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.