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Chapter Text

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As a millennia of the Hao Dynasty came to an end, the claim of the 34^th Earth Queen, Ya Ting, weakened.

In those days, Earth Monarchs fought to remain at the zenith of their power, where no Avatar could stand against them.

Ya Ting reigned after the death of both her nephews, the 32^nd and 33^rd Earth Kings, in a time of tragedy and upheave. Her succession was then in doubt, so she called a great conclave to choose an heir. Over a thousand lords, sages, governors and minor kings made the journey to Tienhaishi, where thirty-five succession claims were heard, but only one was truly considered: Prince Zhoulai, the Earth Queen’s third cousin once removed.

But she knew the truth: the only thing that could tear her reign down was an heir.

It is now the second year of Earth Queen Ya Ting’s reign.

277 years before the birth of the next earth Avatar in the cycle: Avatar Kyoshi.

...

Once again the skies were overcast with orange clouds that dropped a drizzle of sand down the mountain. For days the haze had dragged the sands from the Si Wong Desert to the snowy hills of Taku, presaging the misfortune with its ominous color.

Garnet hitched up her skirts to cross the creek. She carried her backpack and satchel, since she had to carry her tools plus their clothes and food; in addition, a little bag of herbs and potions that she needed too. Maidenhair fern to restore strength; lemon balm for nausea... With so many saddlebags, she lacked hands to guide the armadillo bear that her little brother was riding.

"We're not going back to Taku, are we?"

They had been fleeing north-by-northwest for days, sleeping in barns, caves and shacks. For a few coins and a few balsams or oils to make soaps, the people who feared the Evergreen Death so much allowed them to sleep in their stables. The villages were all empty and the animals dead―or seized by the 34^th Earth Queen's army.

And Garnet knew that his brother Salai watched everything with hungry, dark, silky eyes, learning like a clever and agile fox, even though he was only eleven years old and did not know how valuable he was to the world.

To the Earth Queen.

And for her.

His brother Salai was the Avatar, the still-too-young Avatar. And Garnet was the one that had to deal with it.

"When we cross the Su Oku River and reach the monastery we will be safe," she told him.

But Salai knew that no place was safe, so silently he clung to the little bag that hung around his neck, filled with the badgermole herb, and that his mother had hung on him as soon as he was born to help him scare away the dark spirits.

Until a week ago, he had been happy. Now he didn't think he could ever forget how the Earth Queen's army had taken Taku―apparently―looking for him.

Why for him?

Because of how good he was at stitching up wounds? Because of how well he heated buckets of salt water to disinfect? Maybe because he was an earthbender and they were all succumbing to the Evergeen Death? Things were really much worse since the Earth Queen took over after the passing of her two nephews, the 33^rd and the 32^nd Earth Kings. Salai had asked his sister about all of that earth regal war, but Garnet never answered him; she only urged him to wait until they reach the monastery.

That night they huddled in the stables of some grateful cow-swineherd, covered by the warm breath of the moo-sows.

"I'm sorry about your mother, Garnet," Salai told her sister.

"And I'm sorry about yours," she replied, hugging him so he won't see her cry.

It was stupid to stop and grieve for the dead: time was against them―especially against Garnet. With armies at the gates and disease within the walls of the entire Earth Kingdom, the young woman had to deliver her brother as soon as possible.

She had to reveal to the world who the new Avatar was.

A part of Garnet still refused to believe how everything had change. Till just a week ago, all their worries were for the famine, winter's greatest ally. Over the months, reserves began to run short in Taku. They could have weathered the harsh winter only if the mouths to feed had been those of the family, but there were too many others depending on them, on their charity... And that ended up not being enough. First for Taku, then for the Zhangs.

So one afternoon Garnet wrapped her snow leopard-caribou furs around her and walked across the hanging gardens to the barns. The cold was so intense and heavy that it was hard to breathe, and the snow so thick that walking on flat ground was like climbing the very gardens. But she had to say it. She had to tell those people that they could no longer live on her charity. She had been responsible for taking them in and she had to fix that, she promised her father.

The tragedy she saw upon entering the building was devastating: several dozen people were huddled together fleeing from the chill; the strangely still children, cuddled to their mothers; sharp faces, with hardly any skin and with the sad look of the defeated. And that smell. A tremendous rotten smell.

And Garnet of Taku, Garnet the Zhang, felt broken and bent. All the arguments she came to expose, her conviction to tell her mother's tribe that they had to leave because there was nothing left there fell apart. When she turned around, she saw Ajitan behind her. She took her by the shoulder and raised her voice.

“My daughter has come to tell you something, but I prefer to do it myself." All faces turned toward her, so the herbalist took a deep breath and went on: "we've done what we could until we could, and there's nothing left for us. My pantry is empty. There is barely enough left for my own children to get through the winter. You can take shelter here, but we'll have to do what we've never done before: deny you some food."

They all looked at each other. They could expect it, but bad news always came too soon.

"Kill the koala sheeps!" said the Zhangs' chief with the rage of despair.

