told you,” he said. “Are you two friends now?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good. It would be difficult if you suddenly became fond of Huazo.”
Again, he showed the lack of a typical Airbender’s scruples. By all rights she should have had to lock him to the ground alongside Rangi. Instead he was enabling her the same way the Saowon were doing for Yun.
“Jinpa,” she said. “How long have you been traveling with me as my secretary and advisor?”
He scratched the top of his head. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and his hair was starting to grow back. “Well, I don’t remember the date we made it official. But I suppose you could start counting from when you first had to leave the Southern Air Temple to mop up the splinter fleets of the Fifth Nation before they could reform. Then we went to Misty Palms and ran into that problem with the beetle-headed merchants and their mercenaries. By the time you destroyed the Emerald Claws, people knew they should go through me to talk to you.”
Kyoshi nodded. She could count each of those adventures through the scars on her body, up to and including the raid on Loongkau. “Brutal business, all of it. And yet, not once have you ever advised me to follow the path of peace.”
Jinpa stuffed his tongue under his lower lip. He looked away from her.
“You’ve seen me take a lot of punishment,” Kyoshi said. “But you’ve also seen me inflict a great deal of it, and you’ve said nothing. How odd for an Air Nomad. I don’t believe that simple deference to the Avatar is what’s keeping you quiet as you watch me violate your spiritual values over and over again.”
She’d caught him out. She might not have had the specifics, but she’d caught him out just the same.
“It’s as you suspect,” Jinpa said. “I’m an Air Nomad. But I’m also something else. I belong to . . . another community.”
“Your friends you play Pai Sho with.”
“Yes. The senior members of the group agreed I should help you establish your Avatarhood in whatever way I can. Even if your actions go against what I’ve been taught as an Airbender.”
He rubbed the back of his head, uncomfortable with revealing so much. “Having two identities means I serve two different ideals. Which is probably why I’m not very good at either. Sometimes those beliefs come into conflict with each other.”
Kyoshi was of Earth Kingdom and Air Nomad parentage. She was the bridge between spirits and humans, a public figure and a daofei. Her own half-status made it easier to understand others who were torn in different directions. “I know what Air Nomads believe,” she said. “What’s the other ideal?”
“The philosophies of beauty and truth. It doesn’t sound so different from Airbender teachings at first blush. But to uphold such values requires a deep attachment and love for the greater world that enlightened Air Nomads aren’t supposed to have. Some of my friends in the other nations would argue that, on occasion, truth and beauty must be defended with ugliness. They would claim a gardener who nurtures a flower so others can enjoy it bloom for a few moments must spend much time with their hands buried in dirt.”
Kyoshi would have chosen a less pleasant word than dirt. “What do you believe then?”
Jinpa smiled sadly. “I believe I have to make peace with my own choices, just like everyone else.”
The tint of pain in his expression reminded her too much of Kelsang for her to believe Jinpa was at complete peace with himself. Outsiders enviously and condescendingly assumed Airbenders lived in a state of innocent bliss, but that didn’t give the monks and nuns enough credit for their inner strength. From what Kyoshi knew, belonging to the wandering nation meant a constant struggle with your own morals against the world’s.
She didn’t ask him to name his group. She’d rather a secret society try to help her for once, instead of coming after her with hatchets. “Perhaps after all of this is done, I can be less confrontational, and start compromising more,” Kyoshi said. She could stand to make her long-suffering secretary’s life a little easier. He deserved it.
Jinpa glanced at the house where Lady Huazo was resting inside. “I think we’re both compromised now. To the palace?”
“To the palace.”
THE EDGE
“You kidnapped the leader of the Saowon clan?!”
Zoryu’s cry of shock echoed through the war room. Luckily, the only ones to hear it were Kyoshi, Jinpa, and the multitude of carved dragons wrapped around the pillars and walls. She’d asked the Fire Lord to dismiss his retinue, and then asked him again to dismiss the unseen lurking guards who had undoubtedly doubled in number since Yun’s attack.
She’d briefed him on everything that happened in North Chung-Ling, but the details had only made Zoryu more upset. “You were supposed to help me prevent a war, not create one from whole cloth!”
“We are preventing a war. The Saowon have been working with Yun. Once we make the connection public, you can deal with them as honorless traitors. No amount of manipulating public opinion or court etiquette or claiming it’s really the Keohso’s fault can excuse them.”
Kyoshi reiterated the plan. It wasn’t very complicated. “Get me Chaejin and I’ll get you a confession.”
Zoryu’s mouth flapped open and shut. Kyoshi knew what was happening. The time had come for the Fire Lord to make his move, and even in the face of his own destruction he couldn’t do it, didn’t want to do it. Whether it was the weakness he’d shown when it came to his brother, or a lack of resolve in general, he couldn’t sign the picture that Kyoshi had sketched, inked, and colored in for him.
She surged forward and grabbed Zoryu by the shoulders. Manhandling the Fire Lord was probably punishable by death, but right now Kyoshi could only see a scared young person whose weakness was going to get everyone killed. She saw herself. And she hated it.