Chapter 18

Katara's POV

Stars blurred my vision, and pretty soon I had crumpled to the floor like a doll. As I tried to move around, pain flashed along my right side, and I moaned in pain. I heard shifting from above me, and I could tell that someone was standing above me. The person took me up by the arm and I screamed in pain then nearly dropping me, they held a flame to my face and when they saw who I was, they gasped like as if touching me burned them (ironic). The heat of the flame caused sweat to drip down my face, and I could feel their stare, but the pain was too much for me to keep my eyes open long enough for me to see whom it was.

Then I heard him (it was obviously a man) talking to someone in the room he had burst from. From what I could tell it was a girl, and then when she walked into the room, my suspicions were definitely confirmed then.

They whispered to each other hurriedly, and pretty soon the girl went into the other room, and was back out in two minutes. Soon, the man was carrying me into the room that they were in and laid me on top of the uncovered bed. Judging from the way these two acted, I was glad that they did that before laying me on the bed that they were just on.

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know, but we can't leave her like this, these burns need to be treated immediately."

"How on Earth do you plan on explaining that to anyone? They are going to send us to jail for hurting the princess of the frickin' South Pole, the sole heiress to the throne."

"Don't you think I don't know that, but what are we going to do, she can't exactly die in here, then we could be sentenced for murder?"

Trying to force my eyes to open, I took in my surroundings, and saw two steely gray eyes staring right at me. Then with all of the power I had inside of me, I said, "I can heal myself if I had some water…"

Mai's POV

I looked down at the slut lying down on the bed before me.

If she tells Zuko about us, then we are doomed. We can't let her just run off telling this to anyone we have to make sure that she won't tell a soul.

"Nice try, wench. But if we let you use water, you would just heal yourself and then run out of the room crying to Zuko about this whole thing."

Zhong looked at me with widened eyes, but then it hardened, and I could tell that he understood at what I was getting at with what I was saying: if we let her go, this whole thing will blow up on us.

The girl squirmed under the amount of pain she was in from the burn, and said, "I won't tell anyone please just let me have some water."

"I don't trust you."

She groaned and grimaced at me, but I honestly did not care about this little slut. She deserves to hurt after what she has forced me to do to be happy.

"I-I can't tell him because if I do…then the entire treaty with the Water Tribe and the Fire Nation will be broken, and it might lead into an all out war between the nations again."

I scoffed, "Do you really think that a war is going to start just because of your little relationship problems with your fiancé and the Fire Lord? That is so pitiful."

"No…but your little affair with MY fiancé might in fact lead to the breaking point of any chance that you have at having a relationship that might make you happy."

I glared at her, "Do you honestly believe that you have any chance at making a threat? You are the one that's life is hanging in the balance right now. I mean, come on, seriously?"

"Mai!"

Zhong's POV

She looked at me with a wild look in her eye, "Shut up! You know she is going to tell someone!"

"Yeah, I know that, but I also know that if we don't get that treated right now she may in fact die right here, and we did nothing to save her!"

I walked over to the nearest vase that held fire lilies in it, and came back over to the bed. Guiding Katara's hand to the vase, I watched as her hands glowed a bright incandescent blue. The whole thing was mesmerizing, and soon she was moving steadily to her right side, but before she could, Mai had knocked her hand out of the way, seething with anger.

"Don't help her!"

I was raging in anger by then, "Then what do you want me to do, let her die?"

She stood quiet and didn't answer me.

"Well, is that what you want for her to die?"

Silence.

"What the fuck do you want?"

She snapped, "I want her to pay for what she took away from me! I want her to feel the way I did when I found out that some insignificant slut took the one that I love from me. I want her to know what it is like to feel like she has lost something so precious to her that the world has fallen right from underneath where she stands. And as much as I hate to admit it, but this does not come even close to how I feel every single day, but it comes in as a close second."

I felt my heart sank as I watch her continuously rant about how she felt.

She doesn't really love me… I am nothing but a replacement Zuko to her… Just another thing that can keep her mind off of the way that he has treated her…

Moving away from the bed, I looked around the room for my clothes, and then after spotting each article, I began to dress. Then without any emotion whatsoever in my movements, I crossed the room and picked up Katara, and took her to the bathroom, closing the door behind me from the shrieking Mai.

Glancing around the disgusting bathroom, I remember each scene in my head as to what happened.

Doctors and nurses hurried into the room, looking over at all of the blood and vomit everywhere. I came in right behind Zuko, glancing over at the corpse inside of the bathtub. Her raven hair was drenched in her own blood, and her crazed golden eyes were staring right at us, daring us to come in. The beautiful girl lay naked in the pool of her own blood that came from the cuts and burns she gave herself with her bending and the glass shards that came from the mirror.

Zuko began vomiting at the mere sight of the young woman, and he began crying for her.

The little girl that I remembered kept flashing through my mind as I wondered as to how she could have brought herself to do this. Zuko placed her in here to protect herself and the others from any harm, but I guess she was too far gone for anyone to have helped her.

"Poor Azula…"

Trying to hold the bile down my throat, I turned on the water form the sink, and I watched as she placed her hand into the streaming water. The incandescent light shone again in the grim-looking room and she placed her hand along the right side of her body. The water molded to her skin and it looked as if was weaving in and out of the wound, mending back what was once ugly and probably infected to smooth cocoa brown skin.

When she had finished healing herself, I placed her down on her feet, and I could see that she was a little off balance. Her face had smudges of makeup smeared across her face, and her dress and hair were in complete disarray.

I heard Mai outside of the room, fuming and screaming at the top of her lungs at the both of us.

Katara looked over at me, and I could see that she was a little awkward at how things had turned out for us.

"You knew that I wouldn't tell Zuko? Didn't you?"

"Not necessarily. I am hoping that you won't, but I knew that you cared too much about him and your tribe to let either fall in this little treaty business."

Her azure eyes looked at me from under her long lashes, "So then what are we going to do then?"

"You are not going to do anything, but help me stall her. I am going to do all of the talking for the both of us."

Zuko's POV

Xueyou left me a while ago, claiming that as an old man, he needs a whole lot of sleep to keep up with the young youth nowadays. To this I rolled my eyes, and then got back to work at figuring out what Aang wrote.

What does he mean by that, "reveal your own destiny"? It sounds like something that Uncle would tell me half of the time. Maybe Aang has been one too many pages from Uncle's proverb books. Uncle…

My eyes widened, and I looked at the candle on my desk, thinking back to that night…

My eyes snapped open, someone's outside. I jumped off of my bed and ran for the door, thrusting the thing open. The curtains that ran down the hallway were billowing under the pressure of the cool wind. A hooded figure ran down the hallway, their cloak flapping behind them.

I stepped but two spaces and saw the scroll that was standing vertical on the floor. It read: "You need to know the story of your great grandfather's demise. It will reveal your own destiny."

Taking hold of the parchment in my hand, I held it over the flame of the candle, to where it was far enough not to catch fire. Then like that very night, I saw bright red words glaring right me in the face.

What on Earth are you doing? Why are you letting her get married to some random stranger?