"Our koala sheeps are dead, man" ansewered Ajitan, "just like our wooly pigs, if they're the next thing you're going to ask me for."

After that, they both went back to the ziggurat. Ajitan made a peasemeal porridge―that they all hated―for dinner. As usual, she did not eat at all. Her stepmother had lost weight; her body no longer had the roundness of yesteryear and hunger garnished on her face.

She should have known what was coming. Sage Ajitan spent too much time in her study at the top of the ziggurat, purifying herbs in water and alcohol, experimenting with sulfurs, and mixing concoctions from a thousand different potions.

"Take care of Salai" was all his stepmother said to her for weeks. "Play with him. Entertain him."

If only Ajitan had seen her for what she was. If she had let her lead the Zhangs… Maybe, just maybe, they would have been ready when death marched on Taku in green armors. Not the Evergreen Death, no, but the Earth Queen's militia.

"I'm more than a childminder" Garnet had reproached her stepmother earlier that day.

"Indeed" was his reply. "You're her sister."

Garnet curled up under the tattered fur and listened to Salai's soft breathing. He always slept like a bat dormouse...

"Yes, she was her sister" she thought, sighing. "And also the only thing left to him."

Every night of that pilgrimage, Salai, whether he was tired or not, whether he had filled his gut or was empty like a drunk's skin, had soft straw to lie on or cold gravel under his buttocks, sang the same protective chant his mother taught him.

"Badgermole, give me help; badgermole, give me courage; drive away the spirit of darkness and chaos."

With fawn legs from long hours of walking and muscatel skin tanned by the sun and the wind, the lack of a home and property had sharpened his ingenuity. Salai was happy and innocent. He had love, almost always something to eat, and freedom. He felt sorry for those children who went to Pohuai Academy, for example, where grumpy old sages gave them capons and taught stupid things. He was wiser. He distinguished impatients sultanas and clove-pinks, owl larks and doves, he recognized if it was going to rain by the smell of the wind and if the frost was going to be plagued with humidity.

"Garnet, if the spirit of chaos is looking for us, how come it can't find us? Legends say it's all-powerful."

"Didn't I tell you not to say that?" Garnet surveyed the muddy, silt-filled waters of the Su Oku estuary. Maybe they could cross it using earthbending.

"But we're alone, Garnet. And I get sick of always walking head-turned to see if the spirit is following our footsteps. And of carrying this weed, damn it. I can know the truth. I can. Truly."

Salai pointed to his neck, from which hung the little cloth bag, knotted with twine and well filled with badgermole herb, giving off the scent of pine resin.

Garnet wiped on her furs and cupped the boy’s face in her leathery hands.

"Brother, neither in dreams nor awake must you mention whose son you are, because the mountains, hills and paths can have ears. It's you and me, that's it. And those herbs will scare away the spirit that follows us, and so we have nothing to fear. Do you understand?"

Salai nodded, although she insisted on insisting.

"The waters don't seem deep. I think we'll be able to cross riding Shizhan" Garnet said, mounting the armadillo bear with her brother.

The Estuary of the Crayfish turtles was large and opened off the Mo Ce Sea. The waters usually shimmered blue and green, but not that winter. Thanks to the frosty mud, the slow-moving streams and Garnet’s earthbending, a narrow made-up path let them cross over the dead marsh.

"Shizhan says she wants to hunt frozen wood frogs!" Salai said to her sister. "Can we find some?"

"We have to get to Tienhaishi, Salai, and find a way to sail north... We don't have time for frozen wood frogs nor tern gulls."

Until then, she would keep asking fearfully as soon as they entered any town or village, inn or hamlet: "we are the only outsiders, right?," trying to find out if this man―the man in white and green―she feared more than the Evergreen Death was prowling around.

Garnet had never faced his face before, but she could not forget his dark voice or his clear name: Gao the Ganjinese.

Chapter Text

Tienhaishi was where countless caravans began or ended their journey, heavily laden with prized silks, jins of saffron and barrels of the expensive golden wine the Beifongs toasted with in the south.

"Father always liked Tienhaishi" Salai said, patting Shizhan in gratitude after the long journey.

"And he always told us that King Hozhu would help us if we needed it" Garnet answered with pained horror. "I hope so, for it is our only chance."

She covered herself with her furs, while Salai hid beneath his hood. Not the arrival any of them dreamed of, but they had to remain anonymous if they wanted to cross the walls. Fortunately, a mob of peasants and beggars also longed to shelter from war and disease behind the city walls.

The guards on the snowy wall ignored them and didn't even ask about the armadillo bear, as they were too busy denying entry to the poor.

"You can't beg in the city!" one of the guards yelled. "The city council prohibits it for outsiders by royal command."

Tienhaishi was considered the greatest city there had ever been, though Garnet knew that was an exaggeration. Even so, the city was large, very large, clean and well cared for. All the buildings, some up to four stories high, were white, while the roofs were made of bright green tiles. Garnett had never been to Ba Sing Se―the actual greatest city in the world, but she knew it was a city of reeds and clag, muddy streets, thatched roofs and wooden shacks. Tienhaishi was made of stone, and all the streets were cobbled. Moreover, at dawn, the city was more beautiful still―even down the ill-boding sky clouded with sand. And if Taku smelt like rainforest, pure earth and innocent flowers, Tienhaishi had the scent of cologne water made of ancient light.

