Chapter 22

When Katara entered the common area of the igloo with Aang leaning against her, the sight that greeted her eyes pulled her up short.

She barely noticed her father and the elders seated in a rough circle on the striped rugs and furs covering the frozen ground. Instead, her attention—along with everyone else's—was drawn to the center of the room.

Sakari lay on her back in the middle of the circle. Her entire upper body was enclosed in a mass of solid rock. Several cushions supported her head and neck on one end and her legs and feet on the other. Her braids dangled off the cushions like ropes that had been discarded and forgotten. She stared at the ceiling.

Two men—Southerners, judging by the slanting panels of their tunics—were working on the rock encasing Sakari's body. A man with a jagged scar on his cheek balanced a splitting wedge on a long, shallow groove that ran down the length of the rock. The taller man pounded a sledgehammer onto the flat head of the wedge, driving the steel bevel deeper into the groove.

Katara used to think that Sakari was just a shy and nervous girl, but she turned out to be a spider ant who skulked around with her fangs sheathed. Then she had exposed her true self in the ice caves, hissing and biting and stinging. Takit was her prey, but her web had ensnared Katara and Aang, as well.

Anger burned in Katara's chest as she watched the men try to break Sakari out of her stony prison. A spider ant, rolled up in her own web.

This is what she deserves, Katara thought bitterly. She almost killed me.

The burn of anger rose to a boil. She almost killed Aang.

When the tall man couldn't hammer the wedge in any further, he tossed his hammer aside. The man with the scar yanked the wedge out of the rock. They stepped back, and Pakku stepped forward. He crouched into a waterbending stance. Water from a bucket by his feet flowed into the groove and froze into ice. Then the ice shattered, leaving the groove a shade deeper than before.

"We've been chipping away at this rock for days, and we've barely made a dent," the old waterbender grumbled as he straightened. "We don't know when the earthbenders will get here. Or if they will even come. If only Katara could heal the Avatar a little faster—"

"Aang is awake, Pakku," Katara said from the doorway.

All heads turned toward her and Aang. The room erupted into excited exclamations.

"The Avatar!"

"He's finally awake!"

"Thank Tui and La!"

Hakoda stood and shook Aang's hand, gripping his elbow in the Water Tribe way. "I'm glad you're awake, Aang. You joined us just in time." His eyes flicked briefly to Aang's arm draped over Katara's shoulders and her arm curled around his waist. A satisfied look came over his face. "Katara has been taking good care of you. She hardly left your side."

Katara's face grew warm as her anger at Sakari transformed into a self-conscious blush. What her father said was true, but hearing him say it out loud, combined with the look he was giving them—almost smug, like Sokka's was—made her shift uncomfortably on her feet. "Dad, I was just healing him the best that I could."

Even though Aang was already leaning on her, he somehow leaned even closer. "She brought me back," he said. When he turned to her, his gray eyes were soft and full of wonder. "She always does."

The way he was looking at her almost made her forget where she was, until her father led them to a spot in the circle between Kanna and Elder Ahnah.

For the first time since entering the room, Katara noticed Takit. He was sitting outside the circle, slouching against the wall as if he wanted to disappear. The elders must have wanted him here so they could keep an eye on him, since he wasn't entirely blameless in this situation. Katara met his eyes briefly before he looked away.

Kanna explained to Aang what Takit had recounted to the rest of the group. When Takit was a young boy, he and his parents fled from the South Pole to the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se. There, he was singled out and beaten up by street gangs simply for being Water Tribe. Then one day, he borrowed his father's knife to defend himself, but the street boys turned the knife on him instead. The attack was broken up by Dai Li agents who were in the area investigating an anti-government organization. Unbeknownst to Takit, the organization's symbol was carved into the handle of his father's knife. The agents spotted the symbol on the knife and began to question him. When Takit told them the knife belonged to his father, they demanded his father's name.

His father's name was Kisuk. But Takit told the Dai Li that his father's name was Nilak—the man who was a guest in his home the previous night and who also happened to be Sakari's father.

As a result of Takit's lie, Sakari's father was executed for treason.

