Author's Note: Azula's song for this chapter is "Burned" by Grace VanderWaal.

Chapter 60

"Before we make any more future plans, I have a confession to make," Raiden began. Something about his serious tone chilled Azula's heart. "I'm a member of an underground organization called the Order of the White Lotus. Its purpose is to support the Avatar and work toward worldwide harmony. I received my promotion to captain of the guard because the Order wanted to have eyes and ears in your court." Confusion and dismay flooded the Fire Lord as she listened to her new boyfriend reveal himself to be a traitor. "And I did as I was asked. I informed on you. When I found evidence that your spy had infiltrated the Resistance, I sent a warning. And I've been working to influence you. To help you become the amazing ruler you were meant to be. You've improved so much that I hope that you'll see that I did the right thing."

She withdrew her hands from his, and looked away. Her mind reeled as she tried to reconcile these nonsensical words with the friend she had trusted with her whole heart. The spy plot against Katara felt like a lifetime ago, but she tried to recall it. She remembered questioning Raiden after it all fell apart. He had convinced her to stop her interrogations, and then persuaded her to break her fast with a pastry.

Humiliated, she accused him, "You lied to my face. You looked straight into my eyes and told me you had nothing to do with it."

"I had to," he justified his actions. "And not just to save myself. To save you. To help the Fire Nation."

Still struggling to comprehend this betrayal, and needing more physical distance from him, Azula stood from the couch, "I believed you. You had me eating out of your hand." Now, her gullibility made her feel sick to her stomach.

"Things were different then. You were different," Raiden argued, standing to plead his case. "I had to lie, but I was always loyal."

She did not understand how he could claim faithfulness while admitting to a lie. She shook her head in disgust. "Loyalty obviously means nothing to you."

"Loyalty is my whole life," he pledged, hand on his traitorous heart. "I'm loyal to this country, to its ancient principles—"

She scoffed at his high rhetoric. "Yes, to Szeto. I suppose the Szeto Initiative was a part of this insidious plot as well."

Incomprehensibly, he denied it. "No, my suggestion was spontaneous. That day in the portrait hall, I was just trying to cheer you up."

"And you expect me to believe you now? When this entire relationship was built on a lie? I almost slept with you!" The gravity of her passion for him only reflected the depth of his deception. She cursed her desperate loneliness, and the way it had made her susceptible to such a con.

"I never lied about my feelings for you, Azula." Raiden's voice wavered with emotion, so that she almost believed him. "I told you one lie, over a year ago, about exposing a plot that you know was misguided and wrong."

"You orchestrated a conspiracy to give this secret organization control of the palace through infiltrating my bed!" she indicted him, voice rising.

"That's not why I informed on you, and it's definitely not why I started dating you," he insisted.

"Then why?" she challenged.

He straightened his shoulders. "I spied because I loved justice more than I feared you. But now—"

She cut him off. "You should have—" Once, she might have finished, you should have feared me more. Now, forlorn, she wanted to cry, you should have loved me more. But she would not stoop to beg a lowly guardsman. "Get out."

"You didn't let me finish," he tried.

"Get out!" Azula yelled. "Do I have to call the guard on you?"

Raiden stared at her and swallowed, shining eyes full of misery. Then he bowed stiffly and left the room.

All trust was lost: the one person she had confided in, had been disloyal all along. It had all been a lie, from the beginning. He'd just been using her. People had warned her about the captain's reputation with women, and she had ignored them, in her blithe infatuation. He was a master manipulator, and she had fallen for it. That was why he hadn't slept with her, why his kisses had felt distanced. He never loved her. It was all part of his plan.

She ran out to her balcony, and released her pain into the night air as white-hot fire from her fists, screaming. Raiden had not only deceived her about his character and intentions. It was worse than that: he had made her believe in herself, and his duplicity proved that was wrong, too. She had lost her best friend, and her trust in her own goodness, as well. She punched the sky again and again with firebolts, until she remembered the way they had danced together with the dragons' fire illuminating the horizon, and began to sob.

Once she began crying, something changed inside her, and her firebending seemed to short out. It faltered and stuttered in a way that had never happened to her before. Instantly, she became terrified that she was about to lose her firebending again. After visiting the dragons, she had decided never to use her firebending in anger again, and she'd just broken that resolution.

