep you safe from harm. It doesn’t mean we’ll
follow your orders or help you on some personal quest for
vengeance. You want that level of commitment, then you make us an
offer.”
“No,” Rangi snapped. “Forget it. We’re not giving you our
bison. We’re not giving you anything of the sort.”
“Simmer down, Topknot,” Kirima said. “I’m merely suggesting
a partnership. We need to get out of this dried-up town to where the
prospects are better. Kyoshi wants training. We should travel
together for a while. It’s her best shot at finding earthbending
teachers of ill repute.”
Hearing her, Kyoshi suddenly realized she’d made a critical
mistake. She’d shown her earthbending. While she greatly needed
improvement in her native element, there wasn’t a straightforward
way to get training in the others without revealing she was the
Avatar.
Rangi was still opposed to the idea. “We didn’t come here to
revive a two-bit smuggling operation,” she said to Kyoshi. “We’d
just be taking on more risk than we need.”
“First of all, our operation was top-notch!” Lek said, full of
umbrage. “And second, you two are the baggage here. You wouldn’t
last a day moving in our circles without a guide. For crying out loud,
we almost killed you.”
 Rangi narrowed her eyes. “Is that your impression of what
happened?” She sounded perfectly willing to test his theory.
Kyoshi buried her face in her hands while they argued. Ideas
that had been so clear in her mind before were becoming trampled
and muddy. Her singular path turned out to be full of brambles and
false turns.
Lao Ge interrupted her wallowing by slamming an empty bottle
on the table. He’d been forgotten until now, and his smile folded in
on itself like he was bursting with the world’s best secret.
“I know it’s a tough decision, my dear girl,” he said, cocking
his ear toward the door. “But don’t take too long. The police are
coming.”
 ESCAPE
The sound of marching boots hitting the road filled the air. “You
stupid old man!” Lek shouted. “I’m never putting you on watch
again!”
“Finally,” Lao Ge said. He winked at Kyoshi.
Officers wearing constabulary green hustled into the teahouse.
They fanned out along the sides to accommodate their numbers,
reaching to the corners. Twenty or so, wearing quilted armor with
single dao broadswords on their backs.
At the head of their formation, still in plainclothes but now
wearing the same headband adorned with the prefectural badge of
the law as the others, were the same three men who’d been in the
teahouse earlier.
“Remind me again who’s good at spotting undercovers, Lek?”
Kirima snarled.
In a moment of panic Kyoshi thought the officers had come for
her on behalf of Jianzhu, but that couldn’t have been the case. If
he’d sent out messengers immediately, they still wouldn’t have
beaten a bison.
No, she thought with a grimace. They were here for the girl
who’d walked into an outlaw hideout and started making demands
with outlaw codes. She’d incriminated herself in public, like a fool.
“In the name of Governor Deng, you are under arrest!” the
captain said. Instead of a sword, he pointed a ceremonial truncheon
topped with the Earth King’s seal at them, but it looked heavy
enough to break bones regardless. “Put down your weapons!”
Deng. The name brought more terror to Kyoshi’s heart than a
charging saber-tooth moose lion. Stout, red-nosed Governor Deng
was a frequent visitor to Jianzhu’s house and one of his closest
allies. Kyoshi glanced at Rangi. The Firebender’s worried headshake
confirmed her fear. If they got caught here, tonight, the whole
operation was over. They’d be back in Jianzhu’s grasp before his
breakfast got cold.
The captain did not like the eye contact between her and Rangi.
“I said put down your weapons!” he shouted, bristling for a fight.
The daofei looked at their empty hands in confusion. Kyoshi
realized that unless the man felt particularly threatened by Lao Ge’s
bottles, the only armed one was she. The glinting war fan was still in
her hand, its mate stuck in her belt. She stood up so that she could
have room to yank the other fan out.
The captain took a step back in astonishment. He’d interpreted
her unfurling to her full height as a hostile act. He wasn’t the first.
“Take them!” he shouted to his men.
There were so many of them. Crammed in the dark confines of
the teahouse, the police force seemed larger in number than Tagaka’s
marauders. Five of the officers made a beeline for Kyoshi, the
obvious target.
They were knocked down by a blast of fire. Kyoshi glanced
back at Rangi again. She had her fist extended, her skin smoking.
Her face was upset but unrepentant. If they were in, they were in
full-measure. Rangi didn’t do things by halves.
Inspired by her decisiveness, Wong picked up Lao Ge and
threw the drunkard bodily at the captain like a rag doll. Lao Ge’s
warlike screech as he flew through the air was the only sign that
he’d agreed to the act. The two of them must have done it before.
The element of surprise worked strongly in their favor as Lao Ge’s
wiry arms wrapped around the captain’s neck and his legs scissored
around the waist of his subordinate, becoming a human net.
Another blast from Rangi sizzled past Kyoshi’s ear. She no
longer knew what was going on. Men closed in on her with swords
drawn. She picked up the nearest, heaviest object, the Pai Sho board,
by one of its legs and swung it in an arc.
The policemen were bowled over like wheatstalks by the dense
wooden bludgeon. The ones who tried to block her wild strikes with
their dao had their swords bent and crushed against their torsos for
their trouble.
Fresh officers ran in through the door only to slip on a sheet of
ice that Kirima laid down using nothing but the remaining wine from
Lao Ge’s stash. Kyoshi jolted in surprise at the reserved, minimalist
twirl of her wrists and fingers. For a moment it looked like Tagaka
of the Fifth Nation was fighting on her side.
“Girl!” Lao Ge said, clamping swords inside their scabbards
wherever his bony fingers and toes could reach. “Bump the table!”
She didn’t have the same previous working relationship with
him as Wong, but Kyoshi caught his drift. She raised her foot high
and stomped the floor.
 The teahouse jumped into the air again, this time tilted higher
from the back. Lao Ge and several of the policemen fell through the
door. The others were knocked prone, scrambling on the straw and
frozen wine.
Kyoshi’s new compatriots managed to stay upright, having seen
the trick before. “Out the other side!” Lek yelled.
“What about Lao Ge?” She hadn’t meant to dump him into the
thick of the enemy.
“He can handle himself! Move!”
She flung the Pai Sho board at the nearest officers and followed
the others through the kitchen. It was empty, just a little room with a
clay stove that smoldered from the one attempt Lek had made at tea.
Another door gave way, and they were in the town square behind the
building.
The passage had been disguised, painted over without a frame,
and there were no windows, so it was the side of the house that was
least well-guarded by the police. Only two men held positions there.
Kyoshi heard a zzip-zzip noise, and they crumpled to the ground
before they could wave their swords.
Lek tucked something back into his pocket. “Where’s your
ride?”
Rangi answered, which was good because Kyoshi had lost her
bearings and had no idea. “Southwest corner of town,” she said. “If
everyone follows me, I can get us there.”
There was a harsh scrape of clay from above. A whole section
of roof tiles sloughed off and came crashing down at their heels as
they ran. Reaching Pengpeng meant running along the edge of the
square, seeking one outlet from the many cramped alleyways
branching and forking in different directions like the veins of a leaf.
Kyoshi caught sight of the reason why they hadn’t been
swarmed by more lawmen. Lao Ge was tangling with a whole
platoon of them by the main entrance. They slashed wildly at the air
he occupied only to come up empty every time. He folded and rolled
his body like the wine still fogged his mind, dodging and flipping,
his movements seemingly designed to taunt and frustrate them.
Kyoshi saw him leaning over at impossible angles nearly parallel to
the ground and realized he was subtly earthbending supports
underneath his torso, changing his center of gravity to confound his
opponents.
 “We can’t leave him!” she shouted to the others.
Apparently they could, because no one else gave Lao Ge a
second thought. “This one!” Rangi said, darting down a passage into
the darkness. But before anyone had a chance to follow, a thick stone
wall shot up from the ground, reaching the height of the neighboring
roofs, closing the exit off. The police force had brought
Earthbenders of their own.
Lek kept running after her as if he were oblivious to the
obstacle in his path. Kyoshi though he was going to dash his brains
out against the wall. And then he did one of the most amazing things
she had ever seen.
He stepped up into the thin air.
Lek ran higher and higher on invisible stairs. It was only after
he’d gone above eye-level that she saw how. The thinnest columns
of earth she’d seen anyone earthbend shot up from the ground with
each of his steps, anticipating where his foot would land next. They
provided a moment’s support and then crumbled into dust
immediately once his weight shifted off them. His rising path left no
trace behind him.
Kyoshi had watched children around the village play by
bending the ground they stood on into the air. It was sometimes a
test of courage, who could make their pillar the highest, or a game of
coordination, taking turns with a partner to see-saw back and forth.
But it was always highly destructive to the ground, leaving jagged
markers of what had happened. And the players had to remain still,
or they’d fall off their platforms.
Lek had none of those concerns. He floated, weightless, free of
the earth’s pull. He stepped over the top of the wall and onto a
rooftop before disappearing.
The feat wasn’t limited to Earthbenders. Kirima uncorked a
small pouch at her waist and wisps of water spilled forth, gathering
under her feet. She stepped higher into nothingness much as Lek
had, only her stairs were powerful, thin little jets that provided the
same resistance as earth. If the timing was more difficult for her, or
the water less stable, she compensated with supreme grace.
Wong glanced at Kyoshi as if to check what she was thinking.
You can’t possibly, was what.
He shrugged at her skepticism and followed his teammates
skyward, using earth and dust as Lek had, like it was no big deal.
The sight of the gigantic man defying all notions of gravity made her
jaw drop. It looked less like bending and more like spiritual
chicanery, an invisible hawk lifting Wong’s bulk over the roofline.
Kyoshi watched him and Kirima run over eaves and windowsills and
the blank spaces of alley gaps with equal ease.
The whole show had happened in less than seconds. It was a
mind-blowing stunt. And highly unfortunate.
Because no one had taken into consideration that Kyoshi could
not do that. She expressly, with utmost certainty, could not do that.
“Cut her off!” a policeman shouted behind her. A second slab
of rock shot up to her right.
Left, then. She sprinted for the nearest remaining avenue and
made it out of the square before it was blocked shut. Immediately
she knew it was a mistake. The alley veered sharply away from the
direction the others had gone. The forks in the narrowing street had
no markers, and each subsequent guess she made only got her more
lost. The houses squeezed in on her as she ran, promising to throttle
her by the gills like a fish in a net.
A blast of flame shot into the darkening sky. And then another,
the source slightly to the right. Rangi was signaling to her where to
go. Kyoshi felt her heart skip a beat for her friend. It was either that
or a conniption from running at full speed for so long.
She followed the upcoming bend in the direction of the fire, but
so did the lawmen. In fact, they used their knowledge of the town
layout to steal a march on her, suddenly popping into view closer
behind her. She couldn’t double back. And up ahead, a dead end
loomed. The alley had been walled up with bricks.
“No way out, girl!” an officer with admirable lung capacity
bellowed.
Step, she thought to herself. Do the thing like they did. Her self-
berating voice sounded a lot like Rangi in her head.
It should be easier with more speed, right? She hurled herself
toward the wall, praying that she could Avatar herself into picking
up a technique she’d only seen once. Her on-the-run attempt to bend
the necessary struts without destroying the whole town resulted in
only pitiful bumps of earth appearing before her. They collapsed
under her weight, tripping her up. She fell forward uncontrollably,
face-first. She wasn’t able to cross her arms in front of her before
she made impact.
 Kyoshi shut her eyes as she slammed into the wall. There was a
terrible crash, an explosion of snapping bricks and tearing mortar.
When she opened them again, she was on the other side, still
running.
She’d plowed straight through without feeling a thing. She
must have bent reflexively, flinched and wrapped herself in her own
power like a cloak. A quick glance back showed a Kyoshi-sized hole
in the wall and surprised guards trying to decide whether to leap
through or go over the top.
In her distraction she collided with the corner of a house. Fear
of broken bones caused her to force her way through the clay
structure the instant she felt the pain of impact on her shoulder. The
building stayed standing, a neat chunk of it ripped off like a sampled
loaf of bread.
Ahead of her the spaces between closed-up merchant shops
were so narrow that a person smaller than her would have had to
stop and wedge through sideways. Rangi sent up another beacon.
The only way to get there was as the bird flew. Kyoshi sent an
apology into the cosmos for the damage she was about to cause and
barreled straight into the cluster of buildings. If she couldn’t be a
creature of grace, then she’d be a battering ram.
She smashed through the first wall like it was rice paper. Inside,
she crossed the floor in a few steps and burst into the neighboring
section, boring a passageway through the cluster of storerooms.
Each section she stampeded through offered a momentary glimpse
of different merchandise. Dry goods, wet goods, weapons, ivory that
was certainly illegal, fancy hats. She was glad that she was only
ruining inventory and not harming living occupants with flying
debris.
Her face felt tight and she wondered if she’d injured herself,
ripped her skin open. But no, she determined. She was grinning with
a locked, maddened expression, mindlessly exulting in her own
power and destruction. Once she realized it, she quickly worked her
jaw back into a grim frown and splashed through the next wall.
An unfamiliar sensation caused her to flail after hitting the last
barrier. It was freedom. She was in a broad street, going the right
way for once. Up above her on the rooftops, the whole crew sprang
deftly from surface to surface, bolstering themselves with their
element when necessary.
 “I see you made your own shortcut,” Kirima shouted. The
water lifting her up sparkled prettily in the moonlight, making her
look like a lunar fairy.
Kyoshi checked behind her to see if anyone had followed the
trail of utter devastation she’d left through the town. “Where’s
Rangi?”
“Still in the lead. That’s quite a companion you’ve got.”
There was another blaze of light that resembled a rocket
climbing into the night. Rangi had joined the daofei on their level.
She ran as nimbly as they did on the roof tiles, and when there was a
leap too great to make naturally, she stepped on jets of fire that
blasted out of her feet, bounding in propulsive arcs across the sky.
The sight made Kyoshi’s breath come to a standstill at the very
time she needed it flowing. Rangi was so beautiful, illuminated by
moon and fire, that it hurt. She was strength and skill and
determination wrapped around an unshakable heart.
Kyoshi had always admired Rangi. But right now, it felt as if
she were gazing at her friend through a pane of glass freshly
cleaned. Some mighty and loving spirit had reached down from the
heavens and outlined the Firebender in new strokes of color and
vibrance.
There was a struggle in Kyoshi’s chest that had nothing to do
with how hard she was running, notes of longing and fear played in
one chord. She tamped the feeling down, not wanting to confront
what it meant right now. In any case, it was a poor time to be
distracted.
Soon they exhausted their supply of houses to leap over. They
reached the shanties in the outskirts, causing more confusion for the
residents who’d seen Kyoshi and Rangi head inward for the night
but now flee for their lives in the opposite direction with three other
people in tow.
Lek raced for the copse of trees without being told, perhaps
understanding that there were only a few places you could hide a
ten-ton bison. Kyoshi reached the copse in time to catch the boy as
Pengpeng roared and blasted him backward with wind.
“Easy, girl!” She coughed, her lungs burning from the run and
inhaled building dust. “They’re with us.”
Walking across the sky must have been a highly efficient
technique, because no one else seemed as tired as she. Rangi leaped
onto Pengpeng’s neck and unwound the reins from the saddle horn.
The daofei climbed onto the bison’s back, gripping her fur with
strange familiarity. Once they were settled, Rangi took Pengpeng up
above the treeline.
Lek was ecstatic. “A bison!” he screamed, drumming on the
saddle floor. “A real bison!”
“Calm down!” Rangi said. “It’s not like you can’t see them near
any Air Temple.”
“He’s just excited because we used to have one of our own,”
Wong said. “Cute little fella named Longyan.”
Despite their need to move quickly, Rangi paused, leaving
Pengpeng swooping around in a gentle, idling circle. “Wait, how?”
she said. “Only Air Nomads can tame bison. The animals won’t
listen to strangers if they’re stolen.”
“We didn’t steal Longyan,” Kirima said. “He was Jesa’s bison.”
Rangi squinted in confusion and turned to Kyoshi. “But wasn’t
Jesa . . . your mother?”
Kyoshi winced. She spotted a reprieve from the awkward
conversation, albeit only a temporary one. On the ground below
them, waving his hands, was Lao Ge. He’d managed to escape the
dozens of men who had him surrounded and made it to the hiding
spot in better time than anyone else.
The daofei didn’t look one bit surprised to see him. Rangi took
Pengpeng low and Wong leaned over, clasping hands with Lao Ge
and swinging him onto the saddle, again with the smooth ease of
practice. “I thought we might finally be rid of your stinking hide,”
Lek yelled.
“Not quite so easy,” Lao Ge said. “Is anyone else thirsty? I
could use—”
“Shut up,” Rangi snapped. She fixed Kyoshi with her gaze
again. “Does that mean what I think it means? About your mother?”
She looked hurt at another secret being kept from her. But
Kyoshi had honestly, sincerely forgotten to bring it up. It hadn’t been
relevant until now.
“Yes,” Kyoshi said sheepishly. “My mother was an Airbender.
I’m half Air Nomad.”
She felt terribly guilty. She’d forced Rangi to absorb a lot in the
past day. Finding out that Kyoshi wasn’t the fully Earth Kingdom
girl that Rangi had assumed this whole time was yet another small
weight added to the pile.
But hearing that a despicable criminal and gang boss was an
Air Nomad would have been enough to shock and confuse anyone.
People around the world looked up to Airbenders as enlightened
paragons who were free of worldly concerns. They belonged to a
benign, peaceful, monastic culture that was so spiritually pure that
every single member had bending ability.
Rangi resembled a child who’d just been told that the sweets
tucked underneath her pillow had been left by her parents instead of
the Great Harvest Spirit. Kirima and Wong detected the
awkwardness between them and remained silent. Lek wasn’t so
observant.
“What’s everyone looking sour for?” he said, slapping Rangi
and Kyoshi on their backs. “We finally have a bison again! Our best
days are ahead of us!” He thrust his fists into the air and let out a
whoop. “The Flying Opera Company is back in business!”

They camped along the bank of a dried-up creek, hiding

themselves by virtue of being way out in the middle of nowhere. If
the officers in Chameleon Bay knew what direction they’d gone in,
it still would have taken at least a day by ostrich horse to catch up.
They didn’t bother hiding the fire Rangi blasted into the ground for
them. It burned larger than they needed, sputtering and crackling
from unseasoned fuel. They ate the last of the dried food.
Kirima and Wong fell asleep first, without asking about shifts.
Lek waded in the waterless creek, picking up a few polished stones
that caught his fancy before he settled in for the night.
Rangi was holding a grudge over how badly the day’s events
had gone—almost getting arrested by the local police, the daofei
insinuating themselves into their camp, the revelations about
Kyoshi’s heritage—so the two of them engaged in a silent, petty
contest of wills to see who would fall asleep next. Kyoshi had the
advantage, knowing that there was probably a nightmare waiting for
her. She made sure Rangi was truly out cold before laying the good
blanket they’d kept hidden from the others over the Firebender’s
shoulders.
Kyoshi walked along the river, wobbling over pavestone-sized
rocks that had once been underwater, until she found Lao Ge sitting
under a gnarled tree. Half its roots had been washed clean in some
long-ago flash flood, while the rest clung tightly to the bank. The
tree’s efforts were in vain. It was dying.
Lao Ge’s eyes were closed in meditation. “You’re very loud,”
he said.
She frowned. She’d practiced stepping lightly for years as a
servant, to move like a whisper so as not to distract guests.
“I mean your spirit is loud,” the old man said. “It rings in the
air. Sometimes it screams. Like right now—your body may be all the
way over there, but your spirit is grabbing me by the shoulders and
howling in my face. If you went to the Spirit World in your current
condition, you’d cause a typhoon the size of Ba Sing Se.”
“I know who you are,” Kyoshi said. “It took me a while to
figure it out, but after seeing you fight so many men at once, it was
clear.”
He opened one eye a crack. Kyoshi had a theory that people
who liked meditating practiced that gesture to look good-humored
and wise.
“You’re Tieguai the Immortal,” Kyoshi said.
“Oh?” Lao Ge said, fully interested now. “I suppose there was a
description of me in Jesa’s journal? Long white hair, great dancer,
devastatingly handsome?”
“It didn’t have that much detail. It said you were an underworld
legend rumored to be two hundred years old, but that’s obviously a
tall tale.”
“Of course. I’m a man, not a spirit, after all.”
“I know it’s you because of a different description,” Kyoshi
said. “Tieguai fights with a crutch. I was looking for someone with a
wooden crutch or a bad leg. Then I saw you leaning on your
earthbending while you fought the lawmen in the square.”
Lao Ge sighed, as if he pitied her for putting two and two
together. He put his hands on his knees and raised himself to his feet.
Then he tiptoed down the web of roots until he was in Kyoshi’s face.
“Why would one such as yourself seek out Immortal Tieguai?”
he said, no longer an old man but a human-headed monster asking a
riddle in exchange for safe passage. “After all, your mother never
did. She only called me Lao Ge.”
The root he perched on shouldn’t have been able to support a
bird let alone a human being. Kyoshi swallowed hard. She had a
sense of tumbling downhill, her inner ears roiling like choppy seas.
An inability to go back to the harbor.
“Because she was afraid of you,” Kyoshi said. “She didn’t
know when you first joined the group, but her suspicions grew over
time that you were Tieguai the Assassin. Tieguai who killed the
fortieth Earth King. She figured out that you were using her
smuggling gang as cover, to travel from place to place as you
eliminated targets for your own purposes. She was too scared to
confront you.”
The entries in her mother’s hand had been completely fearless
while describing dangerous smuggling jobs, burglaries, and
skirmishes with local militias. They were the musings of someone
who’d thrilled to the life of a daofei. But the journal also had patches
that were rife with criminal superstition, none more so than the
scattered stories about a shadow who moved across the Earth
Kingdom, snuffing out lives both exalted and lowly according to
some unknowable design.
Jesa the smuggler had pieced together the pattern. Whenever
the silly old man in her gang slipped away by himself, a death would
happen nearby. Sometimes it would be a prominent noble who
should have been safe behind thick walls and numerous guards.
Lao Ge—the name had stuck hard—lowered his head and
mouthed a quick prayer for the dead. “That woman always was very
observant. I’m surprised I didn’t catch her catching me. So what is it
that her daughter wants? To bring me to justice?”
“No,” Kyoshi said. “I want you to teach me how to kill
someone.”
If Lao Ge was surprised by her answer, he didn’t show it. “Hit
them in the head really hard with a rock.”
“No,” Kyoshi repeated. “Bending and killing are not the same
thing.” The image raced through her mind, the way Jianzhu had so
casually done the unspeakable, first to Yun and then to Kelsang. As
easy as breathing.
It needed to be that easy for her. She could afford no mental
block, no hesitation when it came to taking his life. She had to be
ready in all regards when she next saw Jianzhu.
A breeze in the night air puckered her skin. “You should go to
sleep, girl,” Lao Ge said. “Because you’ve already learned lesson
one.”
 “So does that mean we’ll continue later”—she decided to test
the waters—“Sifu?”
“If and when I believe the time is right.”
She bowed and left him to his meditations, backing away out of
distrust as much as respect. Her footing was unsteady and threatened
to roll her ankles. Right before she was about to turn, Lao Ge spoke
up again.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell the others about my
independent ventures,” he said. “I don’t wish to complicate matters
with our little merry band.”
The relationship between Lao Ge and the other daofei was not
her problem. But if that was the only leverage she had in order to get
him to teach her, she’d use it. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Sifu.”
Lao Ge smiled benignly. It reminded her of Jianzhu’s, only
more genuine. It reached his eyes. He had no need to hide what he
was from her.
“And in return, I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “Kyoshi.”
 THE AGREEMENT
Kyoshi slept poorly, fretting during the night over what the old
man had said. Her secret. First Tagaka and now Lao Ge. If every old
person could look into her eyes and deduce she had unusual power,
or was the Avatar, then she’d be in trouble. The only benders she’d
be able to learn from would be infants like Lek.
A toe in her ribs woke her. She clawed at the hard surface under
her, dirt filling her fingers instead of her sheets. She found herself
blearily missing her bed.
“Get up,” Rangi said. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the fire still
had a few red embers glowing in it. Lao Ge was nowhere to be seen,
and the others were engrossed in a three-way snoring contest. Gray
predawn light made the dusty riverbank appear like it had been
treated with lye, leached of color and vitality.
Kyoshi staggered to her feet. Having moved in the night, the
good blanket fell off her onto the ground. “Wha-what?”
Rangi shoved her along the bank, in the opposite direction
she’d taken last night. “You wanted training? Well, you’re getting
training. Starting today. Now.”
They walked, Kyoshi feeling like a prisoner as Rangi prodded
her sharply every so often for not moving fast enough. They put
some distance between themselves and the camp, but much less than
Kyoshi thought they would by the time Rangi ordered her to stop.
A series of grassy mounds shielded them from view of the
others, but the small hills weren’t very high. “Let’s see your Horse
stance,” Rangi said. “You don’t get a pass on the basics that
earthbending has in common with firebending.”
“We’re firebending? Here?” Anyone who came searching for
them would certainly check this place. They’d left Pengpeng alone
with criminals who coveted her.
“We’re reviewing basics, not making flame,” Rangi said. “I
doubt you need a lot of nuanced, high-level instruction at this point.
Can you even hold a deep bending stance for ten minutes?”
“Ten minutes!?” Kyoshi had heard five was an admirable goal,
one that she’d never reach.
There was a hint of a smirk on Rangi’s lips. “Horse stance.
Now. I don’t say things to my students twice.”
 Three minutes in, and Kyoshi knew what this was. Punishment.
The burning in her thighs and back, the ache in her knees, was
retribution for not telling Rangi everything.
“Look, I’m sorry,” she said.
Rangi rested her elbow in her other hand and examined her
nails. “You’re allowed to talk once your hips get to parallel.”
Kyoshi swore and readjusted her bones. This had to be an
exercise meant for short people. “I should have told you my mother
was an Airbender. I didn’t think it was relevant.”
Rangi seemed satisfied with the apology. Or the amount of pain
she was inflicting on Kyoshi. “It is relevant!” she said. “Air Nomads
aren’t outlaws! This is like finding out you had a second head hidden
under your robes the whole while.”
Maybe satisfying Rangi’s curiosity would get her out of Horse
stance early. “My mother was a nun born in the Eastern Air
Temple,” Kyoshi said. “I don’t know much about her early life other
than she became a master at a young age and was highly regarded.”
Talking provided a useful distraction from the acid eating her
muscles. “Then, on a journey through the Earth Kingdom, she met
my father in a small town somewhere. He was the daofei. An
Earthbender and small-time thief.”
“Ugh, I can already see where this is going,” Rangi said.
“Yes. He dragged her into a scheme, and she fell in love with
both him and the life of an outlaw. She must have been born into the
wrong existence as an Air Nomad, because she tattooed over her
arrows with serpents and dove into the underworld with her whole
being, seeking out more ‘adventure.’”
Rangi shook her head, still not able to get over an Airbender
going rogue. “That’s just . . . so bizarre.”
“You heard the others talk about her. She became a relatively
big figure among daofei, more so than my father. But her airbending
suffered from a spiritual taint. Or so her journal says. Letting herself
be absorbed by worldly concerns, and greedy ones at that, caused
her power to dwindle. So she compensated.”
“With a set of fans,” Rangi said, snapping her fingers at a
mystery solved. “For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why you
had fans as an Earthbender. I didn’t ask because I thought it might
have been a touchy subject.”
“It is.” The searing pain in her legs had been replaced by a
duller, more manageable agony. “Why do you think I never told
Kelsang? ‘Oh, by the way, I’m the product of one of the worst
disgraces to your culture in recent memory?’ By the time I was old
enough to consider bringing it up, there was no point. I had my job.
I’d met you.”
“Five minutes,” Rangi said. “Not bad.”
Kyoshi pushed the hurt to the back of her mind. “I think I can
keep going.”
Rangi took a lap around her, checking her posture from all
angles. “It’s galling. A master Airbender abandoning her spirituality
for a lowlife. No offense.”
“None taken. It doesn’t sit well with me either.”
Rangi poked her in the small of the back. “Promise me you’ll
never throw your life away over a boy,” she said, her voice coated
thickly with disdain.
Kyoshi laughed. “I won’t. Besides, who could possibly be
worth—”
The full weight of what she was saying slammed down on her
midsentence like a heavy gate. Her insides boiled with disgust at her
own weakness.
She’d let herself laugh. She’d spoken Kelsang’s name out loud
without cursing Jianzhu’s in the same breath. And worst of all, she’d
forgotten Yun. It didn’t matter how long the lapse was. To release
her grip on him, even for a second, was unforgivable.
Rangi knew it too. Her face crumpled, and she turned away.
Kyoshi remembered what Lao Ge had said about her spirit making
too much noise. Seeing Rangi stilled with grief in front of her drove
the lesson home. The two of them held storms inside.
Kyoshi had to be stronger, in body and mind. Moments of
happiness were like useful proofing, liquid testing the cracks in a jar.
The less they occurred, the greater the chance she was on the right
track for vengeance.
She was still in a low stance. She remembered the ineffectual
Fire Fist she’d thrown in Jianzhu’s face. Perhaps if she’d embraced
her firebending ability earlier, she could have ended him right then
and there.
“Let me try producing flame,” Kyoshi said.
Rangi looked up and frowned.
Kyoshi’s rededication to her cause felt hot and bitter inside her,
like steam in a plugged tea kettle. She was sure that if she let it out,
she could firebend. “Fire Fists,” she said. “I think I can do them with
real flame now. I feel like it’ll work.”
“No,” Rangi said.
“No?” Kyoshi was taken aback by her certainty. Firebending
felt so real, so close. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no. You’re as tense as a rolled-up armadillo lion right
now. You’re going to produce the wrong kind of flame and develop
bad habits. Watch.”
Rangi stepped to the side. Without warning, she dropped into
her stance and punched the air, snapping her sleeves with the force
of her motion. Kyoshi could see her knuckles smolder like the tip of
an incense stick.
“You need to work on relaxation and mental coordination first,”
Rangi said. “Early lessons in firebending are all about suppressing
flame and keeping it controlled. For a beginner, making visible fire
means failure.”
Kyoshi scoffed to herself. Not producing flame had been the
cause of her problems from the start. “Then let me try what you
did.” She planted her feet in mimicry of Rangi and chambered her
fists.
“Kyoshi, don’t.”
She imagined Jianzhu’s face, inhaled, and struck.
Her one experience at flamespitting had jiggled something
loose, made it easy for her breath to spiral outward from her lungs
and combust. Too easy. Energy raced down her arm and crashed into
her fingers. It caused her nerves to light up with signals, as if she’d
gripped a red-hot coal straight from the stove.
Instead of the crisp glow that Rangi produced, the heat that
came out of Kyoshi’s fist was erratic, toggling, the popping of water
added to hot oil. It went on for far too long and caused far too much
pain. Kyoshi fell on her back and tried to get herself pointed away
from any target. She managed to aim her hand at the sky in time. A
tiny, contorted spout of black smoke belched upward from her
fingers.
Kyoshi sat up. Rangi watched the pathetic yarnball of vapor
climb into the air. Then she gave Kyoshi a stare that was hard
enough to flatten iron.
They were saved from a difficult conversation by Lek. He
crested the hill next to them and traced the path of the smoke with
his finger.
“What kind of broke-down firebending was that?” he said with
a snicker. He directed the question at Rangi, not having seen the
source.
Rangi crossed her arms. “I had a momentary collapse of
discipline,” she said, still glaring at Kyoshi. “It won’t happen again.
Not if I ever want to firebend properly.”
Lek shrugged. “Lighten up; I was just asking. If the two of you
are done collapsing, breakfast is ready.”

Breakfast was some manner of rodent, hunted, gutted, skinned,

and burnt to the point of unrecognizability. Kyoshi and Rangi ate
with big, angry bites as they sat with the daofei around the rebuilt
fire, each trying to show the other how upset they were through
aggressive gnawing.
Lek forgot his portion as he watched them, amazed. “I didn’t
think an army princess and a servant girl from a fancy mansion
would take to elephant rat.”
“Survival training at the academy,” Rangi said, breaking a bone
with her fingers to get at the marrow. “We learned to accept
whatever food we could find in the wild.”
“I used to eat garbage,” Kyoshi said.
That drew stares from the group.
“I thought Jesa and Hark left you in a farming village,” Kirima
said.
“That doesn’t mean the farmers shared food with me.” Kyoshi
worked her tongue around a stringy fiber of meat caught in her teeth.
“They might not have known I was the child of outlaws, but I was
still an outcast there. They treated me like I was unclean. And then I
had to do things like this to survive, so you know. Self-fulfilling
prophecy.”
“Reasons like that are why I can’t stand law-abiding, salt-of-
the-earth folk,” Wong said. “It’s the holier-than-thou attitude. The
hypocrisy.” He wiped his hands on a leaf. “If anything, they deserve
to be knocked out and robbed on a regular basis.”
He noticed Kyoshi staring at him. “What?” he said. “I practice
what I preach.”
“You must have hated their guts,” Kirima said.
“The villagers? Not really.” Kyoshi found she meant it. “Not as
much as the people who left me with them.”
Lek threw the remnants of his meal into the fire and walked off,
fuming silently. He disappeared behind the other side of Pengpeng,
the only member of the party who seemed to make him happy.
“All right, what’s his problem?” Kyoshi snapped. “Every time I
state a fact or an opinion about my parents he has a fit.”
“That’s because he idolized them,” Kirima said. “We picked
him up in a town outside the Misty Palms Oasis. He’d just lost his
brother, his last remaining family. Hark and Jesa took him in for a
few days, and he proved useful on a job, so they taught him more
and more of the trade until he grew into a stricter follower of the
outlaw code than the rest of us. He worshiped the ground they
walked on.”
Perhaps Kirima had meant to soothe the beast inside Kyoshi,
but instead she’d smeared its nose with fresh blood.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kyoshi said, a lifetime’s worth of unused irony
pouring forth. “I’ll remember to be nicer to the boy my mother and
father decided to raise instead of me.”
Kirima made a gesture with her thumbs to indicate how little
she cared about the issue. “What about you?” she said to Rangi.
“What’s a sparky young noble like you doing with an Earth
peasant?”
The mere reminder of her duty caused Rangi to sit up straighter.
“I’m honor bound to follow and protect Kyoshi—”
“Nope!” Kirima said, regretting she’d asked. “Gonna cut you
off right there. The last time I listened to a Firebender talk about
‘honor’ my ears nearly rotted off my skull. Had to kick him out of
my bed with both feet.”
 She and Wong got up. The two older daofei didn’t feel the need
to reciprocate with their life stories. Wong pointed two fingers at the
campfire and sunk it a few feet into the ground before covering it up.
His size belied the dexterity of his earthbending. In fact, she’d
confirmed last night that every member of her parents’ gang had
finesse to spare. The exact quality she was lacking.
“We need to talk,” Kyoshi said, getting up as well. “Last night
we were interrupted before I agreed to anything.”
“Oh, come on, really?” Kirima said. “After what we’ve been
through, you want to take your bison and ditch us in the middle of
nowhere?”
“We shared a meal,” Wong said, looking genuinely hurt. “We
beat up lawmen together.”
“My demands haven’t changed,” Kyoshi said. “I want bending
training, and the only benders around are you lot. You’ll teach me.
Personally.”
“What are you lumping me in for, Earth girl?” Kirima said.
“You want to learn waterbending forms to relax and improve your
circulation?”
Kyoshi had prepared an answer overnight for this purpose.
“‘Wisdom can be gleaned from every nation,’” she said, using a
quote of Kelsang’s. “If learning about the other elements can make
me stronger, then I’ll do it.”
“That desperate for revenge, huh?” Kirima said. “Who is this
powerful man who’s wronged you? You never told us his name.”
“That’s because you don’t need to know.” Kyoshi didn’t want
to talk about Jianzhu. He was too renowned throughout the Earth
Kingdom. The same went for her identity as the Avatar. Information
about their link could spread, giving him a trail to hunt her down
before she was ready to fight him.
Every edge would count in this battle. Kyoshi recalled the way
her parents’ gang had flown over the rooftops last night, unimpeded.
They’d practically reached the same heights Jianzhu had with his
stone bridges.
“I want to learn how to run across the sky,” she said. “Like you
did in town.”
“Dust-stepping?” Wong said. His usually impassive face took
on an edge of seriousness.
 “It’s our group’s signature technique,” Kirima said. “Though
for me it’s ‘mist-stepping.’ And it’s not something you get for free.”
The atmosphere had changed. Previously the daofei had treated
Kyoshi’s demands as amusing, the barking of a puppy trying to look
fierce. This was the first time they’d gotten truly cautious and
guarded, as if they might be swindled in the trade.
Rangi noticed their reservations. “You’re acting pretty serious
about a technique I cribbed after seeing it once,” she said.
Kirima fixed her with a stare. “Other groups probably would
have killed you for that,” she said without a hint of jest. “You don’t
last long in our world by letting everyone see your advantages.
Secrets are how we survive.”
She turned back to Kyoshi. “We teach you, that means you’re
in. For real, and for life. You’d have to swear our oaths and follow
our codes. In the eyes of those who abide by the law, you’d be a
daofei.”
I’d be like Tagaka, Kyoshi thought. I’d be like my parents. She
stilled the revulsion inside her and nodded. “I understand.”
“Kyoshi, think about what you’re doing!” Rangi yelled.
“Topknot’s right, for once,” Wong said. “You don’t take these
vows lightly. It means accepting us as your brothers and sisters.” He
raised his brows, showing the whites of his eyes. “Since we’ve met
you’ve been looking down your nose at us. Can your honor take the
hit, associating with such unclean folk?”
The big man was more incisive than he looked. Kyoshi knew
what it was like, being on the receiving end of disdain.
Her answer was yes. As far as she was concerned, her personal
honor and reputation had no value. Trading them for more power
was an easy choice. She would do it. For Kelsang and Yun.
She could practically feel Rangi’s disappointment vibrating
through the ground. “What are these oaths?” Kyoshi asked.

