The Rise of Kyoshi

The Iceberg

Kyoshi’s nightmare smelled like wet bison.

It was raining, and bales of cargo wrapped in burlap splashed in the mud around her as if they’d fallen from great heights, part of the storm. It no longer mattered what was in them.

A flash of lightning revealed hooded figures looming over her. Their faces were obscured by masks of running water.

I hate you, Kyoshi screamed. I’ll hate you until I die. I’ll never forgive you.

Two hands clasped each other. A transaction was struck, one that would be violated the instant it became an inconvenience to uphold. Something wet and lifeless hit her in the shins, papers sealed in oilcloth.

“Kyoshi!”

She woke up with a start and nearly pitched over the side of Pengpeng’s saddle. She caught herself on the rail, the sanded edge pressing into her gut, and stared at the roiling blue beneath them. It was a long way down to the ocean.

It wasn’t rain on her face but sweat. She saw a droplet fall off her chin and plummet into nothingness before someone grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her back. She fell on top of Yun and Rangi both, squashing the wind out of them.

“Don’t scare us like that!” Yun shouted in her ear.

“What happened?” Kelsang said, trying to shift around in the driver’s seat without disturbing the reins. His legs straddled Pengpeng’s gigantic neck, making it difficult for him to see behind himself.

“Nothing, Master Kelsang,” Rangi grumbled. “Kyoshi had a bad dream is all.”

Kelsang looked skeptical but kept flying straight ahead. “Well okay then, but be careful, and no roughhousing. We don’t want anyone getting hurt before we get there. Jianzhu would have my head on a platter.”

He gave Kyoshi an extra glance of worry. He’d been caught off guard by Yun’s sudden mission, and her agreeing to tag along had amplified the strain. This treaty signing was too important to cast doubt on Yun’s Avatarhood now. Until it was over, Kelsang would have to help her shoulder the burden of their secret, their lie by omission.

Below them on the water’s surface, trailing only slightly behind, was the ship bearing Yun’s earthbending master, as well as Hei-Ran and the small contingent of armed guards. Aided by the occasional boost of wind that Kelsang generated with a whirl of his arms, the grand junk kept pace with Pengpeng, its battened sails billowing and full. Kelsang’s bison was dry and well-groomed for the occasion, her white fur as fluffy as a cloud underneath her fancier saddle, but the stiff salt breeze still carried a hint of beastly odor.

That must have been what I smelled in my dream. It had been a very long time since Kelsang had taken her for a ride, and the unfamiliar environment rattled her sleeping mind. The titanic, six-legged animal stretched its jaws wide and yawned as if to agree with her.

And speaking of dressing up, Jianzhu had given Kyoshi an outfit so far beyond her station that she’d almost broken out in hives when she saw it. She’d thought the pale green silk blouse and leggings would have been enough finery, but then the wardrobe attendants brought in two different pleated skirts, a shoulder-length wraparound jacket, and a wide sash with such exquisite stitching that it should have been mounted on a wall rather than tied around her waist.

The other servants had to help her into the clothing. She didn’t miss the looks they shared behind her back. That Kyoshi had abused the master’s favoritism—again.

But once the pieces were assembled, they melded to her body like she’d been born to wear them. Each layer slid over the next with ease, granting her full mobility. She didn’t ask anyone where the clothes that fit her so well came from, not wanting to hear a snippy answer like Oh, Jianzhu ripped them off the corpse of some fallen giant he defeated.

And the serious nature of the task ahead made itself clear as she finished dressing. The inside of the jacket was lined with finely woven chainmail. Not thick enough to stop a spearpoint with a person’s entire weight behind it, but strong enough to absorb a dart or the slash of a hidden knife. The weight of the metal links on her shoulders said to expect trouble.

“Why are the four of us up here and not down there?” Kyoshi said, pointing at the boat, where more preparations were undoubtedly being made.

“I insisted,” Yun said. “Sifu wasn’t happy about it, but I told him I needed time by myself.”

“To go over the plan?”

Yun looked off into the distance. “Sure.”

He’d been acting strange recently. But then again, he was a new Avatar about to enact a decree in one of the most hostile settings imaginable. Yun might have had all the talent and the best teachers in the world, but he was still diving into the abyss headlong.

“Your master has good reason for his reluctance,” Kelsang said to him. “At one point it was somewhat of a tradition for the Avatar to travel extensively with his or her friends, without the supervision of elders. But Hei-Ran, Jianzhu, and I ... the three of us weren’t the positive influences on Kuruk that we were supposed to be. Jianzhu views that period of our youth as a great personal failing of his.”

“Sounds like a failing of Kuruk’s instead,” Kyoshi muttered.

“Don’t criticize Yun’s past life,” Rangi said, whacking her shoulder with a mittened hand. “The Avatars tread paths of great destiny. Every action they take is meaningful.”

They meaningfully passed another three dull, meaningful hours in southward flight. It got colder, much colder. They pulled on parkas and bundled themselves in quilts as they swooped over otter penguins wriggling atop ever-growing chunks of floating ice. The cry of antarctic birds could be heard on the wind.

“We’re here,” Kelsang said. He was the only one who hadn’t put on extra layers; it was theorized around the mansion that Airbenders were simply immune to the weather. “Hold on for the descent.”

Their target was an iceberg almost as big as Yokoya itself. The blue crag rose into the air as high as the hills of their earthbound village. A small flat shelf ringed the formation, presumably giving them a place to set up camp. Most of the far side was obscured by the peak, but as they flew lower Kyoshi caught a glimpse of felt tents dotting the opposite shoreline. The Fifth Nation delegation.

“I don’t see their fleet,” Rangi said.

“Part of the terms were that the negotiating grounds be even,” Yun said. “For her that meant no warships. For us that meant no ground.”

The compromise didn’t feel even. The vast iceberg was one of many, drifting in an ocean cold enough to kill in minutes. A dusting of fresh snow gave every surface flat enough to stand on a coat of alien whiteness.

Kyoshi knew that though the Southern Water Tribe had long since disowned Tagaka’s entire family tree, she still came from a line of Waterbenders. If there was ever a location to challenge an Earth Avatar, it was here.

Kelsang landed Pengpeng on the frozen beach and hopped down first. Then he helped the others off the huge bison, generating a small bubble of air to cushion their fall. The little gesture stirred unease in Kyoshi’s heart, the playful bounce like cracking jokes before a funeral.

They watched Jianzhu’s ship come in. It was too large and deep-keeled to run aground, and there wasn’t a natural harbor formation in the ice, so the crew dropped anchor and lowered themselves into longboats, making the final sliver of the journey in the smaller craft. One of them reached the shore much faster than the others.

