They referred to me now as a prodigy. Savant. A fireborn king who would blaze a new path for the Fire Nation. What they did not see—what they could not see—was how many nights I lay awake on the balcony, fingers shaking from strain, smoke drifting out of my fingertips like my body did not know how to cool itself.
"Again," I said again, my voice husky, already breathing hard, stare locked on the man across from me.
Master Shoji, my own master, squinted through the heat shimmers. "My Lord, you've already performed the entire Tiger Drill form three times—"
"Again," I growled, grating now. The flames that had been seething around my fists hissed and coiled more tightly, eager to be released.
Shoji bowed, all but imperceptibly. He was still one of the few who talked to me like I hadn't changed. Like I was still the soft-palmed, half-witted kid stumbling out of the hot springs two months ago, dazed and remade. I didn't know what Gonryu had been like before I got here—only the fragments I pieced together from council sessions, or the spasms of memory that lashed me like a whip when I was caught off guard.
But I knew that one thing: he did not move as I moved now. He did not warp fire like it was stitched into the lining of his lungs.
"Tiger Drill. First stance."
I dropped low, toes curling on the sleek stone of the sparring stage. My arms out, back rigid, heat building at the bottom of my belly. Shoji opened—a fake jab, a whipping kick. I turned, spun, brought my elbow slamming down in a flash of flame that crackled across his chest-piece.
He growled. "Too aggressive," he complained. "You're telegraphing your tells—"
But I missed the rest. I was already moving, fire spewing from my heels as I leapt up into the air and came crashing down like a falling star. The blow resounded as a crack across the chamber, and Shoji simply rolled out of the path before the floor scorched to black.
The heat lingered.
My hands trembled, though I tried to hide it. That same trembling again. The one that crept in once the adrenaline wore off and there was only too much fire and not enough meat to hold it.
"Do you feel that?" I screamed, louder than I meant to. "Tell me you felt that."
Shoji stood slowly, his hair tousled, lips in a thin line. "I sensed it," he said guardedly. "So did the entire western wing."
I laughed. A harsh, ugly sound that startled even me.
"I wasn't supposed to warp like this," I said quietly. Not to him. Not really. "I was supposed to just… pretend. Show up, make it through the day. Play Fire Lord like some child playing at dressing-up.".
Shoji didn't say anything. He was staring at me. He always did that—as if he was waiting for the old Gonryu to return.
That man was gone. Or dead. Or maybe smothered like a candle under a careless foot. I had no idea.
All I had to know was: I could bend. And I could bend better than anyone in this palace. Not gracefully. Not with slow breath and careful technique. But with rage. With fear. With something hot and deep and violent storming its way up my chest every time I exhaled.
"I'll share you a secret" I said to him, approaching him slowly. The fire diminished as I drew nearer. Not completely, it was still burning wildly out of control under the surface—just waiting. "You want to know why the flame does what I say?"
Shoji cocked an eyebrow. "I'm listening, my Lord."
"Because I stopped pretending it was sacred." I stood before him. "It's not a sacred gift from a dragon. It's not a divine ritual from Agni. It's pain. It's hunger. It's every broken fragment of me screaming to be heard. That's why it works."
He said nothing.
Good.
Let the silence hang there.
Let it stretch out until the walls started sweating with the heat still radiating off of me.
"I'm finished for today," I told him finally, elbowed past him. My robes were damp at the neck. My hands still warmed.
Shoji shifted a step, as if to object, but I forestalled him. "I said I'm finished."
I stepped out of the room into the hallway, my bare feet slapping against the tile obsidian. The guards came to attention as I walked past them, eyes front, chins tilted just low enough to show my rank, but not so low that our eyes met. Good. They should not be meeting my eyes. They didn't know what I was yet.
What I was becoming.
**
I did not wear court robes.
I should have. The red silk and the gold threading, the formal shoulder straps that tingled like I was being wrapped in spiders, the headpiece that made each step a wobbly balancing act—I left all of it in the chest beside the fire. Let them gossip.
I had on my training robe, dripping with sweat, half-fastened at the throat, sash tied at the waist in a knot that resembled a noose. My hair remained slicked back, loose strands glued to the base of my neck. Ash lingered on me like scent.
The court doors were already open. Twelve men and women in formal lacquer armor sat in a crescent, a maw about to swallow me. At their center sat Chancellor Daisuke, older than stone, face puckered like dried leather, his long silver beard coiled into a clasp of gold and black obsidian. He had been the most trusted advisor of Fire Lord Reiro—Gonryu's father. Daisuke had never once said "my Lord" to me without wincing at the word like vinegar.
"Fire Lord Gonryu," he saluted, standing in a halfway bow. He wasn't paying attention to me when he spoke to me. He was staring somewhere beyond my shoulder, as if I was an illusion no one had thought to dispel. "We thank you for arriving. We were afraid you would postpone today's council."
