AN: Wow! Thanks for all the great reviews on the prologue! Your support means a lot to me as I continue this monster of a two-book series, and I'm so glad you're all excited, too!
You can also follow me on tumblr. Ask me things! I do illustrations! shamelessliarkickapow
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The night wind was warmer than it had been for weeks, and heavy with a promise of yet more rain to come. Chunky clouds passed rapidly, casting massive shadows across the Southern Sea as if monsters were migrating beneath the surface. The half-moon was sinking in the west, and in the moments when the clouds cleared, it cast its glimmering light like a trail leading the royal cruiser home.
Prince Zuko refused to look at the moon. Instead, he watched the line of the distant coast by the patchy white light. A thin shadow on the northern horizon was all he could pick out of the land where he had lived and fought and scrounged like a peasant for weeks. It moved by so easily now, like a passing cloud, but he still remembered how hard it had been to walk that high cliff path, much less climb up to it.
"Can you see the smoke?"
He startled at the unexpected voice behind him but refused to turn around. Only the ocean caught his glare. "There isn't any smoke, Azula."
"It's a war, Zuko. There will always be smoke somewhere," she said and came to lean her elbows against the gunwale beside him, facing the opposite direction. "Zhao began his third attempt on the rebel base today. He planned to use blasting jelly to bring their mountain down on top of them."
"If Zhao thinks he can force the rebels out of that stronghold, he's a bigger fool than I thought," Zuko spat. "And even if there was smoke over the mountain, we won't be close enough to see it for another eight days."
"Oh, that reminds me," Azula sighed. "The navigator has submitted a formal request to be disciplined for whatever it is you believe he's done wrong."
Zuko did look at her then, frowning and confused.
She rolled her eyes. "You can't hover over the staff every day and not expect them to notice, Dum-dum."
"He didn't do anything wrong," Zuko said.
"I thought you would say something like that, so I told him you weren't convinced that he was setting the most efficient course."
"That's not true!" Chon was actually a seasoned navigator with a nuanced understanding of how a ship this size needed to be handled. Zuko had been watching him in an effort to learn something.
"Would you prefer that our staff figures out that you've gone native?" Azula peered at him, and she actually seemed concerned. "I'm just looking out for you, Zuko. You've been away from home for a long time, but no one in the Fire Court is going to make it easy for you if you don't at least act like a prince."
Zuko looked away. This had all seemed so natural once. There had been no momentary confusion when a servant addressed him while looking at the floor, no restlessness in him that refused to go away. Now, it all seemed so strange. These people revered him, treated him with all the respect and ceremony of the station to which he had been born.
It made him furious, and he didn't understand why.
"What am I supposed to do?" He flung out his hands and glared at Azula. "We're not even a quarter of the way through this voyage! Do you want me to sit in my room meditating for the next four weeks?"
"You could try reading a book," Azula said, unimpressed with the display of temper. Zuko made an annoyed sound. "Or," she went on, "we could have a friendly spar now and then."
Zuko assessed her casual expression and knew this was as much a trap as Azula's little chats. All week, she had been urging him to tell her more about his adventures with the rebels. He had told her the basic story, but had left out a great many details because he was certain she had some kind of vested interest. Maybe she was mining him for information that she could use later. Maybe she had scented blackmail material. Telling Azula secrets was as good as putting his life in her hands.
Sparring with her was almost less dangerous by comparison, but he still didn't want to do it.
"Thanks," he said, "but I'm not interested."
Azula's eyes flashed like she was laughing at him. Then she straightened and examined her claw-like nails. "Oh, I'd almost forgotten - the waterbender…"
Zuko broke out in a cold sweat like he did every time Azula brought up Katara. He fought to keep his voice annoyed and perfectly even. "What about her?"
"Apparently she woke up an hour ago."
A rushing sound was rising around him, as if he was falling slowly into a flooded river. It took every scrap of self-control he possessed to stand perfectly still while Azula watched him from the corner of her eye.
