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Chapter Text

Kaida was just one of the many maids in the Fire Nation palace.

She swept the same halls every morning, polished the same golden vases until her arms ached, and bowed every time a noble passed her by without so much as a glance. Servants in the Fire Nation palace were meant to be invisible—but Kaida had always seen everything.

Her mother had been reluctant to send her to the palace in the first place.

“Why work yourself to the bone for people who wouldn’t flinch if you burned alive?” she had muttered. “Just marry a rich merchant’s son. Or a low-ranking noble, at least. Anything but that palace.”

Once upon a time, her mother had been one of the Fire Nation’s most loyal citizens. Kaida still remembered the way her mother used to stand proudly in the plaza, staring up at the statue of Fire Lord Azulon with reverence in her eyes. She’d raise Kaida high on her shoulders during public addresses, her voice full of awe.

“Look, Kaida. That is our Fire Lord. He keeps us safe. He gives us strength.”

Kaida remembered the cheers, the red banners fluttering in the heat, and the way her mother’s voice didn’t tremble once when she said the Fire Nation was destined to lead the world.

That was before her older brother, Akio, was sent to war.

Akio had been the light of their home. He was loud, warm, and always smiling.

He would race through the alleyways with the neighborhood kids, his laughter echoing into the evening. He was well-known at the market stalls; the old woman who sold radishes would slip him extras for free, and the baker would always keep a sweet bun aside for him.

He had a talent for firebending from a young age. Kaida remembered the afternoons when he would leap and twist through the air, letting tiny sparks trail behind him. Their parents would watch with beaming faces.

“He’ll be a great soldier someday,” their father would say. “A general, even.”

They boasted about him to their friends. "He mastered his first form at eight." "He trains at dawn without fail." "He'll serve the nation well."

So, when he turned sixteen, it wasn’t a surprise that he enlisted. It had been his dream for as long as they could remember.

“To spread the Fire Nation’s greatness,” he had said, grinning as he packed.

“We’re the lucky ones, Kaida. We have peace, education, and safety. That’s not something everyone has. Don’t you think it’s only right that we share it?”

In his eyes, the Fire Nation wasn’t blood and burning. It wasn’t charred fields or trembling villagers. It wasn’t tyranny masked as pride.

To Akio, the Fire Nation was the kindness of neighbors who shared fruits over the fence. It was their childhood friend who, with government aid, had become the first scholar in her family. It was cheap bread, warm homes, and the sense that no child would be left hungry or uneducated.

To him—to them —the Fire Nation was a wonder that deserved to be shared because everyone deserved the good they had.

Who would have thought that the same Fire Nation he loved would be the one to leave him to die?

Akio had been sent to the 30th Division.

A small, under-resourced unit tasked with conquering a minor Earth Kingdom island. A tiny thing that barely showed up on most maps.

What no one told them was that the island was within striking distance of an Earth Kingdom stronghold. Barely days into the mission, the 30th Division was surrounded and overwhelmed by Earth Kingdom forces.

But that had been the plan.

The 30th was bait.

A stronger Fire Nation battalion followed shortly after, crushing the Earth Kingdom stronghold once it had drawn out their defenders.

Kaida had only learned about this through whispers from soldiers home on leave and through the tight-lipped stares of officers who refused to meet her eyes when she asked what had happened to her brother.

Even now, whenever Kaida visits home, she’ll find her mother sitting by the old shelf, staring at Akio’s picture like she’s waiting for him to walk through the door. Sometimes she talks to it in whispers, asking if he’s eaten, if he’s staying warm, as if he’s just away on a long journey and not lost in sea or buried beneath foreign soil.

Her father, once a steady presence, became a ghost in their home. He hadn’t been a loud man to begin with, that had always been Akio’s role. But after Akio was gone, their father barely spoke at all. The fire that once flickered quietly in his eyes had long since gone out.

Akio wasn’t even mentioned in the official report.

No medals. No letter of condolence. Just silence.

She had waited for a message, for something. Anything.

But the Fire Nation had already moved on. Another victory in the war machine. Another “necessary sacrifice.”

And now, under a new Fire Lord, it didn't seem like things would change.

Everything about Ozai’s rise to the throne felt wrong. Too sudden. Too clean.

