Growing up, Gran Gran had repeatedly said that destiny was like an ocean, always changing and unpredictable. For the longest time, Katara had interpreted that as it making her life a living hell by taking away everything she loved—her mother, father, and more recently, her freedom. Then she'd met Aang and thought that maybe this was her destiny—traveling to far corners of the globe she didn't even know existed and saving the world.

If, only last week, someone had told her that she'd build an alliance with the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation of all people to break out of this gilded prison, she would laugh in their face. And yet, here she was, sneaking out of the communal sleeping quarters she shared with the other slaves to meet the very prince that had condemned her to this fate.

Unpredictable destiny certainly was.

Tiptoeing around the rows of girls asleep in their makeshift beds, Katara quickly and quietly slipped away from the quarters with the knife she'd stolen from the kitchen hidden behind her forearm and her pillow tucked under the sheet of her own so-called bed. It pained her that she'd be leaving them behind to rot here when she fled the Fire Nation tomorrow. She had contemplated letting them come with her, but this was a mission too important to jeopardize. Getting out of here and winning the war was her best and only chance of helping them.

She avoided any noise she heard on her way to the rendezvous point, constantly looking over her shoulder, as she wasn't allowed out of the sleeping quarters after nightfall unless she was working.

"Give me one reason not to kill you."

"I'm your only way out of here."

Those were the words that echoed in her head while she walked, round and round, whirling in an endless, vicious cycle. Yet they didn't make any sense at all. Nothing about this made sense.

She'd spent all of her waking moments since that ludicrous night with the Prince praying that her letter had reached her family and worrying that it hadn't, worrying that she'd been wrong to trust the traitor prince with sending it. And even more than that, she'd thought of everything he'd said that night, everything he'd done—his apology, the sincerity in his demeanor, the earnest glint in his eyes…

But despite that, all he'd given her for his reason to escape was that his life 'wasn't perfect', as if that was enough justification to wanting to leave behind a life of literal royalty to live on the streets without a coin to spare. And why would he promise to remove her collar? How would he know she wouldn't kill him the second she'd gotten bending back? Maybe she never could get her bending back, maybe this collar had blocked her chi permanently, and he wanted to give her the hope of regaining her power, only to rip it away from her at the last second.

Even so, why hadn't he hesitated to turn his back to her while he was taking her to the secret room? Even if he didn't see the knife she was carrying, why would he leave his back exposed to her in the first place?

"I'm your enemy."

"That's not how I see it."

Katara banished the memory from her mind, shaking her head. Whatever his evil plan was, he'd made it pretty clear that he wouldn't act on it until they were out of the Fire Nation. For now, she needed to focus on what was important.

This was her last night in this hellhole. Her last night as a slave. She would be out of here tomorrow. And after that, she would reunite with her family. She would see them and hug them and laugh with them again.

The thought put a smile on her face as she turned the corner to the designated hallway. One day. That was all that remained between her and her freedom. Just one more day.

Her smile soon dimmed, however, when she came face to face with the Fire Prince leaning against a wall in the middle of the hall, arms crossed and dismally staring at his feet, waiting for her. He was dressed in black, and held several rolled-up sheets of paper in a gloved fist and an unlit iron torch in the other.

He looked up when she came into view, then he pushed himself off of the wall and turned to her, a reluctant smile of his own appearing on his lips.

"Hi."

"Did you send my letter?"

He was taken aback at the bite in her tone, his smile faltering. His mouth opened and closed, and after a few tries, he gave up on whatever he was going to say and opted for a curt, "Yes."

Katara felt a wave of relief wash over her, though she wouldn't let it show on her face. Whether the letter reached its destination or not, they would find out tomorrow—when her family would either walk right into a massacre, or the traps the Fire Nation set would have been for nothing. She prayed for the former.

The Prince shifted awkwardly on his feet. "We shouldn't stay here for long. Anyone walking by can see us." He held out a hand toward the opposite wall dotted with mounted torches, the secret door they'd used the previous night buried behind one of them. "Shall we?"

Katara followed him through the dark, dingy passages once he opened it, lit only by the light of the torch he carried. She kept her distance from him, always alert and ready to whip out her knife at a moment's notice if need be.