Jianzhu stepped out of the lead boat, surveying the landing site while straightening his furs, his eyes narrowed and nostrils flared as if any potential treachery might have a giveaway smell to it. Hei-Ran followed, treating the water carefully, as she was decked out in her full panoply of battle armor. The third person on the longboat was less familiar to Kyoshi.

“Sifu Amak,” Yun said, bowing to the man.

Master Amak was a strange, shadowy presence around the compound. Ostensibly, he was a Waterbender from the north who was patiently waiting his turn to teach the Avatar. But questions about his past produced inconsistent answers. There was gossip around the staff that the lanky, grim-faced Water Tribesman had spent the last ten years far from his home, in the employ of a lesser prince in Ba Sing Se who’d suddenly gone from eleventh in the line of succession to the fourth. Amak’s silent nature and the web of scars running around his arms and neck seemed like a warning not to inquire further.

And yet the Avatar had regular training sessions with him, though Yun had told Kyoshi outright that he couldn’t waterbend yet and wasn’t expected to. He would emerge from the practice grounds, bloodied and mussed but with his smile blazing from new knowledge.

“He’s my favorite teacher other than Sifu,” Yun had said once. “He’s the only one who cares more about function than form.”

There must have been strategy at work with Amak’s attendance. Instead of the blue tunic he wore around the complex, they’d dressed him in a set of wide-sleeved robes, dark green in Earth Kingdom style, and a conical hat that shaded his face. His proud wolftail haircut had been shaved off, and he’d taken out his bone piercings.

Amak took out a small medicine vial with a nozzle built into the top. He tilted his head back and let the liquid contents drip directly into his eyes. “Concentrated spidersnake extract,” Yun whispered to Kyoshi. “It’s a secret formula and hideously expensive.”

Amak caught Kyoshi staring at him and spoke to her for the first time ever.

“Other than Tagaka herself, there are to be no Waterbenders from either side at this negotiation,” he said in a voice so high-pitched and musical it nearly startled her out of her boots. “So ...”

He pressed a gloved finger to his lips and winked at her. The iris of his open eye shifted from pale blue to a halfway green the color of warmer coastal waters.

Kyoshi tried to shake the fuzz out of her head. She didn’t belong here, so far from the earth, with dangerous people who wore disguises like spirits and treated life-and-death situations as games to be won. Crossing into the world of the Avatar had been exciting back when she took her first steps inside the mansion. Now the slightest wrong footing could destroy the fates of hundreds, maybe thousands. After Yun told her last night about the mass kidnappings along the coast, she hadn’t been able to sleep.

More boats full of armed men landed ashore. They lined up to the left and right, spears at the ready, the tassels of their helmets waving in the frigid breeze. The intent must have been to look strong and organized in front of the pirate queen.

“She approaches,” Kelsang said.

Tagaka chose a relatively undramatic entrance, appearing on the edge of the iceberg as a faraway dot flanked by two others. She plodded along a path that ran around the icy slope like a mountain pass. She seemed to be in no hurry.

“I guess everyone dying of old age would count as achieving peace,” Yun muttered.

They had enough time to relax and then straighten back up once Tagaka reached them. Kyoshi stilled her face as much as possible and laid the corner of her eyes upon the Bloody Flail of the Eastern Sea.

Contrary to her reputation, the leader of the Fifth Nation was a decidedly unremarkable middle-aged woman. Underneath her plain hide clothing she had a laborer’s build, and her hair loops played up her partial Water Tribe ancestry. Kyoshi looked for eyes burning with hatred or a cruel sneer that promised unbound tortures, but Tagaka could have easily passed for one of the disinterested southern traders who occasionally visited Yokoya to unload fur scraps.

Except for her sword. Kyoshi had heard rumors about the green-enameled jian strapped to Tagaka’s waist in a scabbard plated with burial-quality jade. The sword had once belonged to the admiral of Ba Sing Se, a position that was now unfilled and defunct because of her. After her legendary duel with the last man to hold the job, she’d kept the blade. It was less certain what she’d done with the body.

Tagaka glanced at the twenty soldiers standing behind them and then spent much longer squinting at Kyoshi, up and down. Each pass of her gaze was like a spray of cold water icing over Kyoshi’s bodily functions.

“I didn’t realize we were supposed to be bringing so much muscle,” Tagaka said to Jianzhu. She looked behind her at the pair of bodyguards carrying only bone clubs and then again at Kyoshi. “That girl is a walking crow’s nest.”

Kyoshi could sense Jianzhu’s displeasure at the fact she’d drawn attention. She knew he and Yun had fought over her presence. She wanted to shrink into nothingness, hide from their adversary’s gaze, but that would only make it worse. Instead she tried to borrow the face Rangi normally used on the villagers. Cold, inscrutable disdain.

Her attempt at looking tough was met with mixed reactions. One of Tagaka’s escorts, a man with a stick-thin mustache in the Earth Kingdom style, frowned at her and shifted his feet. But the pirate queen herself remained unmoved.

“Where are my manners,” she said, giving Yun a perfunctory bow. “It’s my honor to greet the Avatar in the flesh.”

“Tagaka, Marquess of the Eastern Sea,” Yun said, using her self-styled title, “congratulations on your victory over the remnants of the Fade-Red Devils.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You knew of that business?”

“Yachey Hong and his crew were a bunch of sadistic murderers,” Yun said smoothly. “They had neither your wisdom nor your ... ambition. You did the world a great service by wiping them out.”

“Ha!” She clapped once. “This one studies like Yangchen and flatters like Kuruk. I look forward to our battle of wits tomorrow. Shall we head to my camp? You must be hungry and tired.”

Tomorrow?Kyoshi thought. They weren’t going to wrap this up quickly and leave? They were going to sleep here, vulnerable throughout the night?

Apparently, that had been the plan all along. “Your hospitality is much appreciated,” Jianzhu said. “Come, everybody.”

It was a very, very awkward dinner.

Tagaka had set up a luxurious camp, the centerpiece a yurt as big as a house. The interior was lined with hung rugs and tapestries of mismatching colors that both kept the cold out and served as markers of how many tradeships she’d plundered. Stone lamps filled with melted fat provided an abundance of light.

Low tables and seat cushions were arranged in the manner of a grand feast. Yun held the place of honor, with Tagaka across from him. She didn’t mind the rest of their table being filled out by the Avatar’s inner circle. Jianzhu’s uniformed guardsmen rotated in and out, trading sneers with the pirate queen’s motley assortment of corsairs.

The Fifth Nation described themselves as an egalitarian outfit that disregarded the boundaries between the elements. According to the propaganda they sometimes left behind after a raid, no nation was superior, and under the rule of their enlightened captain, any adventurer or bender could join them in harmony, regardless of origin.

In reality, the most successful pirate fleet in the world was going to be nearly all sailors from the Water Tribes. And the food reflected that. To Kyoshi, most of the meal tasted like blood, the mineral saltiness too much for her. She did what she could to be polite, and watched Yun eat in perfect alignment with Water Tribe custom.