Fire Lord Azulon had been alive one week and then gone the next. His death was explained away with vague phrases like “illness” and “natural causes.” But Azulon had been strong and still sharp with age. No one had seen him fall ill. No one had been allowed near his body.

And General Iroh, rightful heir to the throne, had been quietly pushed aside. Still grieving Lu Ten, he hadn’t fought the decision. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he wasn’t allowed.

The story changed overnight. Ozai was now Fire Lord. Princess Ursa was gone. No fanfare, no farewell. Just vanished into shadow. And no one dared to ask why.

Some said she fled the palace. Others whispered she was banished. A few feared she had been silenced.

Either way, it didn't matter to her who wasn't in the palace, because now she has to deal with the palace herself.

Now Kaida served tea to the same ministers who called the soldiers' deaths “strategic.” She cleaned floors walked on by the generals who would never remember Akio’s name.

Still, she kept her head down. Like all good servants do.

Kaida had first seen Prince Zuko long before she ever met him.

She was still new to the palace then, still learning when to bow and when to disappear. The other maids had warned her not to linger near the inner gardens unless summoned, but curiosity often tugged harder than fear.

It was a late afternoon, and the world seemed bathed in soft gold. Kaida had been carrying linens past the eastern corridor when she caught sight of him, the young prince sitting quietly by the lotus pond.

Prince Zuko couldn’t have been older than 11. He sat with his knees drawn to his chest, poking the water with a thin stick. 

Kaida had expected the Fire Prince to be loud, proud, maybe even cruel. She had imagined a miniature version of Fire Lord Ozai, harsh angles and thunder in his voice.

But this boy looked kind .

There was a softness to the way he looked at the turtle ducks. A gentleness in the way he offered them seeds.

He looked a bit sad and lonely but there was genuine care in his eyes. He noticed a turtle duck that had waddled too far from the pond and chased after it.

Kaida had smiled. Just a little. A real, unguarded smile. 

She didn’t see him again for several months, not until one quiet morning when Kaida was carrying a basket of linens toward the laundry room. The halls near the training court were always hot this time of day, warmed by the sun and the ever-present firebending drills echoing beyond the stone walls.

She kept her head down as she walked, careful not to make noise, her arms wrapped around the weight of freshly gathered uniforms.

She rounded a corner and nearly bumped into someone.

A pair of boots came to a stop right in front of her. Startled, Kaida stepped back quickly, eyes darting up.

Prince Zuko.

He looked older now, maybe almost 12. His training robes were damp with sweat, hair sticking to his brow. 

Kaida froze, gripping the basket tighter. Was she in the way? Was he going to scold her?

But then, unexpectedly, he pointed at the basket.

“You dropped a sleeve,” he said.

Her eyes followed his gesture. Sure enough, the edge of a robe had slipped over the rim, nearly brushing the floor. Hastily, she tucked it back in.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” she said, ducking her head.

When she looked up again, he was still watching her. Not with the bored disdain most nobles wore but something gentler, almost curious.

Then the corner of his mouth lifted, just slightly.

“You should be careful,” he added, a hint of playfulness in his voice. “The laundry lady gets scary when uniforms come back dirty.”

Kaida blinked, surprised. And then she smiled. Just a little.

“I’ll remember that,” she said.

That was all. Just a passing moment.

But in a palace full of cruelty disguised as power, Kaida held onto that one brief interaction like a warm ember cupped between cold fingers.

Zuko wasn’t like his father. Not then. Maybe not ever.

And that made what came next so much worse.

That morning, she moved through the halls with her head down and her ears open. Rumors slithered through the palace like smoke. An Agni Kai had been called. That wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the name whispered behind folding screens and under breath.

“Did you hear?” one of the older maids hissed.

“The prince—Prince Zuko—he interrupted a war meeting this morning.”

Kaida paused, arms stilling over the soft fabric in her hands. “A war meeting?” she repeated. “But he’s just a child.”

Mei scoffed. “He’s thirteen, old enough to start acting like a prince. But foolish enough to speak out of turn. Said something that angered one of the generals. No one’s saying what, exactly. But they say an Agni Kai was called.”

The words hit Kaida like a splash of cold water.

An Agni Kai.

She didn’t know the details, but she knew what those duels meant. A challenge of honor. Fire against fire. Pain, humiliation, and sometimes worse.

