Chapter 65

"He'll say yes," Mai assured Azula, as soon as Zuko was gone. "He's wanted to come home for years."

"What's been the holdup? Since I pardoned the three of you?" Azula wondered.

"He wanted to come back on his own terms, or something like that," her sister-in-law explained. "This arrangement wasn't his idea, so he doesn't want to look too excited about it, but it's too good for him to pass by."

"I want to hear about you, Azula!" Ty Lee exclaimed, pulling on her friend's arm. "I saw a picture of you in the newspaper with a dashing guard!"

"Yeah, but then you just said you don't have any romantic prospects," Mai pointed out. "What's going on?"

With a sigh, Azula told them about her short-lived romance. "I went on a couple of dates with Raiden, the captain of my royal guard. But then I found out that he had spied on me and lied about it, so I broke it off with him and sent him away."

"Harsh. Although I admit, I've had a couple of exes that I would have thrown in jail if I could have." Mai elbowed Ty Lee. "Remember Kei Lo?"

"How could I forget, babe?"

The two giggled, but Azula frowned. "I didn't jail him. I just had him reassigned."

Mai's brow furrowed. "Why so merciful? He was a traitor."

"I just couldn't bring myself to…have him hurt," Azula murmured, recalling the tenderness she'd felt toward her best friend. "I was more mad at him for lying than for spying."

"He must have really changed you," Mai observed. "It makes me wish I could meet the guy."

"Well, he's long gone." Azula sighed, then remembered. "But he did write me a letter before he left."

"What did it say? Can we see it? " Ty Lee bounced on her toes.

"I didn't read it." Azula already regretted bringing up the letter. The idea of reading it filled her with trepidation. But she felt she could finally face it with her friends at her side.

"You didn't burn it, did you? Mai wondered.

"No, it's in my room."

"Then let's go get it!" Ty Lee suggested.

"All right." The two girls followed the Fire Lord to her bedchamber, where she pulled the sealed letter from the drawer where she'd stashed it a couple of weeks ago. She read it silently, her friends looking over her shoulders.

Dear Azula,

Knowing that you are upset right now, and I have caused your pain, tears me up inside. I don't regret what I did, but I recognize that my dishonesty hurt you. I know you've been betrayed in the past, and that made it hard for you to accept my actions. I understand why you could not tolerate such duplicity from someone so close to you.

When you sent me away, I was hurt, too, but I forgive you for it. I knew from the beginning what the possible consequences of my undercover work might be. Since I'm still alive, I judge that I got off lightly. The loss of your trust and esteem is the punishment that I feel the most deeply.

If you had let me finish, what I would have said last night is this. I made those choices because I loved justice more than I feared you. But now, I think you've learned to love justice too. You're no longer someone who needs to be feared. You can get what you want without using intimidation because you no longer want things that people have to be scared into doing. You know that your kidnapping plot was wrong, and that it was right for me to warn the White Lotus and the Resistance about it. I really believe that after you have some time to reflect, you'll be able to see that I acted rightly, or at least, that my actions were forgivable.

When you called me family, without knowing what I'd done, I found myself unable to sustain my dishonesty a second longer. I thought you were finally ready to hear my confession, because you'd just told me that you were happier with me than you might have been with the Avatar. I must have miscalculated, underestimating how your past would affect the way you received my news. (I never was a very good spy.)

For me, the most painful thing about this rupture is that you must now believe that everything I ever said to you was a lie and a deliberate manipulation. From the beginning the friendship I offered you was true, and my feelings for you are real, but there is probably nothing I can say to convince you of that. My biggest fear now is not the place I'm going, but that my dishonesty will cause you to reassess and reject everything you discovered about yourself while with me. I'm afraid that because I was the one who first told you that you were good at heart, you will no longer believe that. But I have hope that you have internalized this basic truth deeply enough, that even without me around, even with my words discredited, you will continue to cling to your own goodness. Trust yourself, Azula. You deserve it.