According to Kirima, the swearing-in ceremony was supposed to

take place in a grand hall, with the initiate standing under an arch of
swords and spears. They’d have to improvise. Kyoshi took a spot by
the riverbank while Wong stood behind her and held a pocketknife
over her head.
 Kirima had Kyoshi make the same odd salute the gang had used
the night before in the teahouse. The flattened left hand represented
the square folk, the law-abiding community, while the right fist
hammering it down represented followers of the outlaw code. Just in
case Kyoshi forgot she was joining the forces of darkness.
Rangi stalked some ways off to the side, making sure to stay
within their field of vision so everyone could see how angry and
disapproving she was the whole time. Kirima ignored her while
conducting the ceremony. According to the Waterbender, there were
normally fifty-four oaths that had to be taken, recited from memory
by the new member of the gang. She had decided to let Kyoshi off
easy with just the most important three.
“O spirits,” Kirima exclaimed, “a lost one comes to us, seeking
the embrace of family. But how will we know her heart is true? How
will we know that she follows the Code?”
“I shall swear these oaths,” Kyoshi said in response. “I swear to
defend my brothers and sisters, and obey the commands of my
elders. Their kin will be my kin, their blood my blood. Should I fail
to uphold this vow, may I be hacked to death by many knives.”
The words were easy to say. They caused no tugs of conflict on
her spirit. Yun and Kelsang had been her lifeblood. She should have
defended them with every scrap of her being. They might have lived,
had she embraced her power more fully.
“Next,” Kyoshi said, “I swear to follow no ruler and be
beholden to no law. Should I become the lackey of any crown or
country, may I be ripped apart by thunderbolts.”
As a good citizen of the Earth Kingdom, this line made her a
little more nervous. Yun had always said the Avatar had to act
independently of the Four Nations. But to disregard law and order
entirely felt like an extreme for the sake of extremes. Did her parents
walk down the street trying to flaunt every statute and custom they
could think of?
“Stop drifting,” Kirima hissed.
Kyoshi coughed and straightened up. “Last, I swear never to
make an honest living from those who abide the law. I will take no
legitimate wage, and work for no legitimate man. Should I ever
accept coin for my labors, may I be sliced to bits by a variety of
knives.”
 She didn’t see the difference between the first and third
punishments. And the last oath was perhaps the one most inimical to
her being. Back in Yokoya, a steady job had been the only barrier
between her and death.
I’m not that person anymore, Kyoshi reminded herself. That
girl is gone and will never come back.
With her third vow, she was done. “I see no stranger before me,
but a sister,” Kirima said. “The spirits have borne witness. Let our
family prosper in the days to come.” She saluted Kyoshi and stepped
back.
A heavy weight slammed down on Kyoshi’s collarbones, and
she momentarily panicked, fearing an attack from behind. The
sensation was too similar to the rock that Jianzhu had locked around
her wrists. But it was just Wong giving her a congratulatory pat on
the shoulders.
“Welcome to the other side,” he said, unsmiling. He brushed
past her like they’d finished rearranging furniture and joined Kirima
in trudging back to the campsite.
Kyoshi blinked. “That’s it? What happens now?”
“What happens is we leave this place on your bison,” Kirima
said without looking back at her. “As soon as we can.”
They left her alone with Rangi. Instead of scolding Kyoshi, the
Firebender simply gave her a shrug that said, You get what you pay
for.
Kirima and Wong were already cleaning up the remnants of
camp once they caught up. The big man took special care to cover
their footprints, sweeping dust over the signs of their presence with
little pivots of earthbending.
“The deal was for lessons,” Kyoshi said.
“And you’ll get them, once we pick up a score,” Kirima said.
She checked the level of her water pouch and made a face. “Even
little baby vengeance seekers need food and money to survive. In
case you haven’t noticed, we’re out of both. I’m not eating elephant
rat for two days in a row.”
Kyoshi pulled her lips over her teeth in frustration. They’d
touted the seriousness of the oaths so much that she’d thought they’d
start treating her like an equal after she took them. Instead they were
treating her like Lek.
 She had to establish a better position in the hierarchy or else
this would go on forever. As Wong reached down to pick up a
blanket, she stepped on it, pinning it to the ground.
He stood up and gave her a stare that had probably heralded
countless brawls in the past. Kyoshi crossed her arms and met his
gaze. He wasn’t more dangerous than Tagaka or Jianzhu.
After trying to deal death through the power of his mind alone,
Wong broke the silence. “Keep being a brat, and I’ll never teach you
how to use your fans,” he said.
Kyoshi was going to retort out of instinct, but the implication
made her pause and step back. She pulled out one of her fans. “You
. . . know how to use these?”
They’d been a puzzle so far. Rangi had taken a look at the
weapons earlier, tested their balance, and concluded she couldn’t
teach Kyoshi much about them, other than using them as short,
heavy clubs in their folded state. “They’re not part of the Fire
Academy curriculum,” she’d said with a shrug. “Maybe you can
sneak them into places you couldn’t take a sword.”
Wong plucked the fan out of Kyoshi’s hand and snapped it
open. He tossed it into the air and it spun perfectly around its pivot
pin, the leaf tracing circles as it flew. He twirled around himself and
caught the fan behind his back before lifting it coquettishly to his
face.
“The peony sheds its beauty before the moon,” he sang in a
deep, beautiful, vibrant voice, using the surface of the fan to reflect
and amplify the sound. “Shamed by the light of a spirit so pure / I
leap to catch its petals / and mourn for what I have left unsaid.”
He thrust the fan all around him in a series of flitting gestures,
the leaf opening and closing rapidly like the beating of insect wings.
It was an expertly performed dance. But Kyoshi knew it could also
have been a sequence of attacks, defensive weaving, evasion and
retaliation against multiple opponents.
With a flourish, Wong ended the performance in a traditional
heroic pose, a deep stance with his arms spread wide, his head
intentionally wobbling side to side with the leftover energy from his
motions. It was a showcase of classic poetry, older than old school.
Auntie Mui would have fainted with delight.
Kyoshi applauded, the only appropriate response to a display of
skill that great. “Where did that come from?” she asked.
 “Hark. We have a lineage through your father’s side that traces
back to one of the Royal Theater schools in Ba Sing Se,” Kirima
said. “And we stay sharp enough at performing to have plausible
cover in the cities we visit. We’re the Flying Opera Company, after
all.”
She raised a leg behind her, over her head, and kept it going
until she completed a forward-facing, no-handed cartwheel, a move
that elite dancers saved for the climax of their performances. Kirima
looked like she could have done her market shopping, traveling that
way.
Kyoshi was astonished. That would explain how they were so
light on their feet. Royal Theater performers were known to be some
of the most physically capable people in the Earth Kingdom, able to
mimic dozens of martial styles on the stage and act out dangerous
stunts without getting hurt. It made her feel better about the
agreement they’d struck. She could get some extra value out of the
bargain.
Wong folded the fan and handed it back to her. “I’ll teach you
to use this,” he said. “For a fifth of your shares on any future jobs we
do.”
“Deal,” Kyoshi said quickly. She didn’t know what shares
were, but she would have paid nearly any price to better understand
her weapons.
Rangi and Kirima both smacked their hands against their
foreheads, but for different reasons. “You could have gotten at least
half,” Kirima said to Wong.
Lek popped his head around the side of Pengpeng. “Do you
want to get going, or do you want to sit here rubbing each other’s
backs all day?” he said.
“Hey, Lek, guess who the newest member of the gang is,”
Kirima said. “Official and everything.”
Lek’s eyebrows squeezed together in frustration. “You cannot
be serious!” he yelled. He waved his arm at Kyoshi like she was a
fake vase they’d brought home. “She doesn’t care about the Code!
She’s abider chaff! She’s squarer than the hole in an Earth Kingdom
coin!”
“And she has a bison,” Kyoshi snapped. “So unless you like
walking, I suggest you deal with me being part of your stupid outlaw
family.” If Kirima or Wong took offense to her regression in attitude
toward daofei, they didn’t show it.
“I am never calling you kin,” Lek spat. He went back to making
final adjustments on Pengpeng’s reins. He’d saddled the giant bison
by himself—in impressive time too. Neither Kyoshi nor Rangi could
find any fault with the work he’d done as they mounted Pengpeng.
Lek took offense at their examination. “I know what I’m
doing,” he said. “I probably have more practice than you two.”
“If we’re being perfectly honest, our whole reputation was built
on Jesa’s bison,” Kirima said. “We might talk a good game, but
Longyan did all the work. Smuggling’s a cinch when you can just fly
over checkpoints.”
She and Wong finished loading and climbed onto Pengpeng’s
back. Rangi marked her territory in the driver’s seat, daring Lek to
challenge her for it. He compensated for his downgrade in the
pecking order by pulling a crude map out of his pocket. Real leaders
navigated and scheduled.
“We’re going to a meeting post in the mountains outside Ba
Sing Se,” he said, denting the paper with his finger. “We’ll get the
latest news from other groups and find a few easy jobs to get our
feet back into the water.”
Rangi lifted off. The late-morning sun had yet to turn
oppressive. And with the prep work having been done by extra
hands, Pengpeng’s unhurried climb into the cool air almost felt
relaxing.
“How did the two of you get a bison?”
Lek’s sudden question was tinged with suspicion and jealousy.
“Neither of you were raised Air Nomad,” he said. “And this girl
would never let you fly her unless she’d already known you for a
long time. Did you steal her from an Airbender friend?”
In her head, Kyoshi silently thanked Lek for reminding her of
her duty. This was where she needed to stay. Down in the muck,
painted in hatred for herself and her enemy, not flying in the wind
with Kelsang. “Yes,” Kyoshi said. “I did.”
Rangi gave her a worried glance, not understanding why she’d
lie. Lek shook his head in disgust. “Separating a monk from their
bison?” he said. “That’s cold. Though I should have expected such
low behavior from someone who doesn’t respect their mother and
father.”
 Kyoshi said nothing and stared into the distance, where the
horizon broke into jagged formations against the sky. The empty
feeling was good. It absolved her of choice, allowed her to think of
herself as merely a vessel, an agent of balance.
But her tranquility was broken when she noticed something
missing. “Wait,” she said, turning around in the saddle. “Where’s
Lao Ge?”
 OBLIGATIONS
“I always had a feeling I would be undone by a fancy party,”
Jianzhu muttered.
He and Hei-Ran were in the main library, surrounded by the
map collection. The best and comically worst representations of the
known world were posted on the walls behind panes of flawless
crystal. Ragged, heavily used pages from nautical chartbooks hung
next to cloth maps stained the color of smoked tea. Jianzhu liked this
room. It portrayed the advancement of human understanding.
Hei-Ran had insisted they meet twice a day since the incident,
regardless of whether there had been any updates. This afternoon,
there had been an update.
She finished reading the invitation stamped with the insignia of
the flying boar and tossed it on the desk. “‘The Beifong family
wishes to hold a celebration for the Avatar, commemorating his
victory over the pirates of the Eastern Sea in front of the gathered
sages of the Earth Kingdom.’ Jianzhu, this is a bigger disaster than
that ‘victory.’ I thought Lu Beifong agreed to be hands-off when it
came to the Avatar.”
“He did. It’s Hui who’s behind this.” Jianzhu rolled the letter
opener between his fingers, longing for a sharper implement and
something to stick it in. “He’s been at this game for the past year or
so, whispering in Lu’s ear that training the Avatar shouldn’t be left to
a man of such humble origins.”
He put the blunt metal knife down. “Hui may have a point.
Look how Kuruk turned out.”
“We were kids back then, and so was Kuruk,” Hei-Ran said. “It
wasn’t our responsibility to raise him.”
“Hui still presents it as a strike against us,” Jianzhu said. “Did
Shaw respond about the shirshus?”
“No. And even if he did, there wouldn’t be enough time before
this party.” One thing Hei-Ran shared with Jianzhu was a disdain for
frivolities. She cracked her knuckles. “We could say the Avatar is
sick.”
“We could, but then I look like a bad guardian who can’t keep
the most important child in the world healthy. Hui will send doctors,
herbalists, and spiritual healers, all insisting they see the Avatar in
person for treatment. Every time we turn his agents away, it’ll sow
more suspicion amongst the other sages.
“No, the truth will get out,” Jianzhu said, leaning back in his
chair. “It’s simply a matter of how long we can delay it.”
Hei-Ran’s military mind was already adapting. “Then we need
to consolidate your allies. Find out which sages will stick by you
after this debacle comes to light. It’s going to end up with your
faction against his, and right now we don’t have a count of those
numbers.”
Jianzhu smiled as a possibility dangled in his head, waiting to
be tugged. He could always count on his friend to seed him with
ideas. These forced meetings had paid off.
“We need to do something like that,” he said. He drummed the
tips of his fingers together. “What’s your wardrobe looking like
these days?”
Hei-Ran gave him a stare that said he should be glad she didn’t
have the letter opener in her hands.
“I just wanted to make sure you have a nice gown ready,” he
said innocently. “We have a fancy party to attend.”

Without Pengpeng, they made the trip to Gaoling the old-

fashioned way. Slowly. In a big caravan. With lots of gifts in tow.
By the time they arrived at the estate, Jianzhu had come up with
a new policy he would have to enact. Earthbenders, the most elite in
the kingdom, needed to flatten out every single inch of the roads. No
cost would be too great if it meant never having to suffer another
skull-bouncing, teeth-clacking journey over bumpy paths.
He stepped out of his moving prison cell and squinted into the
shining glory of Beifong manor. If there was anything he’d learned
when he was building his own estate in Yokoya, it was that rich
people’s houses were all essentially the same. Walls to keep the
townsfolk out. A garden as big as possible to display humility before
nature. A residential quarter where that humility was tossed on its
ear, preferably with as much gold and silver inlay as possible.
Chamberlain Hui greeted them at the head of a column of
footmen. The short, stocky bureaucrat shielded himself from the sun
with a parasol.
 “Master Jianzhu,” he said, raising the shade to reveal a grizzled,
brick-like face. It always surprised Jianzhu how the man looked as if
he spent his days breaking rocks with a pickaxe when the heaviest
object he lifted was his master’s ivory seal. “How was your
journey?”
Unnecessary and grating, like you. “Most pleasant,
Chamberlain Hui, most pleasant indeed. It’s always the utmost
delight to survey our magnificent nation up close.”
The next carriage in the train pulled up, ostrich horses stamping
their feet until the weight behind them came to a halt. Hui opened
the door himself, probably so that he could be the first to take the
hand of the occupant.
“Headmistress,” he said, providing Hei-Ran unnecessary help
out. “You look radiant. I’d swear you’ve stepped out of the pages of
Yuan Zhen’s finest love poetry.”
He angled his parasol as if the sun would be deadly on her skin.
It wasn’t like heat and light from the sky were the source of her
incredible powers, no.
Hei-Ran barely disguised her shudder at Hui being her first
sight out of the carriage. “Former headmistress,” she corrected.
“Ah, but educators deserve the utmost respect, for life.” Hui
said, his words and smile coated in oil. “Or so I’ve always believed.”
Jianzhu felt terrible for his friend in these situations. Being a
rich, beautiful, well-connected widow drew a certain breed of suitor
out of the woodwork. Men like Hui could interpret the most hostile
snubs as part of an ongoing courtship dance, refusing to consider the
possibility that Hei-Ran wanted nothing to do with them.
“And when will Master Kelsang be joining us?” Hui said, his
fingers lingering on Hei-Ran’s until she yanked them away. “I
noticed Avatar Yun is not with you. I assume they’ll be arriving
together shortly?”
The chamberlain’s eyes darted around their faces, checking the
corners of their lips, the dilation of their irises for involuntary
twitches. Jianzhu knew that Hui played a game of details. Induction.
He turned slight hints into broad generalizations that he poured into
the ears of Lu Beifong and the other sages. Right now, the Avatar
choosing to travel with Kelsang was obviously the sign of a slight
crack, a burgeoning rift between Yun and Jianzhu. Wasn’t it?
 Jianzhu thought back to how he’d threatened the true Avatar, on
that day everything had gone to pieces. The net cast by his power
and influence over the Earth Kingdom was real, but it required
constant, exhausting effort to maintain. The challengers he’d
stamped out since Kuruk’s death were too many to count. And now
here was the latest generation of parasite, catching him at his most
vulnerable.
“They are together, yes,” Jianzhu said. He noticed the way Hei-
Ran flinched beside him. Hui saw it too. With a smile, the
chamberlain led them to the receiving hall.
The interior of the Beifong estate suffered from the rare
sickness of wealth-induced monotony. It was covered from floor to
ceiling in the same queasy brownish-green paint that had at one
point been the most expensive shade in the Earth Kingdom. It was
meant to show off just how rich the family was, but these days the
main effect it had was making Jianzhu feel like he was being slowly
digested in the acidic maw of a scavenger.
At the gullet of the columned hall was a double-seated dais
where, over many generations, the leader of the Beifong clan and
their spouse had held court. These days only one side of it remained
occupied. Lu Beifong, Jianzhu’s old master, sat on the oversized
throne, his dust-colored robes making a tent around his wizened
head at the peak.
He may have looked like a mummy held together by silk
threads and spite, but his mind was aggressive as ever.
“Headmistress, wonderful to see you, as always,” he squawked,
acknowledging Hei-Ran as fast as he could before turning to
Jianzhu. “What’s this about a loan for the Southern Water Tribe?”
He didn’t ask about the Avatar. Nothing like a business
transaction to get the old lizard crow tunneled in. Jianzhu had almost
forgotten about the request he’d made to Beifong after the battle
with the pirates. Work hadn’t stopped simply because the Avatar’s
identity had been in doubt. He bowed deeply before answering.
“Sifu, I made that request because the encounter with Tagaka
brought up an issue of balance between the Four Nations,” he said.
“The Southern Water Tribe could use assistance in developing a
legitimate navy. Tagaka’s presence was stifling any movement in
that direction. With more far-ranging deepwater ships, they could
prosper from trade and protect themselves from their neighbors,
much like their Northern cousins. The loan would be for the
construction of such vessels.”
 “We are their neighbors, Master Jianzhu,” Hui said,
materializing by Lu’s side. “Why would we want to give them any
position of strength relative to the Earth Kingdom? Why, they might
try to claim the contested Chuje Islands with such a fleet!”
A familiar rage raised the hairs on the back of Jianzhu’s neck.
Hui had no real stake in this matter, not even personal greed. There
was no reason for him to want the Southern Water Tribe to remain
poor and undeveloped and vulnerable.
It was simply opposition for opposition’s sake. Somewhere
down the line, Hui had decided to make his name by using Jianzhu
as a ladder, and a straw man, and whatever other analogy applied. It
was easier for Hui to gain political power and fame by tearing down
Jianzhu’s work than doing his own.
No matter how logical and beneficial Jianzhu’s actions were,
Hui would undercut them. He pushed to end treaties that had taken
years to develop, brushing them off as unnecessary when in truth he
didn’t understand how they worked and didn’t care. He stoked petty
rivalries he didn’t have to, toying with peace that Jianzhu had
earned. Had Hui been around during the height of the Yellow Neck
atrocities, he would have insisted on treating that madman Xu Ping
An like a folk hero.
It was times like these when Jianzhu found himself sorely
missing the influence of Lu’s wife, Lady Wumei. She had been an
intelligent and vivacious woman, beloved across the kingdom, and a
source of wisdom in Lu’s ear. After her death, the old man had
become more obstinate, and Hui’s bold destructiveness had
accelerated.
“I’ve spoken to the southern chieftains and they’re excited
about the prospect,” Jianzhu said. “They’ve proposed a compact of
mutual defense.”
“It’s a good idea, Master Beifong,” Hei-Ran said, adding an
outsider’s perspective. “Right now, the group most capable of
projecting force over the Eastern Sea is ironically the Fire Navy. I’m
sure the Earth Kingdom and Southern Water Tribe would prefer to
command their own waters.”
Lu didn’t look convinced. Jianzhu didn’t want this opportunity
to slip away. “If it’s about the Chuje Islands, they’re worthless,” he
said. “They serve no strategic purpose other than puffing up national
pride—”
 He realized his mistake as soon as he said it. It wasn’t like him
to blunder so.
“Master Jianzhu!” Hui said with fake horror. “Surely there is no
matter more important than the pride and love we have for our
country! The Earth King has been vexed over those islands since his
coronation. Surely you are not questioning His Majesty’s judgment!”
Jianzhu would have liked nothing better than to maroon both
the Earth King and Hui on one of those desolate atolls and see which
idiot ate the other first. Before he could respond, Lu waved his hand.
“Enough.” He heaved himself to a standing position. It was
barely noticeable, given his hunch. “I side with the chamberlain.
There will be no loan and no Southern Water Tribe navy unless I
hear a convincing argument from the Avatar himself. I notice the
boy is late. He can find me in the banquet hall with the other guests
when he arrives.”
Lu shuffled out of the receiving hall, the only noise the rasping
of his slippers against the floor. Jianzhu couldn’t believe it.
Just like that, the future had changed for the worse. The
Southern Water Tribe would remain impoverished and outpaced by
the rest of the world all because Hui wanted to win a debate at a
party. The stupid, smug whims of one unworthy man had left
fingerprints on history that weren’t likely to be erased.
The Avatar could have made the difference, Jianzhu reminded
himself. The thought stuck through him like a javelin.
“Master Jianzhu, I apologize for making a counterargument,”
Hui said. “But as you know, it’s my duty to Master Beifong to make
sure both sides are considered in any important decision.”
“Both sides” was a rhetorical weapon used by hypocrites and
the ignorant. As far as Jianzhu was concerned, Hui was no better
than a daofei, wantonly burning fields of grain because he enjoyed
watching the smoke rise over the horizon.
I would show you what I do to daofei.
“Chamberlain, it’s quite all right,” Jianzhu said. “I always
appreciate your voice in such matters.” He hesitated, adding a hitch
of uncertainty to his body language, the trembling of a man who was
hiding the strain of a great burden. “In fact, I need your wisdom
more than ever right now. Can you join me and the headmistress to
talk in private?”
 The upside to the sudden confession was watching Hui nearly
collapse in surprise. The man grabbed the desk in his office for
support and knocked over a bottle of ink. The black liquid dripped
down the chamberlain’s sleeve like blood from a wound.
“YOU LOST THE AVATAR!?” he shrieked.
Jianzhu wasn’t worried about being overheard. He knew from a
glance at the walls that Hui had built his plain, unadorned personal
study for soundproofing. It was a safe room of secrets for a man who
trafficked in them.
The more dangerous element here was Hei-Ran. Jianzhu hadn’t
told her he was going to tell Hui, because she would never have
agreed to it. He risked driving her away, in this very moment.
“It’s as I explained,” he said. “Yun and I had an argument about
his bending progress. More than an argument, really. I said things to
him I never should have said. It got out of hand and he ran away
with Kelsang’s help. On a bison, the two of them could have gone
anywhere in the world.”
Hei-Ran’s face was remarkably still, but the slight temperature
increase in the room betrayed her emotions. It added to the effect of
Jianzhu’s ploy.
Hui was still shocked, but the wheels in his mind were already
beginning to turn, his chest heaving for dramatic effect more than a
need for air. “I thought the monk was the equivalent of a decorative
hermit living on your estate,” he said, not a good enough actor to
keep out the sneer of disdain.
He was a companion of Kuruk and my friend, you little toad.
“He was, or so I thought. I didn’t realize he’d been plotting, waiting
to seize the right moment. Our relationship had suffered over the
years, but I could never have expected to this extent.”
Jianzhu punched at the air, letting his real frustrations shine
through. “It’s Yun I should have understood better. I don’t know if
the damage can ever be repaired.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Hui said, hoping with his entire heart it
was truly that bad. “Children are volatile at that age.”
“He—he swore upon his own Avatarhood that he would never
accept me as his master again.” Jianzhu ran his thumb and forefinger
over his eyes. “Chamberlain Hui, I am begging you for assistance
here. The stability of our nation is paramount. If word gets out that
Yun has gone rogue, then there’ll be chaos.”
The crack that Hui had been hoping for turned out to be a gulf
the size of the Great Divide. He hadn’t been prepared to strike this
much gold. “Master Jianzhu, there are several prominent Earth
Kingdom sages, including our benefactor, waiting for the Avatar in
the grand hall,” he said, thrusting his hands at the walls.
Jianzhu put on a mask he’d never worn before. Helplessness.
He let his silence answer for him.
Hui composed himself, wanting to reflect the new state of
affairs. He was the man in charge now. He straightened his collar
and clicked his heels together. Unfortunately for him, he also forgot
about the ink on his sleeve, ruining the effect of tidiness.
“Master Jianzhu, there’s no need to worry,” he said. “I’ll handle
this.”

In the end, Hui told Lu Beifong and the assembled sages the exact
line that Jianzhu had used on his own household. Yun felt he’d been
neglecting his spiritual studies. After much pleading, Jianzhu had
given him leave to travel alone with Kelsang on a nomadic journey
of self-discovery, avoiding such obvious destinations as the Air
Temples or the Northern Oasis. Yun had been to those places. He
needed to grow along his own path, untrammeled by expectations.
It meant no contact from the Avatar for a while. The world
would have to get along without one until further notice.
Jianzhu could have said as much himself, but coming from Hui,
the story was so much more effective. It was an open secret among
the party guests that the chamberlain was waging political war
against him. The only thing they would ever align on were basic,
incontrovertible facts. Like the Avatar going on a vacation.
The rest of the visit was spent on trivialities. Jianzhu weathered
the severe annoyance and biting remarks of Lu Beifong, wondering
how many more years he’d have to put up with groveling before his
former sifu. The old man seemed like he would never kick the
bucket while debtors owed him money, and nearly the entire Earth
Kingdom banked with the House of the Flying Boar.
Hei-Ran stood dull-eyed in the corner as men prodded for her
thoughts on remarriage, in language they thought was subtle and
flattering. Some of them, upon hearing her rebuff, immediately
pivoted to inquiring about her daughter. Jianzhu never understood
how she resisted the temptation to bend scorched holes into the
ceiling when her element was always available.
They left when the party became too much to bear, getting into
a single carriage for the journey back. Hei-Ran’s admirers could
have interpreted that a certain way. But the two of them simply
needed to talk.
“I know you’re angry at me,” Jianzhu said. He slumped back
against his seat.
“About what?” Hei-Ran snapped. “The fact that you revealed
your biggest setback to your worst enemy? That you’re piling lies
upon lies for no reason I can see? Why didn’t you tell Hui the excuse
he gave to the crowd?”
“Because vulnerability equals truth. The only statement of mine
Hui would take at face value was one that left me exposed. Now my
story’s set with the vast majority of the Earth Kingdom. I only have
a single opponent to worry about.”
She didn’t look very confident in his tactic. Firebenders thought
in terms of positive jing, always staying on the offensive. “It’s
getting a little difficult to keep track of the wind spewing out of your
mouth at this point.”
Imagine how hard it is for me. “All warfare is based on
deception,” he said. “Isn’t that a Fire Nation quote?”
Hei-Ran suddenly pulled her hairpin out of her tightly bundled
style and hurled it against the wall of the coach. It clattered to the
floor, the arms bent.
For the first time today, Jianzhu was truly alarmed. For a Fire
Nation native to treat her hair, her topknot, this way meant she felt
she was losing her honor. He waited patiently for her to speak.
“Jianzhu, I pushed that boy to the breaking point,” she said, her
voice hoarse. “He might not have been a Firebender, and he might
not have been the Avatar, but Yun was still my student. I had an
obligation to him, and I failed.”
Hearing his name all night must have been eating at her. The
absent Avatar was still the toast of the party, his conquest of the
pirates turning into legend through word of mouth.
“We can still make this right,” Jianzhu said. “We simply need to
find Kyoshi. Everything will be fine after that.”
 “If that’s the case, and I don’t think it is, you set ablaze the time
we had left and scattered the ashes. As soon as that party is over, Hui
is going to march straight to the other sages and tell them what you
told him. He might not wait. It’ll be the conversation topic over
dessert.”
“It’ll be longer than that,” Jianzhu said. “He’s not going to
waste an opportunity of this magnitude by hurrying. In fact, if he
plays the information too quickly and carelessly, it’ll bite him in the
end. He’s a man of self-preservation.”
Hei-Ran tucked herself into the corner of the carriage, her
bunched-up gown turning her into a shapeless mass. “I wish I could
say the same about you these days.”
To get the last word in, she aggressively went to sleep. Jianzhu
noticed that people who were former military could doze off
anywhere, anytime at the drop of a hat. After an hour of silence, he
began to drift in and out of consciousness himself, shaken awake by
the occasional road bump, his thoughts forming loose connections
and ideas that he made no attempt to preserve.
It wouldn’t do to plot too far out. Sometimes the best option
was to sit quietly until the next step arrived in turn, like an
Earthbender should. Neutral jing.

When they arrived home in Yokoya, there was a very validating

delivery waiting for them. Jianzhu didn’t bother waking up Hei-Ran
and hopped out of the coach, invigorated by the sight.
In the distance, by the stables, were two extremely large
wooden boxes, each the size of a small hut, peppered with little
holes. The sides of the crates had Danger! and Give Wide Berth
painted on them in a slapdash manner. Surrounding them was a crew
of underpaid university students warily brandishing long forked
prods. They pointed their weapons inward at the boxes. Theft of the
contents was not the primary concern.
At the head of the group was a portly older gentleman in fine
robes, wearing a helmet made of cork. He was geared for adventure
in the habit of academics who had no idea how dirty and bloody true
adventure could get.
“Professor Shaw!” Jianzhu called out.
The man waved back. Behind him, the boxes suddenly started
rattling and jumping, scaring the handlers. A long, whiplike strand
shot out of a hole punched in the side and lashed two of the nearest
students across the face and neck before they could react. They
screamed and collapsed to the ground in a heap like rag dolls.
Professor Shaw looked at his downed interns and then gave
Jianzhu a big grin and a thumbs-up.
That must have meant the shirshus were in good health after
their journey. Excellent. Jianzhu needed them in peak condition. The
beasts’ impeccable sense of smell would let them track a target
across a continent. Oceans, if the rumors were to be believed.
He’d sent word out to his subordinates across the kingdom, the
magistrates and prefects he’d spent years buying off, telling them to
be on the lookout for two girls who’d escaped his estate. But it never
hurt to have a backup plan that didn’t rely on the shifting loyalty and
ballooning greed of men.
One way or another, he was going to fulfill his promise to the
Avatar. There would be no hiding for Kyoshi. Not in this world.
 THE TOWN
The Taihua Mountains south of Ba Sing Se were treacherous
beyond measure. They were said to have swallowed armies in the
days of the city’s founding. Howling blizzards could freeze a
traveler’s feet to the ground, snapping them off at the ankles. Once
every decade or so, the winds would shift, carrying red dust from Si
Wong to the peaks of Taihua, polluting the snow a fearsome bloody
color, turning the mountains into daggers plunged through the heart
of the world.
Pengpeng sailed over the dangerous terrain, unbothered. From
their vantage point Kyoshi and the others could see any weather
sneaking up on them, and right now it was clear in every direction.
“This is the life,” Lek said. He rolled over onto his side,
reaching over the saddle, and patted her fur. “That’s a good girl.
Who’s a good girl?”
He’d been trying to get the bison to like him more than Kyoshi
and Rangi at every available opportunity. Kyoshi didn’t mind so
much. It meant Lek took care of foraging and watering for
Pengpeng. Like she had her own stablehand.
“Oof, I’m glad you remembered to come back for me,” Lao Ge
said. “There’s no way I could have made it here on my own.” The
old man yawned and stretched, catching as much of the breeze
between his arms as he could. “I have to remember not to wander off
by myself for too long.”
His comment made Kyoshi’s stomach constrict. The journal
said that Lao Ge came back from his jaunts with blood on his hands.
She wondered if her mother had sat this close to him as they
traveled, afraid that she might be one of his victims in the future.
“We’re way past the last charted outposts,” Rangi said from the
driver’s seat. “Beyond that, the mountains haven’t been mapped.”
“Yeah, an outlaw town isn’t going to be on a map,” Kirima
said. “This is the exact flight path we used to take with Jesa. Keep
going.”
As they flew toward a line of jutting gray peaks, the mountains
separated, gaining depth. The formation was less a ridge and more of
a ring that obscured a crater from all sides. The depression held a
small, shallow lake that Kyoshi thought was brown and polluted at
first. But as they flew closer, she saw the water was as clear and pure
as could be. She’d been looking straight through the lake to the dirt
bottom.
Next to the lake, built into the slope like a rice terrace, was an
encampment slightly more handsome than the slums of Chameleon
Bay. Longhouses had been constructed out of mountain lumber
hauled from the forests down below. Several of them sat on
makeshift piles, fighting a losing battle against erosion. Glinting
with openly carried weapons, people filed in between the gaps and
along the streets.
“Welcome to Hujiang,” Kirima said. “One of the few remaining
places in the world where Followers of the Code gather freely.”
“Is everyone down there a daofei?” Kyoshi said.
“Yes,” Wong said. He frowned at the crowds below. “Though it
seems more busy than usual.”
They’d approached with the sun behind them out of caution.
Lek pointed Rangi toward a cave farther away where Kyoshi’s
mother used to hide Longyan. They landed Pengpeng there,
camouflaged her with fallen branches and shrubs, and suffered the
lengthy hike to town.
The longtime members of the Flying Opera Company were
prepared for the fine silt that rose from the winding, narrow path,
stirred by their footsteps. They pulled close-woven neckerchiefs
over their noses and mouths and smirked underneath when Kyoshi
and Rangi looked askance at them with reddened eyes. The group
was still figuring out what courtesies to share. Apparently spare dust
masks fell by the wayside.
Rounding the mountain, they entered Hujiang from above,
carefully picking their way down crudely carved steps that were
oversized to cut down on the number needed. Kyoshi wondered why
they weren’t earthbent into shape.
They came to one of the large streets and lowered their scarves.
“You should probably keep your head down this time,” Rangi said to
Kyoshi. “Instead of barging in like you own the place.” The debacle
in Chameleon Bay still weighed on her mind.
“No!” Kirima hissed. “You act meek in this town, and everyone
will think you’re weak! Follow our lead.”
As they joined the flow of traffic, the Waterbender seemed to
grow in stature, expanding her presence. Kirima normally retained a
certain amount of elegance to her movements, but now she stepped
through the crowd with exaggerated purpose and delicacy. She gazed
through lidded eyes down the length of her chin as she walked, a
picture of sophistication, a swords-woman moving through a form
with a live blade. Interrupting her flow would mean getting cut to
shreds.
“Gotta look like you’re ready to take someone’s head off at any
moment, for any reason,” Wong said. “Or else you’ll get
challenged.” He followed Kirima with angry stomps, abandoning the
agility Kyoshi knew he possessed. His feet sent seismic thuds
through the ground.
“Topknot’s got it,” Lek said, pointing at Rangi. “Look at her,
boiling away with Firebender rage. See if you can pull that off.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Rangi protested. “This is my normal
face.”
“You could also try to be like me!” Lao Ge said. He hunched
inside his threadbare clothes, hiding his muscles, and flashed his
manic, gap-toothed smile. He looked like the group’s shameful
grandfather who’d escaped from the attic.
“Picking a fight with you would be a disgrace,” Lek said.
“Exactly!”

They made their way toward the bazaar in the center of town. It
was slow going, trying to look tough. And not just for them. The
other outlaws swaggered along the avenues, chests thrust out,
elbows wide. A few favored Kirima’s approach of razor-edged
refinement, carrying narrow jians instead of broadswords to
complete the image.
Practically everyone was armed to the teeth. Most with swords
and spears, but more exotic weapons like three-section staves, deer-
horn blades, and meteor hammers were surprisingly common as
well. Kyoshi spotted a few people wielding arms that should have
been flat-out impossible to fight with. One man had a basket with
knives lining the edge and a tether trailing off it.
“Is that guy carrying a muck rake?” Rangi whispered, tilting
her head at a pug-nosed man waddling by.
“That’s Moon-Seizing Zhu, and don’t stare at the rake,” Lek
said. “I’ve seen him puncture the skulls of two men at once with it.”
 The Flying Opera Company had by far the least amount of
metal on their persons. “Most of these people don’t seem like
benders,” Kyoshi said.
“What, are you looking to trade us in for better teachers?”
Kirima said. “Because you’re right—they’re not benders. Most
outlaws live and die by the weapons in their hands. Our crew is a
rarity.”
“Honestly, I think you should appreciate us more,” Wong said.
Kyoshi was distracted by a clatter of metal to the side. Two
men, both carrying swords, had bumped into each other as they
rounded a corner in opposite directions. The street slowed around
them. Kyoshi’s stomach churned as she anticipated a surge of
violence, gore running through the gutters.
It never came. Blades stayed in their scabbards while the men
apologized profusely to each other, acting as friendly as two
merchants who were planning a marriage between their children.
There were promises to buy cups of tea and wine for each other
before they parted ways. The happy smiles stayed on their faces long
after the encounter.
“They’ll meet on the challenge platform tonight,” Lek said.
“Probably during the weapons portion of the evening.” He made a
bloody, strangled noise that made it obvious what the outcome
would be.
“What?” Kyoshi said. “That wasn’t a big deal!”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “In this world, the only
currency you have is your name and your willingness to defend it. If
either of those men showed fear or poor self-control, they’d never
get taken on by an outfit again. They had no other options.”
“They could stop being daofei,” Rangi muttered.
“Like it’s so easy to do whatever you want!” Lek’s face was
full of bitterness. “You think honest work rains down from the sky?
This is why the two of you are the worst! No one takes up this life
on purpose!”
“Lek,” Kirima warned.
His shouting had drawn attention. Eyes watched them from the
windows and porches of houses, anticipating a second act to
tonight’s performance.
 Lek calmed down. “Keep walking,” he said to Rangi and
Kyoshi. “Show them we’re together, and it’ll be fine.”
Kyoshi had no objection to following his lead this time. She
controlled her posture with renewed seriousness. They resumed
picking their way through the town.
“There’s an expression in these parts,” Wong said, his low
grumble giving the argument a close. “When the Law gives you
nothing to eat, you turn to the Code. Then at least you can feast on
your pride.”

The Hujiang bazaar was . . . a bazaar. Not much different from the
one in Qinchao Village, which neighbored Yokoya. Vendors sat
cross-legged next to piles of their wares on tarps laid over the
ground, scowling at passersby who kicked up too much dust or
lingered without buying. The sounds of haggling rang out in the air.
Here, it was safe to let loose with aggression. There seemed to be a
distinction between the warriors and the black marketeers who
supplied them.
Kyoshi noticed that most of the peddlers specialized in
traveling food: dried and smoked meats, beans and lentils. Rice was
expensive: produce more so. The “fresh” vegetables were brown and
wilted, and the rare pieces of shriveled fruit looked more like
decorative antiques.
“How did this stuff travel up here?” she asked. “For that matter,
how did the people?”
“There’re unmarked passageways through the mountains,”
Kirima said. “More trade secrets. The royal surveyors in Ba Sing Se
don’t have a clue.”
That must have been a big part of why daofei were so hard to
stamp out for good. Kyoshi reflected on what Jianzhu had told her,
about the Earth Kingdom being too big to police. If underground
networks like this one could thrive so near the capital, then the rot
must be worse throughout the far reaches of the continent. A whole
other community existed below the surface of the Earth Kingdom.
The moniker of the Fifth Nation pirate fleet suddenly took on a
defiant meaning. We’re here, Kyoshi imagined their formidable
leader saying with an ice-blue stare. We’ve always been here. Ignore
us at your peril.
 Wong’s foot caught on a brass oil lamp. The vendor it belonged
to cursed before looking upward and silencing himself willingly.
With his size, the Flitting Sparrowkeet didn’t need name recognition.
First glances were enough.
“It’s crowded,” Wong repeated. He’d been fixated on that since
they’d arrived.
Kirima and Lek took his complaint seriously. They lifted their
heads higher, scanning the bazaar. Kyoshi tried to help, but she had
no idea what to look for.
“East by northeast,” Rangi said. “They’re listening to someone
speak.”
Sure enough, the people gathered in that corner of the bazaar
had their backs turned, showing dao broadswords or other weapons
strapped to their torsos. They nodded intently, absorbing whatever
message was being preached to them. Someone found the leader a
stool or a crate, because he stepped upward to reveal an ugly face
bisected by a leather strap.
Lek and Kirima both swore loudly. “We’ve got to get out of
here,” Lek said. “Now.”
“What’s the problem?” Rangi said.
“The problem is we shouldn’t have come here,” Kirima said.
“We’ve got to leave town. As fast as possible.”
“Don’t make eye contact!” Lek said as Kyoshi tried to get one
last glance at the man. The strap looked like it was holding his nose
in place. His speech had reached a fever pitch, his jaws working up
and down like he had a chunk of meat between them. Strangely, he
had a moon peach blossom tucked into his collar.
She didn’t have time to see any more details. They hustled back
the way they came. Only to run into someone in the exact same spot
as the earlier encounter they’d witnessed. That blind spot was a
death trap.
Lek’s face fell in despair. He backed up a few steps and bowed
sharply using the same fist-over-hand salute from when he’d greeted
Kyoshi for the first time. So did Kirima and Wong.
“Uncle Mok,” they said in chorus, keeping their heads lowered.
The man they waited on for a response was dressed in plain
merchant’s robes. His spotlessness stood out in the dusty filth of the
town. He was strikingly handsome, with narrow eyes resting over
fine cheekbones. And there was a moon peach blossom tucked into
his lapel.
He couldn’t have been older than Kirima. Kyoshi didn’t
understand why they were calling him “Uncle.”
“Bullet Lek,” Uncle Mok said. “And friends. You made the
long journey from Chameleon Bay.”
“It had been too long since we felt the embrace of our
brethren,” Lek said, trembling. In the short time she’d known him,
Kyoshi had never heard the boy speak with such deference. Or fear.
“And you brought extra bodies?” Mok eyed the two new
members of the group.
Rangi had already matched the bows of the others, calculating
that sometimes it was better to keep quiet and play along. Kyoshi
tried to do the same, but not without Mok catching her using the
wrong hands at first.
“Fresh fish,” Kirima explained, raising her head only slightly.
“We’re still beating respect and tradition into them. Kyoshi, Rangi,
this is our elder, Mok the Accountant.”
There was no mention of an “elder” Mok in the journal. As far
as Kyoshi knew, her parents were the elders of the group.
“See that you do,” Mok said with what he deemed a warm
smile. “Without our codes, we are nothing but animals, begging for
fences. It’s fortuitous that you’re here, for I have business to discuss
with you.”
“How lucky we are,” Wong said. If it rankled him, bowing to a
younger man, he kept it to himself. Kyoshi noticed that Lao Ge had
managed to disappear yet again. She wondered if it was solely so he
didn’t have to call Mok “Uncle.”
“Let’s discuss it tonight,” Mok said. “Why don’t you join me as
my guests at the challenge platform? When there’s this many people
in town, blood runs high. Should be fun!”
“It would be our distinguished honor, Uncle,” Rangi said,
beating the others to the punch. “Our gratitude for the invitation.”
Mok beamed. “Fire Nation. It’s wonderful how respect comes
so naturally to them.” He reached out and knocked Lek’s headwrap
to the ground so he could tousle the boy’s hair.
“I remember when I first met this one,” he said as he fixed
Kyoshi with his slitted gaze. His fingers gripped Lek’s scalp,
yanking and twisting his head around, making sure it hurt. “He was
such a mouthy little brat. But he learned how to act.”
Lek put up with the manhandling without a noise. Mok cast
him to the side like an apple core. “I hope you’re an equally quick
study,” he said to Kyoshi, making a clicking noise with his teeth.

