Chapter 22: A New Road

Azula threw me against the back wall of the cave, hard. "If you ever betray me again," she roared savagely, "I'll tear you apart with my bare hands! Do you understand?!" A spurt of azure flame scorched the wall within inches of my head, which already ached from being thrown up against the rock.

"I get it, Azula," I complied meekly. Another Chi attack had left me bereft of bending for now, and I would rather shut up and look weak than reveal my secret illness to Azula.

On the way back up the ravine, I had been unfortunate enough to run into her again. She literally dragged me back to the caves after Zuko had left. The friction burns still stung painfully. It so happened that Azula and a handful of the most dangerous assassin had avoided capture and were planning to keep up their bloodthirsty efforts. I wanted nothing more to do with it, but I acted interested only to convince Azula of my loyalty. After taking out a few more of the palace protectors, Azula planned to go after Zuko himself.

"I will finally kill him!" she exclaimed, relishing the hideous thought in the clutches of her insane mind like a child with candy.

Despite what she said, it would be several weeks before we were in position to start planning attacks again. We lost all contacts in the palace, and many of Azula's assassins needed time to heal from various injuries. (None would accept my help.) Toph's soldiers had taken all our food and wrecked most of the caves, so we would need to stock up on meat, in addition to somehow acquiring some nutritious fruits or vegetables.

I was told to go into the city and steal food.

On one of these occasions I was stalked by an agent from the palace. Whether he knew my identity or not, he was suspicious, and pursued me. I wanted to turn and fight, but I could feel my body weakening another spell coming on. I couldn't bend. Feeling like a coward, I dashed away. The agent ran after me almost all the way to the caves. Then jumped behind a rock and waited for him to run past, hoping he hadn't noticed.

After hearing his footfalls melting away, I peeked tentatively out of my hiding place. Instantly my pursuer jumped out at me from his own spot, sword brandished in one hand, fire in the other. I tried to bend; nothing happened.

"Oh no," I groaned; "why now?!"

But I had no need to fight. The agent realized who I was and turned tail to run for his life. Still, he had come within miles of our hideout, and shouldn't be allowed to escape. I should have gone after him. But I wasn't about to kill another innocent. Zuko's words about me becoming like Azula were unpleasantly evocative.

A week later, I was sitting alone on an outcropping looking at the icy sea. Though heavily cloaked I was shivering. Beside me was a simple, crude pile of rocks I had stacked in honor of Aang, who I supposed was dead.

"Hey Aang," I said with a sigh. "I just got out of another fight with Azula. She has her crazy spells every few days. I've managed to heal most of my injuries, but I'll be lucky to live long with her like this. You were right, by the way. I never should have trusted Azula." I gave another sigh and kissed the rocks. "I miss you, Aang."

"They do say it's healthy to talk it out," a voice said from behind.

I spun around and saw Zuko, growing defensive at once. "You! How did you find me?" I demanded.

He was sitting on a rock, cloaked in a red coat and hood that covered his black pony tail. "You let that agent from the palace escape," Zuko said, staring with intense eyes. "I came as far as he could tell me."

"Why?" I asked stiffly.

"Why do you think?"

I turned to face the deep blue ocean again. Foam crested waves beat endlessly against the cold, grey rock. "If you attack the caves," I said, "Azula will just escape. It'll be last month all over again."

Zuko nodded, for once considering my view. "Okay. That's a good point. So you got any other ideas?"

I scoffed. "Why are you asking me? I'm working for Azula, remember? I never want to see you again!"

"But here I am."

"Yes, Because you're too stubborn to leave me alone!" I shouted in frustration. "What do you want?!"

He looked away from my direct gaze. "Sokka wants you to come home."

"Sokka wants me to be a limp doormat."

"Don't say that, Katara," Zuko argued, stepping closer. "Your brother loves you. He respects your decisions even when you act like an idiot."

"Oh, that really cheers me up," I retorted.

Zuko shrugged and started to walk away. "Just saying. You're going to have to accept it sometime."

I thought, and even hoped, that I would never see Zuko after that day again. But I did, and sooner than I expected. Over the next weeks we met several times, bumping into each other on the cliffs, where he said he was looking for Azula's cave, or in the city, when I was stealing food.

One time I was paying for a sack of fruit using stolen money, when my elbow bumped the costumer next to me. "Oh sorry," I began carelessly; and then, realizing who it was, "What are you doing here?!"

It was Zuko, again in the red hood which disguised his well-known face. He reached over me and handed a purse of coins to the vendor, saying casually, "Here, let me pay."

"Why—what—how—" I stammered.

Zuko snatched the stolen money out of my hand in a flash. "I'll see that it gets back to its owner. See you around." He waved and walked away as if nothing unusual had happened; as if were old friends just running into each other by chance. I was flabbergasted. Ironically enough, I remembered, we were old friends; or we used to be before I broke the contact.