Kaida stood slowly, brows knitting together. “Who challenged him?”

Mei shrugged, tossing a fresh towel over her shoulder. “No one knows. The court’s tight-lipped, like always. Some say he insulted General Bujing. Others say it was another big shot who took offense. But one thing’s certain, Prince Zuko will be fighting.”

Kaida’s throat felt dry. Her first instinct was disbelief. It couldn’t be real. Not Zuko. He was too soft-spoken, too polite. Too good . He wasn’t like the others.

“What happens if he refuses?” Kaida asked, though she already knew the answer.

Mei gave her a hard look. “You don’t refuse an Agni Kai. Not in the royal court.”

The rest of the day passed in a fog. Kaida went through the motions, but her thoughts kept circling back to the boy by the pond. The boy who had smiled at her when he didn’t have to. Who had seemed so unlike his father.

What could he have said to make them turn on him like this?

Whatever it was, Kaida had the sinking feeling that it wasn’t truly dishonor that sparked the coming fire, but the courage to speak the truth in a place that no longer had room for it.

When she arrived at the arena with the other servants hidden in alcoves, guards standing still as statues. There was no roaring crowd, no cheering nobles. 

The air was thick with heat, the scent of smoldering incense, and the weight of anticipation. Above, the sun hung like a witness, distant and uncaring.

Prince Zuko stood alone in the arena.

He looked so small in the center of the stone circle.

Kaida scanned the crowd. Princess Azula sat with their uncle, whose face looked blank and unreadable. The generals were also there, cloaked in red and black. She sees General Bujing, so she knows it’s not him that the prince is fighting. If not him, then who? 

She ponders who she’s missing in the audience, and then—

Fire Lord Ozai appeared.

Kaida’s breath caught in her throat.

He moved with the slow confidence of a man who had never been challenged. Regal. Fearsome. Untouchable.

Zuko’s shoulders stiffened.

The Fire Lord descended the steps in silence. For a heartbeat, she thought perhaps someone else would take his place in the duel, some general, perhaps. That’s how it usually went. But then he stepped forward.

The boy lifted his head, eyes wide. “Father, I didn’t know it would be you,” he said.

And the silence that followed was not quiet, it was cruel.

He bowed quickly, deeply, his voice carrying faintly across the stones. “I’m sorry I spoke out of turn. It was never my intention to insult you, Father.”

He sounded earnest.

But Ozai did not answer. Not with words.

Instead, he stepped into the ring.

Gasps echoed, mostly from the maids. The guards looked on silently, but their eyes betrayed their surprise. Even some of the generals looked uncertain.

No one had said who Zuko had to fight. Just that he would fight. Even the young prince seemed confused. 

He looked around, searching the crowd, probably looking for General Bujing.  “But… I thought…” His voice cracked. “I thought it was the general that I would fight against.”

Ozai still doesn’t say anything. He walked towards the prince, head held high, like he was looking at a stranger. His own son.

Kaida’s breath caught in her throat.

Zuko fell to his knees. She couldn't breathe. She saw the prince’s lips move, forming desperate words she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears. And still, the Fire Lord walked towards him, each step slow and merciless.

Ozai knelt down in front of Zuko, and for a split second, she hoped that he would let it go.

His hands reached towards the prince, who looked at his father, relieved. 

She would never forget the fire igniting in the Fire Lord’s palms. Nor the way the boy screamed when he felt it touch his face. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t. 

No one moved. No one cried out. Not General Iroh, standing frozen at the edge of the arena, his fists clenched. Not even Princess Azula, whose expression was unreadable, blank, except for the slight tremble in her glistening eyes.

The Fire Lord held his son down with one hand, the other still pressed against Zuko’s face, flames licking from his fingers, unrelenting. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air.

When it was done, the young prince collapsed. Smoke curled from his robes. The Fire Lord turned and walked away as if he had done nothing more than strike down a traitor.

No one moved.

No one helped.

Chapter Text

The palace was full of silence and ceremony, not justice. That much, everyone who served there had long accepted.

And yet Kaida wanted to run to him at that moment. To throw herself between the boy and the Fire Lord. To scream at the generals, the nobles, the cowards who sat by and let it happen. 

But she was just a maid.

A nobody with no power, no voice. A mere lick of flame in the grand scheme of things.

