“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,