As soon as the words left his mouth, I realized what I'd done.

"You must know the pain of losing a first-born son… By sacrificing your own."

That's what it took to wake me up, to restart the heart I thought was ash. The lies and scheming, the manipulations and ambitions of the past years, disappeared.

I regained my soul just in time to lose it.

I fell, my hands and knees digging into the marble, my remaining soul screaming through several minutes of stunned silence.

Azulon threatened to repeat himself, and I prepared to take it all back, promise just about anything else, apologize, offer myself instead, to plea and grovel for my son's life.

Our son's life.

She flew in like a wild thing, out of breath, her eyes wide, heart pounding loud enough to echo in my ears, and beautiful even in full-fledged terror.

"What's happening?"

Her eyes darted from Azulon to me and back again.

I still couldn't move.

"Were you spying on us, Princess Ursa?" my father-in-law asked without glancing my way, no accusation in his voice, nothing but indifference in his empty eyes.

"My lord, please," I begged him, trying not to crumble as he finally stood up. "What's—?"

"Your husband just suggested something that demands swift and merciless punishment."

My next question almost caught in my throat.

"Punishment for whom?"

Azulon softened, as much as that word could ever be applied to him, finally noticing my inability to anywhere but straight at him.

"Ursa," an inexplicably familiar voice whispered as a hand grabbed my arm.

I shook him off and stepped towards the Fire Lord, refusing to quiver.

"My lord!" she half-yelled, dodging my touch for a second time.

Azulon's wrinkles deepened, his pitiless eyes glowering at this response.

"Your husband has a lesson to learn, Ursa. A lesson that can only be learned through the loss of a loved one… but you seem to know that already."

"He is a child," she croaked. "Your grandson! My lord, please, don't punish children, your own grandchildren—!"

Azulon stood.

"I have learned enough lessons in loss, little girl. I have given one grandson to this war, to this country, and I am not afraid to sacrifice another. Thousands have before me, and thousands will. There is always a price for the glory your husband seeks, but he will never be the one to pay it."

Something dawned on her. A realization that brought her a disturbing level of relief.

Her eyes brightened, and her lips stretched in a mad, breathtaking smile…

Ursa, NO!

Me. He can lose me.

He loved me more than them, even when he was incapable of loving anyone or anything, he loved me.

And he loved me most.

"Let it be me," I thought aloud, then called out, "He loves me more than them. Losing me is the worst punishment he—"

She dove for the wall of flame, attempting to make Azulon's decision for him.

I could finally speak, freed and forced into it by bone-deep terror.

"NO!" he shouted, leaping between me and the flames, pulling me close, and holding me with a desperate tightness I couldn't escape from.

I tried not think about how much more panic seized my heart with fear for her than Zuko. Losing either was unthinkable, unspeakable, and impossible, but I couldn't stop clinging to her.

I tried not think about how immediately and involuntarily I would electrocute Azulon in his throne if he took her up on that suggestion.

I would do almost anything to save Zuko, but to save her…

"Control your wife, Prince Ozai," Azulon sighed as I struggled and sobbed, screaming, pounding and clawing at his son's chest.

I froze at what he announced next.

"If Zuko isn't dead by morning, I'll kill him myself."

The Fire Lord's word could not be undone.

Her knees buckled and she started to collapse until my hands stilled her shaking shoulders and my voice whispered her name.

"Ursa."

I realized why he sounded so familiar and finally met his eyes.

My Ozai's eyes.

"Beloved."

My prince was back. Was still there.

"Look at me," his voice—the voice I fell in love with, the voice that never changed—whispered, eyes blazing with sincerity and flashing with lightning, clear and bright and melting my half-broken heart.

Of course, I trusted him.

How could I ever not?

Of course, he would protect him. I'd never doubted that for a moment. I knew, more than I knew he loved me, more than I knew the sun would rise, that he would never entertain the thought. Azula could joke about his willingness to kill his own son, but I couldn't fear what I couldn't even think.

Ozai loved our children as an extension of me.

As an extension of himself.

And as their own, complete human beings.

I still did.

Then.

"I'll take care of it, Father. Before sunrise," he announced calmly, coolly, as nonchalant as his father had been sentencing our baby to death.

I'd never been so grateful for his mastery of manipulation and stoicism, for his calculating-for-every-eventuality mind, for his masks and cunning and relentless will.

He would not relent. He would not yield.

And I knew his ruthlessness would save our son.

That didn't make it any easier for me to breathe.

"Wise choice. I will speak with you later, Princess Ursa. When you serve me tea."

Ozai's eyes flashed, and I noticed blue veins bulging from his marble neck.

My arms still wrapped around her, I helped her out of the throne room and waited for her tears to dry and her lungs to fill.

"Zuko, our baby…Ozai, what are you… What can I…?" I finally managed to ask, fighting back fresh tears in vain.

Ozai, my Ozai, smiled that breathtaking quarter-smirk at me, dazzling me even if it couldn't reach his eyes, even if my world was on fire.

"Go to our room. Wait for Azulon's summons. Everything is under control."

His lips kissed my hand, and I didn't think to ask what he was going to do. If I thought it, that dread would've filled my stomach again, those fears would've reared their heads again…

But this was Ozai. My Ozai. A phoenix restored to me for one night, under the worst of circumstances.

"And Ursa?" he called as we began to part ways.

I turned back.

"Yes?"

The hope in her eyes could've killed me.

"Breathe," he reminded, something new crossing over his eyes before he turned away.

Returning to his mission.

When the knock came at our door, I expected a servant to be there with a "request" for tea from Azulon.

