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“Trade secrets of the royalty,” he said. “Master Jianzhu and Yun themselves advised me on how to restart the program, back before I knew you existed. They advocated the usefulness of having a decoy for Yun. Apparently, the practice is good for making speeches and foiling assassins.”
Zoryu chuckled to himself at the irony. “People aren’t as unique as they believe themselves to be and the Fire Nation is a populous country. You should check with the Earth King; you’d be surprised who he has copies of lying around.”
He eyed her up and down. “I don’t think anyone could find your like, so worry not. There will only ever be one Avatar Kyoshi.”
It might have been one too many. “What will happen to the Saowon?”
“I will round up and arrest the ones here in the capital. The other clans will do the same across their home islands, on behalf of the Fire Lord. And then I’ll have them killed.”
Without pausing to consider the weight of what he said, he gestured at the map on the table. “As for Ma’inka itself, I believe the Saowon there will retreat to their mountain forts, at which point there’ll be a lengthy siege. Sieges are always unpleasant affairs, but they don’t have to be bloody. With the rest of the country’s noble houses united behind me, I’ll be able to starve the Saowon out. Or to death.”
An entire clan of the Fire Nation wiped off the face of the earth. As simple as that. He walked out from around the table and rapped it once with his knuckles. “It’s better than what would have happened otherwise. By my best guess, three-fifths of the clans would have joined the Saowon and turned on me, had things continued the way they were headed. It would have been open war across the entire Fire Nation.”
Instead of resigning to a grinding conflict of attrition, Zoryu had isolated his enemies, branded them as criminals, and trapped them on a single island. He’d played his tiles masterfully. But there was still a critical flaw in his operation.
“If the real Yun shows up again, your ruse will be exposed,” she said. “Everything would fall apart.”
“Oh, I know. The Fire Nation would tear itself apart in the chaos and confusion. All I’ve really done is buy you more time to find him.”
The first time Zoryu had explained to her the precipice the Fire Nation balanced on, it had been a cry for help. Now, repeated here, it was an ultimatum. “You’re not done assisting me, Kyoshi,” he said softly. “You don’t want my nation to suffer any more than I do. You and I are still in this together.”
A ruler holding his own country hostage. She had been so worried about turning into Jianzhu, as if the Earth Sage had been a special breed of monster threatening to be reborn through her and only her. How laughable a notion. The fact of the matter was the world grew Jianzhus by the bushel. They sprouted from the soil and multiplied from the seas. People sought to emulate Jianzhu with every fiber of their being.
Kyoshi had forgotten her daofei oaths. Becoming the lackey of a crown was a violation punishable by many knives. For bending to Zoryu’s will, she would be ripped apart by thunderbolts.
The best she could do in her defeat was to save as many lives as possible. “I want clemency for the Saowon, if I’m to help you.”
“Why should I give it? Even if they weren’t collaborating with Yun, they were undermining my authority. Do you think if they succeeded in taking the throne, Chaejin would have sent me gently into exile?”
Kyoshi thought of a phrase her friend Wong had told her, back in her Flying Opera Company days. A fight is over only when the winner says it’s over. She had to make sure Zoryu didn’t commit an atrocity in celebration of his victory.
“Punish them in accordance for their tricks, but not for an act of treason they didn’t commit. There will be no wholesale massacre.”
“I’ll look weak.”
“Good thing you’re a savvy politician capable of crafting his image into whatever suits his needs.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “As long as you’re asking for the impossible, do you have any more demands?”
“I do. Yun’s decoy. I want him sent home alive, and rewarded for his troubles.”
Zoryu swelled with resistance. This was a bigger issue for him than the fate of his rivals. “No. I have to hold an execution. I need a body or else the honor of the entire Fire Nation goes unsatisfied. I’ve heard the stories about you, Kyoshi, and I know the things you’ve seen. What do you care if a single peasant lives or dies?”
She crossed the distance between them and thrust a closed fan under his chin, stopping short of his throat.
“I care more for his life than I do for yours right now,” she said, examining the growing whites of Zoryu’s eyes. “Let me make myself perfectly clear. You live on top of what I control. Your islands are surrounded
by my waves. You fill your very lungs at my discretion. So if I hear any news about ‘Yun’ being executed, you will truly learn what it’s like when the spirits forsake you in the face of the elements.”
Zoryu cowered before her sudden onslaught. They always did. For a brief moment the Fire Lord knew what it was like to be truly helpless.
But unlike so many daofei and Triads before him, he found the strength of his title at his back. He was the ruler of the Fire Nation, and Kyoshi was the Avatar. She had her own image, as poor as it was, to think about. Slowly but surely, Zoryu grinned at her bluff.
He did her the favor of not saying out loud how badly she’d overplayed her situation. Instead he took on an air of pity. “Let me give you a bit of advice for when you next see Yun,” he said. “I’ve thought a great deal about this, ever since he first showed up, and I think I know why you’ve been having so much trouble against him. You don’t understand his feelings.”
She pressed the fan deeper into the underside of Zoryu’s jaw, but he didn’t flinch. “Yun hates us,” Zoryu said. “Everything he’s done so far is because he hates us. You, me, the lieutenant.”
“That’s not true,” Kyoshi snarled. “We were his friends. He’s been acting out of vengeance. He said so.”