As Yun downed another tray of raw blubber with gusto, Tagaka cheering him on, Kyoshi wanted to whisper in Rangi’s ear and ask if they should be afraid of poison. Or the prospect of the dinner party stabbing them in the back with their meat skewers. Anything that reflected the hostilities that must have been bubbling under the surface. Why were they being so friendly?

It became too much once they began setting up Pai Sho boards for members of Tagaka’s crew who fancied themselves a match for the young Avatar’s famous skills. Kyoshi nudged Rangi in the side and tilted her chin at the merriment, widening her eyes for emphasis.

Rangi knew exactly what she was asking. While everyone’s attention focused on Yun playing three opponents at once, she pointed with her toe at two men and two women who had silently entered the tent after the party had finished eating, to clean up the plates.

They were Earth Kingdom citizens. Instead of the pirates’ mismatched riot of pilfered clothing, they wore plain peasant’s garb. And though they weren’t chained or restrained, they carried out their duties in a hunched and clumsy fashion. Like people fearing for their lives.

The stolen villagers. Yun and Rangi had undoubtedly spotted them earlier. Kyoshi cursed herself for treating them as invisible when she knew what it was like to move unnoticed among the people she served. The entire time, Yun had been putting on a false smile while Tagaka paraded her true spoils of war in front of him.

Rangi found her trembling hand and gave it a quick squeeze, sending a pulse of reassuring warmth over her skin. Stay strong.

They watched Yun demolish his opponents in three different ways, simultaneously. The first he blitzed down, the second he’d forced into a no-win situation, and the third he’d lured into a trap so diabolical that the hapless pirate thought he was winning the whole time until the last five moves.

The audience roared when Yun finished his last victim off. Coins clinked as wagers traded hands, and the challengers received slaps and jeers from their comrades.

Tagaka laughed and threw back another shot of strong wine. “Tell me, Avatar. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I’ve been to many places around the world,” Yun said. “And your hospitality has been unmatched.”

“I’m so glad,” she said, reaching for more drink. “I was convinced you were planning to kill me before the night was through.”

The atmosphere of the gathering went from full speed to a dead stop. Tagaka’s men seemed as surprised as Jianzhu’s. The mass stillness that ran through the party nearly created its own sound. The tensing of neck muscles. Hairs raising on end.

Kyoshi tried to glance at Master Amak without making it obvious. The hardened Waterbender was sitting away from the main group, peering soberly at Tagaka over the edge of his unused wine cup. The floor was covered in skins and rugs, but underneath was a whole island of weaponry at his disposal. Instead of freezing up like everyone else, Kyoshi could see his shoulders relaxing, loosening, readying for a sudden surge of violence.

She thought Jianzhu might say something, take over for Yun now that the theatrics were off course, but he did nothing. Jianzhu calmly watched Yun stack the Pai Sho tiles between his fingers, as if the only thing he cared about was making sure his student displayed good manners by cleaning up after a finished game.

“Mistress Tagaka,” Yun said. “If this is about the size of my contingent, I assure you I meant no harm or insult. The soldiers who came with me are merely an honor guard. I didn’t want to bring them, but they were so excited about the chance to witness you make history with the Avatar.”

“I’m not concerned about a bunch of flunkies with spears, boy,” Tagaka said. Her voice had turned lower. The time for flattery was over. “I’m talking about those three.”

She pointed, her fingers forming a trident. Not at Amak or any of the armored Earth Kingdom soldiers, but at Jianzhu, Hei-Ran, and Kelsang.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Yun said. “Surely you know of my bending masters. The famed companions of Kuruk.”

“Yes, I know of them. And I know what it means when the Gravedigger of Zhulu Pass darkens my tent in person.”

Now Yun was confused for real. His easy smile faded, and his head tilted toward his shoulder. Kyoshi had heard of various battles and locations associated with Jianzhu’s name, and Zhulu Pass was one of many, not a standout in a long list. He was a great hero of the Earth Kingdom after all, one of its leading sages.

“Are you referring to the story of how my esteemed mentor piously interred the bodies of villagers he found cut down by rebels, giving them their final rest and dignity?” Yun said. The game tiles clacked together in his palm.

Tagaka shook her head. “I’m referring to five thousand Yellow Necks, buried alive, the rest terrorized into submission. The entire uprising crushed by one man. Your ‘esteemed mentor.’”

She turned to Jianzhu. “I’m curious. Do their spirits haunt you when you sleep? Or did you plant them deep enough that the earth muffles their screams?”

There was a hollow thunk as one of the game pieces slipped out of Yun’s grasp and bounced off the board. He’d never heard of this. Kyoshi had never heard of this.

Now that he was being addressed directly, Jianzhu deemed it proper to speak up. “Respectfully, I fear that rumors from the Earth Kingdom interior tend to grow wilder the closer they get to the South Pole. Many tales of my past exploits are pure exaggerations by now.”

“Respectfully, I gained my position through knowing facts beyond what you think a typical blue-eyed southern rustic should know,” Tagaka snapped. “For example, I know who holds the Royal Academy record for the most ‘accidental’ kills during Agni Kais, Madam Headmistress.”

If Hei-Ran was offended by the accusation, she didn’t show it. Instead Rangi looked like she was going to leap on Tagaka and cook the woman’s head off her shoulders. Kyoshi instinctively reached out to her and got her hand swatted away for the trouble.

“And Master Kelsang,” Tagaka said. “Listen, young Avatar. Have you ever wondered why my fleets stay cooped up in the Eastern Sea, where the pickings are slim, engaged in costly battles for territory with other crews? It’s solely because of that man right there.”

Of the three masters, only Kelsang looked afraid of what Tagaka might reveal. Afraid and ashamed. Kyoshi already wanted to defend him from whatever charges the pirate might levy. Kelsang was hers more than anyone else’s.

“My father used to call him the Living Typhoon,” Tagaka said. “We criminal types have a fondness for theatrical nicknames, but in this case, the billing was correct. Grandad once took the family and a splinter fleet westward, around the southern tip of the Earth Kingdom. The threat they presented must have been great indeed, because Master Kelsang, then a young man in the height of his power, rode out on his bison and summoned a storm to turn them back.

“Sounds like a perfect solution to a naval threat without any bloodshed, eh?” she said. “But have any of you pulled a shivered timber the size of a jian from your thigh? Or been thrown into the sea and then tried to keep your head above a thirty-foot wave?”

Tagaka drank in the Airbender’s discomfort and smiled. “I should thank you, Master Kelsang. I lost several uncles on that expedition. You saved me from a gruesome succession battle. But the fear of a repeat performance kept the Fifth Nation and other crews bottled up in the Eastern Sea, my father’s entire generation terrified of a single Air Nomad. They thought Kelsang was watching them from the peaks of the Southern Air Temple. Patrolling the skies above their heads.”

