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Hei-Ran’s lips flattened into a line. Kyoshi knew that this was as close to a grin of outright approval as the woman ever gave. They gazed at each other in mutual accord.
The silence was broken by someone accidentally jostling Kyoshi’s elbow. “I couldn’t remember if you liked plum wine or sorghum liquor,” a short, plump woman in blue robes said to Hei-Ran in a loud, piercing voice. She wielded a glass in each hand, threateni
ng to spill the different-colored contents. “So I got both.”
Rangi caught up like she’d been chasing the Water Tribe woman through the crowd instead of retrieving her. “Kyoshi, this is Sifu Atuat,” she said. “Sifu Atuat is the greatest of the Northern healers. She personally saw to my mother’s recovery. We invited her as our honored guest in thanks. While she’s here, she’s part of our family.”
Hei-Ran pushed the proffered glasses away from her face. “And I’m still your patient, Atuat. I shouldn’t be drinking. The other doctors said it would set back my recovery.”
“The other doctors are cowards,” Atuat said. “If your innards start failing, I can simply bring you back to life like I did before.”
She turned to Kyoshi, acknowledging the Avatar for the first time. “I’m that skilled,” she said solemnly. It was a matter of grave importance that Kyoshi understand the facts. “When the headmistress here arrived at my hospital, she was basically a corpse wrapped in a red shroud. To save her I picked the pocket of Death itself.”
Kyoshi had to check that the good doctor wasn’t already drunk. She wasn’t. She was just . . . that way. “You must be one of the finest benders in the world then, regardless of element.”
Atuat held up a finger while draining one of the glasses she’d brought for Hei-Ran. “I am,” she said once she’d finished it. “You know how women in Agna Qel’a aren’t allowed to learn the fighting forms of waterbending?”
Kyoshi did not know that about the Northern Water Tribe capital, but no matter; Atuat was going to elaborate anyway. “I say it’s the men who aren’t allowed to learn healing from me. Any idiot can punch someone with water. I punch dying people’s energy pathways with water such that they live for another handful of decades.”
Hei-Ran rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter her,” she said to Kyoshi, with the candor that one could only have when talking about a friend. “Atuat is arrogant enough without praise from the Avatar.”
This was astonishing. The former headmistress of the Royal Academy and the mother of Rangi calling someone else arrogant. Kyoshi looked closer at the woman who warranted such a description. Atuat was a little younger than Hei-Ran and resembled Auntie Mui from the neck down, but there was an edge to her face and light blue eyes that Kyoshi found familiar.
Rangi noticed her trying to place it. “Sifu Atuat is Master Amak’s sister,” she explained.
So that was it. Kyoshi’s spirits sank. She hadn’t been the slightest bit close to the mysterious, disreputable waterbending master, but she’d been there when he died, stabbed through the back by Tagaka the pirate queen’s waterbending. With so much blood staining her past, maybe Kyoshi really was as cursed as parts of the Earth Kingdom claimed. “I’m very sorry about your brother,” she said.
Atuat sighed. “Thank you. Amak was never going to have a peaceful end, to put it mildly. But he died protecting people. That’s far more honorable than what he was doing before.”
Hei-Ran looked like she wanted to change the subject of Master Amak. “Where’s this Airbender friend of yours?” she asked Kyoshi and Rangi. “I should meet him.”
Kyoshi craned her neck, trying to see where they’d left Jinpa. His crowd was even bigger now, making a circle around him. The monk concentrated as he spread his arms wide, performing an airbending feat passed down through the Southern Temple that levitated him a few inches off the ground without causing a storm in the vicinity. Kyoshi had once involuntarily lifted herself with a larger version while in the Avatar State, but she couldn’t do it under normal circumstances.
Jinpa said the party trick had supposedly been invented by Kuruk. It took a lot of skill and had no practical use, so Kyoshi believed it. As he drifted back to the floor, his audience of nobles clapped for the feat in the exact same manner as they’d done for the riotous music performance.
Kyoshi realized that Jinpa was enjoying himself, showing off for others. He hadn’t had a real break the entire time he’d been serving her. “Would anyone like to try?” he said, indicating he could lift a willing volunteer.
“Me!” Atuat roared across the party. She hiked up her skirt so she wouldn’t trip and marched off with haste toward the Air Nomad.
Hei-Ran pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture of frustration she shared with Rangi. “I swear, it’s like having a sister with no impulse control,” she muttered. She limped after her own doctor, forgetting to say goodbye to her daughter and the Avatar.
The shocking lapse of manners from the headmistress warmed Kyoshi’s heart. She liked Sifu Atuat, and her effect on Hei-Ran.
Rangi appeared to share the sentiment. “Sometimes I think making a friend cured her more than anything else,” she said.
“Does she know about us?”
“Of course. Wasn’t that what the two of you were talking about by yourselves? Her giving you the whole You better treat my daughter right or else speech?”
Kyoshi supposed that had been a part of the conversation, in a roundabout way. She decided not to mention the particulars.
“Avatar Kyoshi,” said a deep, confident voice behind her.
She turned around to see a young man swathed in regal gold and black. His hair was pulled back tight, making his large forehead more prominent, and his sharp chin was clean-shaven.
Finally. She arranged her features in a welcoming expression that hopefully conveyed the right amount of respect for a foreign head of state. This was the introduction she had to make herself, without help.
“Fire Lord,” she said. “Thank you for your gracious hospitality.” While she was getting ready, she’d practiced over and over what she would say. From the way the crowd hushed, she could tell many eyes were watching her. “I have not been in the Fire Nation long, but already I have been awestruck several times by the natural splendor of your country, and especially the skill of its craftsmen.”