"The healer believes she will recover quickly once the initial weakness passes. I had her chained."
"She's a political hostage," Zuko snapped, "not a slave."
Azula turned her full attention on him and staged an artful shrug. "You can call her whatever you like, but it doesn't change anything. She's powerful - for a waterbender - and we happen to be traveling across an ocean. It would be a simple matter for her to slip away."
"She wouldn't leave her brother or her friends. Trust me," Zuko said, scowling and ignoring the unpleasant feeling in his chest. "As long as we have Sokka, Katara isn't going anywhere."
"All the more reason for caution. The moon will be full in little over a week, and if she recovers as quickly as the healer anticipates, she could be strong enough then to create a serious problem."
Zuko thought back to the night they had infiltrated Zhao's supply station to rescue Sokka. Katara had been able to do things he hadn't realized were possible. She had taken out soldiers with a simple sweep of her arms. She had lifted a tower of water more than fifty feet in the air when they jumped off the crane platform. And now, in just days, all of that power could be leveled against this ship, against him.
Zuko's scarred ear throbbed a little where the cuts she had given him were still pink and tender. She hadn't held back when they fought on the beach. She wouldn't hold back the next time she had a chance, either.
But maybe… Maybe, now that the Avatar was in a special cell in the brig and those crazy flying fantasies she'd had were no longer possible, maybe Katara would be willing to accept the reality. This had to happen. The Fire Nation had to win the war if it was ever going to end. Zuko had had to take Katara and Sokka prisoner to stop Hakoda from struggling against the inevitable. They had left him no choice.
But, if she could be convinced to cooperate now, this didn't have to be such a bad thing. At the very thought, a sick weight in Zuko's chest, a feeling he'd almost become used to in the days of this voyage, eased.
"I'll handle it," Zuko said at last, fixing Azula with a hard look. "My way."
Her sharp lips curled just slightly downward at the corners. "Alright, brother. Do whatever you like. Just don't expect me to help clean up your mess." She took a few slow steps toward the tower, then paused and peered back over her shoulder. "It would be a real pity if the Avatar managed to escape because you refused to keep a tight leash on your… political hostage."
Zuko glared back, clinging to the safety of silence and reminding himself of the comforting facts. Over all the fighting, Azula hadn't heard what was said on the beach. She couldn't know anything about what had happened between Katara and him, because he hadn't told her anything. She couldn't know, and if she acted like she did, it was because she was trying to tease him into revealing something. Zuko had fallen for it all the time as a kid. Not now, though. Not with this.
If there was one secret that Azula could use to destroy him, it was what he felt for Katara.
Zuko watched in silence as Azula walked away. Only when the steel door had shut behind her did he stride for the stairs that led below, hurrying for the infirmary.
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Katara woke up with a painfully dry throat and a throbbing ache in her chest. She lay flat on her back in a bed - not a hammock or a pallet, but a real bed - and she was warm and comfortable. The room around her was quiet, but there were sounds of footsteps coming from somewhere, ringing as if through steel.
She had had the most awful dream, that everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. It was lingering with her still, an anxious twist in her stomach. She raised a hand to touch her belly.
The chain locking her wrist to the bed frame rattled loudly.
Katara opened her eyes. The room was dimly lit by an electric lantern mounted on one wall. Across from the narrow cot on which she lay, there was a steel door with a tiny viewing window. There was an empty shelf built out from the wall beside her bed, and nothing else.
She let her head fall back on the stiff pillow, tired from holding it up long enough to look around. The ceiling above was dull steel. Like the walls. And the floor. But in the center of the ceiling there was a small vent that blew in a steady stream of warm air.
Staring at that, Katara began to rack up a careful list of things she knew were true. She had been captured by the Fire Nation. She was on a ship, a very big one. She had been hurt very badly. There had been a fight… on a beach.
Katara shut her eyes and gritted her teeth against a wave of dizzying pain. She pulled against her bonds. Where was Sokka? Where were Hakoda and Toph and Aang and all the others? Where was-?