She had to calm down. Now. She wiped her eyes and stumbled back into her room. In front of the fireplace, she collapsed. She stared into the flames, trying to connect with them, without controlling their movement. She reminded herself of the dragons, and the way she'd felt surrounded by their magnificent inferno, while she pushed away the thought of the young man who'd stood behind her in those moments of revelation. Every soothing technique she knew was tainted now, she realized, fighting back panic.

After a few minutes of forcing herself to breathe deeply, Azula could sense the fire, in the same way that any bender can sense their element. But she was afraid to test it by reaching out to make the flames obey her will. She found one of the tapers that the nonbending servants used, and lit it from the fireplace. Then, eyes trained on the tiny fire, she carried it to her desk, a dancing talisman.

A copy of The Quotable Szeto sat on her desk; she opened it to the handy index in the back. Though she distrusted Raiden's motives for bringing Szeto into her life, the former Avatar had become such a source of comfort for her that she went straight to him in this moment of great need. She still trusted him, despite everything. After all, Szeto was Aang. Maybe he could tell her what to do.

Under "betrayal," she found a few pages listed.

"Even the worst wrong, the deepest betrayal, does not justify seeking vengeance."

"Taking a traitor's eye in revenge only results in one's own blindness."

Fine, message received, Sensei, Azula thought with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. I know what I shouldn't do. What should I do instead?

She read, "The proper response to betrayal is not retaliation, but a renewed focus on one's own success."

All right, but that's really vague. She looked through the index again, under "lies" and "trust."

"To allow a known liar into one's confidence is foolish."

"Sharing one's secrets with a gossip or a snoop is simply not intelligent."

"To distance oneself from a man who has proven himself unreliable is not vengeful. It is mere prudence."

She closed the book and stared into the candle on her desk, contemplating next steps.

She had every right to throw Raiden in prison. To fail to do so would probably be neglecting her duty to safeguard her nation's security.

But before they had kissed for the first time, she had basically promised never to abuse her power over him. As hurt as she was, she wanted to honor her word. And Szeto seemed to concur, which meant that retaliation might even endanger her firebending.

Was her promise relevant, though? Raiden's spying predated their relationship. If she jailed him, that would be fair punishment for his actions, not revenge. If she didn't, it would be foolish favoritism. But, then, he would never have confessed if they hadn't dated. So their relationship was the reason he was in this predicament.

Azula sighed. She found she didn't want to jail Raiden, or even fire him, even though he was a confessed spy. Somehow, despite everything, she still trusted him enough to serve their country as an army captain. She believed him when he said he was no longer passing information. She knew his values, so if he belonged to this White Lotus group, then it must not be that bad. And truthfully, she didn't want to hurt him worse than she already had by sending him away. The only thing that could have made her own pain worse was the thought of him suffering as a result of their short-lived relationship.

But he had betrayed her even more deeply than her friends had: she couldn't trust him with her heart. Just because she had vowed not to retaliate against him, it did not follow that she had to continue to date him. There was no need for her to keep seeing him around the palace. She imagined running into him in the halls unexpectedly, confronting this pain at inopportune moments, and then having to continue her day as if nothing had happened, as if he were only her ex. She knew she could not endure that, and there was no reason she should have to. She had every right to end the relationship, and to bar him from her home.

That didn't have to mean destroying his career. He could make a lateral move—away from her.

She drafted an order to release Captain Raiden from her personal guard. She puzzled for a moment about where exactly to send him, but realized that she did not have to be the one to decide. "He is to be reassigned to work elsewhere according to the Army's needs, with no loss of rank, salary, comfort, or honor," she finally wrote.

The scroll stamped with her official seal, and dropped in her box for outgoing messages, the Fire Lord decided to test her firebending. If it didn't work, then that would be a sign that her plan was wrong. She held her palm up, but looking at the inside of her hand made her remember that moment the previous night when Raiden's tongue had stroked its center. She turned her hand to the side and focused on its edge instead.

The usual fire appeared at the tips of her fingers.

Good. She hadn't lost her inner flame. But—she turned away from the fire lilies on her bedside table–she had lost just about everything else.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Please review!