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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.
