Chapter Forty-Three
Spots danced in front of Katara's eyes as she shambled through the woods. "Just a little farther," Zuko said, helping her over a ridge in the dirt. Her body felt leaden, her feet clumsy. It hadn't occurred to her until after they'd left the village that she might still be under the effects of whatever painkillers the healers had given her, and by then it had been too late to turn back, too late to hide.
Azula had found their trail. If they stopped to rest, they'd be captured or worse.
That didn't make it any easier to run. The burn on her size stung fiercely—more so now as sweat sunk into the bandages—and though her medicine-induced daze had started to lift, dehydration and exertion left her feverish. They'd been walking for hours, following catdeer trails and gurgling streams. Arduous though it was, traveling through the woods at least afforded them a chance of losing their pursuers. She couldn't say the same of the roads. If Appa were here, outrunning Azula and her soldiers would be a simple matter of taking to the sky, but on foot, their chances of escape dwindled significantly.
She didn't realize her attention had wandered until a tree root snared her ankle and sent her toppling. Even as she stifled the instinctive cry of pain, Zuko reached out to catch her, his arms coiling tight around her body, one hand a few inches above her wound. Even that indirect pressure made her vision go white with pain, and when it cleared, he was laying her carefully on the ground.
"M'fine," she mumbled. "Just need to find my feet." That proved more difficult than she'd hoped. Her whole body felt strange, hypersensitive and disconnected all at once. She could feel the blades of grass tickling at her face, could feel the cool dirt beneath her, the air currents drifting across her sweat-damp skin, but her ears were ringing, and her left foot throbbed.
Zuko swore, drawing a look of vague disapproval from his uncle. "I think you twisted your ankle."
Oh, that's why it hurts, Katara thought dimly.
"I'm going to carry you," he said, sliding one arm under her knees, the other under her neck. Too disoriented to argue, she wrapped her own arms around his shoulders, wincing as the movement tugged at her side.
They started moving again. The light breeze created by their passage was a welcome balm to her feverish skin, though she would have given anything for a soak in a nice, cool river. With her ear pressed against Zuko's chest, she could his breathing, his heartbeat. Compared to her rapid, shallow breaths, his were steady, only slightly labored. His heart rate was similarly even, if a little elevated from running. His face was flushed, too, enough that he didn't look quite so pale. She found herself staring up at him, watching the play of evening light on his face, particularly his eyes, glowing molten gold, and his scar, which reflected the fading sunshine in a way distinct from unmarred skin.
"Has anyone ever told you you're kind of beautiful?" she asked, voice slurring.
Zuko stumbled, his forehead furrowing in that strange, asymmetrical way it did when he was confused. "No," he said at last, on a note that ended the conversation.
She must have dozed for a while, because when she woke, it was dark, and she lay atop one of the bedrolls Zuko had snatched on their way out of the healers' hut. "Here," he said, pushing a canteen into her hands. "We're close to a river. Drink as much as you can, and I'll refill it when you're done."
She did, realizing as soon as she took her first shallow sip how parched she was. The healers had no doubt dribbled some liquid into her mouth during her convalescence, but they'd been on the run again almost from the moment she'd woken up, and except for a few gulps of water she'd managed during a brief halt earlier in the afternoon, she hadn't had anything substantial to drink in days. She finished off the canteen, not caring that the water inside was warm and tasted faintly of fish, then passed it back to Zuko. "How long are we stopping?"
"Until first light. We can't risk a fire with Azula looking for us, and the terrain is too treacherous to risk traveling at night." He stared at her, looking as if he wanted to say something more, then shook his head. "Try to get some rest."
The words were unexpectedly tender, and she stared after him as he went to retrieve more water. Her head felt clearer now, as much from the water as from the shallow sleep she'd managed while he'd carried her, but even so, she slipped back into unconsciousness in minutes.
Katara woke again hours later when Zuko nudged her shoulder. "We should change your bandages. Can you sit up?"
She did, wincing. It was still dark, but she thought she could see a barely perceptible lightening of the sky to the east, the first hint of daybreak. "Do we even have fresh bandages?"
Zuko produced a long strip of cloth. Katara recognized it as part of the tan tunic he'd picked up in Tsu Gong, before they'd encountered Azula and been forced to flee with their few meager possessions. "I washed it in the river," he said, unraveling the coils of bandages around her torso. "It's not ideal, but it's better than the bandages you've been wearing since yesterday."
