The Dawn of Yangchen, page 27
“It was waiting for me when I linked up with Boma.”
So she’d been pretending everything was fine between them throughout the hunt for the Firebenders. For the sake of the mission, she’d kept up the act. “What about the others?” His eyes stung. “Did you tell them?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes.” He found it easy to say. He’d put them all at risk with his lies. They deserved to know the truth.
Yangchen shivered like she was fighting back an explosion of her own. “I need you to understand something. When you sided with your brother over me, gave me the runaround, and threw away our chance to stop Unanimity from reaching Bin-Er, you unleashed the worst sort of information possible. You created a ripple that cannot be smoothed.”
It didn’t matter that Kavik hadn’t known what Unanimity was during the moment he turned on her. He should have taken the Avatar’s word instead of Kalyaan’s. “A small man like Zongdu Henshe did this to his own city for money,” Yangchen said. “I suppose I should be grateful that he and Chaisee have no loyalties other than to themselves. If someone like the Earth King got their hands on it . . .”
She shook her head and took a deep breath. “Behind closed doors, the leaders of the Four Nations are still at each other’s throats, tensions ready to be inflamed by the slightest spark. If they knew a human being outside of the Avatar could possess such extreme power, they’d do anything to control it. The world itself might combust.”
Kavik had put his thumb on the scales. Kalyaan would be proud. “I understand,” he said. There wasn’t enough gall in the universe to mount an apology.
Yangchen pulled her knees to her chest like she’d done ages ago, in a different era. She rocked herself as if trying to find solace where no one else could give it. “You know what the worst part about this is?”
She trailed off, a long pause to gather her thoughts. Surely, she had difficulty choosing between so many bad parts. “In the moment you decided to come clean, some part of me knows you were uncompelled. My inner voice, mine, is telling me you had no ulterior motive, that you were simply being honest with me for the first time.”
She cleared her throat. “And I can’t afford to listen to that voice. There’s a chance you’re manipulating me still. You may have only told me about your brother because you want my help extracting him from Chaisee’s organization.”
Kavik genuinely hadn’t thought of that. She was a step ahead of him, playing both of their turns. There was no way he could refute her accusation, given the facts.
Yangchen was right. Kalyaan had staved off the threat of Henshe, but at the cost of acting against Chaisee’s interests. It was only a matter of time before the Zongdu of Jonduri found out what Kalyaan had done, and then his formerly invincible luck would run out. Kavik’s brother was in more danger than he’d ever been. Unless the Avatar could save him.
Kavik hadn’t seen the hidden spiral of logic, but Yangchen had. And she was forced to give him credit when he didn’t want any. “I can’t take you at face value anymore,” she said. “You’ve denied me that luxury. I can’t even trust your confession, Kavik.”
Again, he understood. And yet the questions poured out of his mouth anyway, rapidly, as if he were trying to test a barrel for cracks. “What are you going to do with the Firebenders?”
“I don’t think that’s for you to know anymore.”
“What about Henshe and Chaisee? What’s going to happen to them?”
“Not for you to know.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
Here she took longer to answer, and by the time she did her eyes were dry. Her voice collected and crisp. “What am I going to do with you? I’m not sure yet. But you don’t have to worry. With all the information in your head, and all the ways you’re connected, you’re more valuable than you ever were before.”
The day Kavik first met the Avatar, he’d explained the mantra by which Bin-Er operated. You’re not worth anything until someone else decides you are. She had gotten truly upset, down to her core. Then later, when they were discussing his payment in exit passes, she’d nearly balked at their deal, simply because she was uncomfortable with the idea of using him.
And now, she spoke as if he were grist for the mill. As if the kindest, fiercest, most giving part of her had broken completely. “I made a mistake in trusting you, Kavik,” Yangchen said. “You’re not one of my companions.”
She stood up from his bed and squared her shoulders. “But you might still be one of my assets.”
