Chapter Text
Fire can not mix with water,
Yet balances may intertwine.
Though in this one celestial moment,
Your heart, body, and soul are mine.
“Fire and Water”
[source]
Moonlight made the water a ribbon of silver: a shimmering cursive trail from the tips of slender fingers. It spiraled around a lean form—up and up, from bare legs to a head of long dark hair, wild in the motion of the dance.
Katara extended her right arm and the ribbon arced above her. Under its bow, she ran three paces ahead, her costume an argent wake, and rose to the balls of her feet, rounding her back. Her forward-facing hands became a vessel for the ribbon as it spilled into them. The water formed a ball, spun twice, and then dripped too slowly, like candle wax, through the gaps in her fingers into a circle around her. As all went still, she stood in a perfect mirror of the starry sky overhead.
The moon mirror routine was second-nature after so many years, and though she didn’t need the practice, Katara danced it best when that very moon was full and luminous above the boat. Bato often scolded her for smiling as she leapt and bent through the forms—“You’re meant to be a mournful water spirit, young lady!”—but at least he wasn’t there now to chide. Katara could spread her arms and reach with joy for the source of her power.
“She’s better than this, Hakoda,” her mother had said to her father as they’d set sail from the coast south-west of Omashu three days before. Katara shouldn’t have been eavesdropping by their cabin, yet their strident voices had drawn her to press an ear to the door.
Kya, her mother, had continued, “Katara’s waterbending is extraordinary. She surpassed her masters in the forms at fourteen, and me in healing not long after. She’s a wonderful dancer, perfect for the troupe, but she could be so much more.”
“What more?” Hakoda had asked. “She’d never sit still long enough for philosophy and study, and there’s no need for warriors; there’s been no war for centuries. What more could she do than dance with us? With her family. Has she told you she wants to leave us?”
“No, but—”
“Wife, my beloved seastone, I know you want what’s best for her—I do as well—but she’s eighteen years old and she’s walking a good path.”
There had been a pause and then her mother’s soft question: “Does she even know there is another path beyond this old boat and the dances?”
Katara had slipped away then, before she’d heard more. She’d found familiar refuge at the ship’s prow as what her parents had said washed like waves—again and again, regular and relentless—at the forefront of her mind.
It was true that the Southern Water Tribe hadn’t needed or trained warriors in a generation. The waterbenders, of which there were many, cultivated their gifts in art rather than war: elaborate ice architecture in their native South Pole; sculpting with snow; and dancing, as her family did. Their troupe was renowned for their waterbending displays and spent more than three quarters of the year traveling to perform them from the Air Temples to the Fire Nation’s archipelago.
Bending for the dances was the only life Katara knew, and it was a life she loved. That didn’t, however, mean her mother was wrong to say it had long ago stopped challenging her. Since girlhood, Katara had been besting her peers and then, with time and experience, her masters. Her place in the troupe’s performances needed filling, but she doubted it would allow her to grow any further as a waterbender.
What more? her father had asked.
Her mother hadn’t had an answer, and neither did she.
“Katara?” It was Sokka’s voice, from the top of the ladder that led belowdecks.
“Here,” she called.
Her brother was yawning, rubbing a fist into his right eye socket as he walked toward her. His short hair, usually pulled back into a tail at the top of his head, was a tangle around his ears. He was nineteen, but just then looked like the boy he’d been a handful of years ago. It tugged at Katara’s heart.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
She gestured to her costume and the puddle around her, saying dryly, “As you can see, I’m rehearsing.”
Sokka wasn’t moved by her tone. He came to the edge of the water and kicked it to disturb the mirror effect.
Katara made a frustrated noise, but it was for show. Sokka was her best friend, and she loved him no matter how he pestered her.
“You can’t sleep when the full moon’s out,” he said, face turned up to the sky.
The fact didn’t bear repeating, but he didn’t understand the pull Katara felt to the cycles of the moon, how it buoyed her like the tide carrying their boat; he didn’t have the connection to it she and her mother did.
Their parents hadn’t been disappointed when Sokka wasn’t born a bender. Hakoda didn’t have the ability either, and both he and his son still had vital roles in troupe, flipping and tumbling through rings of water or using old-fashioned combat forms to dazzle the audiences. Sokka and Katara sometimes did a routine together, playing on their kinship in a happy duet. That dance was her favorite.
