Yun placed a tile with finality, making the sharp click against the board that signaled the pieces had been carved from high-quality stone. “My victory in eighteen moves, Sifu,” he said. “No need to continue. It’s over.”
Hei-Ran bobbed her head in agreement.
The Pai Sho tiles flew from the board into Yun’s hand, following his motions. In an instant, they merged and reformed into a long thin spike that he pointed at the base of Hei-Ran’s neck.
Kyoshi screamed and threw her hands up, pushing against the dagger with her earthbending, but Yun maintained his grip on the stone. His bending opposed hers, the same way she and Jianzhu had warred against each other in the stone teahouse of Qinchao.
Only, right here and right now, Yun was stronger than Jianzhu. Despite Kyoshi’s resistance the entire way, he sank the dagger into Hei-Ran’s throat.
WEAKNESS
Over the sound of the Avatar shrieking, Yun and Hei-Ran stared at each other. He held on to the stone spike, as if he wanted to maintain a physical connection to her death, the same way he had embraced Jianzhu while killing him. He gave her a parting smile.
But Hei-Ran wasn’t ready to say farewell just yet. Her bronze eyes flared with clarity and purpose. As blood welled from her wound, she grabbed Yun by the wrist. She choked involuntarily, her back spasming, and pulled him closer. The dagger plunged deeper into her body.
Yun frowned, not expecting this. He tried to pull his hand away but couldn’t. Hei-Ran’s final muster of strength had turned her into iron. Scarlet trails poured from from her lips, but she never took her eyes off her former student. Hei-Ran raised a hand and with an effort Kyoshi could see was killing her just as much as the blood filling her lungs, she summoned a ball of flame.
The blaze in her grasp made her look like a Fire Lord captured in portrait, unconquered to the end. She thrust her palm into Yun.
He managed to break free and twist to the side right before the fire punched into his torso. His shoulder still got caught in the flames and he hissed in pain, shoving Hei-Ran to the floor, the motion withdrawing the dagger with a sickening wet sound. He ran up the stairs leading from the common room to the upper level of the inn, clutching his burned arm.
Kyoshi couldn’t stop him. The mission was forgotten, the plan was nothing. She had to help Rangi’s mother. She dashed to Hei-Ran’s side and tried to wrap her mind around the grievous wound, to figure out her next action.
Hei-Ran’s fading expression was one of fury, reserved for the Avatar alone. “Go . . . after . . . him!” she gurgled at Kyoshi through her own blood.
Yun had opted for a second-story escape. And he was wounded. Kyoshi could have caught up to him with dust-stepping, her secret advantage from the Flying Opera Company that allowed her to speed along rooftops. But to do so would have meant letting Hei-Ran bleed out. It would have meant Rangi losing her mother again.
She bunched up her sleeves and clamped them to the tunnel in Hei-Ran’s throat. Blood kept slipping through her fingers, lessening to give her hope, then pouring out harder in waves. She realized it was the pattern of a heartbeat. She had no time to lose.
She picked Hei-Ran’s upper body off the floor in preparation for moving her. “N-no!” the Headmistress sputtered. “Kyoshi!” There was a final burst of indignation in the headmistress’s eyes, outrage at the weakness of the Avatar, before they closed.
Kyoshi had thrown away her chance to fulfill her duty. She couldn’t do what needed to be done. There would be consequences for choosing her personal attachments over all else, in the long run.
But right now, she had to hold on to Rangi’s mother as tightly as she could. She lifted Hei-Ran and ran out the door in the opposite direction Yun had gone. They needed a miracle. One who was currently on the other side of town.
Kyoshi sat inside the Coral Urchin Noodle Shop with Nyahitha and Jinpa. The restaurant had been closed for the holiday, so it was dark, and the stoves were cold. Long wooden tables took up most of the floor space. They’d paid the owner handsomely to take over his apartments upstairs as well, where Atuat worked on Hei-Ran, Rangi by their side.
Kyoshi looked around the dark, knotted table at Jinpa and Nyahitha, the arrowless Airbender and the mock Fire Sage. Under normal circumstances these two men would have been her spiritual advisors. What a trio they made.
“The fighting seems to have paused,” Jinpa said. He’d been searching for something positive to say for a while.
“Only for the moment,” Nyahitha said. “There’s too many injured on both sides. Even worse, a few of the younger, stupider fighters met outside the town square and broke the taboo on harmful firebending during the holiday. The Saowon and the Keohso will lick their wounds for a bit, and then the conflict will spill the borders of North Chung-Ling. Each of the clans thinks they have just cause to attack the other now.”
“There’s nothing we can do?” Jinpa asked.
“This is what the beginnings of wars in the Fire Nation look like,” Nyahitha said. “If Agni Kais and Avatar mediations didn’t work in the past, I don’t know how they’ll work now.”
Kyoshi rested her forehead against her knuckles and stared at the whirling patterns in the wood grain. The situation between the rival clans had been precarious already, but her decision to come to North Chung-Ling had pushed the country over the edge. She was to blame for whatever happened next.
And she had squandered the chance Hei-Ran had given her to take Yun down. She’d violated her promise to Rangi to keep her mother from harm. She couldn’t simply fail along one path like most people; she had to be torn apart by her failures in every direction.
“How much time do you think we have before fighting begins in earnest?” she asked.
“A few days,” Nyahitha said. “If you have a plan, it had better be simple and quick.”
She had no plan. She had nothing.
Atuat came down the stairs, wiping her hands with a clean towel. Thankfully there was no blood on it. “She’s absolutely livid with you,” the doctor said to Kyoshi.