No wonder Sakari tried to kill Takit in the ice caves, Katara thought grimly.

But when Hakoda and the elders spoke with Sakari, she refused to say a word. She would only close her eyes and turn her head away. They were hoping that Aang, the Avatar, would be able to find a way to get Sakari to talk.

"The first thing I need to do is to release her from the rock," Aang said.

He flattened his palms, then clenched them into fists with a sharp downward thrust. The rock surrounding Sakari crumbled away. The cushions supporting her head and feet collapsed, and she fell into a heap.

"Please make yourself comfortable, Sakari," he said, folding his hands in his lap. "I'd like to talk to you."

Sakari shot him a look of surprise, but she pushed herself upright. She held out her palms. "You're not going to bind my hands?"

Aang shook his head. "No, I'm not. I just want to talk."

Katara sucked in a tight breath. This was the girl who had tried to kill Takit, who was sitting only a few armlengths away. Sakari was so unhinged that she had almost taken down her and Aang, too. And Aang wasn't going to nullify Sakari's bending by binding her hands in rock? What was he thinking?

Sakari narrowed her eyes at Aang. "What is there to talk about? You don't want to talk to me. Not after I almost—almost—"

Fury flashed hot through Katara. Sakari almost ended Takit's life in cold blood. She battled against Aang and Katara as they bled out onto the ice. Now she refused to talk to Aang, who was showing her mercy, who nearly died because of her.

And now, she couldn't even bring herself to say that she almost killed him. What was her problem? Who was she trying to kid?

"Almost what?" Aang asked, prompting her gently.

But Sakari just glared at him, unable to speak the words out loud.

"You just want to put me away, don't you?" she blurted out instead. "Lock me in a room somewhere. Or maybe in a cage, like the Dai Li did with my father!"

Wait a minute. In the ice caves, Sakari had said that her father was executed. Was she changing her story?

Aang seemed to catch this, too. "What did the Dai Li do with your father, Sakari?" he asked.

"I already told you, didn't I? They took him away!"

"What happened after they took him away?"

"They—they—" Sakari looked down at her hands. "I don't know," she muttered. "The Dai Li took my father away when I was six years old. I never saw him again."

"That doesn't mean the Dai Li killed him, Sakari. Your father could still be alive," Aang said.

"It's been ten years," Sakari said, still staring at her hands. "He must have died in prison, or he was put to death.

"For ten years, my mother and I chased every rumor, every scrap of information we could find." She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "We were desperate, and we made deals with people who took advantage of our desperation. We lost so much. We were already poor, but we lost almost everything."

When she lifted her head, her eyes were sharp and hard like daggers. "My mother and I wouldn't have suffered so much if our own tribe didn't cut us off, too. We were outcasts. Everyone thought we did something to bring the Dai Li down on us. No one wanted the Dai Li's attention. No one wanted to disappear. No one wanted anything to do with us."

Sakari whipped her arm around to jab her finger straight at Takit, who flinched away and cowered. "But none of this would have happened if it wasn't for you!"

Katara shifted her weight forward, preparing to waterbend in case the other girl lashed out.

"My father would still be alive!"

Pakku, who had remained standing, took a small step toward Sakari.

"The Dai Li wanted your father, but you gave them my father instead!"

Even Aang crouched with a hand on the ground, like a runner ready to sprint.

"You dragged him down with you," Sakari said, panting hard. "You dragged down all of us!"

Takit held his arms crossed in front of him, as if shielding himself from Sakari's accusations. "I'm sorry! I didn't know he was your father! I didn't know what they would do to him!"

"You know what the Dai Li do with people who make trouble. Everyone does!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't have a choice!"

"You did have a choice," Sakari growled. She rose to her knees. Her glare was filled with hate and loathing. "But you made the wrong choice, Takit. When you gave the Dai Li my father's name, I was watching you from the window. When you chose to give my father to the Dai Li, you also chose to pay the price!"