And so all she could do was look, make sure the memory is burned into her brain, her eyes stinging from more than smoke. In the Fire Nation, the throne sat on ashes.

There was nothing she could do then, but that doesn’t mean there was nothing she could do after. 

The announcement came with fanfare, as if the Fire Nation were celebrating a victory instead of exiling a child. A grand proclamation dressed in gold and fire, plastered on the Capitol plaza for everyone to see. 

Royal Proclamation from the Throne of the Fire Nation

By order of Fire Lord Ozai,

Let it be known that Prince Zuko is hereby banished from the Fire Nation.

Having acted in dishonor against the traditions of the crown, he is tasked with a singular path to redemption: the capture of the Avatar. 

Only upon the successful completion of this quest shall Prince Zuko’s honor be restored and his place among the royal family reinstated.

So it is declared.

“Prince Zuko acted in dishonor?” Kaida would have laughed if it didn’t make her so unbearably mad. What was worse was that some had actually believed that drivel. Having never met the prince, they had no choice but to believe what they were told.

But those who lived within the palace knew better, and they would not be silenced.

The people would know the truth. Kaida wouldn’t let them bury this the way they buried her brother’s unjust death. She wouldn’t let them smother another gentle flame.

She would rather die than watch them do to the young prince what they had done to so many before him.

After the Agni Kai, they threw the boy onto a rickety old ship. Didn’t even give him time to heal. Just cast him off like a problem they were eager to forget. Kaida worried whether Zuko’s face would ever heal properly without real medical care.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she muttered bitterly. “It’s perfectly on brand for them to be this cruel to someone they’ve already broken down.”

They had sent the young prince on a fool’s errand.

The Avatar hadn’t been seen in a hundred years, and yet they tasked him with finding the impossible. It was obvious what they were trying to do.

The palace had been silent, like it always was. And yet, at the same time, it buzzed with whispers of injustice.

The maids, the guards, the cooks, the gardeners, every member of the staff whispered about the poor prince.

They did it quietly, despite their urge to scream. They were no help if they were dead, after all.

The whispers in the palace slowly but surely began to spread beyond its walls.

Merchants who supplied the palace with food and goods began to hear about what had happened.

Ladies in the market heard it from the maids running errands.

Of course, it wasn’t without consequence. A guard spoke too loudly in support of the prince—and was sent off to Agni-knows-where.

Soon, a more detailed public announcement was issued about Prince Zuko.

When the prince was first banished, the statement had been brief: Prince Zuko had dishonored the crown and would seek redemption by capturing the Avatar. 

They made the prince seem arrogant and proud, but the people knew better. 

Now, a second proclamation had been released. This time, the throne accused Prince Zuko of proposing a dishonorable strategy that would have endangered loyal Fire Nation soldiers. It claimed he accepted a sacred Agni Kai, only to disgrace himself by refusing to fight. That his conduct was unworthy of a future Fire Lord.

Supplemental Proclamation from the Throne of the Fire Nation

Issued under the Authority of Fire Lord Ozai

Let it be known:

Following his prior dishonorable conduct, Prince Zuko, son of Fire Lord Ozai, has further disgraced the Fire Nation by proposing a strategy unbefitting of our military tradition — one that would have cost the lives of honorable Fire Nation soldiers.

Furthermore, though he accepted the challenge of Agni Kai, the prince refused to face his opponent upon the arena, an act of cowardice and defiance. His failure to uphold the values of courage, obedience, and respect has brought shame upon the royal line.

Such conduct is not befitting of an heir to the throne. As such, the prince remains in exile and shall not be recognized as successor to the Fire Nation crown.

This declaration shall serve as both record and warning.

So it is spoken. So it is decreed.

Another announcement. Another attempt by the crown to control the story. Another series of bold-faced lies dressed in royal gold.

But the palace staff whispered, and the people listened.

The crown might try to rewrite the story, but the people knew what happened, and the crown knows they do. With the way people look at General Buijing with poorly hidden disdain. 

The people weren’t fools, and they hadn’t forgotten. 

It was General Buijing who suggested the plan to take the Hong stronghold. It was his plan to send Kaida’s brother as bait, and now he’s doing it again with new young soldiers. 