Zuko. Katara went slack and stared at the ceiling. It hadn't been a dream. Everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. Her eyes began to well up.
There was a clank and a shuffle and then the door swung open. Katara scrubbed her face dry against the shoulder of the rough gown she was wearing, then looked to see a woman come in carrying a tray with a bowl and a cup. She stopped in the doorway when she saw Katara awake and stared with wide blue eyes.
Katara broke out a big smile, flooded with relief to see a Water Tribe face despite the Fire Nation clothes. "Hi," she croaked, then cleared her throat. "Will you help me? I need to find my family."
The woman hesitated a moment longer, then strode briskly to the shelf beside the bed to set the tray down. "I don't know anything about any others. You're the only one they brought to me. You need to sit up and eat," she said, a faint tremor in her voice.
"Alright," Katara said, watching her a little more closely now. The woman wore a steel collar and her eyes flicked back toward the doorway occasionally. Katara let herself be repositioned, helping as much as she could despite the pain of moving and the shackles she found were clamped around her ankles. Finally, she regained her breath as the woman sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the cup. "I'm Katara. What's your name?"
The woman's eyes flashed and she held the cup up to Katara's lips. "I'm just a healer. My name isn't important."
Katara swallowed the sips of water the healer offered her, then spoke hurriedly as the other woman exchanged the cup for the bowl. "I'd like to know it. You saved my life, didn't you?"
The healer kept her eyes on the pasty food as she scooped up a tidy little bite and held it before Katara's lips. "I did as I was told. And so will you if you want to survive."
Katara opened her mouth to speak and found the spoon darting in instead. She swallowed… whatever that bland paste was, and tried again. "We could help each other. We're on the same side, here."
"No." The healer glanced back at the empty doorway and then fixed Katara with a hard look, a frightened look. "Whatever fight you're thinking about starting, I don't want any part of it," she hissed. "There are only a few Water Tribe people on this ship and we are done fighting, alright? So just stop talking and eat this so I can go."
Stunned, Katara didn't resist the spoon as the healer brought it to her mouth again and again. Her throat was tight but she swallowed until it became easier, until she settled on the outrage simmering in her. "I'm done," she finally said, turning her head away from the hovering spoon but keeping her eyes on the healer. "But I'll never let the Fire Nation beat me like they've beaten you."
The healer dropped her eyes and lowered the spoon back to the bowl. Then she looked at Katara again, a little pity in her furrowed brow. "There are worse things than choosing to surrender."
Katara did not have long to think on that because footsteps approached in the corridor beyond and suddenly a man was filling the doorway, staring at her. It took her a second to recognize him. His clothes were the luxurious cloths and cuts of nobility, and they made him look bigger and more threatening than his Water Tribe costume ever had. But his face was the same angry face, with his angry scar and his angry eyes.
Zuko took one step into the room, noticed the healer, and snapped, "Get out."
The healer scurried to obey, leaving the tray where she had placed it at the bedside. Katara balled her hands into fists at her hips and glared at him while he closed the door. It clanked shut with an uncomfortable finality in the quiet room. Then, Zuko was watching her again.
Katara scowled back, seething. This was not the boy she loved. Had loved. That boy, that honorable, awkward boy, wasn't real. The man standing before her now had coaxed her into giving him her trust, her virtue, and her love - and then he had betrayed her. Katara could hardly stand the sight of him.
But before she sent him packing, there were things she needed to know. "Where is my family?" she asked, slow and hard.
Zuko folded his arms over his chest and stood at the foot of the bed, frowning at her. "Sokka's in the brig with Toph and the Avatar. They're fine. Your father escaped with his men - and-" He turned his face slightly away. "-my uncle." It was gratifying to know things hadn't gone entirely his way, but Katara was too angry to enjoy it. Before she could respond, Zuko shut his eyes for a second, then added, "Tukna didn't make it."