Working by your side for the improvement of the Fire Nation has been not just the highlight of my career, but the greatest joy of my life. The few times I got to hold you were the most thrilling moments I ever experienced. And now, despite this disagreement, I want you to know that I love you just as much as I love justice. I hope you'll give me a chance to win back your trust. But even if you can't bring yourself to allow me back into your inner circle, much less your arms, I still believe that you have become the leader our country needs, and that's what matters.

Love,

Raiden

When she was finished, tears were streaming down Azula's face, and her chest ached. This was exactly why she had been afraid to read the letter. Raiden's words awoke something inside her that was powerful, fierce, and incredibly painful. They filled her with regret.

Mai whistled. "He didn't even apologize. That takes brass balls. I like him."

Ty Lee was swooning. "He says he loves you, Azula! You have to call him back here!"

"Do you love him?" Mai wondered.

"I think so. Damn him," Azula whispered, wiping her eyes.

"Exactly what did he say that was a lie?" Mai wondered.

"He said, 'I am not a spy,' even though he had passed information to people I then considered my enemies," Azula answered.

"Maybe he wasn't lying because he didn't think of what he did as spying. Like how the Fire Nation called the Resistance terrorists, but we called ourselves freedom fighters." Mai seemed to be looking for a loophole in semantics.

But Azula shook her head. "Raiden admitted to lying. And he says here that he was a spy, just not a good one," she pointed out.

"He only spied on you when you were doing evil plots. Maybe you can trust him in the future because you're not going to do things like that anymore," Ty Lee suggested.

"After all, we're back, aren't we?" Mai pointed out. "If you trust us again, why not trust him?"

That idea made Azula lapse into a thoughtful silence. When Raiden had confessed, she had assumed that one lie meant that his every word was false. He had told one of her secrets, so it followed logically that he could not be trusted with any of them. But she liked Ty Lee's theory. It might mean it was possible to bring her captain back and make her life happy and normal again.

But was there any evidence for this appealing idea? Had Raiden kept her secrets when they weren't dangerous to anyone? Piandao had implied that he had, but the sword master was not trustworthy, either. She needed independent confirmation.

Azula went to the door and pulled the guard stationed there inside her room, not caring if her friends witnessed this interrogation.

"Naoki. Did Captain Raiden ever tell you that in the weeks after my coronation, I used to sit and meditate in front of an altar of Avatar Aang's pictures and tokens?"

Mai snickered at that mental picture. Azula ignored her, focusing with sharp eyes on the guard she was questioning.

Her former friend''s eyes flitted to the side, and she reddened, embarrassed for the Fire Lord. "Uh, no…."

"And did he tell you that I'm infertile?" Azula pressed.

"N-no," Naoki stammered. "I'm—sorry to hear that, my lord."

"I'm not," the Fire Lord dismissed her sympathy, then lowered her voice, blushing, as she turned to a memory that was more personal to her. "Did he–did he tell you that I sang? That we sang together, once, in the ruins? Did he tell you…what I offered him?"

"No," the young guard breathed, hand on her heart. "He never said a word to me about anything so private. Or to Takeo. He tells me everything."

Azula nodded stoutly, blinking rapidly. "Thank you for confirming Raiden's honesty. Have you heard where he's been stationed?" she asked eagerly, hoping to write immediately to ask her love to return if he still wanted to. Maybe things wouldn't be exactly the same–she had broken his trust as well by sending him away without hearing him out—but more than anything she wanted to try to reconcile.

The guard's jaw dropped at that question. "You didn't know? He's at the Boiling Rock!"

"What!?" Azula exclaimed in dismay. "I didn't—"

Just then a messenger knocked on her door. "My lord!" he panted. "Terrible news! The Boiling Rock is erupting!"

Author's Note: What do you think of that cliffhanger? Tell me how evil I am in a review! I'll update in a week. Thanks for reading!