"Garnet, look, look!" Salai pointed to one of the many stalls in the gates plaza. "It's for playing target shooting! Can we try our luck, please?"

Before her sister answered, the boy jumped off Shizhan and ran between pig chickens, calling her name. Annoyed, Garnet climbed down and pulled the armadillo bear over to the stall.

"What do you want?" asked the owner of the stall, a very old lady with no teeth and a dancing chin. "Do you have money to pay? Nothing but trouble awaits bums in this town, girl."

To shut her up, Garnet overpaid the woman for her kindness. That was a simple game: with bending, she had to hit the center of the earth emblem. It was a matter of concentration, calibration and...

"Come on, Garnet! Look what top-notch prizes they have!"

Rage. Sadness. Grief. Chaotic feelings incompatible with neutral jing reached her with Salai's voice.

The small boulder Garnet tossed exploded before it even hit the target, shooting out a myriad of shards. The woman from the stall had to cover herself, crying very unfriendly things to Garnet.

"Let's go, brother. And don't ever run away from me again" she said to Salai, taking his hand.

Suddenly, Garnet felt the city suffocating and wild: the last place a Zhang like her should get lost. The streets were a riot of laughter and childishness, and the esplanade they walked down was dotted with stalls selling flowers, fried foods and apricot juice, and jugglers with balls and kongzhus.

"People live on the streets, like in Taku," said Salai, smiling. All he wanted was for his sister to share his joy.

"Just like home..." Garnet couldn't keep watching this spectacle. All she wanted was for her brother to lose a bit of innocence. Just a tiny little bit, so he’d understand what the present was about. "Come on; let's go down to the palace."

The women chatted spiritedly with their babies in the rump; the men played pai sho, chatting about master moves or measuring themselves in competition; the children played tag and hide and seek; and the elders, some with their canes, watched everything from their stools at the doors of the houses.

Garnet then looked where no one was looking: up at the walls. Dozens of crossbowmen watched over them, which could be a good sign. Maybe they would be safe in Tienhaishi after all...

The Palace Plaza was bustling with activity, of course: women were washing garments at the Tienhai's fountain and hanging them to dry on the very head of the spirit's statue. In the arcades of the merchants, scribes and moneychangers had already set up their stalls, as had a fortuneteller and a lousy juggler. A pear seller was wheeling the goods in a wheelbarrow, and a woman was offering onioned tern gulls.

For Garnet, such hubbub began to be strange. King Hozhu's army may have kept the Earth Queen's militia at bay, but what about the epidemic? Was nobody sick there? Hadn't the Evergreen Death arrived with so many refugees and so many caravans and ships going in and out of the city?

The siblings continued down Stepped Street, a slope that led to the palace. Various statues of Tienhai lit up the street with qulliqs they held. The spirit’s tale was well known in the northwest Earth Kingdom, and Garnet and Salai grew up hearing it over and over: once upon a time, the princess of the light spirits help a traveler through the hundred quests of dark spirits… What nobody knew was if the tale came before or after the city was founded and called Tienhaishi after the so revered Tienhai. As Garnet and Salai reached the gates, they glimpsed the harbor in the distance, nestled between cliffs at Yue Bay.

"What ships are those, Garnet?"

"War galleys."

What a relief she felt! King Hozhu was preparing for war! With those twenty galleys, he could lay siege to the east coast and disrupt the flow of maritime trade with Ba Sing Se... Or take back Taku!

Garnet knocked on the doors, but only a small gate opened.

"I need to speak to King Hozhu immediately," she told the guard. "Tell him that Garnet, daughter of Hammu of Taku, is here."

If she had known… Darkness incarnate was riding towards them, reaching out its cold claws, almost touching them.

…

Gao the Ganjinese galloped towards Tienhaishi. Towards the object of his obsessions.

To Salai.

Spurring on his strong Si Wong ostrich horse, he was coming close with the sons of herbalist Hammu. Pretty close.

The monstrous Gao, all living green armor, hidden by his helmet, arrived at the stables where the brothers had slept nights before. Taking by the arm one of the poor cow-swineherd, who was carrying water for the troughs, he asked where the brothers had gone. The young man, fearful of his fiery voice, stammered the truth: they left, and he did not know the destination.

"Where to, weakling?"

The cow-swineherd pointed a trembling finger down the road. Gao released him and went on his way again.

He galloped madly down a path surrounded by green hay and yellow fennel. But he did not enjoy the beauties of the countryside because his gaze was fixed on his destiny. That trail only led to Tienhaishi, and its traitorous king fought at the beginning of the war alongside Hammu of Taku. Only there could the Avatar be.

Gao, spurring the horse, galloped even faster. He had that damn brat in his hands at last.