Katara let her head fall back against the wall. She had known Tukna all her life. He wasn't that much older than Sokka, but she always remembered him as an adult, a good natured man who grabbed his belly when he laughed. He shouldn't have died.
And he wouldn't have if Zuko had helped her stop Azula. Katara didn't look at him when she spat her next words. She looked over him, beyond him. "What are you doing here?"
Zuko assessed her for a silent moment. "I heard you were awake," he finally said.
"And what? You just wanted to come by and lord it over me?" Katara rolled her eyes. "You got me. It was a great performance. You really had me convinced that you could care about someone other than yourself."
He flenched and then glared at her, disbelieving. "It wasn't a performance! I love you, Katara!"
"Don't you dare say that to me! You love me?" Katara jerked her hands to the fullest extent of her restraints - just a few inches off the mattress. "Is that why I'm chained to a bed? Is that why you betrayed me?"
"I told you I had to capture the Avatar. I told you what I-"
"You don't even know what love is!"
"I know that sometimes when people love you they have to do things that hurt, Katara. For the good of everyone."
He hadn't just hurt her. He had doomed her family, her people. Katara didn't want to hear his excuses - she wanted to lash out at him. She wanted to wound him the way she was wounded. She leaned forward, focusing very obviously on his scarred side. "Let me guess. Your father taught you that."
They had never discussed it, but she could tell immediately that she had hit the nail on the head. Zuko reared back, eyes wide in outrage, then stabbed a finger at her. "You're out of line."
"What are you going to do, Zuko? Whip me? Burn me for my own good?" She gave her chains a yank, shouting now. "Go ahead! Show me exactly what kind of man you really are!"
He stared at her, tight-lipped and fists clenched at his sides. He stood that way for so long, it finally registered to Katara that he might actually do one of those things. Because if he could burn her father's ship and get Tukna killed and imprison Sokka and Toph and her, who could say exactly the depths to which he was capable of sinking?
Katara dropped her head back against the wall, her chest throbbing, but she held her scowl. There was still a little water in the cup at her bedside, and the pasty food was probably wet enough to bend. Subtly, with a tiny shift of her hand, she reached for them.
Zuko stalked around the bed, watching her with those furious yellow eyes. He was coming closer to... what? Hit her? Katara didn't know. It didn't matter. She had to defend herself and escape these chains. She had to get to the brig and save her friends. Gathering herself in an instant, she flattened her hand and swept it to the side. The water sprang off the tray in two razor-sharp spikes of ice. They came straight for Zuko's throat.
With a snarl, he punched an inferno against her attack. Heat licked at Katara's nearest hand, warmed her face. There was a smell of burnt paste. Then, the only water in the room was just gone.
Zuko loomed over her, baring his teeth and breathing hard in the raw silence. For the first time, Katara began to feel more afraid than angry. She was out of water and out of tricks. Pain gnawed harder at her chest after even that tiny bending move. Disarmed and chained, she truly was at the mercy of this man.
Then Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose and sat down on her bedside, holding out his hands as if explaining to the wall. "It doesn't have to be like this."
Katara sat still, alarmed in a whole new way. This close, she could feel the heat of his body and couldn't stop remembering how she had craved it before, how in the dark of the hold, it had come to feel like home. She shoved the memories away and drew back from him as much as her chains would permit.
"It doesn't have to be like this," Zuko said again, and there was something strange in his voice. A note of pleading under all the anger and frustration. It was in his eyes, too, as he turned to look at her. He reached into a pocket and drew out a small steel object. "I know this isn't what you wanted, but fighting isn't going to help your situation now." He laid his warm palm over her fist. Katara stared at him, paralyzed.
In his other hand, he held a key.
"You're a political prisoner now, which means you can be allowed some freedoms if you swear to abide by the rules." Zuko peered earnestly at her, and if Katara hadn't known better, she would have thought it was desperation that made his palm feel humid against her knuckles. "We could still be happy together, Katara."
