Chapter Twenty

"I need to hear this from someone else," Katara said, looking a little sick. "Where's your uncle?"

Good question, Zuko thought, uneasy."If he's not in our room, then he's probably out window-shopping."

She nodded woodenly. "I won't be able to move through the town alone without drawing attention to myself. I need you to tie my hands and bring me to him."

"It'll be easier to wait in the room—"

"Zuko, please," she whispered, closing her eyes. To his horror, he saw beads of moisture gathering at the corners. "It can't wait. I need to know."

Threads of fire wound their way through his voice. "You do know. I just told you what happened."

"Well, I need to hear it from someone else!" she snapped, voice wavering. "I . . . I need to be sure, and I don't trust you. You're my enemy."

"If I'm your enemy, then so is my uncle."

"It's not the same."

"It's exactly the same! Why won't you believe me?"

She pressed her palms to her eyes, her breath coming in quick gasps. Zuko flinched. Agni, she's actually crying. In front of me. He felt as if he'd swallowed a bucketful of ice. Mai had never cried like this. Mai had rarely shown any emotion at all. He didn't know how to deal with a crying girl, especially not one who both hated him and considered him a liar.

Her quiet crying dissolved into keening sobs, muffled only by the hands she kept pressed against her face to smother the tears. It's getting worse. It's actually getting worse. He grit his teeth. "Fine! Fine, we'll go see my uncle. Just . . . stop crying, all right?"

It didn't stop. Not right away, at least. She turned away from him, wiping her eyes with the towel she'd brought with her. It took another minute for her breathing to even out. The entire time, Zuko held his breath, wincing at every faint noise she made. He hadn't expected her to cry. He'd chased her and her friends all the way across the world without seeing her weep, without seeing a single moment of weakness from her. Even after agreeing to be his prisoner, she'd defied him at every turn, demanding more freedom than any prisoner had a right to expect, acting like she was his equal. She had been headstrong, unbreakable, antagonistic.

Now she was vulnerable. That shook him more than he wanted to admit.

Rather than continuing to watch her, he walked away to grab the ropes he'd used to tie her wrists on their way to the hot springs. To think we came here to relax, he thought, closing his eyes. He should have known they would never be able to get along well enough to truly relax together. Because if they did get along, if they started to think of each other as comrades, he'd end up betraying her. As long as the line between enemy and ally remained clear, it wouldn't be a betrayal, and he could sleep well knowing that she would not mourn the loss of whatever tenuous friendship might grow between them as she now mourned the loss of the Avatar as she knew him. When they parted, he would not leave her like this.

By the time he finished untangling the ropes, the waterbender had composed herself. Zuko refrained from asking her if she was all right, silently tethering her wrists using a knot that would tighten if she resisted him—a knot that could not be undone by pulling on a single loop. If he wanted to think of her as an enemy, he had to treat her as one. While that didn't necessarily mean hurting her, it did mean that he'd treat her like a proper prisoner, ropes and all. And you giving into her demands is treating her as a prisoner? mocked a tiny voice inside his mind. He ignored it. "Let's go find my uncle."

Zuko's uncle turned out to be sitting in the middle of the village, instructing a girl of about seven years how to play Pai Sho. "The key to victory is the ability to change tactics if your current strategy begins to fail," Iroh said, picking up one piece and setting it near the edge of the board. "This is the water lily tile. It can only move a handful of spaces at a time, but when positioned well, it can—Nephew! I did not expect to see you before dinner." His mouth pulled into a wide grin. "I was just teaching Miss Kua Mei the rules of Pai Sho. You should join me for a demonstration."

"I don't have time for games," Zuko said, handing his uncle the rope he'd been using to lead Katara around the village. She blinked, more surprised by the fact that Zuko knew how to play Pai Sho (she didn't) than by his terse response. "I'm going to ask the villagers if they've heard any rumors about the Avatar. I need you to take care of the waterbender for a few hours."

Iroh's smile disappeared as his eyes flickered to Katara's face. "Is everything all right?" he asked her. Zuko had already disappeared around the corner, his footsteps quick and quiet. "You seem a little upset."

"I actually wanted to talk to you about something," she said, wincing. As she and Zuko had walked around the village, she'd done her best to put thoughts of Aang's possible rampage out of her mind. It couldn't be true. Aang wasn't a killer. Even locked in the Avatar state, as Zuko had claimed, Aang would never slaughter people. Zuko was wrong.

He had to be.

Iroh turned back to his Pai Sho opponent. "It has been wonderful teaching you, but I am afraid our lesson must come to an end for today."

The little girl nodded, hopping down from her stool and bowing deeply before running off. Feeling self-conscious, Katara sat down in her seat, thinking about how to phrase her questions, wondering if it would even matter. Zuko and his uncle had been around each other without her long enough to discuss what they would or would not share with her—including any false stories that would lead her to behave differently once she reunited with Aang. For all she knew, Zuko's venomous words were all a clever ploy to manipulate her—a ploy Iroh could very well be a part of.