Sokka continued, “You should get some sleep. We’ll be at the Fire Nation capital tomorrow, and the show has to be its best.”
Katara had to struggle to mask her excitement. While the troupe had toured the Fire Nation before, they hadn’t been to the capital since the new Fire Lord had taken the throne. There had been unrest during his father’s reign and so they’d avoided it; under the new lord the nation was prospering. Katara had itched to see the red and gold towers of Hari Bulkan for as long as she could remember.
Despite her attempt at equanimity, Sokka read her as clearly as he would a scroll. Rolling his eyes, he groused, “Why are you so obsessed with the Fire Nation? It’s so hot and dry all the time, and everyone is grumpy.”
“They’re not grumpy,” said Katara, “their culture is to-the-point. They don’t couch words.”
“Fine. They’re brusque. You like that description better?”
“Yes,” Katara said, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I’m not obsessed with the Fire Nation, I’m interested. Fire is the opposite of water. It flows through firebenders’ hands like water should, but it’s nothing like it. Watching the way they move when they bend is fascinating.”
Sokka scratched his chin. “You’re not afraid of being burned?”
“A good firebender has control of the flames,” Katara replied. “And under the new Fire Lord, anyone who uses their abilities to hurt someone is punished. By the law.”
“I bet you could recite those laws,” Sokka said, taking up the same cross-armed posture with imperious challenge. “You so are obsessed.”
Katara stuck her tongue out at him and he kicked the water again so it lapped at her ankles. Curling her hand up with a flick of her wrist, she raised an orb of water and sent it into his face.
“Hey!” he cried, lunging for her.
She dodged easily, but it meant her hold on the moon mirror slipped and the water gushed across the deck, soaking the hem of her costume and Sokka’s trousers. They both cursed. That had them looking up at each other, the conflict melting away as they broke into laughter.
“Just dry it before Mom sees,” Sokka said.
Katara easily pulled the wet from their clothes and pitched the resulting ball of water over the gunwale. Beyond it, the suggestion of daybreak was lightening the horizon.
“If you’re not going to sleep,” said Sokka, “can I stay out here with you and watch the sunrise?”
Tossing her arm over his shoulder, Katara pulled him to the rail. He wrapped his own arm around her waist and they stayed there together as the boat sailed smoothly toward dawn and the just-visible peaks of Fire Nation territory.
The air was hot and dry, the press of bodies in Harbor City staggering. Katara’s own people were so few in comparison, with much more space to breathe in their village. She was still eager to explore the capital, but the thrill was threaded through with uneasiness as sailors bumped her shoulders and giggling children flowed around her legs—she a boulder in a river they had traveled a hundred times.
The servant who had been sent to guide the troupe from a narrow slip in First Lord’s Harbor, through the cramped Harbor City, and into Hari Bulkan to the palace grounds remained as unfazed as the rest of the citizens: walking unhindered through the chaos while the dancers fought to keep up.
Katara had been surprised to learn that word of their arrival had preceded them from the Earth Kingdom to the Fire Nation, as if carried by a swift wind. They had expected to perform in public and perhaps catch the notice of a passing noble who might hire them. Instead they had been greeted at the end of the gangplank by a willowy man with a gray topknot. He wore robes bearing the royal sigil.
“Greetings,” he had said, “to the waterbenders and dancers of the Southern Water Tribe. The Fire Lord requests your presence.”
Hakoda’s dark eyebrows had hit his hairline. “The Fire Lord himself asks for us?”
“Yes,” the servant had replied stiffly, “and his requests are not customarily refused.”
Katara had looked with shining hope at her father, and he had laid a hand on her shoulder in assurance. To the servant he’d said, “Lead on, sir. We serve at the Fire Lord’s pleasure.”
They left the squawking gulls and the smell of the sea behind as the servant led them through the high cliffs of a volcanic crater and into Royal Caldera City. Despite the heat and light of the day, cauldrons of flame lined the streets, lending it a smoky scent that Sokka complained was choking him but Katara thought an exotic aroma. Or it could have been the high-end market they were passing by, where meats were being roasted and perfumes sold.
“Sir,” Katara said as she trotted up to the servant, “do the markets close down at night, or is the city always so busy?”