Katara went on staring at him as his meaning became clear, as she saw a glimpse of that boy she had known. That beloved, not-real boy. That lie. She jerked her hand out from under his. The cuff barked her wrist and her elbow rapped hard against the steel wall but she didn't even notice. "You can't be serious. You can't honestly believe that I would want to be with you after what you did."
"Well, not right away, but-"
"I would rather rot in chains with my friends," Katara hissed, "than sit here with you this close to me."
Zuko's expression hardened and he withdrew his hands to his thighs. The key winked out of sight. Abruptly, he stood and made for the door but then, at the foot of the bed, paused and spoke without looking back. "You want to be behind bars? Fine." He frowned over his shoulder at her. "But you aren't getting rid of me. You made a promise, Katara, and I'm holding you to it."
"I didn't promise you anything and even if I had I wouldn't feel compelled to keep my word with a liar."
"I never lied to you," Zuko said with startling heat. "I was always honest about my intentions. But you said you would never leave me."
Katara blinked, at first not remembering. Then it came. That night in the hold, when she had been struggling to tell him about the maybe-pregnancy and he had held her so close and pleaded with her to stay, stay with him. She remembered the wet heat lingering between their bodies, the desperate need to secure him in her future.
Now he glared back at her, his spine so straight, his head so high. Despite the hair beginning to shag around his ears, he truly looked like a prince. Part of it was the fine clothes. More was the ruthless light in his eye, the hard press of his mouth as he reminded her of the words she had said in that vulnerable moment, turning them against her now like carelessly discarded weapons.
"You said you would never leave me," Zuko said. "And you never will."
Katara could only stare at him, her back pressed hard against the wall behind her, as he stalked from the room. The door clanged shut and the sound rang in her ears as his footsteps rapidly receded down the corridor. Then, everything was still.
Her hands jerked to a stop at the ends of their chains - she couldn't even cover her face when she began to cry. Bad enough that she was a prisoner, and a largely helpless convalescent. Bad enough that her friends were trapped with her while her dad was somewhere out there, probably worried sick. Bad enough that Zuko had revealed himself to be so cruel, and that she had been such a fool to believe she could change him. Katara had just remembered something that chilled and sickened her beyond all of that.
She hadn't had time to brew the tonic.
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Iroh sat quietly across the low table from Kottik and Miku and poured tea from the simple porcelain pot into one of the two remaining cups. He almost spilled. Not because of the men watching him so closely - he was quite used to that by now - but because it was still a bit unfamiliar, pouring while the ship was fully stationary this way. Even after three days living in the beached ship while the hull was being repaired, Iroh still felt strange, as if he should be in motion but was not.
He shut his weary eyes and held the cup below his lips, breathing the simple fragrance. This was only a common green tea, but the scent was wholesome. It smelled of the earth, the proper balance of elements. A soothing aroma to one who needed the comfort of such simple things.
Boots thumped rapidly down the stairs from the deck above and Hakoda's voice came as he approached through the galley. "Kottik, I want you to test the inside of the seal. Miku, go with him."
The two murmured their assent and went by way of the hold, leaving Iroh alone while Hakoda stood at the other side of the low table. Iroh kept his eyes closed and breathed the rich steam. "I am sorry for the loss of your man," he said at length. "He possessed a generous heart. Your ceremony was a fine honor to his memory."
For a while, Hakoda did not speak. Iroh only sipped as he waited. "I've noticed," Hakoda finally bit out, "you don't offer to share your tea anymore." There was an edge in his voice that had nothing at all to do with tea.
"I find it hard to believe that any of your men would risk drinking a concoction brewed by a prisoner," Iroh said, then peered evenly up at the other man, "if that is what I am."
Hakoda seemed to consider this for a moment, then sat down. It was surprising that he would - they had not spoken since that day on the beach. "This ship will be ready to make way soon. I haven't decided yet whether I want you on it."