He took her to the same tiny room as last time—but unlike last time, he shut the door behind her, effectively eliminating her only means of escape. Katara held her knife tighter.

"I figured out how to remove your collar," he said while setting the papers and the torch on the ground, "and I figured out how to get us out of here."

She crossed her arms. "And?"

He stood up straight. "And, well, I thought maybe I could take off the collar first and then explain my plan, if that's alright with you."

Katara shrugged a shoulder as uncaringly as she could manage. On the inside, however, her heart swelled with something other than desolation or grief or hatred for what felt like the first time in a lifetime. It swelled with hope and joy.

The Prince stepped toward where she stood in the middle of the room, reaching into the sash wrapped around his waist. "I asked around how those collars work, and you were right—there is a hidden lock in it." He pulled out an object from his sash. "So I found this thing that I can forge to the shape of its key."

Katara took in the tiny rod he was holding, about the size of his palm, reflecting the light of the torch on the ground. It looked nothing like a key, but neither had the one the man that'd put on the collar used. Who was she to judge.

"Okay, then. Forge it and give it to me. I'll take it off myself."

The Prince opened his mouth and shut it, clearly conflicted on saying something again.

She huffed. "What is it."

"I, um…" He cleared his throat. "I need to be able to feel the lock to do that."

Katara cut him the coldest glare she could. She uncrossed her arms and readjusted her grip on the hilt of her knife to bring it to light from behind her forearm. "You really think I'll let you anywhere near me?"

He glanced at the knife and raised his hands in surrender. "I won't hurt you."

"Forgive me if I find that a little hard to believe."

He sighed. "I know you don't trust me, but I can't help you unless you cooperate with me."

Katara contemplated her options—let her distrust rule her judgment, or give him a chance and regain her bending in return…

"Fine," she spat. She pointed her knife at his nose. "But you stay in front of me."

"I'll do whatever is most comfortable for you."

Katara didn't take her eyes off of him as she lowered the knife and the Prince cautiously closed the distance between them, taking off one of his gloves to do the firebending that would give shape to the rod.

He stopped only a breath away, his hands still up. The torch behind him cast his face in shadows. "May I?"

Katara didn't back down from his intense stare, face to face with her greatest enemy. Last time they'd stood this close together, she'd made the worst mistake of her life and he'd taken full advantage of it.

She gazed at those molten gold eyes gleaming amidst the shadows. "Make one wrong move, and you're done."

His eyes darted to the knife she held pressed right against his groin, and they lingered there before finding her face again, his expression unreadable. He didn't say anything, though—only clenched his jaw, looked past her, and encircled his arms around her neck in a wide arc to reach to the back of her head, never touching her.

Katara was rigid as a statue in his almost-embrace, shoulders stiff and back ramrod straight. They stood so close that she could feel the warmth seeping from him and smell the hint of smoke and citrus clinging to him.

Unlike her, he seemed oddly calm as he gently nudged her braid aside, over her shoulder and in front of her. Although she couldn't see what he was doing, she could tell by the sudden onslaught of hot air at her nape that he'd begun the forging.

She sucked in a breath when he slid the forged rod between the tender, bruised skin there and the collar.

"Sorry," he murmured and paused briefly before sliding it further down in his search for the lock, much slower this time.

Katara clenched her teeth and dug her nails into her palm against the stinging, powerless to do much else. She was relieved when he finally did insert the makeshift key into the lock, but the relief didn't last long, as he began to twist the key, sending even more bolts of pain drilling through her skull. Katara hissed and grunted lowly, squeezing her eyes shut.

The distinct sound of metal unwinding accompanied his twists. And with each twist, the crushing grip the collar had on her throat slackened the tiniest bit and she could breathe a little easier. Little by little, inch by inch, the bumps on the inside of the collar retracted from the pressure points they'd been digging into for weeks.

With each twist, small streams of chi started oozing into her bloodstream, like water leaking through the cracks in a dam. They bestowed her with the warmth and life she'd been lacking for the longest time.

Then the Prince twisted the key one last time.

The lock clicked audibly.

He pulled the two halves of the collar apart.

The collar slipped from her neck and clattered to the floor.

All of a sudden, the dam inside her burst, and weeks worth of chi gushed forth at once. It expanded out like thousands of tiny spiderwebs, storming in to fill the void left in her chi paths, her blood, her limbs. It shot down her spine to her toes and then back up to the crown of her head.