“The markets in Caldera City close,” the servant told her. “The nobility wouldn’t shop after dusk, but there is a night market in Harbor City. It’s mostly charlatans selling rocks they claim are lucky, masked jugglers and magicians, or crones telling fortunes, but it’s popular.”
“It sounds wonderful!”
The servant eyed Katara sidelong. “You’re just a girl. Such things still appeal to you. If you have good sense, you’ll grow out of them.”
She turned her head under the pretense of taking in the scenery. Mostly she was hiding an irritated frown. Gumpy. Point to Sokka.
The distance they traversed wasn’t overly long, but with all the people it took twice the time it should have for them to arrive at the edge of the palace grounds. Katara came to a thunderstruck stop, staring down the length of a gilded lawn that led the eye to a tower at the terminus: proud, pointed, and looming, with two sweeping wings on either side. Before it, torches, seemingly ever-burning, lined a pit of glowing coals, the fire tamed to occasional pops of sparks.
“Well, that’s definitely something,” Sokka said. “I heard firebenders can walk across hot coals with bare feet. You think it’s true?”
“It has to be,” Katara replied, imagining them springing across the coals, or even dancing on them. It would be a marvel. She said to Sokka, “This place is so much more than something. It’s all aflame, even if it’s not burning.”
Sokka sighed. “Are you going to be like this the whole time? If you are, I’m spending all of it with Mom and Dad. It’s just a building.”
“Like our ice caverns are just caves,” Katara said sharply. Travelers came from everywhere to see the majesty of the caverns: unforgettable juts and patterns of ice shaped into a whole glittering world under the snow.
“Obsessed,” Sokka muttered, and left her to follow the servant’s trail toward the palace proper.
Katara came slowly after, feeling the rises and gaps of polished cobbles under the thin soles of her leather slippers.
The troupe entered the palace through massive double doors, their shined brass surface inlaid with pearl figures throwing jets of fire. They were so well-crafted that the likeness of a woman kicking her right leg out to spin a whirlwind of flame seemed to move as Katara walked past. There was no rolling, steady flow to life in the Fire Nation; everything about it crackled with vigor.
Inside the main entry hall, the servant gathered the dancers in a semi-circle around him. When he spoke, his voice was amplified in the soaring space. “Welcome to the domain of Fire Lord Zuko. Refreshments have been prepared for you and rooms to make yourselves ready to perform this evening for our lord and his court. If there is anything else you require, there will be attendants to whom you can address your needs.”
“Thank you,” said Hakoda, bowing. “We are honored to entertain the Fire Lord.”
The servant inclined his head and left the troupe to the charge of three maidens—presumably the attendants—who wended a path deeper into the palace, delivering them to an expansive room appointed with food-filled tables. While a fire burned merrily in the hearth at the far wall, several elegant pewter basins were scattered around, each filled with water. When Katara put her hand into one, she found it cool, if not frigid, to the touch.
“Can you believe it?” one of the waterbender girls, Nira, was saying to her friend Banul. “Being taken straight to the Fire Lord! I’m so nervous. Aren’t you?”
Banul replied, “Not as nervous as I would be if it was his father on the throne. Ozai was a tyrant.”
Nira worried her hands in the fabric of her skirt. “But Lord Zuko isn’t?”
“Not according to the talk. He doesn’t rule with a soft hand—what firebender does?—but it’s said he’s fair. He keeps a leash on his temper…most of the time.”
Nira asked, “Is he handsome?”
Banul pursed her lips. She appeared to be weighing her answer, but as she cut her eyes to where Katara was hovering (and listening), it was plain Banul was baiting her—dangling the reply like a worm on a hook for two hungry fish.
“Banul,” Nira whined. “Is he handsome?”
“No. He’s terribly scarred.”
Nira, in her still-girlish way, gasped, hands over her mouth.
“And I suppose you know what happened,” Katara put in. Nira shot her a skittish look, but Banul didn’t flinch.
“Don’t you?” she said, derisive. “Aren’t you the expert on the Fire Nation?”
Katara set one hand on her hip, waiting in composed silence. She wouldn’t be taunted, even by a woman twice her age.
Banul said to Nira, “It’s said his father burned him for disobedience.”
Katara had balked when she’d first heard the rumors. It was nigh impossible to burn a firebender unless they allowed it. If Ozai’s flames had marked his son, the boy had stood by and let it happen. Karata couldn’t fathom what he could have done to deserve it—and why he’d accepted the awful consequence without fighting back.