A bit more time passed and I spent my free time thinking about my old life. A change was in the air. Or was it in my heart? Slowly, moving along by almost invisible steps, the emptiness resulting from Aang's presumed death began to fade. Rather, it was replaced by other things. The ice was melted away by new warmth. Gradually I recognized a change in my deepest self. Gradually I could tolerate thinking about Sokka, Toph, and even Zuko.

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The Fire Lord found me again by Aang's memorial. I was crying, and his voice stung and relieved at the same time. "So what do you think, Katara? You want this all to end?"

It had been a long day of assassinations; three killed in one day, and their bodies safely stolen and buried far from the palace. I was forced to defend Azula and be her lookout while she and one other fighter did the killing. Oh, how weary I was of this endless winter, and the ice that had been around my heart for as long as I remembered. I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked at my old enemy, who suddenly seemed like a hero in my distress. I knew what was on his mind—he wanted me to help him bring down Azula once and for all.

"I don't know," I said shakily. "If I can trust you, then…"

"I'm here to help us both," Zuko interrupted. "I can stand here and tell you that until I'm blue in the face, but if that means nothing to you, then at least you're being careful. Trust isn't a gift—so don't just give it to me."

"But…why can we work together if—?"

"Instead, let me earn your trust again," he proposed.

I was silent for a moment, considering. "You've had plenty of opportunities to fight me before, maybe even beat me with surprise attacks. If you were out to get me, I guess you'd already have done it. Tell me your plan."

Without further ado, Zuko proposed an arrangement that seemed blaringly simple and obvious. All these weeks of being isolated and stressed, not to mention having nobody to trust, they had left my mind incapable of such objective planning. The very next day Azula and I were off to the palace, just the two of us—supposedly on a mission to kill the Fire Lord himself. We were staking out in the rafters of a high-roofed storage barn by noon, one of the many storerooms that Zuko would be reviewing today.

Azula had been planning this day for weeks. When she was a prisoner in the palace she overheard that the Fire Lord would review the winter storage several times a year. With spring just around the corner, he would now be checking up to make sure what was left would last till spring-crop. I went along with her without complaint, having gone over the plan with Zuko fully the previous day. Despite all the recent killings, not the sneakiest of the Fire Nation Guards seemed to be able to catch Azula. If one or two men did spot her, she could kill them from long-range in the blink of an eye, and no one would find them for five or ten minutes afterward. Considering that, it was not suspicious to find very few guards at the storage barn and to take them out immediately.

Now we were here in the rafters, both our hearts beating with anticipation; hers for death, mine for new life. Azula turned her head in my direction, silently, saying in a barely audible voice, "You make one move that looks suspicious, and you die." Her words instantly brought to my mind all the images of Zuko's plan and my complete and total treachery. Azula looked at me harder with her golden tigress eyes, and for one horrible moment I thought she guessed my mind.

Then there was a sound from outside; voices. "Move back," Azula mouthed. She and I climbed further back on the rafters, away from the light of the door that was about to be opened. On purpose, I let one foot miss its mark and throw my whole body into unbalance. I cried out and tried to steady myself. Azula was on me in a split second, one hand over my mouth, the other on my throat to shut me up. But I knew the damage had had been done—as planned, my shout was a signal to alert Zuko to the particular storehouse where we were hiding.

I remained still in Azula's grasp, and gradually the sounds outside faded away. Azula must have assumed the guards had left and would return in a moment with Zuko. I wanted to laugh, everything was going so well. Any second now, Zuko would come through those doors, and the moment Azula turned her back on me to face her target, I would attack her. She would fall and then Toph and Sokka, also part of the plan, would appear and help subdue her. The words Zuko had made me understand the clearest, however, were, "Do your part. Knock her off the rafters, and then let us handle it. I know your Chi spells are getting worse, and we can't risk you getting killed."

The sound of footfalls from outside sounded unusually loud to me. Azula's muscles stiffened and her hands were in formation for a lightning strike. There was a creak as the door began to open, and I felt sick to the stomach with anxiety. The timing was everything. Suddenly the door flew open. Azula focused her full attention and pointed her fingers at the entering figure—screaming, I threw my full weight against her.

Her eyes went wide as for a fraction of a second she tottered, and then her hands groped for substance as she went plummeting down. Next second I was aware her hand had wrapped around my ankle—she was taking me down with her. Before we even hit the ground she was clutching at me. The impact with the straw-covered floor shocked us both temporarily, and I wriggled out of her grip, kicking.

