Yun paused. For a moment, Kyoshi thought she’d pierced through the blinders and chains trapping her friend. There was a chance she’d defied the odds and broken through to him.
But a confidence born from a terrible place straightened his spine. “Oh, Kyoshi. You’ve got it all wrong.”
The motion he made with his ink-stained hand resembled the waterbending of Tagaka the pirate queen. A wave of liquid as high as Kyoshi’s shoulders struck her hard from behind, knocking the wind out of her.
In her surprise she thought somehow Yun had learned to waterbend. He’d finally figured a way around the immutable laws of the world. Were there two Avatars now? Or he’d stolen a portion of her bending, the element she’d overlooked the most for lack of experience? It was only when the splash around her solidified, trapping her limbs like a tree caught in an ice storm, did she understand.
He’d liquified the stone floor of the courtyard and sent it crashing over her. He’d melted the rock without heat. Yun’s earthbending skill was such that he could treat his native element like water.
Kyoshi was encased from the back, gripped as tightly as a turtle duck by its own shell. She couldn’t move her arms and legs or turn her head. Yun approached, avoiding the centerline of her mouth and any potential dragon’s breath.
“I can’t believe you think I would ever hurt you.” He gently tugged the closed fan out of her right hand. “You, the one innocent party in this whole affair! I would never hurt you, Kyoshi. For Yangchen’s sake, I used to be your whole life!”
He dropped the weapon, and it pinged against the ground. “I know what’s happening here. Your duties have gotten to you, haven’t they? I remember what it was like, carrying the weight of the Four Nations on my shoulders. Jianzhu used to liken them to unruly students in a classroom, requiring the guidance of a strong hand.”
He paused and chuckled. “I used to believe it meant showing the way, leading by example. Now I know better. The world is a child refusing to listen, screaming in tantrum. It needs to be slapped a few times until it learns to be quiet.”
Yun relieved her of her other fan and tossed it over his shoulder. From the little shake of his head, he wasn’t only disarming her. He was removing the parts of her that confused him, trying to reduce her back to the state he was familiar with, the serving girl. The Kyoshi in his memories didn’t carry around implements of war.
He would have her immortalized. But certain injuries couldn’t be undone. Yun frowned deeply when he saw the scar around her throat, an indelible sign of change.
“See this? This is what I’m talking about. Look at what you’ve suffered for the sake of duty.” He pinched the collar of her armored robe, rattling the links of mail inside. “They forced you to hide in this shell. They turned you from a gentle girl into a walking terror. Avatarhood is a curse. Look how it’s made you treat me, your oldest, truest friend.”
“Listen to me, Yun.” Kyoshi found herself bolstered by an unfamiliar, terrible, powerful feeling.
Pride. Pride in herself. Pride in her duty, no matter how great and terrible and ill-fitted to her it was. Despite the opposition of man and spirits, this was the Era of Kyoshi. There would be no other.
“I wear these clothes because I choose to,” she said, loud enough to ring across the courtyard. “Those marks are who I am.” She locked their gazes. “And I have friends much truer than you.”
A water whip lashed down from above. Yun only managed to leap back at the last second. The liquid cracked like leather where his feet had been.
Up on the roof, across the shingles, a slender woman in a fur skirt rode a tide of water. She sent another lash at Yun, forcing him farther away from Kyoshi.
“Wong!” Kirima shouted. “Get her out of there!”
On the other side of the training ground, a huge man flew into the air, stepping on pillars of earth so delicate they seemed like threads. Despite his massive bulk, his flitting movements were as elegant and well-balanced as a sparrowkeet’s.
“Hold still!” he shouted at Kyoshi.
Like she could do anything else. Wong was one of the few Earthbenders Kyoshi knew who had fine enough control to free her without hurting her. She felt the stone crumble away from her back and arms. She burst from her prison, a statue freeing itself from the marble blank.
She barely missed wrapping her arms around Yun in a grapple. He skated away, moving the earth under him instead of his legs. He angled a slab above his head to block the torrent Kirima rained down upon him, waiting a moment before se
nding his makeshift lean-to flying back at the Waterbender. She yelped and teetered to the side, narrowly avoiding the missile that gouged a trench into the roof.
“Cute,” Yun snapped at Kyoshi. He pointed his index and middle fingers downward and waggled them higher in imitation of someone walking, or in this case, dust-stepping. “Cute technique. I never heard them coming with their feet off the ground. Tell me, is Rangi here too?”
The air above his head shimmered. Yun glanced up and quickly rolled out of the way before the Avatar’s bodyguard slammed her flaming fist into his skull. Rangi’s fiery impact broke the portion of the floor he’d been standing on. The Firebender withdrew her hand from a smoking hole in the ground and stood up to face him.
“Yes,” Rangi said. “I am.”
Above them, Jinpa circled on Yingyong, the platform she had leaped down from. After they left the Fire Nation, Kyoshi had sent him to collect her friends, giving him the hideout locations and code words he’d need to gain Kirima’s and Wong’s trust. She’d made him memorize parts of the daofei oaths so he could quote their pledge to defend their sworn sister.
And lastly, because she knew her friends well, she’d given him a lot of money from Jianzhu’s vaults to bribe them. So much money.
Lao Ge hadn’t shown, but the old man could hardly be counted on in the best of times. No matter. The Flying Opera Company was reunited, standing at Kyoshi’s back. She had never felt stronger.
“Are these them?” Yun asked her. “Are these the daofei you’ve supposedly been running with? This is the scum you’re calling your companions nowadays?”