After Mok left, no one spoke. They waited for Lek to pick up his
hat off the ground and smooth his hair. His eyes were red from more
than dust.
Kyoshi had questions, but she was afraid of saying them out
loud in the street. She knew exactly what kind of man the
Accountant was.
Jianzhu had once implemented a policy that any member of the
staff, no matter how lowly, could talk to him personally about any
household concern. Kyoshi saw the gesture of kindness devolve into
some of the servants ratting each other out over minor grievances,
hoping to curry favor. She knew now that had been his intent all
along.
The longhouse-lined streets of Hujiang felt like the walls of the
mansion during the worst of the paranoia. She had no doubt that a
careless word risked making it to Mok’s ears. She followed her
group to a termite-eaten inn that hadn’t been painted since Yangchen
was alive. Many of the outlaws they passed along the way had moon
peach blossoms in various states of freshness placed somewhere on
their person. She couldn’t believe how dumb she was not to have
noticed before.
They paid for a single room and tromped up the stairs, a funeral
procession. Inside their lodgings, the bare planks of the floor had
been oiled by the touch of human skin. There weren’t enough beds if
they were planning to sleep here tonight.
“This is one of the tighter-built houses,” Kirima said after she
shut the door and slumped against a wall. “It’ll be safe to talk as
long as you don’t shout.”
Wong stuck his head out the window and did a full sweep of the
street below, craning his head upward to check the roof. He pulled
himself back in and latched the shutters closed. “I suppose you want
an explanation,” he said.
“Those hard times we mentioned back in Chameleon Bay,”
Kirima said. “They were pretty hard. After your parents died, Jesa’s
bison escaped, and we never saw him again.”
Kyoshi understood that much. The link between Air Nomads
and their flying companions was so strong that the animals would
normally run away and rejoin wild herds if they lost their Airbender.
It was a complete miracle that Pengpeng had stuck around to help
her.
“We were trapped in the wrong city with too many debts to the
wrong people,” Kirima continued, ignoring the irony that by most
standards they were the wrong people. “We were desperate. So we
accepted the Autumn Bloom Society as our elders in exchange for
some favors and cash.”
“The peach flower guys,” Wong said.
Moon peaches normally bloomed in spring, but then again
these were daofei, not farmers. “I take it this group is now beholden
to the Autumn Bloom?” Rangi said.
“It seemed like a safe move at the time,” Kirima said. “After
the Yellow Necks scattered, there were so many smaller societies
grubbing for the scraps. Mok and the Autumn Bloom started off as
nothing special. But then they began to squeeze the other outfits.”
“And by squeeze we mean crush them to a pulp and suck on the
bloodstains,” Wong said.
“They were barely concerned with turning a profit,” Kirima
said, shaking her head at the greatest outrage of all. “The law hasn’t
caught wind of them yet because they’ve yet to make any big plays
aboveground.”
“Well, I can guarantee you that’s about to change,” Rangi said.
“What we saw in the bazaar was a campaign muster. A recruitment
drive. Mok has big plans ahead.”
“And we’re signed up now,” Kirima said. “If we disobey a
summons by our sworn elders, our name will be worth less than
mud. We’ll be worse off than before we met the Autumn Bloom.”
“Plus he’ll, you know, kill us,” Wong said.
Lek thumped the back of his head against the wall. “Mok owns
us now,” he said. He sounded like he was speaking through an empty
gourd. “Our independence was Jesa and Hark’s pride. And we threw
it away. Because of me.”
“Lek,” Kirima said sharply. “You were injured and would have
died without treatment. We’ve been over this.”
 “Stung by a buzzard wasp,” Lek said to Kyoshi and Rangi. He
laughed with a bitterness that had to have been developed over many
nights of reflection. “Can you believe it? Like I was fated to be this
group’s downfall.”
“Jesa and Hark would have made the same decision in a
heartbeat,” Kirima said.

Kyoshi’s breath rushed in and out through her nose. Slowly at

first, and then faster and faster, until her lungs felt like they’d escape
through the holes in her skull.
She remembered scraping her head against the frozen ground
when she was little, trying to seek relief for the fever blazing within
her body. She remembered trying to walk again after untreated
sickness sapped her muscles, not being certain if the shaking would
ever go away.
Was it possible to enter the Avatar State through sheer
contempt? She stared at the daofei, lost in their own histories. What
did they know, huh? What did they know? They’d had each other.
Family willing to make sacrifices. She had no doubt that Jesa and
Hark would have done anything for their gang. Just not their
daughter. Sworn ties trumped blood ties. Wasn’t that the lesson that
needed to be etched into her bones?
“Oh, boo-hoo,” Kyoshi snapped. “How pathetic of you.”
They turned their heads toward her. She refused to look at any
one of them, instead staring at a blank spot on the wall where a knot
had fallen out of the wood, leaving a dent in the plank.
“So your choices had consequences,” Kyoshi said. “That’s not
the definition of a raw deal. That’s life. You made your bed with
Mok’s, and I made mine with yours. I should be the one
complaining.”
She wished she had a spitting habit so she could add the
appropriate color to what she was saying. “If he wants us to show up
tonight, then we show up tonight. We do whatever he wants us to do.
And then we all can get what we came here for.”
She ended her statement a hair’s breadth from shouting. A long
silence followed.
“Kyoshi’s got a point,” Kirima said. The wall creaked as she
took her shoulder off it. “We have no choice but to take things one
step at a time.”
“She didn’t have to be so mean,” Wong muttered.

After Kyoshi’s outburst, Rangi asked the others for a moment

alone with her. They filed out like sullen children. The room
transformed from too small to too big.
“Don’t yell at me,” Kyoshi said preemptively. “None of this
Autumn Bloom nonsense was in the journal.”
“And yet here we are anyway,” Rangi said. She seemed at a
loss for what to say. She pointed in different directions to emphasize
rants she hadn’t made yet.
Eventually she settled for a question. “Do you know what it’s
like, watching you sink deeper into this muck?”
“I’m doing what’s necessary,” Kyoshi said. “If you want me to
make faster progress, then let’s go find an isolated spot and practice
more firebending.”
“Kyoshi, you’re not listening to me.” Rangi instinctively
lowered her voice to protect their secret. “You’re the Avatar.”
“I remember, Rangi.”
“Do you?” she said. “Do you really? Because the last time I
checked, the Avatar is supposed to be shaping the world for the good
of humans and spirits, not risking their neck to help a bunch of
second-story thieves pay off their debts!”
She held back from punching the nearest wall. “Did you know
that the Avatar is supposed to be able to commune with their past
lives, gaining access to the wisdom of centuries?” she said. “With
the right lessons, you could have been asking Yangchen herself for
guidance right now. But no! You don’t have that option, because my
guess is that spiritual teachers are a little hard to come by in our
current social circle!”
Rangi waved her hand around at the room, at Hujiang, at the
Taihua Mountains themselves. “To see you here? It kills me. The
fact that you’re stuck here, where no one knows who you truly are,
makes me die a little inside with each passing moment. You’re
meant to have the best of everything and instead you have this.”
She rubbed at the creases in her forehead with her fingers. “A
daofei town! A normal Avatar would have been responsible for
wiping this encampment off the face of the earth!”
So she was upset about Kyoshi neglecting her duties. And
nothing more. Rangi wanted a normal Avatar. Not whatever Kyoshi
was.
She’s a true believer. Yun’s words came back like he was
standing beside her, whispering in her ear. Rangi couldn’t handle
any more disgrace to the office. Kyoshi was poor raw material for an
Avatar to begin with, and her selfish choices had only defiled the
position further.
“Rangi.” Kyoshi’s heart felt harder than it ever had, dull metal
weighing her chest down. “The world waited years for an Avatar. It
can wait a little longer. And so can you.”
She thought she heard a little puff of breath come from behind
Rangi’s hands. But when the Firebender lowered her arms, she was
as calm and stony as the mountain.
“You’re right,” Rangi said. “After all, I’m just your bodyguard.
I have to do what you say.”

Nightfall did Hujiang a favor in appearance. Unlike honest folk

who went to bed soon after the sun went down, the daofei settlement
lit up with torchlight to continue business. The slope of the mountain
spread out below the inn looked like it had attracted a cloud of
fireflies.
A meal of rice gruel and dried sweet potato did little to help
them relax. Before they left the inn, Lek tightened the thongs
covering his sleeves with such ferocity that Kyoshi was afraid his
hands would go purple.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m worried about Pengpeng, is all,” he said defiantly. “Don’t
let it slip that we have her. Mok would probably kill us and try to
tame her himself.”
It made more and more sense, the degree to which outlaws
coveted a sky bison. Flight was normally a feat restricted to the pure
of heart. As an Airbender willing to sully herself with dirty work,
Kyoshi’s mother must have been in high demand.
The streets were emptier than during the day. The daofei had
gathered inside drinkhouses, and drinkhouses seemed to comprise
half the town. Kyoshi could hear laughter and arguments and poorly
composed poetry spilling from the windows they passed. She
imagined Lao Ge was in one of the taverns, swindling for booze. Or
indulging in his other hobby.
They came to a house bigger than the others. A broad, high
barn that shook with noise. The shouting inside rose and fell in
waves, punctuated with cries of delight or disappointment. Another
man wearing a peach flower in his hat greeted them at the door.
“Uncle Mok is waiting for you on the balcony,” he said as he
bowed.
Going inside, they were immediately absorbed by a throng of
spectators. The center of the floor held a large wooden platform
covered with a tightly drawn layer of canvas held down with ropes,
giving the structure the appearance of a great drum. Two men circled
each other warily on top, stepping through stances, refusing to blink
as sweat gathered on their faces.
“Lei tai,” Kirima said to Kyoshi. “Ever seen one before?”
She hadn’t. She knew of earthbending tournaments with a
similar concept—knock the opponent off the platform and you win.
But this stage was made of unbendable material, and the two men
were fighting bare-knuckled and empty-handed. Throwing the
opponent off would require closing the distance and getting to grips
in ways benders normally disregarded.
Lek had mentioned a weapons portion of the evening. Now
must have been the unarmed combat rounds, serving as a warm-up.
The two men charged each other. Fists cracked against skulls. One
of them got the better of the exchange and followed up with a
devastating kick to the side of his opponent.
“Liver shot,” Kyoshi heard Rangi mutter. “It’s over.”
She’d seen the outcome before the loser did. He tried to resume
his fighting stance but couldn’t raise his arms. In a slow, teetering
arc that reminded Kyoshi of a cut tree, he fell to the surface of the
platform, clutching his torso.
Kyoshi expected the standing man to peacock in victory, spend
some time basking in the adulation of the crowd. Instead he pounced
on his downed opponent, who was clearly unable to continue, and
began punching him viciously in the head.
“Here’s a lesson for you square folk,” Wong said. “It’s over
when the winner says it’s over.”
 Kyoshi had to turn away. She heard dull, wet thuds interspersed
with the cheers of the crowd and nearly threw up on her feet. She
was listening to a man get beaten to death.
There was a round of boos, and she looked up. The man left
standing had decided to stop the assault, though Kyoshi could tell
the decision was less about mercy and more about saving energy. He
went back to one corner of the platform where attendees had placed
a stool for him to sit. He held out his hand, and a cup of tea appeared
in it. Being the champion came with some perks.
Two volunteers carried off his vanquished opponent by the
arms and legs. Only a cough of blood spray gave any indication the
man was still alive.
Kyoshi wanted to get this over with as fast as possible.
“Where’s Mok?” she said.
“There.” Kirima pointed to the second level. Kyoshi’s
suspicions were correct; this place was a barn. The “balcony” was a
converted hayloft. Mok sat on a giant, thronelike chair that had to
have been lifted into place with pulleys. Beside him stood the strap-
nosed man from the bazaar, the one who’d been recruiting outlaws
with spiritual zeal.
The Flying Opera Company went up the old-fashioned way,
and they had to do it one at a time. The three more experienced
members went first. Kyoshi felt eyes on her as she climbed the long
ladder, vulnerable with each bounce and sway of the wooden struts.
Mok had no guards with him, other than the street preacher.
And the others had told her neither of them were benders. Either
daofei were stingy when it came to personal protection, or they
preferred to display strength this way. “This is my lieutenant,
Brother Wai,” Mok said, gesturing to the wild-eyed man. “You will
pay him the same respect that you do me.”
Kyoshi bowed along with the others, but Wai was silent. He
stared at the group with seething contempt, like he detected the taint
of evil buried deep in their bones. She became conscious of her
flayed leg that had scabbed over, of the waking nightmare she’d
pushed to the back of her mind. But Wai paid her no special
attention. He despised them all equally.
Mok, on the other hand, singled Kyoshi out. “New girl,” he
said. “You seemed a little blood-shy just now. Not a trait I like in my
subordinates.”
 Wong and Kirima tensed up. They’d warned her about the need
to keep a certain mask on, and she hadn’t taken them seriously
enough. Kyoshi tried to think of something to say that would placate
Mok.
“She’s tough when it counts, Uncle,” Lek interjected. “I
personally saw Kyoshi wipe the floor with a whole squad of lawmen
back in Chameleon Bay.”
Mok made a signal with his finger. In a motion so smooth that
it looked rehearsed, Wai pulled out a knife, grabbed Lek by the
hand, and slashed him across the palm. Lek stared disbelievingly at
the fresh red wound for a moment.
“Funny,” Mok said. “I don’t think I was talking to you.”
A spatter of blood landed on the floor. Lek doubled over,
clutching his hand to his stomach, and stifled a scream. Wong and
Kirima’s faces were white with anger, but they maintained their
positions, shoulders hunched in deference.
Kyoshi forced herself to look this time, to watch Lek suffer.
Mok was testing her, she realized. Her weakness had gotten her
companion hurt, and this was the price.
Her limbs went cold as a vision of the future swept her in its
embrace. She was going to sort this Mok one day. Neatly on the
shelf, right below Jianzhu. Him and Wai both. They’d have a place
of honor in her heart.
But for now, the face she gave them was made of stone. She
saw Lek straighten up and tug his sleeve over the wound, clenching
his jaw and fist tight. He stared at the space between his shoes. Other
than the bloodstain blooming at the end of his shirt, she would have
been hard-pressed to tell that he was injured.
“Better this time,” Mok said to Kyoshi. “Unless for some
reason you don’t like the boy.”
She made a noncommittal little shrug. “There’s not many
people I hate, Uncle.” The truth made it easier to remain calm.
“A fast learner indeed!” Mok caught a glimpse of something
interesting happening below. The crowd roared, half of them booing
and the other half expressing wild approval for whatever it was. He
grinned and turned his full attention back to the center of the barn.
“Not as fast, though, as your Firebender friend.”
 Kyoshi followed his gaze. It took all of her newfound
willpower not to shriek in horror.
Rangi was standing on the fighting platform.

“The beautiful thing about lei tai is that anyone can issue a
challenge,” Mok said. “Simply by doing what she’s doing.”
Kyoshi had to look at the empty ladder again to make sure she
wasn’t dreaming, that Rangi hadn’t followed right behind her as
usual. To confirm that she could have gone so long without noticing
her friend’s presence.
The champion, still sitting in the opposite corner, cocked his
head in interest. Rangi met his gaze as she stripped off her bracers
and shoulder pieces, throwing her heirloom armor to the ground like
a fruit peel. Ignoring howls and whistles from the crowd, she
disrobed until she was in the sleeveless white tunic she wore beneath
her outer layers.
Rangi was above the average height for a girl. The muscles in
her arms and back were well-formed and strong from years of
training. But her opponent was taller and outweighed her by a third,
if not more. She looked so tiny and vulnerable on the canvas, a small
flower in the corner of a painting.
Kyoshi nearly jumped down from the hayloft to throw herself
between the combatants. But Kirima and Wong gave her the same
glance and imperceptible headshake from when Lek was cut. Don’t.
You’ll make it worse.
The champion ran a hand down his braided queue and squinted
at Rangi with beady eyes. He dabbed himself with a towel and flung
it behind him. As he rose, his attendant plucked the stool off the
platform. He’d rested enough. The man raised his chin and said a
few words that Kyoshi couldn’t hear, but she guessed their meaning
well enough.
No firebending.
Rangi nodded in agreement.
A lance went through Kyoshi’s heart as the two of them
approached each other. The champion didn’t take a stance
immediately. If he took the challenge of a young girl too seriously,
he’d lose face.
 Rangi let him know how wise that decision was by whirling a
kick at the knee he was about to put his weight on. Only pure reflex
saved him. He snatched his leg back before it snapped in half, and
stumbled awkwardly around the platform, a drunk that had lost his
footing. The crowd jeered.
“This girl,” Mok said with a tone of appreciation that sent fresh
loathing down Kyoshi’s throat.
The champion righted himself and took up a deep stance. The
disciplined movement in his lower body was at odds with the wrath
coursing through his face.
As if to taunt him further, Rangi slid forward fearlessly until
she was within his striking distance. Her expression was cool,
impassive. It didn’t change when the man launched a flurry of
blows. She read his limbs like the lines of a book, letting his
momentum pass right by her as she made pivots so small and sharp
that her feet squeaked against the canvas.
After he missed a straight punch that hung over her neck like a
yoke, she bumped him in the armpit with her shoulder, timing it with
his retraction. He went flying back, worse than before, his feet
making a clownish attempt to support him. Kyoshi’s hope rose,
forcing her to her tiptoes as he neared the edge. If he fell off the
platform then this bad dream would end.
He managed to catch himself. Kyoshi heard a swear come from
someone other than her. Rangi followed her opponent to the
boundary but seemed unconcerned about pushing him over. She
could have ended it with a nudge.
The man saw this and lost his composure. He lashed out with a
wild punch devoid of technique. It was so telegraphed that Kyoshi
could have ducked under it.
But in that instant, Rangi looked upward and locked eyes with
Kyoshi. The blow struck her squarely in the face. She let it happen.
She tumbled across the platform and landed in the center, a
lifeless heap. The weight difference had done its work. Kyoshi’s cry
was drowned out by roar of the crowd.
The champion wiped his mouth as he sauntered over to Rangi’s
body. The girl had humiliated him. He was going to take his time
destroying her.
Kyoshi screamed to the rafters, invisible and unheard in the
frenzy. Nothing mattered anymore but Rangi. She couldn’t lose the
center of her being like this. She would have obliterated the world to
undo what was happening.
Only Wong’s hands clamping down on Kyoshi’s shoulders held
her in place as the man raised his foot high above Rangi’s skull.
There was a blur of motion and the sound of muffled snapping.
Kyoshi’s mind caught up with her eyes. Her comprehension
played out like a series of pictures, changed between blinks.
Rangi had spun out from under the man’s foot, rotating on her
shoulders like a top, and wrapped her body around his standing leg.
She’d made a subtle twist, and his limb shattered along every plane
it could. The champion lay out on the canvas, writhing in pain, his
leg reduced to an understuffed stocking attached to his body. Rangi
stood over him, bleeding from the mouth. Other than the single
punch she’d taken, she was fine. She hadn’t broken a sweat.
The spectators were silent. Her footsteps bounced off the
canvas like drumbeats. She hopped lightly off the platform and
gathered up her armor.
A single person clapping broke the pall. It was Mok,
applauding furiously. It gave the crowd permission to react. They
whooped and hollered for their new champion, surging toward her.
A single glare made them hold off on slapping her back or lifting her
onto their shoulders, but they got as close as they could, forming a
little ring of appreciation around her.
Rangi made her way over to the ladder and climbed up with
one hand, her gear bundled under the other arm. Her head peeked up
over the edge of the hayloft, and then the rest of her body. She tossed
the armor into the corner and bowed.
No one responded. They all waited on her next move, Mok and
Wai included.
Rangi shrugged at the unasked question. “It seemed like fun,”
she said calmly.
Kyoshi knew that was complete and utter bull pig. There was
no reason for her to have such a lapse in judgment, to commit such a
mind-bogglingly stupid act. Kyoshi wanted to punch Rangi so hard
that she’d land on her rear end back in Yokoya. She was going to
throttle the Firebender until flame came out of her ears.
Mok slapped his thighs and burst into laughter.
 “A future boss in the making!” he said. “Dine with me tonight.
I’ll tell you the plans I have in store.”
“How could we refuse, Uncle?” Rangi said with the biggest,
sweetest, falsest smile Kyoshi had ever seen.

Attendants carried chairs for everyone up the ladder with great

difficulty, followed by a table, and then food and drink. Unlike the
large manors of legitimate society, there was no servant class here.
Junior toughs and swordsmen did the task, their weapons clanking in
their scabbards as they juggled trays like rookie maids.
No one let on that they’d already eaten. The meal was an
attempt to mimic a wealthy sage’s table, with more than one course.
Shaped flour paste substituted for ingredients that would have been
impossible to get in the mountains, and yellowing vegetables made
up the rest. There was plenty of wine though.
Mok sat with his back facing the edge of the balcony. The
fights no longer interested him. Judging by the clash of metal
coming from below, the challenges had moved from unarmed
combat into the weapons section. The occasional scream and gurgle
made it difficult to concentrate.
“Have any of you heard of Te Sihung?” he asked, dropping the
endless displays of puffery and dominance. As foolhardy as Rangi’s
fight had been, there was no denying she’d changed the energy of
the meeting.
Te Sihung. Governor Te. Kyoshi had never seen him in person
at the mansion, but the last gifts she remembered him sending to Yun
were an original, unabridged copy of Poems of Laghima, and a
single precious white dragon seed.
“Governor in the Eastern Provinces,” she said. “Likes to read
and drink tea. Certainly isn’t hurting for money.”
“Very good,” Mok said, impressed, even though she could have
been describing half of the rich old men in the Earth Kingdom. “Te’s
a little unique among prefectural leaders. He’s not so quick with the
axe when it comes to sentencing crimes.” He made a hacking motion
to the back of his own neck. How lighthearted they were being.
Mok took a sip of wine and smiled when Kyoshi refilled his
cup without being told. “He keeps prisoners instead,” he went on.
“His family inherited an old mansion dating back to the Thirty-
Somethingth Earth King, complete with a courthouse and a jail
where criminals could serve out their sentences instead of facing
swift modern justice. I believe the romantic notion of mercy went to
his head.”
“Sounds nice of him,” Rangi said, a bit insouciantly. Her face
had begun to swell, her words slurring as her lip grew puffy. The
other members of their company had willingly retreated into the
background, letting her and Kyoshi do the talking. They were
playing the tiles they’d been dealt.
“Don’t go putting up statues just yet,” Mok said. “He’s had one
of our own locked up for eight years.”
Behind him, Wai positively vibrated, his body thrumming with
rage. “We need to get our man out of Te’s cells,” Mok said. “That’s
what this job is about. A jailbreak on a fortified position is going to
take a lot of bodies, more than the Autumn Bloom has sworn
members. So we’re calling in our associates. Every favor will be
repaid in one night.”
“This prisoner—is he important?” Rangi asked. “Does he have
information you don’t want leaking?”
For the first time tonight Mok looked displeased with her. “This
mission is about brotherhood,” he said. “First and foremost. My
sworn brother has been rotting in the hands of the law for almost a
decade. It’s taken that long for the Autumn Bloom to grow strong
enough to attempt a rescue mission, but Wai and I have never
forgotten him.”
His passion was real, carved into his spirit with deep grooves.
He resembled Lek when the boy talked about Kyoshi’s parents.
Propped up by an iron framework larger than himself. Kyoshi
wondered if she’d appear the same if she ever spoke about Kelsang
at length to anyone. She hoped so.
“Apologies, Uncle,” Rangi said. “I thought knowing the facts
would be helpful to our cause.”
“The only facts I need you concentrating on concern how your
group is going to help spring my man out of Governor Te’s prison,”
Mok said.
“Our group?” Kyoshi preemptively tilted in apology for not
understanding. “It sounded like we were to band together with the
Autumn Bloom in this mission.”
“Originally, yes. But after giving it some thought, that would be
a waste of an elite team of benders such as yourselves. A two-
pronged assault should double our chances. I have numbers at my
disposal but not stealth or bending prowess. While my men beat
down the doors in a frontal assault, I want the Flying Opera
Company to take the quiet route. Whoever succeeds first, it doesn’t
matter to me.”
Rangi was still in professional, intelligence-gathering mode.
“Are there plans to Te’s palace? Layouts? Staff schedules? Any
inside people we can count on?”
Mok’s face darkened. He kicked the table away, sending dishes
clattering to the floor. “What do you think this is, a robbery?” he
snapped. “Figure out your approach on your own!”
Kyoshi realized why he was so angry. Rangi’s questions had
exposed him as not much of a tactician. He knew nothing of
leadership besides making demands and doling out cruelties when
they weren’t met.
Control by tantrum, Kyoshi thought. She had a label for the
way Mok wielded power.
He stood up and dusted himself off. “I plan on being at
Governor Te’s palace thirty days from now with my forces. I know
how swift the Flying Opera Company tends to be, so if you arrive
early, you should have all the time you need to prepare yourselves.
But! I don’t want you acting on your own before we arrive. Do you
hear me?”
I hear many things about you. “Of course, Uncle,” Kyoshi said.
The clash of steel and a scream filled the air as she bowed.

The five of them stood outside their inn, not knowing what to say
to each other. Fresh distance had come between them. Self-
consciousness reigned supreme.
Kyoshi broke the silence. “Can we agree to leave this forsaken
town first thing in the morning?”
“Yes,” Wong said. “I’m going to drink myself stupid until then.
If I run into any of you, I’m going to pretend I don’t know you. Even
if you challenge me.” He frowned. “Especially if you challenge me.”
Wong stomped off into the darkness, disappearing beyond the glow
of the nearest lantern.
Lek hadn’t spoken a word on the way back. His sleeve was
plastered to his palm with dried blood, a good sign as far as his
wound was concerned. But he was possessed by a rigid coldness that
had Kyoshi worried.
“Lek,” she said before he vanished too, inside his own head.
“Thank you. For standing up for me.”
He blinked and looked at her, as if they’d only met a minute
ago. “Why wouldn’t I?” he said, caught waking up from a dream.
“I have to take care of his hand,” Kirima said. She looked at
Rangi. “I’m not the best healer, so it’ll be awhile before I can get to
your face.”
“I don’t need it,” Rangi said. She turned and walked away in
the opposite direction of Wong, down the slope the town was built
on.
“Rangi!” Kyoshi snapped. The Firebender didn’t listen to her.
She was Kyoshi’s bodyguard. She was obligated to listen to her.
“Get back here! Rangi!”
“After tonight’s display, she’s the safest person in Hujiang,”
Kirima said. There was a sly edge to her smile. “But I still think you
should go after her.”
Having grown up in Yokoya, Kyoshi had walked enough hills
for two lifetimes. Going down fast threatened to buckle her ankles,
strained at her knees. She found Rangi sitting at the edge of the
shallow lake, less by light and more by heat. The Firebender was a
dark silhouette curled up against the lapping water. Kyoshi
entertained the notion of shoving her straight in.
“You want to tell me what that was about?” she yelled.
Rangi sneered at the question. “Mok was treating us like dung,
and now, slightly less so. I impressed a daofei. Hasn’t that been our
goal?”
“My mother’s gang belonged to my mother! Mok is a rabid
animal whom we have no leverage with! It was a stupid risk!”
Rangi got to her feet. She’d been letting her toes dangle in the
water, and now she stood ankle-deep in it.
“Of course it was!” she said. She nearly rammed her finger into
Kyoshi’s chest out of instinct but caught herself. She wrung her
hands out and forced them to remain at her side. “I did exactly what
you’ve been doing this whole time!
“Let me tell you something,” Rangi said. “I blacked out when I
got hit. If I hadn’t woken up quickly, that man would have killed
me.”
Kyoshi’s mind went white with fury. After the fight ended,
she’d assumed that Rangi had been faking unconsciousness to lure
her opponent in. She wanted to march back to the barn and break the
rest of his limbs.
“You know what you felt, watching me lie on the canvas?”
Rangi said. “That helplessness? That sensation of your anchor being
cut loose? That’s what I’ve been feeling, watching you, every single
minute since we left Yokoya! I got on that platform so you could see
it from my perspective! I had no idea what else would get through to
you!”
She kicked at the surface of the lake, slicing a wave between
them. For an instant she looked like a Waterbender. “I watch you
throw yourself headlong into danger, over and over again, and for
what? Some misguided attempt to bring Jianzhu ‘to justice’? Do you
know what that even means anymore?”
“It means he’s gone for good,” Kyoshi snapped. “No longer
walking this earth. That’s what it has to mean.”
“Why?” Rangi said, her eyes begging and combative at once.
“Why do you need to do this so badly?”
“Because then I don’t have to be afraid of him, anymore!”
Kyoshi screamed. “I’m scared, all right? I’m scared of him, and I
don’t know what else will make it go away!”

Her words carried over the surface of the lake to any man and
spirit who might be listening. Kyoshi’s obsession wasn’t the mark of
a great hunter on a relentless stalk of her quarry. That was the lie that
had sustained her. The truth was that she was a frightened child,
running in different directions and hoping it would all work out for
the best. She couldn’t feel safe with Jianzhu loose.
She heard it again. Those soft, sharp little breaths. Rangi was
crying.
Kyoshi fought back her own tears. They wouldn’t have been as
graceful. “Talk to me,” she said. “Please.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Rangi said. She tried to
smother herself with the palm of her hand. “It shouldn’t have gone
this way.”
 Kyoshi understood her friend’s disappointment. The shining
new era the world was supposed to get after so many years of strife,
the champion whom Rangi had trained to protect, had been stolen
from them and replaced with . . . with Kyoshi.
“I know,” she said, her heart aching. “Yun would have been a
much better—”
“No! Forget Yun, for once! Forget being the Avatar!” Rangi lost
the battle to restrain herself and smacked Kyoshi hard across her
collar. “It’s not supposed to be this way for you!”
Kyoshi went silent. Mostly because Rangi had hit her too hard,
but also from surprise.
“You think you don’t deserve peace and happiness and good
things, but you do!” Rangi yelled. “You, Kyoshi! Not the Avatar, but
you!”
She closed the distance and wrapped her arms around Kyoshi’s
waist. The embrace was a clever way to hide her face.
“Do you have any idea how painful it’s been for me to follow
you on this journey where you’re so determined to punish yourself?”
she said. “Watching you treat yourself like an empty vessel for
revenge, when I’ve known you since you were a servant girl who
couldn’t bend a pebble? The Avatar can be reborn. But you can’t,
Kyoshi. I don’t want to give you up to the next generation. I couldn’t
bear to lose you.”
Kyoshi realized she’d had it all wrong. Rangi was a true
believer. But her greatest faith had been for her friends, not her
assignment. She pulled Rangi in closer. She thought she heard a
slight, contented sigh come from the other girl.
“I wish I could give you your due,” Rangi muttered after some
time had passed. “The wisest teachers. Armies to defend you. A
palace to live in.”
Kyoshi raised an eyebrow. “The Avatar gets a palace?”
“No, but you deserve one.”
“I don’t need it,” Kyoshi said. She smiled into Rangi’s hair, the
soft strands caressing her lips. “And I don’t need an army. I have
you.”
“Psh,” Rangi scoffed. “A lot of good I’ve been so far. If I were
better at my job you would never feel scared. Only loved. Adored by
all.”
 Kyoshi gently nudged Rangi’s chin upward. She could no more
prevent herself from doing this than she could keep from breathing,
living, fearing.
“I do feel loved,” she declared.
Rangi’s beautiful face shone in reflection. Kyoshi leaned in and
kissed her.

A warm glow mapped Kyoshi’s veins. Eternity distilled in a single

brush of skin. She thought she would never be more alive than now.
And then—
The shock of hands pushing her away. Kyoshi snapped out of
her trance, aghast.
Rangi had flinched at the contact. Repelled her. Viscerally,
reflexively.
Oh no. Oh no.
This couldn’t—not after everything they’d been through—this
couldn’t be how it—
Kyoshi shut her eyes until they hurt. She wanted to shrink until
she vanished within the cracks of the earth. She wanted to become
dust and blow away in the wind.
But the sound of laughter pulled her back. Rangi was coughing,
drowning herself with her own tears and mirth. She caught her
breath and retook Kyoshi by the hips, turning to the side, offering up
the smooth, unblemished skin of her throat.
“That side of my face is busted up, stupid,” she whispered in
the darkness. “Kiss me where I’m not hurt.”
 THE BEAST
The morning sunrise had never been so warm. Kyoshi had slept
better on the hard-packed shore of the lake, without a bedroll, than
she had any of the nights spent camping between Chameleon Bay
and Hujiang. Perhaps that was because she had her own fire now.
She didn’t have to share it with anyone else.
Rangi murmured into the base of her neck, a soft thrumming
sensation. A shadow loomed over them both. Kyoshi blinked until
she saw a pair of leather boots next to her head. Kirima squatted
down closer to their level, her hands on her knees and her chin in her
hands.
“Have a nice night?” the Waterbender said, batting her
eyelashes. She grinned wider than the open sky.
Kyoshi rose to her elbows. Rangi slid off her chest and
thumped her head on the ground, startling awake. The leg she’d
thrown across Kyoshi’s body reluctantly unwound itself.
“Must have been nice,” Kirima said, barely able to contain her
laughter. “Sleeping under the stars. Just two friends. Having a close,
private moment of friendship.”
Kyoshi rubbed the drowsiness out of her face. She could leap to
her feet and deny everything. She had no idea what would happen if
she and Rangi kept pulling on this thread together. Few people in the
Earth Kingdom would react anywhere near as well as Kirima.
But ever since that day in Yokoya, when she’d learned her fate
while her hands were still dusted in white flour, her life had been an
endless refusal, full of secrets unhappily kept to their destructive
ends. She was sick of denying herself.
Not this time. This time would be different. A steady thought.
The drumbeat in her head and heart let her know the truth. She
would never back down from how she felt about Rangi.
Rangi caught her gaze and smiled, making a slight, barely there
nod. A ready if you are signal.
She was. And they were.
“It’s exactly what it looks like,” Kyoshi said. “You have a
problem?”
Kirima shrugged and waved her fingers, dipping into a moment
of quiet seriousness. “I’m not the type to give you grief over whom
you love,” she said. Her mirth returned immediately. “I am,
however, going to give you tremendous amounts of grief about
romancing within your own brotherhood. That’s like doing laundry
in the outhouse. It never ends clean.”
Kyoshi got up. “First off, we knew each other before we met
you. Second, my parents founded this stupid gang, and they were
obviously a pair!”
“Good to see you carrying on the family tradition,” Kirima
said. “Jesa and Hark were mad about each other.”
Nothing could douse the moment for Kyoshi like a reminder of
her parents. She wondered if they still kissed, made eyes, whispered
jokes after they’d dropped her in Yokoya. Perhaps unburdening
themselves had made their relationship all the sweeter. She didn’t
want to ask.
The darkness of her abandonment must have boiled to her
surface as the three of them trudged uphill back toward town,
because Rangi ran the back of her nails down Kyoshi’s hand, a
playful and teasing distraction that held more meaning now than a
hundred volumes of history. Kyoshi nearly tripped and fell on her
face.
If this was what being true to herself felt like, she could never
go back. Her heart was nestled somewhere above her in the nearest
cloud. She wanted to scoop up Rangi in her arms and run, stepping
higher and higher using that technique she still had to learn, until
they found it.
Kyoshi was so happy that Hujiang itself looked prettier in the
new light of day. Splotches of color caught her eye that weren’t
visible in the torchlight of the previous evening, blues and reds from
beyond the Earth Kingdom. The longhouses, she could see now, had
individual touches like carved shrine alcoves and Fire Nation rugs
hung over doors. It reminded her of the way ships would get
personalities imprinted on them by their sailors. Dust had yet to be
kicked up by the day’s business, and the air was cleaner, easier to
breathe without the dingy haze.
They strolled through town—when was the last time Kyoshi
had a stroll? Had she ever?—and sidestepped the strewn bodies of
men who slept off hangovers, or beatings, or both. Kirima led them
to one of the larger establishments, where she ducked through a door
with one of its posts destroyed, like someone had been thrown out
but not very accurately. She returned moments later, bending a large
blob of water that she had to have found inside. It rolled down the
steps like a slug.
Wong floated inside the reverse bubble, his head poking out the
top. He snored comfortably.
“Wake up!” Kirima shouted. With a flick of her arms, the water
froze. The big man jolted awake from the cold. He resembled a
small iceberg with his face poking out of the summit.
“Ugh, leave me in this for a while,” he said, bleary-eyed.
Kirima liquified the water again, dropping him to his feet, and
bent it away from his body, leaving him dry as a bone. She hurled
the water back inside the building, where it landed with a giant
splash. Someone inside screamed and sputtered.
“We’ve had enough of this town,” she said. Then she grinned at
Kyoshi and Rangi, without any attempt to hide the meaning in her
stare. “Or at least I have.”
Wong didn’t get the chance to interpret her stage gestures. A
loud crashing noise from somewhere near the bazaar punctured the
silence of the morning. It sounded like a house might have
collapsed. Birds rose into the sky, fluttering in distress.
Rangi frowned and leaned her ear toward the disturbance. “Was
that a landslide?”
“I don’t know,” Kirima said cautiously. “But the birds have the
right idea.”
Now the clamor of men shouting in horror could be heard over
the rooflines. “Never wait to find out what the trouble is,” Wong
said, already jogging away from the source. “By then, you’re already
too close.”
If that wasn’t ancient wisdom, it should have been. They
followed him briskly back toward the inn. Hopefully Lek and Lao
Ge were both there, ready to fly. Judging by how fast the ruckus was
catching up, they wouldn’t have time to search the town on
Pengpeng.
A horrendous snorting, choking sound rolled through the
streets. Back in her mansion days, Kyoshi had once seen an
ambassador bring a pet poodle monkey that was so inbred in the
name of “cuteness” that it had trouble breathing through its
miniaturized snout. That was what she heard now, on a scale a
thousand times larger. The exhortations of a creature that would
never get its fill of air.
Two men ran screaming out of a longhouse, right on their heels.
An instant later, the building front exploded, planks and beams torn
to shreds by a dark, wiry mass that writhed with fury. A rope or a
whip flung out with the speed of a cable under tension and lashed
the men across the back. They fell to the ground, skidding on their
faces, momentum making their legs scorpion over their heads.
“Tui’s gills!” Kirima shouted. “What is that thing!?”
Behind them was a beast that Kyoshi had never seen the likes
of before, a black-and-brown four-legged monstrosity that stood
higher at the shoulder than some of the huts. It managed to be
hulking with muscle and yet lissome as a serpent at the same time.
Claws as long and sharp as sickle blades reaped at the ground,
opening damp wounds under the dusty surface.
But the most hideous part of the creature was its dark void of a
face. The furry, elongated skull had no eyes, only a flowering pink
snout that wriggled with its own fleshy protuberances. It was as if a
parasite from another world had attached itself to the nose of an
earthly beast and taken control over the entire animal. Two large
dark holes, nostrils, sucked air in all directions until they pointed
straight at Kyoshi.
She backed away slowly, ineffectually, surprised she could
manage that. The nausea of terror chained her, robbed her of survival
instinct. Her skin felt wet and cold.
Again, was the only thought running through her mind. Again,
Jianzhu had loosed a nightmare on her, an inhuman specter that
would drag her away into the darkness, screaming. It had to be him.
There was no one else who could have scraped the depths of her fear
like this. Somehow, she knew in her bones it was he who taunted her
with this living aberration.
A wall of earth shot up between her and the animal. She hadn’t
bent it.
“What are you doing?” Wong roared as he followed through on
his attack. “Either fight or run! Don’t stand there where we can’t
help you!”
The monster clambered over the wall he made with ease, its
claws letting it climb as fast as it ran. Kirima pulled more water
from a nearby trough and smashed at the beast’s shoulders, trying to
knock it off-balance. Rangi kicked low sheets of flame at the places
it tried to land its forepaws, reasoning that it was as effective to
break an animal’s root as it was a normal opponent.
That’s right, Kyoshi thought. I’m not alone this time.
The street was wide enough to accommodate her earthbending
weakness. She knifed at the air in front of her, and the entire surface
of the road began to grind and shift. A fissure opened, and one of the
animal’s paws fell in. If she could close the gap fast enough, she
could pin it by the—
The monster, rather than avoid the jaws of her trap, dove
headfirst into the rift. Its entire body disappeared belowground,
leaving a pile of castings behind.
“This thing can burrow!?” Kirima sounded more aggrieved
than afraid, like an experienced gambler discovering the table they’d
joined was blatantly rigged against them.
Kyoshi felt vibrations beneath her. It was impossible not to,
with a creature that size, but they were indistinct and directionless.
Not a help in this situation.
“Spread out,” Rangi said, eying the ground.
“Shouldn’t we stay close?” Kyoshi said.
“No,” Rangi said. “Then it’ll get more than one of us in a single
bite.”
Kyoshi may have been feeling warm with newfound
camaraderie for her gang, but no one had told Wong and Kirima.
After hearing Rangi, they immediately leaped onto the roof of the
nearest house, elements trailing below the soles of their feet, leaving
her and Kyoshi down below.
The soil loosened around them, a perfect circle caving in. Rangi
tackled Kyoshi out of the center of the formation, boosting herself
sideways with flame jets from her feet. They landed hard on their
sides, shoulders bruising. The creature burst through the surface,
rearing toward the sky, the ground giving birth to a shape of death
that blacked out the sun above.
There was a zipping sound, and then a thud. The animal
screamed, and its claws came down short of Kyoshi and Rangi’s
bodies. It shook its head furiously.
Another impact, and this time Kyoshi saw it. A smooth, fist-
sized stone had struck the beast hard on the tip of its sensitive nose,
sending it reeling. She looked up and made out Lek’s silhouette on
the roof of their inn, the sun behind him shrouding his face.
“Move, maybe?” he shouted.
A hail of perfectly aimed stones gave them cover, each missile
landing uncannily on the one spot that the animal seemed to feel
pain, no matter how much it thrashed about. It backed away, trying
to hide its nose. As Kyoshi and Rangi fled toward Lek, several
arrows struck it in the hindquarters. It turned to face the new threat.
The daofei had gotten over their surprise and were now
mobbing the beast, thrusting spears at it and pricking its fur with
shortbows. They sought the glory of bringing it down. The animal
lashed out with its tongue, sending a row of men falling to the
ground, but more swordsmen-turned-hunters stepped over their limp
bodies to replace them.
Kyoshi didn’t care to understand the bizarre scene playing out
before her. She and the rest of the group ran for the hills.