Suddenly Toph and Sokka had come running out of nowhere—or no, from the haystacks in the back of the shed, I realized. The earth under Azula's body jerked up and tossed her off; the work of Toph's bending. A fit of rage seized Azula. She shot fire in all directions, making Toph and Sokka, who were within a yard of her, flinch back instinctively. Sokka swiped at her with his sword; Azula ducked and kicked him square in the jaw, finishing it with an elbow-punch in his stomach. Toph was bending rocks at her furiously, and Zuko was joining in the melee too.

I felt a great compelling to help fight. Here I was in the hay, laying around like a damsel in distress when I should be helping the last people on earth who cared about me. Ignoring the memory of Zuko's warnings, I jumped to my feet. Shouting, I aimed a sliver of ice shards right at Azula's back. The former princess heard my shout and intuitively flattened herself on the ground, dodging all but one of the shards, which embedded loosely in her shoulder. In the intervenng second before she got up, I prepared more water, but—

"Oh, no!" I cried, waving my arms uselessly. I could not bend.

Uttering a wordless roar more horrifying than a cat's scream, Azula shot up from the ground and pounced on me again. She grabbed a handful of my hair, clawing like a madwoman. I punched her off, but she came back with an explosion of fire bending too furious for me to dodge.

Suddenly the world seemed to be silenced and moving in slow motion. My vision was filled up with blue, my senses overwhelmed by heat. A scream ripped unconsciously out of me as pain coursed through my body, and I was forced yards back. Sliding backwards, being thrown away as a result of my unthinking actions…

Then I was caught. Hardly conscious but alive, I looked up to see my rescuer. Unexpected, and yet perhaps not so unexpected…it was Sokka's loving, goofy, sincere, expressive face staring down at mine. When the pressure got too much and I was tossed around feeling as inferior as a leaf in the wind, Sokka always was there to pick up my broken, stubborn pieces.

"Hey Katara," he said with anxious concern in his easy-to-read voice.

I was conscious of a lot of pain and pressure, but not much else. I passed into unconsciousness while still staring up at Sokka, vaguely aware of a man's battle-cry and a subsequent woman's scream ringing in my ears.

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When I woke up, the shouting was still echoing through my dreams. I was in a soft, white-sheeted bed which would have felt nice if my arms weren't so sensitive. Every move I made with my arms brushing against the sheets was like a hundred friction burns. My chest, neck, and hands hurt a lot too; bandages were wrapped securely around my hands. I slowly lifted myself into a sitting position, noticing the open window that let the sunlight in.

Zuko was just walking into the room with a pot of tea and a cup. The smell filled the room, pungent but not unpleasant. My mind was trying hard to fit the pieces together and remember what exactly had happened. It occurred to me just then that the shouting I had heard before passing out was recognizable; Zuko had yelled out in a rage, followed by his sister's scream—perhaps her last.

"Brought you some tea from Uncle Iroh," Zuko said, pouring a cup. He was silent for a moment before saying bluntly, "You know that thing you were trying to redeem? It blew up in your face."

"Azula?" I asked, faintly.

"She's dead," Zuko answered grimly. "When she attacked you I guess I lost my head a little."

"You killed her?" I was horrified.

"Not exactly. I arrested her while she was unconscious, but when she woke up she wouldn't let anyone near her. She couldn't be healed. So she died late last night." A faint smile crossed his face. "I think it was a showdown a lot of people were waiting for."

"And Sokka?"

"He's barely left you alone the entire time. Your 'idiot brother' loves you."

I looked away to distract myself from the shame of every derogatory thing I had said about Sokka in the past. My hands were burned under their secure wrappings, and I could feel the same burning sensation in my chest underneath the light cotton gown. I brought the blankets up over myself again, embarrassed. Under Zuko's eye I felt flustered, but for the first time, no longer challenged. I was challenging myself now; daring myself to think in new ways, down new messy paths never before ventured.

There was a long silence. Zuko just stared at me. A wall was falling down in my soul; my defenses were being brought down like the wall of Ba Sing Sey by the Old Masters. I could resist friendship no more, and a thousand questions about this powerful Fire Lord sprung into my head. "What made you keep fighting? When things got bad. When my ships were beating yours. Wouldn't it have spared more lives to just throw in the towel?"

"Yes it would," he replied, lowly.

"Then…why did you keep going?"

"Because I'm a Revolutionary. I fight for what I believe in, even against impossible odds. It's called patriotism." Sudden vehemence came into his voice. "I'm sick and tired of violence and war. But I'm also tired of injustice. The Royal Circle was wrong."

"I know that now." I started thinking about the war and the ridiculous things I myself had fought for. They weren't noble enough to keep me fighting; I wanted it all to be done with.

Guessing my thoughts, Zuko knelt beside the bed, placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, and stated frankly, "Katara, the war is over."