Sakari slammed her hands on the ground. A thick spear of ice burst through the rugs and shot straight at Takit. Pakku cursed loudly and melted the spear before it could skewer the boy. Katara planted her hands down and bent the frozen ground around Sakari's body, while Aang trapped her hands in a ball of rock.

Takit whimpered and scrambled backward out of the room. He ran out of the igloo, his footfalls growing more distant with every step.

Sakari was frozen to the spot. Her body was bound in ice, and her hands were shackled to the ground by the weight of the rock. She was bent forward in a posture that made her look like she was begging for help or for forgiveness.

But she clearly wanted neither.

The elders of the village discussed Sakari's fate among themselves. The girl was too dangerous for them to leave by herself. After all, she tried to kill Takit again just now. If they let her go, she'll only go running after him. She won't stop until she satisfies her thirst for revenge. So what should they do? Someone would have to stand guard over her at all times. Should she be allowed to roam the village? Or should she be confined in an igloo? One of her guards would have to be a waterbender. Watching her would require constant vigilance, so a rotation of waterbenders was needed. But Pakku and Katara were the only waterbenders who resided in the village. Keeping constant watch over Sakari would place an unreasonably heavy burden on them. What about the waterbenders from the North? But they were only builders, and they weren't suited to fighting. Would they even agree to such a dangerous task? Even if they did help out, what would happen when they eventually went back home?

This was the same dilemma that had come up in the trade meeting. Waterbenders were part of the solution to dealing with the pirates. And once again, waterbenders were needed for a new problem—to keep Sakari from killing Takit.

During the trade meeting, Katara had agreed to tie herself to the South Pole for the sake of her tribe—and to make absolutely certain that she and Aang remained apart. But even if she could somehow live with the fact that the love between her and Aang was going to drag him down, she couldn't leave her village. Not without undoing the international relationships they had worked so hard at the trade meeting to restore. And not when leaving meant Takit could die.

Resentment seethed in Katara's heart. At herself, for binding herself to her tribe out of duty—duty to serve her tribe, and duty to keep her love from harming Aang. But her resentment burned against Sakari most of all.

In the ice caves, Sakari had almost separated her and Aang for good. But Katara had fought back, which gave Aang the time he needed to stop Sakari with earthbending. Then she had created sleds out of ice to carry herself and their wounded party out of the caves. Thankfully, Takit's injuries weren't debilitating, so he was able to help Katara load Aang and Sakari onto their sleds.

Barely clinging to consciousness, Katara had bent their sleds over the snow fields and back to the village. Later, in the sick room of the igloo, she had healed Aang and brought him back from the edge of death.

And now Sakari was separating them again. Even if there was some way for Katara to get out of her commitment to stay in the Southern Water Tribe, Sakari now made leaving utterly impossible.

While the elders were talking, Aang approached Sakari. He shuffled toward her on his knees while carefully clutching his wounded middle.

When he reached her, he bent down and tried to meet her eyes. But Sakari's gaze was fixed on the ground, sullen and dull.

"I've been cut off from my people, too, Sakari," Aang said, with compassion that Katara could not bring herself to feel. "And I know how it feels to be betrayed by people I trusted and by people I thought I knew."

Katara realized with a start that Aang wasn't just talking about how Zuko had betrayed them in the crystal catacombs under Ba Sing Se. He was talking about the Fire Nation, too—the Fire Nation of his childhood. That Fire Nation had lived in harmony with the rest of the world. Aang had laughed and played and went on adventures with their people. And then that nation ruthlessly wiped out every last one of his own people in their quest to destroy the Avatar. In their quest to destroy Aang.

"Sakari. Please look at me," he said.

Katara didn't know what it was, exactly, that made Sakari look up at Aang in that moment. Perhaps it was the quiet sorrow in his tone, or the gentle firmness of his words. Perhaps it was both.

When Sakari raised her head, Aang laid one hand on her ice-covered shoulder. He pressed the thumb of his other hand to the center of her forehead.

Katara's heart leaped when his eyes and arrows began to glow. The Avatar State! It's no longer blocked. Aang can go into the Avatar State again!