“Few people know the details,” Banul continued. “The whole matter was very hush-hush, but the result wasn’t. Apparently the scar will never heal. And yet the young Fire Lord honors his father every year on the day he died.” She affected sorrow—faked, Katara would hazard. “It was a terrible sickness sweeping through the Fire Nation that did it. Thousands died, and the entire royal family, save for two: the boy and his uncle.”
Katara knew that tale as well: Ozai had been the younger of Fire Lord Azulon’s sons. His elder brother Iroh had taken their father’s throne upon Azulon’s death, but Iroh had been far more devoted to his only son Lu Ten than to his regime. Ozai, on the other hand, had been ambitious and scathingly jealous of Iroh’s rule.
Lu Ten had been a gifted firebender, but had put his talents to use studying the volcanoes in the archipelago rather than combat forms. Iroh hadn’t disapproved and had been content to send Lu Ten on what was to be a routine investigation of an impending eruption, but somehow the clever, careful young man had ended up in a rockfall that killed him. Beside himself with grief, Iroh had abdicated the throne, allowing Ozai to step into his place.
Suspicions of murder didn’t go unmentioned, but when a woman was executed for suggesting it, the whispers were swallowed down.
Ozai’s rule had been, as Banul described, tyrannical. He had nearly started a war with the other nations, having mustered a great army to conquer the world. But before he could launch his campaign, disease spread across the Fire Nation. It decimated his army and then caught up to him—and his wife, and his young daughter Azula. Only his son, Zuko, survived.
He’d been sixteen when he’d ascended, and his rule began under a scug of mourning and apprehension that he would prove to be like his father. While he did have the fiery disposition of his bloodline, Zuko was said to keep himself in check with grueling physical training and daily firebending. With that and his even-handed uncle as his closest advisor, he’d proved a capable leader in the four years since he’d been made Fire Lord.
His looks didn’t matter to the people who trusted him to guide their nation.
“Enough,” Katara said, cutting Banul off before she could say more. “We should get to work preparing for the performance. You two should eat something and then shake the wrinkles out of your costumes.”
Nira sniffed at the pointed order, but went to the table to get her light dinner.
Banul surveyed Katara from slippers to nose. “Are you nervous to dance for the Fire Lord, little moonglow girl? Or maybe you think he, like so many others, will fall in love with you from watching a single show?”
Heat flushed Katara’s cheeks, half anger, half chagrin. She had been pursued by several men—and two women—after dancing the moor mirror routine in the past. Her mother called her “enchanting” and “evocative,” but she had heard less dignified words from the likes of Banul: “provocative,” “whorish.” She’d run into her cabin and bawled into her pillow until her stomach ached.
“They’re envious, Katara,” her mother had said to soothe her. “You’re very beautiful, and our best waterbender. I’ll speak to them.”
“Don’t!” Katara had cried. “You can’t fight for me, Mom. If they’re ever brave enough to say it to my face, I’ll handle it.” She wasn’t entirely certain what that entailed, but the water whip form she wasn’t supposed to know was at the top of the list.
She said to Banul, “If you want a solo, ask for one. Then maybe the Fire Lord will fall in love with you and you’ll leave.”
She got an indignant snort as Banul went to join Nira.
Katara dipped her fingers into the water basin again, making ripples first with them alone and them with her bending. She wasn’t ashamed of how she danced, and while she had no designs on the Fire Lord, she was glad she had practiced overnight. When the music began that evening and she spun the silver ribbon up, it would be her finest rendition yet.
Katara couldn’t have dreamed up a throne room large enough to accommodate the troupe’s show, but the Fire Lord’s was spectacularly expansive. The ceilings flew three stories high; the floor was polished obsidian; and the walls were painted red, trimmed with gilt leaf.
A shallow pool had been constructed at the center of the room and filled to ankle-depth with clear water, per Hakoda’s instructions. The troupe had brought along the basins from their retiring room to allow them to toss water between themselves.
The nobles of the royal court lined their makeshift stage on every side, all in clothes of garnet, black, and sun-gold. Katara had danced for crowds of hundreds, but never such a severe gathering. She might have shuddered under their hard appraisal had her attention (and theirs) not gone to where the Fire Lord had entered.