She nodded. They could rinse and boil the bandages she was currently wearing later, when they weren't running for their lives. "Hand me a canteen. I'm going to see if I can do anything more to heal it." Her attempt in the healers' hut had helped some, but she'd been too weak and disoriented to do much more than repair the worst of the damage.
Zuko handed over his canteen, and she drew a ribbon of water from it, pressing the cool liquid to her side and willing it to sink into the wound. Healing had always been more instinctual for her than methodical, and aside from a single lesson with Yugoda after arriving in the North Pole, she'd never had any instruction on it. The fact was that by the time she'd finished training with Pakku each day, she'd been too exhausted to do more than return to her bunk for the night, and her unwilling departure from the North Pole had prevented her from seeking out further instruction. She didn't regret choosing combative waterbending over healing, but she wondered now if she shouldn't have made time for a few more lessons with Yugoda.
When she'd done what little she could for her side, she turned her attention to her twisted ankle. A night's rest had improved it considerably, but it still took several minutes to soothe the lingering pain. Even then, there remained a certain fragility to the joint, and she fretted over whether it would be able to bear her weight well enough for her to walk.
Zuko helped her bind the wound on her side using the strip of fabric he'd sheared from his tunic. "You're running a fever," he said, keeping his eyes studiously focused on his hands. "That's not unusual, under the circumstances, but if you start to feel dizzy, say something."
Her chest tightened. Zuko's voice hadn't betrayed anything, but it was clear enough where this particular bit of expertise had come from, and she found herself reaching up to brush his scar. He froze, drawing in a sharp breath and holding it as she probed at the ridges of scar tissue around his left eye. "Before Azula found the village, you said you'd made a choice once to protect the innocent," she said, meeting his gaze. "Is that how you got this scar?"
An old, deep hurt flickered in his eyes as he looked away. "It's complicated."
Nodding, she withdrew her hand. "I'm sorry. It's not any of my business. I just thought . . ." Thought what? That you had a right to know all his deepest, darkest secrets? It embarrassed her to realize that she'd expected him to lay bare his past, despite the obvious turmoil her question had stirred in him.
"I don't like to think about it," Zuko said after a moment.
"I understand. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
He looked at her, seeming to measure her sincerity, then sighed and leaned against the tree behind him. "When I was thirteen, I convinced my uncle to let me attend a war meeting," he said, the words coming slowly, as if he'd never spoken of this. Maybe he hasn't, she thought, heart clenching. Maybe this is the first time he's ever let himself talk about it. "I thought that if I proved myself a worthy successor to the throne, my father might finally be proud of me. I would learn all about the strategies and tactics that went into warfare and show him that I could be just as capable as my sister. But . . ." He hesitated, then cleared his throat. "During the meeting, one of the generals suggested a plan that would have meant sacrificing hundreds of soldiers—people who had sworn loyalty to the Fire Nation—to win a battle against the Earth Kingdom."
"And that's when you spoke out to stop it," she said, feeling as if a stone had settled somewhere inside her heart.
He closed his eyes. "That plan . . . it was a betrayal. Our soldiers risk their lives for the Fire Nation, and that general acted like they didn't even matter." Bitterness edged into his voice, and she saw his hands clench into fists for a moment before he forced them to uncurl. "I was only supposed to be observing. It wasn't my place to speak out, so when I did, it was considered a grave insult. My father . . . my father said there was only one way to resolve the dispute was through an Agni-kai. A fire duel."
"So you and the general fought—" she began, then broke off when Zuko shook his head.
"That's not how it happened."
Her eyebrows knit. "I don't understand."
"It wasn't the general I was supposed to fight. It was my father."
The stone in her heart grew heavier. After their first encounter with Azula, she'd come to suspect Zuko's relationship with the rest of his family was similarly turbulent, but even then, she hadn't pieced together this part of it. No, it's not that I didn't put it together, she thought, forcing herself to acknowledge the ugly truth. It's that I didn't want to believe it. "He left you with that scar on purpose, didn't he?"