Her heart somersaulted in her chest and a sense of lightheadedness made her head spin. Her grip on the knife vanished as her vision blurred, then her knees buckled from beneath her, a dazed sigh slipping from her lips. She plunged to the floor, numb and futile against the chi thrumming in her veins.

Two warm arms latched onto her just before she hit the ground, wrapping hastily around her torso, but failing to keep her upright against the full force of her weight. Katara didn't register that she was falling, much less that someone was breaking her fall, lost in the bliss of the moment, of the superhuman might of her power. She only felt warmth envelop her, inside and out, and her knees ram into jagged stones as she hit the ground. Within her, she felt her horizons expand further than ever before.

She felt alive again.

Without opening her eyes, Katara took a deep breath and placed her palms on the cobblestones beneath her. Underneath them, she could feel the water trapped in the moss growing in between the stones. Around her, she could feel the water in the humid air. Beyond the walls surrounding her, she could feel hundreds of people in various parts of the palace, their shapes fuzzy and vague, but there. And above her, way above the ceiling and the clouds, she could feel the moon—her companion and only remaining friend, Yue.

She'd never felt power like this before, raw and hungry, searching ravenously for release.

Katara opened her eyes and stared at her trembling hands, turning them over again and again. She felt tears gather at the edges of her eyes. A grin split her face.

She'd gotten her bending back.

Katara laughed. The noise that came out of her was somewhere between laughter and a sob, but she didn't care. Tears ran down her cheeks freely, but she didn't care.

She'd forgotten how to smile, how to laugh, how to be happy... She remembered her terror at the moment that collar had been forced onto her, and she laughed in its face.

She'd gotten her bending back.

Someone called for her, but their voice was muffled in her ears, words incomprehensible. Katara blinked her tears away and laughed some more.

She'd gotten her bending back.

The same voice came louder though still hollow. Katara turned her head in the direction of the sound, a wide grin still plastered to her lips. Through the mist before her eyes, she saw a boy sitting beside her. He had his arms draped tightly around her, keeping her upright. Something like worry and confusion swam in the depths of his golden eyes.

That was when Katara's grin fell, her childish giddy evaporating instantly.

Golden eyes.

It wasn't just anyone holding her. It was him.

His lips moved, though no sound came out of them for the few seconds that it took her to register whose arms she was in.

"Are you okay?" his delayed question asked. "You fell pretty hard."

A sharp throbbing in her knees reoriented Katara's dizzy mind, but it was another realization that really pulled her together.

She was crying. In front of him.

This was her third time ever having a civil conversation with him, and she'd cried in every single one of them. The first time she'd done that, he'd ruined her life. Who knew what he'd do now that she'd shown him vulnerability twice more after that?

Stupid stupid stupid.

Katara jerked out of his hold and scooted away, wiping her tears of joy with the back of her hand.

"I'm fine." She tried to put as much composure behind her words, but they came out thick and raw with emotion.

The Prince reluctantly lowered his hands to his lap, watching her sympathetically. "It's okay to cry. I won't hold it against yo—"

"I said I'm fine!"

He heaved a sigh. "Whatever you say…" He then reached for the collar resting on the ground before him, her knife right beside it, and picked it up. "Then you need to put this back on."

Katara gave him a death stare.

"Not all the way! Just enough to fool people that nothing's changed. Everyone thinks you're chi-blocked. We have to keep it that way."

It was a good idea, Katara couldn't lie. Conceal her powers from the world, then knock them sideways when the time came to escape. Hit them hardest when they were expecting it the least.

She nodded and he scooted over to her on his knees without wasting time, collar in hand. Just like the men that'd put that leash on her, he set the collar against her neck and closed the other half around her throat—only, he stopped once the lock clicked. He didn't touch the key once.

Whereas the collar used to sit on the base of her throat, it now hung from her neck like a loose necklace, bearing most of its weight on her collarbone.

"How does that feel?" he asked, backing away. "Can you still bend?"

Standing so close to him, looking into his eyes, Katara became aware of another source of water nearby—right in front of her, in fact. There, beneath his flesh, she could feel his blood circulating. She could feel every vein, every muscle, every steady beat of his heart pumping alongside hers.