But her joy turned into confusion when Sakari's eyes began to glow, too. Aang's tattoos blazed so brightly that he and Sakari were soon bathed in their light.

Katara squinted and shielded her eyes. What was going on?

Then with growing horror, she realized what Aang was doing.

His thumb on Sakari's forehead. The shining tattoos. The glowing in both their eyes.

Aang had done this once before, to the Phoenix King of the Fire Nation. And he was doing it again.

He was taking away Sakari's bending.

The act of removing a bender's ability to touch their element—to become their element—violated one of the deepest, most sacred parts of the human spirit. To strip away someone's bending was to rip out the core of who they were.

Right now, it didn't matter that Sakari was the one who had almost killed Aang. It didn't matter that she was the one who sealed Katara to her tribe and away from Aang. With Sakari's braids and her affinity for water, Katara couldn't shake the feeling that she was seeing herself under Aang's thumb.

Katara had to stop him.

But before she could yell No! and pull Aang away, the light faded from his arrows and from their eyes. The ice surrounding Sakari melted back into the ground, and the rock sheathing her hands fell away into a pile of pebbles. She crumpled into a ball face-down, her twin braids splayed out on the rugs.

Aang dropped from his kneeling position and slumped to the ground. Katara scrambled to his side to keep him from falling.

"Why did you do it, Aang?" she asked in a horrified whisper, as she helped him sit back up.

"I wanted to show her another way," he said.

Hearing him confirm her fears made Katara sick to her stomach. "By taking away her bending?"

It was Aang's turn to stare at her in shock. "What?" His mouth opened and closed several times. "You thought—I—" He blinked, as if trying to clear his thoughts. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, we're stuck with the problem of not having enough waterbenders to keep an eye on Sakari," Katara said. "You've also told me that you put your thumb on Ozai's forehead when you took away his bending, the same way you did with Sakari just now."

"Oh, yeah," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "But that's not what I did this time."

Then Katara noticed that the room had gone completely silent. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled with the gazes of the people around them. Whatever Aang did to Sakari had attracted everyone's attention.

"If you didn't take away Sakari's bending, Avatar," Elder Ikiak rumbled, "then what did you do?"

"A wise man once told me that separation is an illusion, and that everything is connected," Aang replied. "The monks used to say that even though life has a beginning and an end, it's really more like a circle. I didn't understand what they meant until I lost everything I knew and everyone I loved.

His expression grew solemn. "When one part of life ends, another begins," he said. "What I've lost can be found again. The things that have happened before can happen again, even if it's not in the same way or with the same people." He touched his hand to his chest, where his life continued to pulse when his people's own hearts had been silenced. "The hurt never really goes away. But there is hope that what I've lost will come back again." He smiled softly at Katara. "Even if it looks different from before."

Then he gestured to Sakari, who still hadn't moved. "That's what I wanted to show Sakari. I wanted to show her that hope."

Pakku folded his arms across his chest. "So you somehow…bent that knowledge into her?" he asked, managing to sound both skeptical and impressed at the same time.

Aang shook his head. "No, I bent the energy inside of her. Or I started to." He spread out his fingers and studied them, as though he was seeing the energy he had bent with those same hands. "When I removed Ozai's firebending, I bent the energy inside of him. I had to combine our energies to do that. He fought against me the entire time and tried to take control. But in those moments, I knew everything about him, and he knew everything about me."

"Wait a minute. Ozai knows everything about you?" Katara asked, alarmed. Even though the deposed Fire Lord was locked up in a prison cell, the thought of Ozai knowing every detail of Aang's life made her skin crawl.

"Not exactly. It's…deeper than that," Aang said. "It was more like I knew who he was, and he knew who I was. It's kind of hard to explain." His gaze fell on Sakari's form, still curled up on the ground. "So I did the same thing with Sakari. I combined our energies, but I didn't go all the way to remove her bending. I just wanted to show her that even after I lost everything, I was still able to find hope.

"My people are gone," he continued, his tone growing wistful. He glanced at Sokka, and then at Katara. His arm tightened around Katara's waist. "But I have found my family again."

