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But she knew someone who could do just that.
“Yun is working on behalf of the Saowon,” Kyoshi said. “They’ve been abetting him in the Fire Nation in return for his service.”
Hei-Ran frowned. What makes you say that? she wrote on her newly cleaned slate.
“Everything he’s done has strengthened the Saowon’s position and weakened Zoryu’s. He humiliated the Fire Lord at the party. He created the message in the hillside.” How could she have not realized this earlier? Yun may have been trained as a killer, but his specialty was cutting deals. Making sure both parties got what they wanted. The Saowon would shelter him as he worked toward his revenge, and he would tilt the Fire Nation’s politics in their favor by sowing chaos.
I don’t follow you on the crop writing. But if it turned out you were correct then—
Hei-Ran ran out of room on the slate board and tossed it to the side. She shifted in her bed so she could start writing on the wall.
—Chaejin and Huazo have been acting dishonorably this whole time. A link between the Saowon and Yun would turn them from a clan striving for the throne into a conspiracy of traitors. They’d have to submit to justice if they were found out. The other clans respect strength and cunning but they couldn’t possibly forgive inviting a foreign attack on the Fire Nation.
Kyoshi looked at Hei-Ran’s cropped hair with new admiration for the woman’s sacrifice and iron composure under Huazo’s insulting touch. If honor was the reason quoted for bloodshed, conflict could be avoided by stripping it away entirely.
“Right now, it’s only a hunch,” Kyoshi said. “I have to follow up on a few things to confirm it.” She turned to leave, but her path was blocked by Rangi storming back into the room.
Rangi glowered viciously at Kyoshi and pushed a steaming hot bowl into her hands. It was filled with plain yellow noodles.
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon!” she screamed. She hurled a pair of chopsticks on the floor and left as abruptly as she’d entered.
Kyoshi stared at the bowl. There hadn’t been any fuel in the kitchen, which meant Rangi must have cooked it with her own firebending. She looked up to see Hei-Ran with an expression that almost crossed the line into smugness.
See? Even faster than I thought. You mean everything to her, Kyoshi.
She was running her chalk down to the nub. My daughter loves you. Which means you are also my daughter. For better or worse, you are a part of our family.
Hei-Ran smiled. Now go on, before your food gets cold. You need your strength.
Kyoshi bent her trembling knees and picked up the chopsticks, not caring they’d been on the floor. The noodles were unflavored, boiled from dry, and so overly alkaline they still smelled of lye.
They were the best thing she’d ever tasted. Tears ran down Kyoshi’s face as she ate her meal, Hei-Ran watching to make sure she finished.
ESCALATION
“Bring us down,” Kyoshi said. It was just her and Jinpa right now.
“Where?” he said. “By the Hail Fire—or the—Lord Chaejin?”
“Anywhere!”
Yingyong swooped lower onto the diseased melonyam crop and landed by the left “arm” of the character for fire. The writing was detailed enough that once they dismounted, they could walk between the gaps of the strokes. Yingyong immediately set to rooting through the ground with his nose.
“Boy!” Jinpa scolded. “Don’t! Those aren’t yours!”
Most people would have assumed the bison would go after the sweet tubers of the healthy plants, but the bison spent his time lapping at the soil itself, aiming his giant tongue under the withering, yellowing melonyams.
“Hey!” Jinpa tugged on his fur. “You’ll make yourself sick!”
Yingyong’s behavior added to Kyoshi’s suspicion. She found a patch of earth he hadn’t licked yet and crouched down. Above her head was a sickly plant. She made a face, knowing she was about to live up to an insult that foreigners sometimes hurled at Earth Kingdom natives. She picked up a clod of soil and popped it into her mouth.
“Kyoshi, are you eating dirt?” Jinpa said.
She wasn’t eating it, was merely tasting it. A crude but effective technique poor farmers like the ones in Yokoya sometimes used to diagnose their field conditions. Kyoshi turned around to face him and spat her mouthful of grit to the side.
“It’s salty,” she said. “This field’s been poisoned with salt.”
Kyoshi wiped her tongue on her sleeve and spat again. “Yun bent a message into the soil to kill the plants above it. Huazo supplied the materials. She bought out the local salt-making business just recently.”
