by F. C. Yee
“O spirits,” Kirima exclaimed, “a lost one comes to us, seeking the embrace of family. But how will we know her heart is true? How will we know that she follows the Code?”
“I shall swear these oaths,” Kyoshi said in response. “I swear to defend my brothers and sisters, and obey the commands of my elders. Their kin will be my kin, their blood my blood. Should I fail to uphold this vow, may I be hacked to death by many knives.”
The words were easy to say. They caused no tugs of conflict on her spirit. Yun and Kelsang had been her lifeblood. She should have defended them with every scrap of her being. They might have lived, had she embraced her power more fully.
“Next,” Kyoshi said, “I swear to follow no ruler and be beholden to no law. Should I become the lackey of any crown or country, may I be ripped apart by thunderbolts.”
As a good citizen of the Earth Kingdom, this line made her a little more nervous. Yun had always said the Avatar had to act independently of the Four Nations. But to disregard law and order entirely felt like an extreme for the sake of extremes. Did her parents walk down the street trying to flaunt every statute and custom they could think of?
“Stop drifting,” Kirima hissed.
Kyoshi coughed and straightened up. “Last, I swear never to make an honest living from those who abide the law. I will take no legitimate wage, and work for no legitimate man. Should I ever accept coin for my labors, may I be sliced to bits by a variety of knives.”
She didn’t see the difference between the first and third punishments. And the last oath was perhaps the one most inimical to her being. Back in Yokoya, a steady job had been the only barrier between her and death.
I’m not that person anymore, Kyoshi reminded herself. That girl is gone and will never come back.
With her third vow, she was done. “I see no stranger before me, but a sister,” Kirima said. “The spirits have borne witness. Let our family prosper in the days to come.” She saluted Kyoshi and stepped back.
A heavy weight slammed down on Kyoshi’s collarbones, and she momentarily panicked, fearing an attack from behind. The sensation was too similar to the rock that Jianzhu had locked around her wrists. But it was just Wong giving her a congratulatory pat on the shoulders.
“Welcome to the other side,” he said, unsmiling. He brushed past her like they’d finished rearranging furniture and joined Kirima in trudging back to the campsite.
Kyoshi blinked. “That’s it? What happens now?”
“What happens is we leave this place on your bison,” Kirima said without looking back at her. “As soon as we can.”
They left her alone with Rangi. Instead of scolding Kyoshi, the Firebender simply gave her a shrug that said, You get what you pay for.
Kirima and Wong were already cleaning up the remnants of camp once they caught up. The big man took special care to cover their footprints, sweeping dust over the signs of their presence with little pivots of earthbending.
“The deal was for lessons,” Kyoshi said.
“And you’ll get them, once we pick up a score,” Kirima said. She checked the level of her water pouch and made a face. “Even little baby vengeance seekers need food and money to survive. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re out of both. I’m not eating elephant rat for two days in a row.”
Kyoshi pulled her lips over her teeth in frustration. They’d touted the seriousness of the oaths so much that she’d thought they’d start treating her like an equal after she took them. Instead they were treating her like Lek.
She had to establish a better position in the hierarchy or else this would go on forever. As Wong reached down to pick up a blanket, she stepped on it, pinning it to the ground.
He stood up and gave her a stare that had probably heralded countless brawls in the past. Kyoshi crossed her arms and met his gaze. He wasn’t more dangerous than Tagaka or Jianzhu.
After trying to deal death through the power of his mind alone, Wong broke the silence. “Keep being a brat, and I’ll never teach you how to use your fans,” he said.
Kyoshi was going to retort out of instinct, but the implication made her pause and step back. She pulled out one of her fans. “You . . . know how to use these?”
They’d been a puzzle so far. Rangi had taken a look at the weapons earlier, tested their balance, and concluded she couldn’t teach Kyoshi much about them, other than using them as short, heavy clubs in their folded state. “They’re not part of the Fire Academy curriculum,” she’d said with a shrug. “Maybe you can sneak them into places you couldn’t take a sword.”