Kyoshi looked at Kelsang, who was hunched in agony. Were you? she thought. Is that where you went between stays in Yokoya? You were hunting pirates?

“A lesson from your airbending master,” Tagaka said to Yun. “The most effective threat is only performed once. So you can imagine my distress when I saw you bring this ... this collection of butchers to our peace treaty signing. I thought for certain it meant violence was in our future.”

Yun hummed, pretending to be lost in thought. The Pai Sho tile that he’d fumbled was now flipping over his knuckles, back and forth across his hand. He was in control again.

“Mistress Tagaka,” he said. “You have nothing to fear from my masters. And if we’re giving credence to gruesome reputations, I believe I would have equal cause for concern.”

“Yes,” Tagaka said, staring him down, her fingers lying on the hilt of her sword. “You absolutely do.”

The mission hinged there, on the eye contact between Yun and the undisputed lord of the Eastern Sea. Tagaka might have been looking at the Avatar, but Kyoshi could only see her friend, young and vulnerable and literally out of his element.

Whatever Tagaka was searching for inside Yun’s head, she found it. She backed off and smiled.

“You know, it’s bad luck to undertake an important ceremony with blood on your spirit,” she said. “I purified myself of my past crimes with sweat and ice before you arrived, but with the stain of so much death still hanging over your side, I suddenly feel the need to do it again before tomorrow morning. You may stay here as long as you’d like.”

Tagaka snapped her fingers, and her men filed out of the tent, as unquestioningly as if she’d bent them away. The Earth Kingdom captives went last, ducking through the exit flaps without so much as a glance behind them. The act seemed like a planned insult by Tagaka, designed to say they’re more afraid of me than they’re hopeful of you.

Jianzhu swung his hands together. “You did well for—”

“Is it true?” Yun snapped.

Kyoshi had never heard Yun interrupt his master before, and from the twinge in his brow, neither had Jianzhu. The earth sage sighed in a manner that warned the others not to speak. This matter was between him and his disciple. “Is what true?”

“Five thousand? You buried five thousand people alive?”

“That’s an overstatement made by a criminal.”

“Then what’s the truth?” Yun said. “It was only five hundred? One hundred? What’s the number that makes it justified?”

Jianzhu laughed silently, a halting shift of his chest. “The truth? The truth is that the Yellow Necks were scum of the lowest order who thought they could plunder, murder, and destroy with impunity. They saw nothing, no future beyond the points of their swords. They believed they could hurt people with no repercussions.”

He slammed his finger down onto the center of the Pai Sho board.

“I visited consequences upon them,” Jianzhu said. “Because that’s what justice is. Nothing but the proper consequences. I made it clear that whatever horrors they inflicted would come back to haunt them, no more, no less. And guess what? It worked. The remnants of the daofei that escaped me dispersed into the countryside because at last they knew there would be consequences if they continued down their outlaw path.”

Jianzhu glanced at the exit, in the direction Tagaka had gone. “Perhaps the reason you’ve never heard about this from decent citizens of the Earth Kingdom is because they see it the same way I do. A criminal like her watches justice being done and bewails the lack of forgiveness, conveniently forgetting about what they did in the first place to deserve punishment.”

Yun looked like he had trouble breathing. Kyoshi wanted to go to his side, but Jianzhu’s spell had frozen the air inside the tent, immobilizing her.

“Yun,” Kelsang said. “You don’t understand the times back then. We did what we had to do, to save lives and maintain balance. We had to act without an Avatar.”

Yun steadied himself. “How fortunate for you all,” he said, his voice a hollow deadpan. “Now you can shift the burden of ending so many lives onto me. I’ll try to follow the examples my teachers have set.”

“Enough!” Jianzhu roared. “You’ve allowed yourself to be rattled by the baseless accusations of a pirate! The rest of you get out. I need to speak to the Avatar, alone.”

Rangi stormed out the fastest. Hei-Ran watched her go. Maybe it was because they used the same tight-lipped expression to hide their emotions, but Kyoshi could tell she wanted to chase her daughter. Instead Hei-Ran walked stiffly out the opposite side of the tent.

When Kyoshi looked back, Kelsang had vanished. Only the trailing swish of an orange hem under a curtain betrayed which way he’d gone. She gave a quick bow to Jianzhu and Yun, avoiding eye contact, and ran after the Airbender.

She found Kelsang a dozen paces away, alone, sitting on a stool that had presumably been abandoned by one of Tagaka’s guards. The legs had sunk deep into the snow under his weight. He shivered, but not from the cold.

“You know, after Kuruk died, I thought my failure to set him on the right path was my last and greatest mistake,” he said quietly to the icy ground in front of his toes. “It turned out I wasn’t finished disgracing myself.”

Kyoshi knew, in an academic sense, that Air Nomads held all life sacred. They were utmost pacifists who considered no one their enemy, no criminal beyond forgiveness and redemption. But surely exceptional circumstances allowed for those convictions to be put on hold. Surely Kelsang could be forgiven for saving entire towns along the coasts of the western seas.

The strain in his voice said otherwise.

“I never told you how far I fell within the Southern Air Temple as a result of that day.” Kelsang tried to force a smile through his pain, but it slipped out of his control, turning into a fractured, tearful mess. “I violated my beliefs as an Airbender. I let my teachers down. I let my entire people down.”

Kyoshi was suddenly furious on his behalf, though she didn’t know at whom. At the whole world, perhaps, for allowing its darkness to infect such a good man and make him hate himself. She threw her arms around Kelsang and hugged him as tightly as she could.

“You’ve never let me down,” she said in a gruff bark. “Do you hear me? Never.”

Kelsang put up with her attempt to crush his shoulder blades through the force of sheer affection and rocked slightly in her embrace, patting at her clasped hands. Kyoshi only let go when the sound of a plate shattering pierced the stillness of the night.

Their gazes snapped toward the crash. It had come from the tent. Yun and Jianzhu were still inside.

Kelsang stood up, his own troubles forgotten. He looked worried. “Best if you head back to camp,” he said to Kyoshi. The muffled sound of arguing grew louder through the felt walls.

“Are they all right?”

“I’ll check. But please, go. Now.” Kelsang hurried to the tent and ducked through the curtain. She could hear the commotion stop as soon as he re-entered, but the silence was more ominous than the noise.

Kyoshi paused there, wondering what to do, before deciding she’d better obey Kelsang. She didn’t want to overhear Yun and Jianzhu have it out.

As she fled, the moonlight cast long, flickering shadows, making Kyoshi feel like a puppeteer on a blank white stage. Her hurried exit took her too far in the wrong direction, and she found herself among the outskirts of the pirate camp, near the ice cliff.

