ERROR, ERROR, ERROR. If you read chapter 54 before May 7th, 2016, you missed the first few paragraphs. They have been replaced now, so I would strongly recommend rereading it before you read this chapter.
I opened the door to let the High Sage come in and sent him a glower for his loudness.
Ozai began to weave a tale of Azulon's supposed last words while he displayed the scroll detailing a new line of succession, finished with the former Fire Lord's signature I knew he forged himself.
It was a perfect story. It covered every angle. Answered every question. Eliminated all suspicion.
But no one would believe it.
The High Sage repeated back every detail of the story without hesitation and served as the document's witness, but when Ozai finally seemed satisfied, the puppet priest looked at me sidelong.
"My prince, it seems that a few, very few of course, seem to believe, obviously a vicious lie, that Fire Lord Azulon desired to… punish you before changing the succession."
The glare the fire prince sent him could've ended the war.
"Those few will no longer whisper lies once denied of breath."
"Of course. An easy enough task, I'm sure. Still, Princess Ursa was known to have entered this room some time ago…"
Electricity sparked from his fingertips.
"Your point?"
The High Sage fell to the floor in a bow immediately, so I said what he could not.
"It won't satisfy them."
He softened, confused and surprised.
"What?"
She stepped forward, speaking rationally, matter-of-fact.
The story was too perfect, and the nation's gossips needed room to whisper, needed a rumor that wouldn't undermine him…
Just me.
"They need someone to blame."
To protect Zuko, to keep him safe—
"They will believe what I tell them to believe!" he hissed back defensively, blinded to this truth, to the weakness of his plan, by his need to have everything he ever had and ever wanted.
Myself included.
"Your people are an expression of your will," Azulon always said.
"Once you win them," she conceded, "but you cannot win them without tragedy. Only then can you rule their hearts."
However unpopular the crown prince would be for abandoning the siege, however beloved and feared the younger prince was, he would need more to upset the status quo, the birthrights of centuries.
"Banish me," she said as if it were a conclusion to a calculation, not a sacrifice, not a request, almost as if it was an accusation.
"Get out!" he commanded to the fire sage.
He had to have known.
He had to have known this would happen.
"It's the only way," she tried to persuade me, resting a hand on my arm.
I jerked away from her reach, and for once it didn't pain her.
"I won't listen to this," he said in complete denial, heading for the door.
"We needn't call for a guard," she insisted with a calmness and perception that I couldn't argue with. "They'll find him in the morning."
That wasn't the plan. That wasn't the story, but she seemed to have her own. She walked out with purpose, and I followed her like a pup, though love sickness was not what drove me.
"What was the back-up?" she asked me. "If any of us had to leave, what was the backup?"
Even at his most confident, even when he knew his plan to be foolproof, unstoppable, certain as the sun, he always had a back-up.
He told me even knowing he would regret it, and I told him to make the arrangements and meet me in the garden.
"It isn't necessary!" he cried, eye brows in the visible outrage I'd longed for for so long. "You're safe here! This is your home. You'll always be safe here. You'll stay—"
I saw my husband with perfect clarity that night—recognizing who he was before, who he was then, and who he had always been. That clarity came with perfect peace and detachment, but I was too consumed by one mission to feel any of it.
"You know I can't watch you become anything other than my prince."
"Can't or won't?"
"The distinction never mattered to you before."
It finally seemed to strike him, what I was saying, and the denial fell away when his eyes met mine.
For one moment, he was the man I once knew. The man I loved. The man he once was. He was my prince.
My Ozai.
She's leaving.
She's leaving…
Me.
For one moment.
"Let me take them," I begged even though I knew his answer. "Please, you have what you want. Let me—"
A slap in the face wouldn't have warranted his expression.
"What?"
"Azula. Just let me take Azula with me. You'll have your firstborn son, your heir, but she needs me, Ozai—"
"Do not say my name."
"Please. She's—"
"You'd have to poison ME first," he bit back with as much ice as a phoenix could convey.
Which was quite a lot, as the last few years had proven.
She stepped back as if struck but recovered quickly, fearless in the pursuit of her goal.
She was a mother on a mission.
More than she was my wife.
"Meet me in the garden in a half hour," she said as she picked up her skirts to leave.
"Where are you—?"
"To kiss my children good—night," she replied, unable to say the word we never said.
Unable to say it'd be for the last time.
Normally, memories of Ozai haunted me everywhere I went, shadows that trailed my every step. Every hallway he kissed me in. Every garden we played in. Every prank we pulled. The smoke-scarred air made the phantom touch of his fingers run along my arm, the small of my back, through my hair. Every fixed tile, protruding rock, or precarious flame was a hazard that could injure one of my children, reminding me whenever that situation had turned him comforter, defender. The rich curtains echoed back conversations we'd had mocking the decadent décor. The pillars would always be his home. The statues and portraits his weights, his family's legacy. The marble his skin and now his heart. The red and gold his robes, his gifts to me, his bending, his eyes.
But I didn't notice any of that on my last night. I couldn't see or hear or recall anything but two raven-haired tots and the paths to their rooms.
My baby, my precious boy who played with me daily, laughed with me, listened to me, loved me,
adored me, respected me, so brave and strong and kind and wise. As handsome as his father with that flawless face. My son. My sun.
