Chapter 10

You've never truly loved someone until you've considered murdering them. –Chelsea Guy

He reached up as the snow fell around them, turning the simple hillside into a frozen paradise.

"Don't." she warned as his hand brushed the cloth of her hood.

However, he didn't hesitate to push the cloth away and she looked away, a thin line of tears forming at her sunken eyes. The yellow papyrus skin was pulled taut over her skull and what had once been beautiful hair hung in sallow strands. Her cheeks and eyes were sunken. She looked like something that should not be living.

Taking her skeletal face in his hands, she looked up at him and two twin tears fell from her eyes. Oh, her eyes, they shone like the windows to her very soul and what he saw there was as beautiful as her body was decayed. They gleamed like a cloudless noon sky and glowed like the first star in the twilight evening.

The light in those sapphire orbs changed as she realized the look on his face as not one of disgust but of wonder. Against the brilliant snow, his dark hair flew on the wind and flowed over her like silk. He radiated that constant aura of ethereal beauty, of something she should not touch lest she mar his perfection.

She gasped as against the cold wind came the warmth of his lips against hers.

It was raining. It poured onto the mountain making the normally smooth pathway a treacherous landslide. The clear moisture dripped like blood from his obsidian locks and amber eyes glanced back to the fire glow against the horizon. They were burning her home.

He shifted her to a more secure position and she clutched him as he ran on.

A section of shale fell away beneath him and he slid on the sheer cliffside for a moment before catching a limb and he pulled them back onto sturdy ground.

The shouts told him they were being followed.

Blood dripped from her wounds and he tried to get his bangs to stay out of his way so he could fix them.

"Sae…" she caught his hand. "You have to finish the spell. It's almost done."

He pushed her hand away a little rougher than he intended.

"I don't care about the spell. I care about you."

She slapped him with all of her strength she could muster which wasn't much, it barely hurt but it shocked him more so.

"Ana…"

"If you choose me and let the world die, I will hate you forever. The spell is almost finished. All it needs now…"

"No!"

"…my blood."

"You cannot ask this of me!"

"It's the only way. I'd die someday anyway. Please."

He laid his head against her chest, crying the last tears he'd every cry, sobbing without shame. She patted his hair gently. He raised his hands and kissed her, his lips brushing against hers feather light and repeatedly as he hands traced her jaw line ever gentle and settled over her throat.

At first she didn't react as he continued kissing her, resolved to her fate. Then her body jerked, rebelling as it tried to save itself but it was no match for his iron grip. It gave one last spasm and lay still and he was kissing a corpse.

Later, her lifeblood poured into the vat, still warm, as the tears dried on his face, a cold mask settling over him. The potion began to swirl and changed from a deep orange to a faint opaque purple. As well, half of it boiled off leaving just enough for four bottles if he stretched it. Dropping her body, he went outside, knelt in the mud, and screamed.

Shiroten stared up blankly at the Fire Princess he'd once tried to kill. He was almost surprised she'd recognized him. He listened to her words and relaxed beneath her.

"There isn't one."

Azula's brow furrowed in confusion and she frowned. Shiroten sighed.

"Does it bother you when your enemy does not object to being killed? Go ahead. The world wouldn't change."

"I've got a better idea." Azula replied. "You're going to explain things to me."

She pulled him up and shoved him back to the fighters with them and they quickly bound him and forced him to his knees.

"Salvage what you can." She said to the troops. "We move in an hour."

Two guards stayed with Shiroten who didn't look up from the mud between his knees.

Iroh dodged between the shadows, making it to the western tower without being seen. The tower had been closed off after a cave in of the nearby mountain, making the foundation unstable. It had been his favorite hiding place as a child.

Settling in one of the more stable rooms, he sat down and began to meditate, humming lightly under his breath. After Ozai had become sick, he'd been labeled a traitor to the Fire Nation and was hunted day and night. After Kanna took Ziri, he returned to the Fire Nation to try and determine what exactly was going on. There were two battling spiritual presences hovering over the capital and it was to these that he pushed his spirit, trying to understand them.

They were both incredibly immense, swirling about each other but never really touching, like oil and water. The dark one had been growing ever since he'd first sensed it but the other, kind of a light gray, remained the same size. However, it was so enormous he couldn't see the end of it. It seemed to expand over everything. There were strips of dark oil present in it now.

He reached out, trying to touch the darker presence. If he could figure out who that was, he could find out who Eimin's contact in the capital was and maybe be able to counter him. He pressed against the oily barrier carefully.

Zyperis stopped dead in the middle of the hallway he was passing down.

Iroh yelped as he was snatched out of the Spirit World, his body crushed into the wall. A masked man was holding him there with one arm.

"What in the hell did you think you were doing, Iroh?" the man hissed. "You could've ruined everything!"

Iroh stared in surprise. "Who are you? How did you know I was here?"

Behind the mask, Iroh could feel the man narrow his gaze before lowering him so that he could stand.

"I am the Speaker."

Iroh blinked, more startled that ever. "Has it gotten that large? That even the Powers That Be interfere? That they send their Child?"