His sunburst throne sat on a dais facing east, and he had emerged from a private door nearby, throwing a long shadow before him. He cut an imposing figure: The shoulders of his embellished robes came to vicious points, the high collar like flames against his neck. A spiny gold headpiece was secured in a black topknot. What hair wasn’t bound up with the headpiece hung down to his shoulder blades. Though he wasn’t overly tall and moved without urgency, Katara could see the restrained power—both authority and physical strength—in his bearing.
From where she stood, he was in profile, the right side of his face visible. The contours were defined: a firm jaw and sharp chin, delicate nose and a high brow made even more dramatic by the upswept style of his hair. Only when he came around to the assembled court did he reveal the dark red scar that bloomed across his left cheek, up to the naked brow, beyond his temple, and to what remained of the ear.
Katara bowed with everyone else, but kept her head raised enough to keep him in sight.
The scar was unsightly, not as frightful as Banul had suggested. And it wasn’t the most arresting of his features. That was his eyes: a shade of gleaming amber; highly perceptive as they moved over the assembly. They were as severe as seemed customary for his people, not cruel. In the brightness of the braziers that flanked the dais, the golden irises shone.
Katara, in her examination, didn’t notice until it was too late that he’d sensed the scrutiny. His bright gaze sought out the source and she was caught staring when she should have been making reverence.
Her stomach drew up as she braced for the rebuke, but the Fire Lord’s regard remained steady. Startled by his composure, Katara didn’t look away. Neither did he, and quiet stretched.
Katara couldn’t guess his thoughts as he peered down at her from the throne, him dressed in the extravagant regalia of his office and her in an oft-repaired, comparatively humble costume of iceberg blue. By all accounts, he, as Fire Lord, should have looked past—even through—her, yet for all the splendor to behold in the throne room, it was her he watched. The lack of threat in his manner kept her settled.
Eventually, Katara’s neck began to cramp from the awkward half-bow, and sighs of silk came as the uncertain nobles shifted in their too long-held poses of deference. Hoping to release them, Katara turned her eyes down from the Fire Lord’s at last and bowed deeper.
Three low bells rang, and the audience rose.
The Fire Lord said, “Waterbenders of the South Pole, welcome. We of the Fire Nation have heard many stories of your skill and artistry. When I discovered you were bound for the capital, I knew I had to see them for myself.”
Hakoda stepped forward, hands spread. “It is our honor to be called before you, Fire Lord. I hope our dances meet with your approval.”
The Fire Lord tipped his crowned head slightly to the side, one corner of his mouth rising. “I don’t claim to know much about dancing,” he said, “so I’m sure whatever you have for us will exceed my standards.”
Katara stifled a laugh. The comment was so unexpectedly modest, it clashed with both the rigidity of the court and the majesty of the Fire Lord’s title and lineage. This one—Zuko, aged twenty—was dignified, but not without a sense of humor. Katara admired that more than his royal accouterments.
Her father, too, was amused, if his poorly concealed smile was anything to go by. He said, “Shall we begin, then, my lord?”
Zuko swept an inviting hand toward the pool and sank onto his throne.
Katara and the other performers scattered to their positions. The first routine called for the entire troupe and was danced to a quick, dramatic tune their quartet of musicians played. When the drums rolled and strings whined, the waterbenders created a surging fountain as a backdrop for the tumblers’ opening cartwheels and handsprings.
Katara melded with the ensemble, matching her bending to the others’. She directed the chi from the roots of her bare feet, through her wide stance, and into smooth waves with her arms. The water in the basins and the pool became an extension of her, each drop in her charge.
The tumblers moved aside, taking lengths of polished bone from their belts and knocking out a beat against the floor. It was the male waterbenders’ cue to shape ice slides, down which they went, landing on their knees on the frozen pool and spinning there. Behind them, Katara and the other women lifted streams of water from the basins and swept them over the tops of the slides in crosshatched paths that came within a hairsbreadth of each other but never touched.
Sokka and two other young men came onto the ice, standing with practiced stability in a tripod. Their interlaced fingers shaped a step for Katara, and when she was settled in it, they lifted her high into the air so she could bend as the centerpiece of the show. Jets of water sprayed around her as she stretched her arms skyward to create the shape of the crescent moon. With her gentle guidance, it waxed to full and then waned again, turning on its side like a cradle. Sokka counted off and the trio tossed her up to spin. She was framed by the crescent as she spun through the air. They descended together, the water pouring smoothly into the pool as the tumblers caught Katara on her back.
