Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi

by F. C. Yee

  In the brief moment Kyoshi spent checking that the men were alive, a battle cry caught her off guard. She turned to see a lone soldier who’d entered the roof from some sally port they’d overlooked charging her with a spear, his feet clattering over the tiles. Her hands went for her fans, but she fumbled the draw.

  Right before she was impaled, she heard a familiar zipping noise. The spearman took a stone bullet to the hip and fell off the roof with a scream. Kyoshi glanced back into the night. Somewhere in the distance, Lek was grinning smugly at her.

  “What are you doing?” Kirima snapped. “Get moving!”

  On to the last phase, the one Kyoshi was truly dreading.

  Kirima and Kyoshi hurried down the steps of the service tunnels. Their objective was underground. They came to a fork where Lao Ge was waiting for them.

  “They need you to bounce the cell door lock,” he said to Kirima, motioning down the right branch. “Kyoshi and I will check the other side for any lurking guardsmen.”

  The others had explained to Kyoshi that “bouncing a lock” meant shooting water into the keyhole with enough pressure to force the pins higher, releasing the locking mechanism. It was considered faster and more elegant than trying to freeze the metal to its shattering point. It was also beyond Kyoshi’s waterbending skill, fans or no fans.

  Kyoshi bit her lip as Kirima went down the right tunnel without hesitation, leaving her alone with Lao Ge. The old man watched the Waterbender depart with casual interest. He’d taken a slouching position against the wall as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Come,” he said to Kyoshi, any sense of urgency gone from his voice.

  She followed him down the hall. It was more finished than the tunnels under Jianzhu’s mansion, lit with glowing crystal and painted clean white. Though her headdress added to her height, she didn’t have to stoop.

  The dizziness she sometimes felt in Lao Ge’s presence when they were alone came back with a vengeance. Each of her footfalls seemed to carry her miles over the endless stretch of tunnel. She lost her sense of up and down.

  She had no idea how far they’d gone when they reached the end of the hall. At first Kyoshi thought that it was strewn with bodies, that the violence had leapfrogged them somehow. But the dozen or so people who lay on the floor or pressed themselves against the walls were alive and trembling. They weren’t guards. They wore the decorative patterns of ladies-in-waiting, or the plain, neat robes of butlers. Beyond them was a solid iron door, barred by a thick bolt that had no visible opening mechanism.

  Lao Ge took a step forward. The entire assembly cowered and hid their faces.

  “Your master saved himself and locked you out,” he said with wicked humor. The tight corridors caused his voice to echo at a lower timbre, or perhaps it had always been that deep. “You’ve been left to your fate.”

  The maid nearest him sobbed. Lao Ge had painted his face in a twisted, horrific jester’s leer. And many people considered Kyoshi a tower of menace on her best days. She remembered the effect she had on the staff in Jianzhu’s mansion that rainy day she left them, and they’d known her for years. To Te’s servants, who’d heard the throes of battle outside, she and Lao Ge must have looked like walking incarnations of death.

  An acrid smell wrinkled her nose. She looked down to see a chamberlain, rocking and mumbling to himself with his eyes rolled back in dread. “Yangchen protect me. The spirits and Yangchen protect me. The spirits . . .”

  Lao Ge laughed, and the servants shrieked. “Get out,” he said. “Today you live.”

  The staff members scrambled past them on their hands and knees, taking the turn that would lead them to the surface of the palace. Kyoshi watched the unfortunate men and women leave. She said nothing that would relieve their fear or allow them to sleep better tonight.

  “The lock,” Lao Ge reminded her.

  The greater portion of it was on the other side of the door, as he’d explained earlier. But there was a flaw in the design that left part of the thick iron bar exposed. Defeat that, and they could get in.

  She gripped the bolt with both hands. It began to glow beneath her firebending. She yanked back and forth rhythmically as the metal grew hotter and hotter. Between her and Lao Ge, they’d come up with the three parts needed for this to work. Sufficient heat to ruin the temper of the iron. Oscillating motions to create fatigue in the structure, weakening it. And last, sheer brute force. Her specialty.

  With each successive tug, the metal gave way a little more. Once, Rangi had warned her that heating an object like this without injury took much, much more skill than preventing your own flames from singeing your skin, which was an act so instinctive to Firebenders it didn’t need to be taught. This trick with the iron was prolonged, dangerous contact with a hot surface. Kyoshi felt her hands start to burn.

  “You’re almost there,” Lao Ge said with a hint of admiration. “Honestly, I wasn’t completely sure this was possible.”