Wong plucked the fan out of Kyoshi’s hand and snapped it open. He tossed it into the air and it spun perfectly around its pivot pin, the leaf tracing circles as it flew. He twirled around himself and caught the fan behind his back before lifting it coquettishly to his face.
“The peony sheds its beauty before the moon,” he sang in a deep, beautiful, vibrant voice, using the surface of the fan to reflect and amplify the sound. “Shamed by the light of a spirit so pure / I leap to catch its petals / and mourn for what I have left unsaid.”
He thrust the fan all around him in a series of flitting gestures, the leaf opening and closing rapidly like the beating of insect wings. It was an expertly performed dance. But Kyoshi knew it could also have been a sequence of attacks, defensive weaving, evasion and retaliation against multiple opponents.
With a flourish, Wong ended the performance in a traditional heroic pose, a deep stance with his arms spread wide, his head intentionally wobbling side to side with the leftover energy from his motions. It was a showcase of classic poetry, older than old school. Auntie Mui would have fainted with delight.
Kyoshi applauded, the only appropriate response to a display of skill that great. “Where did that come from?” she asked.
“Hark. We have a lineage through your father’s side that traces back to one of the Royal Theater schools in Ba Sing Se,” Kirima said. “And we stay sharp enough at performing to have plausible cover in the cities we visit. We’re the Flying Opera Company, after all.”
She raised a leg behind her, over her head, and kept it going until she completed a forward-facing, no-handed cartwheel, a move that elite dancers saved for the climax of their performances. Kirima looked like she could have done her market shopping, traveling that way.
Kyoshi was astonished. That would explain how they were so light on their feet. Royal Theater performers were known to be some of the most physically capable people in the Earth Kingdom, able to mimic dozens of martial styles on the stage and act out dangerous stunts without getting hurt. It made her feel better about the agreement they’d struck. She could get some extra value out of the bargain.
Wong folded the fan and handed it back to her. “I’ll teach you to use this,” he said. “For a fifth of your shares on any future jobs we do.”
“Deal,” Kyoshi said quickly. She didn’t know what shares were, but she would have paid nearly any price to better understand her weapons.
Rangi and Kirima both smacked their hands against their foreheads, but for different reasons. “You could have gotten at least half,” Kirima said to Wong.
Lek popped his head around the side of Pengpeng. “Do you want to get going, or do you want to sit here rubbing each other’s backs all day?” he said.
“Hey, Lek, guess who the newest member of the gang is,” Kirima said. “Official and everything.”
Lek’s eyebrows squeezed together in frustration. “You cannot be serious!” he yelled. He waved his arm at Kyoshi like she was a fake vase they’d brought home. “She doesn’t care about the Code! She’s abider chaff! She’s squarer than the hole in an Earth Kingdom coin!”
“And she has a bison,” Kyoshi snapped. “So unless you like walking, I suggest you deal with me being part of your stupid outlaw family.” If Kirima or Wong took offense to her regression in attitude toward daofei, they didn’t show it.
“I am never calling you kin,” Lek spat. He went back to making final adj
ustments on Pengpeng’s reins. He’d saddled the giant bison by himself—in impressive time too. Neither Kyoshi nor Rangi could find any fault with the work he’d done as they mounted Pengpeng.
Lek took offense at their examination. “I know what I’m doing,” he said. “I probably have more practice than you two.”
“If we’re being perfectly honest, our whole reputation was built on Jesa’s bison,” Kirima said. “We might talk a good game, but Longyan did all the work. Smuggling’s a cinch when you can just fly over checkpoints.”
She and Wong finished loading and climbed onto Pengpeng’s back. Rangi marked her territory in the driver’s seat, daring Lek to challenge her for it. He compensated for his downgrade in the pecking order by pulling a crude map out of his pocket. Real leaders navigated and scheduled.
“We’re going to a meeting post in the mountains outside Ba Sing Se,” he said, denting the paper with his finger. “We’ll get the latest news from other groups and find a few easy jobs to get our feet back into the water.”
