by F. C. Yee
“How long as it been?”
“Only three days or so.” Lek flipped through a textbook of acupuncture points. Kyoshi had the suspicion he was looking for anatomical illustrations. “You’re recovering fast. We got lucky. Mistress Song is one of the best burn doctors in the Earth Kingdom. She lives down the street a couple of blocks.”
That must have been the old woman who popped in and out of Kyoshi’s waking dreams. “Then what’s she doing in a place like Zigan?” Skilled doctors were in high demand, more likely to be held inside the walls of manors like Te’s.
It seemed like Kyoshi would never be able to get more than a handful of sentences out without making Lek angry. “Trying to make a home,” he said, misinterpreting her surprise as disdain. “Getting caught in place while her village changes and decays around her.” He got up in a huff. “I’ll go get Rangi. You can have someone worth talking to.”
“Lek, wait.” They’d gone on too long as misguided rivals. She’d decided not to let her parents have any more hold over her life, and that started by being civil with the boy they’d chosen to spend their last years with instead of her.
He actually listened this time, crossing his arms and waiting.
Wasn’t expecting that. Kyoshi found herself at a loss for words. They had nothing to formally apologize to each other over. She ran through a list of things to say.
“You’re . . . really good at throwing rocks,” she blurted out.
How articulate. If her hands weren’t mittened in bandages, she would have bit her nails. She had no choice but to invest further. “What I mean is, you saved me back at Te’s palace, and I never had the chance to thank you. You were incredible back then. How did you learn to shoot like that?”
She hoped the flattery, which was completely genuine and deserved as far as she was concerned, would make him smile. Instead his face grew old before her eyes. He tossed the book aside.
“Do you know what a gibbet is?” he said after a hefty pause.
Kyoshi shook her head.
“It’s a form of punishment the lawmen use over by the Si Wong Desert,” he said. “They hang you in a cage, high up on display as a warning to other criminals. During the dry season, it’s a death sentence. You can’t last more than a couple of days until thirst takes you.”
“Lek, I didn’t mean to dig up—”
“No,” he said gently, raising his hand. For once he wasn’t angry with her. “You should know.”
He sank back into the chair, throwing his legs over the arm-rest, and stared out the window. “I was living in the streets of Date Grove, a settlement near the Misty Palms Oasis. My brother—he wasn’t my family by blood. He was my friend. We’d sworn to each other. We were copying the tough guys and swordsmen who came in and out of town looking for work. A regular gang of two, we were, ruling our patch of gutter.”
No wonder she and Lek didn’t get along. They’d shared too much, had the same stink. “What was his name?” she asked.
“Chen,” Lek said. He bounced his foot, the chair squeaking with the motion. “One day Chen got caught stealing some rotting lychee nuts. We’d done it hundreds of times before. Sometimes in broad daylight. The townsfolk never cared. Until one day they did. Enough to put Chen in a gibbet.”
The shaking of his foot grew faster. “It might have been a new governor trying to throw his weight around. Or maybe the villagers got sick of us. They clapped him in those bars before he knew what was happening.”
“Lek,” Kyoshi said. She couldn’t offer him anything but the sound of his own name.
“I held out hope though!” he said with a little hiccup. “You see, the gibbet was old and rusty. It had a weak hinge, or so I spotted. I gathered every rock I could find, and I threw them as hard as I could at that weak point, trying to bring the cage down.
“The villagers, the abiders, they laughed at me the whole time. Especially when I missed. I could have knocked a few of their teeth out, but it never occurred to me. I couldn’t waste a single stone. After a few days, Jesa and Hark found me passed out under that gibbet. Chen must have died before they got there, because I woke up on Longyan’s back as we flew away. I couldn’t use my arm for two weeks afterward, my shoulder and elbow were so swollen.”
Lek swung his legs off the chair, unable to stay in the same position lest the memory catch up to him. “The funny thing is, Date Grove doesn’t exist anymore. It was running out of water, on its last legs while I was there. It’s been swallowed by the desert. The people of the town killed my brother to uphold the law, and it meant nothing in the end. If the law was there to protect the village, and the village didn’t survive, then what did they gain?