  The metal angled farther and farther off its bearings until, right before the pain became too much to bear, it snapped. The severed ends of the bolt jutted out like red-hot pokers. The heavy door groaned on its hinges.

  Kyoshi wrung the heat from her fingers and shouldered the vault open. It was brighter inside than in the hallway. She blinked as she took in her surroundings.

  The interior of the large room was not what she expected. Lao Ge had described it as an emergency survival measure. She expected water stores, preserved food, weapons.

  It had been redecorated. Someone had removed the necessities for lasting out a siege and replaced them with luxurious carpets, silken pillows. One wall was racked with jugs of wine, not water. Any fool who locked himself inside would have died within a few days.

  There was a single figure standing against the far wall. A boy in his nightclothes. Kyoshi made the deduction that Te’s son had converted this room, made for war, into a clubhouse.

  “Where is your father?” she said, the words coming out a harsh growl. “Where is Governor Te?”

  The boy stared at her with a round, soft face full of defiance. “I’m Te Sihung,” he said. “I’m the Governor.”

  Kyoshi looked at Lao Ge. He smiled at her knowingly. This was the test. Whether she was cold-blooded enough to help him kill a boy who didn’t look old enough to shave. She cursed the old man, cursed the stupid youth in front of her, cursed the corruption and incompetence of her nation that allowed such a mistake of authority to occur.

  “How old are you?” she asked Te.

  “I don’t owe daofei an answer,” he sneered.

  She rushed forward, grabbed him by the back of the neck and tossed him out the door of the vault. He bounced on the floor and skidded down the hall. Kyoshi walked around to his head and nudged his jaw with her boot. “How old are you?” she asked again.

  “Fifteen, soon,” he whimpered. His attitude had changed dramatically midflight, and the painful landing sealed the deal. “Please don’t kill me!”

  “He’s Lek’s age,” Lao Ge said to Kyoshi. “Old enough to know right and wrong. Old enough to shirk his responsibilities, to mismanage, to steal. You saw the state of Zigan. I can still guarantee that you’ll save many lives by taking his.” He noticed Te trying to crawl away and placed his foot on the boy’s ankle, not hard enough to break it, but enough to make it clear he could.

  Te gave up on trying to move. “Please,” he said. “My father was governor before me. I just acted in accordance with what he taught me. Please!”

  That was all anyone in this world did. What they saw their predecessors and teachers do. The Avatar was not the only being who was part of an unbroken chain.

  “You’re not much older than him,” she heard Lao Ge say. “Are you immune to consequence?”

  No. She wasn’t. She picked up Te by his lapels. He blubbered incoherently, tears streaming down his face. “Sorry,” she said. “But this is something I decided on, long before I laid eyes on you.”

  Kyoshi thrust
an arm behind her and blasted Lao Ge down the tunnel with a ball of wind.

  “Rangi, I can’t airbend. You’re not an airbending teacher.”

  It was the day before Kyoshi was scheduled to begin training with Kirima, to see if they could lift an entire pond’s worth of water together. Rangi and Kyoshi were off by themselves in a small clearing under a lonely, gnarled mountain tree that had sprinkled its dried leaves over the ground. The two of them walked around in circles, their arms extended, nearly meeting in the center. There was no way they were doing this right.

  “I’m not trying to teach you airbending,” Rangi said. “I only want you to create wind, once, before you start waterbending in earnest. It doesn’t have to be perfect.” She spun around and traded the position of her hands. “I think you’re supposed to . . . spiral? Feel your energy spiraling?”

  Kyoshi had to pivot awkwardly to go the other way before Rangi collided with her. “How are you okay with amateur, self-taught airbending?”

  “I’m not. I just—I just have this irrational fear that if you get too good at waterbending before ever airbending once, you’ll damage the elemental cycle. Back when you used your fans to waterbend, I was ecstatic at first, but then I panicked. I started having nightmares that you permanently locked out your firebending and airbending. I was afraid you’d become a broken Avatar.”

  Rangi plunked down on the ground and put her head in her hands. “I know it doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Nothing makes sense anymore. We’re doing everything wrong. Up is down, left is right.”

  Kyoshi knelt down and wrapped her arms around Rangi from behind. “But the center doesn’t change.”

  Rangi made a little snort. “You know I miss him too?” she murmured. “Master Kelsang. He was so kind and funny. Sometimes when I find myself missing him, I feel guilty that I’m not thinking about my father instead. I wish they were both here. I wish everyone we’ve lost could be here with us, one last time.”