They arrived at Pengpeng’s cave in the mountainside winded,

their legs and lungs burning, to find Lao Ge feeding the bison a pile
of cabbages. He tossed them one at a time high in the air for
Pengpeng to catch between her broad, flat teeth. There was probably
no use asking him how he’d acquired the produce.
“A lot of help you were!” Lek shouted. He was assuming, like
Kyoshi was at this point, that Lao Ge was completely aware of what
had transpired.
The old man gave him a pitying look. “Fighting a shirshu?
That’s just a bad investment of effort. I left as soon as I felt it
coming.”
“You knew what that abomination was?” Kirima said.
“It’s a legendary subterranean beast that hunts by scent,” he
explained dismissively, like they would have known this if they’d
paid better attention to his ramblings. “Supposedly it can track its
quarry across stone, water, dirt, thin air. In the old days, Earth Kings
would use them to execute their political enemies. For the traitor, let
them be hounded by shirshu until they drop where they stand, far
from their homes and the bones of their ancestors.”
Lao Ge fed Pengpeng another cabbage. “Or at least that’s how
the saying went. Shirshu haven’t been seen in the wild for at least a
generation, so I assume this one was being used to hunt a fugitive
too. Same as in the days of yore.”
Kyoshi felt Lek’s gaze boring into her. “It was going for you,”
he said. “I could see it from the roof of the inn. It was sniffing out
your scent. You brought it here.”
She hesitated. Had she been as smooth as Yun, she could have
come up with a convincing denial on the spot.
Before she could say anything, she was preempted by the
metallic clanking of blades rattling in their scabbards. They leaned
over the cave ledge to see a party of swordsmen down below. At the
back of the group, exhorting them onward, was Brother Wai. Mok’s
inquisitor looked like he wished to speak with whomever he was
searching for, very much.
“I can explain,” Kyoshi said quickly. “But maybe once we’re in
the air?”
There was silent and unanimous agreement as they scrambled
onto Pengpeng. The truth took a back seat to survival.
 THE AVATAR’S MASTERS
Pengpeng graced the skies over the plains of Ba Sing Se. The
Impenetrable City watched them pass like a silent sentry, the
monolithic brown walls a blank face devoid of features.
Kyoshi watched the capital sail by. Somewhere in the center of
those titanic fortifications was the Earth King, nominally the most
powerful person on the continent, with armies to command and the
wealth of the world at his disposal. Though she’d never dug deep
into history lessons, she knew that the records were full of instances
where Avatars and Earth Kings came to each other’s aid.
And yet she couldn’t go ask him for help. There were no means
for a peasant to approach the Earth King that wouldn’t result in
immediate refusal, or capture, or death. Moreover, courts and cities
were Jianzhu’s realm. He’d spent decades cultivating influence
among the bureaucrats of Ba Sing Se. Barging in there would be no
better than surrendering to Governor Deng back in Chameleon Bay.
She looked at her parents’ gang. These were the only people
she could trust, as sad as that was. Out there was a city that
essentially belonged to her enemy. Her allies could fit on the back of
a single bison.
And they weren’t happy with her right now.
“All right, spill it,” Kirima snapped. “Who is this man you’re
feuding with? You said he was a rich and powerful sage. Which one,
exactly? Tell us the truth!”
Kyoshi stared at the saddle floor. Before, she’d felt within her
rights, keeping his name a secret. But the decision seemed
completely foolish in retrospect.
“. . . Jianzhu,” Kyoshi said weakly. “Jianzhu, the companion of
Kuruk.”
“The Architect?” Lao Ge said, rubbing his chin. “You aim high,
my dear. I’m impressed.”
The rest of them were not as amused. Their jaws dropped in
chorus. “Jianzhu the Gravedigger!?” Lek yelled. “You picked a fight
with the Gravedigger!?”
“I didn’t pick the fight!” Kyoshi protested. “I wasn’t lying
when I said he killed two people I loved!”
 “Oh no, we believe that!” Kirima shouted. “We can believe that
plenty! That man has a higher body count than septapox!”
“And you ticked him off so badly that he sent a beast out of
myth to track you all the way into the Taihua Mountains,” Wong said
with a sigh. “We might as well jump off Pengpeng right now and
save ourselves the trouble.”
“Thanks a lot, you numbskull!” Lek said. “We had a chance of
surviving Mok, but if the Butcher of Zhulu Pass wants you feeding
the worms, then it’s only a matter of time before he puts you and us
belowground!”
So Kyoshi wasn’t the only one terrified of him. It was a small
comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, that made her feel like she was
standing on firmer footing. Outlaws were perhaps the one group who
would understand how brutal and dangerous Jianzhu really was.
She closed her eyes. She hadn’t known these people for very
long. But to her own surprise more than anyone’s, she would have
felt intolerably guilty if Jianzhu’s efforts to capture her caused them
any grievous harm. They deserved . . . not to be swindled, was the
way she’d put it. They were owed the full story.
“He’s not trying to kill me,” Kyoshi said. “He doesn’t want me
dead.”
“Well, that would be new for him!” Kirima said. “How are you
so privy to his inner thoughts and goals?”
“Because.” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’m the
Avatar.”

It was the first time she’d ever knowingly said the truth out loud.
Somehow she’d managed to avoid speaking those three specific
words in that specific order to Rangi the night they fled Yokoya in
the drenching rain. Rangi had already known the Avatar was either
her or Yun, so context had sufficed.
Kyoshi’s confession hung in the air, as visible as smoke. She
waited for the rest of them to recover from the blow that had
staggered Rangi, Kelsang, and everyone else who belonged to the
small circle of knowledge at one point in time or another. They
might have needed a moment to recalibrate their view of the world
...
“Ha!” Lek said. “Ha!”
 . . . Or maybe they’d just laugh in her face?
Lek rolled back on the floor of the saddle, finding her moment
of ultimate honesty a good joke, a relief from his jangled nerves.
“You, the Avatar? Man, I have heard some whoppers, but that might
be the best yet!”
“I know I let you gloss over a bunch of the oaths,” Kirima said
to her. “But at least five of them are about never lying to your sworn
family.”
“She is the Avatar!” Rangi said. “Why do you think she has a
Fire Nation bodyguard?”
“Dunno,” Wong said with a shrug. He pointed his thumb at
Kirima. “Why do you think we’ve got her?”
The Waterbender gave him a dirty look before continuing.
“Look, you can believe in your weird little two-person cult all you
want,” she said to Kyoshi. “Just tell us what you stole from the
Gravedigger. You wouldn’t be the first servant who bungled a theft
and had to flee from their angry boss.”
Kyoshi couldn’t believe it. She’d had it all wrong. She’d
thought that her Avatarhood was the final secret, a gilded treasure
that needed to be kept in a series of locked chests until the exact
right moment. It turned out that without proof, the information was
worth less than the paper it was written on. She squeezed one of the
fans in her belt out of frustration.
“Do you even bend all four elements?” Wong said. “Do you?”
“I firebent once,” she said, realizing how stupid she sounded as
she said it. “Under duress. It, uh, came out of my mouth. Like
dragon’s breath.” She thought about trying to do a Fire Fist, but it
felt like a bad idea, given the lack of space and how badly her last
one went.
“Yeah, I once got food poisoning from dodgy fire flakes too,”
Lek said. “Doesn’t mean I’m the reincarnation of Yangchen.”
“Well, I believe her,” Lao Ge said with a proud, upturned chin.
Judging by the others’ expressions, his endorsement had the
opposite effect.
“Okay, okay,” Kirima said. “Everyone calm down. Take a
breather. Let’s consider this rationally for a minute. Assuming she is
the—KYOSHI, THINK FAST!”
 She’d uncorked her water skin with a sleight of hand. A pellet
of liquid flew at Kyoshi’s face.
Kyoshi made an undignified squeal that should have
disqualified her from holding any office whatsoever. She still
couldn’t bend any piece of earth smaller than a house, and the water
aimed at her eyes made her flinch like a prickle snake had wandered
into her sleeping bag. She threw her arms over her face.
“Spirits above,” Lek whispered.
Her cheeks burned in shame. Sure, she looked bad, but that
bad?
“Kyoshi,” Rangi said, breathless and thrilled. “Kyoshi!”
The fan she’d been holding had come out of her belt as she
clenched up in surprise. She was gripping it the wrong way, like a
dagger. The tip of the weapon pointed to the little blob of water
hovering in midair.
“Is that you?” Rangi said to Kirima. The stunned Waterbender
shook her head.
Rangi dove at Kyoshi. The water fell on her back, splashing
them both. She squeezed Kyoshi in a ferocious embrace. “You did
it!” she yelled. “You bent another element!”
As Kyoshi struggled to breathe with an ecstatic Firebender
wrapped around her neck, she stared at the fan in her hand. Her
mother’s weapon had made the difference somehow, in both the
element and the amount. She was sure of it.
She looked up at the faces of the daofei. Lao Ge had a cool,
knowing expression, but the rest were shocked into submission.
They’d been smuggling valuable cargo the whole time.

They settled down in one of the innumerable abandoned quarries

that supplied the middle and upper rings of Ba Sing Se. The marker
of wealth for most Earth Kingdom citizens was whether your house
was built with stone from the ground below it. The farther the rock
had to travel, the fancier it was.
This quarry followed a seam of marble. The small canyon had
been mined out in perfectly square blocks, leaving the edges
protruding with right angles. They landed on a flat surface of swirled
gray and white, resembling tiny figures on a giant fountain basin.
The regularity of the stone fractures laid on top of the natural rock
formations made Kyoshi’s vision blur.
The first sign that something was off was Wong. He
dismounted first and then reached up to help Kyoshi down. She
frowned, assuming he was more likely to pick her pocket than act as
a footman. She jumped off the other side of the saddle.
Once they were all on solid ground, the original members of the
Flying Opera Company backed away from her. “We need a moment
to confer,” Kirima said.
Kyoshi and Rangi shared uncertain glances with each other
while the daofei huddled on the far side of the marble cube,
murmuring and whispering. Occasionally one of them would poke
their head up like a singing groundhog and give Kyoshi a hard,
assessing stare before returning to their debate.
“If they turn on us,” Rangi whispered sideways through a
forced smile, “I want you to take Pengpeng and run. I’ll buy you
time to escape.”
Kyoshi found that scenario too distressing to think about. The
sudden end of the gang’s discussion forced her backbone straighter.
They filed back over to Kyoshi and Rangi, as grim and wary and
determined as the first night they’d met. Kyoshi sucked in her breath
through her teeth as Lek stepped forward, a mirror of that night
they’d almost come to blows.
“It’s been our honor to have traveled with the Avatar,” he said.
“We regret that we have to part ways.” They bowed in unison. Not
using the daofei salute, but with their hands formally at their sides.
Kyoshi blinked. “Huh?”
“It doesn’t have to be right now, if that’s not to your wishes,”
Kirima said. “I suppose you might want the night to plan your next
move and leave us in the morning.”
It was the politeness more than anything that threw her off.
“Huh?”
They seemed as confused as she was. “You’re the Avatar,”
Wong said. “You can’t stay with people like us. It’d be an offense to
the spirits or something.”
“Not to mention too dangerous,” Lek said. He ran his fingers
over his palm where a blotchy red line remained, the artifact of
Kirima’s imperfect healing. “We’re still obligated to join the attack
on Governor Te’s. If we bail, Mok would find us eventually. When
he does, well . . . being killed by a shirshu would be kinder.”
“You’ll be safer the farther away you are from us,” Kirima said.
Kyoshi’s mind reeled. Were they protecting her? She’d been so
certain that the first people who discovered her identity would take
her hostage or rat her out to Jianzhu. The Avatar was a tool. The
Avatar was leverage. The master of all four elements lay somewhere
between a bargaining chip to get what you wanted and a blunt-force
hammer to be swung at the many imperfections riddling the world.
No. You just thought that way because of how Jianzhu treated
Yun.
“Kyoshi, they have a point,” Rangi said. “If you fall deeper into
Mok’s clutches, it will taint you forever.”
That was true. If she cared at all about being the Avatar, about
someday holding the office and performing its duties as Yun had
already begun to do, then she had to part ways with the Flying Opera
Company and their debts. Otherwise the association with criminals
would mark her indelibly.
She’d be unclean.
The history of the Avatars contained rebels, enemies of tyrants,
those who stood alone against the armies of the Four Nations when
necessary. But as far as Kyoshi knew, none had been self-serving
outlaws. Time had always proven her predecessors in the right and
shown them as champions of justice.
Yun had told her that most daofei respected the Avatar. She
looked at her parents’ gang and saw their swagger gone, their cloak
of daring and confidence torn wide open. They’d laid themselves
bare in the presence of the living bridge between mankind and
spirits.
She couldn’t explain what was so familiar about this situation,
nor why she felt so compelled. The Flying Opera Company was not
a bunch of innocent victims like the hostages kidnapped by Tagaka,
needing a higher power to reach down and change their futures.
They should have been capable enough without her, just like—
Yun. They reminded her of Yun, when he needed Kyoshi beside
him on the iceberg. They were her friends, and they were in a bind.
Kyoshi didn’t turn her back on her friends. She swallowed her
own misgivings and made up her mind.
 “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m staying. And if I can
help with the Autumn Bloom, I will. I haven’t gotten my end of the
bargain yet.”
The gang perked up. Logically, her promise should have made
no difference to them. She’d been deadweight since the beginning,
only useful because of Pengpeng. But they glanced at her with
wonder in their shifting eyes, the same nervousness she knew she
felt when Kelsang had tracked her down for the first time and lifted
her out of the dirt. You’d sully yourself with me?
“Kyoshi,” Rangi said. “Think about this to its end. The Avatar
can’t be seen attacking the residence of an Earth Kingdom official.”
“As far as the abiders are concerned, I’m not the Avatar yet,”
Kyoshi said. “I took the oaths of this group. I won’t abandon my
sworn brothers and sisters.”
Her choice of words was not lost on them. Or Rangi. The
Firebender was torn between being critical of Kyoshi’s judgment
and being proud that she’d brought personal honor into the issue.
“You are not ready for anything resembling a real fight,” Rangi
said. “Currently, you are this group’s biggest weakness. You’re too
valuable to lose, and you don’t have the skills to defend yourself.”
“That’s a little harsh,” Lek said. Of all people.
“Hairpin’s right,” Kirima said to Kyoshi. “Currently. We have
until the next full moon to link up with Mok’s forces for the assault.
We can finally give you the training you were hoping for. That’s
what we promised you, wasn’t it?”
“It takes years for the Avatar to master all four elements!”
Rangi snapped. “And that’s with world-class teachers! I don’t get the
impression that any of you have a bending lineage to speak of.”
Kirima grinned. “No, but I’ve always wanted to start one. I’m
not going to pass up the chance to go down in history as the Avatar’s
waterbending master.”
Kyoshi could practically hear Rangi’s blood boil. Through her
mother’s side, her family belonged to an unbroken line of bending
teachers who were considered some of the finest in the Fire Nation.
They’d tutored members of the royal family. This plan required her
to accept the shame they’d put off for so long. The most important
bender in the world would have to bow to rabble.
 The daofei watched the agony play out on Rangi’s face. They
were highly amused. “Lighten up,” Lek said. “We’d be teaching
Kyoshi to survive, not turning her into Yangchen. Consider the raid
on Te’s a practical exam.”
Whatever worshipfulness Kyoshi detected earlier had
completely vanished from their attitude. Kyoshi supposed she only
had herself to blame, telling them to think of her as their sister
instead of the Avatar.
“Speaking of Yangchen, we’re out of luck for airbending
anyway,” Kirima added. “Either the two of you accept a few
improvisations, or Kyoshi remains the way she is. Weak.
Defenseless. A helpless, pitiable babe in the woods who can’t—”
Kyoshi aimed beyond Kirima’s shoulder and pulled a massive
cube of stone out of the far side of the canyon. It went crashing
down the cliff face, its corners shearing off, a die cast by a spirit the
size of a city. The boulder hit the canyon floor and fractured into an
army of slabs and shards that teetered on their ends before falling
over flat.
Despite the noise, Kirima didn’t give the landslide a single
glance. She stared at Kyoshi, impassive, unimpressed. “This is
exactly what I’m talking about,” she said. “You need more than one
trick in your bag.”

Kyoshi felt the evening wash by her like the wind passing through
the branches of a tree. The gang was content to leave her be, for
now. They chattered excitedly to themselves around the fire. The
Avatar had volunteered to stay by their side. Their every move
forward carried a tinge of spiritual righteousness.
Kyoshi gave it a day before the shine wore off.
Rangi was in a mood all her own. After camp chores were
finished, she hopped to a different stone cutout entirely, to meditate.
By herself, it was made pretty clear. They’d talked about the anguish
of watching each other take risks, but neither of them had made any
promises to stop.
They couldn’t. Not now.
Kyoshi watched the stars fade in and out of the sky, screened
and unveiled in turn by the clouds that were as invisible in the
darkness as black-clad stagehands moving the settings of a play. She
was waiting for the others to fall asleep. She waited for a particular
hour that belonged neither to this day nor the next, when time felt
jellied and thick.
Kyoshi got up and moved to the next cubical platform of the
quarry, and then the next. Without dust-stepping, it was slow going.
She had to clamber up and down the height changes. She didn’t want
to wake the others with noisy, orthodox earthbending.
The old man stood at the mouth of the marble seam with his
back turned to her. Sometimes she wondered if Lao Ge wasn’t a
shared hallucination. Or an imaginary friend exclusive to her. The
others could have been humoring her, nodding and smiling every
time she talked to a patch of empty space.
“I thought you would come to me in Hujiang,” he said. “I
suppose you had other priorities on your mind.”
Kyoshi bowed, knowing he could tell if she did. “Apologies,
Sifu.” But in her thoughts, the unease ballooned. If he had a problem
with Rangi, then . . .
Lao Ge turned around. There was a smile in his eyes. “You
don’t have to forsake love,” he said. “Killing’s not some holy art
form that requires worldly abstinence. If anything, that’s lesson
two.”
She swallowed around the block in her throat. She’d been full
of bluster the first night she went to him in secret. But she’d been so
used to false starts and stymied progress that continuing their
conversation felt like foreign territory. More doubt seeped into her
cracks.
“Lesson two should scare you to the bone,” Lao Ge said. “You
can take a life before the sun comes up, eat breakfast, and go about
your day. How many people might you pass on the street who are
capable of such callousness? Many more than you think.”
Jianzhu certainly was. He’d pulled her alone to safety, leaving
Yun behind in the clutches of that unholy spirit. That was the
moment he’d marked his once-prized pupil as having no further use,
the way a dockworker might paint an X on a crate of cargo fouled by
seawater. Total loss, not worth the recovery effort.
And then there was what he’d done to Kelsang.
“Fancy yourself different?” Lao Ge said, noticing her stillness.
She could still feel Jianzhu’s hands gripping her. “I won’t know
until I try,” she said.
 The old man laughed, a single bark that pierced the night. “I
suppose you’ll get the chance soon. In the heat of battle, you can
excuse the act away well enough. Fling an arrow here, hack away
with a sword there. You and your victim are just two of many, acting
in self-preservation. Is that how you want to deal with your man?
With chaos as your shroud? Do you want to shut your eyes, hurl an
overwhelming amount of death in his direction, and hope he’s
disposed of when you open them?”
“No,” she said. Remembering what she’d been robbed of, what
she’d never get back because of Jianzhu, brought a surge of
conviction. “I want to look him in the eye as I end him.”
Lao Ge reacted as if she’d made a saucy quip, pursing his lips
in amusement. “Well, then!” he said. “In that case, during the raid,
you and I are going to split off from the others. We’ll head farther
into the palace than anyone else. And we’re going to assassinate
Governor Te.”
“Wait, what?” The certainty she had regarding Jianzhu caused
her to mentally stumble at the mention of another target. It was as if
she were the lei tai fighter throwing an all-or-nothing punch at
Rangi, who’d deftly turned her momentum against her. “Why would
we do that?”
“For you, it’s practice,” Lao Ge said. “For me, it’s because he’s
my man. Listen. Governor Te is brutally incompetent and corrupt.
His people go hungry, he skims from the Earth King’s taxes to
enrich his own coffers, and in case you haven’t noticed, he doesn’t
have a good policy for handling daofei.”
“Those aren’t excuses to murder him!”
“You’re right. They’re not excuses—they’re ample
justifications. I guarantee you that many citizens have suffered
immeasurably from his greed and negligence, and many more will
die if he is allowed to keep breathing.”
Lao Ge spread his hands wide as if to embrace the world. “Te
and his ilk are parasites leeching strength and vitality from the
kingdom. Imagine yourself as the predator that keeps the land
healthy by eliminating the sources of its weakness. It was said of
Kuruk that he was the greatest hunter that ever walked the Four
Nations, but from what I know, he never made man his quarry. I’m
hoping you can be different.”
The idea of becoming a beast free of thought and culpability
was supposed to help, but it made her shudder instead. “What gives
you the right to decide?” she asked. “Are you part of another
brotherhood? Are there more people like you? Is someone paying
you?”
He shook his head, dodging her questions. “Doesn’t everyone
have the right to decide?” he said. “Isn’t the Avatar a person like
me? Someone who shapes the world with their choices?”
She was going to protest that no, the Avatar had the recognition
of the spirits and Four Nations, but she found her tongue tied in the
wake of his argument.
He gripped his forearms behind his back and gazed across the
canyon. “I would declare the lowliest peasant is like the Avatar in
this regard. All of our actions have an impact. Each decision we
make ripples into the future. And we alter our landscapes according
to our needs. To keep her crops alive, a farmer uproots the weeds
that nature has placed in her fields, does she not?”
“People aren’t weeds,” Kyoshi said. It was the best she could
manage.
He turned to face her. “I think it’s a bit late to claim the moral
high ground, given what your aims are.”
She flushed hot in her cheeks. “Jianzhu murdered two of my
friends with his own hands,” she spat. “He doesn’t deserve to get
away with it. If you took him out for me, instead of targeting some
random governor, I could reveal myself as the Avatar.” I would be
safe.
Her resolve was wavering left and right. Not a minute ago she
was yowling about doing the deed herself, feigning a hard soul, and
now she was begging Grandfather to make the bad man go away.
Lao Ge smirked. “No one in this world is random. I don’t care
to kill Jianzhu. He’s competent, and he surrounds himself with
competent people. I wish the Earth Kingdom had a hundred
Jianzhus. We’d enter a new golden age.”
“And yet you’re not trying to stop me from ending him.”
“For this case, I won’t intervene one way or the other. Besides,
what kind of teacher would I be if I took my student’s examination
for her?”
“A rich one,” Kyoshi muttered. Tutors swapping identities with
the children of wealthy families so they could pass the government
tests needed for prestigious administrative jobs was a common
practice across the Earth Kingdom. Pulling off the con paid very
well.
Lao Ge burst out laughing. “Oh, I do like our little chats. Here’s
an assignment for you in the meantime.”
He jumped up to a higher level without the aid of bending and
without much effort at all. The leap was higher than Kyoshi’s head.
“Many of Governor Te’s personal guard will die in Mok’s raid,”
he said, disappearing past the edge of the stone, his voice already
beginning to fade. “Soldiers who are simply doing their jobs. His
servants will be caught in the violence as well. What will you do
then, Avatar?”
Kyoshi hopped in place, her eye poking above the surface of
the cube he’d landed on, trying to catch one last glimpse. It was
empty. Lao Ge was already gone.
She slumped against the marble wall. The concept of collateral
damage had lingered in the back of her mind, but Lao Ge had circled
it in ink, made it ache, the same way Rangi pointed out flaws in her
Horse stance. She had no idea how she was going to take part in this
action, fulfill her promise to her newfound brotherhood, without
getting her hands dirty.
The promise had been so easy to make at the time. She stared
miserably at the opposite side of the mined-out gulf, sleep coming to
her before a solution could.

She woke up, sprawled flat on the hard marble surface. She must
have shifted during the night.
Four figures loomed over her, making an arc of their upside-
down faces. “Oh, look,” Kirima said. “Our precious little student is
trying to get away and shirk her training.”
Wong stomped the ground. The marble under Kyoshi tilted like
a frying pan, dumping her to her feet. He proffered her fans, handles
toward her. “I get you first,” he rumbled. “A warm-up before you
start bending.”
“Topknot told us all about your little weakness,” Lek said,
backing away with a look of superiority on his face. “That you can’t
bend small pieces of earth.”
“I believe my words were ‘completely and utterly lacks
precision,’” Rangi said, sniffing in contempt. She ignored Kyoshi’s
glare.
“Don’t worry,” Lek said. “By the time we’re done with you,
you’ll be able to bend the crud out of your own eye. Catch!”
He whipped the stone that appeared in his hand at Kyoshi’s
face. Only the fact that Wong had her fans held out, right there, let
her snatch one in time to protect herself. As the arms snapped open
and she earthbent through the weapon, the stone stopped in midair. It
reversed course at full speed and struck Lek in the forehead.
He doubled over. “Ow!” he screamed. “I was aiming above
you!”
“Wait, so you can bend small things?” Kirima said, upset by the
revelation. “Were you lying to us again? I have to tell you, I’m
getting really fed up with the secrets.”
“I’m bleeding here! This is worse than Hujiang!”
“That’s not how you open the fan!” Wong roared indignantly.
“You could have damaged the leaf!”
Amid the shouting, Rangi buried her face in her hands. She
seemed to have a headache that rivaled Lek’s.
Kyoshi agreed with her. The official training of the Avatar was
off to a great start.
 PREPARATIONS
The journey to Te’s palace was a painful blur. Each moment spent
on solid ground was devoted to training. The daofei adopted their
new roles as her teachers with relish. Criminals liked their
hierarchies, and the Flying Opera Company had just established a
brand-new one, with Kyoshi at the bottom.

“No!” Wong shouted. “It’s fan open, fan closed, high block,
dainty steps backward, big lunge forward, leg sweep! The fan is not
a weapon! It’s an extension of your arm!”
The man had never been much for words before, but when it
came to fighting with the fan, he transformed into a tyrannical stage
director, with the ego and perfectionism to match. “I could
remember the moves better if you didn’t make me sing the full
works of Yuan Zhen while we do this!” Kyoshi said, huffing and
puffing in the open field they’d landed in. The rest of the group sat
in the shade of a persimmon tree overlooking an empty field,
munching on the astringent fruit and enjoying the breeze while
Kyoshi toiled under the sun.
Wong was highly offended. “The singing is breath control
practice! Power and voice both come from the center! Again! With
emotional content this time!”

No matter how difficult fan practice got, she toughed it out. The
rewards were bounding leaps in progress with her earthbending.
With her fans in hand, she could narrow her focus to kick rocks at
targets and raise walls of stone like a normal Earthbender, albeit one
with a sloppy, informal technique. Still, after all those years of
fearing she’d destroy the countryside with the smallest act of
bending, using her mother’s weapons was liberating. It was so
effective, it felt like cheating.
“It is cheating,” Lek said as they volleyed pebbles back and
forth at each other in the mouth of a cave while the others set up
camp. “Sure, some Earthbenders amplify their power with weapons
like hammers and maces, but what are you going to do if you don’t
have your fans? Ask for a rules change?”
“How is someone going to steal my fans?” Kyoshi said. The
flight of the pebbles picked up speed, their arcs growing sharper. “I
always have them with me.”
“It might not be theft,” Lek said. “You might voluntarily leave
them behind. The first rule of smuggling is Don’t get caught with the
goods. Your parents knew that. That’s probably why they stashed the
fans with you in that hick abider town.”
Kyoshi’s temper flared. One, she found herself longing for
Yokoya these days, much to her surprise. Not the people, but the
harsh, wild landscape where the wooded mountains met the sea and
salt air. The interior Earth Kingdom often felt like a brown
monotone, a flat expanse that changed little from one landing site to
the next. She decided she didn’t appreciate people looking down on
the unique little part of it where she’d met Kelsang.
And two, she’d never gotten over the resentment she felt
toward Lek, each moment her parents had spent with him instead of
her. It didn’t matter if he was simply a gang member to them.
They’d found him useful, decided he had a purpose. Her? Not so
much.
She could have explained her feelings to him. Instead, she
sliced at the flying pebbles with her fans, cracking them cleanly into
hemispheres, and sent twice as many projectiles back at Lek. Can
you do that, with or without a weapon?
He yelped and threw himself to the floor. The shot blast of
stone zinged into the cave wall above him, showering him in dust.
Playtime had gotten far too rough.
“I’m sorry!” Kyoshi cried out, covering her mouth in horror
with the spread fan. She could have put out his eye, or worse.
He got up with a scowl on his face. But then he remembered
something. His glower turned into a grin so smug it could have
illuminated the rest of the cave.
“It’s fine,” he said, patting the dirt off his pants. “Though I’ll
have to tell Rangi about your lapse in control.”
Whatever remorse Kyoshi felt vanished. “You snot-nosed little
—”
He raised a finger patiently like an enlightened guru. “Bup-bup.
That’s Sifu Snotnose to you.”

Kyoshi could firebend without her fans.

 That one bad attempt after their escape from Chameleon Bay
was a distant memory. Since then, some kind of blockage had
cleared. The flame felt straightforward, a power that merely needed
to be set free instead of prodded or manipulated like earth.
It made no sense to her how she had a critical weakness with
her native element but could produce fire decently for a beginner.
The reason could have been that Rangi was a great teacher, as might
be expected from the scion of great teachers.
“No,” Rangi said. “It’s your emotional state.”
The little training area they’d built stood at the end of an
isolated shepherd’s path leading away from a small town in a valley
below. Rangi faced her on a long, narrow beam of earth that she’d
ordered Kyoshi to raise from the ground. Balancing on it was hard
enough, but then they’d started to run through firebending forms and
light sparring. The linear exercise meant she’d need to concentrate
on resisting and overcoming with positive jing instead of staying
still or evading.
“Of all bending disciplines, fire is the most affected by inner
turmoil,” Rangi said, punching a flame downward at Kyoshi’s front
foot, forcing her to pull it back. “The fact that its coming easier to
you now means you’re feeling more relaxed and natural.”
Kyoshi snap-kicked her new leading leg. A crescent of fire
sliced upward, and Rangi had to reconsider how much pressure she
wanted to apply. “Isn’t that a good thing?” Kyoshi asked.
“No! Why would it be? You feel loose and breezy when you’re
surrounded by daofei, about to risk your life for them in what’s
essentially an act of treason against the Earth Kingdom!?” Rangi
spun on the balls of her feet, perfectly centered, with more dance-
like beauty than Kyoshi could ever have mustered. A horizontal skirt
of flame billowed out from her waist, exactly at a height too
awkward for Kyoshi to jump over or duck easily.
Rangi hadn’t accounted for her opponent’s complete lack of
shame. Kyoshi dropped to her belly like a worm, hugging the sides
of the beam for stability, and let the wave of fire pass over her. She
popped back up to see Rangi looking at her with disapproval in her
eyes. And it was about more than her lowly escape.
“You’re firebending now,” Rangi said. “Dare I say, you might
even be good at it. There’s no reason to continue on this path. We
could go to the sages and prove you’re the Avatar.”
 Kyoshi thought this matter had been settled, but apparently not.
“Which ones, exactly?” she said. “Because the only sages I know are
the names from Jianzhu’s guest lists! Should we try Lu Beifong?
The man who thinks of Jianzhu like his own son? Or maybe
someone at the court of Omashu! Omashu is practically his summer
home!”
“We could go to my mother,” Rangi said, her voice barely
audible.
Kyoshi dropped her fighting stance. If she caught a fireball to
the face, she deserved it. She’d essentially separated Rangi from her
only family. It was a nagging guilt that Kyoshi had been able to
ignore, solely because of her friend’s strength. This was the first
time Rangi had cracked along that plane.
“Do you really think she’d take our side over his?” Kyoshi
asked. She didn’t mean for the question to be defiant. The friendship
between the Avatar’s companions in eras past was the stuff of
legend. It was said that two of Yangchen’s close friends and bending
teachers had died protecting her from her enemies. The prospect of
Hei-Ran choosing Jianzhu over her own daughter had to be
considered.
Rangi’s face wilted further. “I don’t know,” she said after a
while. Her shoulders were heavy with dejection. “I couldn’t be
certain. I guess if we can’t trust my own mother, then we can’t trust
anyone.”
It did not feel good to win this argument. Kyoshi stepped along
the beam carefully until she could put her arms around Rangi. “I’m
sorry,” she said. “I’ve taken so much from you. I don’t know how to
make it right.”
Rangi wiped her nose and pushed Kyoshi away. “You can start
by promising me you’ll be a great Avatar. A leader who’s virtuous
and just.”
The comment knocked Kyoshi off-balance better than a kick to
her knee. She couldn’t reconcile her friend’s righteous desires with
the dark conclusions of Lao Ge. Entertaining the wisdom of an
assassin was already a betrayal of Rangi’s trust. What would happen
if Kyoshi took the old man’s test and passed?
Rangi lined up a big attack to knock her off the beam,
purposely exaggerating her own motions and openings to let her
student counter-hit her. But Kyoshi couldn’t capitalize on them. She
backed away until she ran out of space, forlornly waving her hands
in a mockery of firebending, heat sputtering from her fingers.
Luck intervened before she humiliated herself further. “You two
have been here all morning,” Kirima called out as she approached
along the trail. “It’s my turn with Kyoshi.”
“Buzz off!” Rangi yelled. She took the fire she’d been winding
between her hands and redirected it high above Kirima’s head.
Since the night they spent in the marble quarry, Rangi’s
personal attitude toward Kirima had gone steeply downhill. Kyoshi
had no idea why. They were both talented benders who married
intelligence with precision. She’d trust either of their judgments in a
pinch.
Kirima didn’t flinch from the fire blast. The waves of heat
fluttered her hair and illuminated her sharp face in golden hues, an
effect that was rather pretty. “You’re not setting a very good example
for the baby Avatar, Topknot. Too much rage will stunt her growth.”
“Stop calling me that!” Rangi fumed.
Maybe that was it, the constant teasing. Kyoshi wondered how
Rangi put up with the nickname for so long. In the Fire Nation, hair
was heavily linked with honor. She’d heard that sometimes the
losers of an important Agni Kai would shave parts of their head
bald, laying patches of their scalp bare to symbolize an extra level of
humility from their defeat, but the topknot was always sacred. It was
never touched except in circumstances akin to death.
Kirima bowed in mockery. “As you wish, my good Hotwoman.
I’m coming back in five minutes.”
After she disappeared, Kyoshi put her hand on Rangi’s
shoulder. “Did something happen between the two of you?”
Rangi responded with her new favorite way of avoiding the
subject. “Stance training,” she said.
“We already did stance training!”
“Lek said you went berserk in the cave. We’re moving to two a
day. Horse. Now.”
Kyoshi groaned and pressed her feet together. She shuffled
them to the sides, alternating between heels and toes, until they were
wider than her shoulders. She kept quiet as she lowered her waist, or
else Rangi would make her hold a log or some other heavy object
they could find lying around.
 Rangi circled her, looking for any weakness where she could
strike. “Do not move,” she said, right before stepping carefully onto
Kyoshi’s bent knee.
“I hate you so much!” Kyoshi yelled as Rangi draped her
bodyweight over her shoulders.
“The exercise is to maintain composure in the face of
distraction! Now maintain!”
Kyoshi put up with the asymmetrical agony until Rangi
dropped back down to the ground. “I don’t want her teaching you
waterbending,” Rangi said as she moved threateningly into Kyoshi’s
blind spot.
“Why?” Kyoshi felt Rangi leap onto her back, clinging to her
like a rucksack. “Agh! Why!”
“There’s a proper order to training the Avatar,” Rangi said.
“The cycle of the seasons. Earth, fire, air, water. It’s not good to
deviate from that pattern. You have to master the other elements
before water.”
“Again, why?” There were only four airbending temples in the
world. If she tried to seek out a master there, Jianzhu would find her
more easily than anywhere else.
“Because!” Rangi snapped. “They say bad things happen when
an Avatar tries to defy the natural order of bending. Ill fortune
befalls them.”
Kyoshi had never known Rangi to lean on superstition.
Tradition, however, was another matter. She could tell that each time
they ignored an established practice regarding the Avatar, the knife
twisted in Rangi’s heart a little bit more.
But Kyoshi owed it to her not to make a promise she couldn’t
keep. “I’m going to use every weapon I have at my disposal,” she
said. That was the truth.
Rangi let go of her. “I know. I can’t stop you from training with
Kirima. It’s just that as soon as you start waterbending in earnest,
our chance to do things the right way dies. Forever. It can’t be
brought back.”
Hearing it phrased that way made Kyoshi glummer than she’d
expected. She stared at the ground in front of her. Rangi’s feet came
into view.
 “Come on,” she said. “Cheer up. I didn’t mean to send you into
a spiral.”
“I can’t cheer up. I’m in Horse stance.”
“I like your focus,” Rangi said. “But see if you can withstand
this.”
She slid between Kyoshi’s arms and gave her a head-tilting,
knee-buckling kiss, as powerful and deep as the ocean after a storm.
Kyoshi’s eyes went wide before they shut forever. She sank into
heavenly darkness. Her backbone turned to liquid. “Maintain,”
Rangi murmured, her lips like a feather on Kyoshi’s before she
attacked again, with added ferocity this time.
Kyoshi never wanted the torment to end. Rangi pressed into her
like metal glowing on an anvil, scorching her where their skin met.
Fingers ran through Kyoshi’s hair, twisting and pulling to remind her
how delightfully at the Firebender’s mercy she was.
After a hundred years had passed, Rangi broke contact, gently
and deliberately breathing a wisp of steam down Kyoshi’s neck, a
parting gift of heat that drifted underneath her clothes.
She leaned in for one last seductive whisper. “You still have
seven minutes left to go,” Rangi said.
Kyoshi kept her complaints to herself. It was a decent trade, all
things considered.

“Your water and air chakras are overflowing,” Lao Ge said.

He sounded like it was an embarrassment, as if Kyoshi had
wandered outside her home without being fully dressed. She’d
braved coming to him while the others were still awake, bedded
down by the embers of the campfire. Rangi was probably staring at
the sky, vigilant to her last moments of consciousness.
Lao Ge lay on his side in the grass, his head propped upon his
hand so he could watch a pair of fireflies circle each other, tracing
erratic patterns through the air. Kyoshi had long since gathered that
the man had very little need to ever look at her.
“I don’t know what chakras are,” she said.
“What they are is either open or closed. For the sake of
predictability, I prefer working with people who have all seven of
them open or all seven of them closed. An accomplice with only
some of their chakras unblocked can be easily swayed by their
strongest, most gnarled-up emotion.”
Kyoshi assumed the term had something to do with energy
movement within the body. Not much of a stretch, since controlling
internal qi was the basis of all bending.
“Your feelings of pleasure and love are butting up against a
wall of grief,” he said. “And guilt. Grief I can work with, but guilt
makes for a poor killer. Have you second thoughts about your man?”
“No,” she said. “Never.” Lao Ge rolled over to his other side.
She waited, letting him examine her to see she wasn’t bluffing.
Jianzhu was part of her blood by now. He was the back of her hands.
But this Te person was not. “I don’t know if I can help you kill
the governor,” she said. “Helping Mok free a prisoner is one thing,
but an assassination in cold blood is another.” Kyoshi wondered why
she didn’t reject Lao Ge immediately the other night. Speaking the
action out loud made it ludicrous. “There’s no reason for me to help
you.”
The old man blew his nose on his sleeve. “Have you ever heard
of Guru Shoken?” he asked. Kyoshi shook her head.
“He was an ancient philosopher, a contemporary of Laghima’s.
Not as popular though. He had a proverb: ‘If you meet the spirit of
enlightenment on the road, slay it!’”
She wrinkled her brow. “I can see why he’s not popular.”
“Yes, he was considered heretical by some. But wise by others.
One interpretation of that particular saying is that you cannot be
bound by petty concerns on your personal journey. You must walk
with a singular purpose. The judgment of others, no matter how
horrific or criminal they label your actions, must hold no meaning to
you.”
“I can’t do that,” Kyoshi said. “I care what she thinks of me. I
don’t know if I could handle disappointing her.”
Lao Ge knew whom Kyoshi was talking about. “Your hesitation
seems to be less about your own morals than hers. In fact, without
your Firebender tethering you to this world, you might feel no
compunction at all. Perhaps that’s why you feel guilt. You’re only
one step away from Guru Shoken’s ideal, and it disturbs you.”
This was the sorry state of Kyoshi’s Avatarhood. Heartlessness
the new enlightenment. Murder the means to self-discovery. If she
ever resurfaced in the legitimate world, she would create a stain as
dark as loam in the history books.
“Don’t look so compromised,” Lao Ge said. “Yangchen was a
devoted reader of Shoken.”
Kyoshi glanced up at him.
“She studied his opponents as well,” he said. “But I don’t feel
like giving you their philosophical arguments. It doesn’t serve my
purposes.”
She remembered the notes in her mother’s journal, about the
rumored longevity of Tieguai the Immortal. “Are you him?” she
said. “Are you Shoken?” If her wild accusation was right, it would
have made the man before her older than the Four Nations
themselves.
Lao Ge snorted and rolled on his back, closing his eyes. “Of
course not.” He settled in to sleep. “I was always much better
looking than that fool.”
 CONCLUSIONS
Jianzhu had learned his lesson. No caravans. No roads. As soon as
he received the message from the shirshu tracker team, delivered by
hawk, he’d gone through the enormous, preposterous expense of
buying rare eel hounds. The fastest cross-country mounts besides a
flying bison. A whole herd of them.
In the annals of the Earth Kingdom, ancient nomadic barbarians
had traveled great distances, surprising footslogging armies with
such tactics. A single rider would bring multiple mounts on a
journey, switching between them on the fly to keep the animals as
fresh and speedy as possible. From the ranks of his newly
replenished guardsmen, he’d chosen two on the basis of their riding
ability and set out with eight eel hounds between them. They’d been
told as little as possible, but from his urgency it was easy to guess
that their quest was important.
They reached the mountains of Ba Sing Se in astonishing time,
with barely a witness to mark their passing. Early on, one mount had
broken its leg in a singing groundhog’s hole and needed to be put
down. Another died from exhaustion on the far shore of West Lake.
But other than that, the constant, mindless riding, the wind in
his hair, had been good for Jianzhu’s spirit. As much as he missed
Hei-Ran’s company, he needed the occasional freedom from her
watchful gaze. The party had brought more messenger hawks with
their baggage, carefully caged and hooded. Jianzhu had promised to
send word to her as soon as possible.
The location where he was set to meet the trackers was a small
trailhead leading into the foothills of the southern Taihua range. The
gentle slope of grassy green knolls was punctured by rows of red-
stone crags jutting upward, uniformly following the same angle and
grain. The rocks were as tall and numerous as the trees in a forest.
Jianzhu saw a lone figure in the middle of the stones waving
them over and frowned. The message that had brought him here in
such a hurry had explained, with overflowing apologies, that the
shirshu had followed the scent trail to these mountains. Right before
they’d lost control of the animal. It had escaped and run up the peaks
in pursuit of its prey. For all he knew, it might have eaten the Avatar.
The handlers must have drawn lots to see which one would face
his wrath in person while the rest looked for the shirshu. He spurred
his hound toward the unlucky representative. The man’s waving was
stiff and forced, like the motion of a waterwheel.
“You can stop,” Jianzhu called out. “I see you—”
A whistle and then a thump. The lone tracker keeled over, two
arrows in his back.
Jianzhu cursed and leaped off his mount, more arrows crossing
the air above his saddle. He tented slabs of earth around him and
hunkered down in his cover, listening to the thunks of projectiles
landing around him.
I am getting much too old for this. He never would have fallen
for such an obvious trap in his younger days.
There was a pause in the firing. He chambered his fists and
punched outward. The slabs that had protected him now splintered
and flew outward in all directions like shrapnel from a bombard. He
heard screams from the rocks above.
Taking in his surroundings as quickly as possible, he saw a few
archers who’d fallen from their perches lying at the base of the
crags. But, better safe than sorry. He lowered his stance, shook his
waist, and whirled his arms. From base to top, every stone he could
see violently sprouted thin spikes the size of jians, like they’d
instantly transformed into the same species of Si Wong cactus.
He heard more screams from the archers who remained hidden
in their cover behind the rocks. That should have been it for elevated
opponents. Fighters who fancied themselves professionals, but
weren’t, often made the mistake of taking the high ground without
planning a way out.
His eel hound had run off. But two of them were still nearby,
tethered by their reins to a heavy weight. The corpse of one of the
guardsmen, studded with arrows. The reins had snagged on his wrist.
Good job, whatever your name was, Jianzhu thought.
The other guardsman was busy wiping the blood off his dao
with a hank of grass. Three attackers lay at his feet. They’d charged
him with melee weapons, and bizarre ones at that. Jianzhu thought
he spotted an abacus made of iron on the ground.
He was still impressed. “What do they call you, son?”
The guardsman snapped to attention and stared above Jianzhu’s
head with youthful, bright eyes. He had the strong brow of Eastern
Peninsula ancestry. “Saiful, sir.”
 It was likely Saiful didn’t understand how close of a call this
was. Talent would only let you survive so many encounters. After
that, the odds tended to catch up with a vengeance. “Excellent work,
Saiful. There’s always opportunity for a quick blade on my staff. I’ll
remember this.”
The young guardsman kept his thrill contained as best he could.
“Thank you, sir.”
Jianzhu nudged a body onto its back. The dead man was
clothed in the standard attire of a bandit, in the sense that he wore
whatever peasant clothing he’d taken with him from his last
legitimate occupation. This one had the trousers of a sailor or a
sailmaker, mended repeatedly with fine sewing skill.
But there was an odd detail on his shirt. He’d stuck a flower in
his lapel. It was too ruined to see what kind.
Jianzhu checked another body. It had no decoration on its
person, but he backtracked along the path the man had charged and
found what he was looking for on the ground. A dried moon peach
blossom.
A badge, Jianzhu thought with some vehemence.
He straightened up and looked around. The mountains loomed
nearby. They were said to be uninhabited. Practically impassable.
Yet these men weren’t clothed for an expedition.
With a sudden burst of energy he slammed his palm against the
ground. Tremors rang through the earth, spreading wide like ripples
in a pond.
“Sir, are you . . . searching for something underground?” Saiful
asked.
“Maybe,” Jianzhu said, his attention skimming over the grass.
“Though what I’m doing right now is preserving their footprints.”
He continued along the trail left by Saiful’s opponents,
watching the indentations they made with their heels and toes in the
dirt, examining where they left mud on grass. A long time ago, he’d
tracked criminals down in such a way, by listening to the earth and
reading its marks.
The prints, in reverse, led to a clearing with a conspicuous gray
rock the size of a chair. Jianzhu waved it away with a brush of his
hand. Underneath was a wooden trap door.
“A hidden passage?” Saiful asked.
 Jianzhu nodded grimly. “Hidden passage. Through the
mountains.”

