Note: Takes place later in the day from Chapter 21. Implied sex, nudity, and act of intimate-partner violence.


Cheng Jien sat up in a rustle of sheets, her eyes puffy from recent tears. Nakas muttered and shifted where he lay sleeping with an arm across her waist; she stroked a raised welt on his cheekbone that was darkening to blue-black. She then bent to put her lips to it, whispering clumsy apologies.

She slipped out of bed and went to a table under the window, her bare feet quiet on the wooden floor, and took out two drinking cups from a cabinet to set them on the table across from each other. Sitting down was too sudden, as though her legs had given out.

When she reached out to pour for the cup across the table, the drink sloshed from the bottle before she steadied her hand. She poured in her own cup without spilling, and put the bottle down with a clack that sounded somehow final.

She put her hand around the cup but did not lift it, just turned it between the pads of thumb and middle finger. Her jaw trembled as she fixed her gaze on the empty seat opposite, the untouched cup with the spilled wine pooled next to it.

Her entire form drooped lower in her chair as she hid her eyes behind a hand. A shaky sigh escaped, and for a long while she made no sound and did not move as shadows slanted across the room with the movement of the sun.


Next: Princess Azula wants a word explained to her.