Chapter 48 – Resolve


"No." Miyo wasn't protesting – it was a statement of fact, as if Natquik had misjudged. "No, he can't be." Numb inside, he fell back easily as Miyo pushed him away, taking his spot beside Hikoshu. He watched as she felt for his pulse, checked his eyes – all the little techniques to test for life. And he knew that Hikoshu was failing all of them.

"Hikoshu," she said, then gave a strangled, high-pitched cry. "Hikoshu!"

She covered his mouth and nose with her hand, the other one on his neck. Then, against all reason, Hikoshu's chest began to move.

Awe-struck, Natquik dashed back Hikoshu's side. Perhaps he'd missed something – perhaps he'd declared Hikoshu lost too soon. But just as quickly, the hope faded. Miyo removed her hand from his face with a heartbreaking sob, and he realized that she was simply bending air into him. Choking, she dragged Hikoshu's head and shoulders into her lap and folded herself over him, both of them disappearing under the plaits of her hair.

"Is he really gone?" Yan-lin asked, her voice shaking. Natquik looked up at her, taking in her pale, unsteady appearance, the waxy sheen of sweat on her forehead. She was still in the same tan robes as earlier, though she'd also donned a red cloak. Her hood was thrown back to reveal a bun that was coming loose and an expression that bordered between shock and sick. Knowing she was about to faint, he rose to grab her.

But she didn't faint. Instead, she clutched his arm, her hand leaving a sticky, bloody print on his sleeve, and forced him to meet her eyes. "Natquik, he can't be gone. You have to save him."

Natquik circled an arm around her, half out of comfort, half out of a desire to guide her away from Hikoshu. "I'm sorry, Yan-lin. I can't." From behind them sifted Miyo's uncontrollable weeping, and Kinu's helpless words of sympathy. "He's passed on."

"No, Natquik, you don't understand." She pulled herself out of his grip, her look strained. "You have to heal him. The prediction said you would heal him."

"Yan-lin," he said with both condolence as well as a note of warning. He wanted just as much as anyone for Hikoshu to be alive. But talking that way was not going to make it so, nor was it going to be any good for Miyo to hear. "I can't bring people back from the dead."

"But the prediction said—"

"What prediction?"

"The qu-dan!"

And suddenly, his sadness moved back enough for him to remember his anger at her. Of course, the qu-dan. The whole reason for all of this. Trying hard not to lash out, Natquik kept his voice low.

"Hikoshu is dead. No fortuneteller can bring him back, either."

"The qu-dan said," her voice was also low, but far more intense, "that he would be reborn through the winter. The winter, Natquik! That doesn't refer to the cycle."

"And it refers to me?"

"Please. You're the world's greatest healer. You have to try." Now she looked desperate, and he realized that everyone was listening to their exchange. Even Miyo, who stared up at him with eyes that had been swollen too many times with tears in the last day.

"I can't heal the dead, Yan-lin." He felt disgusted at the thought of even trying. It was inhuman, wrong. Death was a natural process, and no one was meant to interfere. No, he couldn't do it. Natquik couldn't meddle with something that belonged to the realm of the spirits.

Then again, hadn't he done that already in the past night?

His decision was made, though, the moment he caught Miyo's gaze – the way she stared at him, as if suddenly seeing in him a hope she hadn't dared foster until now. "Natquik," she murmured, and her voice tore at his heart, "please try. If there's something, anything…then for Hikoshu. For me."

Natquik had to be tired. Or perhaps insane. But her look of guarded hope was enough to sway him – to convince him that maybe he owed it to them all to try. What he'd done to Hikoshu was enough to warrant at least one attempt. And if the spirits didn't will it, Natquik would fail.

Then all he would have to worry about was Miyo's disappointment.

"Uncle," Sahani said, panic now rising in her voice, and Natquik turned to find her still at the door, her body bent out into the hall to keep watch. Frightened, she spun back toward the room, her eyes wide and her black hair wild about her face. "Men are coming."