She slammed against the frozen wall, trying to flatten herself out of sight. Tagaka’s crew was in the midst of retiring for the night, kicking snow over dying campfires and fastening their tents closed from the inside. They had guardsmen posted at regular intervals looking in different directions. Kyoshi had no idea how she’d come so close without being noticed.

She edged as quietly as she could back the way she came, around the corner, and bumped into the missing sentry. He was one of the two pirates who’d accompanied Tagaka to greet them. The man with the mustache. He peered up at her face like he was trying to get the best view of her nostrils.

“Say,” he said, a rank cloud of alcohol fumes wafting out of his mouth. “Do I know you?”

She shook her head and made to keep going, but he stuck his arm out, blocking her path as he leaned against the ice.

“It’s just that you look very familiar,” he said with a leer.

Kyoshi shuddered. There was always a certain kind of man who thought her particular dimensions made her a public good, an oddity they were free to gawk at, prod, or worse. Often they assumed she should be grateful for the attention. That they were special and powerful for giving it to her.

“I used to be a landlubber,” the man said, launching into a bout of drunken self-absorption. “Did business with a group called the Flying ... Something Society. The Flying Something or others. The leader was a woman who looked a lot like you. Pretty face, just like yours. Legs ... nearly as long. She could have been your sister. You ever been to Chameleon Bay, sweet thing? Stay under Madam Qiji’s roof?”

The man pulled the cork from a gourd and took a few more swigs of wine. “I had it bad for that girl,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “She had the most fascinating serpent tattoos going around her arms, but she never let me see how far they went. What about you, honey tree? Got any ink on your body that you want to show meeeaggh!”

Kyoshi picked him up by the neck with one hand and slammed him into the cliffside.

His feet dangled off the ground. She squeezed until she saw his eyes bulge in different directions.

“You are mistaken,” she said without raising her voice. “Do you hear me? You are mistaken, and you have never seen me, or anyone else who looks like me before. Tell me so.”

She let him have enough air to speak. “You crazy piece of—I’ll kill—aaagh!”

Kyoshi pressed him harder into the wall. The ice cracked behind his skull. “That’s not what I asked you.”

Her fingers stifled his cry, preventing him from alerting the others. “I made a mistake!” he gasped. “I was wrong!”

She dropped him on the ground. The back of his coat snagged and tore on the ice. He keeled over to his side, trying to force air back into his lungs.

Kyoshi watched him writhe at her feet. After thinking it over, she yanked the gourd full of wine off his neck, snapping the string, and poured the contents out until it was empty. The liquid splashed the man’s face, and he flinched.

“I’m holding on to this in case you change your mind yet again,” she said, waggling the empty container. “I’ve heard about Tagaka’s disciplinary methods, and I don’t think she’d approve of drinking on guard duty.”

The man groaned and covered his head with his arms.

Kyoshi collapsed facedown outside her tent. Her forehead lay on the ice. It felt good, cooling. The encounter had sapped her of energy, left her unable to take the last few steps to her bunk. So close, and yet so far.

She didn’t know what had come over her. What she’d done was so stupid it boggled the mind. If word got back to Jianzhu somehow ...

A bright light appeared over her head. She twisted her neck upward to see Rangi holding up a self-generated torch. A small flame danced above her long fingers.

Rangi looked down at her and then at the liquor gourd still in her hand. She sniffed the night air. “Kyoshi, have you been drinking?”

It seemed easier to lie. “Yes?”

With great difficulty, Rangi dragged her inside by the arms. It was warmer in the tent, the difference between a winter’s night and an afternoon in spring. Kyoshi could feel the stiffness leaving her limbs, her head losing the ponderous echo it seemed to have before.

Rangi yanked pieces of the battle outfit off her like she was stripping down a broken wagon. “You can’t sleep in that getup. Especially not the armor.”

She’d taken her own gear off and was only wearing a thin cotton shift that exposed her arms and legs. Her streamlined figure belied the solidness of her muscles. Kyoshi caught herself gawking, having never seen her friend out of uniform before. It was hard for her to comprehend that the spiky bits weren’t a natural part of Rangi’s body.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping with Yun?” Kyoshi said.

Rangi’s head turned so fast she almost snapped her own neck. “You know what I mean,” Kyoshi said.

The redness faded from Rangi’s ears as quickly as it came. “The Avatar and Master Jianzhu are reviewing strategy. Master Amak only ever sleeps in ten-minute intervals throughout the day, so he and the most experienced guardsmen will keep watch. The order is that everyone else should be well-rested for tomorrow.”

They settled beneath their furs. Kyoshi already knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep as she’d been told. Her former life on the street in conjunction with her privileged place in the mansion these days meant that, improbably, she’d never had a roommate before. She was acutely aware of Rangi’s little movements right next to her, the air rising in and out of the Firebender’s chest.

“I don’t think they did anything wrong,” Kyoshi said as she stared at the underside of their tent.

Rangi didn’t respond.

“I heard from Auntie Mui about what Xu and the Yellow Necks did to unarmed men, women, and children. If half of that is true, then Jianzhu went too easy on them. They deserved worse.”

The moonlight came through the seams of the tent, making stars out of stitch holes.

She should have stopped there, but Kyoshi’s certainty buoyed her along past the point where it was safe to venture. “And accidents are accidents,” she said. “I’m sure your mother never meant to harm anyone.”

Two strong hands grabbed the lapels of her robe. Rangi yanked her over onto her side so that they were facing each other.

“Kyoshi,” she said hoarsely, her eyes flaring with pain. “One of those opponents was her cousin. A rival candidate for headmistress.”

Rangi gave her a hard, jostling shake. “Not a pirate, or an outlaw,” she said. “Her cousin. The school cleared her honor, but the rumors followed me at school for years. People whispering around corners that my mother was—was an assassin.”

She spit the word out like it was the most vile curse imaginable. Given Rangi’s profession as a bodyguard, it likely was. She buried her face into Kyoshi’s chest, gripping her tightly, as if to scrub the memory away.

Kyoshi wanted to punch herself for being so careless. She cautiously draped an arm over Rangi’s shoulder. The Firebender nestled under it and relaxed, though she still made a series of sharp little inhalations through her nose. Kyoshi didn’t know if that was her way of crying or calming herself with a breathing exercise.

Rangi shifted, pressing closer to Kyoshi’s body, rubbing the soft bouquet of her hair against Kyoshi’s lips. The startling contact felt like a transgression, the mistake of a girl exhausted and drowsy. The more noble Fire Nation families, like the one Rangi descended from, would never let just anyone touch their hair like this.

The faint, flowery scent that filled Kyoshi’s lungs made her head swim and her pulse quicken. Kyoshi kept still like it was her life’s calling, unwilling to make any motion that might disturb her friend’s fitful slumber.