THE EARTH KING
It was a warm spell in winter for the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se. The sun glinted off layers of thick wet snow, and every so often a hiss would come from the gabled roofs as a miniature avalanche revealed streaks of green tiles trimmed in gold paint. The waters of the canals flowed freely under crackling-thin sheets of ice. Children plunked holes in the frozen surface, tossing any heavy object they could find until their parents scolded them.
Wide-brimmed hats to protect from the glare were reasonable. Yangchen wore one as part of her disguise as she walked up to the counter of an open-air rice wine shop. There was no one else around, so she ordered a bottle from a particular obscure brewer. By an existing arrangement, it came filled with water so she could drink from it convincingly. She waited and watched the children play.
Earlier that morning, dressed in her full regalia as befitting an Air Avatar visiting an Earth King, she’d landed Nujian down on the meridian of the outer court of the Royal Palace. In between the cloud-winged huabiao, with the tiered staircase the size of some small hillside villages looming overhead, Yangchen had been greeted by an army of servants, courtiers, ministers, and attendants bowing silently in ancient custom.
And then she’d been turned away. The Earth King would not be able to make their appointment, and she’d have to speak with him later. A specific phrase was used to cap the denial of her audience. His Majesty invites you to enjoy the splendors of his city in the meantime.
She made sure to look like she was appropriately dejected. I must decline, for spiritual matters call me elsewhere.
Now she was here in the Middle Ring, waiting, growing a little concerned about how close some of the children were coming to the canal’s edge. A man in rough laborer’s clothes pushed a few of them back to safety as he walked toward her. He approached the wine shop and took the spot next to her. As he settled in, he tapped the counter with his middle three fingers. Yangchen did the same in return.
Earth King Feishan was twenty-eight, skinny, with sunken cheeks. He looked neither like a soldier who’d smashed his opposition at Llama-paca’s Crossing, nor a politician capable of transforming his wrath into reality following the Platinum Affair. A kerchief around his head was enough to finish the simple but extremely effective disguise. An Earth King was forever crowned; changing his silhouette to match a commoner’s made Feishan unrecognizable.
He’d demanded that she commit to this ritual should she ever be turned away at his door with the coded passphrase. It meant he wanted to talk in a safe location far from the spy-infested palace. On rare occasions she could be glad for His Majesty’s paranoia and the resulting chances to speak with him privately, but today she was going to have to walk a knife’s edge.
Feishan partook of her water and glanced around to make sure no one was in hearing distance. “I’d like to know what happened in Bin-Er,” he said in a pleasant, melodic voice. “I have the vague reports of fireballs in the sky from hundreds of terrified soldiers. A more detailed perspective would be appreciated since you were there recently.”
A reasonable request. Coming from a man not prone to those. Yangchen cut away her hesitation with a butcher’s dispassion. She banished her remorse, her shame, her principles. All that mattered now was her ability to spin the tale.
“Your Majesty, there is a great truth that gurus know,” she began. “Human suffering begets turmoil in the Spirit World. Our fears, our greed, our hatreds are mirrored there.” She rolled her glass between her fingers. “I have seen it happen with my own two eyes, how a spirit can turn dark in the presence of humanity’s weakness.”
Feishan was as observant a person as she’d ever met. He would know she was telling a truth born of personal loss. Did it lessen her memories of Jetsun to involve them in a ploy?
It was her own pain, Yangchen decided. She could use it as she wished.
“Bin-Er was a broken place that could not sustain itself,” she said. “As the situation deteriorated in the physical city, so too did the light in its local spirits. A land defends itself, Your Majesty. Sometimes with great violence, like in Tienhaishi, sometimes with silent plagues, like in Ma’inka. I encourage you to talk to the leaders of the Saowon clan for their perspective.”
The Saowon would spit vitriol about the Avatar’s inability to contain spirits, even though it was Yangchen’s inability to check humans that had led to the near-disaster with the phoenix-eels. The important thing was that if the Earth King did manage to investigate the matter, he’d hear a truth born of rage and blame. Spirits. It was the spirits. The bridge between worlds failed. The Avatar failed to fix our problem.