Instead, I found a servant with a scroll and my husband with a teapot.

"His Majesty—" the poor fellow began to announce.

Ozai silenced him with a glare and passed me the materials I would need to make Azulon his tea.

"Thank… you?" I said in surprise.

Our eyes met over the precious clay, but her confusion gave way to my gaze.

"Look at me. Everything is under control."

I dismissed the servant with a quick nod and millisecond smile.

"Ozai, what's happening? What—?"

He shushed me and took my arm, glancing up and down the hall.

We walked to Azulon's bedchamber in silence, trying to still my pounding heart by syncing it, my breath, and my footsteps with his.

She started humming our song without realizing it, and I couldn't suppress a smile.

"I'll be back," he said, awaking me from my haze of panic and paranoia. "Are you sure you can do this? Azulon's going to say… He's going to say a lot to test you, and he's going to watch you, to analyze your every move and reaction. He'll give you some leeway, cause in his sick mind… But you can't let him see any anger. No resentment whatsoever. If you need to express something, try for sorrow, grief, fear, anything but—"

"I know."

This was not her first time serving tea to a man risking the life of her family member, to the source of her boiling hatred.

I nodded and somehow made my way inside.

Azulon was already in bed, which came as no surprise. He usually was by then.

He glanced at me but didn't say a word while I set the water to boil.

He watched me throughout my preparations, but I did not flinch, silent as him, hiding how much I loathed the worm who could sentence his grandson to death so casually and summon that child's mother to serve him tea on that same night.

I could barely focus on the task at hand, my vision so clouded by Zuko's face, my ears echoing with the memory of his laugh, but found my way to his bedside eventually. I sat while Azulon started to ramble, as usual, but his subject matter gave me pause.

"I'm sure you all think Iroh is my favorite, but that perception was not easily established. I have had to fight and deny my every instinct, my every initial reaction, thought and bias, from the moment Ozai was born. He is so much more like me than his elder brother, but for the sake of the succession…" he trailed off, and I poured the tea into a cup.

"Iroh serves his role and fulfills his duty and does his best. Iroh is a good man. He always has been. He always will be. Ozai is not. He's far worse. He's a great man. I've always seen that potential in him. I've always known what that greatness could mean… Iroh will never have that.

"I've always known this day would come. I've done all I could to give Iroh a fighting chance, but I knew the throne would be claimed by the one who was willing to fight for it the most. The one born with true power and the divine right to rule, regardless of time or birth order."

I brought the cup to his lips, but his hand grabbed mine, startling me, something else in his manner making me hesitate as well.

The Fire Lord looked into my eyes for a long time, searching them for something, before he drank the whole cup.

He lay back down, breaking that chilling stare at last. I made to leave, picking up the teapot and blowing out the candles.

There are certain sounds we learn to hear even in silent rooms. There are rhythms that our ears should not hear, that are inaudible, that we do not notice at all… until they're no longer there.

After more than a decade of serving tea in that opulent tomb, I knew Azulon's breath as well as my own.

And I knew when it was gone.

How…?

I looked down at the teapot in my hands.

One second later, it shattered on the floor.

I swung the door open and swept into the bedchamber as Ursa gasped in horror. To prevent a scream, my hand covered her mouth, and she turned to look at me.
"He's…"

I nodded my understanding and, after checking his lifeless body for any sign of a pulse, pulled out a scroll.

I didn't feel anything at Azulon's loss. I couldn't mourn a man who was less than human.

But I couldn't stop staring at the spilled tea.

"We only have a few minutes before we need to call for one of the guards, to avoid suspicion."

She looked up at me, her hands still clutching an invisible teapot.

"The tea," she whispered.

His brow wrinkled ever so slightly. Not in denial or guilt or resentment.

My reaction left him perplexed.

"I knew you wouldn't drink it," he said as that was the only explanation necessary, and as if it wasn't even necessary.

My heart dropped.

"You used me… to kill him," she said, whisper angry, gorgeous eyes wide in disbelief.

You used me to commit treason, they read. You used me as a tool… for MURDER.

He scoffed at me. He snarled at me. Like he was sixteen, and I was being naïve.

"You knew what you were doing."

When have I ever made tea?

"No, I didn't!" I cried, incredulous, at his empty, heartless eyes.

The space between us lessened, and he stared me down from his great height.

"Don't pretend you never questioned for one moment, never suspected that something else might be in those tea leaves. Not a moment of hesitation," he stated more than asked, half cooing with that horrible dark flash in his eyes that made me doubt myself.

Azulon's searching eyes burned in my memory. My silence, my resistance to ask Ozai any questions…

Did some part of me know? Did I feign ignorance to myself?

If I didn't know, was it solely because I didn't want to?

My uncertain expression produced a bit more from him. "You were the only one he wouldn't suspect anything from. You had to know there was no other way to save Zuko. It was his life or Azulon's. He wouldn't have let me anywhere near that room. If I'd tried, I would've been caught, and Zuko…"

"You should've told me," she said as if this omission were a lie.

To her, it always was.

You should have seen, I resisted the urge to say. You never see what you don't want to, what you're too smart not to observe immediately.

"Would you have refused?" I asked instead. "If it was the only way to save our son, would you have done it?"

Would I?

I didn't know the right answer anymore. I didn't know what morality I'd lost or retained, what to be disappointed in myself for.

"Azulon would've seen through you if you knew too much, if you'd heard it confirmed aloud. I couldn't trust that you'd be able to hide that from the most paranoid old man in existence. Not with the weight of danger and loathing and disgust hanging over you so—"

"You should've told me."

There was a knock at the door.