Aang's words warmed Katara from head to toe, and she suddenly found herself wanting to kiss him. But a room full of people watching them held her back. So did his words from when they had talked in the other room: I don't think we should be together. Not yet.

"Combining someone else's energy with yours? Fighting to take control?" Pakku said, his gruff voice breaking through her thoughts. "That sounds very dangerous."

Aang nodded. "It is dangerous. In fact, I almost lost when I first did it with Ozai. When I tried to bend his energy, he almost destroyed mine, instead."

A collective gasp rippled through the room. Even though this wasn't news to Katara, every muscle in her body still tensed up. She would never forget how the light from that battle lit up the sky on that fateful day, with Ozai's red nearly swallowing up Aang's blue.

"'To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable, or you will be corrupted and destroyed,'" Aang said, with a distant look in his eyes. Katara recognized those words. She had heard them before, when Aang explained to her and their friends that the lion turtle had taught him how to bend another person's energy.

Elder Ahnah nodded at Aang. "So you overcame Ozai because your spirit was unbendable," she observed.

"Your spirit must be strong, indeed," Pakku said with a rare smile of approval. "Just as expected from the Avatar."

Aang bowed his head. "It's not about strength," he said quietly. "It's about knowing who you are, even when the whole world wants you to be someone else."

Katara glided her hand up Aang's back to let him know she was there, even as she sought her own comfort in him. The moments where she had almost lost Aang were twined together in her heart. The crystal catacombs and the day of Sozin's Comet. They were yin and yang, shadow and light. One had ended in defeat and death, and the other in victory and peace.

One had involved him dying because of her. The other had not.

The smooth skin beneath her drifting fingertips suddenly became stiff and rough. Her fingers shrank back from his scar, and her hand fell away to the ground.

Aang gave her hip a light squeeze. He must have sensed her mood. But thankfully, he didn't allow her to brood on her thoughts for long.

"Sakari," he said to the girl who was still huddled in a heap. "Sakari, I'd like to talk to you."

At the sound of her name, Sakari finally lifted her head. This time, though, she didn't snap at Aang like a cornered turtle crab. Instead, she covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

When her sobs faded, she wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She couldn't stop looking at Aang, as if she was seeing him for the first time.

"How do you do it?" she asked him, her eyes raw and red. "How do you go on?"

"My people's love still lives on—inside of me," he said, covering his heart with his hand. "Their love was reborn in the love I share with Katara and Sokka and all my friends. They're my family now. They're the people who keep me going."

Sakari stared at the ground in front of her and shrank back, like an armadillo pill bug curling up into herself. "My father was the one who kept our family together," she said. "He kept us safe. And then…and then the Dai Li took him away." When she raised her head, her eyes flashed with anger. "It's all his fault! That spidersnake!" She slammed her hand on the ground. "My father is gone because of Takit!"

The room went tense at Sakari's outburst. But she made no move to go after Takit.

Katara relaxed her shoulders and started to breathe again.

Elder Ahnah peered at Sakari with thoughtful eyes. "How long have you planned your revenge on Takit, Sakari?" she said, asking the question on everyone's minds.

Sakari clenched her hands into fists, but the defiance from earlier was gone. "Ever since the day I found out I could waterbend," she replied. "It was also the day I saw Takit for the first time since my father was taken away. Almost ten years ago. I was just a little girl, then.

"My father told me stories about the waterbenders of our village, how they bravely fought off Fire Nation raiders with daggers of ice. But none of the Water Tribers in Ba Sing Se could waterbend. So I had to teach myself. I didn't know what I was doing. It took so long, and I failed so many times. But eventually, I did it. I learned how to bend water into ice daggers.

"By then, I was thirteen years old. Takit and his parents were enjoying a comfortable life in the Middle Ring. He didn't deserve it. Not when he sacrificed my father so he could protect his own father. So I found out where he lived, where he went to school, where he liked to go for fried fishcakes. When I worked up the courage, I followed him. But there were always too many people around. And I was afraid of the Dai Li, who were even more dangerous than before. The Dai Li watched everyone, and everyone watched each other.

