The Fracture
It was warm. So warm that when Kyoshi woke up in the mansion’s infirmary, she thought it would be Rangi sitting in the chair by the bed. She hoped it was.
Instead it was Jianzhu.
Kyoshi clutched her blankets tighter and then realized she was being silly. Jianzhu was her boss and her benefactor. He’d given Kelsang the money to take care of her. And while she’d never crossed the courteous distance that lay between them, there was no reason to feel uncomfortable around the earth sage.
That was what she told herself.
Her throat burned with thirst. Jianzhu had a gourd of water at the ready, anticipating her need, and handed it over. She tried to gulp it as decorously as she could but spilled some on her sheets, causing him to chuckle.
“I always had the hunch you were hiding something from me,” he said.
She nearly choked.
“I remember the day you and Kelsang told me about your problem with earthbending,” Jianzhu said with a smile that stayed firmly on the lower half of his face. “You said that you couldn’t manipulate small things. That you could only move good-sized boulders of a regular shape. Like a person whose fingers were too thick and clumsy to pick up a grain of sand.”
That was true. Most schools of earthbending didn’t know how to deal with a weakness like Kyoshi’s. Students started out bending the smallest pebbles, and as their strength and technique grew, they moved to bigger and heavier chunks of earth.
Despite Kelsang’s protests, Kyoshi had long since decided that she wouldn’t bother formally training in bending. It hadn’t seemed like a problem worth solving at the time. Earthbending was mostly useless indoors, especially so without precision.
“You didn’t tell me the reverse applied,” Jianzhu said. “That you could move mountains. And you were separated from the ocean bed by two hundred paces. Not even I can summon earth from across that distance. Or across water.”
The empty gourd trembled as she put it on the bedside table. “I swear I didn’t know,” Kyoshi said. “I didn’t think I could do what I did, but Yun was in danger and I stopped thinking and I—where is Yun? Is he okay? Where’s Kelsang?”
“You don’t need to worry about them.” He slumped forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees, his fingers knotted together. His clothes draped from his joints in a way that made him look thin and weary. He stared at the floor in silence for an uncomfortably long time.
“The Earth Kingdom,” Jianzhu said. “It’s kind of a mess, don’t you think?”
Kyoshi was more surprised by his tone than his random change of subject. He’d never relaxed this much around her before. She didn’t imagine he spoke this informally with Yun.
“I mean, look at us,” he said. “We have more than one king. Northern and southern dialects are so different they’re starting to become separate languages. Villagers in Yokoya wear as much blue as green, and the Si Wong people barely share any customs with the rest of the continent.”
Kyoshi had heard Kelsang express admiration for the diversity of the Earth Kingdom on several occasions. But perhaps he was speaking from the perspective of a visitor. Jianzhu made the Earth Kingdom sound like different pieces of flesh stitched together to close a wound.
“Did you know that the word for daofei doesn’t really exist in the other nations?” he said. “Across the seas, they’re just called criminals. They have petty goals, never reaching far beyond personal enrichment.
“But here in the Earth Kingdom, daofei find a level of success that goes to their heads and makes them believe they’re a society apart, entitled to their own codes and traditions. They can gain control over territory and get a taste of what it’s like to rule. Some of them turn into spiritual fanatics, believing that their looting and pillaging is in service of a higher cause.”
Jianzhu sighed. “It’s all because Ba Sing Se is not a truly effective authority,” he said. “The Earth King’s power waxes and wanes. It never reaches completely across the land as it should. Do you know what’s holding the Earth Kingdom together right now, in its stead?”
She knew the answer but shook her head anyway.
“Me.” He didn’t sound proud to say it. “I am what’s keeping this giant, ramshackle nation of ours from crumbling into dust. Because we’ve been without an Avatar for so long, the duty has fallen on me. And because I have no claim on leadership from noble blood, I have to do it solely by creating ties of personal loyalty.”
He glanced up at her with sadness in his eyes. “Every local governor and magistrate from here to the Northern Air Temple owes me. I give them grain in times of famine; I help them gather the taxes that pay the police salaries. I help them deal with rebels.
“My reach has to extend beyond the Earth Kingdom as well,” Jianzhu said. “I know every bender who might accurately call themselves a teacher of the elements in each of the Four Nations, and who their most promising pupils are. I’ve funded bending schools, organized tournaments, and settled disputes between styles before they ended in blood. Any master in the world would answer my summons.”
She didn’t doubt it. He wasn’t a man given to boasting. More than once around the house she’d heard the expression that Jianzhu’s word, his friendship, was worth more than Beifong gold.