“Sir . . . is this town supposed to be here?” Saiful said.

“No,” Jianzhu said, his teeth grinding together.
Though he couldn’t see underground, knowing the tunnel was
there allowed Jianzhu to make various educated guesses with
earthbending and knowledge of stonework to determine a path.
They’d followed the network up the mountain on their eel hounds,
forcing aside blocked passages and relying on the agility of their
unusual mounts to see them through. Eventually the obstacles parted
to reveal a great crater nestled in the heights, and in that bowl,
waiting for them, was a village that neither of them had ever heard
of before.
An entire settlement not on any map, out of reach of the law.
Jianzhu’s rage was almost too great for him to swallow. He was a
storekeeper who would never be rid of vermin, a servant who would
never be able to polish the silver clean.
The town appeared to be abandoned. They rode through empty
streets, between longhouses that made a mockery of the Four
Nations with adornments either looted or crudely imitated from their
places of origin. One particular scrap-quilted banner had been
fastened together so that characters from multiple signs clumsily
formed the syllables Hu and Jiang.
Hujiang. So that was the name of this dungheap.
“There’s our shirshu, sir,” Saiful said. He pointed down the
street where a dark, foul-smelling mound blocked the way.
The beast lay in relatively dignified repose. Other than the flies
buzzing around its face—or lack thereof—it was still whole. Any
trophy hunters would have found very quickly that toxins still
coursed through its dead body.
Professor Shaw would be upset though. Jianzhu would need to
come up with a cover story and a convincing amount of hush money
to keep the man’s anger from casting suspicion.
A brief scraping noise came from the house to his right. There
was someone inside. Jianzhu dismounted and approached the
darkened building.
“Sir?” Saiful whispered. “Going alone is a bad idea.”
 Jianzhu waved him off. “Patrol the street.”
He slipped inside, contouring against the door frame rather than
standing fully in the entrance, where he would be outlined by
sunlight. Judging from the long tables and low backless stools, the
building was some kind of inn or tavern. It made him furious again,
that these outlaws had enjoyed enough peace in these mountains to
build gathering places and sell each other wine.
Jianzhu walked around the tavern’s counter. He found the
person who’d made the noise.
It was a man sitting on a pile of pillows. He was muscled and
scarred like a fighter, though it would seem he’d fared poorly in his
last outing. One of his legs was wrapped in cloth and splinted up to
his hip.
The injured man stared at Jianzhu with the empty, wary
expression of being caught out. Jianzhu noticed empty bottles within
his arms reach, jars of half-eaten food. He pieced it together. The
inhabitants of the settlement had evacuated some days ago, probably
scared away by the shirshu. The ambush at the base of the mountain
had been a rearguard, or a bunch of greedy opportunists who’d
lagged behind. This man with the broken leg couldn’t make the
journey down at all, so his companions had left him here to recover.
Jianzhu’s eyes went to a small, out-of-place vase. It had a moon
peach blossom in it. “I’m looking for a girl,” he said to his
recuperating friend. “She was here at some point. A very tall girl,
taller than you or me. Pretty face, freckles, doesn’t speak much.
Have you seen her?”
The man’s eyebrows twitched. It could have been an attempt to
conceal the truth, or it could have been his memory sparking but
failing to light.
“She would have been accompanied by a Firebender. Another
girl, black hair, military bearing—”
Jianzhu caught the spear-hand strike aimed at his throat and
redirected it into the nearby shelf, smashing the uprights. The man
could add a broken wrist to his troubles. Jianzhu watched him seethe
with pain.
The injured fighter tucked his bad hand under his good arm. “I
am Four Shadows Guan,” he snarled with pride. “And I will tell you
nothing. I know a man of the law when I see one.”
 Jianzhu believed him. Once these types told you their
professional name, there was no more rational conversation to be
had. He would try one more tactic, a play on the daofei’s emotions.
He plucked the moon peach blossom from its vase and twirled
the stem between his thumb and forefinger. “Times have changed,”
he said. “In my younger days I remember tracking this small group
around the edges of the desert, from watering hole to watering hole.
The Band of the Scorpion, they called themselves. There couldn’t
have been more than a dozen members.”
Jianzhu caught what he was looking for, the man snorting in
derision at a brotherhood that small. Which meant his group was
much larger.
“The funny thing was, when I caught up with them, I found out
why they were moving so slowly,” he went on. “Two of their
members had caught foot rot and couldn’t walk. The others
fashioned litters and carried them through the desert, the whole time.
The group would have escaped me if they had left their sick behind,
but they chose to stay together. They chose brotherhood.”
He crushed the flower. “That’s what Followers of the Code
used to be like. When I look at you, abandoned by your sworn
brothers, I don’t see that tradition. I don’t see honor.”
Jianzhu let a flying gob of spit hit him in the face. “The
brothers of the Autumn Bloom are willing to die for each other,” the
man said, wiping his lips. “You would never understand. Our cause
makes us—”
He paused, realizing that Jianzhu was manipulating him. Four
Shadows Guan was smarter than he looked. He clenched his jaw and
slammed back against his makeshift bedrest.
Jianzhu grimaced and rolled up his sleeves. So much for doing
this the easy way.

He stepped into the sunlight and wiped his hands on a nearby

saddle blanket that had been hung up to dry and forgotten.
The Autumn Bloom, he thought to himself. The Autumn Bloom.
Who in the name of Oma’s bastard children were the Autumn
Bloom?
Jianzhu really was getting too old. He’d never heard of this
gang before. He, the man who’d once single-handedly kept half the
continent from falling into lawlessness, had let a new criminal outfit
large enough to populate a good-sized village operate within
shouting distance of the capital. The Autumn Bloom, whoever they
were and whatever their goals, had a level of organization high
enough to evacuate the settlement the moment they suspected an
intrusion.
And more importantly, most importantly, the only thing that
was important, was that they now held the Avatar in their clutches.
The girl had been here at some point, that was certain. She must
have planned to hide in the remote mountains and fallen into an
ambush, like he nearly did. She’d been captured and taken to this
headquarters. Shirshu followed living scents, and the animal would
not have come here if she were dead.
Jianzhu cursed the spirits and mankind alike, cursed the threads
of fate that had formed this knot. The Avatar had been kidnapped by
daofei.
He threw his head back and stared at the sky for answers. Out
of the corner of his eye he watched a bird fly away, its long tail
plumage trailing behind it like a streamer. Some obscure cultures
read the future through the patterns of winged creatures. Jianzhu
wondered if that would have worked, if birds could have found the
girl at birth and saved them this trouble. He heaved a great sigh.
Saiful rounded the corner and came back into the street, trotting
back over to his boss. “Did you find anything inside, sir?”
“Just a corpse.” He looked at the young swordsman. Saiful,
along with a handful of other men, had answered Jianzhu’s call for
more fighters after the encounter with Tagaka left the ranks of his
guard depleted. Perhaps a little too quickly and conveniently, now
that he thought about it.
“Saiful, I didn’t tell you to send a message with one of our
hawks,” Jianzhu said.
The young man looked surprised. “I was, uh, relaying ahead for
supplies,” he said. His hand drifted toward his weapon. He was a
capable warrior, unafraid to kill for pay. A mercenary who swore
loyalty as long as the wages were good. When you got right down to
it, there was really no difference between him and a daofei.
But lying was something he needed more practice at. “You’re
from the Eastern Peninsula, aren’t you?” Jianzhu said. He clasped
his hands behind his back. “I have a good friend who does a lot of
business in the Eastern Peninsula. His name is Hui. Have you met
him before, by chance? Perhaps he was the one you relayed for
supplies just now?”
It had only been a twinge of suspicion on Jianzhu’s part, a bluff
really, but mentioning Hui’s name let loose a flood of tells from
Saiful’s face and body language.
“Let me guess,” Jianzhu said, digging deeper along this
productive seam of ore. “Hui sent you to infiltrate my household,
didn’t he? With orders to find out what happened to the Avatar.”
The slight step backward Saiful took let Jianzhu know that he’d
struck upon the truth. “And being the smart young man you are, you
realized the implication of the shirshu trail ending here. The Avatar
—and, let’s be clear, we have been following the Avatar—has been
lost to outlaws. That was the message you sent to Hui just now.”
Saiful was astonished that Jianzhu had performed the
supernatural feat of reading his mind. Really, all Jianzhu had done
was follow lines of information as they unfolded, like any good Pai
Sho player.
The swordsman decided to follow a gambit of his own. He’d
been found out, but they were in the isolated mountains, and he had
his weapon and his youthful reflexes on his side. He warily drew his
dao again.
Jianzhu rolled his neck, his joints creakier than in years past.
The thing about Pai Sho was that most games didn’t need to be
played to completion. Masters usually recognized when they were
beaten and resigned while the action was still technically in
progress. If this dance between him and Hui had taken place on the
grid, then right here would be where Jianzhu was supposed to bow
and pick up his tiles in defeat.
There was no stopping the message from reaching Hui now that
the bird was in the air. The chamberlain would realize how big a
mess he was hiding and assemble a case against him to the rest of
the sages of the Earth Kingdom. If the girl was found alive and her
identity proven, she’d be delivered straight into the hands of Hui,
who in the end wouldn’t care which version of the Avatar he got, so
long as he was taking it from Jianzhu.
By all logical reasoning, he was ruined. He’d lost.
But what only his close Pai Sho partners knew about him was
that Jianzhu had never surrendered a game early in his life. On the
rare occasions when an opponent got the best of him, he forced them
to play out the lines to the bitter end. He made them jump hurdles
for every piece of his they captured, and ran the late-night candles
down to their last inches of wick out of sheer spite.
Jianzhu smiled grimly as he closed in on the young swordsman.
Beating him always required a price in blood. He wasn’t about to
drop the habit now.
 QUESTIONS AND
MEDITATIONS
Kyoshi kept pace behind Lao Ge through the streets of the market.
The two of them were alone, a girl and her elderly uncle taking a
relaxing stroll. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Except Lao Ge, when not in the presence of the rest of the
Flying Opera Company, walked with the bearing of a dragon
wrapped in the clothes of a beggar. And Kyoshi was . . . Kyoshi.
Vendors in their stalls craned their necks to gawk at her as she
passed.
“Aren’t we here to buy rice?” she muttered, feeling the pressure
of so many gazes. “We passed two different peddlers already.”
“Any one of us could have done that alone,” Lao Ge said. He
winked at a matron sweeping her stoop. She frowned and pushed a
pile of dust at him. “You’re here to observe.”
Zigan Village was the main town that supplied food and
manpower to Governor Te’s palace. Kyoshi had been impressed by
its size as they walked in from the outskirts, but quickly noticed that
the solidly built houses and traditional Earth Kingdom trappings
were somewhat of a front. They hadn’t encountered an actual person
until they were well into the heart of the village. Kyoshi found it
hard to believe that the outer districts were completely vacant, but
she’d seen nothing to the contrary.
Her ears perked toward the sound of an argument. A peddler
and the farmer supplying him were nearly at blows.
“You can’t fool me!” shouted the peddler. “I know the harvest
was good this year! What you’re charging me is an outrage!”
The farmer gestured wildly with the straw hat in his hand. “And
I’m telling you, most of it gets confiscated for the governor’s silos! I
have to set the price based on the grain I have leftover!”
“How can you keep raising prices when there’s an ocean of rice
sitting behind his walls?” The peddler was beside himself. “For
Yangchen’s sake, I can see the roof of the storehouse from here!”
“Te hasn’t opened the silos for over five years! You might as
well consider that food eaten by the spirits!”
 Lao Ge pushed Kyoshi along. Apparently, they were not here to
offer solutions to people who needed them.
She knew what he was trying to prove, that Te’s impending
death was justified. “Reserving food for an emergency isn’t foolish
or corrupt,” she said.
“No, but secretly selling your reserves for off-the-books profit
is. To enrich himself, Te has traded away the grain he’s collected
every year since he was appointed governor. He’s persisted during
bad harvests, when his citizens have gone hungry enough to abandon
their homes. Most famines are man-made, and he is on the verge of
making one.”
Lao Ge kicked a pebble at a shuttered window. There was no
response to the noise. “Tell me, has Jianzhu ever failed his people in
this manner?”
Kyoshi was forced to admit that Yokoya had only grown and
prospered since Jianzhu planted his flag there. The townsfolk she’d
seen in Zigan had the sinking, harried look of men and women
running out of time. They weren’t starving yet, but they would be
soon. She recognized the weight of hunger on their shoulders, the
same one she felt on hers as she went from door to door in Yokoya
after being dumped there, rejected in turn by every family, her
options dwindling.
She knew intimately what would happen next to the villagers.
How their humanity would break down as starvation and
helplessness took over. How it felt to watch death encroach a little
closer every week. It had taken an intervention by Kelsang to save
her from that fate.
Now Lao Ge was claiming to be that mercy for Zigan, for
hundreds of people instead of just one girl. She had no reason to call
him wrong.

It was a long, serpentine hike up the hillside to their encampment.

She noticed the Flying Opera Company preferred elevated positions
—maybe her mother’s influence seeping through. It made perfect
sense in this context. The rocky terrain hid them from view, and
from this high up they could see the layout of Te’s palace as clearly
as a well-drawn map.
The governor is tactically incompetent not to have scouts
monitoring these passes, Kyoshi thought, before noticing the strange
mix of Rangi and Lao Ge that had rubbed off on her.
Lek looked up from stoking the campfire. “Did you get the
rice?”
“We got sweet potato.” She tossed the burlap sack to the
ground. “Rice is . . . an issue.”
“I’m sick of sweet potato,” he groused.
Kyoshi ignored him and climbed higher to the flat outcropping
where Kirima and Rangi lay on their stomachs, surveying the palace.
They’d come to a temporary truce over their mutual appreciation for
intelligence gathering. Casing a joint was pretty much the same
thing as planning an assault.
She sat down behind them, unnoticed.
“We’re looking at a traditional siheyuan design dating back to
the Hao line of Earth Kings,” Rangi said to Kirima, fixated on the
complex below. It was ancient compared to the mansion back in
Yokoya. There were four courtyards instead of two. And instead of
being walled by rooms in continuous, smooth construction, it
appeared as if more than a dozen houses of varying sizes and heights
had been placed end to end along square patterns drawn in the
ground. The ancient owners must have grown in wealth over time,
adding more and more extensions haphazardly, a far cry from the
singular vision Jianzhu had in constructing his own home.
It was still obscenely extravagant, especially when compared to
the declining village of Zigan. One of the courtyards held a gaudy
turtle-duck pond that was too large for its surroundings. Kyoshi
knew that was a new trend in imitation of the Fire Nation royal
palace.
“There’s overlapping fields of view for the guards in each of
the high points,” Rangi said. She pointed at three lumps of roof on
the closest edge. “We have to assume they’ll be fully manned. So,
coming at the best angle, that’s three sentries we’ll have to deal with
on the approach.”
“Lek can drop two of them from a distance, but the third would
have time to sound the alarm,” Kirima said. “How do you know so
much about old Earth Kingdom architecture?”
“In the academy we studied how to attack any kind of
fortification,” Rangi said. “Walled Fire temples, Earth Kingdom
stockades . . .”
 Kirima looked at her carefully. “Polar ice walls?”
“Yes,” Rangi said without hesitation. “Preparedness carries the
day. There was even a plan for Ba Sing Se, though I’d pity the troops
who carried it out.”
The Waterbender set aside the comments made toward the other
nations. “Mok will want to attack the south gate directly,” Kirima
said. “If we time our approach with his, we could assume the
sentries posted on the other walls will divert toward him.”
Rangi frowned. “That’s a killing field.” The ground south of the
complex was hard-packed dirt strewn with fieldstones the size of a
man’s head. “A few Earthbenders in Te’s guard could cause massive
casualties.”
“I don’t think Mok cares,” Kirima said. “I don’t know what
poison Wai’s been pouring in the ears of his men, but they’ve turned
into fanatics. He’s going to breach the walls with sheer numbers.”
Kyoshi shuddered to think of the slaughter that would follow if
the daofei succeeded. She’d never heard of a siege where the
attackers didn’t repay the cost of victory in blood.
“We have one last option,” Kirima said. “We still don’t know
which building the prison cells are in, or under. Capturing the entire
palace might be the only way we get enough time to search for the
person we’re trying to free. So instead of trying to penetrate the
compound, we simply take out the watchmen on the south wall,
open the gate from the inside, and let Mok stroll right through.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Kyoshi said.
“Gah!” Kirima launched herself to her knees and nearly fell off
the outcrop. “How are you so stealthy on those giant hooves of
yours?”
“Servants have to be quiet.” Kyoshi appraised the pair of
benders, who were probably more alike than either cared to admit.
She needed some wisdom in a hurry. The conventional sort, not the
turned-around mind games of Lao Ge. Right now, these two women
were her best sources.
“We have to talk,” she said to them.

The last hours of daylight were devoted to more training. The

training never ended. The training would invade her dreams. She
was certain the next Fire Avatar would be born with her muscle
memory imprinted in their little fire-baby limbs.
“Let’s go already!” Wong shouted. “You’re the one who wanted
to learn dust-stepping.”
“Are you sure about this?” Kyoshi said, justifiably nervous.
“When I saw the rest of you do it, you started on solid ground and
worked your way higher. That seems a lot safer.”
She perched on a rock column, one of many that studded a
ravine. The distance between each pillar was at least twelve feet. On
the far side of the gully, Wong waited for her.
“Practice should be more difficult than the real thing,” he said.
“The goal is to reach me without slowing down. If you stumble you
have to go back to where you started and try again. You’re doing it
three times.”
Kyoshi peered down at the ground below. There was nothing
that would break her fall on the hard stone floor. “Can I at least use
my fans?”
“I don’t know,” Wong said. “Can you?”
She pulled her weapons from her belt. The heft in her hands
was comforting as she spread them open. She had the thought that
maybe if she flapped hard enough, she could take to the air like a
bird.
“Either shoot or go hungry,” Lek called out.
She should have just went for it without hesitating. Now she’d
drawn an audience. The entire group, including Lao Ge, watched
from various seats around the camp.
Precision, she thought to herself. Timing. Precision. Timing.
She leaped into thin air. In the same instant, pebbles and dust
rose from the bottom of the ravine, stacking on each other,
solidifying into a rigid structure that only needed to support her
weight long enough for her to take her next step. She felt the ball of
her foot land gracefully on the miniature, temporary stalagmite, the
fragile tower of earth.
Then she crashed right through it. She dropped like . . . well, a
stone.
In her panic Kyoshi let go of her fans and reached for the
column with her hands, a drowning victim ready to pull the entire
lifeboat under the surface with her. She struck the side and bounced
off, scrabbling for the top of the column with her fingers but unable
to find any purchase. Her back collided with the formation behind
her, sending her pinwheeling face-first into the bottom of the ravine.
She lay there, a smear along the ground. Two thuds sounded,
her fans landing after her. She had a distinct feeling, mostly because
she was still alive, that someone had earthbent the ground under her
to be softer, covered the rock with a layer of sand. Her guess was
Lao Ge.
“Zero,” she heard Wong call out. “Start over.”

Every attempt at dust-stepping failed. Painfully. It was so bad that

Rangi relented and let Kirima try teaching her to use water as a
support instead of earth. That meant Kyoshi still ended up sprawled
on the ground, only wetter.
“Maybe you should sit the mission out,” Lek said after a
particularly brutal fall. For once he was speaking out of genuine
concern instead of taunting her.
“I don’t think she can,” Kirima said. “The only decent plans we
came up with require all of us working together.”
“I think there’s ways we can make use of Kyoshi’s raw power,”
Lao Ge said. He hadn’t offered any opinions on the matter until now.
“She may be a hammer on a team of scalpels, but sometimes a brute-
force approach is necessary. I’ll babysit her on the raid.”
Kyoshi almost had to admire the way the old man spun events
into the patterns he desired, a weaver looking at raw flax and seeing
the cloth it would become. “Maybe that would be for the best,” she
said. “We can keep each other out of trouble.”

Each night, Kyoshi looked at the moon growing fuller, as if it

were gorging on her dread. The date of the raid drew nearer and
nearer, and the mood around camp turned grim. Roles had been
determined, rehearsals walked through using props of nut shells and
loose coins laid on diagrams traced in the ground. The gnawing in
Kyoshi’s stomach had little to do with hunger, and cold sweat kept
her awake no matter her distance from the campfire or how close
Rangi slept near her.
On the bright side, the two most useless members of the group
being paired up gave Kyoshi and Lao Ge plenty of time to talk in
private.
“Haven’t you wondered why Mok’s goal isn’t to kill Governor
Te?” Lao Ge asked, moments after he ordered her to sit and meditate
with him.
The thought had crossed Kyoshi’s mind. “He knows you’re
going to do it?”
Lao Ge laughed. “And I used to believe you didn’t have a sense
of humor. No, the reason is that he has the same piece of information
I do. Palaces built in the Hao period often had an iron saferoom
hidden in their depths. In case of an attack, the lord of the manor
would flee there and lock himself behind impenetrable metal doors.
The vaults had supplies to last a month, which was more than
enough time for reinforcements to arrive. Mok knows trying to kill
the governor would be a waste of effort.”
The more Kyoshi heard about this Te person, the more she
despised him. She opened her eyes. “He’s going to abandon his
household to an army of daofei?”
“What did you expect from a wealthy official?” Lao Ge said.
“You sound disappointed. Perhaps you assumed Te would stride
onto the field of battle at great risk to himself and fight off Mok’s
forces single-handedly with an incredible display of earthbending,
protecting scores of innocent lives? I don’t know where you got that
image from.”
Her hackles rose. It seemed like the old man never let an
opportunity to sing Jianzhu’s praises go by. She tried to calm herself
by returning to her meditation.
Kyoshi had been denied access to this kind of training in
Yokoya, but Rangi had found moments to teach her the basics on
their journey. With their bloody task looming over her head, she
found the practice calming, centering. She was like cool stone deep
below the—
“So you’re telling me you’ve never wondered about my age?”
Now he was trying to goad her on purpose. It was astounding
how easily he flipped from the hypnotic, terrifying vision she knew
he could be into an oafish child with wrinkles and white hair. She
was wrong to have thought that calling him sifu a few times would
have given her consistent, uninterrupted access to a guru of death.
“I can’t say that I have,” Kyoshi muttered through her teeth.
 He sounded slightly wounded by her lack of interest in his
secrets. “It’s just . . . the people who’ve openly confronted me in the
past with the name ‘Tieguai the Immortal’ . . . to a man, they all
begged me for the secrets of longevity. The only ones who didn’t
were you and your mother.”
First, she didn’t believe he was anywhere near as old as he
claimed. And second, desperately grasping for more power and
control over life was what people like Jianzhu did. Te too, probably.
“Sifu,” she drawled. “Oh, please, impart upon me the mysteries
of immortality, for I wish to watch eras pass before my eyes like the
grains of an hourglass.”
“Of course!” Lao Ge said brightly. “Anything for my dear
student. You see, it all comes down to maintaining order. Keeping
things neat, clean, and tidy.”
“Excuse me?” This was genuinely offensive to Kyoshi, as a
former housekeeping servant. She’d let go of her standards for
cleanliness the first morning outside of Yokoya, after waking up
covered in Pengpeng’s shed fur. But with his drinking and aversion
to changing clothes, Lao Ge toed the line of rancidity. What did he
know about tidying up?
“Aging is really just your body falling apart, on the smallest,
most invisible levels, and neglecting to put itself back together,” he
said. “With the right mental focus, you could take an inventory of
your own body and place each little piece that’s not where it should
be back into the correct order.”
Kyoshi had to assume he was tailoring his lessons to her
background and that the real process was much more complicated.
“The way you describe it, you’d have to decide what version of
yourself you’d be stuck as, forever.”
“Exactly! Those who grow, live and die. The stagnant pool is
immortal, while the clear flowing river dies an uncountable number
of deaths.”
“Is that another proverb of Shoken’s? Because it doesn’t sound
like any spiritual lesson I’ve heard.”
“It’s my proverb,” Lao Ge whined, his feelings hurt again. “All
this fretting about spirits. I’m trying to teach you about the mind. An
infinite world that’s been neglected by far too many explorers.”
The mind. Kyoshi’s mind drifted to another existence, one
where she was sitting happily across from Kelsang in a green field
as he told her about the wonders of the Spirit World. His warm and
gentle voice guiding her consciousness until they crossed the
boundary, hand in hand, to a land where human concerns couldn’t
weigh them down.
She’d lost that. She’d lost him, and the sickness that followed
would never fully heal. Kelsang’s absence had put her in stasis. If
Lao Ge wanted her to be stagnant and forever trapped, she’d already
mastered the lesson.
Kyoshi looked at this substitute who sat before her, the strange
joke she got instead of her true teacher. It was an exchange poor
enough to make her weep. “Spirit creatures are more interesting than
mental riddles,” she said.
“My dear,” Lao Ge said softly. “As you’ll discover one day, the
mind has specters of its own.”
 THE FACE OF TRADITION
The time had come. The moon was full to bursting. It spilled its
light over the fields surrounding Te’s palace, sharpening corners and
altering colors in ghostly detail. Mok knew enough to schedule his
raid when his men could see what they were doing.
The Flying Opera Company picked its way down the rocky
hillside. “Does everyone know the plan?” Rangi said.
She was asking as a formality. Rangi had drilled each step into
their skulls. It had been satisfying to see the others get a measure of
Fire Nation discipline as revenge for what they’d put Kyoshi
through.
Going to see Mok before the assault was part of the operation.
If he let them move as they pleased, and did not let his temperament
and vanity reign, then with luck on their side they would deliver him
exactly what he wanted. One prisoner, unharmed.
Te’s foolishness was on full display as they approached Mok’s
encampment south of the palace. Kyoshi counted at least five
hundred daofei preparing for battle, sharpening their swords and
honing their spear thrusts. Had none of Te’s household guard noticed
this many armed men converging on his location? Jianzhu would
have smothered this miniature uprising before it—
She shook her head. For one night, and one night only, Jianzhu
was immaterial.
They tiptoed by a large group of bare-chested men arranged in
neat rows, deep in Horse stance, chanting gibberish in unison. Their
captain walked among them holding a bundle of lit incense sticks in
his hand. He ritualistically swept the smoking ends over their torsos,
leaving trails of ash on their skin. Kyoshi looked closer and saw that
each man had the characters for “impervious” inked on their
forehead.
“Who are they?” she whispered to her companions.
“Those are members of the Kang Shen sect,” Kirima said.
“They’re nonbenders who believe that performing secret purification
ceremonies will make them immune to the elements. Mok must have
recruited a bunch to serve as his front line.”
“That’s madness!” Kyoshi said. “If they charge straight into a
formation of Earthbenders, they’re going to be slaughtered!” The
men she saw had no armor, no shields. Many of them seemed to be
empty-handed fighters, lacking a weapon entirely.
“It’s amazing what the mind can be led to believe,” Lao Ge
said.
“Especially if you’re desperate,” Lek muttered. “They say that
people turn to the Kang Shen sect after seeing a friend or loved one
killed by a bender. Be made to feel powerless that way, and you’ll do
anything that gives you courage.”
They approached the center of camp. Mok was easy to spot.
He’d set up a fancy wooden desk in the middle of the outdoors that
served no purpose other than to show he could. He sat behind it with
his fingers tented, as if he were the governor of these parts and not
Te. Wai stood next to him, a nightmarish imitation of a secretary.
“My beloved associates,” Mok said after they bowed. “Come
closer.”
They glanced at each other nervously and shuffled toward the
desk.
“Closer still,” Mok said. They crowded around him. Kyoshi
noticed Lek was on the flank, in the most danger. His head was low
and still. She regretted not standing between him and the daofei
leader.
“I didn’t get the chance to bid you farewell in Hujiang,” Mok
said. “You missed the excitement.” He stared pointedly at Rangi and
Kyoshi. There was no evidence to link them to the shirshu attack,
but a man like him wouldn’t need it. They were the pieces that didn’t
fit, and that was enough.
“A great beast came on the morning you left,” he continued. “It
killed several of my best men. What do the two of you have to say
about that?”
Wai drew his knife before Kyoshi could answer. It was Lek,
brave, stupid Lek, who either never learned or was too selfless for
his own good, who spoke up for her again. “We don’t know anything
about that, Uncle. Kyoshi and Rangi aren’t to blame.”
Wai lunged.
Certainty lent Kyoshi a speed she never knew she had. In one
swift motion she caught Wai’s knife hand before it reached Lek,
pinned it to the desk by his wrist, and drew her fan with her other
hand. She kept the heavy weapon closed as she smashed it like a
hammer on Wai’s fingers, breaking them in a single blow.
The knife clattered to the ground. The eyes of the Flying Opera
Company were as big and wide as the moon overhead. Everyone
was shocked into silence, including Wai, who seemed numbed by
sheer disbelief from the pain coursing up his arm.
“Forgive me, Uncles,” Kyoshi said, finding it supremely easy to
speak now. “I saw a poisonous insect and thought to save your
lives.”
Wai clutched his broken hand and bared his teeth at Kyoshi, a
vine cobra about to spit.
She was still calm. “But if Uncle Wai believes my actions
inappropriate, he can always teach me the meaning of discipline on
the lei tai, after our mission is over.”
Mok leaned back in his chair and crowed with laughter. “So
much progress in only a few weeks! This is the influence I have on
people. Come, Kyoshi. Since your brothers and sisters have had their
tongues stolen by a spirit, tell me what plans you’ve come up with
since we last saw each other.”
She carried on as if nothing had happened, ignoring the surprise
of her friends and the fury of Wai. She’d heard the strategizing
between Rangi and Kirima enough times to be convincing. “We
believe the prison where your—our—sworn brother is being held is
below the northeast courtyard. Assuming it was constructed at the
same time as the oldest part of the palace, we should be able to
defeat the security.”
He noticed her pause. “But?”
“Provided we have enough time. If Te’s guards choose to
defend the prison, our group alone may never be able to spring our
man. There’s also a chance that if we show our hand too early, they
realize what we’re doing and preemptively kill the hostage.”
“Then it’s as I anticipated,” Mok said, stroking his chin like a
wise man. “We’ll need a direct attack in concert with your
clandestine efforts.” Kyoshi had to give him some measure of credit.
He did foresee this outcome back in Hujiang.
Mok reached inside the desk and pulled out two sticks of timing
incense. Kyoshi watched him pluck Wai’s knife off the ground and
carefully cut them to the same length before handing them to Rangi.
“If you would, my lovely.”
 She lit both tips with one finger and handed one back to Mok.
“Get to your positions,” he said. “We attack in one hour.”
The Flying Opera Company bowed and got out of there as fast
as they could. Step one had been passed. Rangi cradled the timing
incense as they left the camp, trying to shield it from breezes that
might accelerate the burn and throw them off schedule.
One hour, Kyoshi thought. In the distance a few bright lights
from the palace could be seen, the fires lit by servants like her for
cooking and warmth, lanterns carried by guards like the watchmen
who always greeted her kindly at the gates of Jianzhu’s mansion.
She looked at the Kang Shen acolytes working themselves into a
frenzy, vulnerable and naked but for their faith. One hour until blood
was spilled.
“Steady on,” Lao Ge whispered to her.
His words, meant to be comfort, only reminded her. One hour
until she became the killer she was trying to be.

Lek, Kirima, and Wong hustled them back to camp. “What’s the
rush?” Rangi said, covering the dwindling stick of incense. “There’s
no reason to be hasty at this point.” She and Kyoshi were already
wearing their armor.
“We have to put on our faces,” Kirima said. She rummaged
around her limited belongings. “It’s tradition before a job.”
Lek failed to find what he was looking for and grunted. “I
forgot we left Chameleon Bay in a hurry,” he said. “I’m out. Does
anyone else have some makeup they can spare?”
Kyoshi blinked, having difficulty comprehending. “I . . . do? I
think there was some in my mother’s trunk, along with the fans?”
Wong helped himself to Kyoshi’s rucksack until he found the
large kit of makeup that had been completely neglected until now.
“It would be a disgrace for an opera troupe to perform barefaced.
And stupid for thieves not to hide their identities.”
Kyoshi remembered. Classical opera was performed by actors
wearing certain patterns of makeup that corresponded with stock
characters. The tiger-monkey spirit, a popular trickster hero, always
had a black cleft of paint running down his orange face. Purple
meant sophistication and culture, and often appeared on wise-mentor
types. Her mother’s journal had mentioned the makeup, but she’d
overlooked it in favor of the more practical fans. And the headdress.
Didn’t she have a headdress too?
Wong brought the kit to her and opened it. “It looks like the
good stuff, from Ba Sing Se, so it hasn’t dried out,” he said. “I’ll do
yours first. It takes practice to put on your own face correctly.”
Kyoshi shuddered at the thought of the oily paste on her skin
but decided not to complain. “Wait a second,” she said. “There’s
nothing in here but red and white.” The indentations that should
have held an assortment of colors had been filled multiple times over
with deep crimson and an eggshell-colored pigment. There was a
small amount of black kohl as well, but not enough to cover the
whole face.
“Those are our colors,” Wong said as he dipped his thumb and
began to gently apply the paint to her cheeks. “White symbolizes
treachery, a sinister nature, suspicion of others, and the willingness
to visit evil deeds upon them.”
Kyoshi could hear Rangi snort so loudly Te might have heard it
in his palace.
“But,” Wong said, scooping into the other side of the case with
his forefinger. “Red symbolizes honor. Loyalty. Heroism. This is the
face that we show our sworn brothers and sisters. The red is the trust
we have for each other, buried in the field of white but always
showing through in our gaze.”
Kyoshi closed her eyes and let him put more paint on.

“Done,” Wong said. He smoothed the last of the black eyeliner on

her brow and stepped back to examine his handiwork. “I can’t
promise it’ll stop a sharp rock or an arrow, but I can guarantee you’ll
feel braver. It always does that for me.”
“Lean down,” Kirima said. She’d pilfered the headdress out of
Kyoshi’s bag while her eyes were closed. “You’re wearing your
mother’s face, so you should wear her crown as well.”
Kyoshi lowered her head so that Kirima could place the band
around it. She’d never tried on the headdress before. It fit like it had
been made for her.
She rose to her full height. “How do I look?” she asked.
Wong held up a tiny mirror that had been nestled in the lid of
the makeup kit while Rangi angled the glow of the incense so she
could see. The glass wasn’t wide enough to display her entire face,
just a slash of reflection running down the arc of gold atop her brow,
across her flaring eye, and over the corner of her reddened mouth.
The narrow mirror resembled a tear in the veil of the universe,
and from the land that lay beyond the other side, a powerful,
imperturbable, eternal being stared back at Kyoshi. A being that
could pass as an Avatar someday. “I’m not thrilled you’re wearing
daofei colors,” Rangi said, biting her lip as she smiled. “But you
look beautiful.”
“You look terrifying,” Lek added.
A lifetime ago, Kyoshi had never thought she would be either
of those things. “Then it’s perfect.”
 THE RAID
They crept to the staging point, a small promontory a few hundred
feet from the walls of the palace. They huddled around Rangi and
watched the timing incense die out in her fingers, the last embers
lighting their painted faces. Kyoshi glanced at the group, their
features muted or exaggerated by strokes of red on white. Even
Rangi and Lao Ge had donned the colors. The markings tied them
together.
The incense crumbled to where Rangi could no longer hold it.
“Go,” she whispered.
Lek dust-stepped to the top of the boulder they were hiding
behind. He grabbed his sleeve and pulled it up over his shoulder,
exposing a long, wiry arm wrapped in more thin leather straps than
Kyoshi had previously thought.
He shook his elbow forward, and the bindings released,
revealing the pocket of a sling.
Rangi, Kirima, and Wong took off running for the palace.
Without slowing his motion, Lek kicked a stone bullet the size
of a fist into the air and snatched it up in the sling pocket. The
projectile whined with speed as it whirled around his head,
accelerated with bending. As he stood astride the rock, legs bracing
against the powerful momentum of the bullet, his face tranquil with
concentration, he looked much older to Kyoshi. Less a boy, and
more a young man in his element.
He let the stone fly. Kyoshi could barely see the guard on the
roof he was aiming at and would have guessed that such a target was
too impractical to hit, but Lek’s talents—physical, or bending, or
both—created a tiny plink sound off in the distance. The blurry
shape that was the guard dropped out of view.
Lek was already winding up his next shot before the first one
landed. Rangi and the others closed the gap. They were within
spotting distance of the guards. He loosed the second stone.
But right as he let go of the sling end, a horn blasted through
the silence of the night. It came from the south. The daofei forces
had decided to announce their presence.
The sudden noise fouled Lek’s throw. He swore and
immediately threw his hands out in a bending stance. Kyoshi
watched in disbelief as he applied some kind of invisible pressure to
the flying stone. She couldn’t see any of the results, but from the
way he let out a relieved breath when another plink went off, the
shot landed. It had happened in an instant. His distance control had
to be on par with Yun’s. Maybe better.
“Go!” Lek shouted at Kyoshi, not interested in her admiration.
“Mok and those idiots have blown our cover! Go!”
Kyoshi and Lao Ge started carrying out their portion of the
plan. They sprinted down the hillside toward the southern fields of
the palace. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw three figures
climbing into the air to vault atop the eastern wall, one of them with
twinkling feet as if she were stepping on starlight.
The plain across from the main gate filled with swordsmen
charging at the complex. As Rangi had predicted, the front ranks
were nothing but fodder for Te’s unseen Earthbenders, who lacked
Lek’s accuracy but didn’t need it. The first stones arced through the
air from the direction of the palace, pulverizing the unprotected
Kang Shen acolytes. The missiles bounced farther, carving swathes
through the daofei behind them. Screams of pain and anger filled the
air.
The outlaws ignored their casualties and picked up speed.
Kyoshi and Lao Ge were headed right for the killing ground between
them and the palace.
Lao Ge got behind Kyoshi and tapped her twice on the
shoulder. “Go!” he shouted.
She took a deep breath, still on the run, and embraced the earth
fully.