Iroh took a slow sip of his tea. "A hostage is not much use when you abandon him on an isolated island."
"You're no good to me as a hostage. Your nephew knows that."
Yes, he did, didn't he? Iroh remembered those tense moments, the sword against his throat, Zuko turning the situation against Hakoda, threatening Sokka, looking so like his father. Iroh remembered.
He drew a long breath over his teacup and then placed it on the table. "I agree. I would make a much more beneficial ally."
Hakoda watched him with the same shrewd expression. "That simple. You turn against your own flesh and blood and now you want me to trust you?"
"It is hardly simple," Iroh sighed. "I am an old man. My brother cares for nothing but power and my niece is deranged. My nephew is the only family I have left. I think you can imagine how difficult it was for me to leave him."
"It's easy to leave when you plan to return."
"I have no such plan. Except to help you rescue your children and free the Avatar. If that path takes me back to Zuko-" He shut his eyes tight, then relaxed. "It is incidental."
The silence stretched and Iroh sipped his tea again before meeting Hakoda's suspicious eyes. "Honestly," Iroh said with a frown. "I thought you were a reasonable man."
"Hmh. And you think I ought to be grateful for your help?"
"I think you ought to feel remorse for locking up my nephew."
Hakoda stiffened and braced his hands on his thighs. "Your nephew did exactly what I thought he would do."
"Perhaps that is because you so clearly expected it of him," Iroh said, putting down his cup with a hard clack. "You took away his choice. He is lost now, because you were impatient!"
"He has my children," Hakoda snapped. "You saw how he was, and you still sympathize with him. You know what he'll do to Sokka - to Katara!"
"No," Iroh said, slumping and fixing his gaze on his teacup. "I can no longer claim to know what he will do. I blinded myself hoping he would determine on his own what was right. I believed his love for Katara would be enough to sway him to the side of peace and balance." The cup looked so small and alone on the table before him, but he did not pick it up. It was empty. It would be cool to the touch. "I am a sentimental old fool. But the fact remains that he has lost his way and I cannot help him anymore."
They did not speak for a time and, from below, there came several hammering thuds as the men stressed the new seal to be sure it would hold. At last, Hakoda leaned forward and picked up Iroh's teapot to refill his cup - and to fill the matching cup that Hakoda had apparently brought with him from the galley. Iroh had not had the heart to set it out, and he watched the tea spill and settle into the white porcelain with a deep sadness sapping the strength from him.
"If he truly loved Katara," Hakoda said, "he'd let her go."
Iroh watched him settle the pot back on the table top, steady and careful. "A starving man would sooner let go of his last plum tree." Hakoda's eyes snapped up. Iroh raised just his fingers off the table, a subtle calming gesture. "Now would be a good time, I think, to turn our attention away from what foolish young men should be doing and focus instead on what clever old men might accomplish together."
Hakoda met his stare for a tense moment, then raised his cup to drink. He did not savor the tea - Iroh could see the unyielding furrow in his brow, the strain in his jaw as he swallowed it down like medicine. He could see in this younger man a reflection of himself. Years ago, when his own son had been lost, Iroh had known the same rattling dissatisfaction with what remained to him in life. He could see in Hakoda the bitter guilt of a warrior whose children had followed his example to their destruction.
"We can't catch them before they reach the Fire Nation," Hakoda said, looking down his nose into his cup. "Their engines and the spring winds are against us. No doubt they're headed for the capital, and once they pass the Gates of Azulon, we'll be forced to abandon ship and follow overland in disguise." He shook his head slowly. "A march could take weeks longer and there will be no certain escape. I won't lead my men to their deaths in a hopeless fight. Better if I pass the chieftaincy to Bato and then rescue my children alone."
"Better still," Iroh said, "if you command a Fire Nation vessel past the Gates of Azulon."
Hakoda assessed him, then set down the teacup and planted both palms against his knees. "I'm listening."
Iroh folded his hands into his sleeves. "It so happens I know the location of just such a ship..."