Zuko looked away, a long moment passing in silence before he spoke again. "I was banished that afternoon. He had one of the imperial firebenders deliver the message to the infirmary. They'd readied a ship for me, assembled a crew. In the message, my father said that if I could capture the Avatar and bring him to the Fire Nation, I would be allowed to return home with honor."
"But . . ." Her forehead creased. He'd been banished at thirteen, which meant he'd been searching for the Avatar for more than two years before she'd found Aang in that iceberg. "But no one had seen the Avatar in a hundred years. Most of the world believed he'd died with the rest of the Air Nomads. How could your father expect you to—" She stopped, the implications sinking in. Ozai had never intended for Zuko to find the Avatar, let alone capture him. Zuko's quest had been nothing more than a means of keeping him out of the way.
"I know my own destiny," Zuko said, watching her with an enigmatic expression. "The Avatar had been missing for a hundred years, only to reappear right as my ship is sailing within a day's travel from his location. I understand that he's your friend. I understand that you'd do anything to protect him. But it's my destiny to capture the Avatar. It doesn't matter how many times I fail. I won't stop until I have him."
"What if that isn't your destiny?" she asked, leaning forward. "What if you failing to capture him is a sign that you're not supposed to?"
"Right," he said, bitterness sparking in his eyes. "I guess I'll just give up on any chance of going home or being recognized as anything other than a traitor or a fugitive."
Katara held her breath, fighting down the swell of frustration threatening to overflow. "What I mean is: what if you've been looking at it the wrong way this whole time? What if your destiny isn't to capture the Avatar, but to help him stop the war? What if you're here to help Aang defeat the Fire Lord?"
His eyes flashed, then dimmed. She waited, watching the subtle shifts in his expression. More than any of the arguments she'd offered him so far, the idea that his destiny might lie in taking another path seemed to crack the great wall of resistance he'd built against her offers. He wanted to believe he had a destiny, wanted to believe in her. She could see it in his posture, in his expression, in the way his eyes darted about their campsite, searching for something to focus on.
So it surprised her when he shook his head. "It's a nice thought. I wish it could be true."
Her shoulders sank. Of course it was too much to hope for that he would change his mind. "Just think about it, okay?"
He gave a noncommittal grunt. "It's dawn. We should get moving." He stood up, walking over to the bedroll where Iroh lay and nudging him awake. Katara watched him for a few moments, then reluctantly rolled up her own bedroll and readied herself for another day of running.
Foggy Swamp: Two days ago.
Sokka lifted his machete as the creature rose from the depths, pulse pounding in his temples. Beside him, Aang shot into the air on a gust of wind, instinctively evading the first wide sweep of the monster's trunk-like arms—if they could even be called that. The creature was unlike anything Sokka had ever seen. In shape, it resembled a bizarre union of human and tree, its arms thick and blunt, its body almost pear-shaped, narrow at the head and wide at the base. Its flesh seemed a mass of tangled vines reinforced with branches, and whenever the monster moved, those vines flexed and rippled like hundreds of muscles.
That was all he had time to process before the thing shot toward him, moving with shocking speed for its bulk. Sokka threw himself to the ground, forgetting that the "ground" was nothing more than a loose collection of greenery that gave way under his weight. He ended up half-buried in the muck, desperately trying to pull himself free as the monster turned toward him again, one arm lengthening as the vines that comprised it stretched toward him.
At that moment, Aang dropped down in front of him and directed a burst of wind at the creature, forcing it back. "Stay behind me!" Aang yelled.
"Right," he squeaked. "Good plan."
It didn't take long for the swamp monster to recover—its mass was such that Aang's attack had only knocked it back a few paces, rather than sending it flying. Another flurry of vines darted toward them, grasping at their feet, like the vines that had dragged them from their campsite earlier tonight. Aang made a spiraling motion with his arms, slashing through the thick cords of plant matter with blades of air.
How long has this thing been stalking us? Sokka wondered, grabbing onto a thick root and dragging himself onto relatively stable ground.
"Stay back!" Aang shouted at the monster, his voice taking on a tone of authority Sokka had only rarely heard from him. It reminded him of when Aang had confronted Hei Bai, commanding it to leave the villagers it had been attacking in peace.