"Why would I?" I said, stepping into the chamber. I barefooted my way across the obsidian floor. Cold seared. "You summoned me. I am here."
A pause. One of the nobles—Minister Hai of the Department of Agriculture—coughed into his sleeve. I recognized his face from earlier council meetings. He smelt of clove oil and always tried to trap me with wordy similes about grain harvest and season moons. He always said something along the lines of "in the fullness of time."
Daisuke indicated toward the man who sat to his right. "Lord Bujin of Yudai Province has spoken before the council with a matter of urgency. He claims one of the magistrates of the Earth Kingdom has begun unauthorized development of settlements on the south ridge of Crescent Valley.".
Crescent Valley. I blinked. That had been said in a scroll I had rummaged through once, during a half-awakened midnight fright about border regulations. Fire Nation territory—thin, fiery, volcanic soil-dotted. Beautiful and barren.
Bujin stood up. He was large. Wide-shouldered, scarred below the jawline, wearing a stiff brown robe trimmed with animal bone clamps. Thick accent. Local. He didn't even bow.
"My Lord," he started, throat hoarse and brutal. "The magistrate calls it a trade outpost. But it's not. He's building a fortress. Earth Kingdom stone, Earth Kingdom master masons, Earth Kingdom colors. They're excavating ditches. They've imported waterbenders from the coast to pierce our aquifers. They're carving up the valley like it was their own."
A growl ran through the court.
I edged forward, arms folded. "What did we do with it?"
Bujin frowned. "We sent envoys. No response."
"Did you lay eyes on the Fire Sage responsible for that district?"
"The Sage was murdered." The room quieted rapidly. "Poisoned. Two weeks ago. They blamed food poisoning, but the Sages eat alone. We both know what this is."
Daisuke's hand went up. "Wait, Lord Bujin. We can't blame the Earth Kingdom without—"
"They murdered a Fire Sage and they are building fortresses on our soil," snarled Bujin. "We would be cowards if we did not react."
I kept quiet. Not that I did not believe him. But that the Earth Kingdom was bigger than us. Bigger in numbers, deeper in heritage, and they had Avatar Yangchen.
Yangchen. The very notion weighed heavily. Not just because she was the Avatar. She was the Avatar—dreaded, admired, the kind of diplomat to enter camps of war and come out with treaties signed in blood and gold. She'd put an end to the Northern Raids before I ever even got there. Fire Lord Reiro had valued her advice.
But Reiro was dead. I wasn't Reiro. And Yangchen had never spoken to me. Not ever.
"If we deploy troops," I said slowly, "we invite open war."
"Then let them bleed," Bujin growled.
The silence that followed was full of teeth. Bujin's chest expanded. Hai coughed once more. Daisuke massaged the bridge of his nose as if he was developing a headache.
"We can't fight against the Earth Kingdom," Councilor Daisuke stated flatly, standing before me. "We don't have the men. We don't have access to their stores. And—" he turned to me now— "—we don't have a commander."
I smiled, there was a small one. "Is that your advice, Chancellor?"
He stood firm. "This is my warning, Fire Lord."
I strode across the room, unhurried and measured, as the same way I'd seen Gonryu pass by in one of those ancient frescoes. I came to a halt by the map table,—polished volcanic rock, gold inlays that followed every border and outpost. Crescent Valley was red on the edge of our west border, near the Si Wong borders, not a beat from Earth Kingdom soil.
"I need a list," I told him.
Daisuke furrowed his brow. "A list?"
"Of every Fire Sage, from Crescent Valley to the capital. Who is living, who is dead, who is lost. I need reports from Yudai's watchtowers. I need the names of all the Earth merchants who arrived in our borders during this month. All of the caravans. All of the livestock. And I want a hawk sent to Avatar Yangchen."
Bujin stood up straight. "You're asking her?"
"She is the Avatar," I said to him. "If she is committed to peace, let her show it. She can subdue the magistrate without shedding any blood."
"And what if she doesn't?" Bujin inquired.
I locked eyes with him. The fire in my ribs flickered.
"Then you will get your blood."
The council dispersed bit by bit. Like barnacles detaching from rock. Robes brushed against lacquered armor one by one. They did not speak to me, not in so many words. They bent those bows that almost were not bows. Half-salutes masquerading as respect pretending, and I sensed rot behind and beneath them like lychee fruit that's been left in the sun and allowed to rot. Chancellor Daisuke trailed behind me last, sandals tapping against the floor.
"You did the right thing," he said to me, not quite meeting my gaze.
"No," I said with both hands resting on the edge of the map table, looking in the direction of the red mark that pinpointed Crescent Valley. "It was a last-ditch effort."
He stopped. Maybe he was expecting me to say something. I didn't. Finally, he let out a sigh that seemed to be emanating from deep within his bones instead of in his chest and ambled off, rough beard dragging behind him like a faded brushstroke.
The doors closed with a non-resonant thud.
I didn't budge.