But for all she knew, Zuko had been telling the truth. As desperately as she wanted to believe he'd been lying about Aang's role in the fleet's destruction—in the massive death toll—she had to consider the possibility that what he'd told her was true.

She took a breath, meeting Iroh's eyes. "I was wondering if you could tell me what happened during the invasion of the North Pole."

Iroh's eyes widened. "I am afraid that is a very broad question. Is there, perhaps, something more specific you are curious about?"

Just say it. You'll never know unless you ask. "I was unconscious when the Fire Nation fleet was destroyed," she said carefully. "I want to know what caused that destruction."

Something flickered across Iroh's face, smoothed over before she could identify it. "I take it my nephew has said something which may have caused you some distress."

Her hands, still tied, curled into fists atop the Pai Sho board. "He said that Aang—the Avatar," she added, suddenly wondering if Zuko or his uncle even knew his name, "was the one who sunk the fleet. I want to know whether that's true."

Iroh hesitated, his expression softening. People milled around them, some pausing to stare, though whether they focused on Iroh, who had apparently been an important General once, or on her, an unusual waterbending prisoner, depended on who was staring.

"That," Iroh said at last, "may be a more complex question than you realize. Our world and the Spirit World are intricately linked, and there exists no stronger bridge between them than the Avatar. However, with this link, there comes a price. The Spirit World is a strange and often dangerous place, and many of its ways are incomprehensible to us. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the ocean spirit, in its grief and rage over the moon spirit's death, would merge with the Avatar in an attempt at retribution." He closed his eyes, and for a moment, she saw a shadow of a different man. A harder man, one who could and would lead soldiers into battle. A man who had seen—and possibly done—horrible things.

Iroh went on. "From what I have seen of your friend, he is not prone to vengeance. The air nomads were always a peaceful people. They were of the world but also apart from it. And so I do not think your friend would sink the fleet of his own volition. The question you should be asking, then, is whether he had any agency in what he did."

"Aang would never do something like that," she said, closing her eyes.

Iroh nodded. "I believe you are right about that. However, that is not how the rest of the world will see it."

Her eyes flew open. "What do you mean?"

"Already, rumors of what happened at the North Pole have begun circulating. Soon, there will be official announcements of the loss. Families will be notified. Mothers and fathers will weep for lost children, and children will weep for lost mothers and fathers. As much as I would prefer to believe in the best outcome of any situation, I do not see the Fire Nation as a whole being able to see the Avatar as a force of good after this—not for many years. They will not see a boy compelled by external forces to do horrible things, but a dangerous enemy threatening to snuff out their nation. That is unavoidable. More damaging, perhaps, is that the water tribes and the Earth Kingdom will look upon the very same catastrophe and uphold the Avatar as a war hero. What they see as a decisive victory, the Fire Nation will view as a tragedy, and this difference in perspective will only widen an already vast chasm between the nations."

"But he didn't do it," Katara insisted, leaning forward. "The ocean spirit did. That's what you said, isn't it?"

"That is what I said," Iroh confirmed. "That is what I believe. But that does not change the fact that there will be consequences. A peaceful resolution to this war becomes less and less likely the more things like this happen."

"There could still be peace, if both sides would just try." She stood, her voice gaining strength as her resolve gathered. "None of us have to fight this war. If there's a diplomatic solution . . . I mean, I don't like the Fire Nation any more than, well, everyone else who's not part of the Fire Nation. But if it meant an end to this war . . ."

Iroh only shook his head sadly. "I wish that were an option. But until you can get the Fire Lord, the Earth King, and the Chieftains of both water tribes to agree with one another—to establish peace predicated on equality and hope rather than domination and fear—that day will never come."

Disheartened, Katara sat. She'd come to Iroh hoping he would tell her that Aang hadn't caused thousands of people to drown, and his answer had been as gentle as it could have been without being false. But it had raised other questions she didn't want to think about—questions she wasn't sure she could deal with right now. Because what if he was right? What if the only chance for peace was for one nation to dominate the others? What if the Fire Nation vilified Aang to such a degree that they would never accept any overtures of peace, even if Aang managed to defeat the Fire Lord?

What if the Fire Nation was right to blame Aang for what had happened at the North Pole? Even if he hadn't been in control of himself, his presence and power had allowed the fleet to be destroyed. And while she didn't believe he would ever do something so awful on purpose, she could understand why the Fire Nation would hate him for it. Even if it had saved the North Pole from being invaded, the loss of the fleet had caused many deaths. Did that justify the blame the Fire Nation would inevitably place on him?

Did Aang even know what he'd done?

"I sense you need some time to think," Iroh said quietly, placing his hand over hers. "If you like, I will take you back to the inn."

Not trusting her voice, she simply nodded.