“Nice job,” Sokka whispered as she scampered away to let the tumblers take the lead again.
On the dance continued, until its dramatic conclusion. The waterbenders and tumblers took up ceremonial poses around the set as the musicians struck the last crescendo. Immediately, they muted their instruments as columns of water fell in a percussive coda back into the pool.
Katara, fit as she was, was breathing hard in her pose: one arm out toward the dais, the other swept back, fingers splayed. Her skirt billowed around her in the shallow water. She saw the delight among the noble onlookers before she heard the applause. Pride, like high tide, washed through her. Even the somber Fire Nation could be won by the gift of waterbending.
Normally, the troupe would have moved right into the next dance, but Hakoda paused to ask, “Do we have your leave to continue, Fire Lord?”
“The floor is yours,” was the reply. “Don’t stop until you’ve finished.”
So bidden, the troupe went into action, this time for an acrobatics routine led by Sokka. His face was painted as an ancient warrior’s would have been, and in this dance ‘fought’ against the other tumblers until he emerged triumphant. Katara’s role was to provide spears of water for dramatic effect, which she did without much thought, rather enjoying her brother’s display.
When he finished in a heroic stance, Katara was pleased to see several pretty nobles batting their eyelashes at him. She wasn’t the only one to garner admiration with her dancing, though she hadn’t taken any of them up on offers of their affections. Sokka had, thankfully without telling Katara the details.
The second-to-last routine was hers: the moon mirror outside the pool, taking with her only enough water for the ribbon. As the harpist began to pluck out the invocation, Katara shed the overdress of her costume. Beneath was a diaphanous skirt as pale as moonglow and a breastband lined with fur. In so little, she could move freely, the sheer skirt floating on the turns as the water flowed around her, both bent to her will.
She began in a crouch, her unbound hair covering her face. When other musicians joined the harpist, she rose as the moon did in the twilight, spinning the water ribbon in a tight spiral around her body. She heard the onlookers exclaim as it burst into countless delicate droplets above her head, a crystalline explosion for only moments before she bent them back into a whole and drew the water into a trail through the steps: skips forward to the beat, right leg kicking up to her shoulder as she twirled the water around her ankle. She leapt up into a full split, the ribbon in snakelike waves behind her.
Whatever the audience did after that, she couldn’t tell; her focus was solely on the movements. The moon itself wasn’t visible in the massive throne room, but she could sense it beyond the pointed roof, and the water still bore its energy. Katara danced as she had on the boat deck: as if she was observed only by the moon and stars.
When she ended the routine with the full mirror, it reflected the braziers rather than the night sky. The flames licked and refracted off its surface, making it flash and throwing red and orange across Katara’s dusky skin.
At the very top edge of the circle the Fire Lord’s gold chip eyes were reflected, set in an imperfect face. His lips were parted as he breathed through them and square-tipped fingers clutched the arms of his throne. At his intensity, Katara’s hold on the water nearly faltered, yet she managed to keep it in place as the music ended and the applause began.
She bowed to each side of the room, though she stayed bent the longest when she was facing the throne again. Gathering the water up and depositing it into the nearest basin, she skipped to where she’d left her overdress, slipping it back on and belting it for the finale.
She did the steps and bending forms, throwing herself into the work with her family and her friends. As she made a hoop of water for Sokka to jump through, he caught her arm when he landed and swung her around once—not part of the routine—until she was laughing. She wasn’t the only one swept up in the euphoria of how well they were doing.
When the last of the water had struck the pool and basins again, the ovation was raucous. The seemingly dour fire court whooped and whistled. Lord Zuko was on his feet, clapping along with his people.
“Again!” someone called. “Another song!”
Katara looked to Sokka, who shrugged in their father’s direction. They had more, of course, and perhaps Hakoda had been ready to order an encore, but the Fire Lord raised his hands and the room stilled.
“Well,” he said, “it seems one night of waterbending won’t be enough for the people of the Fire Nation. I would give you a reprieve for tonight, but would you consider staying on so that we can see you perform again?”
He had been addressing Hakoda, save for a brief glance toward where Katara stood with her brother. She instinctively reached for Sokka’s hand, hoping their father would agree, and he squeezed her fingers.