I stayed there awhile. Long enough that the sun dipped behind the slatted glass above me, its light filtering through heat haze that still clung to the room. I was fixed in amber, I felt. Like I was stamped in palace stone.
Then footsteps.
Gradually, in relaxation. Without armor.
Baishi.
I did not need to turn to recognize that it was he. His arrival announced itself, not with fanfare, but with subtlety. Like rust on the edge of a weathered sword. I had already detected the faint tinkle of the charm that he always wore on the wrist of his left hand, something he claimed was for balance. He had told me once that each of the small beads was sliced from the scales of an eel-hound that had ferried his grandsire across the floodplain north. I hadn't yet decided if I believed him.
"You shouldn't linger," he said, low and teasing in his voice, on the edge of some joke that hadn't quite made it.
"And yet here I am."
Baishi stopped beside me, with hands behind him. I did not turn toward him. I did not need to. I knew he glanced back and forth from me to the Crescent Valley sign.
"You called for a hawk," he said.
"I did."
He waited. I made no further response, and he prompted. "Did you expect to be answered so soon?"
"I did not expect any answer at all."
This made him hum. "Then you will be surprised."
I spun slowly about. My neck was sore. I hadn't realized, not till then—most likely from leaning so long over the map table, stiff with heat and embarrassment. "What?"
He plunged his hand into his robe, pulled out a scroll. Slender. Black ribbon binding it shut, wax seal intact. The sigil stamped in the wax was not Fire Nation. Older. Circles within circles, with the simple form of a gliding bison in the center, wings outstretched like a sky rent by wind.
"It is authenticated," Baishi replied. "Doubly coded. Sent by the Southern Temple, routed through Ba Sing Se's state messenger system. The seal is new. Not more than three days old."
I took it.
The seal cracked dry. The scroll unrolled with a parchment sigh. The handwriting was beautiful. Simple. There was no salutation. There were no titles. This was only the hand of one who knew they didn't need to impress me.
To Fire Lord Gonryu.
The mountain never blames the wind while getting formed.
I have felt Crescent Valley's thunder boom. I have also felt its canyon silence, and its heat that emanates not from the ground, but from fear.
I disapprove of aggressive behavior. I don't excuse it, either. But often what is termed as conquest is actually panic.
The Earth Kingdom is not one mind. It is a body with many hands, some of those hands shattered. I will not lift a spear to a specter.
Do you yearn for peace? Remember: peace is not forged in fire. It has to be uncovered—slowly, like hidden coal underneath the embers.
I will send a watcher.
Remain still until they arrive.
No signature. Just one flame-shaped sigil imprinted in the bottom. Hers. I'd seen it once before in an old diplomatic archive: the seal of Yangchen herself. A stamp, not a sign.
I hadn't realised that I was shaking until I lowered the scroll and my hands didn't follow.
Baishi saw it too.
"Cryptic," he whispered softly, softer even than normal.
"She is not bringing a message," I snapped. "She is bringing a watcher. What is that all about?"
He smiled faintly. "It is because she doesn't trust us."
"She doesn't even know me."
"No," Baishi replied, arching one eyebrow. "She knows of you. That is the difference."
I put that aside momentarily. The room air was cold. Cold sweat evaporating beneath the underside of my collarbone stiffened the hem of my robe. I glanced back one last time at the scroll, and the mapping table. I remembered Crescent Valley—its rocky ridges, its black rock. The dead Fire Sage. The aquifers tapped like sores.
"She thinks this is panic." I spoke almost to myself.
"Isn't it?"
I glared sternly at Baishi. "You think so? Panic? With one of our wise men poisoned and with the building of a fort on our border?"
"I would call it dangerous," Baishi replied. "But the Avatar is not the Fire Lord. She answers to a different weight."
I ground my teeth. "She expects me to do nothing."
"No," he corrected. "She wants you to wait."
"And what if waiting makes things worse?"
"Then the fire will rage out of control. And she will be obliged to act. But not yet."
I put the scroll on the table before me, pinning down its edge with my hand. "She is testing me."
"Of course she is," Baishi said, laughing. "You are young. Untested. You turned up one day and started doing the rituals of the old fire kings—without anyone remembering granting you permission to do so."
I winced internally. Not so that anyone else knew. But I twisted that knife.
"She thinks that I'm not real," I whispered.
"No." Baishi regarded me—well, regarded. "She's curious as to what you are."
A long silence followed. The corner torches were beginning to gutter. They burned angrily still, but I noticed how they tilted toward me, imperceptibly, like leaves leaning toward sun. That hadn't been occurring previously. Not like that. Not so insistently. I was becoming a whirlwind of heat while I was also trying to be still.
"She wants to try and see if I can stay still," I complained. "If I can sit in the fire and not burn anything."
Baishi stepped back towards the door. "Then keep quiet, Gonryu. Just don't sleep in it."
I never spoke.
He left me there.
My fingers rested on the warm table of maps.
I gazed down again into Crescent Valley.
And I waited.