His blood called to her. It whispered her name. Challenged her to wield it—to pull it, push it.

All she had to do was reach, and his blood would bend to her will. He would be hers.

"Yes," she answered coldly. Yes, she could bend. How much she could bend, however, she would not say. She'd already revealed too many weaknesses—there was no need to disclose her strengths, too. He would have to find out with everyone else.

The Prince regarded her for a moment, before turning toward the papers he'd brought with him. "Then we should get started with the plan. We don't have much time."

-o-

Several hours later, they sat opposite each other with a couple of maps splayed out between them, Katara having let down her hair to cover as much of the collar as she could.

"Okay, tell me what you're gonna do. Start from the beginning."

"Seriously? Again?"

"Yes. Again. You'll keep repeating it until you can recite it in your sleep."

Katara sighed. There was no getting out of this, was there.

"Right before the harem goes into lockdown tomorrow, I'll tell Shila I forgot to bring one of her jewelry boxes to the bunker with us and ask to go back to her room to retrieve it," she began. "If someone sees me, I'll tell them I'm on duty, and if they don't believe me, I'll incapacitate them and lock them in a room somewhere. Then I'll follow the marks you left on the walls to come here, and we'll wait for the eclipse together. Once the eclipse begins, we'll go to the war balloon base and—"

"Show me where it is on the map."

Katara sent him an irritated look, but pointed to an area on the map of the palace nonetheless. "There, behind the eastern gardens."

"And how do we get there?"

She showed the right sequence of the secret passages on another map he'd drawn by hand that opened to the launching pad of the war balloons. "We follow this path."

"Good. Go on."

"We defeat the soldiers there, steal a balloon, and get out of here."

"What do we do if that doesn't work or we can't defeat them in time?"

"We go to the turtleduck pond here," Katara said, pointing at the greenery on the map of the palace. "I gather as much water as I can and use that as a platform to hoist us over the outer walls. I'll follow you through the city and the caldera, and when we reach this uninhabited shore here, I'll bend us to safety—first to your family's summerhouse in Ember Island to gather supplies and find a canoe, then across the ocean to the Earth Kingdom." She leaned back on her hands. "Was that good enough for His Highness?"

He folded his arms. "It'll do."

"What I don't understand is, if there're tunnels inside the palace and the caldera, why don't we just… sneak out, go to the port through the caldera, and get on a ship to the Earth Kingdom? Seems like it'd be much less complicated."

"Yeah, but the port will be in lockdown, too, and Ozai ordered extra troops to guard the goods and the ships, which means not only will we stick out like a sore thumb as the only civilians there, there'll also be more people to detect us. The war balloon tactic will be easier for us, anyway—most of the guards there will be deployed at the other base outside the city to man the airships for the invasion. Besides, there's one more thing we need to do before we leave the Fire Nation." He pointed to a place on the map of the entire city. "Caldera Prison. We'll rescue my uncle from there."

Katara put her fists on her hips. "Oh, so you conveniently left out the part where we'd be breaking into a prison during the million times you outlined your plan?!"

"We won't be breaking into the prison. I will."

She narrowed her eyes. "Why—am I not strong enough to go with you?"

"You are, but I need someone to guard the balloon while I'm away."

Oh… That made sense. But of course Katara wouldn't tell him that.

"Well, what if the prison guards see me and I can't beat them back? What then?"

He looked her dead in the eyes. "Then you run. And you don't look back."

The speed with which he replied caught Katara off guard. He hadn't even stopped to think what his words implied.

"But…" She sat straighter without realizing, the edge in her tone receding. "If I'm not there and you're caught… They'll kill you. Both of you."

The Prince's eyes slid back to the map. His face was granite—didn't reveal a single thought. A mask of indifference fit for a true crown prince.

"I know."

The complete lack of emotion in those two words sent a chill down her spine. He'd meant it. Really meant it.

"What about your uncle?" she asked far too tenderly. "Wouldn't he want to live?"

"He won't be happy about it, but he'll understand that it was necessary for your freedom. He won't object."

To that, Katara had nothing to say. He could be lying, and she could be making another colossal mistake believing him, but if he was indeed telling the truth, if he was actually willing to trade his life, his uncle's life, for hers… That changed everything.

