Azula
The flames were blinding.
Sweat dripped down my face, my neck and my chest, but I kept my back straight and my stance firm. Chan Li, behind me, rested his hands on my hips, ready to catch me if I passed out, but I concentrated on my breathing and remained upright. It was a bad omen to faint, and I had too much to lose.
"Spirits of sun, fire and light," intoned the Chief Sage, "imbue this royal child with your strength, so that he may one day take his mother's place as Fire Lord."
The flames rose higher. The Sage anointed me with sandalwood oil: on my forehead, between my breasts, on my belly. He kept his gaze respectfully low, but I was acutely aware that I was naked to the waist and encumbered by pregnancy, and surrounded by men.
The scent of the oil mixed with the incense, making it difficult to read. Chan Li's grip on my hips tightened. Pointless. If I passed out, his injuries would keep him from catching me. And the rumour would spread that the Fire Lord had fallen, like a peasant, and all our work would be for nothing.
"A son," said the old man who, the sage claimed, could see the future in the flames. "A son for Fire Lord Azula and Prince Chan Li. He will rule with wisdom, and bring justice and honour to the Fire Nation."
The sages resumed their chant, the names of the spirits and my ancestors.
What a farce. When my mother performed this ceremony for the first time, the very same sage had promised a long life of great honour for Zuko. It was a matter of public record. I had read the scrolls last night. A life of service to the Fire Nation for Zuko, a successful marriage and many children for me.
Mother had been eighteen when Zuko was born. Li and Lo had promised I would be a mother shortly after my sixteenth birthday.
A farce.
The sages were recounting the achievements of Azulon. Not much longer to go. I could feel Chan Li shaking, weakened by the heat and his injuries. A poisoned arrow had landed in his shoulder three weeks ago, striking in the very pavilion where we had formed our alliance. The archer swallowed the same poison before my guards found her. I had personally overseen the interrogation of the servants who aided the assassin.
It had been three days before the royal physicians had managed to identify the poison and apply the antidote. I remembered a meal I had shared with my father on one of those evenings.
He said, "I hear Chan Li calls for you."
"He calls," I said, "but he doesn't recognise me."
"But it's touching, don't you think? A man is truly honest at moments like this." There was amusement in Father's eyes. "I know you find it difficult to trust people, Azula."
Father hadn't visited Chan Li's sickroom. Someone must have carried the report of his fever cries, just as someone carried a report of our amicable marital alliance.
"If I have problems with trust," I said, "then I learned my lessons well."
I replaced the servants and threatened the physicians, but I couldn't be everywhere at once. Not in the palace. Not in the Fire Nation.
There was sweat running down my back, pooling at the base of my spine. Just a few more minutes, then I could bathe and dress and sit. Just. A bit.
Longer.
Between one breath and the next, the world changed. Instead of the Fire Temple, I was standing on a rocky shore, looking out to sea.
No.
Not again.
It had been months since I had seen things that weren't there. I worked and meditated, and spent my nights with Chan Li, and I was much too strong to let this happen again.
"Azula."
The man behind me was old, and oddly familiar, though I was certain I'd never seen him before. He wore the hairpiece of a crown prince of the Fire Nation, which had been lost for four generations.
"Azula," he repeated, "you must be careful-"
"No," I snapped. "No, I won't go back to that."
"Great-granddaughter-"
"No."
I moved to burn him, but there was no fire. I froze, horrified and afraid. Was this what had happened to Father? I stepped back, and stumbled on a loose rock, and -
Chan Li caught me as I swayed.
When the ritual was over I bathed myself in cold water, scrubbing myself raw to get rid of the last fragments of sweat and oil and incense. I took my time dressing, but I let the servants do my hair.
Chan Li and the Chief Sage waited for me in the temple's ancient library. Chan Li gave me a curious look as I entered, but he didn't say anything about my earlier lapse. The Sage bowed and scraped and didn't seem to have noticed anything at all.
"Fire Lord," he said, taking his place behind the desk and unfurling a scroll, "my prince. In light of the attempt on Prince Chan Li's life last month, it might be wise to consider, hmm, an exigency plan for the upbringing of the royal children. Should something happen to his parents."