“I always wondered if those people felt satisfied about condemning that one boy, that one time, while they fled the sandstorm that buried their houses,” Lek said. “I always hoped Chen’s death was worth it to someone.”
Kyoshi bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
“So anyway, Jesa and Hark saved me, I learned how to earthbend, and I swore an oath that I’d never miss a target again,” Lek said. “That’s how I’m so good at throwing rocks.”
There wasn’t a right response. The right response was undoing, going back, reweaving fate to arrive at a different outcome than him and her in this room.
Lek smiled halfheartedly at her silence. “Did you ever consider that your parents might have left you where they did so you wouldn’t have to live that kind of life?” he asked. “That maybe they were protecting you?”
The notion had crossed her mind, but she’d never given it credence until now. “The way I figure it, Jesa and Hark assumed the abiders could treat you better than they could,” Lek said as he wiped his nose. “You were their blood. Priceless. Me, I was useful. As good as the next kid with fast hands, and just as replaceable. I sufficed.”
“Lek.” She thought about what truth she could tell him in return. “I believe, as usual, you’re wrong.”
Kyoshi spotted the twitch in the corner of his mouth. “And I’m glad that if my parents couldn’t be with me, they were with you,” she added.
A long time passed before Lek sighed and got to his feet. “I’ll tell Rangi you’re up and coherent.” He paused by the door. His expression turned hesitant. “Do you think . . . once things settle down, I might have a chance with her?”
Kyoshi stared at him in astonishment.
Lek held her gaze as long as he could. Then he burst into laughter.
“Your face!” he cackled. “You should see your—Oh, that has to be the face you make in your Avatar portrait! Bug-eyed and furious!”
And to think they’d shared a moment. “Go soak your head, Lek,” she snapped.
“Sure thing, sister. Or else you’ll do it for me?” He waved his hands in mockery of waterbending and made a drowning noise as he left the room.
Kyoshi’s cheeks heated in frustration. And then, like a glacier cracking, they slowly melted into a grin. She noticed what he’d called her for the first time.
THE AMBUSH
In Jianzhu’s opinion, it was good to be home in Yokoya. No matter how many awkward questions the staff had about the team he’d left with. Where were Saiful and the others? What happened to them? Were they okay?
Dead in the line of duty. Daofei ambush. And no. By definition, no.
He owed Hei-Ran better answers though. Not only did the lie go a level deeper with her, he needed her input. After shutting the doors of his study on the faces of his troubled servants, he dumped his missed correspondence on his desk while she sat on the couch.
“The trail went cold in Taihua, and we lost a shirshu,” he said. He knifed a wax seal off a mail cylinder. “But that’s why we have the mated pair, isn’t it? Redundancy, the key to success.”
“Jianzhu,” Hei-Ran said. She seemed a little cold and withdrawn, sitting on his couch.
“Ba Sing Se is near Taihua.” The letter was from that brat Te. “I’ll bet they’re somewhere safe behind the wall
s. I’ll have to round up my contacts in all three rings.”
“Jianzhu!”
He looked up from the scroll.
“Stop,” she said. “It’s over.”
He looked at her carefully. There were several ways in which it could be over. It depended on what she knew. He waited for her to continue.
“I kept an eye on Hui’s movements while you were gone,” Hei-Ran said. “A little more than a week ago there was an explosion of activity coming from his offices. Letters, messengers, gold and silver being transferred.”
A little more than a week ago. That would have been Saiful’s message arriving in Hui’s hands. Hui’s understanding would be the partial truth, that the Avatar might have been taken by daofei. But he still thought Yun was the real deal. Hei-Ran knew the girl was the true Avatar but not the results of the tracking mission and the outlaw settlement in the mountains.
One had the latest news, the other more accurate news. He had to mind the asymmetry.
