Chapter Fourteen: Battle on the Terrace
It was only a short distance between the closet where Mother had interrogated Yuzhen and the exit onto the terrace, but Yuzhen was weak and moved slowly, leaning on Grandmother for support. "Will you come with us, Grandmother?" she asked.
Grandmother shook her head. "As long as my cover holds, I must stay. It gives me great joy to have helped you and Anzu to a better place, but your siblings are still here, and so is Azula."
Yuzhen was bemused. Zhian she could see, and perhaps the new baby if it survived, but Mother and Lily were the reasons others needed help. What could Grandmother possibly do for them – referee their squabbles over Father's affection?
"I've seen that look before," Grandmother said, a sad smile in her eyes. "When I parted ways with the rebels, I told Zuko that Azula needed me more than he did. He didn't understand."
Yuzhen remembered Zuko's uncomfortable pause partway through his account of his mother's departure. "Azula is a lonely child," Grandmother continued. "She tries to strike fear into others in hopes that it will ease her own. She knows deep down that Ozai does not, cannot love her, and she's terrified of being cast aside. I failed to save her from him and from herself, and I may fail to make any difference for her in the end, but at least in being here I'm paying off a small part of my debt to her – making sure she's not alone, even if she doesn't know it."
It was difficult for Yuzhen to feel sympathy for Mother with her insides fried by her shocks, but listening to Grandmother speak, she gained a new appreciation for the strength it must have taken her just to rise with the dawn bells each day. Was there anyone who had seen this epic horror story from as many angles as she? She had watched it unfold from the Firelord's palace during the Great March of Civilization, from the shadows as an exile, from the rebels' trenches after the comet, and now from behind a servant's veil in the phoenix nest. She had witnessed and borne so much suffering and sorrow, with her own family at the center of it all.
They had reached the exit to the terrace. Yuzhen turned to Grandmother and bowed her head. "Thank you, Grandmother."
Grandmother hugged her, gently so as not to hurt her. Then they went out onto the terrace and huddled against the palace wall, awaiting the aid Grandmother had said would come.
And it did, with impressive timing. A great shadow, presumably the sky bison Zuko had said still lived, slid through the reddish clouds above the palace. From it dropped two ropes, and down those ropes climbed two figures: Zuko and Katara.
Zuko said nothing at first, only let out a breath of relief and embraced Grandmother. "It's all right," she said softly, seeming to know what he had feared. "I'm all right. However they found out where she went, they didn't find out I sent her."
Zuko told them they weren't going back to the ice chamber. He said they had a plan, one the resistance had been holding in reserve until their collective hand was forced. It would be dangerous to enact, and not at all certain to work, but Yuzhen and Anzu's arrival at the North Pole had shown them that the time for lying low was past. Once they had fought against all odds to save the world. Now they would make a last-ditch bid to resurrect it.
"We need to get out of here," Katara said. "The longer we stay, the likelier we'll get caught."
"She's right. There's no time to waste." With a last longing glance at Zuko and Yuzhen, Grandmother hastened back through the doors to the lowest story of the palace. It occurred to Yuzhen that she and Grandmother might never meet again, and she hadn't even seen her face.
But this was hardly a moment to dwell on such thoughts. With Zuko helping her, Yuzhen shuffled across the terrace to the ropes, hoping as she took hold of one that she would make it all the way up.
As if through muffling fabric, or from a long way away, she heard the scraping groan of one of the palace doors opening––and then, all too sharp, all too close, saw twin fire-daggers fly through both ropes, severing them. Blue fire-daggers. For a precious few seconds, Yuzhen didn't move, didn't turn her head, thinking desperately that if she didn't look at Mother, if she didn't acknowledge their narrow arrest, it wouldn't have happened.
"I knew you were protecting someone," Mother hissed as she stalked across the terrace toward them. When Yuzhen did look at her, she was taken aback. Mother wore only a dressing gown. Her hair was disheveled, her makeup running down her face, and with each step, she swayed a little. "But a couple of zombies!"
Mother laughed, a jagged sound. She grabbed Yuzhen by her upper arm and jerked her away from Zuko. Both he and Katara had assumed their combat stances, their elements at the ready. "What, no polite small talk?" Mother said, pulling Yuzhen tight against her. "All these years and you're not even going to ask how I am?"
Yuzhen didn't have the strength to escape Mother's hold, much less fight her off; the fire inside was guttering miserably, such that she didn't think she could have warmed a cup of tea. Zuko and Katara exchanged a taut glance. "Well, I'd say you look well," he muttered, "but I was never the liar in the family."