Unlike the shangs, King Feishan was a patient listener when he wanted to be. An embodiment of neutral jing. Stillness before the sword stroke. He let her continue.
“Eventually, Bin-Er fell too far out of balance. There was a great upheaval above the city. Dark entities manifested as flowers of thunder and flame, blooming in the sky. I did what I could to appease them.”
“Did you succeed?”
Truth born of her shortcomings. “I—no. Not yet. So great was their anger that I couldn’t placate them on my own. I had to enlist help from my brothers at the Northern Air Temple. They are tending to the city with alms and blessings. Their presence seems to have calmed the spirits, but our work is not yet done.”
That last statement let Feishan know the young Avatar had resorted to begging aid from her elders. But also that there were large numbers of Airbenders in Bin-Er for the time being. If the Earth King’s forces marched straight in, looking for violence, it would be poor form in front of so many members of her nation.
Holding up a shield like it would protect against an avalanche. “I’ve lost a lot of revenue from the disorder in Bin-Er,” Feishan said. “A lot of face as well.”
“You didn’t have to. This was your own fault.”
The Earth King’s anger flared in the form of a jaw twitch, a lip curl. An actual strategic provocation on Yangchen’s part this time. Extremely risky, but fully intentional. “Your Majesty, out of complacency, you let the shangs mismanage the city until neither human nor spirit could thrive. Under your watch they carelessly reaped without sowing back. You have only yourself to blame.”
It was a good thing they were alone. What kind of fool would insult the Earth King to his face? An honest one, Feishan would hopefully assume. “There was and still is a better way,” Yangchen said. Now that she’d riled him, she had to strike quickly at his desires. “I can develop a plan for you that eases the burden of Bin-Er’s residents, while providing you more revenue from the city than ever before. More than any zongdu has ever brought to your coffers.”
The Earth King scoffed, which meant he at least heard her, instead of having his ears plugged by fury. “What would an Air Nomad know of administration?”
“Very little,” Yangchen said. “But Avatar Szeto, on the other hand, knows a great deal.”
The sudden gleam in Feishan’s eye meant she’d hooked him. “Are you saying you can run Bin-Er precisely as he would, if he were alive? Have him guide you step-by-step? You could consult him on every decision you’d make?”
She could not. Connecting with her past lives did not work quite like how Feishan was imagining it. She could see previous Avatar’s memories, experience their emotions throughout the pivotal moments of their eras. But as far as she could tell, her past lives couldn’t form new opinions or fresh predictions or make decisions for her in the present world, no matter how conversational the interaction between ancient memories and current information played out during a session of communing.
Avatar Szeto had never seen a shang city. He had never dealt with a situation exactly like the Platinum Affair or an Earth King exactly like Feishan. He would never develop plans on her behalf or whisper in her ear the perfect choice at each juncture.
“Yes,” Yangchen lied. “My predecessor would be the one making the calls. Not me. My involvement would be minimal.”
Her boldest, falsest claim yet. There was no world where Avatar Yangchen could split herself entirely away from her past lives. It was impossible to remove her own identity from the scales. But Feishan didn’t need to know that right now.
The Earth King mulled over her proposal. The skills of a legendary administrator, enriching his treasury. What leader could resist? “I’d want to see those increases in revenue before too long.”
“Of course.” Much of her wild promise would have to come from utilizing the city’s harbor at the full capacity the shangs had been doing before she arrived. The extra ships. She’d split the money from the previously unreported traffic between Feishan and the people of Bin-Er. The shangs themselves would contribute to both recipients where necessary, given the fact that she was the only person keeping their involvement in Unanimity a secret from the Earth King. “With you backing me, I can work with Zongdu Henshe to get meaningful—”
“The man is supposedly nowhere to be found,” Feishan interrupted.