The command didn't work any better on the swamp monster than it had on the spirit. It crouched down, arms extending to encircle them. Sokka spun, swinging his machete before the monster's hands, such as they were, could meet, but his efforts had little effect. The vines he cut away were swiftly replaced by more, and if his attacks hurt the creature at all, it gave no sign. "Aang, we gotta get out of here!"
Behind him, the airbender planted his feet in the muck, his arms moving in a wide circle. Several thin arcs of water rose from the mud, slicing through the monster's arm at the shoulder. The vines that had been attached to it fell limp, bleeding water and silt into the marsh. Sokka half-expected the creature to bellow—even if chopping away at its fingers hadn't seemed to hurt it, surely cutting off its entire arm would at least annoy it—but the monster merely drew back, wary but otherwise unaffected.
"Oh, come on," Sokka said, hacking at the thing's remaining arm. Suddenly, the finger-like cords unraveled, coiling around his arms and legs and dragging him into the water.
"Sokka!" Aang cried, reaching out as if he had the strength to yank him free of the grasping tendrils.
As the murky water closed over his head, Sokka struggled against his bonds. The creature's body was slick. If he could slip even one of his arms free, he might be able to cut away the rest and make it to the surface. He'd managed to get a deep breath before he'd gone under, but it wouldn't last long. Already, he could feel the slow burn in his lungs, the sluggishness in his limbs.
Suddenly, the stagnant water flowed away from him, and he gasped in a desperate breath. From the nest of roots where he'd been pinned, he could see Aang bending the water aside, leaving a thirty-foot radius of swamp mostly dry even as he guided the water he'd pushed away into a jet that punched through the monster's center-mass, leaving a gaping hole. In that moment, Sokka glimpsed something within the rapidly-healing nest of greenery—a flash of pale skin, almost as if . . .
"Aang," he called, craning his neck to look at the airbender, "there's someone in there, bending the vines."
Aang glanced at him, then back at the swamp monster, his arms moving in tight circles. Several blades of water followed the movements, slicing through layer after layer of vines. Gradually, the creature diminished in size, losing mass more quickly than it could replace it. At that moment, Aang shifted stances, and the wall of water he'd been holding back crashed into the monster, freezing on impact and immobilizing whoever was inside.
Sokka managed to yank himself free of the now-limp vines that had pulled him under just in time to get knocked off his feet by the rush of water Aang had been holding back. The current slammed into him, soaking him thoroughly before depositing him in a shallow pool of mud near the edge of the clearing.
Aang shot into the air, landing on top of the ice-encrusted remains of the monster. The man who'd been controlling it was visible now, his body encased in ice, his face smudged with dirt and plant matter. "Why did you call us here if you just wanted to kill us?" Aang demanded. If he'd had his staff, Sokka imagined one end would be pointed at the man's face.
The man's expression of alarm shifted to puzzlement. "I didn't call you here."
Aang drew back. Sokka stepped forward, his machete still firmly in hand. The man glanced his way, then let out a slow breath. As he did, the ice trapping him melted away, taking the majority of the vines with it. Beneath, the heavyset man proved to be wearing only a loincloth, though he was covered in enough mud that there was little need for them to avert their eyes.
"You're a waterbender," Sokka surmised, eyes narrowed. "That's how you're able to control the vines, isn't it?"
The man regarded him a moment, a startling intelligence in his eyes, then nodded. "Many of my people are. It's part of our way of life here." He looked to Aang. "I don't understand what you mean by calling you here, though. We try to stay apart from the world, most of the time. Makes life simpler."
Aang frowned, but Sokka could see that most of the tension had left his posture. "When we were flying over the swamp, I felt something call out to me, telling me to land."
"He's the Avatar," Sokka said, keeping up his guard. Waterbender or not, he wasn't about to trust the guy who'd appeared out of nowhere to attack them. "Stuff like this happens to us a lot."
The man's expression shifted. "The Avatar, you say?"
Aang nodded.
"Come with me." He shook off the last of the vines, trudging through the mud for a few paces before stepping onto the thick web of roots connecting the giant tree they'd seen earlier to the rest of the swamp. Sokka held his stance for a few seconds more, then reluctantly followed, Aang easily darting ahead of him with his airbending.
"Where are you taking us?" Sokka asked, eyes flickering among the undergrowth, searching for signs of an ambush.
"To the heart of the swamp," the man said. "There's something there your friend should see."