Mother's fingers dug into Yuzhen's arm. "You come here to kidnap my daughter, and when I catch you you insult me? You were never the smart one in the family, either."
"Your daughter chose us over you."
"Yes, well, parenting isn't always about being popular, Zuzu. But I suppose you wouldn't know that, would you? Unless you're rearing pups with an arctic fo––"
Mother's taunt broke off in a startled grunt as Katara blindsided her with a blast of ice shards, knocking her off balance and Yuzhen to the terrace. Crumpled on the stone, she could only watch as Mother and the rebels clashed, flinging fire and water with grimacing ferocity. It was the first real fight she had ever seen, and far messier, she thought, than a sparring match.
Of course, Zuko and Katara would lose. Mother wouldn't be able to take them both down like this, armorless and just-risen from the birthing bed, nor would her pride permit her to summon the royal guard. But Father would come. Any moment now, Father would come, and it would all be over.
Although he wasn't coming as quickly as Yuzhen had thought. Zuko was drawing Mother's fire, managing to occupy if not overpower her, and Katara was hauling Yuzhen to her feet, hustling her over to the dangling ends of the ropes. She whisked water from one of her skins and whipped it around them.
"Leaving so soon?" Zuko could hold Mother off, but he couldn't make her shut her mouth. "Funny, I didn't have you pegged for one to run away. Not with so much to avenge."
With Katara's arm hooked around Yuzhen's waist, they shot upward in a whirl of water, just high enough to grab hold of a rope. "I wouldn't waste my revenge on you," Katara spat as the water splashed to the terrace.
Mother's pupils shrunk. She lunged at them only to be blocked by Zuko, threatened lightning only to have her arm kicked out of its arc. "You dismiss me so easily, rebel rat," Mother rasped. "Almost as easily as I dispatched your little boyfriend."
She was lying. It was Father who had slain the Avatar; everyone knew it. Still, Yuzhen saw the muscles in Katara's neck tense.
"But I understand." There was something rash, even frantic, about the way Mother slung her jeers. Her voice carried an undercurrent of breathy, wobbling laughter. "The airbenders were a peaceful bunch, weren't they? He wouldn't have wanted you to take revenge on his killer, even when she's standing right in front of you."
Katara's shoulders were quivering as under a great weight. Zuko's eyes widened. "Katara, don't––!"
Mother was baiting her and Katara knew it, Yuzhen could tell. But Katara didn't care. In a surge of water and fury she crashed down upon Mother, snatching her up in liquid tentacles, thrashing her about. Mother broke free and roared fire at her. They moved like ice-skaters, spinning around one another, attacking in great sweeping flourishes.
Or perhaps less like ice-skaters, Yuzhen thought, than dragons, horned and dagger-backed, serpentine bodies barreling through the air. A duel between dragons.
Yuzhen could hear Zuko shouting at her to go, to climb to safety on the bison, but she couldn't. Her arms could barely keep her weight aloft. Soon she was losing her grip on the rope, plummeting to the terrace, landing on her back with a thud. Her hairpin slipped out of her topknot and clattered onto the stone.
She could only lie there, breathing shallowly, while the scene unspooled before her: Mother launching into a low wheeling kick, fire rolling out from her bare foot. Zuko and Katara dodging. Mother darting past them and throwing herself onto Yuzhen, crouching over her like a hungry animal over a carcass.
"Why don't we make a deal?" Mother said to the rebels. "Leave Yuzhen, and you may go." She grinned. "Of course, I'll have to send the royal guard after you, but if I were you, I'd rather take my chances with them than with Father. And in the spirit of sportsmanship, I'll even give you a thirty-second head start."
Zuko and Katara stared at her, panting, sweating, frozen. What could they do? If they so much as made a move toward Mother, she could incinerate Yuzhen where she lay. If they took her at her word, she'd just as likely pump them full of lightning as they fled as keep it.
Even in nothing but a dressing gown, mere hours after giving birth, and with Father mysteriously late to the battle on his own doorstep, Mother had managed to outdo the rebels. Perhaps she hadn't lied about killing the Avatar. Close enough to her to feel the stampede of her heartbeat, the thunder of a thousand mad beasts carrying her royal blood through her veins, Yuzhen believed that this woman – her mother, her elder sister, the Phoenix Queen of the Great Empire – was capable of anything.
But there was one thing she hadn't counted on.
While Mother's attention was on the rebels, Yuzhen gathered her remaining strength, grabbed her hairpin from the terrace, and drove its sharp end deep into Mother's heart.