  Kyoshi squeezed her tight. She imagined Rangi’s energy twining together in place with her own, forming a stronger thread from two strands.

  There was a tickle against her brow. She and Rangi looked up to see a swirling dance of leaves, spinning around in a circle, the two of them caught in its eye. Kelsang used to make her laugh in the garden like this, by swirling the air, letting her touch the currents and feel the wind run between her fingers.

  Kyoshi let the breeze play against her skin before giving it a gentle push with her hand. The wind spun faster at her request. She could feel Kelsang smiling warmly at her, a final gift of love.

  “They’ll always be with us,” she said to Rangi. “Always.”

  Lao Ge landed in the vault, which happened to be full of cushions. Which meant that Kyoshi had less of a head start than she’d counted on. She threw Te over her shoulder and ran down the hall.

  “Girl!” she heard Lao Ge shout behind her, echoing through the tunnel. She had the distinct feeling he could catch up at a moment’s notice no matter how far she’d gone.

  The fear lent her more speed. She took the stairs five at a time until she reached the surface.

  Te gasped from her grip around his waist. “What are you—”

  “Shut up.” They were hemmed in by the walls of the courtyard. The stables were on the opposite end of the complex. An immortal assassin was surely only a few paces behind.

  Kyoshi ran at the far wall. And then she ran higher. And higher. The earth flicked at the soles of her feet, propelling her upward. She continued to dust-step until she landed on top of the roof.

  She spared a glance back. Lao Ge stood by the stairs, choosing not to follow her into the air, for the moment.

  “My!” he called out. “You’re just full of deceptions, aren’t you? To think you were faking so many failed attempts at dust-stepping.”

  “They weren’t all fake!” Kyoshi shouted as she sped away.

  She sprinted across the palace, tiles crunching under her feet. She went north until she found the stables abutting the wall. Dropping down to the ground with Te still in hand, she found a sleepy ostrich horse and roused it awake.

  Lao Ge was still toying with her, or perhaps he couldn’t dust-step. She’d never seen him do it. Either way, they didn’t have much time. She dumped the boy astride the mount she’d stolen.

  “Thank you,” Te said, wobbling from the lack of a saddle. “I’ll give you anything you want. Money, offices—”

  Kyoshi backhanded him hard across the mouth.

  “You should have died tonight,” she hissed. “I’ll give you one chance to unsully yourself as governor of these lands. You will open the doors of your storehouses and make sure your people are fed. You will give back what you stole, even if it means selling your family’s possessions. If you don’t by the time I return, I’ll make you wish you’d been captured by those daofei out there.”

  She left an open end on that timeline, having no idea when she’d be free to make good on the threat. But she knew she would, if given the chance. She was letting Te know there would be consequences. Jianzhu would be proud, she thought darkly.

  Te’s bleeding face roiled with confusion. “You—you earthbent and airbent. I saw it. How is that possible? Unless . . . you can’t be. You’re the Avatar?”

  She saw the images warring in his head. He must have known of Yun, maybe met him in person. Revealing her identity had always been a risk on this mission. But Te was a loose end, one that ran in the same circles as Jianzhu.

  Kyoshi bit her lip. She’d chosen from the start to save this boy’s miserable life instead of keeping the secret that her own safety depended on. No sense in regretting it now.

  “All the more reason for you to do as I say.” She slapped the ostrich horse’s flank, sending it careening toward the ditch. Te screamed as she bent a bridge into place at the last minute. He rode off into the darkness, clinging to the neck of his mount for dear life.

  Once he was gone, Kyoshi lowered the bridge again. She didn’t want Mok’s men infiltrating the compound from the rear while so many helpless people were still inside. She dust-stepped over the gap and took her time walking farther north, to the rendezvous point where the others would be waiting.

  At some point during the hike, Lao Ge fell in beside her.

  “You’re not a very good apprentice,” he said tonelessly.

  There were a dozen replies she could have given him. Te was too young to die and still had time to redeem himself. The whole exercise was flawed and had nothing to do with her desire to end Jianzhu.

  “I haven’t failed to take my man in a long time,” Lao Ge went on. “My pride is in shambles.”

  Kyoshi winced. She’d never seen Lao Ge truly angry, and it was a gamble as to what kind of person would emerge when things didn’t go his way.

  “Te’s your responsibility now,” he said. “From this point onward, his crimes will be your crimes. More than anything, I’m upset that you’ve fettered yourself in such a way. It’s like you haven’t paid attention to my lessons.”

  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.