Another person might have swelled with happiness while looking back over the power they wielded. Jianzhu simply sounded tired. “You wouldn’t know any of this,” he said. “Other than the disaster on the iceberg, you’ve never really been outside the shelter of Yokoya.”
Kyoshi swallowed the urge to tell him that wasn’t true, that she still remembered the brief glimpses she’d seen of the greater world, long ago. But that would have meant talking about her parents. Opening a different box of vipers altogether. Just the notion of exposing that part of her to Jianzhu caused her pulse to quicken.
He picked up on her distress and narrowed his eyes. “So you see, Kyoshi,” he said. “Without personal loyalty, it all falls apart!”
He made a sudden bending motion toward the ceiling as if to bring it crashing down onto their heads. Kyoshi flinched before remembering the room was made of wood. A trickle of dust leaked through the roof beams and lay suspended in the air, a cloud above them.
“Given what I’ve told you,” he said. “Is there anything you want to tell me? About what you did on the ice?”
Was there anything she wanted to tell the man who had taken her in off the street? That there was a chance he’d made a blunder that could destroy everything he’d worked for, and that her very existence might spell untold chaos for their nation?
No. She and Kelsang had to wait it out. Find evidence that she wasn’t the Avatar, give Yun the time he needed to prove himself conclusively.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I truly wasn’t aware of my own limits. I just panicked and lashed out as hard as I could. Rangi told me she often firebends stronger when she’s angry; maybe it was like that.”
Jianzhu smiled again, the expression calcifying on his face. He clapped his hands to his knees and pushed himself up to standing.
“You know,” he said. “I’ve fought daofei like Tagaka across the length and breadth of this continent for so long that the one thing I’ve learned is that they’re not the true problem. They’re a symptom of what happens when people think they can defy the Avatar’s authority. When they think the Avatar lacks legitimacy.”
He peered down at Kyoshi. “I’m glad there’s at least one more powerful Earthbender who can fight on my side. Despite what I said earlier, I’m only a stopgap measure. A substitute. The responsibility of keeping the Earth Kingdom stable and in balance with the other nations rightfully belongs to the Avatar.”
The unrelenting pressure of his statements became so great that Kyoshi instinctively tried to shift the weight onto someone else. “It should have been Kuruk dealing with the daofei,” she blurted out. “Shouldn’t it?”
Jianzhu nodded in agreement. “If Kuruk were alive today, he’d be at the peak of his powers. I blame myself for his demise. His poor choices were my fault.”
“How could that be?”
“Because the person who has the greatest responsibility to the world, after the Avatar, is the person who influences the way the Avatar thinks. I taught Kuruk earthbending, but I didn’t teach him wisdom. I believe the world is still paying for my mistake in that regard.”
Jianzhu paused by the door as he left. “Yun is down the hall. Kelsang across from him. You should rest more though. I would hate to see you not well.”
Kyoshi waited until he was gone, enough time for him to exit the infirmary completely. Then she burst out of bed. She pounded down the hallway, rattling the planked floor, and after a frantic moment of hesitation, entered the Avatar’s room first.
Yun sat in a chair next to a copper bathtub with his right sleeve rolled up to his shoulder. His arm rested in the steaming water. Rangi stood behind him, leaning on the windowsill, staring at the far corner.
“I keep telling the healers I don’t have frostbite,” Yun said. “This must have scared them.” He raised his dripping hand. It was still stained with black ink, giving it a pallid, necrotic look. Yun picked up a teapot of hot water from the floor and poured it carefully into the bath to maintain the temperature. He dunked his hand back under the surface and swirled it around.
Kyoshi’s first instinct was to run over to them and embrace them joyfully, to thank the spirits that they were alive. To see a bit of that happiness reflected back in their eyes. The three of them had made it home, safe, together.
But Yun and Rangi looked like their minds were still floating somewhere in the Southern Ocean. Vacant and distracted.
“What happened?” Kyoshi asked. “Is everyone okay? Is Kelsang hurt badly?”
Yun waved at her with his dry hand to be quiet. “Master Kelsang is sleeping, so we should keep it down.”
As if she were the biggest detriment to Kelsang’s health right now. “Fine,” she hissed. “Now will you tell me what happened?”
“We lost a lot of the guardsmen,” Yun said, his face shifting with pain. “Tagaka’s hidden Waterbenders dropped an avalanche on them. Rangi and Hei-Ran managed to save those they could by burning through the side of the iceberg after it thinned.”
Rangi didn’t budge at the mention of her name. She refused to lift her head, let alone speak.
“They freed me, and between us, we managed to knock Tagaka out,” Yun went on. “Losing their ships and seeing their leader defeated was too much for the rest of the Fifth Nation forces, and they fled. You should have seen it. Pirates clinging to wreckage while Waterbenders propelled them away. The loss of dignity probably hurt more than the falling rocks.”