"I wanted to pay back Takit for what he did, but I didn't want to disappear like my father. I'm the only family my mother has left. So my dream of giving Takit what he deserved was just a dream, as long as we were both in Ba Sing Se."

"Is that why you returned to the South Pole?" Elder Ahnah asked sharply. "So you could bide your time until Takit came back to visit?"

Sakari shook her head vigorously. "No. With my father gone, we barely scraped by. And then the war ended, and we heard that the Southern Water Tribe was rebuilding. My mother missed her homeland. I barely remembered anything about this village—I just wanted a better life. I wanted to get out of Ba Sing Se. So we saved every coin we could and sailed back to the South Pole last year.

"When we got here, I stopped caring about revenge. For once, I was in a place where people looked like me. They didn't stare at me or act like I was in the way or make fun of the food I ate. They didn't give me the dirtiest jobs that no one else wanted to do. No one shunned us, either, like the Water Tribers did in Ba Sing Se. This was a place where I could belong. I started to remember what my life was like before we fled to the Earth Kingdom. I was starting to feel like I was home again."

Sakari fell quiet. She studied the backs of her hands, but her eyes were unfocused, as if she was seeing beyond them.

"Then the children found the ice caves," Kanna said.

"And the carvings in the walls," Sakari added, still looking at her hands. "I knew that Takit was a student of anthropology in the University. He's also from our village. That's why I suggested asking him to come. He was the best person to help us understand what the carvings mean."

Pakku gave a scornful huff. "You wanted revenge," he said bluntly.

"Part of me thought about revenge," she admitted. "But it was more than that. I had to face the boy who gave my father to the Dai Li."

Sakari's words reminded Katara of something Aang had once told her on a windblown cliff in the dead of night.

The night she took Appa and Zuko to track down her mother's killer.

"This is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man," Aang had said to her. Even though his words were confident, his eyes had gleamed with worry in the moonlight.

"When Takit showed up in the village with his professor, I couldn't believe it," Sakari went on. "For the first time, I came face to face with the boy who had sacrificed my father. I didn't know how to think. I didn't know what to do.

"But I knew I hated him. I couldn't stand the thought of being around him. I didn't want to hear anything about his discoveries or what he was doing in the caves. So I practiced bending ice into daggers and spikes. I hadn't made ice daggers for almost a year, ever since I moved back to the South Pole. But on the morning Takit was supposed to arrive, I started to waterbend again."

That's when I first saw Sakari waterbending in secret, Katara realized. The morning Takit's ship docked in the harbor.

"You practiced until you were ready to make your move," Katara said. "On the day Takit was supposed to leave, you convinced him to come with you to the ice caves. You wanted to get him alone so you could take him out without anyone knowing." A humorless smile stretched across her face. "But then you ran into me Aang."

Sakari said nothing. She kept her eyes trained on her hands.

"Was your dream real, Sakari? Does the spirit even exist?" Katara asked, every question becoming more insistent as frustration bloomed in her chest. "Or was this all an elaborate lie so you could finally take your revenge on Takit?"

"There is no spirit," Sakari said softly. "The footprints and the booming noises in the ice caves—that was all me. I spent a lot of time practicing waterbending in the caves, too." She rubbed her hands together, one over the other, as if she was trying to wash them clean. "But the dream was real. I've been having bad dreams ever since the elders sent a hawk to invite Takit to the South Pole."

"At your suggestion," Hakoda reminded her, his mouth set in a hard line.

Sakari folded her arms across her body, her hands clutching at her shoulders. She looked like a turtle duck trying to shrink back into her shell. "I never meant for anyone else to get hurt." She finally looked at Aang, and then at Katara, with tears running down her face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she said to each of them.

"You're sorry?" Pakku said, his voice and eyebrows rising to an incredulous height. "Do you realize what you almost did in your little quest for revenge?" he roared. "You almost killed the chieftain's daughter. You almost killed the Avatar!"