“We can’t let Mok anywhere near the palace,” Kyoshi said. “He’ll
kill everyone inside.”
Rangi and Kirima looked up at her from their positions on the
overlook. They needed a break from surveying the complex anyway.
“There’s no way we can prevent him from taking it in the long run,”
Rangi said. “Do you want to flip to Te’s side and try to fight them
off?”
Kyoshi shook her head. “I don’t think slaughtering Mok’s
forces is the answer.”
“But if Mok doesn’t launch his assault, then our team will be
sitting turtle ducks,” Kirima said. “You’re telling us we need to think
of a way to attack the palace with an army, save the lives of
everyone inside the palace, keep the army from killing itself, and
rescue a prisoner from inside the walls?”
Lao Ge never said that she wasn’t allowed to seek help in
answering his riddles. It was the time-honored Earth Kingdom
tradition. Cheating on a test with the help of your friends. “That’s
exactly what I’m telling you.”
“We can’t make all sorts of fancy plans when we only have a
handful of benders,” Rangi said.
Kyoshi grimaced. She had to get used to exercising her
prerogative, and she might as well start now.
“What kind of plans would you make if you had the Avatar?”
she asked.

Kyoshi ran into the ground, descending on a fifty-foot-wide ramp

of her own making. The earth yawned to accept her, parting ways to
create a titanic furrow that piled the spare dirt to the left and right.
Aoma and Suzu could go jump off a pier. Kyoshi had grown up in
Yokoya just as much as they had. She did know about farming
matters. And now she was plowing the ground with more force than
the entirety of the village’s Earthbenders.
Arrows and stones passed harmlessly overhead. She leveled out
once she hit a depth of fifty feet—why not keep things square and
tidy?—and kept running across the southern field with Lao Ge
keeping pace, creating an impassable trench behind her.
It had become clear during their surveillance that Te’s palace
had a critical security weakness. It lacked a moat. Kyoshi was
providing one for him, free of charge.
“Would you be able to handle going faster?” Lao Ge shouted
above the bone-crushing noise.
She nodded. There was no fatigue. No strain. Her bending had
changed. To cut loose like this with her full power instead of trying
to squeeze it through tiny holes was energizing. It was the difference
between eating a bowl of rice one grain at a time versus taking huge,
satisfying bites.
Lao Ge bent a section of the ground around them, and suddenly
the two of them were surfing on a platform of earth while Kyoshi
kept shoving the soil out of their way.
 “No sense in traveling by foot when we don’t have to,” he said.
In this manner it took them no time at all to round the corners
of Te’s palace and encapsulate it in the trench. She couldn’t see
aboveground, but she imagined surprise on the faces of the guards
and the daofei, sheer murder on Mok’s and Wai’s. She had to hope
that phase two of the plan would appease them. The Flying Opera
Company still had a promise to fulfill.
“Watch out now,” Lao Ge said. “I know you can’t dust-step
yet.”
He raised his hands and the platform rose out of the trench. It
soared past ground level and onto the eastern roof of the palace,
where it crumbled underneath their feet, leaving them standing on
the shingles in the exact spot where Kirima, Wong, and Rangi
waited for them, bathed in the moonlight.
“Right on time,” Kirima said.
“Are the guards crowded in the southern wall?” Kyoshi asked.
She’d created a standoff between them and the daofei, and she
needed them staying in place.
“Enough of them,” Rangi said. “You have to move quickly
though.”
This rally point left them temporarily exposed, but it had been
chosen for a reason. It lay right above the overlarge, over-deep
turtle-duck pond. And they had clear sight of the glowing full moon
above.
Kyoshi drank its light, feeling its push and pull as Kirima had
taught her, her muscles loosening from the rigidity of earthbending
into the relaxed, flowing state of water. She took a stance and
beckoned at the pond.
She knew little of advanced waterbending forms, but that
wasn’t necessary right now. Nor did she require her fans yet. For this
feat, Kyoshi would provide the power, like a draft beast, and Kirima
would apply control. As Waterbenders, the two of them would be
greatly enhanced by the full moon, like tides rising in a bay.
The sleeping turtle ducks quacked awake in panic and fled as
the surface of the water bulged upward. Kyoshi lifted the blob of
liquid higher and higher. Where it threatened to protrude too far and
spill, Kirima gently nudged it back into place with the skill of a
surgeon. The mass of water looked like a jellynemone, pulsating and
floating along the current.
 Kyoshi felt an impact against her ribs and nearly let the water
out of her grip. She looked down to see a tear in the fabric of her
jacket and a small metal point broken off in the links of the
chainmail underneath. She’d taken a glancing blow from an arrow.
A few guardsmen poured out of the opposite end of the
courtyard. “We’ll cover you!” Rangi said. “Go!” Everyone who
couldn’t waterbend leaped off the roof.
“All right, Kyoshi!” Kirima shouted. “Drop the hammer!”
Kyoshi relaxed and lowered her center of gravity with such
vigor that it felt like her skeleton outraced her muscles. The heavy
formation of water punched through the interior wall of the southern
portion of the compound, rushing in through the breach. There was
so much that it would flood every corridor from wall to wall, floor to
ceiling. Little windows and vents dotting the interior walls gave
them the line of sight they needed, though with this amount of water,
it was hard not to feel the element’s presence intuitively.
The locations of the screams told them it was working. The
guardsmen who’d been focusing on the daofei assault, concentrated
in the southern fortifications, were being violently scrubbed from
their posts.
Kyoshi and Kirima swept the tidal wave from left to right, then
around the corner to the west for good measure, before releasing the
pressure. They wanted to knock the soldiers out, not drown them.
With a synchronized pull, they burst a portion of the west wall,
letting the water flow into the other courtyard. Piles of groaning,
coughing bodies spilled through the gap.
In the brief moment Kyoshi spent checking that the men were
alive, a battle cry caught her off guard. She turned to see a lone
soldier who’d entered the roof from some sally port they’d
overlooked charging her with a spear, his feet clattering over the
tiles. Her hands went for her fans, but she fumbled the draw.
Right before she was impaled, she heard a familiar zipping
noise. The spearman took a stone bullet to the hip and fell off the
roof with a scream. Kyoshi glanced back into the night. Somewhere
in the distance, Lek was grinning smugly at her.
“What are you doing?” Kirima snapped. “Get moving!”
On to the last phase, the one Kyoshi was truly dreading.
 Kirima and Kyoshi hurried down the steps of the service tunnels.
Their objective was underground. They came to a fork where Lao
Ge was waiting for them.
“They need you to bounce the cell door lock,” he said to
Kirima, motioning down the right branch. “Kyoshi and I will check
the other side for any lurking guardsmen.”
The others had explained to Kyoshi that “bouncing a lock”
meant shooting water into the keyhole with enough pressure to force
the pins higher, releasing the locking mechanism. It was considered
faster and more elegant than trying to freeze the metal to its
shattering point. It was also beyond Kyoshi’s waterbending skill,
fans or no fans.
Kyoshi bit her lip as Kirima went down the right tunnel without
hesitation, leaving her alone with Lao Ge. The old man watched the
Waterbender depart with casual interest. He’d taken a slouching
position against the wall as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Come,” he said to Kyoshi, any sense of urgency gone from his
voice.

She followed him down the hall. It was more finished than the
tunnels under Jianzhu’s mansion, lit with glowing crystal and
painted clean white. Though her headdress added to her height, she
didn’t have to stoop.
The dizziness she sometimes felt in Lao Ge’s presence when
they were alone came back with a vengeance. Each of her footfalls
seemed to carry her miles over the endless stretch of tunnel. She lost
her sense of up and down.
She had no idea how far they’d gone when they reached the end
of the hall. At first Kyoshi thought that it was strewn with bodies,
that the violence had leapfrogged them somehow. But the dozen or
so people who lay on the floor or pressed themselves against the
walls were alive and trembling. They weren’t guards. They wore the
decorative patterns of ladies-in-waiting, or the plain, neat robes of
butlers. Beyond them was a solid iron door, barred by a thick bolt
that had no visible opening mechanism.
Lao Ge took a step forward. The entire assembly cowered and
hid their faces.
“Your master saved himself and locked you out,” he said with
wicked humor. The tight corridors caused his voice to echo at a
lower timbre, or perhaps it had always been that deep. “You’ve been
left to your fate.”
The maid nearest him sobbed. Lao Ge had painted his face in a
twisted, horrific jester’s leer. And many people considered Kyoshi a
tower of menace on her best days. She remembered the effect she
had on the staff in Jianzhu’s mansion that rainy day she left them,
and they’d known her for years. To Te’s servants, who’d heard the
throes of battle outside, she and Lao Ge must have looked like
walking incarnations of death.
An acrid smell wrinkled her nose. She looked down to see a
chamberlain, rocking and mumbling to himself with his eyes rolled
back in dread. “Yangchen protect me. The spirits and Yangchen
protect me. The spirits . . .”
Lao Ge laughed, and the servants shrieked. “Get out,” he said.
“Today you live.”
The staff members scrambled past them on their hands and
knees, taking the turn that would lead them to the surface of the
palace. Kyoshi watched the unfortunate men and women leave. She
said nothing that would relieve their fear or allow them to sleep
better tonight.
“The lock,” Lao Ge reminded her.
The greater portion of it was on the other side of the door, as
he’d explained earlier. But there was a flaw in the design that left
part of the thick iron bar exposed. Defeat that, and they could get in.
She gripped the bolt with both hands. It began to glow beneath
her firebending. She yanked back and forth rhythmically as the
metal grew hotter and hotter. Between her and Lao Ge, they’d come
up with the three parts needed for this to work. Sufficient heat to
ruin the temper of the iron. Oscillating motions to create fatigue in
the structure, weakening it. And last, sheer brute force. Her
specialty.
With each successive tug, the metal gave way a little more.
Once, Rangi had warned her that heating an object like this without
injury took much, much more skill than preventing your own flames
from singeing your skin, which was an act so instinctive to
Firebenders it didn’t need to be taught. This trick with the iron was
prolonged, dangerous contact with a hot surface. Kyoshi felt her
hands start to burn.
 “You’re almost there,” Lao Ge said with a hint of admiration.
“Honestly, I wasn’t completely sure this was possible.”
The metal angled farther and farther off its bearings until, right
before the pain became too much to bear, it snapped. The severed
ends of the bolt jutted out like red-hot pokers. The heavy door
groaned on its hinges.
Kyoshi wrung the heat from her fingers and shouldered the
vault open. It was brighter inside than in the hallway. She blinked as
she took in her surroundings.
The interior of the large room was not what she expected. Lao
Ge had described it as an emergency survival measure. She expected
water stores, preserved food, weapons.
It had been redecorated. Someone had removed the necessities
for lasting out a siege and replaced them with luxurious carpets,
silken pillows. One wall was racked with jugs of wine, not water.
Any fool who locked himself inside would have died within a few
days.
There was a single figure standing against the far wall. A boy in
his nightclothes. Kyoshi made the deduction that Te’s son had
converted this room, made for war, into a clubhouse.
“Where is your father?” she said, the words coming out a harsh
growl. “Where is Governor Te?”
The boy stared at her with a round, soft face full of defiance.
“I’m Te Sihung,” he said. “I’m the Governor.”
Kyoshi looked at Lao Ge. He smiled at her knowingly. This was
the test. Whether she was cold-blooded enough to help him kill a
boy who didn’t look old enough to shave. She cursed the old man,
cursed the stupid youth in front of her, cursed the corruption and
incompetence of her nation that allowed such a mistake of authority
to occur.
“How old are you?” she asked Te.
“I don’t owe daofei an answer,” he sneered.
She rushed forward, grabbed him by the back of the neck and
tossed him out the door of the vault. He bounced on the floor and
skidded down the hall. Kyoshi walked around to his head and
nudged his jaw with her boot. “How old are you?” she asked again.
“Fifteen, soon,” he whimpered. His attitude had changed
dramatically midflight, and the painful landing sealed the deal.
“Please don’t kill me!”
“He’s Lek’s age,” Lao Ge said to Kyoshi. “Old enough to know
right and wrong. Old enough to shirk his responsibilities, to
mismanage, to steal. You saw the state of Zigan. I can still guarantee
that you’ll save many lives by taking his.” He noticed Te trying to
crawl away and placed his foot on the boy’s ankle, not hard enough
to break it, but enough to make it clear he could.
Te gave up on trying to move. “Please,” he said. “My father
was governor before me. I just acted in accordance with what he
taught me. Please!”
That was all anyone in this world did. What they saw their
predecessors and teachers do. The Avatar was not the only being
who was part of an unbroken chain.
“You’re not much older than him,” she heard Lao Ge say. “Are
you immune to consequence?”
No. She wasn’t. She picked up Te by his lapels. He blubbered
incoherently, tears streaming down his face. “Sorry,” she said. “But
this is something I decided on, long before I laid eyes on you.”
Kyoshi thrust an arm behind her and blasted Lao Ge down the
tunnel with a ball of wind.

“Rangi, I can’t airbend. You’re not an airbending teacher.”

It was the day before Kyoshi was scheduled to begin training
with Kirima, to see if they could lift an entire pond’s worth of water
together. Rangi and Kyoshi were off by themselves in a small
clearing under a lonely, gnarled mountain tree that had sprinkled its
dried leaves over the ground. The two of them walked around in
circles, their arms extended, nearly meeting in the center. There was
no way they were doing this right.
“I’m not trying to teach you airbending,” Rangi said. “I only
want you to create wind, once, before you start waterbending in
earnest. It doesn’t have to be perfect.” She spun around and traded
the position of her hands. “I think you’re supposed to . . . spiral?
Feel your energy spiraling?”
Kyoshi had to pivot awkwardly to go the other way before
Rangi collided with her. “How are you okay with amateur, self-
taught airbending?”
 “I’m not. I just—I just have this irrational fear that if you get
too good at waterbending before ever airbending once, you’ll
damage the elemental cycle. Back when you used your fans to
waterbend, I was ecstatic at first, but then I panicked. I started
having nightmares that you permanently locked out your firebending
and airbending. I was afraid you’d become a broken Avatar.”
Rangi plunked down on the ground and put her head in her
hands. “I know it doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Nothing makes
sense anymore. We’re doing everything wrong. Up is down, left is
right.”
Kyoshi knelt down and wrapped her arms around Rangi from
behind. “But the center doesn’t change.”
Rangi made a little snort. “You know I miss him too?” she
murmured. “Master Kelsang. He was so kind and funny. Sometimes
when I find myself missing him, I feel guilty that I’m not thinking
about my father instead. I wish they were both here. I wish everyone
we’ve lost could be here with us, one last time.”
Kyoshi squeezed her tight. She imagined Rangi’s energy
twining together in place with her own, forming a stronger thread
from two strands.
There was a tickle against her brow. She and Rangi looked up
to see a swirling dance of leaves, spinning around in a circle, the two
of them caught in its eye. Kelsang used to make her laugh in the
garden like this, by swirling the air, letting her touch the currents and
feel the wind run between her fingers.
Kyoshi let the breeze play against her skin before giving it a
gentle push with her hand. The wind spun faster at her request. She
could feel Kelsang smiling warmly at her, a final gift of love.
“They’ll always be with us,” she said to Rangi. “Always.”

Lao Ge landed in the vault, which happened to be full of cushions.

Which meant that Kyoshi had less of a head start than she’d counted
on. She threw Te over her shoulder and ran down the hall.
“Girl!” she heard Lao Ge shout behind her, echoing through the
tunnel. She had the distinct feeling he could catch up at a moment’s
notice no matter how far she’d gone.
The fear lent her more speed. She took the stairs five at a time
until she reached the surface.
 Te gasped from her grip around his waist. “What are you—”
“Shut up.” They were hemmed in by the walls of the courtyard.
The stables were on the opposite end of the complex. An immortal
assassin was surely only a few paces behind.
Kyoshi ran at the far wall. And then she ran higher. And higher.
The earth flicked at the soles of her feet, propelling her upward. She
continued to dust-step until she landed on top of the roof.
She spared a glance back. Lao Ge stood by the stairs, choosing
not to follow her into the air, for the moment.
“My!” he called out. “You’re just full of deceptions, aren’t you?
To think you were faking so many failed attempts at dust-stepping.”
“They weren’t all fake!” Kyoshi shouted as she sped away.

She sprinted across the palace, tiles crunching under her feet. She
went north until she found the stables abutting the wall. Dropping
down to the ground with Te still in hand, she found a sleepy ostrich
horse and roused it awake.
Lao Ge was still toying with her, or perhaps he couldn’t dust-
step. She’d never seen him do it. Either way, they didn’t have much
time. She dumped the boy astride the mount she’d stolen.
“Thank you,” Te said, wobbling from the lack of a saddle. “I’ll
give you anything you want. Money, offices—”
Kyoshi backhanded him hard across the mouth.
“You should have died tonight,” she hissed. “I’ll give you one
chance to unsully yourself as governor of these lands. You will open
the doors of your storehouses and make sure your people are fed.
You will give back what you stole, even if it means selling your
family’s possessions. If you don’t by the time I return, I’ll make you
wish you’d been captured by those daofei out there.”
She left an open end on that timeline, having no idea when
she’d be free to make good on the threat. But she knew she would, if
given the chance. She was letting Te know there would be
consequences. Jianzhu would be proud, she thought darkly.
Te’s bleeding face roiled with confusion. “You—you earthbent
and airbent. I saw it. How is that possible? Unless . . . you can’t be.
You’re the Avatar?”
 She saw the images warring in his head. He must have known
of Yun, maybe met him in person. Revealing her identity had always
been a risk on this mission. But Te was a loose end, one that ran in
the same circles as Jianzhu.
Kyoshi bit her lip. She’d chosen from the start to save this
boy’s miserable life instead of keeping the secret that her own safety
depended on. No sense in regretting it now.
“All the more reason for you to do as I say.” She slapped the
ostrich horse’s flank, sending it careening toward the ditch. Te
screamed as she bent a bridge into place at the last minute. He rode
off into the darkness, clinging to the neck of his mount for dear life.
Once he was gone, Kyoshi lowered the bridge again. She didn’t
want Mok’s men infiltrating the compound from the rear while so
many helpless people were still inside. She dust-stepped over the
gap and took her time walking farther north, to the rendezvous point
where the others would be waiting.
At some point during the hike, Lao Ge fell in beside her.
“You’re not a very good apprentice,” he said tonelessly.
There were a dozen replies she could have given him. Te was
too young to die and still had time to redeem himself. The whole
exercise was flawed and had nothing to do with her desire to end
Jianzhu.
“I haven’t failed to take my man in a long time,” Lao Ge went
on. “My pride is in shambles.”
Kyoshi winced. She’d never seen Lao Ge truly angry, and it
was a gamble as to what kind of person would emerge when things
didn’t go his way.
“Te’s your responsibility now,” he said. “From this point
onward, his crimes will be your crimes. More than anything, I’m
upset that you’ve fettered yourself in such a way. It’s like you
haven’t paid attention to my lessons.”
She supposed being treated like a disobedient child who’d
adopted a stray animal was the best result she could have hoped for.
“I’m sorry, Sifu,” Kyoshi said. “I’m willing to accept the results of
my actions.”
“Easy for you to say that now.” Lao Ge’s upper lip curled with
disdain. “Mercy has a higher price than most people think.”
 She stayed silent. There was no need to further provoke a man
who could likely start the Avatar cycle anew in the Fire Nation right
now without breaking stride. Any hope she’d had that sparing Te
was the true goal all along, or that Lao Ge, through the lens of age,
would interpret her betrayal as one grand joke in the greater scheme
of life, was stifled by his compressed, tangible annoyance with her.
There was no deeper-level understanding to be had.
The standoff between them continued until they reached the
others. The Flying Opera Company was flush with success. Wong
and Kirima held a bound man between them, clothed in a plain,
ragged tunic. He had the sweet-potato sack tied over his head.
“We did it!” Rangi said. She ran forward and embraced Kyoshi.
“I can’t believe we did it! You bent like an—” She stopped herself
from saying “Avatar” in the presence of a stranger. “Like a master of
old!”
“Let’s go make our delivery,” Wong said. He picked up the
prisoner and threw him over his shoulders, much as Kyoshi had
done with Te. “Sorry for the rough treatment, brother. It won’t be too
long before you’re breathing free air.”
“It’s no problem at all,” the hooded man said politely.

The daofei nearly filled them with arrows as they approached the
southern camp.
“We have your man!” Kirima shouted. Wong dumped the
prisoner to his feet. With the hood on, he couldn’t see how his
rescuers crowded behind him like a human shield.
Mok strode up to them, apoplectic. “What do you think you
were doing!? We discussed no such plan!”
Kirima held her hands up. “We got him out of the prison,” she
said, reminding him again that the mission had technically been
accomplished. “The trench was a necessary last-minute
improvisation.”
That wasn’t true. Figuring out how to keep the daofei out of the
palace had been the primary challenge Kyoshi had set to Rangi and
Kirima. Seeing the Waterbender lie for her made Kyoshi feel worse
about hiding the additional side mission with Lao Ge and Te from
the others. She’d caused her friends undue risk.
 “I should flay your skins and put them under my saddle!” Mok
screamed. Wai stood behind him, though Kyoshi noticed he wasn’t
so ready to draw a blade this time. The man stared at her warily,
rubbing his bandaged hand.
“Mok, is that you?” the prisoner said, tilting his ear toward the
noise. “If so, stop haranguing my saviors and get this bag off my
head.”
Wong untied his hood while Kirima sliced the ropes off his
wrists with a small blade of water. Rangi had recommended the
bindings as a precaution since they didn’t want a confused captive
resisting his own rescuers. The burlap mask fell off his head to
reveal a pale, handsome face under shaggy dark hair.
“Big brother,” Mok said. The daofei leader’s mannerisms
suddenly took on a reverential, submissive quality. “I can’t believe
it’s you. After so long!”
“Come here,” the prisoner said, opening his arms wide. The
two men embraced and pounded each other’s backs.
“Eight years,” the newly freed man said. “Eight years.”
“I know, brother,” Mok sobbed.
“Eight years,” the man repeated, squeezing harder. “Eight
years! It took you eight stinking years to rescue me?”
Mok gasped, unable to breathe. “I’m sorry, brother!” he choked
out with the air he had left. “We tried our best!”
“Your best!?” his elder brother screamed in his ear. “Your best
took nearly a decade! What’s your second-best? Waiting for my
prison to collapse from rust?”
Judging by Mok’s squeals of pain, prison hadn’t rendered the
man physically weak. He tossed Mok aside and surveyed the daofei.
Wai hadn’t made a single move. The surviving Kang Shen followers
took a knee and lowered their heads, while the rank and file stood at
attention. Kyoshi’s eyes fell on the moon peach blossoms, still
placed with care on the men’s shirts. While it was now obvious that
they’d sprung no ordinary outlaw from Te’s custody, there was
something worse hanging in the air, a dark warning in her
imagination.
“Uncles,” Kyoshi spoke up suddenly. “If the debt of the Flying
Opera Company is repaid, we should be on our way.” Her instincts
screamed that they needed to get out of here. Immediately.
 “Repaid?” the man they’d rescued said. He beamed at them, not
with the fake smiles of Mok, but with genuine warmth in his heart.
“My friends, you have done more than repay a debt. You have made
a new future possible. Forevermore, you shall have the friendship
and sworn brotherhood of Xu Ping An. You must stay and celebrate
with us!”
Alarms went off in Kyoshi’s head, the creeping hint of
recognition just out of her sight. Before she and the others could
decline, he turned to address his troops. Mok’s men had become his
men, and there was no protest.
“Brothers!” he said, his pleasant voice ringing through the
camp. “For many years you’ve kept the faith. You are true Followers
of the Code! I would die happily this very instant, knowing that
there is still honor and loyalty in this world!”
The assembled daofei roared and shook their weapons. The sun
began to rise dramatically behind Xu, as if he were favored by the
spirits themselves.
“But I think we’ve suffered enough losses, don’t you?” Xu said.
“Five thousand. Five thousand of our compatriots snuffed out like
vermin. I haven’t forgotten them, not over the eight years I spent
rotting in an abider prison. I haven’t forgotten them! Have you?”
Over the frenzied screams of the daofei, Xu raised his arms to
greet the morning light. “I say there’s a price to be paid! A debt that
is owed! And collection starts today!”
Kyoshi’s head swam. They’d been duped. Distracted by small
matters when the real danger that threatened the kingdom loomed
within reach. She was so stupid.
“Now!” Xu said with theatrical casualness. “Where are my
colors? I feel terribly naked without them.”
Mok hurried over and handed him a piece of fabric. In unison,
the daofei reached into pockets and satchels or lifted their shirts to
reveal lengths of cloth tied around their waists. They freed the
wrappings from wherever they’d hid them and fastened them around
their necks.
The sun rose fully, letting Kyoshi see the hues that adorned the
bodies of every outlaw present. The moon peach blossoms had been
a ruse, a cover story to avoid detection. The Autumn Bloom was a
temporary name for an old organization. A behemoth had risen from
the depths of the earth to feed once more.
 “Much better,” Xu said as he patted the bright yellow scarf
knotted around his neck. “I was getting a bit chilly there.”
 THE CHALLENGE
“We have to do something!” Rangi said. “This is our fault!”
“It might be our fault, but it’s definitely not our problem,”
Kirima muttered as she hastily packed her portion of their camp.
“It’s not our problem.” She repeated it like a mantra that might keep
them safe from harm.
“I don’t understand,” Lek said. “Who is this Xu Ping An guy?
Who are the Yellow Necks? I thought we were dealing with the
Autumn Bloom.”
“The Yellow Necks are business that we don’t want any part
of,” Wong said. He rolled up the sleeping blankets with tight,
nervous hand motions. “They’re not in this life for money or
freedom. They take glee in pillage and destruction. They’re wanton
killers. And Xu Ping An is their brains, heart, and soul.”
“He was a bloodthirsty madman before he spent the last eight
years locked up and dreaming about revenge,” Kirima said. “We
heard the stories. He used to call himself the General of Pandimu
and claimed its residents were beholden to him for the protection he
provided.”
Lek scratched his head. “Where’s Pandimu?”
“Nowhere!” Kirima said. “It’s the name for the world he made
up himself! My point is he’s unhinged!”
Earlier, as they’d mumbled excuses about needing to leave the
company of the Yellow Necks, Xu had seemed easygoing, without
Mok’s pettiness or Wai’s outbursts of violence. He’d assured them
that though he wished to throw a feast in their honor, a little show of
appreciation, anything really, they were free to go with all debts to
the Autumn Bloom and Yellow Necks repaid.
Kyoshi knew that veneer of civility meant nothing. Men like
Xu simply waited for the right moment to drop it and reveal the
beast behind the curtain.
“I don’t know how he’s alive,” Rangi said. She paced in circles
around the remnants of the campfire. “I’ve read copies of reports
sent to the Earth King by Jianzhu himself. Xu was listed among the
dead at the Battle of Zhulu Pass. This doesn’t make sense!”
Kirima kept her argument directed at Kyoshi. “Look, they’re—
what?—a couple hundred strong now, at the most? Fewer, since the
Kang Shen decided to dine on rocks? They’re not an army like they
were in the past. We can simply wait until the governors summon a
militia force to deal with them. I bet Te is the one who rides out to
meet him.”
Governor Te was currently riding at the head of a one-man
column in nothing but his pajamas. It wasn’t clear whether Kirima
and the others knew how old he was. But he could be a hundred, and
he still wouldn’t know how to deal with a man who’d given Jianzhu
fits.
“That sounds perfect to me,” Lek said. His face was
unrecognizably dark. “The more dead lawmen, the better.” He left
the camp to get Pengpeng ready for departure, satisfied with his
contribution to the debate.
“Xu first started out with smaller numbers than he has now,”
Rangi said. “If more Yellow Necks come out of hiding and rally to
his banner, we’re back to the dark days after Kuruk died.”
“We’re not back to anything!” Kirima shouted. “Xu is the
abiders’ problem! As far as we’re concerned, he’s a finished job!
You don’t go back to a job you’ve already finished!”
“Years ago, I passed through a town caught in the wake of the
Yellow Necks,” Lao Ge said, reminiscing calmly like it had been a
mediocre vacation he’d once taken. “I saw what happened to the
residents. They’d been . . .” He twisted his mouth, trying to decide
what word to use before settling on one. “Stacked,” he said. He
made a layering motion with his hands, alternating one on top of the
other.
Kirima still wasn’t swayed. “We run away from trouble,” she
said. “Not toward it. That’s our policy. It served us well in
Chameleon Bay, it helped us survive in Hujiang, and it’ll pay off
here.”
“What do you think we should do, Kyoshi?” Lao Ge said.
“Given your newfound taste for making decisions of life and death?”
His question was dripping with petulance. But the rest of the
gang didn’t know about the botched assassination. They were still
thinking of her command to preserve the lives of Te’s household
while pulling off the raid. No one had argued against her back then.
It didn’t seem like they would now either. The group fell silent
as they waited on Kyoshi’s response, offering her the chance to tilt
the scales conclusively.
 Her head swam. A single moon ago, she was the weak link, not
the shot caller. The others were putting too much stock in her being
the Avatar. Conflating bending versatility with leadership. She’d
grown more capable in the days since Hujiang, but not wiser.
Kyoshi fell back on the one philosophy she was well-versed in
as an Earthbender. Neutral jing. “We wait and see what happens,”
she said. “But we can wait from a higher elevation. Load up
Pengpeng.”
Rangi and Kirima, the two opposite voices in her ear, united to
share a worried look with each other.

They loitered in the air, a physical stamp of Kyoshi’s indecision

on the blue-and-white cloth of the sky. Pengpeng floated inside a
cloud that Kirima had pulled around them. The Waterbender stood
upright in the saddle, swirling her arms to prevent the tufts of vapor
from parting and revealing their position.
Lek took them slowly over the Yellow Necks so they could
monitor the movements of Xu’s force. Kyoshi was keenly aware that
they occupied a literal halfway point between fleeing and staying,
perhaps ruining their chances for either option. She shook the
nagging doubt out of her head and peered down below.
The column of men drifted slowly away from Te’s palace like
ants on the march. They formed a solid mass, Xu no doubt at the
front, with the occasional scout sprinting ahead and returning back
to report. A colony sending out feelers.
“I hope they’re heading toward a militia outpost,” Lek said, still
clinging to some ember of hate for the law. “Then we could see a
good dustup from here.”
“They’ve stopped by a rice field,” Rangi said. “Maybe they’re
trying to pick it? The second harvest wouldn’t be ready though.” The
farming knowledge of Yokoya had rubbed off on her.
Kyoshi watched as the crops provoked some kind of response
in the daofei. Years ago, when she was still living without a roof
over her head, she would sometimes watch her fellow insects crawl
through the dirt in search of food. The motions of the bugs always
started slow, indistinguishable from randomness, full of hesitant
backpedaling, until within the span of a fingersnap they turned into a
focused swarm. The army lingered next to the green, burgeoning
grain as if the collective had sniffed a target of interest.
 Dark lines began to grow across the field. She puzzled over
their meaning until she realized it was Xu’s scouts infiltrating
through the high stalks of rice, parting and trampling the plants. Her
eyes darted to the opposite end of the field where a small house and
barn stood. Smoke from the morning’s water boil puffed gently out
the chimney.
Kyoshi had been so preoccupied with the safety of the
household staff of the palace that she’d forgotten about the people
outside the moat. Large estates often had tenant farmers managing
their private lands. In that little house was a family. A target for
eight years of Xu’s pent-up wrath.
Trying to split the difference with neutral jing had been the
wrong choice. “I made a mistake,” Kyoshi said. “We have to get
down there. Now.”
Kirima made a choking, indignant noise. “What, exactly, are we
going to do?”
The lines had nearly crossed the rice field. “I don’t know!”
Kyoshi said. “But I can’t stay up here and watch anymore! Drop me
off and fly away if you have to!”
A scream came from the house. The occupants had spotted the
daofei closing in on them. The memory of swordsmen wearing
yellow around their necks likely still haunted this region of the Earth
Kingdom.
Kirima swore and mashed her fist against the saddle floor.
“No,” she said. “If you go, we go.” She flicked the cap of her water
skin open and pulled the cloud vapor inside, condensing it into
ammunition.
“Once we hit the ground, we’ll follow your lead,” Wong said to
Kyoshi.
Lek groaned but brought Pengpeng around in a tight turn,
descending as fast as it was safe to. The others gripped the edges of
the saddle and hung on for dear life.
“Thank you,” Rangi said to Kirima, the wind whipping her
words, forcing her to shout. It was the nicest she’d ever been to the
Waterbender. “You’re true companions of the Avatar.”
“What good is that if we’re dead?” Kirima yelled back. Though
she blushed, just a bit.
 Please don’t let us be too late, Kyoshi prayed as they sprinted
toward the barn. She’d chosen that building over the house,
remembering the setup in Hujiang. The tiny hut wouldn’t have fit a
big enough audience for Xu and Mok’s grandstanding tastes.
The contingent of daofei stuck outside the doors sprang to their
feet in alarm, but relaxed as they drew closer. The paint still caked
on their faces made the Flying Opera Company instantly
recognizable. The ghosts in red and white were honored guests of
their boss. Kyoshi pushed deeper inside. She could see over the
heads of the crowd to an empty space in the back where Xu probably
was and shoved her way through until she found him.
The leader of the Yellow Necks sat on a bench, calmly reading
a book. He must have missed literature in prison and taken it from
the house. Against the wall behind him, Mok and Wai stood guard
over a woman and her son, who couldn’t have been older than seven
or eight, cowering and sobbing to themselves, dressed in simple
farmers’ garb.
They’d been beaten, their faces bruised and bloody. Her anger
at Xu laying hands on a child paled before the sight of what he’d
done to the boy’s father.
The daofei had tied the tenant farmer up and hung him by the
wrists over the rafters with a long rope, several men holding on to
the other end so they could raise and lower him at Xu’s command.
Underneath, they’d set up a fire and a rendering cauldron full of
boiling water. It was big enough that if they dropped him, he’d be
fully submerged in the vessel. The farmer’s big toes dangled in the
liquid, and he screamed through his gag.
Kyoshi ran up and kicked the heavy cauldron over, spilling
water in the direction of the daofei holding the rope. They let go, and
she caught the farmer in her arms. She heard the hiss of blades being
drawn as she laid the man on dry ground, twitching in pain but still
alive.
Xu didn’t look up from his book. “You spilled my tea,” he said.
He licked his finger and turned another page.
She’d come to the conclusion that Mok’s affected nonchalance
was a pale imitation of his elder brother’s. Xu had probably learned
it from someone else. Like Te, they were all copying their
predecessors, in a cycle that went on and on. Kyoshi drew strength
from the fact that her own links went back further, among the most
righteous in history.
 “Xu!” she shouted. “Stop this! Let them go!” She heard
shuffling behind her and a familiar, reassuring warmth. Rangi and
the Flying Opera Company stood at her side.
Xu clapped his book shut and stared at Kyoshi. He’d combed
his long hair and cropped his beard as best he could.
“First off, it’s Uncle Xu to you,” he said. “And second, this man
is an abider. He worked for those who imprisoned me. He grew their
grain and took their coin, which makes him another weight on the
scales I must balance. If you can’t handle this, you’re not going to
like what I do to the town of Zigan.”
Kyoshi’s fists tightened. If they were playing roles, then she
would imitate the strongest, the bravest, the best. “You don’t get
Zigan,” she snarled. “You don’t get any town in the Earth Kingdom,
nor this farmhouse for that matter. You get the free air you can fit in
your lungs, and nothing else.”
She heard her friends tense up beside her. Xu preemptively
waved off the daofei who were ready to hack her to bits.
“Kyoshi, was it?” he said. “Kyoshi, I’m eternally grateful to
you and your compatriots for rescuing me. But you’re young, and
that’s why you don’t understand. Eight years of my life were stolen
from me. Thousands of my followers. At your tender age, what
would you know about that kind of injustice?”
They’re all the same, Kyoshi thought. Every single one.
Whether they clothe themselves in business or brotherhood or a
higher calling only they can see, it doesn’t matter. They’re one and
the same.
“A lesser man might quit in the face of a setback that large,” Xu
said. “But not me. I relish the work, not the reward. I will get what I
am owed.”
They look at themselves like forces of nature, as inevitable ends,
but they’re not. Their depth is as false as the shoals at low tide. They
twist the meaning of justice to absolve themselves of conscience.
Xu smiled benevolently and tried to find his spot in the book
again. “The world is on the verge of forgetting my name. Which
means I didn’t carve the scars deep enough last time. I’ll do better
with the second chance you’ve given me, Kyoshi.”
He motioned at Wai, who still hovered over the mother and son.
Wai shoved the woman onto her hands and knees and yanked her
head back by her hair, exposing her throat. She screamed.
 They’re humans like us, made of skin and guts and pain. They
need to be reminded of that fact.
“I SAID STOP!” Kyoshi shouted. There was a backing to her
voice that punched through the air. Wai hesitated, remembering the
last time he’d drawn his knife in her presence.
Kyoshi pointed at Xu. “Xu Ping An! I challenge you to face me
on the lei tai, immediately!”
It was the one idea that could have forestalled both him and his
army from exploding into a frenzy of violence. Maybe Xu didn’t
think much of Kyoshi, but he had to respect the challenge. The Code
that empowered him in the eyes of his followers demanded it.
There was silence from the crowd as her words sunk in, but Xu
responded as if it were the most normal request in the world.
“Challenges are meant to settle grievances,” he said, dabbing the pad
of his forefinger with his tongue again. “What insult have I given
you?”
“Your existence,” Kyoshi spat.
She didn’t know it was possible for a group of hardened killers
to gasp collectively. Now Xu paid her mind. He put the book down
and stood up. His men parted to form an aisle between him and the
barn door. Only Kyoshi and the Flying Opera Company stood in the
middle, barring the way.
“Bending or without?” Xu asked, perfectly at ease.
“Bending,” Kyoshi said. It was the only way she’d stand a
chance. She remembered her fans in her belt. “Weapons. Anything
goes.” She felt the flare and turmoil of Rangi’s emotions beside her
but heard no protest.
“Very well, then.” The prospect of a duel registered on Xu
about as much as a fly landing on his nose. Perhaps he’d already
assessed her abilities and that was the amount of threat she
represented. “Let’s get this over with.”

It was a lopsided arrangement. Six on one side of the rice field,

hundreds on the other. In the middle, a team of Yellow Necks used
shovels from the barn to pile dirt into a raised platform. With an
earthbending lei tai, the fighting surface had to be shaped from the
element, not made of wood like the one in Hujiang.
 Kyoshi had declined to assist with construction in the hope that
stalling would create more time for a governor’s militia, an Earth
Kingdom army, for any help at all to arrive. At this point, she’d take
Te and a couple of angry servants armed with brooms.
“This was your plan?” Kirima said as they watched the dirt
flinging into the air.
“It wasn’t a plan so much as a thing that could have happened
and did,” she said. “I noticed none of you tried to stop me.”
“There’s little else you can do,” Wong said. “Especially if you
want to stop him from razing Zigan to the ground. It’s right next
door, and the nearest Earth Kingdom army outpost is a five days’
march away.”
Kyoshi stepped behind Rangi and embraced her, feeling her
warmth. None of the others commented on their closeness. “I’m
sorry I keep doing this to you,” she muttered, her lips close to the
Firebender’s ear.
Rangi leaned back into her. “Today you get a pass. As the
Avatar you would have tangled with horrors like Xu on a regular
basis. This might be the first time you’ve done your duty since we
left Yokoya.”
It felt good to get a decision right, though it was uncertain how
long she’d live to enjoy it.
“Kyoshi, can I speak to you for a moment?” Lao Ge said. “In
private?”
The others frowned, slightly confused. As far as they knew,
there was no particular relationship between Kyoshi and the old man
that warranted a conversation prior to her imminent death. Lao Ge
was more likely to give her a few shots of wine for courage than a
pep talk.
Kyoshi followed him behind a curtain of rice stalks. “What do
you think you’re doing?” he snapped once they were alone. He’d
never taken such a tone with her, not even after she’d saved Te’s life.
“You think it’s wrong to fight Xu?” she said. If Lao Ge was
going to argue that the Yellow Necks were good for the health of the
Earth Kingdom, then he truly was as loopy as his outward persona.
“No, you fool! What I mean is that if you wanted Xu dead, you
should have struck him down without notice! Blindsided him! That
is the way of the predator!”
 He seemed positively disgusted at the notion of an honorable
duel. “Facing him on the lei tai and hoping for the best is the
mentality of an herbivore braying and shaking its antlers to look
good in front of the rest of the herd,” he said. “I wanted you to drink
blood, not chew grass.”
Kyoshi took a step back. She bowed deeply before him, fully
and formally, holding her angle at length. It wasn’t the deference of
a student to a teacher, but rather the rarely used apology bow, only
trotted out in the Earth Kingdom in moments of true sincerity, and
she kept it going until she heard a snort of surprise from Lao Ge.
“I’m sorry, Sifu,” she said. “But I’m not doing this as a killer.
I’m doing this as the Avatar. Even if the world won’t know it.”
Lao Ge sighed. “Stop that. You’re embarrassing both of us.”
She straightened to see his wrinkled face arranged into an expression
of scorn. It was ruined only by the genuine concern in his eyes.
“Figures that the one time I find a pupil I like, she tries to be as
mortal as possible,” he groused.
“Well . . . maybe Xu might suddenly pass away where he stands
in the next five minutes?” Kyoshi said to any spirit or legendary
creature of death nearby that might overhear and take pity on her.
“Death doesn’t work like that,” Lao Ge said. He reached up and
patted her on the shoulder. “You’re on your own.”

