Chapter Three
Azula dreamed.
At first, the dreams were senseless, framed in a dark fog. People in white uniforms reached out to her, their hands sickly pale even against the sky blue of their gowns. A light pressure around her midsection almost jolted her into awareness, but before the pain made her resurface, one of the pale hands moved near her nose with a bowl full of ground herbs. A sweet smell filled her nostrils, like the cloying taste of some Earth Kingdom pastries, and the pain went away.
"She's bleeding out!" one of the white figures yelled, not in panic, but in command, as if the words held some deeper meaning than the obvious.
"Get her to the infirmary now," another said, this one higher pitched, but still in control.
"Don't worry, Princess. Everything will be okay."
This voice she recognized, though it took her a moment to place it. Once, she might have attributed the soft alto voice to her mother. That was years ago, before she was banished, some part of her thought, still working logically despite her surreal surroundings. But it wasn't her mother this time. It was her handmaid, Tazia.
As a member of the royal family, it would be unseemly to show gratitude to a woman of such low rank, particularly one in her own service. With who she was, it should've been outright impossible to acknowledge anything her servants did as helpful. It was what was expected of them, no more. But there was a part of her that was relieved. Someone cares. Someone cares that I'm hurt.
The shadows took up most of her field of vision. She couldn't even see the white hands moving over her bloody body anymore. I'll just rest, she thought. Just for a little bit.
The darkness overtook her for a time. Senseless snippets of information flitted through her mind, mostly faces and words from long ago. Her mother and a younger Zuko perched over the turtle-duck pond while she watched from afar. Her father displaying one of his rare, genuine smiles on Ember Island, years ago. An Earth Kingdom doll, sent to her as a present from the war, burning in her hands . . .
"Even then, you liked to play with fire."
Azula turned, not aware until she did so that she had a body. She spoke one word as she recognized the speaker. "Mai."
"And me, too," chimed another voice. Azula looked over to see Ty Lee. She wore her usual pink garb, and instead of the short tufts of hair she'd sported before betraying the Fire Nation, her hair was tied up in a long braid. Her smile was so chipper and natural that Azula forgot she was a traitor, that she was in a prison somewhere else in the Fire Nation. "It's good to see you again, Azula."
Good to see me . . . she thought, looking between the two girls. Ty Lee continued grinning at her, her grey eyes alight with excitement. Mai didn't smile, but her features weren't as tense as they usually were. Like a calm sea, before the tides change.
"What are you both doing here?" she asked.
Ty Lee's smile turned sad, and Mai's bored features shifted to show a grim expression. "We've come to take you away," the acrobat said.
"Away to where?"
They each took one of her hands. Azula found herself pulling away from their grasp. She didn't take orders from anyone. "Take me away to where?"
"To where the spirits walk," Ty Lee said.
The firebender ripped her hand free. "I won't go. My coronation is only days away; I have no time for a day trip."
"It's not a day trip," Mai told her, her deceptively delicate fingers tightening around Azula's palm. This time, the princess struggled to break the other girl's hold. "You're staying there."
"I won't go!"
"You will."
"I don't take orders from anyone, least of all a couple of traitors." Remember. You have to remember who they are. Who you are.
"Azula," a new voice interrupted. Her friends vanished into a hazy white fog. Azula turned to the new speaker, shoulders tense as she recognized the voice.
"Mother, what are you doing here?"
Tears ran down the dark-haired woman's face. She wiped them away with the elegant sleeve of her cloak. "My daughter . . . It pains me so greatly to see you suffer so. Won't you join Mai and I in the Spirit World?"
Spirit World? Impossible. That place is nothing but a myth. And my mother's not dead, she's just banished. She can't be dead, Father said so . . . "No."
Ursa extended one hand. "Come, dear daughter, and you will never have to feel the pain of your wounds again."
"I'm not in pain," she snapped.
"You are. The fight, remember?"
Flashes of her battle in the palace flitted through her mind. The feeling of ice against her skin, the instinctive drive to flee when the earth rumbled beneath her, the disorientation the eclipse had caused her . . . And the cramps brought on by her moon blood.
"You are a maiden flowered, my child, but you needn't bear the pain of another day. There are a great many places to go in the Spirit World. You may like it."
"No! I won't go. You can't make me."
Her mother smiled sadly. The same smile she gave to Zuko whenever he ran off crying, Azula thought, hands coiling into fists at her side. The smile she never gave me. "Azula, sweetie—"
"Don't call me that!" she exploded, taking a step back. "You're nothing to me. You abandoned me here in the capital. If you wanted me to go with you so much, you should've taken me with you!"
"It was not safe. Too many people would've wished you dead."
Unbidden, she saw the face of that waterbender she'd battled. The fury there, the deep hatred in her eyes. Everyone wants me dead now, after all. I ought to live just to spite them. "I wish you were dead. Really dead this time, not just banished. Father was too soft on you. He should've taught you a lesson." Like he taught me. She remembered the sting of a palm smashing against her face, the brutal ache of black bruises the day after.
"His lessons are not kind."
"Kindness is for the weak. If I am to rule, my subjects must fear and respect me."
"Leaders who rule by fear often find themselves in grave peril within their own walls."
Azula lifted a hand to strike the woman, the fire coming readily to her fingertips. Just as her fist would've made contact, her mother's image vanished, shattering like a mirror. "I will not be ordered around by a traitor," she growled, wishing her mother was still around to hear her.
Without warning, the dream shifted. Now she was in her room, watching as Ty Lee laid a piece of parchment on the foot of her bed. This must've been the kind of dream where one watched themselves from outside, because the girl with her face slept without stirring. This was the night of Ty Lee's betrayal.
She remembered the words engraved on the parchment perfectly. "I'm joining whatever may be left of the Avatar's group," Ty Lee had written. "I will fight you, Azula, not out of malice, nor out of duty. I will fight you because, when I run away from here, that will be the only choice I have left."
"I gave you a choice," she whispered. Ty Lee stared at the folded up piece of parchment a moment longer, giving no indication she'd heard. "I gave you the choice to be loyal, to follow me to the bitter end, and you chose to toss me aside like I was worthless. I'm glad you're in prison."
"I know the consequences of this treachery. I know it will cost me dearly. I know I'm destroying our friendship, and I regret it."
"No you don't. You couldn't have regretted it, otherwise you never would've . . ." A quick breath slipped through her teeth, and she struggled a moment for control.
"There's no place for me at your side."
Her control wavered again. "Your only place was at my side. You were supposed to be loyal to me. You were supposed to . . ." Azula took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. Even in her dreams, it was shameful to show such weakness.
I can endure any pain in the world, but I refuse to endure that shame. I am not Zuko. The dream shifted to the Agni-Kai, the one between her brother and her father. In the crowd, she grinned fiercely. The scarring, and the banishment of her brother, assured her a place as the next Fire Lord. But even as she giddily sat down to watch her father wipe away Zuko's place, some part of her recoiled from the violence. For a fraction of a second, it was her on the receiving end of the fireball, not Zuko. For just that brief moment, she knew what it was like to have her face erased by the heat of the flames. The agony was unlike any she'd ever experienced.
A moment later, she was in the audience, watching the fight unfold just as it had the first time. The only difference was that this time, she wasn't smiling.
She was sobbing.