"The Sages have returned," Yan-lin gasped. Kinu was immediately on his feet, dragging Sahani back into the room as he slammed the door shut, and Yan-lin grabbed Natquik's arm. "You have to hurry!"

"This isn't going to be fast." He didn't know how he knew it – perhaps because he honestly didn't know what he was doing. It was going to take some time to figure that out. "Kinu, I need you to stall them!"

"I'll do what I can." The old Shaman looked up from Sahani, whom he had hidden in one of the beds again. "But there are a lot of men out there." Despite his doubtful words, Kinu bended around him nearly all the remaining water from the pitcher, then strode for the door.

"Miyo." Natquik ducked down to her side to pull her from her vigil over Hikoshu's body. Slowly, she turned to gaze at him, threatening tears once more. "You have to go with Kinu and hold off the firebenders while I do this."

"I can't leave him," she said firmly, and he fought back desperation. The Sages were hammering on the door now, their voices blocked by the wood.

"If they come in here, I'm not going to be able to save him." Natquik spoke in a quick hush, holding tight to her shoulder as if to impart some courage. "I can't do this without you. You have to fight for Hikoshu now, understand? Please, Miyo, I need you." Then, seeing the doubt in her eyes, he added, "You can do this. You just have to be strong for him."

Perhaps finding that inner-strength she always seemed to long for – or perhaps seeing there was no other way – she nodded and stood, allowing him to take her place by Hikoshu. Outside, a Sage was shouting for them to open the door, his words barely audible.

"Yan-lin, I need you over here." He grabbed the pitcher that Kinu had left, though there was only a small amount of water inside. Quelling a brief rush of despair, he set it down and pushed Hikoshu's robes open, the unhealed wound once more exposed. The skin was surprisingly warm around the cut, quite unlike the chill that had settled in his face.

Beside the door, Kinu and Miyo were plotting, their plans drowned out by the ever-more insistent demands of the Sage behind it. But he didn't have time to concentrate on what they were doing. They had their job to do, and he had his.

"You're going to have to breathe for him," Natquik said as Yan-lin sat by him. "When I signal, you pinch his nose with one hand, open his mouth with the other, and breathe in. Hard breaths, too. Enough to make his chest rise. Understood?" She gave an irresolute nod as she removed her cape.

Somewhere to his left, Natquik heard the door swing open, and the Sages' voices grow in volume. But then there was a loud 'boom' that shook the room, and a moment later, the door shut soundly.

He didn't look up as he bended water onto Hikoshu's chest. Nor did he dwell on the idea that several of them may die for a man who was already dead. Asking the spirits for forgiveness, he merely placed his hand over Hikoshu's heart and began to bend.

xXxXxxxXXxxxXxXx

"When I open this door," Kinu murmured, as collected as though they were planning a meditative retreat rather than an attack, "you will hit them with a force of air. Can you do that?"

Miyo nodded distantly, her eyes drawn back to Hikoshu no matter how hard she struggled to ignore him. Under Natquik's hands, he looked so vulnerable. So little like the man she loved. How angry he would be to find himself on the floor, helpless, while everyone else fought to save him.

"Airbender!" Her gaze snapped back to Kinu's, and she found no pity there. "Do you understand?" She could barely hear him over the pounding on the door and the pounding of her heart. It was ridiculous even to have this conversation; she would have to fight whether she could or not.

"Yes." She strengthened her resolve. Every day before this, she had hesitated. But not today. Kinu gave one sharp nod and reached for the handle with a free hand, a large clump of ice in the other. Positioning herself behind him, she shifted into an airbending stance.

Today, she would take all of this sadness and anger and hatred of the world, and she would make it into a little ball of air in her stomach. When it exploded, it would swallow everything, even her. There would be nothing left standing.

Miyo didn't even see the firebenders behind the door. The moment that it opened, she folded her arms in, twisted back, and heaved with everything she had.