Eventually Rangi fell into a deep sleep, radiating warmth like a little glowing coal in the hearth. Kyoshi realized that comforting her throughout the night was both an honor and a torture she wouldn’t have traded for anything in the world.

Kyoshi closed her eyes. She did her best to ignore the pain of her arm losing circulation and her heart falling into a pile of ribbons.

They survived the night. There had been no sneak attack, no sudden chaos outside the tent, as she’d feared.

Kyoshi couldn’t have slept more than an hour or two, but she’d never felt more alert and on edge in her life. When they breakfasted in their own camp at the base of the iceberg, she declined the overbrewed tea. Her teeth were already knocking together as it was.

She looked for signs of trouble between Yun and Jianzhu, Rangi and Hei-Ran, but couldn’t find any. She never understood how they managed to wound each other and then forgive each other so quickly. Wrongs meant something, even if they were inflicted by your family. Especially if it was family.

Kelsang stayed close by her during the preparations. But his presence only created more turbulence in her heart. Any minute now they were going to walk up that hill and watch Yun sign a treaty backed by the power vested in the Avatar.

It’s not me, Kyoshi thought to herself. Kelsang admitted there was hardly a chance. A chance is not the same thing as the truth.

Jianzhu signaled it was time to go and spoke a few words, but Kyoshi didn’t hear them.

He’s jumping to conclusions because Jianzhu sidelined him. He wants to be a bigger part of the Avatar’s life. Any Avatar’s life. And I’m the closest thing to a daughter he has.

She had to admit the line of reasoning was a little self-important of her. But much less so than, say, being the Avatar. It made sense. Kelsang was human, prone to mistakes. The thought comforted her all the way to the top of the iceberg.

The peak came to a natural plateau large enough to hold the key members of both delegations. For Yun’s side, that meant Jianzhu, Hei-Ran, Kelsang, Rangi, Amak, and—despite the foolishness it implied—Kyoshi. Tagaka again deigned to come with only a pair of escorts. The mustached man was not part of her guard this time, thankfully. But one of the Earth Kingdom hostages, a young woman who had the sunburned mien of a fishwife, accompanied the pirates. She silently carried a baggage pack on her shoulders and stared at the ground like her past and future were written on it.

The two sides faced each other over the flat surface. They were high enough up to overlook the smaller icebergs that drifted near their frozen mountain.

“I figured we’d use the traditional setting for such matters,” Tagaka said. “So please bear with me for a moment.”

The pirate queen wedged her feet in the snow and took a shouting breath. Her arms moved fluidly in the form of waterbending, but nothing happened.

“Hold on,” she said.

She tried again, waving her limbs with more speed and more strain. A circle rose haltingly out of the ice, the size of a table. It was very slow going.

Kyoshi thought she heard a scoff come from Master Amak, but it could have been the creak of two smaller ice lumps sprouting on opposite sides of the table. Tagaka struggled mightily until they were tall enough to sit on.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” she said, out of breath. “I’m not exactly the bender my father and grandfather were.”

The Earth Kingdom woman opened her pack and quickly laid out a cloth over the table and cushions on the seats. With quick, delicate motions, she set up a slab inkstone, two brushes, and a tiny pitcher of water.

Kyoshi’s gut roiled as she watched the woman meticulously grind an inkstick against the stone. She was using the Pianhai method, a ceremonial calligraphy setup that took a great deal of formal training and commoners normally never learned. Kyoshi only knew what it was from her proximity to Yun. Did Tagaka beat the process into her? she thought. Or did she steal her away from a literature school in one of the larger cities?

Once she had made enough ink, the woman stepped back without a word. Tagaka and Yun sat down, each spreading a scroll across the ice table that contained the written terms that had been agreed upon so far. They spent an exhaustive amount of time checking that the copies matched, that phrasing was polite enough. Both Yun and the pirate queen had an eye for small details, and neither of them wanted to lose the first battle.

“I object to your description of yourself as the Waterborne Guardian of the South Pole,” Yun said during one of the more heated exchanges.

“Why?” Tagaka said. “It’s true. My warships are a buffer. I’m the only force keeping a hostile navy from sailing up to the shores of the Southern Water Tribe.”

“The Southern Water Tribe hates you,” Yun said, rather bluntly.

“Yes, well, politics are complicated,” Tagaka said. “I’ll edit that to ‘Self-Appointed Guardian of the South Pole.’ I haven’t abandoned my people, even if they’ve turned their backs on me.”

And on it went. After Tagaka’s guards had begun to yawn openly, they leaned back from the scrolls. “Everything seems to be in order,” Yun said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to proceed straightaway to the next stage. Verbal amendments.”

Tagaka smirked. “Ooh, the real fun stuff.”

“On the matter of the hostages from the southern coast of Zeizhou Province as can be reasonably defined through proximity to Tu Zin, taken from their homes sometime between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice ...” Yun said. He paused.

Kyoshi knew this was going to be hard on him. Rangi had explained the basics of how people were typically ransomed. At best Yun could free half of the captives by sacrificing the rest, letting Tagaka save face and retain leverage. He had to think of their lives in clinical terms. A higher percentage was better. His only goal. He would be a savior to some and doom the rest.

“I want them back,” Yun said. “All of them.”

“Avatar!” Jianzhu snapped. The Earthbender was furious. This was obviously not what they’d talked about beforehand.

Yun raised his hand, showing the back of it to his master. Kyoshi could have sworn Yun was enjoying himself right now.

“I want every single man, woman, and child back,” Yun said. “If you’ve sold them to other pirate crews, I want your dedicated assistance in finding them. If any have died under your care, I want their remains so their families can give them a proper burial. We can talk about the compensation you’ll pay later.”

The masters, save for Kelsang, looked displeased. To them, these were the actions of a petulant child who didn’t understand how the world worked.

But Kyoshi had never loved her Avatar more. This was what Yun had wanted her to see when he’d begged her to come along. Her friend, standing up for what was right. Her heart was ready to burst.

Tagaka leaned back on her ice stool. “Sure.”

Yun blinked, his moment of glory and defiance yanked out from under him prematurely. “You agree?”

“I agree,” Tagaka said. “You can have all of the captives back. They’re free. Every single one.”

A sob rang out in the air. It was the Earth Kingdom woman. Her stoic resolve broke, and she collapsed to her hands and knees, weeping loudly and openly. Neither Tagaka nor her men reprimanded her.

Yun didn’t look at the woman, out of fear he might ruin her salvation with the wrong move. He waited for Tagaka to make a demand in return. He wasn’t going to raise the price on her behalf.

“The captives are useless to me anyway,” she said. She stared out to sea at the smaller icebergs surrounding them. Despite her earlier patience, she sounded incredibly bored all of a sudden. “Out of a thousand people or more, not one was a passable carpenter. I should have known better. I needed to go after people who live among tall trees, not driftwood.”

Yun frowned. “You want ... carpenters?” he said cautiously.