Sakari fell face-down into the same position she'd been frozen into earlier. Only this time, she really was begging for mercy. "You can do whatever you want with me. Whatever you think I deserve. I'll go with anything you decide. I won't go after Takit again. I won't fight back. But please—" She raised her head, pleading with Hakoda through her tears. "—please don't take me away from my mother. Losing my father nearly crushed her. She only carried on because she still had me. If she lost me, too…"

"You say you'll cooperate now," Pakku scoffed. "But what will happen when it's just you and the waterbender assigned to watch over you? What will stop you from attacking us or anyone else in the tribe?"

"The girl is dangerous," Elder Ikiak agreed. "She should be confined to a tent or an igloo with a waterbender and several warriors standing guard."

Sakari lurched forward, causing Ikiak to shuffle backward and Pakku to drop into a defensive stance. "Please," she sobbed. "Please don't separate me from my mother. Losing me will kill her."

Pakku crossed his arms. "Then perhaps you should have thought twice before you tried to kill Takit, Aang, and Katara," he said coldly.

"Please, I am begging you—"

"I am sorry about your mother," Elder Ahnah said in a tone that was both sympathy and steel. "But you have shown that you will kill for revenge when the opportunity arises. Not only that, you are more than willing to take down anyone who stands in your way." She regarded Sakari from under thick white eyebrows. "We cannot allow you to go after Takit or harm the people who try to stop you. We cannot allow you to roam free."

"NO!" Sakari screamed. Her fingers dug into her face as her body shook with wrenching sobs. "Don't do this don't do this please don't do this please—"

"Avatar Aang, please bind Sakari's hands in stone," Hakoda said grimly. "Pakku and one of our warriors will escort her to the tent we have prepared for this purpose. They will watch over her until we come up with a plan to rotate the guard."

Katara waited for Aang to unwind his arm from around her waist. But he didn't move.

"I'm sorry, Chief Hakoda, but I'm not going to do that," Aang said.

Aang was the only person present who could earthbend shackles over Sakari's hands. And as the Avatar, he was the only person who could refuse her father's request without appearing to disregard his authority.

"What do you mean, you're not going to do that?" Pakku spluttered, flinging his arm out in frustration. "This is the girl who almost killed you because she wanted revenge and you were in the way. You set her hands free because you wanted to talk, but she tried to stab Takit instead. And now you're going to let her walk around without any restraints? What makes you think this time will be any different?"

"Aang…" Katara began. Pakku had a point. Even though Aang was one of the most optimistic people alive, she knew he wasn't naïve. So what had gotten into him? What was he thinking?

But in the face of their protests, Aang sat up straight. Unbending. "I know what it's like to lose myself in rage," he said, addressing Hakoda. "There were times when I was filled with so much pain and grief that I wanted to destroy the people who hurt me. But I didn't kill them. Because every time, someone stopped me. And because I'm not a killer." Then his gaze dropped to Sakari's hunched and sobbing form, and his face softened. "I don't think you're a killer either, Sakari."

Sakari lifted her head and stared at him in disbelieving shock. "You're not going to take me away from my mother?" she croaked through her sobs.

As Katara watched Aang speak with Sakari, bitter resentment toward the girl warred with her desire to trust Aang's judgment. Why would he say that Sakari was not a killer, when she had plowed through him and Katara in her obsession to end Takit?

But maybe he knew something the rest of them didn't. "Is that what you saw when you bent her energy?" Katara asked him. "Did you see that she wouldn't have actually killed Takit?"

Aang shook his head. "No, I didn't. It doesn't work like that."

Then he turned to Sakari, who was still looking at him with the desperate hope of a drowning person. "I don't think you're a killer, Sakari," he said. "In all those years in Ba Sing Se, you could have gotten back at Takit, but you didn't. When you returned to the Southern Water Tribe, you stopped bending ice daggers altogether. Even when Takit came to the South Pole, you waited until the day he was supposed to leave to go after him."

Sakari lowered her head and folded and unfolded her fingers. "I waited because I needed to practice my waterbending," she mumbled.

Aang ducked his head to look her in the eyes. "I think you waited because you were afraid," he said gently. "The first time I met you was in the snow fields, before you took us into the ice caves. You were nervous, and I thought it was because of the spirit. But then I saw that you were also really scared. Not because of the spirit, but for some other reason. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, though.