"The attempt didn't succeed," said Chan Li mildly.
"This one didn't," said the Sage. "Who knows what treason is being plotted?"
"Yes," I said, "who does know?"
The Sage blinked. I smiled. He cultivated an image of being too concerned with spiritual matters to bother with worldly politics, but I knew he had transferred his allegiance to my father long before Azulon's death. Long ago, the Fire Lords themselves had been the Chief Sages, and before that, my ancestors had dedicated their lives to the service of the temples and the spirits. I couldn't look at a Fire Sage without thinking that, in another life, that might have been me.
"Tell me," I said, "who would you recommend to raise a poor orphaned prince?"
("Three guesses," Chan Li had told me that morning, "and the first two don't count.")
"Why, your father, of course."
Chan Li caught my eye. His jaw was set.
"Lord Ozai is still a young man, and who better to raise your child? He had two children of his own-"
The Sage faltered. I raised my eyebrows.
"Yes?" I asked.
"And you could not ask for a more experienced regent."
"No. I suppose I couldn't."
The Sage pushed the scroll towards me. It was an act of succession, naming my child as my heir and first Chan Li, then my father, as regent in the event of my early death.
I signed it with my own hand, using all my names and titles.
"You may as well have signed our death warrants," said Chan Li, as the palanquin carried us back to the palace.
"There was no other candidate." The swaying of the palanquin was making me nauseous. I concentrated on my breathing. "It's simple. Try and avoid assassins."
"I try," he said, "but lately they seem to be seeking me out." He hesitated. "Azula?"
"What?"
"Never mind. It can wait."
He broached the subject of my episode that evening after dinner. We were alone in the library reserved for the royal family, Chan Li reading military reports, I perusing intelligence dossiers and pointedly ignoring the book of traditional wisdom for expectant mothers that Li and Lo had left out. It would have been a charming domestic scene, except that I kept feeling Chan Li's eyes on me when he thought I was distracted.
I said, "If you have something to say, you should spit it out. Or at least stop staring."
"You nearly fainted today."
"I lost my balance. I don't faint."
"You went limp. It was like you weren't even in your body."
I read the same character three times. When the silence had stretched to breaking point I said, "I lost my balance."
Chan Li nodded, and I let him change the subject.
I was reluctant to sleep that night. I used to sleep deeply, and never remembered my dreams. Then the Comet came, and something inside of me seemed to break. Sometimes it was a struggle just to pass for my normal self.
I had thought I was getting better.
Great-granddaughter, the man had called me. My great-grandfather was Sozin the Conquerer. One of my great-grandfathers.
Chan Li didn't stir as I got out of bed.
The palace library was not as exhaustive as the Fire Sage's halls of histories, but it held a copy of the family records. My great-grandfathers were Fire Lord Sozin, Lord Hsiao, Lord Ueda and -
Nothing.
Dad never slept much at all. I found him sitting in his rooms, staring into the fire. His face was in shadow.
"Azula? You should be resting."
"Was my maternal grandmother illegitimate?" I asked.
He laughed at me.
"Like you, she was the daughter of a traitor," he said. "Fire Lord Sozin had his name struck from the records. As if that would make people forget Avatar Roku ever existed."
"Avatar Roku."
There was a sick ache in my chest. Something flickered at the edge of my vision, and it took all my control to keep from turning to look at it.
"Your brother inherited the traitor's blood, too. Watch out." Father reached out, resting his hand on my belly. "Children will inevitably disappoint you, Azula."
There was contempt in his voice. Because I, a woman and his child, had all the power he wanted and could never have again. Because I was my mother's daughter as well as his, and he had despised my mother as surely as she had feared me.
He had taught me to be fearsome. From the moment my bending had manifested when I was three, setting Mom's clothes and hair on fire as she tried to discipline me, he had claimed me for himself. His tool. His weapon. As powerful and worthless as a pai sho tile.
I had spent my life trying to please him. I had killed my brother. In his eyes, I was nothing.
He was watching me. I pasted a smile on my face and bowed.
"Good night, Dad." I kissed him on the cheek, like I was six years old again. "I'll see you in the morning."