In the face of this revelation, she didn't know how to react—didn't know whether she should dig deeper or leave things here. All she could do was sit there and gape at him.

He sent her a fleeting glance when the silence drew out, then cleared his throat and reached for the maps.

"It's getting late," he said and Katara shut her gaping mouth. "We should go before anyone notices we're missing."

While he was busy rolling the papers, she turned her attention to the huddle of scrolls by the opposite wall that she'd been eyeing all night. Even from here, she could make out the messy sketches on them.

Katara raised from the floor and strode over to them, heedless of the Prince's gaze on her, and picked up the ones with the doodles on them. They were a child's drawings without doubt, of people and places and some sort of animals, all of whom botched and sloppy. Some part of her wondered what a child would be doing in these dark dungeons at such a young age, isolated from the whole world, but something told her she really didn't want to know.

Katara turned toward the Prince. He'd gotten up as well and was brooding with his arms crossed and head bowed, facing away from her, from the drawings.

"Is this your family?" she found herself asking.

His only response was a belated nod, barely perceptible in the dim light.

Katara's eyes glazed over the stick figures. One was short and had a line sticking out of its head like a ponytail, laughing and playing with the unrecognizable animals. It had to be the Prince. Another one—also short and with a ponytail, but a girl this time—was firebending next to him and a woman with long hair. Azula and, what Katara assumed to be, their mother. The last figure was a man with a large belly, laughing along with the Prince and a young man.

But, as far as Katara could tell, none of the figures resembled the Fire Lord—or, at least, none like what she envisioned a Fire Lord would look like.

"Where's your father?" she blurted without looking away.

A beat of silence.

Then his voice came, quiet but firm. "He's not my family."

There was a tinge of sorrow in his voice that made Katara raise her gaze from the papers. He'd wrapped his arms around himself, as if to subconsciously protect himself—not from her, but from the bitter reality of his life. It reminded her of the confused boy she'd spoken to in the Crystal Catacombs of Ba Sing Se, the same boy that had gotten her to drop her guard and open her heart to him.

Open her heart, and get betrayed.

Katara came to her senses at the reminder of his treachery. Why should she care about him or his family issues? He was the root of all of her problems—of her nightmares and sleepless nights, of her torturous servitude to her enemies, of the visions of the man with needles and the Dai Li agent that smirked down upon her day and night.

He was her enemy, and he would always be her enemy.

The Prince must've noticed the shift in her character, as he bent down, tucked the rolled maps under his arm, and grabbed the torch. "We really should get going." He didn't wait for an answer before heading for the wall-door and opening it for her. "I could walk you back to the harem, if you want. You know, show you the path you'll take tomorrow and stuff."

Normally, Katara would've opposed his request, and he had shown her the path hundreds of times already, but she didn't want to spend hours wandering around the passages like last time, blind and scared of the punishment she'd receive if she didn't clean Shila's room in time. So she set the drawings back down on the ground and nodded.

If he tried to do anything funny, she could simply bend the water in the air through him. Easy as that.

Her knees throbbed and stung as they exited the room together, but Katara didn't mind it much. She had her bending back now—all she needed was a little bit of water and some privacy, and she could heal whatever the damage was.

Could her bending heal the damage months of anguish left inside her, too?

"Do you know where all these tunnels go?" she asked to distract herself from that thought, passing by empty passages shrouded in darkness.

"Most of them, yeah," the Prince answered, leading the way. "They go almost everywhere in the palace—the harem, kitchens, gardens, royal suites… One of them even goes to the Fire Lord's suite, though no one but my father actually knows which one goes there or how to get to it, since he's the one that ordered it to be built."

Katara's brows furrowed. "Well, what about the architect that designed it? Or the workers that built it? Wouldn't they know which tunnel led where?"

"They would. That's why he kept the architect locked in a room, chose illiterate workers and cut off their tongues before construction started, then executed them all after it was finished."

Katara froze in her place and stared at the back of his head, mortified. He paused a few steps ahead, too, and turned to her. She shouldn't have been surprised, really. This was the Fire Lord they were talking about—lord of the nation that had taken everything from her and shown no remorse.

"What is wrong with this place," she muttered under her breath and began walking again.

He breathed out a chuckle as he got going once more. "A lot of things."