The Speaker hesitated briefly before nodding. "If Kolyn gains control of this world, he will have control of every world."

Iroh nodded. "Life as we know it will cease to exist."

The Speaker raised his head. "Life itself will cease."

The powder burned like acid against his bare skin as they were all shoved through the line. Korosu struggled not to breathe as others coughed and ground against him. He did not draw a breath until water scrubbed the white secretion from his pores and they were handed their new uniforms. He patted the shoulder of the recruit next to him as they dressed. The recruit nodded to him, still coughing.

Dressed, they were shoved outside, their hair pulled roughly into topknots and any excess sheared off. Then they were passed along to the next stop. A few of the officers along the way tried attacked them with bamboo shafts. Korosu would have none of it though several let themselves be hit, too tired from the day's workout to care. However, Korosu grabbed the shaft thrust at him and jabbed it backwards hard enough to knock the wind from its owner. Then he was thrown back into line.

A voice crept over them as they were lashed into ranks, some barely able to stand after the brutal treatment. Korosu stared blankly forward, his eyes red from the powder and the beatings, his skin sore, but his anger fresh. The screams he heard were not of the new recruits around him.

Returning to the camp after a day's training, he broke into a run at smoke rising above the trees. Black smoke.

Where the camp had been there was only charred remains of tents and bodies. The men had returned to find their women and children brutally massacred, several looking as though they'd been burned alive. The field was alive with screams of agony. What was worse were the ones that knelt in the ashes and made no sound, staring forward.

"You will concentrate into the flame. Do not try to make it grow or lessen, just concentrate. Your potential will be judged and you will be separated into one of the three lines ahead. Any attempt to sway yourself in one of the three directions with result in severe punishment."

"How can we prepare ourselves for such attacks? They have spies, scouts…"

"Next."

"I'll go."

Korosu watched as each recruit to the Fire Nation army went before the flame of Kimeru, a flame from the original source of fire-bending, the dragons, kept burning. Somehow beyond their understanding, the flame could judge the potential of fire-benders before it and remained the impartial judge of which branch the recruits would be placed in.

He was jerked out of line and shoved before the flame. So far he'd seen three signs: a cross, a diamond, and a 'Y'. But there was a fourth section, a fourth sign he had to get. He had to surpass them all and get into the Fire Lord's Elite. It was the only way to get the information necessary. He knew he had to get into it and this flame was in his way.

He stepped forward. Please see in me what I am. Help me.

The flame observed him quietly for a moment before spreading itself into two long arms. One of the men sitting behind the flame started to write something down but the other man caught his arm. For the flame wasn't through. Instead of extending the arms of the 'Y' out to the side, they circled each other, falling forward over the bowl. The flame seemed to be bowing to him.

Then it exploded, rising into a pillar higher than the very pagoda.

Shiroten made no sound as the snow began falling heavier, staining the ground a brilliant white. Azula paced the ground in front of him, trying to figure out what to do.

"You work for Eimin."

Shiroten shook his head minutely which made Azula stop. When half the tree he was leaning against vanished under her lightning, he didn't blink.

"I know you work for him!"

"Worked…past tense."

Azula accepted this. Ty Lee stood nearby, her hands folded in front of her. Mai stood nearby.

"You seemed pretty cozy with Peris at Taiyoo." The moody girl mused.

Azula noted Shiroten's reaction to this statement, his lids drooped and a weight seemed to settle on his shoulders, his gaze drifting from her to the snow beside her boots. Somehow, she recognized that look. Death would be the kindest thing to the jilted angel before her. She had to admit, he wasn't bad looking.

Turning, she knelt in front of Shiroten and gently turned his head to meet her gaze. Those emerald eyes didn't suit him. They looked better silver-rimmed.

"What do you know about Peris?"

The jade orbs grew sad. "More than you could comprehend in a night."

Shasa glanced up from where she knelt. There was rarely anything to do anymore. Makani had been taken away for some purpose or another and it seemed that Nen had escaped Eimin's grasp, thank Alem.

The sight that greeted her sparked her hopes for the barest of moments before she leveled a death glare at the demonic god before her. Who happened to look just like her fiery husband.

"You like?" Eimin asked, taunting before turning a full circle, showing off his guise as Agni dressed head to toe in Fire Nation armor. But Agni didn't have that evil glint in his eye.

Shasa glared. "I thoroughly hate your shape-shifting capabilities."

Eimin grinned. "Well, your dear mate is the spirit of the Fire Nation, which I am manipulating wonderfully."

"You mean Zyperis is. I haven't seen you lift a finger."

But the smile the death god possessed didn't waver.

"Why should I interfere when he's doing such a good job? Besides, I have my own duties to tend to. Yet, it will be increasingly difficult to be both Min and Agni. Wouldn't it be nice if Agni himself decided to help me out?"

Shasa was on her feet in an instant, the bulge of her dress betraying the progress of her pregnancy.

"You touch him, teme, and I swear…"

A malicious glint appeared in his eye, both familiar and foreign to her.

"Don't worry, Shasa, I won't touch him. I promise you that."