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Rangi stepped in to ease the awkwardness. “I believe the first item on the agenda is the palace tour, Chancellor,” she said. “Kyoshi has been telling me nonstop how she’s been looking forward to learning more from one of the world’s foremost Avatar scholars.”
The flattery was like sticking candy in the mouth of an angry child. Dairin couldn’t show how pleased he was for fear of looking silly. “Of course,” he said, frowning harder with all his might. “I assure you it is very long and comprehensive. This way inside, please.”
Kyoshi and the others padded solemnly down the corridors of power as her predecessors had done since the unification of the Fire Islands. The great halls of the palace were empty in a way that could only be achieved by the household staff watching them, moving out of their path, guards and servants shuffling behind corners so as not to offend the Avatar’s sight with their presence. Kyoshi knew this trick very well. It gave the illusion of calm and solitude when maintenance of such a great manor required the chaos and numbers of an army.
As they walked, pretending they were alone, Dairin pointed out works of Fire Avatar poetry and policy on scrolls preserved in boxes of clear crystal. Kyoshi nodded appropriately at jewels and gilded hairpins worn in her past lives, tucked into alcoves for display.
No toys, she noted. But plenty of jians, daos, engraved daggers. The relics of each nation had their own personalities, and Fire and Air couldn’t be more different.
Jinpa asked Dairin questions and begged for elaborations on the answers like an eager student, the two of them slightly outpacing Kyoshi and Rangi. The furtive wink he gave Kyoshi over his shoulder let her know he was purposely creating an opportunity for the laggards to talk to each other.
Kyoshi really needed to give him a raise. She didn’t pay him anything, the monk serving her out of some self-imposed duty to the Avatar, but he deserved a raise nonetheless. “How is your mother?” Kyoshi whispered to Rangi. The last time she’d seen Hei-Ran, the woman was barely clinging to life.
“Well enough that she wants to speak with you tonight, at your reception,” Rangi said.
As if this visit wasn’t nerve-wracking enough. Still, Hei-Ran being healthy was a blessing. It explained Rangi’s ease, her ability to pick up right where they left off. “So who’s this Dairin person then?” Kyoshi asked. “I thought there was a special Fire Nation minister in charge of handling Avatar relations.”
“There’s supposed to be. I don’t know why Dairin was the only official sent to greet you either. Maybe Lord Zoryu’s having some problems with his staff, but I don’t dare ask. I have some privileges from my connection with you, but really, I’m only a First Lieutenant here in the palace.”
Kyoshi nearly laughed. “Only” a lieutenant, a rank many adults in the Fire Nation strove for and failed to reach. Rangi’s casually overachieving nature was one of the many little things Kyoshi missed about her.
“Tell me about your secretary.” Rangi tilted her head at Jinpa’s back.
What was there to tell? “He’s part of some kind of secret Pai Sho club and he acts the complete opposite of an Air Nomad sometimes. I haven’t figured him out. But he’s been a good—”
“And here we are at the Royal Portrait Gallery,” Dairin said loudly, stopping short.
Kyoshi nearly collided with him and Jinpa. She was steadied by Rangi grabbing the back of her tunic. She could imagine news of the disaster spreading over the Fire Nation, the Avatar bowling over her entire entourage.
The chancellor hadn’t noticed how close he’d come to being trampled. He gazed upward at the walls with sheer pride bursting from his expression. “I could spend days here and never get tired of it,” he said.
His reverence was well-deserved. The portrait hall was one of the most overawing works of man-made craft that Kyoshi had ever seen. Paintings of the Fire Lords adorned one side, reaching from floor to ceiling, triple the size of their real-life subjects. Cloaked in red and black with halos of gold behind them, the rulers of the Fire Nation looked down at their audience like a race of giants.
Even a first-time visitor like Kyoshi could tell that these were works of art that took years, careers, to finish. The late Fire Lord Chaeryu’s portrait, the most recent entry into the gallery, wasn’t complete. Stencils where gold inlay and orange hues had yet to be filled in spread across the background near his feet.
Rangi nudged her to look at the other side of the gallery. Opposite the Fire Lords stood the Fire Avatars, painted in matching size and grandeur, equally breathtaking in artistic glory. These portraits were spaced farther apart. Judging by the way there was roughly one Avatar per four Fire Lords, and how the gaps were not perfectly even, Kyoshi guessed that the likenesses of her predecessors formed a timeline that stretched down the hall.
The viewing party stopped at Avatar Szeto, depicted in his trademark tall minister’s hat. Where most of the other figures held a ball of fire in one hand, Avatars and Fire Lords alike, Szeto hefted an abacus, rendered with as much loving detail as any of the illustrated flames or weapons wielded by his compatriots. Each bead of the counting instrument was set with real pearl, and they were racked to a calculation that ended in an auspicious number.
In his other hand he wielded a stamp made gigantic for artistic license. It was unlikely that the real item would have been so large or carved from solid cinnabar like it was shown in the painting. Szeto would have blanked out whatever was written on the paper he was trying to approve.
“Here we have the namesake of our festival,” Dairin said. “The Fire Nation owes a great debt to this man.”
“Can you tell me more about Avatar Szeto?” Kyoshi asked. “I’m afraid I don’t know as much about him as I should.”
The chancellor cleared his throat for a long lecture.
“During Szeto’s childhood years, the Fire Nation teetered on the verge of collapse, struck by plague and natural disasters,” he said. “The wrath of the spirits was terrible, and Fire Lord Yosor was in little position to halt the fracturing of the country along the old fault lines of the clans.”
“The clans?” Kyoshi said.
Dairin sighed, realizing he’d have to cover some remedial history as well. “Each noble house of the Fire Nation is descended from one of the old warlords from the period before the country was united. That is why the noble clans retain certain rights such as governance of their home islands and the retention of household troops. During Lord Yosor’s reign, the clans set their warriors against each other, ravaging the countryside in futile bids for power and resources. Many historians, myself included, opine that without Szeto’s intervention, the Fire Islands would have splintered apart, reverting to the dark days of Toz the Cruel and the other preunification warlords who caused so much suffering for our people.”
Kyoshi was surprised at how much this story sounded like the Yellow Neck uprising. From what she always heard as a commoner, the Fire Nation was a model of harmony and effectiveness, the counterpoint to the bickering Earth Kingdom polities. Szeto’s era was not that far away in the distance of history.
She didn’t have to fake her interest or rely on Jinpa for this part of the tour. “What did he do to fix the situation?” she asked.
“He applied for a job,” Dairin said. “Though as the Avatar his material needs would have been met and his decrees heeded, Szeto took a government post as a minister of the royal court, technically subject to the same rules and regulations as any other official. He showed up to work at the Capitol and sat at a desk. Furthermore, he insisted that his career advance at the pace of his achievements rather than leapfrogging his seniors just because he was the Avatar.”