Rangi lifted off. The late-morning sun had yet to turn oppressive. And with the prep work having been done by extra hands, Pengpeng’s unhurried climb into the cool air almost felt relaxing.
“How did the two of you get a bison?”
Lek’s sudden question was tinged with suspicion and jealousy. “Neither of you were raised Air Nomad,” he said. “And this girl would never let you fly her unless she’d already known you for a long time. Did you steal her from an Airbender friend?”
In her head, Kyoshi silently thanked Lek for reminding her of her duty. This was where she needed to stay. Down in the muck, painted in hatred for herself and her enemy, not flying in the wind with Kelsang. “Yes,” Kyoshi said. “I did.”
Rangi gave her a worried glance, not understanding why she’d lie. Lek shook his head in disgust. “Separating a monk from their bison?” he said. “That’s cold. Though I should have expected such low behavior from someone who doesn’t respect their mother and father.”
Kyoshi said nothing and stared into the distance, where the horizon broke into jagged formations against the sky. The empty feeling was good. It absolved her of choice, allowed her to think of herself as merely a vessel, an agent of balance.
But her tranquility was broken when she noticed something missing. “Wait,” she said, turning around in the saddle. “Where’s Lao Ge?”
OBLIGATIONS
“I always had a feeling I would be undone by a fancy party,” Jianzhu muttered.
He and Hei-Ran were in the main library, surrounded by the map collection. The best and comically worst representations of the known world were posted on the walls behind panes of flawless crystal. Ragged, heavily used pages from nautical chartbooks hung next to cloth maps stained the color of smoked tea. Jianzhu liked this room. It portrayed the advancement of human understanding.
Hei-Ran had insisted they meet twice a day since the incident, regardless of whether there had been any updates. This afternoon, there had been an update.
She finished reading the invitation stamped with the insignia of the flying boar and tossed it on the desk. “‘The Beifong family wishes to hold a celebration for the Avatar, commemorating his victory over the pirates of the Eastern Sea in front of the gathered sages of the Earth Kingdom.’ Jianzhu, this is a bigger disaster than that ‘victory.’ I thought Lu Beifong agreed to be hands-off when it came to the Avatar.”
“He did. It’s Hui who’s behind this.” Jianzhu rolled the letter opener between his fingers, longing for a sharper implement and something to stick it in. “He’s been at this game for the past year or so, whispering in Lu’s ear that training the Avatar shouldn’t be left to a man of such humble origins.”
He put the blunt metal knife down. “Hui may have a point. Look how Kuruk turned out.”
“We were kids back then, and so was Kuruk,” Hei-Ran said. “It wasn’t our responsibility to raise him.”
“Hui still presents it as a strike against us,” Jianzhu said. “Did Shaw respond about the shirshus?”
“No. And even if he did, there wouldn’t be enough time before this party.” One thing Hei-Ran shared with Jianzhu was a disdain for frivolities. She cracked her knuckles. “We could say the Avatar is sick.”
“We could, but then I look like a bad guardian who can’t keep the most important child in the world healthy. Hui will send doctors, herbalists, and spiritual healers, all insisting they see the Avatar in person for treatment. Every time we turn his agents away, it’ll sow more suspicion amongst the other sages.
“No, the truth will get out,” Jianzhu said, leaning back in his chair. “It’s simply a matter of how long we can delay it.”
Hei-Ran’s military mind was already adapting. “Then we need to consolidate your allies. Find out which sages will stick by you after this debacle comes to light. It’s going to end up with your faction against his, and right now we don’t have a count of those numbers.”
Jianzhu smiled as a possibility dangled in his head, waiting to be tugged. He could always count on his friend to seed him with ideas. These forced meetings had paid off.
“We need to do something like that,” he said. He drummed the tips of his fingers together. “What’s your wardrobe looking like these days?”
Hei-Ran gave him a stare that said he should be glad she didn’t have the letter opener in her hands.
“I just wanted to make sure you have a nice gown ready,” he said innocently. “We have a fancy party to attend.”
Without Pengpeng, they made the trip to Gaoling the old-fashioned way. Slowly. In a big caravan. With lots of gifts in tow.
