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“Fire Lord, may I speak to your brother alone?” she asked. She’d only just arrived, but it was clear she wasn’t going to get anything useful from Zoryu right now. His head bobbed in an indiscernible direction.
“Zoooryuuu,” Chaejin crooned, like he was singing his younger brother to sleep. “May we be dismissed?”
A feeble wave. Good enough. Kyoshi slipped through the heavy doors and Chaejin joined her outside.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Chaejin said. He looked down the long hallway to confirm it was empty. “My little brother’s not the best under pressure.”
Kyoshi examined his face. “I still can’t get over how much the two of you look alike for not being from the same mother.”
“I’ve been told I could serve as his political decoy. We still have those here in the Fire Nation, you know. The Fire Army keeps tabs on random villagers who resemble important figures. I don’t think any of them have been pulled into service in the last century though.”
“Zoryu has not impressed me so far,” Kyoshi said. “Maybe he should be your decoy instead of you his.”
Chaejin’s brow lifted at the implication. “In truth, I fear for him,” he said carefully. “If he can’t bring the perpetrator to justice swiftly, the clans will no longer consider him fit to be Fire Lord.”
“What would happen then?”
“He’d be replaced.” Chaejin paused to gauge her reaction before continuing. “I have no idea with whom, mind you. But no Fire Lord in history has ever left the throne and lived very long afterward.”
Kyoshi nodded slowly. “Who’s to say that wouldn’t be for the best? No one wants loose ends lying around. A single, unopposed, popular ruler would be much better for the Fire Nation.” She leaned in and whispered into his ear. “I know what I said at the party, but really, the Avatar works with whoever wears the crown. It doesn’t have to be a weakling like Zoryu.”
Chaejin grinned. “It sounds like I can count on your backing should the worst come to pass.”
It did sound like that. “Answer me this,” Kyoshi said. “Once you’re Fire Lord, what will you do about your country’s fortunes?”
His smile faltered. “I’m sorry?”
“What will you do? You told me yourself how much trouble the Fire Nation is in. What actions will you take to help your people?”
Chaejin shrugged. “I’ll think of something. I’m sure once a real ruler sits upon the throne, our people’s problems will resolve themselves.”
“I see. So, you’ll be better than your brother, and the natural order of things will be restored on their own.”
“Yes, exactly!” He delighted in her understanding. “Avatar, I am correcting a mistake. This country is mine by rights, no matter what my father twisted the law into declaring. I will get what is owed to me, and if a little blood must flow, then so be . . . it . . .”
The remnants of Chaejin’s grin melted away. His eyes narrowed. “Avatar, are you playing me right now?”
“Playing? No. I was forming an opinion.” The court intrigue of the Fire Nation might have been too complex for her to navigate perfectly, but judging character was simpler. In Chaejin she saw a man who wanted power for its own sake and was willing to burn his own country to get it. How utterly familiar.
You know what to do with such men, cackled Lao Ge. It upset her to no end that she could imagine his whispers better than she could hear the voices of her previous lives.
She wasn’t going to weed out a dignitary of a foreign nation like her former sifu might have wanted. But she was going to do everything in her power to prevent an entitled, shortsighted man from instigating a civil war for his own benefit. It was her duty as the Avatar.
Chaejin sensed her resolve hardening, which side she was coming down on. “Nothing I’ve said to you will hold up at court, or in court. Report me and it would be your word against mine. You’re the Avatar, but you’re an outsider.”
“I know. I’ll get more on you eventually.”
He frowned at her directness. “Mark my words, the attack upon the palace will lead to Zoryu’s downfall if it goes unanswered. Support my brother if you must. It will only delay the inevitable. Not even the Avatar can fight history.”
Kyoshi turned and walked down the hall. “We have a saying in the Fire Nation,” Chaejin called after her. “Dishonor is like a bird in flight. It has to land somewhere.”
It was as she expected then. Peace in the Fire Nation, protecting Hei-Ran, all of it pivoted around a single axis.
Yun.
THE RITUAL
Kyoshi drifted on her great raft of a bed in the red ocean of the Avatar’s quarters. She couldn’t tell how many times she’d been woken up throughout the night by her dreams. Each time her eyes opened, she would stare up at the painted ceiling, her mind racing until her vision blurred into the patterns of swirling crimson.