“What happened to Tagaka?” Kyoshi asked.
“She’s in the brig of an Earth Kingdom caravan heading for the capital, where she’ll be taken to the prisons at Lake Laogai,” he said. “I don’t know what they’re going to do about the lake part of it if she can waterbend like that, but I have to assume at least someone in the Earth King’s administration has a plan. In the meantime, the Fifth Nation is no more.”
At her look of confusion, Yun gave her the exact same wan, forced smile that his master did a few minutes ago. “Their ships have been damaged beyond repair,” he explained. “Tagaka said it herself—her power lies in her fleet. After what you did, it’ll be nearly impossible for her successors to rebuild. They won’t pose a threat to the Earth Kingdom anymore.”
Kyoshi supposed that was true. And that she should be happy to hear it. But the victory rang hollow. “What about the captives?”
“Jianzhu caught one of her lieutenants and interrogated their location out of him,” Yun said. “Hei-Ran pulled a few strings—well, maybe more like the whole rope—and now the Fire Navy is mounting a rescue operation in an act of goodwill. It’ll be the first time they’ve been allowed to fly military colors in the Eastern Sea since the reign of the twenty-second Earth King.”
He was giving her answers but nothing else. No emotion she could hook her fingers around. Hadn’t he wanted her there as a confidant? Someone who would be awed by his successes?
“Yun, you did it,” she said, hoping to remind him. “You saved them.”
In her desperation she borrowed a line from the imaginary voice that had spoken to her on the ice. “People will talk about this for ages to come!” she said. “Avatar Yun, who saved whole villages! Avatar Yun, who went toe to toe with the Pirate Queen of the Southern Ocean! Avatar Yun—”
“Kyoshi, stop it!” Rangi cried out. “Just stop!”
“Stop what?” Kyoshi yelled, feeling nearly sick with frustration.
“Stop pretending like everything’s the same as it was!” Rangi said. “We know what you and Kelsang were hiding from us!”
The floor spiraled away from Kyoshi’s feet. Her foundations turned to liquid. She was grateful when Rangi marched up to her and planted an accusing finger in her chest. It gave her a point to stabilize on.
“How could you keep that from us?” the Firebender shouted in her face. “Was it funny to you? Making us look like fools? Knowing there’s a chance that all of our lives are a gigantic lie?”
Kyoshi couldn’t think. She was enfeebled. “I didn’t ... It wasn’t ...”
Rangi’s finger began to heat up and smoke. “What was your angle, huh? Were you trying to discredit Yun? Jianzhu, maybe? Do you have some kind of twisted secret desire to see the world fall apart at the seams?”
The burn reached her skin. She didn’t pull away. Maybe she deserved to be punched straight through, a red-hot hole in her chest.
“Answer me!” Rangi screamed. “Answer me, you—you—”
Kyoshi closed her eyes, squeezing out tears, and readied herself for the blow.
It never came. Rangi stepped back, aghast, hands covering her mouth, realizing what she was doing, and then barreled past Kyoshi out the door.
The room swayed back and forth, threatening to force Kyoshi down on all fours. Yun stood up, navigating the thrashing floor with ease. He came closer, his lips parting slightly. She thought he was going to whisper something reassuring in her ear.
And then he sidestepped her. Slid right by, with a layer of empty space between them as impenetrable as steel.
She had one more stop to make.
Kelsang was waiting for her, propped up to a sitting position in his bed. There was a half-eaten bowl of seaweed soup on his bedside table, a remedy for blood loss. His skin was paler than the bandages swaddling his torso. Even the blue of his arrows seemed faded.
“We woke you up.” Kyoshi was surprised at how hard her voice was. She should have been relieved to pieces that he wasn’t dead, and instead she was on the verge of snarling at him. “You need to be resting.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had to tell them.”
“Did you?”
“What I said about Yun having the greater chance of being the Avatar isn’t true anymore. Not after what you accomplished on the iceberg.” Kelsang ran his hand over his shaved head, feeling for the ghost of his hair. “You were asleep for three days, Kyoshi. I thought your spirit had left your body. There was no more pretending.”
Something delicate inside her snapped at hearing “pretend.” The people closest to her were suddenly calling the years they’d spent together fake, imaginary. A made-up prelude to a different, more important reality.
“You mean you couldn’t wait any longer to make your move,” she said, unable to control her bile. “You wanted to teach an Avatar who depended on you more than Jianzhu, and you lost your chance with Yun. That’s what I am to you. A do-over.”
Kelsang looked away. He leaned back against his pillow.
“The time when any of us could have what we wanted passed years ago,” he said.