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It happened in the dark of a new moon. The details were foggy—too caught in chaos to give a straight story.
Zuko missed it all. He had been in a daze, from the medicine, from the pain. He barely even registered the words, the news of what happened—let alone took in who had even spoken them.
“You’re the Fire Lord now, Prince Zuko. Fire Lord Ozai is dead.”
It took a day for the weight of those words to sink in.
It happened in the dark of a new moon. An assassin had slipped into the grounds after the ill-fated Agni Kai with his father. Or, perhaps, she had been in the palace all along. There had been a large crowd for the duel after all.
She had slipped away from the arena, into the heart of the palace. No guards claimed to have seen her. Whether or not they lied, no one was sure. The woman had slunk into Ozai’s room like a shadow that night, the man sleeping deeply like only one born into luxury could—or like someone who had been drugged.
Screaming had alerted the guards. The smoke was thick, the heat stifling, they claimed. It had been hard to get to the Fire Lord. Hard to save him in time.
A woman had been standing over Ozai, dressed in deep reds, her palms burning with a raging fire. “Long live Fire Lord Zuko,” she spat, before she was no more—there was no trial for those who dared to attack the Fire Lord.
Ozai, despite everything the healers did, succumbed to the burns on his face. Only to his face. The rest of his body had been untouched by flame until his cremation. He had been asleep, the fire sages said; it had been cowardly. Some said tea had been drugged—the woman, the assassin, had connections to the kitchen staff. They were all fired.
(Quite literally, in some cases.)
The signs of a struggle suggested he hadn’t been asleep for all of it.
It didn’t matter, in the end. The woman was rogue, a general’s daughter who was barely even worth caring about, working with a few traitors who were dealt with promptly. The healers had done all they could (even if they snidely mentioned they had limited supplies because of Zuko’s burns).
The line of succession meant Zuko was to be crowned; Ozai had yet to strike the boy out like so many expected, considering his apparent weakness. The once great General Iroh had been shuffled into being last in line, after Princess Azula—all according to the dying wish of his father, Azulon.
It wasn’t ideal. Having an inexperienced 13 year old on the throne—one who was weak, one who wouldn’t even fight during the Agni Kai. But, unlike Ozai, he did not succumb to the burns on his face, to the infection.
So. Fire Lord he would be.
Not everyone was happy with this, least of all Zuko himself.
He sat stock still, dressed in bone white and gold, clothing swallowing him up. He felt like he was drowning. There was a crowd, so much like that of the one who cheered when his father burned him—many of them probably had been there that day. Zuko found himself staring just above them instead. It was easier.
Heat was against his back. He knew it wasn’t his father’s flames (though technically it was—it was his father burning after all). He knew it was under control, but the sweat dripped down his forehead anyways, the memories—the nightmares—worming their way in. It was too hard to breath. He was drowning, drowning —
His face had been neatly bandaged, blocking off sight completely from his left side. It didn’t help his nerves, knowing an assassin could easily get him from his blind spot. And just like his father, he’d be gone in a blazing flame.
(Cremation. It was to guide them back to the Sun, the sages said, to bring them back to their home. Fire was life, just as it was destruction. I don’t want to die in flames, was all Zuko could think, not after—)
No, no he wasn’t drowning, not anymore—he was suffocating, caught in a blaze, all oxygen being burned away.
Fire was all Zuko could think about as the crown was lowered into his hair. A topknot—it was traditional. He felt like a bad facsimile of his father. Of his mother.
Both were gone now. Why was he left to pick up the pieces? What could he do, when Azula was so much more capable? When Iroh had years of experience? Why did it have to be him?
Zuko barely heard the cries for his long reign over the thundering of his heart in his ears.
Long live Fire Lord Zuko.
Long live Fire Lord Zuko.