She supposed being treated like a disobedient child who’d adopted a stray animal was the best result she could have hoped for. “I’m sorry, Sifu,” Kyoshi said. “I’m willing to accept the results of my actions.”
“Easy for you to say that now.” Lao Ge’s upper lip curled with disdain. “Mercy has a higher price than most people think.”
She stayed silent. There was no need to further provoke a man who could likely start the Avatar cycle anew in the Fire Nation right now without breaking stride. Any hope she’d had that sparing Te was the true goal all along, or that Lao Ge, through the lens of age, would interpret her betrayal as one grand joke in the greater scheme of life, was stifled by his compressed, tangible annoyance with her. There was no deeper-level understanding to be had.
The standoff between them continued until they reached the others. The Flying Opera Company was flush with success. Wong and Kirima held a bound man between them, clothed in a plain, ragged tunic. He
had the sweet-potato sack tied over his head.
“We did it!” Rangi said. She ran forward and embraced Kyoshi. “I can’t believe we did it! You bent like an—” She stopped herself from saying “Avatar” in the presence of a stranger. “Like a master of old!”
“Let’s go make our delivery,” Wong said. He picked up the prisoner and threw him over his shoulders, much as Kyoshi had done with Te. “Sorry for the rough treatment, brother. It won’t be too long before you’re breathing free air.”
“It’s no problem at all,” the hooded man said politely.
The daofei nearly filled them with arrows as they approached the southern camp.
“We have your man!” Kirima shouted. Wong dumped the prisoner to his feet. With the hood on, he couldn’t see how his rescuers crowded behind him like a human shield.
Mok strode up to them, apoplectic. “What do you think you were doing!? We discussed no such plan!”
Kirima held her hands up. “We got him out of the prison,” she said, reminding him again that the mission had technically been accomplished. “The trench was a necessary last-minute improvisation.”
That wasn’t true. Figuring out how to keep the daofei out of the palace had been the primary challenge Kyoshi had set to Rangi and Kirima. Seeing the Waterbender lie for her made Kyoshi feel worse about hiding the additional side mission with Lao Ge and Te from the others. She’d caused her friends undue risk.
“I should flay your skins and put them under my saddle!” Mok screamed. Wai stood behind him, though Kyoshi noticed he wasn’t so ready to draw a blade this time. The man stared at her warily, rubbing his bandaged hand.
“Mok, is that you?” the prisoner said, tilting his ear toward the noise. “If so, stop haranguing my saviors and get this bag off my head.”
Wong untied his hood while Kirima sliced the ropes off his wrists with a small blade of water. Rangi had recommended the bindings as a precaution since they didn’t want a confused captive resisting his own rescuers. The burlap mask fell off his head to reveal a pale, handsome face under shaggy dark hair.
“Big brother,” Mok said. The daofei leader’s mannerisms suddenly took on a reverential, submissive quality. “I can’t believe it’s you. After so long!”
“Come here,” the prisoner said, opening his arms wide. The two men embraced and pounded each other’s backs.
“Eight years,” the newly freed man said. “Eight years.”
“I know, brother,” Mok sobbed.
“Eight years,” the man repeated, squeezing harder. “Eight years! It took you eight stinking years to rescue me?”
Mok gasped, unable to breathe. “I’m sorry, brother!” he choked out with the air he had left. “We tried our best!”
“Your best!?” his elder brother screamed in his ear. “Your best took nearly a decade! What’s your second-best? Waiting for my prison to collapse from rust?”
Judging by Mok’s squeals of pain, prison hadn’t rendered the man physically weak. He tossed Mok aside and surveyed the daofei. Wai hadn’t made a single move. The surviving Kang Shen followers took a knee and lowered their heads, while the rank and file stood at attention. Kyoshi’s eyes fell on the moon peach blossoms, still placed with care on the men’s shirts. While it was now obvious that they’d sprung no ordinary outlaw from Te’s custody, there was something worse hanging in the air, a dark warning in her imagination.
“Uncles,” Kyoshi spoke up suddenly. “If the debt of the Flying Opera Company is repaid, we should be on our way.” Her instincts screamed that they needed to get out of here. Immediately.
“Repaid?” the man they’d rescued said. He beamed at them, not with the fake smiles of Mok, but with genuine warmth in his heart. “My friends, you have done more than repay a debt. You have made a new future possible. Forevermore, you shall have the friendship and sworn brotherhood of Xu Ping An. You must stay and celebrate with us!”
Alarms went off in Kyoshi’s head, the creeping hint of recognition just out of her sight. Before she and the others could decline, he turned to address his troops. Mok’s men had become his men, and there was no protest.
“Brothers!” he said, his pleasant voice ringing through the camp. “For many years you’ve kept the faith. You are true Followers of the Code! I would die happily this very instant, knowing that there is still honor and loyalty in this world!”
The assembled daofei roared and shook their weapons. The sun began to rise dramatically behind Xu, as if he were favored by the spirits themselves.
“But I think we’ve suffered enough losses, don’t you?” Xu said. “Five thousand. Five thousand of our compatriots snuffed out like vermin. I haven’t forgotten them, not over the eight years I spent rotting in an abider prison. I haven’t forgotten them! Have you?”