“Hui is acting on the information you gave him at the party,” Hei-Ran said. “He’s building a case with the other sages to take the Avatar away from you. If he’s made this much progress based solely on Yun having a falling-out with you, how do you think people will react to learning about Kyoshi?”
So far, that revelation had not gone well for anyone who’d heard it. “How do you think we should respond?”
Hei-Ran curled up on the couch, hugging her knees. She looked so young when she did that.
“I don’t want to respond,” she said. “I want to tell Hui and the sages the truth so they can help us extend the search. Jianzhu, I don’t care about the Avatar anymore. I want my daughter back.”
He was surprised at her lack of endurance. As far as she knew, her daughter and the Avatar weren’t in any particular danger. Of course, the reality was that they absolutely were, if they were in the hands of outlaws. But Hei-Ran didn’t know that.
Jianzhu sighed. Her daughter would never come back without the Avatar, the Avatar would never come back without . . . what, exactly? The wheels spun in his head. This was exhausting.
“Maybe you’re right,” Jianzhu said. “Maybe it is over. This farce has gone on for too long.”
Hei-Ran looked up hopefully.
“You said Hui started his moves a week ago.” Jianzhu scratched the underside of his chin. There was a scab there from where Saiful’s blade had nicked him. “It’ll take him at least another two weeks to send missives and get responses from all the sages who matter in the Earth Kingdom. They’ll gather in Gaoling or Omashu and then summon me to answer for my mistakes; that’s another week. That’s plenty of time to ready a statement of the truth.”
He shrugged. “We may even find Kyoshi before then. The facts will come out immediately in that case. I’d lose the Avatar, but you’d be reunited with your daughter.”
Hei-Ran was heartened. She got up and placed a hand on Jianzhu’s unshaven cheek, stroking him gently with her thumb.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I know what you’re sacrificing. Thank you.”
He leaned into her hand, pressing it briefly to his face, and smiled at her. “I have a lot of unopened mail to get through.”
The smile vanished as the door to his study closed. Alone, he picked up Te’s letter again. He’d been right not to give Hei-Ran the full story. He’d always been by himself in this game.
The message from the boy governor was written in a sloppy, rushed hand, devoid of the flourishes that normally came with high-level correspondence. The only authentication was the personal seal, which officials kept on their person at all times. It was as if Te had written it from somewhere other than his palace and while in great distress.
At first, Jianzhu had been against installing such a young governor from a family with a history of corruption, but had eventually found it useful, the way the impressionable child looked up to him. He could pretty much get Te to do anything, including reporting threats to the Earth Kingdom to him first before warning the other sages. Like now.
The scroll crumpled in Jianzhu’s hands as he read about Xu Ping An’s jailbreak. His veins threatened to burst from his flesh and skitter away.
Against every inclination, Jianzhu had kept the leader of the Yellow Necks alive as a favor to his Fire Nation allies so they could study how the man was capable of bending lightning. It was a skill so rare that some thought it a folktale or a secret that had been lost to the ages. Either way, it made Xu a valuable, dangerous specimen. And Te, who owned one of the most defensible prisons in the region, had managed to let him escape.
Jianzhu furiously scanned Te’s account of the events, fully expecting to keel over and die from anger. Instead, farther down the page, he found salvation.
There had also been an attempt on Te’s life, the letter went on, as if Te weren’t eminently replaceable. Two assassins had almost killed him but at the last minute decided to show mercy. An old man, whose description Jianzhu didn’t recognize, and a girl.
The tallest girl that Te had ever seen.
And unless panic had addled his mind, he’d seen her bend earth and air.
Jianzhu leaned back in his chair. He ignored the superfluous details that ended the letter, something about painted faces and how Te needed to end the cycle of grifting that his family had been so deeply ensconced in and could Master Jianzhu spare a few lessons in wiser governance and blah blah blah.
The Avatar was alive. Relief washed over him like ice water.
But what on earth was she doing? She had left Taihua and reached Te’s palace before the full moon, which meant moving at a reasonable pace. Her actions didn’t sound like those of a captive.