I prayed that Iroh would guide him when he returned home, protect him when I could not, but I knew it would not be enough. I knew I could trust Iroh with him, but he needed me, and worse, I knew I couldn't trust Iroh with my moon.
So I prayed that the spirits would guide Azula, protect her when no one could, but I knew they would not be enough. I had failed her. I had failed her in a way I'd never failed Zuko. She needed me in a way Zuko never would because she wouldn't even realize it.
I grabbed a cloak from my chamber, hiding a few other things in it as well, and went to Azula first, but but I dared not wake her.
Even at her young age, even in the dead of night in a state of dreamy delirium, she would see right through my eyes. Her father's perception and instinct ruled her well, and she wouldn't have let me go if she saw my eyes. She loved me more than she would ever care to admit, and she would've been able to tell, would've grabbed hold of me, screamed, refused to let go, insisted on going with me.
So I wrote her a letter. With silent, furtive strokes of her quill on her parchment, I wrote and wrote, the words flooding out of me, so many things I wanted to say, needed to say, didn't have time to write down…
When I realized my time with her was almost up, I forced a conclusion, some final words of unconditional love and heartfelt apology for my unforgivable trespasses against her.
Can my love roar louder than her demons?
It couldn't out roar his.
I did dare a kiss to her flawless forehead, praying not to disturb her perfect peace as she rested.
My princess, my prodigy, my "problem child," my moon. Still so small and so perfect. Still sleeping more peacefully than anyone on the planet. Still so utterly beautiful and so utterly mine. She had been my future, and she would always be a part of myself, a part of my life, the result of pure love.
She still needed me, and I her.
She was hope incarnate.
And I was leaving her behind.
She was too vigilant and hyper aware for me to tuck the scroll under her pillow, so I rest it on her side table instead.
Never dreaming that my husband would snatch it before she could wake.
Never dreaming that he would burn it.
I dared to wake Zuko, hating myself for not saving time to write him a scroll as well.
He was only half awake as I hugged him, called on him to remember who he was, remember my love for him.
He fought a losing battle with sleep, but he watched me leave.
I stole one last look over my shoulder, mustering up the weakest, saddest of smiles, and walked away.
It was a choice only a mother could make.
And there was a pain only a mother could understand.
Words would not help.
We stood by the fountain—our fountain—and she told me another story, a story where a Fire Lord fell, a phoenix rose, and a princess disappeared.
The story didn't explain how I was supposed to accept that. How I was supposed to rule a country, or sleep in our bed, without her. What I was supposed to do for her 30th birthday in a couple of weeks. What I was supposed to tell our children.
What I was supposed to tell myself.
"You don't have to do this," I tried to explain, unable to say anything else, stepping towards her.
Love was finite to him, and we were not enough.
I was not enough.
Even when her eyes were at their saddest, Ursa was lovelier than every woman on the planet.
And that beauty suspended any frustration or indignation, any heartache or hatred or sense of total abandonment, I might've felt long enough for me to love her.
"Yes, I do," I said, knowing he was unable to understand, resting my hand on his cheek.
"Once this war ends," he swore, those cheekbones sharpening the solemnity of his vow, the ferocity in his eyes. "Once I end it, I'll bring you home. If I have to burn the world, I'll bring you home."
I couldn't explain how empty, meaningless, that promise was any more than he could understand it.
He looked at me as though seeing me for the first time in years, or perhaps he was trying to memorize every line of my face.
I didn't have to memorize his.
But standing in that garden, his finger toying with my hair, his chest a breath from mine, I thought of him, of my prince, for the first time that night.
My heart didn't break.
It bled.
"The sun is going to rise soon," I reminded him, wishing I could weep under the weight of that gaze, but my tears had dried up long ago.
He realized the hour but didn't turn away from me.
"Good morning, wife."
"Good morning, husband."
I'd never brush that hair of his again, not that it'd ever need brushing.
I'd never sing with him again. Or dance. Or eat banana bread.
And I knew, as much as I knew I had to leave, I knew what my absence would do.
The brimstone that would fall on our house.
The destruction it would cause for our children.
The abyss he would let himself fall into.
I knew I was the only thing holding him back, that having me, however little he did, was the only thing keeping him from totally darkness.
I knew he would have nothing left to cling to.
But he'd made his choice. He'd lost me long ago, and what he clung to then was less than an illusion.
I knew I'd seen the last of my prince.
"Beloved," I whispered, able to feel it, to know it fully again for the first time in ages.
"Ozai," she replied, as if saying my name aloud for the first and last time, tasting it on her silken lips, her amber eyes unblinking. "I love you, Prince Ozai."
The importance behind my choice to use that title seemed to dawn on him, but he didn't resent me for it. At least not yet.
"I love you, Princess Ursa."
The guard who was to escort me to my boat, to my exile, signaled over the garden wall.
For one moment—two minutes—he had been the man I once knew. The lonely, little boy whom I taught to love and who lit up my world. The man he once was. My Ozai.
For one moment.
Our lips met, truly met, as they used to, melting and blazing and shocking our systems yet outside time or mad hunger or skipping heartbeats. It was that kiss for life, for a threadbare bond we could neither repair nor break completely.
I kissed her with all I had left, with all of her Ozai and her love.
Feeling everything so I wouldn't have to feel any of it again.
He tasted of ash.
I watched her walk away, watched her leave before the sun rose.
Pity.
She would've made the most beautiful Fire Lady.