The daofei finished stamping the platform flat. It was smaller than
the one in Hujiang. There would be less room to run.
Xu hopped onto the lei tai first, swinging his arms to loosen his
shoulders. He’d changed into a vest and a pair of pants cinched at
the ankles. Mok and Wai stood in his corner, the elevation of the
platform hiding them from the chest down.
“If anything happens, take Pengpeng and get out of here,”
Kyoshi said in an ironic echo of what Rangi had once told her. “Find
someone with the power to intervene before the Yellow Necks grow
their numbers again.”
“What if it’s the Gravedigger?” Kirima asked.
Kyoshi paused. She wondered if her hatred would follow her
into the afterlife, whether the purity of her revenge was so important
that she’d turn away his help in saving lives.
 She didn’t answer the question. Instead she gave Rangi one last
squeeze and hopped onto the platform. She was still geared from last
night’s battle. The face paint had started to flake off.
Kyoshi steadied her trembling fingers against the handles of her
fans. The stagelike nature of the lei tai added the tension of a
performance to the stakes of a duel. Had Rangi been this scared,
elevating herself to fight? Facing Tagaka had been less nerve-
wracking than this. The battle on the ice had happened too fast for
her to think each step through.
You weren’t as afraid back then because Jianzhu was there, on
your side. The thought held too much truth for her to swallow. She
drew her weapons.
Xu grunted and sighed as he hugged one knee to his chest and
then the other. “For the last time, Kyoshi,” he said. “Are you sure
about this?”
You and your friendliness can go straight to the bottom of the
ocean. “You should ask yourself that question,” she said. “I think
your kind has a little too much certainty.”
An unnamed young daofei, rather than Mok or Wai, stood
nervously in between them with his hand raised. Kyoshi spread her
fans and settled into a Sixty-Forty stance that Wong had taught her,
equally good for striking or bending. Xu bounced lightly on the balls
of his feet, preferring not to signal his approach to earthbending.
“Ready!” the referee shouted.
Kyoshi licked a drop of sweat off her lip. It tasted like grease.
She scuffed a little more weight into her front foot. Xu began to
inhale through his nose.
“Begin!” the young man shouted, before diving off the platform
to safety.
Kyoshi summoned her energy, starting with her connection to
the ground and extending it through her weapons. She would
overwhelm her opponent with a barrage of earth.
But she was too slow. And she was playing the wrong game
entirely. Xu thrust his arms forward, two fingers extended from each
hand, and struck her fans with a bolt of lightning.
 DUES
Her spine nearly snapped itself in two. Each drop of her blood had
been stung by a viper bat. Her hands felt numb and tacky. The skin
had been burned off them.
There was a thump and a jolt through her body. An eternity
later, she realized it was her knees hitting the ground as she
collapsed. The rest of her torso followed. Her headdress went
tumbling as her jaw impacted against the platform.
With the side of her face pressed against the dirt, sounds were
amplified. She heard more than one person screaming. Rangi, for
certain. Would the others be that saddened? It was hard to say. She
caught a glimpse of them and saw only sheer bewildered horror on
their faces, the inability to comprehend what kind of element she’d
been struck with.
Xu walked over to the side her face was pointing, blocking her
view. She had never heard of bending lightning, never been struck
by it, but that was the only explanation for what she’d seen, cold-
blue crackling zigzags running from his fingers into her body. She
tried to get to her hands and knees but collapsed, her chest flat
against the ground.
“Remember,” Wong said from the distant past, a blur of hazy
recollection. “It’s over when the winner says it’s over.”
Xu planted his feet and shot another bolt of lightning straight
into her back.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” he shouted. He punctuated his
sentence by sending a third and a fourth blast of lightning pulsing
into her body. He intended to cook her corpse beyond recognition.
“You had the greatest gift in the world. My respect. And you threw it
away. For what?”
He kicked her in the shoulder, a meaningless act other than to
show his disdain. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how you’ve looked at
me since last night,” he said. “Staring at me with condemnation in
your eyes. What you don’t understand is that men like me are
beyond judgment! I do as I will, and the world must bear my
discretions with submission and gratitude!” A fifth bolt, for
emphasis.
What Xu didn’t seem to know was that none of the lightning
strikes beyond the first had hurt to the same degree. Kyoshi played
dead while she came to her senses. There was still a searing heat that
enveloped her upper half, separated by a layer of fabric. Her survival
could have had something to do with the chainmail in her jacket,
exposed by the tears and scrapes from last night’s raid. Better to stay
pressed against the ground until she saw an opening.
Xu breathed in again and shot a continuous stream of lightning
at a target he thought was surely dead. Kyoshi smelled her clothes
smoking as it washed over her body. He was desecrating her.
“Stop!” she heard Rangi cry from far away. “Please stop!”
It was the hopelessness in her voice that set Kyoshi over the
edge, the complete surrender of a girl who would have been
invincible if not for her love. Kyoshi had put that weakness in
Rangi, and Xu had torn it open. He was torturing the person Kyoshi
cared about most in the world.
And by every spirit of every star in the night sky, he would pay
for that.
She reached out and grabbed Xu’s ankle. The sudden course of
lightning into his own body made him squeal, an undignified, high-
pitched noise that was music to her ears. He stopped the flow in time
to be dumped on his back, Kyoshi completely upending him.
Her eyes felt like they were leaking. Not with tears but light.
She thought briefly about swinging Xu overhead and dashing him
against the ground or twisting him like a wet rag between her bare
hands. He was surely more fragile than a solid iron bar.
No. He needed to be shown what a true force of nature looked
like. His men had to see him beaten not by strength but by
retribution from the elements themselves. She switched her grip on
him from his foot to his collar.
She rose into the air, not with dust-stepping but a whirling
vortex that sucked her higher into the sky. Xu screamed and dangled
from her grip. The tornado she rode blew the daofei back. From this
distance they were so tiny and pathetic and human.
Kyoshi extended her free hand, palm upward, and the stalks of
rice around Xu’s men set ablaze. She curled her fingers closer
together, and the flames, accelerated by her winds, hemmed them in.
Many of the outlaws shrieked and threw themselves on the ground,
rolling to put out the fires that had caught on their clothes.
Kyoshi looked down the length of her arm at Xu. He shielded
his eyes from hers, her inner light too harsh to take in. His mouth
gaped open and shut like a fish. The air was moving too fast for him
to breathe.
“You forget, Xu,” she said, and a legion of voices
synchronized in the eye of the storm. “There is always someone
who stands above you in judgment.”
It was possible that other, more powerful people spoke through
her in this moment. There was a chance she was simply a puppet
beholden to their collective will. But an unassailable feeling of
control told her that wasn’t true. The voices could lend her insight,
eloquence, but they couldn’t take over. Many of them seemed to
disapprove of what she was doing.
Let them, Kyoshi thought. She was in command. She brought
Xu’s face closer to hers.
“What will you do now?” she said. “Knowing that your
every step will have consequences?”
She needn’t have asked. Behind the terror in Xu’s eyes there
was a stronger, deeper outrage. His soul lacked any porousness, and
the chance she so generously provided had washed off like rain on
lacquer. How dare she? was the only thought running through his
head. How dare she? Consequences were for his victims! He was a
man who did whatever his power let him!
Xu mistook her analyzing frown for a lapse in her guard and
spat a gout of flame in her face.
So he’s a Firebender, she thought as she diverted the flames off
to the side with a tilt of her head. A shame for him that he’d given
away his intentions so clearly and that dragon’s breath was the first
act of firebending Kyoshi had ever performed. She wasn’t as
surprised as he’d expected her to be.
The lightning generation was unique though. A refinement of
the art? A singular talent? She had so many questions for Xu about
that. Too bad she would never get the chance to ask them.
Both Lao Ge and Jianzhu were right in some measure.
Shortsighted men like Te and Xu were parasites who gnawed at the
very structures they exploited for power and survival. They were
blind to the fact that they existed not through their own merits but
due to the warped form of charity the world had decided to give
them.
And Xu had exhausted his. Kyoshi was the only thing holding
him up. She opened her hand and watched him fall.
 By the time she touched back down to the earth, the wall of fire
that surrounded the daofei had burned itself out. Most of the
swordsmen had taken the chance to scatter. Judging by the trails
trampled through the crops, they’d fled in every direction, a routed
army without a leader. Mok was gone. He and a few others had
dragged off Xu’s body before disappearing into the rice stalks.
Surprisingly, Wai still remained. He stared at Kyoshi,
transfixed, his jaw agape. Reverent. Kyoshi didn’t know what to
make of the cruel, unusual man. He seemed to constantly need a
powerful figure to tell him what to do.
“Begone,” she said with the last of the echoes in her throat.
Wai made the fist-over-hand gesture and bowed deeply to her.
He and the remaining daofei, mostly survivors of the massacred
Kang Shens, faded away into the fields.
Kyoshi looked around for her friends and couldn’t see them.
“Are you, uh, still possessed?” she heard Lek say, his voice muffled
as if speaking through a porthole. “Or are you you again?”
“Will you please just show yourselves?” she snapped.
There was a grinding noise as they rose into view. Wong had
bent them a shelter to hide in below the surface, the same way
Jianzhu had survived when she’d first lost control and entered the
Avatar State. She wanted to tell them that this time, she hadn’t gone
berserk. She’d been fully aware of her powers heightening with
whatever vast reserves of energy the Avatar had access to.
She’d been fully aware of killing Xu.
If Rangi wanted to embrace her, she restrained herself well. She
and the others stood before Kyoshi, stiff and hesitant. They’d known
her, had gotten accustomed to the idea that their inexperienced friend
could bend all four elements, but they hadn’t really seen the Avatar
before, until now.
“Don’t do this,” Kyoshi said. “Please. If you act like this, I
won’t be able to . . .” Her knees buckled.
Not this time, she thought to herself. Stay awake. Be present for
what you have done. Look at your actions instead of turning away.
“Kyoshi, your hands,” Rangi said, aghast.
 She held them in front of her face. They were riddled with
burns from where the lightning had struck her fans.
“We have to get her to a healer!” Kirima shouted, her sharp
face already losing its edges as Kyoshi’s vision blurred.
“Kyoshi!” Lek said, suddenly close to her, propping her up as
best he could from underneath her arm, the last person among them
who should have tried to hold her up physically. “Kyoshi!”
She lasted less than two minutes before succumbing to the pain.
 MEMORIES
They brought her back to Zigan. The other details were less clear.
At first Kyoshi had tried to refuse the medication thrust upon
her while she writhed on a wooden bed in some dark building. She
remembered the heady sweet state that Jianzhu had put her in before
summoning a horror from the deep, before murdering Yun, and she
resisted any attempts to cloud her awareness.
But then her hands betrayed her by sending waves of
blanketing, enveloping agony into the rest of her body. Her resolve
broke, and she gulped bitter concoctions from wooden bowls
without questioning their source. The medicine split her mind from
the pain like she’d cut off Te’s palace from the daofei. The injury
was still there, gnashing its teeth, but she could watch it from a
distance.
The images after that came in the acts of a play. Wong fussing
over the sunlight and furniture in her room, unable to do anything
else. Rangi curled up into a miserable ball. Many times there was an
old Earth Kingdom woman Kyoshi didn’t recognize, her wrinkled
head floating atop a cloud of voluminous skirts. She guided Kirima
in her amateurish water healing by referring to medical charts,
pointing out where over Kyoshi’s scorched hands the cooling water
should be directed. The lack of confidence, the worry in Kirima’s
face, during these sessions was endearing.
After some time had passed, she felt the most recent dose of
medicine fade away without feeling the screaming need for more.
Clarity infiltrated her skull again. Her thoughts were able to focus on
the only person in the room now, the rest of the group taking a rest
shift. The wheel had spun and landed on Lek.
“You’re here?” she said. Her tongue was fuzzy in her mouth.
“Good to see you too, you giant jerk.” He sat in a nice chair
that didn’t belong. By her best guess, this room was in the
abandoned part of town and had been set up as a makeshift hospital.
An herbalist’s cabinet with many small drawers had been lugged in,
drawing tracks of dust on the floor.
“How long as it been?”
“Only three days or so.” Lek flipped through a textbook of
acupuncture points. Kyoshi had the suspicion he was looking for
anatomical illustrations. “You’re recovering fast. We got lucky.
Mistress Song is one of the best burn doctors in the Earth Kingdom.
She lives down the street a couple of blocks.”
That must have been the old woman who popped in and out of
Kyoshi’s waking dreams. “Then what’s she doing in a place like
Zigan?” Skilled doctors were in high demand, more likely to be held
inside the walls of manors like Te’s.
It seemed like Kyoshi would never be able to get more than a
handful of sentences out without making Lek angry. “Trying to make
a home,” he said, misinterpreting her surprise as disdain. “Getting
caught in place while her village changes and decays around her.”
He got up in a huff. “I’ll go get Rangi. You can have someone worth
talking to.”
“Lek, wait.” They’d gone on too long as misguided rivals.
She’d decided not to let her parents have any more hold over her
life, and that started by being civil with the boy they’d chosen to
spend their last years with instead of her.
He actually listened this time, crossing his arms and waiting.
Wasn’t expecting that. Kyoshi found herself at a loss for words.
They had nothing to formally apologize to each other over. She ran
through a list of things to say.
“You’re . . . really good at throwing rocks,” she blurted out.
How articulate. If her hands weren’t mittened in bandages, she
would have bit her nails. She had no choice but to invest further.
“What I mean is, you saved me back at Te’s palace, and I never had
the chance to thank you. You were incredible back then. How did
you learn to shoot like that?”
She hoped the flattery, which was completely genuine and
deserved as far as she was concerned, would make him smile.
Instead his face grew old before her eyes. He tossed the book aside.
“Do you know what a gibbet is?” he said after a hefty pause.
Kyoshi shook her head.
“It’s a form of punishment the lawmen use over by the Si Wong
Desert,” he said. “They hang you in a cage, high up on display as a
warning to other criminals. During the dry season, it’s a death
sentence. You can’t last more than a couple of days until thirst takes
you.”
“Lek, I didn’t mean to dig up—”
 “No,” he said gently, raising his hand. For once he wasn’t angry
with her. “You should know.”
He sank back into the chair, throwing his legs over the arm-rest,
and stared out the window. “I was living in the streets of Date
Grove, a settlement near the Misty Palms Oasis. My brother—he
wasn’t my family by blood. He was my friend. We’d sworn to each
other. We were copying the tough guys and swordsmen who came in
and out of town looking for work. A regular gang of two, we were,
ruling our patch of gutter.”
No wonder she and Lek didn’t get along. They’d shared too
much, had the same stink. “What was his name?” she asked.
“Chen,” Lek said. He bounced his foot, the chair squeaking
with the motion. “One day Chen got caught stealing some rotting
lychee nuts. We’d done it hundreds of times before. Sometimes in
broad daylight. The townsfolk never cared. Until one day they did.
Enough to put Chen in a gibbet.”
The shaking of his foot grew faster. “It might have been a new
governor trying to throw his weight around. Or maybe the villagers
got sick of us. They clapped him in those bars before he knew what
was happening.”
“Lek,” Kyoshi said. She couldn’t offer him anything but the
sound of his own name.
“I held out hope though!” he said with a little hiccup. “You see,
the gibbet was old and rusty. It had a weak hinge, or so I spotted. I
gathered every rock I could find, and I threw them as hard as I could
at that weak point, trying to bring the cage down.
“The villagers, the abiders, they laughed at me the whole time.
Especially when I missed. I could have knocked a few of their teeth
out, but it never occurred to me. I couldn’t waste a single stone.
After a few days, Jesa and Hark found me passed out under that
gibbet. Chen must have died before they got there, because I woke
up on Longyan’s back as we flew away. I couldn’t use my arm for
two weeks afterward, my shoulder and elbow were so swollen.”
Lek swung his legs off the chair, unable to stay in the same
position lest the memory catch up to him. “The funny thing is, Date
Grove doesn’t exist anymore. It was running out of water, on its last
legs while I was there. It’s been swallowed by the desert. The people
of the town killed my brother to uphold the law, and it meant
nothing in the end. If the law was there to protect the village, and the
village didn’t survive, then what did they gain?
 “I always wondered if those people felt satisfied about
condemning that one boy, that one time, while they fled the
sandstorm that buried their houses,” Lek said. “I always hoped
Chen’s death was worth it to someone.”
Kyoshi bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
“So anyway, Jesa and Hark saved me, I learned how to
earthbend, and I swore an oath that I’d never miss a target again,”
Lek said. “That’s how I’m so good at throwing rocks.”
There wasn’t a right response. The right response was undoing,
going back, reweaving fate to arrive at a different outcome than him
and her in this room.
Lek smiled halfheartedly at her silence. “Did you ever consider
that your parents might have left you where they did so you
wouldn’t have to live that kind of life?” he asked. “That maybe they
were protecting you?”
The notion had crossed her mind, but she’d never given it
credence until now. “The way I figure it, Jesa and Hark assumed the
abiders could treat you better than they could,” Lek said as he wiped
his nose. “You were their blood. Priceless. Me, I was useful. As
good as the next kid with fast hands, and just as replaceable. I
sufficed.”
“Lek.” She thought about what truth she could tell him in
return. “I believe, as usual, you’re wrong.”
Kyoshi spotted the twitch in the corner of his mouth. “And I’m
glad that if my parents couldn’t be with me, they were with you,”
she added.
A long time passed before Lek sighed and got to his feet. “I’ll
tell Rangi you’re up and coherent.” He paused by the door. His
expression turned hesitant. “Do you think . . . once things settle
down, I might have a chance with her?”
Kyoshi stared at him in astonishment.
Lek held her gaze as long as he could. Then he burst into
laughter.
“Your face!” he cackled. “You should see your—Oh, that has to
be the face you make in your Avatar portrait! Bug-eyed and
furious!”
And to think they’d shared a moment. “Go soak your head,
Lek,” she snapped.
 “Sure thing, sister. Or else you’ll do it for me?” He waved his
hands in mockery of waterbending and made a drowning noise as he
left the room.
Kyoshi’s cheeks heated in frustration. And then, like a glacier
cracking, they slowly melted into a grin. She noticed what he’d
called her for the first time.
 THE AMBUSH
In Jianzhu’s opinion, it was good to be home in Yokoya. No
matter how many awkward questions the staff had about the team
he’d left with. Where were Saiful and the others? What happened to
them? Were they okay?
Dead in the line of duty. Daofei ambush. And no. By definition,
no.
He owed Hei-Ran better answers though. Not only did the lie
go a level deeper with her, he needed her input. After shutting the
doors of his study on the faces of his troubled servants, he dumped
his missed correspondence on his desk while she sat on the couch.
“The trail went cold in Taihua, and we lost a shirshu,” he said.
He knifed a wax seal off a mail cylinder. “But that’s why we have
the mated pair, isn’t it? Redundancy, the key to success.”
“Jianzhu,” Hei-Ran said. She seemed a little cold and
withdrawn, sitting on his couch.
“Ba Sing Se is near Taihua.” The letter was from that brat Te.
“I’ll bet they’re somewhere safe behind the walls. I’ll have to round
up my contacts in all three rings.”
“Jianzhu!”
He looked up from the scroll.
“Stop,” she said. “It’s over.”
He looked at her carefully. There were several ways in which it
could be over. It depended on what she knew. He waited for her to
continue.
“I kept an eye on Hui’s movements while you were gone,” Hei-
Ran said. “A little more than a week ago there was an explosion of
activity coming from his offices. Letters, messengers, gold and silver
being transferred.”
A little more than a week ago. That would have been Saiful’s
message arriving in Hui’s hands. Hui’s understanding would be the
partial truth, that the Avatar might have been taken by daofei. But he
still thought Yun was the real deal. Hei-Ran knew the girl was the
true Avatar but not the results of the tracking mission and the outlaw
settlement in the mountains.
 One had the latest news, the other more accurate news. He had
to mind the asymmetry.
“Hui is acting on the information you gave him at the party,”
Hei-Ran said. “He’s building a case with the other sages to take the
Avatar away from you. If he’s made this much progress based solely
on Yun having a falling-out with you, how do you think people will
react to learning about Kyoshi?”
So far, that revelation had not gone well for anyone who’d
heard it. “How do you think we should respond?”
Hei-Ran curled up on the couch, hugging her knees. She looked
so young when she did that.
“I don’t want to respond,” she said. “I want to tell Hui and the
sages the truth so they can help us extend the search. Jianzhu, I don’t
care about the Avatar anymore. I want my daughter back.”
He was surprised at her lack of endurance. As far as she knew,
her daughter and the Avatar weren’t in any particular danger. Of
course, the reality was that they absolutely were, if they were in the
hands of outlaws. But Hei-Ran didn’t know that.
Jianzhu sighed. Her daughter would never come back without
the Avatar, the Avatar would never come back without . . . what,
exactly? The wheels spun in his head. This was exhausting.
“Maybe you’re right,” Jianzhu said. “Maybe it is over. This
farce has gone on for too long.”
Hei-Ran looked up hopefully.
“You said Hui started his moves a week ago.” Jianzhu scratched
the underside of his chin. There was a scab there from where Saiful’s
blade had nicked him. “It’ll take him at least another two weeks to
send missives and get responses from all the sages who matter in the
Earth Kingdom. They’ll gather in Gaoling or Omashu and then
summon me to answer for my mistakes; that’s another week. That’s
plenty of time to ready a statement of the truth.”
He shrugged. “We may even find Kyoshi before then. The facts
will come out immediately in that case. I’d lose the Avatar, but
you’d be reunited with your daughter.”
Hei-Ran was heartened. She got up and placed a hand on
Jianzhu’s unshaven cheek, stroking him gently with her thumb.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I know what you’re sacrificing.
Thank you.”
 He leaned into her hand, pressing it briefly to his face, and
smiled at her. “I have a lot of unopened mail to get through.”

The smile vanished as the door to his study closed. Alone, he

picked up Te’s letter again. He’d been right not to give Hei-Ran the
full story. He’d always been by himself in this game.
The message from the boy governor was written in a sloppy,
rushed hand, devoid of the flourishes that normally came with high-
level correspondence. The only authentication was the personal seal,
which officials kept on their person at all times. It was as if Te had
written it from somewhere other than his palace and while in great
distress.
At first, Jianzhu had been against installing such a young
governor from a family with a history of corruption, but had
eventually found it useful, the way the impressionable child looked
up to him. He could pretty much get Te to do anything, including
reporting threats to the Earth Kingdom to him first before warning
the other sages. Like now.
The scroll crumpled in Jianzhu’s hands as he read about Xu
Ping An’s jailbreak. His veins threatened to burst from his flesh and
skitter away.
Against every inclination, Jianzhu had kept the leader of the
Yellow Necks alive as a favor to his Fire Nation allies so they could
study how the man was capable of bending lightning. It was a skill
so rare that some thought it a folktale or a secret that had been lost to
the ages. Either way, it made Xu a valuable, dangerous specimen.
And Te, who owned one of the most defensible prisons in the region,
had managed to let him escape.
Jianzhu furiously scanned Te’s account of the events, fully
expecting to keel over and die from anger. Instead, farther down the
page, he found salvation.
There had also been an attempt on Te’s life, the letter went on,
as if Te weren’t eminently replaceable. Two assassins had almost
killed him but at the last minute decided to show mercy. An old man,
whose description Jianzhu didn’t recognize, and a girl.
The tallest girl that Te had ever seen.
And unless panic had addled his mind, he’d seen her bend earth
and air.
 Jianzhu leaned back in his chair. He ignored the superfluous
details that ended the letter, something about painted faces and how
Te needed to end the cycle of grifting that his family had been so
deeply ensconced in and could Master Jianzhu spare a few lessons in
wiser governance and blah blah blah.
The Avatar was alive. Relief washed over him like ice water.
But what on earth was she doing? She had left Taihua and
reached Te’s palace before the full moon, which meant moving at a
reasonable pace. Her actions didn’t sound like those of a captive.
Jianzhu let the question go unanswered while he opened
another letter. This one was from a prefectural captain in Yousheng,
a territory that bordered Te’s. The lawman had captured a handful of
daofei, scared witless, with an unbelievable story. Their leader, Xu
Ping An, had been murdered by a spirit with glowing eyes, drenched
in blood and white ashes, who had carried Xu into the sky before
sucking the life-giving flame out of his body and consuming it for
herself. The captain thought that the dreaded Xu Ping An had died
years ago at Zhulu Pass. As the esteemed sage who’d defeated the
loathsome daofei leader, did Jianzhu have any information that
might shed light on the situation?
Glowing eyes, Jianzhu thought. He’d seen those eyes close-up
before, and nearly lost his life. He made a quick mental map of
Yousheng and found that the fleeing bandits could very well have
seen the Avatar between Te’s palace and Zigan Village.
All right, then. Things were looking up. With some slight
adjustments, he’d have the Avatar back under his roof. He didn’t
understand what she was doing or why, but he didn’t care to. He had
her location, and he had time.
It wasn’t until the next morning that he found he had run fresh
out of the latter.

One thing he and Hei-Ran had gotten good at in their younger

days was talking to each other through fake smiles and laughter. It
came in handy when they had to maintain a front during gatherings
of high-ranking officials while Kuruk dozed off the previous night’s
revelries or made eyes at pretty delegates. Jianzhu stood in front of
his gate, his feet wet with morning dew, and waved happily at the
approaching caravan that was emblazoned with the Beifong flying
boar.
 “Did you know about this?” he said to Hei-Ran. He thought his
teeth might crack from frustration.
“I swear I did not.” Hei-Ran was as angry at him as he was at
her. “I thought you said we had weeks.”
It should have been that long. How the Earth Avatar was taught
was solely up to his or her master. To revoke that bond required a
conclave of Earth Kingdom sages. Gathering a sufficient number of
them from across the continent should have taken as long as they’d
discussed the day before, if not longer. And yet judging from the
size of the caravan and the banners that flew from the tops of the
coaches, Hui had pulled together enough heads seemingly overnight.
He had to have been preparing this power grab since before the
incident in Taihua.
He’d underestimated the chamberlain. Taken the man at face
value instead of considering what depths lay beneath.
The lead coach pulled up to the gate of the manor and came to a
stop. The boar on the doors split open to reveal Hui, who’d traveled
alone.
“Chamberlain!” Jianzhu said with a boisterous smile. “What a
delightful surprise!” Jianzhu wanted to reach out and throttle him in
full view of the rest of the caravan. He might have been forgiven.
Avatar business or no, showing up unannounced was as rude as it
was in any other circumstance. “Is Lu Beifong with you?”
“Master Jianzhu,” Hui said grimly. “Headmistress. I wish I
could say I was here under more pleasant circumstances. Lu Beifong
will not be joining us.”
Jianzhu noticed Hui didn’t say whether or not he had the old
man’s approval for this action. He watched the other sages step out
of their coaches and tallied who had come. Herbalist Pan, from
Taku, carrying his pet cat in his arms. General Saiyuk, the lord
commander of Do Hwan Fortress, another political appointee like Te
who was vastly underqualified to lead that stronghold. Sage Ryong
of Pohuai—
Spirits above, Jianzhu thought. Had Hui simply scavenged the
entire northwestern coast of the Earth Kingdom for allies?
It might have been the case. There was no one from Omashu or
Gaoling or Ba Sing Se, where Jianzhu’s support was the strongest.
Hui had handpicked the attendees of this surprise conclave, sages he
could influence. Promises and vast sums of money must have flowed
like water leading up to today.
Zhang Dakou was here too, Jianzhu noted dryly. No Zhang
worth his salt would pass up an opportunity to humiliate a Gan Jin.
Their numbers were surprising. He hadn’t realized these many
sages fell outside his sphere of influence. Perhaps about a fifth of the
most important people in the Earth Kingdom had arrived on his
doorstep with hostile intent.
“Well!” he said cheerfully, smacking his hands together. “Let’s
get you all inside and refreshed.”

The staff was aflutter. They hadn’t had any warning that guests
were coming. The dire nature of their short notice was made more
apparent by Jianzhu entering the kitchen and personally overseeing
the preparations. Nay, helping with them.
“Everyone, calm down,” he said reassuringly as he hoisted a
massive kettle onto the stove himself. “You don’t have to pull out
your finest work. It’s not your fault; there simply isn’t time.”
“But, Master, so many of your peers at once?” Auntie Mui said,
near tears. “It’d be shameful to give lesser service! We have to—we
have to line up a midday meal, and dinner, and, oh, there’s not nearly
enough firewood!”
Jianzhu opened the kettle lid and peered inside to check the
water level before turning around and laying his hands on the
woman’s shoulders. “My dear,” he said, looking into her eye.
“They’re here on business. I doubt you’ll have to feed many, or any
of them. Concentrate on getting the tea ready. That’s all.”
Mui turned redder. “Of-of course, Master,” she stuttered. “It
would be impossible to discuss important matters without tea.”
She bustled off to yell at the servants in charge of the tea
selection. Jianzhu dusted his hands off carefully and gave a weary
sigh.

Jianzhu entered the grand reception hall to a trying sight. The

sages had seated themselves across three sides of the room, behind
the rows of long tables, and Hui was in the middle where the master
of the house would normally be. He was sitting in Jianzhu’s chair.
 Hei-Ran was off to his left. She traded a wide-eyed glance with
him. What are you going to do?
What Jianzhu was going to do was sit down, alone, behind the
remaining table, and wait. He felt stares burning into him from all
directions.
“Master Jianzhu,” Hui said. “Could you ask Master Kelsang
and the Avatar to join us?”
The servants opened the door and entered with steaming trays
of tea. Jianzhu milked the moment for all it was worth, waiting to
answer until each sage had a cup placed before them. He made
motions of thanks to the maid who gave him his, and took a sip,
praising Auntie Mui’s choice of the blended oolong.
Only once the staff had left did he speak. “You know as well as
I do I cannot. Master Kelsang and the Avatar are still on their
spiritual journey.”
Hui smiled tightly, a motion that pulled his blocky face to the
side. “Yes, their journey. The abbots of the Air Temples haven’t seen
them once since you made that claim. Is it not strange that Master
Kelsang hasn’t taken the boy to any of the temples, whether to visit
the sacred sites or simply to resupply?”
“I don’t wish to speak ill of my friend, but he does have a rocky
relationship with some of the more orthodox Air Temple leaders.
And places holy to the Air Nomads exist around the world. They’re
nomads.”
“And what holy places are in Taihua?” Hui snapped. “Perhaps
the previously unknown settlement of daofei there?”
Jianzhu stayed calm. “Chamberlain, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that the Avatar’s last known whereabouts happened
to be in a nest of criminals, traitors, and outlaws, and that he hasn’t
been seen since! I’m saying that we have to assume the worst! That
he and his companion are in mortal danger, if not dead already!”
There was the clank of a single dropped cup. Hei-Ran knew
he’d tracked the Avatar to Taihua but not that the mountains had
been crawling with danger. Nor had any of the letters he’d read last
night mentioned a firebending girl. The fate of her daughter was
unknown.
Hei-Ran looked at him like he’d stabbed her in the heart. That
was the one gaze he couldn’t meet. He concentrated on Hui instead,
on this usurping little badgerfrog who’d fancied himself a player of
games. Strictly speaking, Hui didn’t have evidence in hand. But he
could get it at his leisure. There was no hiding an entire town, nor
the secret tunnels that supplied it.
“You have demonstrated unforgivable negligence at best and
cost the Earth Kingdom its portion of the Avatar cycle at worst!” Hui
said. And the people I’ve bribed to appear today will attest to that.
“You are no longer fit to serve as the Avatar’s master!”
He’d chosen to use those words. Jianzhu snapped.
“And you are?” he shouted at Hui, leaping to his feet. “You
who want that power and status for no reason other than it’s there!?”
Hui took the time to smell and sip his tea, knowing he’d won.
“This gathering has not yet decided whom the Avatar, if still alive,
should learn from,” he said smugly.
Jianzhu felt queasy. His forehead grew damp. “This gathering,”
he sneered, swaying on his feet. “This isn’t a proper conclave of
sages. You’ve identified my enemies among the leadership of the
Earth Kingdom and brought them to my doorstep like a bandit gang!
“What has he promised you, huh?” he yelled at the assembled
faces, nearly spinning in place. “Money? Power? For centuries men
like Hui have carved up this nation and offered slices to anyone
who’ll pay! I’m the one trying to make it stronger!”
They blinked slowly, coughed hard, didn’t respond.
Hui sniffed, his nose starting to run. “We meet the minimum
number required to strip you of your duties. If you’re . . . if you’re
done grandstanding, we’ll take the vote.”
Jianzhu retched. His insides heaved in and out and his vision
went blurry. “What is going on?” he shouted at Hui. “What did you
do to me?”
“What do you mean?” Hui tried to stand but collapsed back in
his chair. He put his hand to his nose in astonishment. It was covered
in blood.
“What’s happening?” someone shouted. Sounds of vomiting
filled the hall. A servant opened the door behind Jianzhu to see what
the commotion was and screamed.
Jianzhu collapsed forward, his upper body slamming against
the table. He couldn’t see Hei-Ran. But like the needle of a compass,
his hand reached toward her as he blacked out.
 FAREWELLS
Kyoshi gave a start when Lao Ge walked into the room, alone.
She immediately took a defensive posture in her bed on the chance
he’d belatedly come to exact a toll for denying him his victim. He
didn’t help matters by brandishing a small blade as he entered.
“Time to get the bandages off,” he said.
“Why are you the one doing it?”
“I can be convincing when I need to be.” He sat down next to
her bed and gently applied the knife to the cotton wrappings on her
left arm.
There was a rasp of the sharp edge on the cloth, of fibers giving
way, that made her shiver. “You looked lost in thought when I came
in,” Lao Ge said. “Are you regretting killing Xu?”
He pierced the first layer and she contemplated screaming for
help. “No,” she said. “I feel bad about letting Te live.”
Lao Ge gave her an exasperated look and wagged the knife.
“You know, we can rectify that pretty easily.”
“That’s not what I mean. I told you I accepted the responsibility
of saving him, and I’m not turning back on my choice.” She rolled
her lips between her teeth. “It’s more like I feel . . . inconsistent.
Unfair. Like I should have either killed them both or let them both
live.”
Lao Ge started rolling the severed end of the bandage into a
round bale. “A general sends some troops to die in a siege and holds
others back in reserve. A king taxes half his lands to support the
other. A mother has one dose of medicine and two sick children. I
wouldn’t call your situation a particularly exalted one.”
Her mentor had a way of cutting her down to size. “People of
all walks, high and low, choose to hurt some and help others,” he
said. “I can tell you it’ll only get worse the more you embrace your
Avatarhood.”
“Worse?” she said. “Shouldn’t it become easier over time?”
“Oh no, my dear girl. It’ll never get easier. If you had a strict
rule, maybe, to always show mercy or always punish, you could use
it as a shield to protect your spirit. But that would be distancing
yourself from your duty. Determining the fates of others on a case-
by-case basis, considering the infinite combinations of circumstance,
will wear on you like rain on the mountain. Give it enough time, and
you’ll bear the scars.”
He spoke out of kindness and sorrow, perhaps not as immutable
as he claimed to be. “You will never be perfectly fair, and you will
never be truly correct,” Lao Ge said. “This is your burden.”
To keep deciding, over and over again. Kyoshi didn’t know if
she could take the strain.
Lao Ge started on her other arm. “What I’m curious about is
what you’ll do next,” he said. “Do you feel strong enough to take
your man now?”
Kyoshi was distracted by the smell coming from her unwashed
hand. “What?”
The old man tut-tutted. “Some seeker of vengeance you are.
Your quest. Your ultimate goal. You defeated the same enemy
Jianzhu did. Do you feel strong enough to take him down now?”
Kyoshi hadn’t thought about her fight with Xu in those terms,
that the leader of the Yellow Necks might be a yardstick to measure
herself against Jianzhu by. It seemed like an oversimplification.
And yet.
She didn’t give him an answer. Lao Ge finished unwinding her
second arm. She flexed her pale and wrinkled fingers. The pain was
gone, but her hands were mottled and shiny, missing their lines and
prints in some areas.
“Go,” Lao Ge said. “See your friends. I have some business to
take care of on my own.”
“Don’t kill Te,” Kyoshi said. She was pretty sure the boy had
ridden to safety, out of the reach of Tieguai the Immortal, but it was
worth mentioning anyway. “Not after I went through the trouble.”
Lao Ge made an innocent face and pocketed the knife he’d
been using.
“I mean it!” she yelled.

Kyoshi washed her hands in a basin and went to the next room.
The Flying Opera Company had been sleeping there, the bedrolls
laid out on the empty floor. Rangi and Lek were the only two
members present, playing a game of Pai Sho that Lek scrutinized
with intense concentration and Rangi looked bored with. Judging
from the layout of the pieces, she’d been toying with him, making
blunders on purpose.
She glanced up and gave Kyoshi a smile that could melt the
poles. “You’re on your feet again.”
“I’ve been off them too long,” Kyoshi said. She’d inherited the
group’s need for safety in motion. “I don’t feel right staying in the
same town for so many days straight.”
“The rest of us agreed we weren’t going anywhere until you
were a hundred percent better,” Lek said. “Kyoshi, you took a lot of
. . . lightning bolts? Honestly, I don’t know how you’re alive.”
He turned to Rangi like it was her fault for not knowing what
Xu was. “I mean, I’ve never met a Firebender other than you. Is that
some kind of dirty trick you people pull out to win Angi Kois or
whatever?”
“No!” Rangi protested. “Bending lightning is a skill so rare that
there are barely any living witnesses who can confirm it exists! And
the reports don’t mention Xu was from the Fire Nation at all! Do
you think I’d let Kyoshi walk into a fight without telling her
everything I knew about her opponent?”
Kyoshi watched them argue over Xu’s secret technique. She
hadn’t noticed his eye color, but then, not every Firebender had
blatantly gold irises. If there was anything she’d learned recently, it
was that daofei brotherhood didn’t require blood ties. Mok and Wai
could have sworn to Xu without being related to him.
A Firebender had ended up the leader of a gang of Earth
Kingdom outlaws. It was no different than a disgraced Air Nomad
doing the same. Perhaps her mixed parentage made her understand
such outcomes were less rare than people assumed.
“Oh, Kyoshi,” Rangi cried with sudden dismay. “Your hands.”
They’d been the first injuries she’d noticed after the duel as
well. Kyoshi held them up to show they’d healed. “They feel fine.”
“But the scars.” Rangi entwined her fingers with Kyoshi’s and
brought them to her cheek. Kyoshi was glad she’d washed
thoroughly.
“You had such beautiful hands,” Rangi said, nuzzling at her
palm. “Your skin was so smooth and—”
Lek coughed loudly. “I have an idea for that. Come on, love-
birds. Let’s go shopping.”
 Zigan hadn’t been particularly friendly to strangers the first time
they’d entered to buy food. Now in the light of a new day . . . it was
worse.
The townsfolk stared at her with fear and hostility rather than
the plain rudeness of before. Doors and shutters slammed closed as
they walked by. Residents who couldn’t afford such nice entrances
vigorously shook their hanging rugs and curtains for emphasis.
“Do I still have paint on my face?” Kyoshi said. “Why are they
looking at us like that?”
“Well, for starters, a lot of Zigan saw flashes of lightning and a
pillar of wind and fire from your duel with Xu,” Lek said. “And then
some of the daofei passed through town as they fled, telling stories
of a giant with eyes of blood who drank the soul of their leader.
These idiots haven’t necessarily put together that you’re the Avatar. I
heard one shopkeeper say you were a dragon in human form, which
explained why you could fly and breathe fire.”
“But I saved them from the Yellow Necks!”
Lek laughed. “Kyoshi, by a strict interpretation of the Code,
you are now the leader of the Yellow Necks. Dr. Song’s no dummy,
and it took a lot of begging to get her to think about helping you.
She saw a daofei girl who’d challenged her elder brother for control
of their gang and won. Face it, sister. You are dangerous.”
Kyoshi was surprised at how much it irked her. The first heroic,
selfless feat she’d performed as the Avatar, and it was tainted. The
context had already crumbled away, leaving her no better than
Tagaka the pirate queen.
But then, hadn’t she understood this from the very beginning?
Her legacy was part of the cost she’d been willing to pay to bring
Jianzhu to justice. It always had been. It was simply . . . a higher
price than she’d anticipated.
That was the story she repeated to herself as Lek led them
inside a cramped shop. A brush of a hand against her face made her
squeak. It was a glove, dangling limply from a hook on the ceiling.
An old man as dried and stretched as the skins he sold sat on
the floor. He nodded at each of them, without the fear or disdain of
the other villagers.
 Kyoshi thought she knew why. Leatherworkers and tanners,
peasants who made their living by crafting products from animals,
were considered unclean in many portions of the Earth Kingdom. It
was part of the hypocrisy that Kyoshi hated so much. People from
all rungs of society depended on and clamored for such goods but
despised their neighbors who made them. She remembered the fine
boots Yun had worn that day back in the manor, and her heart ached
for him.
“We’re looking for a pair of gloves for my friend,” Lek said.
“They’ll have to be big, of course.”
The shopkeeper gestured at one wall where the largest
examples hung. Kyoshi pressed her hand against the glove at the
very end of the row and shook her head.
“I got one or two more, bigger, in the back,” the old man said
unhurriedly. “But they’d be no good for regular wear. Not unless you
figure on fighting a battle every day.”
“I think . . .” Kyoshi said, “we should give them a shot.”
He shuffled around, staying seated, and rummaged in a pile.
“The back” of the shop was simply whatever was behind him. He
produced a cracked hide bag and pulled apart the drawstring. “Made
these for a colonel on the rise in the army a long time ago,” he said.
“Poor fellow died before he could pick them up.”
The gloves were more like gauntlets. The thick, supple leather
fastened to gleaming metal bracers that protected the wrists. Kyoshi
pulled them on and buckled the straps. The fingers were snug, a
second skin, and the armored portions heavy and reassuring.
There was no way these gloves would be acceptable in polite
company. Their very appearance was aggressive, a declaration of
war.
“They’re perfect,” Kyoshi said. “What do we owe you?”
“Take ’em,” the shopkeeper said. “Consider it a gift for what
you did.”
He elaborated no further. Kyoshi bowed deeply before they left
the shop, grateful to the core.
There was at least one person who saw the truth.
 They walked down the street in high spirits. Kyoshi pulled one of
her fans out and levitated a pebble. She could bend perfectly with
her new gloves.
“If only it were this easy to find shoes that fit,” she grumbled.
“It’s better than being short and skinny,” Lek said morosely. “If
I was your size, I’d be ruling my own nation by now.”
Rangi laughed and squeezed his arm. “Aw, cheer up, Lek,” she
said. She prodded his bicep, working her way higher. “You’ll fill out
soon. You have good bone structure.”
Lek turned a deeper red than the face paint they wore on the
raid. “Cut it out,” he said. “It’s not funny when—agh!”
Rangi had suddenly yanked him downward by the arm. Her
knees dragged in the dirt. It was as if her entire body had gone limp.
“Wha—” she mumbled, her eyelids beating like insect wings.
Lek yelped again and swatted at the small of his back. As he
spun in place, Kyoshi saw a tuft of down sticking out of him. The
fletching of a dart. She instinctively brought her hands in front of her
face and heard sharp metal plinks bouncing off her bracers. But the
back of her neck was uncovered, and a stinging burn landed on her
skin there.
The sensation of liquid spread over her body. Poison, her mind
screamed as her muscles went slack. Lek tried to ready a stone to
hurl at their attackers, but it fell out of his hands and rolled on the
ground. He and Kyoshi collapsed on their faces like the daofei
who’d been lashed by the shirshu.
It was different from the incense Jianzhu had drugged her with.
She could still see and think. But the poison was having different
reactions in her friends. Rangi seemed barely conscious. And Lek
began to gag and choke.
Feet ran over to them. Pairs of hands quickly grabbed Rangi
and dragged her away.
Just Rangi.
Kyoshi tried to shout and scream, but the poison had its
strongest grip on her neck, where it had first entered her body. Her
lungs forced air out, but her voicebox added no sound. She could see
Lek. His face turned red and puffy. He clutched at his swelling
throat. He was having some kind of reaction. He couldn’t breathe.
 Tears streamed down Kyoshi’s face as she lay inches away,
helpless, unable to save another boy from Jianzhu’s venoms. The
dust turned muddy under her eyes.
It was nearly half an hour before she could crawl over to Lek
and check for a heartbeat that wasn’t there.