She glanced at him, as if she were surprised he was still there. “Boy, let me teach you a little fact about the pirate trade. Our power is measured in ships. We need timber and craftsmen who know how to work it. Building a proper navy is a generational effort. My peaceable cousins in the South Pole have a few heirloom sailing cutters but otherwise have to make do with seal-skin canoes. They’ll never create a large, long-range war fleet because they simply don’t have the trees.”

Tagaka turned and loomed over the table. “So, yes,” she said, fixing him with her gaze. “I want carpenters and trees and a port of my own to dock in so I can increase the size of my forces. And I know just where to get those things.”

“Yokoya!” Yun shouted, a realization and an alert to the others, in a single word.

Tagaka raised her hand and made the slightest chopping motion with her fingers. Kyoshi heard a wet crunch and a gurgle of surprise. She looked around for the source of the strange noise.

It was Master Amak. He was bent backward over a stalagmite of ice, the bloody tip sprouting from his chest like a hideous stalk of grain. He stared at it, astonished, and slumped to the side.

“Come now,” Tagaka said. “You think I can’t recognize kinfolk under a disguise?”

The moments seemed to slowly stack up on each other like a tower of raw stones, each event in sequence piling higher and higher with no mortar to hold them together. A structure that was unstable, dreadful, headed toward a total and imminent collapse.

The sudden movement of Tagaka’s two escorts drew everyone’s attention. But the two men only grabbed the Earth Kingdom woman by the arms and jumped back down the slope the way they’d come, dodging the blast of fire that Rangi managed to get off. They were the distraction.

Pairs of hands burst from the surface of the ice, clutching at the ankles of everyone on Yun’s side. Waterbenders had been lying in wait below them the whole time. Rangi, Jianzhu, and Hei-Ran were dragged under the ice like they’d fallen through the crust of a frozen lake during the spring melt.

Kyoshi’s arms shot out, and she managed to arrest herself chest-high on the surface. Her would-be captor hadn’t made her tunnel large enough. Kelsang leaped into the air, avoiding the clutches of his underground assailant with an Airbender’s reflexes, and deployed the wings of his glider-staff.

Tagaka drew her jian and swung it on the downstroke at Yun’s neck. But the Avatar didn’t flinch. Almost too fast for Kyoshi to see, he slammed his fist into the only source of earth near them, the stone inkslab. It shattered into fragments and reformed as a glove around his hand. He caught Tagaka’s blade as it made contact with his skin.

Kyoshi stamped down hard with her boot and felt a sickening crunch. Her foot stuck there as the bender whose face she’d broken refroze the water, imprisoning her lower half. Above the ice, Kyoshi had the perfect view of the Avatar and the pirate queen locked together in mortal knot.

They both looked happy that the charade was over. A trickle of Yun’s blood dripped off the edge of the blade.

“Another thing you should know,” Tagaka said as she traded grins with Yun, their muscles trembling with exertion. “I’m really not the Waterbender my father was.”

With her free hand she made a series of motions so fluid and complex that Kyoshi thought her fingers had telescoped to twice their length. A series of earsplitting cracks echoed around them.

There was a roar of ice and snow rushing into the sea. The smaller icebergs split and calved, revealing massive hollow spaces inside. As the chunks of ice drifted apart at Tagaka’s command, the prows of Fifth Nation warships began to poke out, like the beaks of monstrous birds hatching from their eggshells.

Yun lost his balance at the sight and fell to the ground onto his back. Tagaka quickly blanketed him in ice, taking care to cover his stone-gloved hand. “What is this?” he yelled up at her.

She wiped his blood off her sword with the crook of her elbow and resheathed it. “A backup plan? A head start on our way to Yokoya? A chance to show off? I’ve been pretending to be a weak bender for so long, I couldn’t resist being a little overdramatic.”

Waterbenders aboard the ships were already stilling the waves caused by the ice avalanches and driving their vessels forward. Other crew members scrambled among the masts like insects, unfurling sails. They were pointed westward, toward home, where they would drive into fresh territories of the Earth Kingdom like a knife into an unprotected belly.

“Stop the ships!” Yun screamed into the sky. “Not me! The ships!” That was all he could get out before Tagaka covered his head completely in ice.

Kyoshi didn’t know whom he was talking to at first, thought that in his desperation he was pleading with a spirit. But a low rush of air reminded her that someone was still free. Kelsang pulled up on his glider and beelined toward the flagship.

“Not today, monk,” Tagaka said. She lashed out with her arms, and a spray of icicles no bigger than sewing needles shot toward Kelsang.

It was a fiendishly brilliant attack. The Airbender could have easily dodged larger missiles, but Tagaka’s projectiles were an enveloping storm. The delicate wings of his glider disintegrated, and he plunged toward the sea.

There was no time to panic for Kelsang. Tagaka levitated the chunk of ice Yun was buried in, threw it over the side of the iceberg toward her camp, and leaped down after him.

Kyoshi grit her teeth and pushed on the ice as hard as she could. Her shoulders strained against her robes, both threatening to tear. The ice gripping her legs cracked and gave way, but not before shredding the parts of her skin not covered by her skirts. She lifted herself free and stumbled after Tagaka.

She was lucky Yun’s prison had carved out a smooth path. Without it, she would have undoubtedly bashed her skull in, tumbling over the rough protrusions of ice. Kyoshi managed to slide down to the pirate camp, her wounds leaving a bloody trail on the slope behind her.

Tagaka’s men were busy loading their camp and themselves into longboats. An elegant cutter, one of the Water Tribe heirlooms she’d mentioned, waited for them off the coast of the iceberg. Only a few of the other pirates noticed Kyoshi. They started to pick up weapons, but Tagaka waved them off. Packing up was more of a priority than dealing with her.

“Give him back,” Kyoshi gasped.

Tagaka put a boot on the ice encasing Yun and leaned on her knee. “The colossus speaks,” she said, smiling.

“Give him back. Now.” She meant to sound angry and desperate, but instead she came across as pitiful and hopeless as she felt inside. She wasn’t sure if Yun could breathe in there.

“Eh,” Tagaka said. “I saw what I needed to see in the boy’s eyes. He’s worth more as a hostage than an Avatar, trust me.” She shoved Yun off to the side with her foot, and the bile surged in Kyoshi’s throat at the disrespectful gesture.

“But you, on the other hand,” Tagaka said. “You’re a puzzle. I know you’re not a fighter right now, that much is obvious. But I like your potential. I can’t decide whether I should kill you now, to be safe, or take you with me.”

She took a step closer. “Kyoshi, was it? How would you like a taste of true freedom? To go where you want and take what you’re owed? Trust me, it’s a better life than whatever dirt-scratch existence you have on land.”

Kyoshi knew her answer. It was the same one she would have given as a starving seven-year-old child.