Yangchen furrowed her brow. “What do you mean? Did he go somewhere? I know he was one of the few people in the city with extensive travel rights.”
“If I knew where he was, he would be found.”
She accepted the retort. “Still. With your backing, I can ease the city’s troubles in the physical realm and the spiritual. I can see to the suffering of its residents and your coffers both. Withdraw your troops and let me endeavor to restore balance.”
She’d spoken out of both sides of her mouth many times in the past, but never to this extent, to someone as important as the Earth King. It was . . . easy. After everything she’d been through, it was easy. She’d been pushed to the brink and found there was always more brink to discover. If Feishan agreed, then gradually, carefully, she would start feeding in the crucial components of real relief for Bin-Er. An opening of movement for people beyond Air Nomads. Better conditions for those who wanted to stay. A solid foundation for the future.
The Earth King examined her one last time before nodding. “I will lend you my support,” he said. “Together we will bring prosperity to Bin-Er again.”
She tested her luck one more time. “The reformed city might serve as a model for the Lower Ring. A stable and happy capital is a secure capital, is it not?”
Feishan was actually one of the better Earth Kings when it came to looking after the poorest citizens of Ba Sing Se. Either it appealed to his sense of authority, or he was aware that the Lower Ring essentially formed a siege line around the Middle and Upper Rings. He smirked, knowing she was being greedy in her own way. “We’ll see, Avatar. We shall see.”
He called the proprietor over and sent him to the back stores for a real bottle. A celebratory toast was imminent, and water wouldn’t suffice.
While the shopkeeper rummaged through crates full of hay, the Earth King lowered his voice even further, so that Yangchen had to lean her head in to hear him. “And in the meantime, on the slim chance you are wrong about the cause of the spectacle in the sky being angry spirits, I will continue my investigations into what happened,” he said.
Yangchen had to force looseness into her limbs, break the crust of ice suddenly encasing her stomach. “Of course,” she repeated. “Do you have reason to believe I’m mistaken?”
“I don’t mean to gainsay the Avatar on spiritual matters. It’s just that before Zongdu Henshe disappeared, he sent a letter saying he had something to show me, and a new deal to strike in Bin-Er. That was all. Very rude. Very cryptic. Like he thought he was suddenly my equal.”
The proprietor came back with a bottle and fresh glasses. Feishan sent him away again and poured wine for the Avatar first, before himself. He wanted to do her the honor even if she wasn’t going to drink it.
“Shortly after that letter came the lights and noises,” he said. “If the incidents are related, I’ll find out. Perhaps at a more leisurely rate, now that you’ve given me your assurances.”
He picked up his wine and swirled it, sniffing the aroma. “I’m relieved you’re convinced we’re dealing with spirits, Avatar. Because if I discover that it was the work of man that lit up the sky above my territory, and that someone has created a threat to my rule, then I genuinely fear what I will do to the Four Nations in reprisal, the Earth Kingdom included. It certainly wouldn’t be good for my reputation in the history books. Or the echoes of suffering in the Spirit World you’re so concerned about.”
Yangchen said nothing.
Feishan clinked his glass to hers. “To a brighter tomorrow,” the Earth King replied to her silence. “I expect you’ll come through on your end of the bargain.”
HONORED GUESTS
Her hands shook the entire flight back to the Northern Air Temple. She wrung Nujian’s reins to steady them, twisting, folding, doubling the lines. He grunted in complaint when she’d used up too much of the slack.
She had hoped to distract the Earth King by using his greed to keep him focused on the wrong prize. She had only partially succeeded.
Now Yangchen finally had a common interest with the Bin-Er shangs. They would have to collude to keep the spirit ruse going in front of the Earth King. The shangs if they wanted to keep their heads, Yangchen if she wanted to prevent the secret of Unanimity from being exposed. If she’d sought leverage over Teiin and Noehi and the rest, well, now she had too much.