She arrived at their building at the same time as Lao Ge, Wong,
and Kirima. They saw Lek’s body in her arms and reeled like they’d
been struck. Wong crumpled to the ground and began to sob, his low
moans shaking the earth. Lao Ge closed his eyes and whispered a
blessing over and over without stopping.
Kirima was as pale as the moon. She held something out to
Kyoshi, her hand trembling uncontrollably.
“This was stuck on a post in the town square,” she said, her
voice raw and bleeding.
It was a note. Avatar. Come find me in Qinchao Village, alone.
Pinned to the paper it was written on was a silky black topknot
of hair, crudely severed from its owner’s head.
 THE RETURN
Jianzhu sat by Hei-Ran’s bedside in the infirmary. She was alive,
but she hadn’t woken up yet.
If he were ever to tell his story in the future, to document his
journeys and his secrets, this part would stand out as the hardest road
he’d traveled yet. Murdering Hui and the other sages in his own
home was nothing. Drinking the poison himself to blunt suspicion,
trusting in the training that the departed Master Amak had put him
through as well as Yun, was nothing. A good number of servants
were dead as well, the ones who’d used the leftover boiled water
he’d dosed for their own cups.
Nothing. All nothing compared to seeing his last friend in the
world laid low. This sacrifice had been the hardest.
There would be aftershocks, ones that altered the landscape of
the Earth Kingdom. The western coast had been decimated of its
leadership, especially by the Mo Ce Sea. Certainly, some of the
sages who’d drank his poisoned tea were corrupt or incompetent, but
many others were as invested in bringing strength and prosperity to
the nation as he was. It would take time for the effects to be felt by
the common populace, but the parts of the country farthest from Ba
Sing Se had without a doubt been greatly weakened.
There would be an outcry from the capital. Investigations.
Accusations. But Hui had inadvertently laid the foundation for
Jianzhu to come out of this mess clean. He’d identified and rounded
up the sages who were not fully on Jianzhu’s side, including some
that were a complete surprise. That had been the whole point of
telling Hui he’d lost the Avatar in the first place.
If Hui had felt the remaining sages in the other half of the
kingdom were out of his reach for this gathering, even with the
damning evidence of the Avatar running with daofei, that meant
those particular officials were truly loyal to Jianzhu. When the time
came to reveal the true Avatar, he’d would be in a better, more
secure position, having tested their limits.
The chamberlain had done exactly what Jianzhu had wanted
him to. Only, too fast and too aggressively. That miscalculation had
forced him to turn his own home into a charnel house. It had cost
him Hei-Ran. He would dig up Hui’s bones and feed them to bull
pigs for it.
 He got up, his knees still a little shaky from the lingering
effects of the poison, and brushed a long strand of hair out of Hei-
Ran’s sleeping face. Her constitution, her inner fire, had saved her
life, but only just. Once he had the time, he’d devote every resource
he possessed to healing her fully.
Though, if she’d been awake the past day or two, she certainly
would have killed him for what he’d done to her daughter.
He’d revisit the matter later. Right now he had an important
meeting to prepare for.

They buried Lek in a field outside Zigan’s cemetery instead of

claiming one of the unused plots within its borders. He wouldn’t
have wanted to rest too close to abiders, Kirima had explained.
The grid of headstones off to the side resembled an orchard,
each gray, fruitless tree carved with the name and date of its owner.
Kyoshi counted off the rows, burning into her memory the
approximate distance so she could come back to this spot in the
future. Following the Si Wong tradition, they’d eschewed any
markers, taking care to cut the sod in strips that could be replaced
and patted back down. The desert folk considered the simple
embrace of the land the only honor worthy of the departed, silence
the most fitting eulogy.
Standing there over Lek’s invisible grave, Kyoshi couldn’t have
spoken about him anyway. She had the tongue of an animal in her
mouth, the howl of a beast in her chest. Lao Ge was right about
mercy having its price.
She’d shown Jianzhu mercy with every thought that went
through her mind not dedicated to his destruction. Each smile and
moment of laughter she’d shared with her friends had been an act of
dereliction. This was the cost of forgetting Jianzhu, of not
whispering his name before every meal, not seeing his shape in
every shadow. And Kyoshi would never stop paying for it until she
confronted him.
“What are you going to do?”
Kyoshi glanced up from the patch of grass that cloaked her
sworn brother. Kirima had asked the question, her eyes red and hard.
Wong and Lao Ge waited for an answer as well.
“I’m going to finish this,” Kyoshi said, her voice the breaking
of branches and rending of cloth. “I’m going to finish him.”
 “What about us?” Wong said. He had the same hunched,
plaintive look as when he was waiting to hear whether or not the
Avatar would stay with the group after their escape from Hujiang.
Kyoshi had to give him a different answer this time. She held
up her hand. “Here is where we have to part ways,” she said.

Qinchao Village had an air to it that many visitors found off-

putting. Over half the inhabitants belonged to the clan of Chin,
making outsiders feel like they were talking to the same person and
being watched by the same set of eyes, no matter what part of town
they did business in. There was a degree of tightfisted wealth that
drew attention away from a set of bizarre customs and holidays that
appeared nowhere else in the Earth Kingdom, many of which
revolved around dolls and effigies, small ones for the home and
great towering ones in the square for public festivals.
Qinchao folk were insular, even compared to Yokoyans. They
exalted their status with borderline treasonous statements, like “A
citizen of Qinchao and a subject of the Earth Kingdom,” where
wordplay and order implied their priorities.
A long time ago, Kyoshi and a group of other young maids had
been allowed a few days of chaperoned leave to visit Qinchao.
Jianzhu had sternly warned them not to run afoul of the law there,
lest bad things happen before he could rescue them. The other maids
giggled and proceeded to ditch Kyoshi with Auntie Mui while they
ran as a group from street to street, trying wine for the first time and
flirting with actors by the outdoor theater.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened. They’d all come home
safely.
But Kyoshi remembered the sense of foreboding she’d had
back then as she entered the gates through the circular walls and
made her way to the teardrop-shaped town center. There’d been a
darkness below the clean-swept streets and ghostly hues of the
village that she’d sensed would burst through the surface someday.
She must have been looking into the future. That day was
today. And that shadow from the deep was her.
She walked down the main street, unconcerned by the stares
she drew. With her headdress adding to her height, her makeup done
in a fresh coat of red and white, and the heavy armored bracers
strapped over her wrists, she looked half a performer who’d lost her
troupe, and half a soldier without her battalion. She attracted
attention, openly and without hesitation, like she’d never done
before in her life.
This was who she was now. This was her skin. This was her
face.
The Chin clan’s crown jewel was the great stone teahouse in the
center of town. Unlike the ramshackle Madam Qiji’s with overnight
rooms above a common area, the unnamed establishment was a
three-story structure devoted entirely to food and drink, in the
manner of larger cities like Omashu and Ba Sing Se. Residents of
the village would spend all morning there, enjoying tea and gossip.
It was the most obvious place for Jianzhu or her to wait for the other.
Kyoshi lowered her head and stepped inside. The restaurant
was built with the second and third floors as mezzanines, letting her
see the tables filled with boisterous conversation raining down from
above. Waiters carried trays of stacked bamboo steamers through the
aisles, calling out their contents, pausing when beckoned by a guest
to place small dishes of glistening dumplings on the tables.
The man behind the counter gaped at her and waved toward the
dining area. Either it was open seating, or he was too taken aback to
deny her entrance. She spotted a table on the ground floor that was
still being cleared and moved toward it. Chairs squeaked against the
floor as people turned in their seats. A server coming the other way
down the aisle nearly dropped his tray and backpedaled as fast as he
could.
Kyoshi took a position facing the door so she could see who
came and went. The dirty dishes in front of her vanished as if she
were a shrine spirit who’d be displeased with any used-up offerings
that lingered too long. Once the table was clean, she placed a round,
smooth stone in front of her. Then she waited.
Eventually, her stillness allowed the other patrons to go back to
their business. The chatter around her picked up. The music of
songbirds could be heard from the second floor; a gathering of
elderly men had brought ornamented cages to show off new
specimens in their collections to each other.
Customers filed in through the entrance over the course of the
morning. She took note of their builds, gaits, and faces, waiting for
one of them to be Jianzhu. It was only a matter of time before he
came.
 Her former employer walked in and immediately spotted her
sitting at the far table. He seemed slightly stooped. His handsome
face was wan, haggard, like he hadn’t eaten or slept in days. His hair
and beard had been combed, but not to his usual impeccable
standards. He looked older than she remembered. Much older.
Jianzhu settled into the chair across from Kyoshi. An
enterprising waiter, seeing that a normal person had joined her at the
table, came over to ask them what they wanted. Jianzhu sent him
packing with a glare.
The two of them drank each other in.
“You look terrible,” Kyoshi said.
“So do you,” he replied. “The shirshu poison hasn’t left your
system completely. I can tell from the way you’re a little slow-
blinking.”
He put his elbows on the table and leaned on his hands, giving
her an exhausted half smile. “Did you ever realize the animals
weren’t tracking you, personally, to begin with?” he said. “I gave
them Rangi’s scent, not yours.”
“You were hunting her the whole time instead of me,” Kyoshi
murmured. His ruthlessness was beyond her comprehension by leaps
and bounds.
Jianzhu rubbed his face. “Bringing you back without some kind
of leverage would have been pointless. You never would have
listened to me. You made that perfectly clear before you ran away.”
“I should have seen this coming,” Kyoshi said. “You traffic in
hostages. You’re no better than a daofei.”
Jianzhu frowned at her. “The fact that you think so means you
need proper training and education more than anything. It’s time to
stop this nonsense, Kyoshi. Come home.”
“Where’s Rangi?”
“She’s . . . at . . . HOME!” Jianzhu yelled. “Where you should
have been this entire time!”
His outburst didn’t draw much attention from their nearest
neighbors. Father was obviously incensed at Daughter for dressing
up and running away. Nothing they hadn’t seen a hundred times
before.
Kyoshi doubted very much that Rangi was strolling the gardens
of the mansion at her leisure, waiting for her. Jianzhu had grievously
dishonored the Firebender by shearing her hair. To avoid retribution,
he would have had to imprison Rangi. Or worse.
Kyoshi fought back against the anger that ran through her body.
In a hostage situation she needed to remain as calm as she could. But
her knee shook a little, contacting the table, causing the stone to
wobble.
The rattling noise it made caught Jianzhu’s attention. He looked
at the round rock. “What is this?” he said. “Another child’s toy you
picked up while you were gone?”
Kyoshi shook her head. “It belonged to someone who should
take part in bringing you down.”
“We’re wasting time here with your games,” Jianzhu snapped.
“What are you going to do, if not what I say?”
She couldn’t speak her revenge out loud. Now that she was
close enough to reach out and place her hands on Jianzhu’s neck,
telling him to his face that she sought his death would have been a
reverse incantation that sapped her will. She was afraid that if she
gave voice to her hatred, it would turn to dust like medicine that had
sat unused for too long.
“See?” Jianzhu said at her silence. “You came here without a
plan. Whereas I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to do if you don’t
stand up, walk out of here, and follow me home.” He brought his
face closer. “I’m going to collapse this building and kill everyone in
it.”
Kyoshi’s eyes widened. Her mind skipped over debating
whether he would and focused on how he might. She knew he
wasn’t bluffing.
“That’s the trouble with these structures made completely of
stone,” Jianzhu said. “They break instead of flexing. Which makes
them horribly vulnerable to earthquakes.”
Kyoshi glanced around them. The restaurant was packed with
oblivious townsfolk sitting on floors of stone, their backs to walls of
stone, a roof of slate over their heads. In the hands of Jianzhu, it was
a death trap. A mass grave in the waiting.
The threat was as real as could be. “You’d be living up to your
daofei name,” Kyoshi said.
Jianzhu froze. Kyoshi thought perhaps she’d insulted him to the
point where he’d forget he needed the Avatar, that he’d reach across
the table and simply end her life. But he clapped his palm over his
own mouth and started to shake.
Tears flowed out of his eyes. It took Kyoshi a while to
understand he was laughing hysterically. She’d never seen his true
laugh before, and it was a quiet, spasmodic attack that claimed his
whole body. She flinched as he pounded his fist on the table.
With great difficulty, Jianzhu gathered himself. “You want to
know how I earned that name all those years ago?” he whispered,
leaning in with a co-conspirator’s trust. “It’s a funny story. First, I
made an example out of the few Earthbenders among the Yellow
Necks. I took my time with them. Then I told the rest that whoever
dug the deepest trench to hide in by sundown would be spared, free
to return to their homes. Only the ones who lagged behind would be
killed.”
He chuckled in satisfaction. “You should have seen it. They dug
as fast as their wretched hands could take them. Some of them killed
each other over a shovel. They jumped into their holes and looked up
with smug little smiles thinking they’d be the ones surviving, not
their compatriots.”
Kyoshi wanted to throw up. There was no word for what
Jianzhu was.
“And there you have it,” he said. “Five thousand fresh graves
dug by their own occupants. I simply swept the earth over the top.
Like I once explained to a former pupil, strength is bending people
to your will, not the elements.”
He sighed as he shelved the good memory back with its
neighbors. “You’re very hard to bend, Kyoshi. But if you give me no
other option, after I kill everyone here, I may have to go home and
cut Rangi’s throat—”
Lek’s last bullet zipped from the table toward Jianzhu’s temple.
It stopped before making contact. Jianzhu rocked in his chair from
the effort of counteracting her bending, one hand crooked in the air.
With great effort he lowered the stone back to the table, pushing
against her the whole way.
He was greatly interested by this turn of events. “How?” he
said as they fought over control of the rock. “When you left, you
lacked the precision to bend a piece of earth this small.”
Kyoshi’s spread fan fluttered under the table, hidden from his
sight. The strain was much greater for her. “I fell in with a different
crowd,” she said.
“Hmph.” Jianzhu looked mildly impressed. “Well, I hope
you’re happy with what you’ve learned. Because now you’ve
doomed everyone here.” He reached up with his other hand and
pulled the roof down.
Kyoshi matched him, bringing her second fan above the table.
A tremor went through the building and died down before it could
register as a problem with the patrons. Perhaps a very heavy wagon
had passed by. The slab roof stayed where it was, though a trickle of
dust drifted onto a few tables, causing annoyed shouts from the third
floor.
By now a few people were looking at them, drawn by their
bending poses. Run, she wanted to scream at the gawking
bystanders. But she couldn’t. Her entire body was tensed to the
breaking point, her throat frozen. It was taking every ounce of her
effort to oppose Jianzhu’s strength.
But as her eyes wandered up to his, she saw that he seemed
almost as taxed. His shoulders were trembling, like hers.
“I do need to give your—” he said before cutting himself short.
He was likely going to say he needed to give Kyoshi’s new friends
his compliments. But he couldn’t manage talking under the strain.
He noticed her noticing his little moment of weakness. With a
surge of anger, he pointed his leg to the side and tried to blow out
the supporting wall. Kyoshi made a silent scream as the effort to
keep it intact tore a muscle within her body along her ribcage.
She fought through the pain and managed to keep the
destruction down to a single crack running from floor to ceiling. The
wall held.
Jianzhu’s jaw flexed. He bared his teeth. He and Kyoshi warred
in stillness, their whole beings locked in opposition, a perversion of
neutral jing where they only appeared to be doing nothing.
Vibrations began to grow through the building again, the slight rattle
of cups against saucers. The patrons on the ground floor nearby
might have suspected this girl and this man were to blame, but their
hesitance to move kept them within the reach of danger.
The sounds of conversation blurred and slowed, as if the air
itself had frozen over. Men and women in Kyoshi’s peripheral vision
turned their heads at a snail’s pace. Their sentences drew out like
moans.
 Kyoshi might have been pushing against Jianzhu so hard that
she no longer knew what was real. She heard a footstep echoing in
her ear, and then another.
A cloaked figure walked with purpose toward their table.
Neither she nor Jianzhu could move. It was as if a third presence had
joined their struggle, clasping its hands over their interlocked
bending, squeezing them together.
The person who stood over them with all the familiarity in the
world threw his hood back.
It was Yun.
Had she the ability to breathe, Kyoshi would have choked.
Sobbed. This was a dream and a nightmare, her highest hopes and
cruelest torment poured together in some horrific concoction and
flung in her face. How had he survived? How had he found them?
Why had he come back, now of all times?
Jianzhu’s shock at seeing Yun nearly broke the volatile hold he
had on the stone around them. Kyoshi could no longer tell who was
in control of what, with their bending commingled together, only
certain that if she released the tension by moving or speaking or
blinking, the whole enterprise would come tumbling down. The
three of them were locked in a private delirium, a prison of their
own making.
Yun said nothing. He looked at them with a faint, beatific smile.
His skin had the glow of a healthy adventurer back from a successful
trip, neat stubble lining his jaw. His eyes twinkled with the same
warm mischief that Kyoshi remembered so well.
None of this kept a blinding, nauseating sense of wrongness
from pouring out of his body. People had always been drawn to Yun
like metal to a lodestone, and Kyoshi had been no exception. But
he’d changed. There was something essential missing from the
otherworldly being in front of her. Something human.
The boy she’d loved had been replaced by a hollow scaffolding,
wind blowing through its gaps. The nearby customers who’d so far
tolerated her strangeness recoiled away from Yun like he was a
rotting corpse, scraping chairs over the floor in their haste to create
distance. They couldn’t bear to be near him.
Yun noticed the bullet on the table. Its presence filled him with
delight and his face lit up as if he’d seen the object before. He
reached over and slowly plucked the stone free while Kyoshi and
Jianzhu were still fighting for control of it, tearing the rock from the
combined bending grip of a great master and the Earth Avatar. To
Kyoshi it felt like he’d ripped a hole in the empty space, removed
the moon from the sky itself. She could almost hear a sucking noise
as the bullet left her and Jianzhu’s grasp.
Still without words, Yun held the rock out, making sure Kyoshi
and Jianzhu could both see it. Then he cupped that hand to Jianzhu’s
chest.
Jianzhu’s eyes bulged. Kyoshi felt his earthbending flare
outward and was forced to compensate. Yun gently put his other
hand, still stained with black ink, to Jianzhu’s back. After another
second passed, he showed them what had traveled between his
palms.
The stone, now covered in blood.
Yun didn’t wait for Jianzhu to finish dying. He winked at
Kyoshi and turned to leave. Jianzhu teetered in his seat, gagging on
blood, a dark red patch spreading from the tunnel in his chest. The
waiters screamed.
It was everything Kyoshi could do to contain Jianzhu’s
earthbending death throes. More cracks raced along the walls, big
and loud enough to draw the notice of the patrons. At the door Yun
paused and looked back at Kyoshi, seeing her duress, how she was
barely holding the teahouse together. He grinned.
And then he bumped the table.
The foundations of the building rose and fell at his command.
The impact knocked people to the floor. Kyoshi lost her grip on too
much of the stone, and the roof began to crumble. Yun vanished.
A sheet of rock the size of a window crashed to the first floor,
narrowly missing a waiter. She could feel the makings of a stampede
beginning to form. There were too many pieces collapsing around
her. The world was falling apart before her eyes.

Lao Ge had insisted.

Despite her protests that she didn’t need to unlock the secrets of
immortality, he’d made her join him in his daily longevity exercises.
She’d told him flat out that she considered the concept bunk.
“This isn’t spiritualism,” he said. “You don’t have to believe.
You simply have to practice.”
 He’d taken her to the same spots that a guru would meditate in,
the curves of flowing rivers, the stumps of once-massive trees, caves
bored into the cliffside. But he’d also filled her ear with
counterintuitive nonsense.
“Instead of blocking everything out like how you would
normally meditate, take it all in,” he said while they rested in a
meadow on their way to Taihua. “Notice each blade of grass in the
same moment you would notice a single one.”
“I would have to have a thousand eyes to do that!” she’d
snapped.
He shrugged. “Or an infinite amount of time. Either would
work.”
The riddles never ceased while they prepared for Te’s
assassination.
“Divide your body in two,” he said, while she practiced heating
and breaking a piece of scrap metal. “Then divide it again, and then
again, and again. What would you have left?”
“A bloody mess.” She burned her hand and yelped.
“Exactly!” Lao Ge said. “Put the pieces back, and put them
back again, and again, and again one more time, and you’re whole
once more.”
“A human being isn’t a block of stone,” she said, showing him
her reddening thumb for emphasis.
“That’s where you’re wrong. The illusion that the self is
separate from the rest of the world is the driving factor that limits
our potential. Once you realize there’s nothing special about the self,
it becomes easier to manipulate.”

To Kyoshi that had been the easiest lesson to take in. She was
nothing special. She had never been anything special. That was a
mantra she believed in.
Her eyes glowed, but only in a brief pulse. She didn’t need to
express her mastery over multiple elements like she had during her
duel with Xu. Just one. The stone was her, and she was the stone.
Her mind was everywhere, dancing along the tips of her
fingers. She’d let go of her fans, but for now, it didn’t matter. Kyoshi
felt the shape of each piece and how one fit into the next, making it
so easy to put them back together. She wouldn’t have been able to
say whether she meant the teahouse or her own being. According to
Lao Ge, there was no difference.
There was a stumble of disruption, almost like ants crawling
over her arm. The customers on each floor scrambled for the exits.
She watched them run along shattered tiles held up by nothing but
her earthbending. Each step the panicking crowd took was its own
distinct little thump, another weight to catalog. It was no great
trouble to her.
When the last of the occupants had fled, Kyoshi got up,
maintaining the form of Crowding Bridge with one raised hand
while she stuck her fans back into her belt with the other. She looked
at Jianzhu, slumped over. Her revenge encompassed within a single
body.
It seemed so bounded and finite. How could such a container
have held the volume of her anguish, her wrath? If any feeling at all
pressed through the numbness of her unity with the earth around her,
it was the ire of a hoodwinked child who’d been promised the end of
her bedtime story only to see the candle-lights snuffed and the door
slam shut. She was a girl alone in the dark.
She decided to leave Jianzhu where he was, not out of any
remaining spite. The path that led her to him had simply ended.
She exited into the square. There was a half ring of people
around her, giving plenty of berth, staring in horror. They didn’t
know who she was or how she’d saved their lives. She didn’t care.
Kyoshi let go of her focus, and the building groaned behind her.
The crowd shrieked as the teahouse collapsed, sending a wave of
dust over their heads.
The civilian residents of Qinchao began to flee. At the same
time, she heard the clash of gongs and saw lawmen shoving their
way through the masses. The officers drew their swords as they
closed in.
“Don’t move!” the captain shouted. “Drop your weapons and
get on the ground!”
She looked at the red-faced, nervous men clinging to their steel.
Without saying anything, she dust-stepped higher and higher,
ignoring their threats and shouts of astonishment, until she flew over
their heads, onto the nearest rooftop, and into the sky.
 There was a tree at the crossroads leading into Qinchao. It had a
single dominant limb that extended sideways, with a length of
rusted, forgotten chain that looped around the branch. Kyoshi
wondered what had hung from the end of the chain before it
snapped.
Pengpeng rolled in the grass while the Flying Opera Company
sat in a circle, back from the mission Kyoshi had sent them on. A
short-haired figure leaped to her feet and ran over.
Rangi buried her face in Kyoshi’s chest. She shuddered and
wept, but she was otherwise unharmed.
Kyoshi cheated on the test Jianzhu had put to her. He hadn’t
counted on a mere servant girl having such steadfast allies so well
versed in breaking and entering. While Kyoshi faced Jianzhu in
Qinchao, the rest of the Flying Opera Company raided his manor in
Yokoya, using the detailed plans she’d given them to rescue Rangi.
But there was one extra body lying in the shade of the tree. She
recognized Hei-Ran, wrapped in blankets. The older woman had a
ghostly pallor to her face that was hard to look at. With their family
resemblance, Kyoshi couldn’t think of anything but Rangi in a
similar state of helplessness.
“Kyoshi, my mother,” Rangi whispered, trembling in her grasp.
“We found her in the infirmary like this. I don’t know what
happened to her. I abandoned my mother! I left her, and this
happened!”
“She’ll be all right,” Kyoshi said, trying to pass conviction
from her body to Rangi’s. “I swear she’ll be all right. We’ll do
whatever it takes to fix her.” She let Rangi recover in her embrace,
her sobs slowing down until they became a second heartbeat.
Kyoshi stroked the crop of fuzz left behind by the severed
topknot. The Firebender flinched as if she’d grazed an open wound.
“I should be wearing a sack over my head so you can’t see me like
this,” she said.
There wasn’t a good way to explain that Kyoshi didn’t care one
bit about her hair or her honor, so long as she was alive. In fact, it
was easier for Kyoshi to rest her cheek on Rangi’s head now,
without all the sharp pins in the way.
After giving the two of them time, Kirima, Wong, and Lao Ge
came over.
 “The operation succeeded, obviously,” Kirima said. “Once
you’ve rescued one person from the bowels of a powerful Earth
Kingdom official’s personal dungeon, you’ve rescued them all. You
were right. Jianzhu didn’t seem to expect that you’d have us on your
side. Made things a bit easier.”
“I may have helped myself to some valuables on the way out,”
Wong said. His thick fingers were covered in new gold rings and
jade seals, including one that allowed him direct, private
correspondence with the Earth King.
Kyoshi saw no issue with that. But his knuckles were busted
open and bloody. “Was there a struggle?” she asked.
“No one’s dead,” Wong said quickly. “But I had to get
information the old-fashioned way from some mercenaries dressed
in guards’ clothing. I may have gone a little overboard. I don’t regret
it.”
He looked at Rangi in Kyoshi’s arms and gave a rare smile.
“The Gravedigger took one of ours. I wasn’t going to let him take
another.”
“Speaking of which, where is he?” Kirima said. “Is it . . . is it
over?”
Jianzhu was dead. But Yun was alive, an uncontrollable strike
of lightning. Kyoshi had no idea what had felled Rangi’s mother, nor
what would happen to Yokoya in the future without its guiding sage.
And despite her best attempts to sully the position, her
dedication to committing every possible outrage and act of
disqualification, she was still the Avatar.
Was it over? Kyoshi found she had no answer to that question
at all.
 HAUNTINGS
The Southern Air Temple was unlike any place Kyoshi had ever
seen. White towers extended past the tops of swirling strands of
mist. Long paths wound like meditation mazes up the slopes to the
earthbound entrances. Bison calves frolicked in the air, adorable,
grunting little clouds of fur and horn. She didn’t understand how a
people could wish to be nomads when they had a home so full of
beauty and peace.
Kyoshi waited in a garden distinguished by its simplicity and
open spaces rather than density and expensive details, like the
mansions she was accustomed to. The breeze, unhindered by the
grass and raked sand, was a crisp bite against her skin. The garden
abutted a temple wall with large wooden doors. Each entrance was
covered by metal tubing that spiraled into knots and terminated in a
wide, open end that resembled a tsungi horn.
She was alone.
Her friends had gone their separate ways. Kirima and Wong
wanted to take a break from smuggling and lie low for a while,
living off the injection of loot they’d pilfered from Jianzhu’s
mansion. They promised to keep in touch and show their faces once
Kyoshi had established herself. They were the Avatar’s companions,
after all. No doubt she could pardon them for whatever trouble they
got up to.
Lao Ge declined to go with them, claiming he needed to rest his
weary bones. In private, he told Kyoshi that as the Avatar and an
important world leader, she was now on his watch list. He was only
half joking. But she didn’t mind. She was pretty sure she could take
the old man in a fight to the death now.
Hei-Ran had woken up. Rangi, fighting through each word, told
Kyoshi that she needed to take her mother to the North Pole, where
the best healers in the world lived. If there was a chance for her to
recover fully, it would be found among the experts of the Water
Tribe.
That meant saying goodbye for who knew how long. They
could and would find each other again in the future. But as Lao Ge
had foreboded, they wouldn’t be the same people when it happened.
As much as Kyoshi wanted to stay with her, in a single, frozen pool
of moments, the current carrying them forward was too strong.
 Kyoshi had waited until her friends left before making her
move, wanting to spare them of the chaos that would ensue after her
unveiling. The Air Nomads often accepted pilgrims from the other
nations, letting them stay at the monasteries and nunneries on a
temporary basis. With Jianzhu no longer darkening her life, she
simply joined a group of ragged travelers hiking up the mountain to
the Southern Air Temple.
During the orientation for her fellow laypeople, she’d
introduced herself by asking everyone to stand back. In front of the
monks, she’d summoned a tornado of fire and air. The blazing, dual-
element vortex proved her identity beyond a shadow of a doubt—
though the fact that she’d nearly burned down a sacred tree
reminded her it was still a good idea to rely on her fans for a bit
longer.
As she’d expected, there was a commotion. Many of the senior
abbots had known Jianzhu and met Yun. Her existence caused an
overturning of the agreed-upon order. She was not the vaunted
prodigy of the Earth Kingdom, the boy who’d publicly been credited
with destroying the menace of the Fifth Nation pirates.
But there was a reason why she’d gone to the Airbenders
instead of a sage from her homeland. The isolation and sanctity of
the temple provided a measure of protection as the storm of her
arrival howled outside its walls. Though she was a native
Earthbender, the Air Nomads took her outrageous account of events
as simple truth, told by the Avatar. They bore the anger and
blustering of Earth sages who saw her as illegitimate, like she’d
somehow usurped her position by being born, and relayed messages
to her with calmness and grace.
The council of elders at the Southern Air Temple were not
interested in profiting from her presence, nor in dictating what she
should do next. They seemed content to listen to her and fulfill what
requests they could.
Plus, Pengpeng enjoyed being back with a herd. Kyoshi owed
the girl some time off with her own kind.
“Avatar Kyoshi!” someone shouted, breaking her reverie. She
looked up.
High above her on a balcony, a tall young monk waved. She
stepped back to give him space to land, and he vaulted over the
railing. A gust of wind slowed his descent, billowing his orange-
and-yellow robes. He touched down beside her as lightly as Kirima
had in Madam Qiji’s, long ago.
“Apologies, Avatar,” Monk Jinpa said. “The tower stairs take
forever.”
“I’ve used my fair share of architectural shortcuts,” Kyoshi
said. She and Jinpa began to walk around the garden as they talked.
“What’s the latest?”
Monk Jinpa had been assigned to her as a chamberlain of sorts.
He was the leader of the temple’s administrative group, handling
logistics and finance when the Air Nomads were forced to deal with
the material world. Even monks needed someone to look after what
little money ended up in their possession.
“The latest is . . . well, still a mess,” Jinpa said. “The tragedy at
Yokoya is worse than we feared. Two score of the Earth Kingdom’s
elite murdered by poison. And some of the household as well.”
Kyoshi closed her eyes against the deep ache. She’d only found
out by proxy what had happened at the mansion. “Are there more
details?”
“The investigators sent by the Earth King believe that it was an
act of revenge by a daofei group. Somehow they found out about an
important gathering of sages and decided to strike with a level of
brazenness that has never been seen before.”
Rangi’s mother had to have fallen by the same means. And
Kyoshi didn’t know who among her former coworkers was still
alive. She didn’t know if Auntie Mui was alive. She had to go back
to Yokoya as soon as possible.
“What have you heard from Qinchao?” she asked.
Jinpa scrunched his face. The poor monk was taxed by having
so much bad news pass through his ears. As a pacifist, he wasn’t
used to this level of death and mayhem. “The officers found Master
Jianzhu’s body. A couple of witnesses have corroborated your story,
that a young man killed him in cold blood. But many of the
townsfolk aren’t convinced of your innocence. Nearly all of them
maintain that you destroyed the teahouse.”
Kyoshi hadn’t told anyone that it was Yun who’d avenged his
own death. Looking back, she was barely certain of it herself. The
encounter had been as surreal as the one in the mining town where
she thought he’d perished. In both cases she’d seen an entity she had
no hope of understanding.
 “That’s all right,” she said. “I doubt I’ll be bothering the Chins
again anytime soon. Is that the last of the news?”
“Ah, no. Master Jianzhu’s death came with a complication.”
Although it would have been entirely inappropriate, she nearly
burst out laughing. Sure. What was another complication, added to
the pile?
“It seems that several close associates, including the Earth King
and the King of Omashu, held copies of his sealed last will and
testament to be opened on the event of his death. It named the Avatar
as the inheritor of his entire estate.”
Kyoshi brushed the revelation off. “He was training Yun to be
his successor in protecting the Earth Kingdom. It makes sense.”
The monk shook his head. “The will refers to you by name,
Avatar Kyoshi. Master Jianzhu sent the copies by messenger hawks
only a few weeks ago. In the documents he confesses to his great
mistake in wrongly identifying the Avatar and beseeches his
colleagues to give you their full support, as he posthumously does.
His lands, his riches, his house—they’re yours now.”
Kyoshi had to stop and marvel at how Jianzhu persisted in his
methods from beyond the grave. It was so like him to assume the
privilege of a sudden course reversal, to think correcting a mistake
was the same thing as making amends. In his will, Jianzhu expected
that, at his behest, the world would see events the way he did.
“Let me guess,” Kyoshi said. “While those documents
completely settled the matter of whether or not I’m the Avatar, now
people think I murdered him to inherit his wealth.”
Jinpa could only raise his arms in helplessness. “It is unusual
that he was with you in Qinchao instead of his home so soon after
the poisoning.”
The other members of the Flying Opera Company would have
found it funny. At least getting bequeathed the mansion didn’t
violate the daofei oaths she’d taken. She had every intention of
keeping to the same Code as her sworn family members, living and
dead.
She went silent as they resumed their walk. It was said that
each Avatar was born in fitting times, to an era that needed them.
Judging by its start, the era of Kyoshi would be marred by
uncertainty, fear, and death, the only gifts she seemed capable of
producing for the world. The people would never revere her like
they did Yangchen or smile at her like they did Kuruk.
Then let it be so, she thought. She would fight her ill fortune,
her bad stars, and protect those who might despise her to the very
end of her days.

They reached her quarters. Kyoshi had told the monks she’d be
perfectly fine sleeping in the same plain cells as the rest of the
pilgrims, but they’d insisted on giving her the room reserved for the
Avatar’s current incarnation. It was more of a vast hall by her
standards. Orange columns held the ceiling up, giving it the
impression of an indoor grove, and the dark wooden floor was
carpeted with fine bison wool, naturally shed and woven into
patterns of Air Nomad whorls. There were stations for meditative
exercises, including a reflective pool and a blank stone surface
surrounded by vials of colored sand.
“Is there anything else you need right now, Avatar Kyoshi?”
Jinpa asked.
As a matter of fact, there was. “I noticed Master Kelsang’s
name in various registers around the temple,” she said. “But in a
lower place of honor than his experience would suggest.”
“Ah, apologies, Avatar, but that’s an issue of Air Nomad
practices. You see, it’s customary to maintain a level of separation
between those who’ve taken a life, directly or indirectly, and those
who have remained spiritually pure. It applies to names and records
as well.”
So it was a matter of Kelsang being unclean. That was how the
Air Nomads had interpreted his efforts to save coastal villagers from
the depredations of pirates. She wondered where her mother’s name
would be in the Eastern Air Temple. Perhaps buried in the ground
with the refuse.
She looked at Jinpa’s round, innocent expression. Her exploits
at Zigan hadn’t reached here yet. She thought about how fully in
control she’d been when she let Xu fall.
“I’d like Master Kelsang’s name restored to its regular
esteemed status,” Kyoshi said. The casual imperiousness came so
easy to her. She hated every inch it pushed her toward behaving like
Jianzhu. But it was such an effective tool in her arsenal, enhanced by
her dreadful reputation.
 “The council of elders won’t be pleased,” Jinpa said, hoping
that she’d back down.
“But I would be,” Kyoshi replied. “In fact, a statue would be
nice.”
He was young and savvy enough to understand the level she
was operating at. He chuckled in resignation. “As you wish, Avatar
Kyoshi. And if you have further requests, let me know. It’s the least
my compatriots and I can do after failing to come to your assistance
for so long. We were unfortunately in the dark, along with the rest of
the world.”
Kyoshi tilted her head. “The Air Nomads weren’t to blame for
my troubles.”
“I’m, um, referring to a different ‘we.’” Jinpa scratched the
back of his neck. “Do you play Pai Sho, by any chance?”
Kyoshi frowned at his cryptic statement and sudden tangent. “I
do not,” she said. “I have no taste for the game.”
Jinpa took her declaration as the signal to leave. He bowed and
left her to her solitude.
Kyoshi sighed deeply and walked over to the reflective pool,
where a cushion lay at the head. She sat down in the pose Lao Ge
had taught her and closed her eyes halfway, her lashes forming a
curtain over her view. She’d spent much of her time at the Air
Temple meditating in this spot.
It seemed wrong to call it her favorite place. “The only one
where she could be at relative peace” was more apt. No one had
warned her how empty it would feel to have a singular goal and see
it achieved. Yun’s reappearance, his assistance, his new and utter
contempt for innocent life, gnawed at her edges and kept her from
sleeping.
It was cooler by the edge of the pool than the rest of the room.
She knew it was from the evaporation, but today there was a
downright chill. Her skin prickled with goosebumps and she
shivered.
“Kyoshi,” she heard a man say.
Her eyes flew open. Where she should have seen her reflection
in the water, she saw a changing outline, still of a person, but
rippling between dozens of shapes, as if she’d dashed the surface of
the pool.
 “Kyoshi,” she heard the voice say again.
A gust of wind sent her hair flying. A shroud of mist rose from
the pool. She blinked, and there was a man sitting on top of the
water, facing her, mirroring her pose.
He was in his thirties and ruggedly handsome. He wore the
regalia of a great Water Tribe chieftain, his dark blue furs offsetting
the paleness of his eyes. His body was adorned with the trophies of a
mighty hunter, the sharp teeth of beasts laced around his neck and
wrists.
“Kyoshi, I need your help,” he pleaded.
She stared at the spirit of the man whom she knew was dead.
The man who’d been Jianzhu and Hei-Ran and Kelsang’s friend.
The man who’d been her predecessor in the Avatar cycle.
“Kuruk?”
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
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 Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword
The Test
Nine Years Later
The Boy From Makapu
Honest Work
Revelations
Promises
The Iceberg
The Fracture
Desperate Measures
The Spirit
The Inheritance
The Decision
Adaptation
The Introduction
Escape
The Agreement
Obligations
The Town
The Beast
The Avatar’s Masters
Preparations
Conclusions
Questions and Meditations
The Face of Tradition
The Raid
The Challenge
Dues
Memories
The Ambush
Farewells
The Return
Hauntings