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The sound of sniffling gave away Rangi’s location. She found her by Yingyong’s second and third right legs, sitting on the hay-strewn floor, tucked into a ball. Kyoshi’s instincts were to lean down and wrap the smaller girl in her arms.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” The kind of sharpness in Rangi’s tone was rarely ever aimed at Kyoshi, but now it was out in full force.
“Who? Jianzhu?”
“Yun!” Rangi looked up, her eyes red. “I saw how close you got to him at the party and you did nothing!”
Kyoshi knew she was only lashing out from anger, but it still wasn’t a fair hit. “Nothing!? He was standing in the middle of a crowd of hostages!”
“So you waved your fans at him; good try! You’re the Avatar, Kyoshi! Did it ever occur to you to try bending? You had so many chances to drop him by force and you didn’t take them!”
“I—” She had no response for why she didn’t try fighting Yun with water or air. Hurting him with the elements, like she’d reflexively done to so many daofei and hatchet men, hadn’t occurred to her. Looking back on it, even her strokes with her fans had been slow and hesitant.
The shame inside Kyoshi twisted into something hurtful. “What should I have done then? Kill him in cold blood like I did Xu Ping An? Put him down like a rabid animal? He’s our friend!”
“Well, I’m glad you still have room to debate!” Rangi shouted. “I no longer get to decide how I feel about Yun! He took that choice away from me! What if he hurts you, Kyoshi? What if he attacks us again and you hesitate and he hurts you?”
Kyoshi punched the wall over Rangi’s head. “He wouldn’t!”
Dust trickled from the ceiling, catching the rays of the sun peeking into the stable. From where she sat, Rangi’s voice turned smaller and younger. “You have a hole in your robes that says otherwise. If I had convinced you not to wear your armor, we’d be in a very different place right now. You’d be seriously injured or worse, and it would have been my fault.” She lowered her eyes and curled her knees closer. “I couldn’t live with that, any more than I could live with losing my mother again. I just got the two of you back.”
Kyoshi slumped to the ground beside her. “Rangi, I swear to you, I will do what it takes with Yun. I won’t let him harm anyone else, especially not your mother.”
Rangi examined every inch of Kyoshi’s face, looking for sincerity. She wiped the growing wetness from her own eyes before it became tears.
“When she opened her eyes in Atuat’s hospital, I started to hope the past was done with us,” Rangi said. “I thought we could begin moving forward, like how the traditional Avatar calendar counts the days. Did you know it’s technically the six thousand four hundred fifty-fourth day of the Era of Kyoshi?”
Counting the days by where they fell in an Avatar’s life was a formal and archaic method of timekeeping. It was mostly used by historians or trotted out during certain spiritual ceremonies.
“It doesn’t feel like it,” Kyoshi muttered. It didn’t seem like her Avatarhood had ever legitimately begun. They sat there for a long time, saying nothing. Wishing things were different.
Kyoshi broke the silence. “You threw a table off the balcony.”
Rangi laughed, a strangled noise of release. “I am in so much trouble. I could have killed someone. In the royal palace no less. What if the Fire Lord had been walking underneath us?”
“I no longer hold the title for worst breach of manners in the Four Nations,” Kyoshi said. “And I am never, ever going to let you forget it.”
Rangi reached over and took her hand. Red scars traveled down Kyoshi’s wrist in wavy, branching patterns like the veins of a palm frond, a token from when she’d fought the lightning.
“For as long as you live?” Rangi asked solemnly.
Kyoshi smiled and nodded. “For as long as I live.”
Rangi pressed her lips to the healed skin on Kyoshi’s knuckles. The kiss sealed a promise to always give each other a hard time for the rest of their days. If Kyoshi held any longing for the past, it was for those simpler moments when she was Rangi’s greatest and only headache.
“Avatar, Lieutenant, are you in there?” Zoryu called from outside. “I request your presence regarding a certain matter.”
Rangi’s head shot up from Kyoshi’s shoulder. They looked at each other with growing panic. Maybe it had been a historically important table.
They sidled past Yingyong out of the pen. The attendants had been dismissed. The Fire Lord waited for them, wearing a lighter, morning-dress version of his robes. Kyoshi wondered if it took as long for him to put on his clothes as it did for her to don her chainmail.
“I didn’t acquit myself well last night, immediately after the incident,” Zoryu said to her. He fought the urge to look at the curling, pointed toes of his shoes instead of maintaining eye contact. “I should have taken command of the situation. I should have been the one talking to you instead of Chaejin. I swear, when it comes to my brother, I feel like my wits leave me. Certain people . . . they turn you into who you were before.”
Zoryu had his flaws, but he was a ruler who cared about his nation. With Kyoshi’s help he could grow into his crown. “You don’t need to apologize,” she said.
“Good, because apparently strong Fire Lords aren’t allowed to.” He sighed. “I’ve been speaking with my advisors and the situation remains dire. The only chance I have of keeping the court from turning on me is apprehending Yun.”
“Then we want the same thing,” Kyoshi said. “I will find him for the both of us.”