Jianzhu let the question go unanswered while he opened another letter. This one was from a prefectural captain in Yousheng, a territory that bordered Te’s. The lawman had captured a handful of daofei, scared witless, with an unbelievable story. Their leader, Xu Ping An, had been murdered by a spirit with glowing eyes, drenched in blood and white ashes, who had carried Xu into the sky before sucking the life-giving flame out of his body and consuming it for herself. The captain thought that the dreaded Xu Ping An had died years ago at Zhulu Pass. As the esteemed sage who’d defeated the loathsome daofei leader, did Jianzhu have any information that might shed light on the situation?
Glowing eyes, Jianzhu thought. He’d seen those eyes close-up before, and nearly lost his life. He made a quick mental map of Yousheng and found that the fleeing bandits could very well have seen the Avatar between Te’s palace and Zigan Village.
All right, then. Things were looking up. With some slight adjustments, he’d have the Avatar back under his roof. He didn’t understand what she was doing or why, but he didn’t care to. He had her location, and he had time.
It wasn’t until the next morning that he found he had run fresh out of the latter.
One thing he and Hei-Ran had gotten good at in their younger days was talking to each other through fake smiles and laughter. It came in handy when they had to maintain a front during gatherings of high-ranking officials while Kuruk dozed off the previous night’s revelries or made eyes at pretty delegates. Jianzhu stood in front of his gate, his feet wet with morning dew, and waved happily at the approaching caravan that was emblazoned with the Beifong flying boar.
“Did you know about this?” he said to Hei-Ran. He thought his teeth might crack from frustration.
“I swear I did not.” Hei-Ran was as angry at him as he was at her. “I thought you said we had weeks.”
It should have been that long. How the Earth Avatar was taught was solely up to his or her master. To revoke that bond required a conclave of Earth Kingdom sages. Gathering a sufficient number of them from across the continent should have taken as long as they’d discussed the day before, if not longer. And yet judging from the size of the caravan and the banners that flew from the tops of the coaches, Hui had pulled together enough heads seemingly overnight. He had to have been preparing this power grab since befo
re the incident in Taihua.
He’d underestimated the chamberlain. Taken the man at face value instead of considering what depths lay beneath.
The lead coach pulled up to the gate of the manor and came to a stop. The boar on the doors split open to reveal Hui, who’d traveled alone.
“Chamberlain!” Jianzhu said with a boisterous smile. “What a delightful surprise!” Jianzhu wanted to reach out and throttle him in full view of the rest of the caravan. He might have been forgiven. Avatar business or no, showing up unannounced was as rude as it was in any other circumstance. “Is Lu Beifong with you?”
“Master Jianzhu,” Hui said grimly. “Headmistress. I wish I could say I was here under more pleasant circumstances. Lu Beifong will not be joining us.”
Jianzhu noticed Hui didn’t say whether or not he had the old man’s approval for this action. He watched the other sages step out of their coaches and tallied who had come. Herbalist Pan, from Taku, carrying his pet cat in his arms. General Saiyuk, the lord commander of Do Hwan Fortress, another political appointee like Te who was vastly underqualified to lead that stronghold. Sage Ryong of Pohuai—
Spirits above, Jianzhu thought. Had Hui simply scavenged the entire northwestern coast of the Earth Kingdom for allies?
It might have been the case. There was no one from Omashu or Gaoling or Ba Sing Se, where Jianzhu’s support was the strongest. Hui had handpicked the attendees of this surprise conclave, sages he could influence. Promises and vast sums of money must have flowed like water leading up to today.
Zhang Dakou was here too, Jianzhu noted dryly. No Zhang worth his salt would pass up an opportunity to humiliate a Gan Jin.
Their numbers were surprising. He hadn’t realized these many sages fell outside his sphere of influence. Perhaps about a fifth of the most important people in the Earth Kingdom had arrived on his doorstep with hostile intent.
“Well!” he said cheerfully, smacking his hands together. “Let’s get you all inside and refreshed.”