“I would never become a daofei,” Kyoshi said, trying as hard as possible to turn the word into a curse. “Pretending to be a leader and an important person when you’re nothing but a murderous slaver. You’re the lowest form of life I know.”

Tagaka frowned and drew her sword. The metal hissed against the scabbard. She wanted Kyoshi to feel cold death sliding between her ribs, instead of being snuffed out quickly by water.

Kyoshi stood her ground. “Give me the Avatar,” she repeated. “Or I will put you down like the beast you are.”

Tagaka spread her arms wide, telling her to look around them at the field of ice they were standing on. “With what, little girl from the Earth Kingdom?” she asked. “With what?”

It was a good question. One that Kyoshi knew she couldn’t have answered herself. But she was suddenly gripped with the overwhelming sensation that right now, in her time of desperate need, her voice wouldn’t be alone.

Her hands felt guided. She didn’t fully understand, nor was she completely in control. But she trusted.

Kyoshi braced her stomach, filled her lungs, and slammed her feet into the Crowding Bridge stance. Echoes of power rippled from her movement, hundredfold iterations of herself stamping on the ice. She was somehow both leading and being led by an army of benders.

A column of gray-stone seafloor exploded up from the surface of the ocean. It caught the hull of Tagaka’s cutter and listed the ship to the side, tearing wooden planks off the frame as easily as paper off a kite.

A wave of displaced water swept over the iceberg, knocking pirates off their feet and smashing crates to splinters. Out of self-preservation, Tagaka reflexively raised a waist-high wall of ice, damming and diverting the surge. But the barrier protected Kyoshi as well, giving her time to attack again. She leaped straight into the air and landed with her fists on the ice.

Farther out, the sea boiled. Screams came from the lead warships as more crags of basalt rose in their path. The bowsprits of the vessels that couldn’t turn in time snapped like twigs. The groan of timber shattering against rock filled the air, as hideous as a chorus of wounded animals.

Kyoshi dropped to her knees, panting and heaving. She’d meant to keep going, to bring the earth close enough to defend herself, but the effort had immediately sapped her to the point where she could barely raise her head.

Tagaka turned around. Her face, so controlled over the past two days, spasmed in every direction.

“What in the name of the spirits?” she whispered as she flipped her jian over for a downward stab. The speed at which Tagaka moved to kill her made it clear that she’d be fine living without an answer.

“Kyoshi! Stay low!”

Kyoshi instinctively obeyed Rangi’s voice and flattened herself out. She heard and felt the scorch of a fire blast travel over her, knocking Tagaka away.

With a mighty roar, Pengpeng strafed the iceberg, Rangi and Hei-Ran blasting flame from the bison’s left and right, scattering the pirates as they attempted to regroup. Jianzhu handled Pengpeng’s reins with the skill of an Air Nomad, spinning her around for perfectly aimed tail shots of wind that drove away clouds of arrows and thrown spears. Kyoshi had no idea how they’d escaped the ice, but if any three people had the power and resourcefulness to pull it off, it was them.

The fight wasn’t over. Some of Tagaka’s fleet had made it past Kyoshi’s obstacles. And from the nearby sinking ships, a few Waterbenders declined to panic like their fellows. They dove into the water instead, generating high-speed waves that carried them toward Tagaka. Her elite guard, coming to rescue her.

Rangi and Hei-Ran jumped down and barraged the pirate queen with flame that she was forced to block with sheets of water. Rangi’s face was covered in blood and her mother had only one good arm, but they fought in perfect coordination, leaving Tagaka no gaps to mount an offense.

“We’ll handle the Waterbenders!” Hei-Ran shouted over her shoulder. “Stop the ships!”

Jianzhu took a look at the stone monoliths that Kyoshi had raised from the seafloor, and then at her. In the heat of battle, he chose to pause. He stared hard at Kyoshi, almost as if he were doing sums in his head.

“Jianzhu!” Hei-Ran screamed.

He snapped out of his haze and took Pengpeng back up. They flew toward the nearest formation of stone. Without warning, Jianzhu let go of the reins and jumped off the bison in midair.

Kyoshi thought he’d gone mad. He proved her wrong.

She’d never seen Jianzhu earthbend before, had only heard Yun and the staff describe his personal style as “different.” Unusual. More like a lion dance at the New Year, Auntie Mui once said, fanning herself, with a dreamy smile on her face. Stable below and wild on top.

He hadn’t been able to earthbend on the iceberg, but now Kyoshi had provided him with all of his element that he needed. As Jianzhu fell, flat panes of stone peeled off the crag and flew up to meet him. They arranged themselves into a manic, architectural construction with broad daylight showing through the triangular gaps, a steep ramp that he landed on without losing his momentum.

He sprinted toward the escaping ships, in a direction he had no room to go. But as he ran, his arms coiled and whipped around him like they had minds of their own. He flicked his fists using minute twists of his waist, and countless sheets of rock fastened themselves into a bridge under his feet. Jianzhu never broke stride as he traveled on thin air, suspended by his on-the-fly earthworks.

Fire blasts and waterspouts shot up from the benders manning the ships. Jianzhu nimbly leaped and slid over them. The ones aimed at the stone itself did surprisingly little damage, as the structure was composed of chaotic, redundant braces.

He raced ahead of the lead ship, crossing its path with his bridge. Right as Kyoshi thought he’d extended too far, that he’d run out of stone and thinned his support beyond what it could hold, he leaped to safety, landing on top of a nearby ice floe.

The precarious, unnatural assembly began to crumble without Jianzhu’s bending to keep it up. First the individual pieces began to flake off. Chunks of falling rock bombarded the lead ship from high above, sending the crew members diving for cover as the wooden deck punctured like leather before an awl.

But their suffering had only begun. The base of the bridge simply let itself go, bringing the entire line of stone down across the prow. The ship’s aft was levered out of the waterline, exposing the rudder and barnacled keel.

The rest of the squadron didn’t have time to turn. One follower angled away from the disaster. It managed to avoid crashing its hull, but the change of direction caused the vessel to tilt sharply to the side. The tip of its rigging caught on the wreckage, and then the ship was beheaded of its masts and sails, the wooden pillars snapped off, a child’s toy breaking at its weakest points.

The last remaining warship bringing up the rear might have made it out, assuming some dazzling feat of heroic seamanship. Instead it wisely decided to drop anchor and call it quits. If Tagaka’s power was in her fleet, then the Avatar’s companions had destroyed it. Now they just had to live long enough to claim their victory.

“You did good, kid,” said a man with a husky voice and an accent like Master Amak’s. “They’ll be telling stories about this for a long time.”

Kyoshi spun around, afraid a pirate had gotten the drop on her, but there was no one there. The motion made her dizzy. Too dizzy. She sank to her knees, a drawn-out, lengthy process, and slumped onto the ice.