"Now I think I understand. It was the kind of scared that you feel before doing something big," he continued. "Something you don't really want to do, but you have to do it anyway. I've felt that way before, too. During the war, before we invaded the Fire Nation on the day of the eclipse, I was terrified of fighting Fire Lord Ozai. I knew I had to face him because I'm the Avatar, but I also felt like I was about to jump off a cliff without a glider. And I had nightmares." His mouth curved into a sympathetic smile. "Just like you."

"But you were fighting Ozai for a good reason. You were trying to end the war," Sakari protested. "I was trying to—to—"

"I don't think you truly wanted to kill Takit," Aang said quietly. "You needed to face him, and you were angry and hurt. But I don't think you wanted him dead."

"You need to face this man," Aang had told Katara on the night she left to find her mother's killer. "But when you do, please don't choose revenge."

Their eyes met. The words he had said next were the words she would hear over and over as she hunted her prey.

"Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him."

Katara remembered the rage that had twisted Sakari's face when she hurled the spiral of ice daggers at Takit's chest. The same rage had consumed Katara as she bent a cloud of raindrops into spikes to impale Yon Rha's trembling body.

She didn't know if Sakari would have held herself back at the last second. But she knew that killing Takit would have bent Sakari's spirit into the twisted shape of bitterness and hatred. She knew this because she had almost done the same thing herself.

Katara didn't forgive Yon Rha, but she did let out her anger—in the ice shards aimed at her mother's killer.

She didn't let her anger go, though. Not entirely. But she let go enough to keep the shards from piercing his body.

And she was able to do it because Aang gave her hope.

Hope that even after losing what was precious to her, she could let go of the grief and blame weighing her down. Hope that she could let go of the past.

Let go—and make room for the future.

Because that's what she watched Aang do every single day.

Now she understood why Aang had joined his energy with Sakari's. He had wanted to show her that hope.

"I know what it's like to feel helpless," Katara said to Sakari.

The other girl's head bobbed up. She looked at Katara with startled eyes, as if surprised that Katara was speaking to her at all.

"I know what it's like to watch someone hurt the person you love and rip them out of your life," Katara said. "All because you were too young, too powerless to stop them. Your grief becomes blame, and blame becomes anger. Anger turns into hate.

"If you can't let go of your anger and hate, they'll eat you up inside. But it's hard to let go unless you have hope. And that's what Aang showed you, didn't he?"

Sakari didn't say anything at first, but she didn't have to. Because mirrored within Sakari's blue eyes, which shone dark and vulnerable, Katara saw herself.

"He showed me how to hope," Sakari said in a trembling whisper. "He showed me what it means to let go."

Katara straightened up next to Aang, the two of them sitting tall like pillars between Sakari and the elders. "Aang is right, Dad," she declared. "Sakari isn't a killer. I think we can believe her when she says that she won't go after Takit again."

Pakku muttered under his breath while the other elders murmured amongst themselves. Meanwhile, Hakoda studied the three teens in front of him with a thoughtful expression.

"Sakari can go free, then," Hakoda said finally. He looked between Aang and Katara. "But the two of you are responsible for her. Make sure she doesn't cause any trouble."

"We will, Chief Hakoda," Aang said.

"And we'll keep her and Takit away from each other," Katara added.

Hakoda grunted his agreement. "That's probably for the best," he said.

He heaved himself to his feet. Everyone else in the room took that as the signal to rise, as well.

As people started to leave the igloo, Hakoda turned back and fixed Sakari with a stern gaze. "We are trusting you to keep your word, Sakari," he said. "Trusting you makes us vulnerable, but do not mistake our trust for weakness."

Sakari shook her head. "I won't let you down, Chief Hakoda. I'll prove to you that you can trust me."

Her answer seemed to satisfy Hakoda. He gave her a small nod and left the room with the others.

Author's note: As always, many thanks to itsmoonpeaches for beta reading this chapter and for her feedback!

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