By the time they arrived at the estate, Jianzhu had come up with a new policy he would have to enact. Earthbenders, the most elite in the kingdom, needed to flatten out every single inch of the roads. No cost would be too great if it meant never having to suffer another skull-bouncing, teeth-clacking journey over bumpy paths.
He stepped out of his moving prison cell and squinted into the shining glory of Beifong manor. If there was anything he’d learned when he was building his own estate in Yokoya, it was that rich people’s houses were all essentially the same. Walls to keep the townsfolk out. A garden as big as possible to display humility before nature. A residential quarter where that humility was tossed on its ear, preferably with as much gold and silver inlay as possible.
Chamberlain Hui greeted them at the head of a column of footmen. The short, stocky bureaucrat shielded himself from the sun with a parasol.
“Master Jianzhu,” he said, raising the shade to reveal a grizzled, brick-like face. It always surprised Jianzhu how the man looked as if he spent his days breaking rocks with a pickaxe when the heaviest object he lifted was his master’s ivory seal. “How was your journey?”
Unnecessary and grating, like you. “Most pleasant, Chamberlain Hui, most pleasant indeed. It’s always the utmost delight to survey our magnificent nation up close.”
The next carriage in the train pulled up, ostrich horses stamping their feet until the weight behind them came to a halt. Hui opened the door himself, probably so that he could be the first to take the hand of the occupant.
“Headmistress,” he said, providing Hei-Ran unnecessary help out. “You look radiant. I’d swear you’ve stepped out of the pages of Yuan Zhen’s finest love poetry.”
He angled his parasol as if the sun would be deadly on her skin. It wasn’t like heat and light from the sky were the source of her incredible powers, no.
Hei-Ran barely disguised her shudder at Hui being her first sight out of the carriage. “Former headmistress,” she corrected.
“Ah, but educators deserve the utmost respect, for life.” Hui said, his words and smile coated in oil. “Or so I’ve always believed.”
Jianzhu felt terrible for his friend in these situations. Being a rich, beautiful, well-connected widow drew a certain breed of suitor out of the woodwork. Men like Hui could interpret the most hostile snubs as part of an ongoing courtsh
ip dance, refusing to consider the possibility that Hei-Ran wanted nothing to do with them.
“And when will Master Kelsang be joining us?” Hui said, his fingers lingering on Hei-Ran’s until she yanked them away. “I noticed Avatar Yun is not with you. I assume they’ll be arriving together shortly?”
The chamberlain’s eyes darted around their faces, checking the corners of their lips, the dilation of their irises for involuntary twitches. Jianzhu knew that Hui played a game of details. Induction. He turned slight hints into broad generalizations that he poured into the ears of Lu Beifong and the other sages. Right now, the Avatar choosing to travel with Kelsang was obviously the sign of a slight crack, a burgeoning rift between Yun and Jianzhu. Wasn’t it?
Jianzhu thought back to how he’d threatened the true Avatar, on that day everything had gone to pieces. The net cast by his power and influence over the Earth Kingdom was real, but it required constant, exhausting effort to maintain. The challengers he’d stamped out since Kuruk’s death were too many to count. And now here was the latest generation of parasite, catching him at his most vulnerable.
“They are together, yes,” Jianzhu said. He noticed the way Hei-Ran flinched beside him. Hui saw it too. With a smile, the chamberlain led them to the receiving hall.
The interior of the Beifong estate suffered from the rare sickness of wealth-induced monotony. It was covered from floor to ceiling in the same queasy brownish-green paint that had at one point been the most expensive shade in the Earth Kingdom. It was meant to show off just how rich the family was, but these days the main effect it had was making Jianzhu feel like he was being slowly digested in the acidic maw of a scavenger.
At the gullet of the columned hall was a double-seated dais where, over many generations, the leader of the Beifong clan and their spouse had held court. These days only one side of it remained occupied. Lu Beifong, Jianzhu’s old master, sat on the oversized throne, his dust-colored robes making a tent around his wizened head at the peak.