They didn't speak again until the Prince turned the final corner to a dead-end, and Katara stopped behind him. He went up to the solid wall ahead and set down the rolled maps under his armpit.

"The lockdown tomorrow will be chaotic, so," he reached up to a stone on the wall, "even if Shila doesn't let you go anywhere, just run away when she's not looki—"

"Wait!" Katara shouted just before he pressed the stone in and opened the door inside the wall. He whipped his head toward her, taking his hand away from the stone.

Katara walked up to him and stopped by the wall. The faint tug in her blood she'd felt a moment before grew stronger with each second.

"There's someone out there," she whispered to the Prince.

He glanced back and forth between her and the wall, then whispered back, "How do you know?"

"I can feel their blood."

That was all the explanation he would get.

His eyes widened in a mix of shock and intrigue, but he didn't remark on it—he only stepped into a defensive bending position alongside her and listened as that someone beyond the wall drew nearer, and then farther, until it was safe for them to move again.

"Okay, they're gone," she said and let herself relax.

Beside her, the Prince stepped out of the position as well, though his cautious side-glance didn't leave her. He finally pressed the stone in and the door inside the wall groaned open, grating gravely against the marble floor. The sweet essence of soap coming from the harem baths down the hall welcomed them, replacing the smell of moss and burning torch inside the passage they stood in.

"So, uh," the Prince said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

Katara stared straight ahead as she inclined her head in a curt nod.

"Try to get some rest," he added tentatively. "Tomorrow's gonna be a big day. You'll need all of your strength."

"Don't you worry about my strength. I have plenty." With that, she made to step into the hallway, but she lingered at the threshold.

"Katara," she said after a few seconds, still staring ahead.

He stared at her in confusion. "What?"

She turned to him and looked him in the eyes. "You asked me what my name was the other night. It's Katara."

If they were to be partners in crime, he may as well know her name.

Then, without so much as a 'good luck tomorrow' or goodbye, she turned and left, leaving the startled prince behind once more.

-o-

Shila hated nights. It was always so quiet and still, the whole palace asleep. It was good that she could have peace of mind from time to time, but it also meant that these depressing, empty hallways were even creepier than usual, like the vengeful spirits of those who'd been wronged within these walls haunted them, breathing over her shoulder, never going away.

She had to put up with it, though. Her parents would kill her if she ruined this unprecedented opportunity she'd been given—her road straight to the Fire Throne.

That was what she reminded herself, the future promise of the most powerful throne in the world, as she strode through the palace to her destination. And that was what she reminded herself when she stopped before the wooden door of some random supply room in the outskirts of the harem.

Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door, knocking the same sequence she had been for weeks. The door unlocked almost immediately and creaked open to reveal one of those faceless crimson demons that called themselves royal guards, holding a torch in one hand and the door handle with the other. Behind him, on the far side of the small room, stood a lady surrounded by dozens of rolls of silk that painted the walls in all shades of red, her back turned.

The guard stepped aside to allow entry, then locked the door again after Shila entered the room. She lowered her head and curtsied before her superior in the skilled manner of a Favorite—soon to be Fire Lady, hopefully.

The lady let go of the roll of maroon fabric she'd been assessing and clasped her hands behind herself, still facing away.

"Talk." Her voice was commanding and devoid of emotion, fitting of her title.

"She snuck out again, ma'am," Shila said. "I checked her bed, but she'd stuffed it with her pillow and left. And she wasn't in any of the harem baths or restrooms."

"And what of your other target?"

"I did as you said and used the secret passages to get into His Highness' chambers. He wasn't in his bed either."

The lady snorted sardonically. "Looks like he's building himself a new harem." She shook her head in disappointment. "That moron always has been so senseless."

Shila tried not to let the words sting. She didn't know what someone like Zuko would ever see in that vermin, but whatever was going on between them would soon come to a tragic end anyway. Now that Mikai's little secret was out, she wouldn't be a thorn in Shila's side for much longer.

A conniving sneer dancing on her lips, the lady turned around. Her amber eyes were gleaming with malice. "You've proven yourself a valuable asset, Shila." She held out a sack full of gold to the Favorite. "Here. For your trouble."

Shila suppressed a smirk as she stepped toward the lady and took the sack with both hands.

"Thank you, Princess Azula. It's an honor doing business with you."