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Kyoshi and Nyahitha ran down the mountain as fast as his old bones would let them. Which, in his panic, was surprisingly fast.
“The spirits speak in subtle ways, do they?” she yelled at him. She skidded over a patch of wet rock, nearly turning her ankles. What she would have given for the hidden forces behind the movement of the world to stay hidden in her life.
“This isn’t a spiritual message! It’s a declaration of war! If either the Saowon or the Keohso see this, North Chung-Ling will drown in blood!”
He was right. Chaejin had been working the angle of being favored by entities beyond the physical realm. The sudden, inexplicable appearance of this message overnight would infuriate Zoryu’s supporters and embolden his own. If a single misplaced banner could cause a fight to break out, a provocation of this size could be the prelude to a full-blown riot.
It didn’t make sense why spirits would care which brother sat on the throne. Did Chaejin’s training at the High Temple earn him some kind of goodwill with the islands themselves? Had he struck some kind of supernatural bargain? Despite the visions she’d had, the foe she was trying to rescue Yun from, she couldn’t bring herself to believe the spirits would scrawl someone’s name into the landscape like a vandal. And it didn’t seem like Nyahitha did either.
It occurred to her she had no way of undoing the message. Not unless she was willing and capable of destroying the entire hillside or setting the last remaining crops of a hungry village ablaze. She could see Chaejin’s smug grin, taunting her as she ran. The Avatar can’t fight history.
She and Nyahitha were only hurrying toward the inevitable. By the time they reached the village center, astonished people were already stumbling out of their homes to stare at the giant writing.
Nyahitha came to a stop and doubled over, his hands on his knees. “We’re too late,” he said over his heaving gasps for breath. Inhaling so much gas could not have been good for his endurance.
“Find my friends and tell them what happened.” The Avatar was going to be needed here in the middle of North Chung-Ling. The Saowon and Keohso clansmen were beginning to gather in force.
From one side of the square, Sanshur and a very large group of toughs filed in. These were battle-scarred men Kyoshi hadn’t seen before at the fair, or around town. Based on the way they carried themselves, she guessed they were seasoned fighters and guardsmen that must have come from other settlements on Shuhon Island. After seeing Huazo arrive yesterday, Sanshur had called for backup from his clan.
The Saowon contingent packed the opposite end, basking in what the dawn had brought. The men behind Huazo and Koulin laughed and cheered for the ostensible will of the spirits. It was too early for anyone to have put on armor, so they were dressed in wide-sleeved cotton summer robes printed with bright red and white stone camellias. The disparity between the Saowon’s crisp, boldly dyed fabrics and the faded, tattered rags
of the Keohso locals made the choice of clothing look more like mockery than fitting in.
“Sanshur!” Huazo called out. For a delicate-looking person, she had a powerful voice when she needed it. “Look at what the spirits have wrought!”
“Spirits nothing!” Sanshur screamed, his face as scarlet as Huazo’s outer jacket. “Mark my words; this is Saowon treachery and naught else!” His outrage couldn’t hide the fact that he was speaking for the benefit of the villagers who weren’t die-hard Keohso loyalists. He was deathly afraid of the stain this message would leave on his clan.
Men who were fearful for their image tended to act rashly, and in this regard Sanshur was no different than the boy in Loongkau who’d attacked Kyoshi with a rusty dao. At his signal the Keohso battle line began edging forward.
Huazo wasn’t fazed. The smirk she shared with her niece said she wanted this clash just as much as Sanshur. “Why don’t we ask the Avatar how to interpret these symbols? She’s right over there. Avatar Kyoshi! You can read, can you not? How should we interpret this miracle? Do you think our dear, departed Lord Chaeryu might be speaking to us from the great beyond?”
Kyoshi tried to come up with a relevant answer that would both make her sound like a spiritual authority and change the direction this encounter was heading, but there was nothing she could say as loudly as an entire hillside. She ran into the middle of the shrinking space between the two clans.
“Stand down, all of you!” she shouted. Kuruk’s memories had been a stage play, but here she was the actor now, not the audience. And a bad performance could lead to a national disaster. “I want everyone to go back to their rooms immediately!”
“Right, because there’s nothing to see here!” a Saowon man hooted.
“Get out of the way, Avatar!” Sanshur yelled. “This isn’t a foreigner’s business! Insults and perfidy of this size need to be answered, holy day or not!”
The taboo against Agni Kais during the festival was working against her. Another time of the year, the clans could have satisfied their honor through the firebending duel. Without the release the ritual provided, the situation was dissolving into something more dangerous and unknowable.
Huazo stood fast. Her men streamed past her like river water around a stone. Koulin marched at their head, the older Saowon warriors confident in her as the point of their spear.
Kyoshi heard footsteps rushing at her from behind. It was Rangi. Without so much as a nod, her bodyguard stepped neatly in to cover her flank, fitting to the Avatar as closely as a hilt to a blade. She looked haggard and exhausted, like she’d spent all night awake worrying about Kyoshi’s spiritual trials. But she was here, thank the stars. Now, together, they stood a chance at keeping the peace.
The two clans closed in, catching them between the jaws of a vise. “Listen to the Avatar!” Rangi shouted at the Keohso. As a member of the Fire Nation and a neutral clan, hopefully she could arbitrate successfully. “Kyoshi is the highest-ranking Firebender present, peer to the crown, and the final word when it comes to the spirits! You are beholden to her as much as you would be to Szeto himself!”
She turned to address the Saowon and her former classmate. “Koulin,” Rangi pleaded quietly. “Help us stop this. You don’t need to bear your aunt’s grudges for her. I’m begging you.”
Koulin raised a hand, halting the Saowon advance. She came closer, alone. She paused in front of Kyoshi and Rangi, and gave them a warm, thoughtful smile.
“Oh, Rangi,” she said. “My dear friend.”
She lowered her voice so only Kyoshi and Rangi could hear. Koulin’s pleasant, pretty features twisted into a disdain so deep it cast grooves over her face. “Of course the daughter of a shorn, honorless animal would resort to begging,” she whispered, with the deliberate intent of an assassin.
Rangi blinked. She nodded. Then, before Kyoshi could stop her, she struck Koulin across the jaw.
The Saowon had found their excuse in Rangi’s attack. The Keohso took it as an example to follow. All around Kyoshi, the rival clan members roared and charged each other.