“We would be honored, Fire Lord,” Hakoda said, “to remain in your great city and dance for you and your people as long as it pleases you.”
Katara heard a feminine chirp of glee from one of the waterbenders, and while she herself made no sound, shared the elation. Not only had they danced for the Fire Lord, they would be staying in the palace as his guests for…well, she didn’t know how long, and she wasn’t going to start counting the days when she had exploring the capital to look forward to.
“Very good,” said the Fire Lord. “Rooms will be prepared for you. In the meantime, I’m sure some of these people”—a wave at the nobles—“would like to compliment you personally.”
The men and women broke ranks to approach the troupe; Zuko did not. He looked over the gathered admirers from the dais, but rather than join them, retreated through the private door. Katara hardly could have expected him to come speak to her, but disappointment settled around her slumping shoulders anyway.
At least until she heard a small voice: “My Lady Waterbender.”
Katara turned to see only empty air in front of her—then a tiny hand waving. At less than the height of her waist stood a little girl in Fire Nation red and black, the sleeves of her dress slightly too long. Her child’s teeth were pearly as she grinned.
“Hello,” Katara said, resisting the urge to crouch to her level. “I’m not a fine lady like yourself, so you can call me Katara.”
The correction wasn’t less formal: “My Lady Katara, you were the most beautiful dancer I’ve ever seen! I wish I could make a ribbon of fire like you do water!”
“Are you a firebender?” Katara asked.
The girl glanced suspiciously left and right. When she was satisfied no one was paying her any mind, she conjured a weak flame in her palm. “I’m not old enough to train yet,” she whispered, “but I’m going to be Fire Lady someday.”
There was no such thing—the title of Fire Lord was bestowed upon both men and women—but Katara teased, “Do you mean to usurp Lord Zuko, then?”
“No!” said the girl. “I’m going to marry him!”
Katara played at seriousness. “Oh, yes, of course. I should have known, since you’re going to be a powerful firebender.” From the legends of the royal family, their marriages were made between firebenders to ensure any the heirs would have the ability. Not every Fire Lord’s consort had been one, but they unfailingly came from established bloodlines within the Fire Nation.
The girl squinted at the little flame in her hand and it grew just measurably. Chest puffed, she extinguished it by curling her fingers in. “If I can dance with fire, Lord Zuko will watch me he like he watched you.”
Katara hadn’t been aware of anyone during the dance—too wrapped up in her love of it—but when she’d finished, there was no denying from his reflection in the moon mirror that the Fire Lord had been attentive. She asked the girl, “How did he watch me?”
The reply was innocent, but landed as a hammer’s blow: “Like there was nothing else in the whole world to see.”
“Sister! Oh, sister dear!” It was Sokka. His voice was sticky sweet as he said, “You found the prettiest lady in the Fire Nation and you haven’t introduced me?” He offered a deep (overwrought) courtly bow to the little girl.
Katara, succumbing to the charm of his antics, played along. “My Lady Firebender, may I present my brother, Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe.”
The little girl bore up, lifting her tiny chin and holding out her hand for him to take. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir. I am Lin Na.”
Sokka, still bent at the waist, landed a peck to her knuckles. “It’s an honor, Lady Lin Na.”
Hiding a grin behind the back of her hand, Katara said, “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. I hope to see you at another of our performances, Lin Na.” She winked. “You can watch the ribbon so you can make your own someday.”
The girl beamed at her before turning back to Sokka, who was already saying something else. He was good with children—as good as Katara—and the knack extended to women his age. He could entertain aspiring little Fire Ladies all evening and then woo their older sisters.
She wasn’t smooth when it came to men. Not that she’d practiced overmuch: a few stolen kisses over the years, but when they’d tried to venture further, she’d scampered off. For all the callous things said behind her back about the sensuality of her dancing, she hadn’t used it to court lovers. It wasn’t necessarily for lack of curiosity, but more so for missing the spark of passion. Before she went to bed with anyone, she had to want to.
Taking in the array of nobles, she spotted more than a few good-looking ones, and several nodded in her direction, but none struck flint and tinder in her in belly.
Her gaze went to the empty throne.
He watched like there was nothing else in the whole world to see.
A burst of sparks rose from one of the braziers, and though it was twenty paces away, Katara could have sworn she felt its heat on her skin.