The air thundered as it slammed into the two men, and they were thrown against the far wall, each landing with a smack before they slid to the floor. But she didn't look at them. She made sure that any errant glance would only be spared for Hikoshu, over whom Natquik was bent, his hands glowing blue.

Kinu moved past her, slipping into the hall as he bended the ice back into water. It became a whip just as she found her spot behind him, her back to his. Four firebenders faced her, and she knew a similar number faced Kinu. But she knew he'd protect her, just as she would protect him.

So Miyo dismissed Kinu from her mind as the Sages in unison stepped forward to level a wave of fire on her. Nimbly, she spun and parted the flames with her arms to either side, then cupped her hands to shove at the air. One firebender shot backwards in the resultant blast.

Miyo supposed, if she'd had a chance to think, she would have been exhilarated at the prospect of her training finally coming into play. But at that moment, all she thought was that they would not get to Hikoshu.

Swerving to avoid another blast, she pushed forward.

xXxXxxxXXxxxXxXx

Yan-lin was strangely distracted. Natquik noted it despite being engrossed in his bending. It was almost as if she didn't want to look at Hikoshu, as her eyes anxiously followed the unseen battle outside the door.

Wary, he diverted his attention back to Hikoshu and to the task at hand. The key was to get the blood flowing. Even without chi, a body could essentially exist as long as its heart beat. But he would have to substitute as Hikoshu's chi and make his heart beat for him.

There were innumerable taboos he was breaking by doing this. Any man would be ostracized for committing the smallest of them, and any man would be put to death for the worst. Chi manipulation intending to harm, other-body manipulation, tampering with the dead – the list was long and horrific. And the only way Natquik could keep going was with the knowledge that he had to do something. That maybe he could do something, and that perhaps the good which came of it would offset all of the bad.

"Yan-lin." She looked at him dully, then nodded, her braid finally falling loose of its bun as she leaned over Hikoshu's head. She would have to breathe for him; all the blood in the world was worthless without breath. It would become chi in his body, hopefully, and perhaps the flow would correct itself. But even as Yan-lin rose, Hikoshu's chest collapsing under his hand, Natquik knew it hadn't worked. So he kept trying.

Sahani was next to the door, having pulled it open enough to watch the fight. He didn't ask her to go back to her bed – she wouldn't have listened to him anyhow. Always a stubborn girl, she sometimes acted more foolish than brave. Still, Natquik felt a pang of regret that she had to see this at all. If only there'd been a way to get her out of there. If only they'd had more time...

"Get on the other side and try breathing from there," he instructed Yan-lin, more to get her out of his way than anything. She nodded again and stood, shifting her robes so that she could step over Hikoshu.

The moving fabric exposed the top of her boot briefly, and he saw the flash of something familiar. The leather-wrapped hilt of a knife, dotted with tiny blue beads.

Before she could take her seat, Natquik reached forward and seized the bone handle, pulling it deftly from her boot. It didn't catch her leg, though he wasn't sure he would've cared if it had. The knife was his, abandoned at the Ambassador's Wing. And the usually silver metal was smeared with half-dried blood.

When Natquik finally looked to her, Yan-lin stared back in dawning horror, her eyes moving from him to the blade as if afraid either one would attack her. Slowly kneeling once more, she put her hands on Hikoshu's shoulder.

"You don't understand."

"You're right. I don't." He flung the knife away from him, and it skittered loudly across the stone floor, causing Yan-lin to wince. "I don't understand at all what you're playing at."

"You said that the only thing that would save him was death, and-and I realized…the prediction."

Natquik had reached his breaking point. Disgusted, he turned back to Hikoshu and continued to bend the poor man's heart. There were people now fighting for the Avatar; if they were to be hurt or killed, Natquik would make sure it was for something.

"Get back over there and breathe," he growled. Swaying as if hit, she obeyed and returned to her position by Hikoshu's head. "There will be consequences after this, Yan-lin."

She didn't answer. And Natquik tried to resist the fury-driven urge to make her pay for everything.