When Kaida returned to her hometown, just a carriage ride away from the capital, she went straight to her mother.

The old woman had been hanging laundry in their small backyard when Kaida arrived, her back bent, fingers red from scrubbing. Time had worn her down—grief most of all—but she still straightened when she saw her daughter.

Kaida didn’t waste time.

“They did it again,” she said, voice shaking. “They hurt another boy and wrapped it up in ceremony. They burned him, and now they’ve exiled him like he’s the disgrace.”

Her mother’s hands stilled, damp linen forgotten. “The young prince?” 

Kaida nodded. Relieved that the whispers had already reached outside the capital. 

“I saw it happen, Mama. I saw what his father did to him. I saw how no one stopped it.”

There was a long silence, the kind that always fell between the two women when they spoke of grief. And then, Kaida’s mother sat down on the old stool near the fence, gripping the cloth in her hands like she might tear it in two.

“He’s just a child,” she whispered. “They burned a child.”

Kaida sat beside her, the weight of truth coiled tightly in her chest. “They’re trying to bury this too. Just like they buried Akio. Just like they always do.”

But her mother surprised her then. She looked Kaida dead in the eyes and said, with no tremble in her voice: “Then you don’t let them.”

So Kaida didn’t.

She told everyone she could. Quietly, of course. There were still dangers in speaking too loudly, in pointing fingers at the palace. But she found ways. Conversations in the market, whispered warnings to mothers with sons who dreamed of glory, carefully passed messages to traveling performers and old schoolmates.

And she wasn’t alone.

A cook who had seen Zuko’s unconscious body being dragged in the hall after the agni kai quietly shared his story with a traveling merchant. A gardener passed the news along to his sister in Shu Jing. One of the palace nurses wrote her cousin in the Northern Colonies, saying only, “The boy’s cries didn’t stop until it was over.”

It spread like embers in dry grass.

The story grew, not exaggerated nor twisted, but carried with the tenderness of truth. People mourned a prince they never met. They remembered the way the palace once shone with promise and how that promise had turned to smoke.

And when children asked about Prince Zuko, their parents told them that he was brave. That he spoke out when no one else would. That he carried fire not just in his hands, but in his heart.

Kaida didn’t know what would come next. She didn’t know if the truth would ever burn bright enough to challenge the lies.

But she would keep whispering. Until the whispers turned into voices. Until the voices turned into something too loud to silence.

Because she had done nothing for her brother.

But for this boy, she would not make the same mistake.

Kaida’s hometown had always been small. Quiet. A farming village just a carriage’s ride from the capital, nestled between rolling hills and copper-colored fields. But when word of the Agni Kai spread, of the boy prince on his knees, of how he was thrown away like nothing, the people stirred.

It wasn’t just her telling the story anymore.

Others had heard. From distant cousins working in the palace. From merchants who dealt with royal suppliers. From servants dismissed for speaking out. And slowly, as if the whole nation had been holding its breath for too long, people began to speak.

In her village, it was the old baker’s son who shouted first in the plaza.

“Cowards!” he yelled. “You let a child take the punishment for telling the truth!”

He was dragged away before the hour turned.

By the next day, a group of students from the academy, just a year older than the prince, refused to attend class. Demanding “Justice for Prince Zuko.” Their parents were fined. A few were taken for questioning.

The week after, it happened again.

This time in another town, further south. Protesters standing outside the government hall holding signs made of wood scraps and soot-stained cloth: 

A prince should not burn for mercy.
Shame on a crown built on silence.

The military shut it down in hours.

But the fire had already spread.

More protests cropped up—quiet, messy, and brave. In alleyways, markets, and near train stations. Young people. Old soldiers. Mothers and grandmothers. Workers and scholars. 

And slowly but surely, more and more people were simply gone.

Sent to prisons. Reassigned. Disappeared.

Kaida stood in the village plaza one morning and stared at the shuttered fruit stand that once belonged to Akira, the grocer who used to slip her sweet plums as a child. He had shouted during a small gathering the day before. Called Ozai a tyrant. Said the Fire Nation wasn’t supposed to be this.

He hadn’t opened his stall since.

“They took his whole family,” her mother whispered that night, pale with fear. “Even the girl, Rin. She’s barely ten.”

Kaida clenched her fists until her nails dug into her skin.

It wasn’t just their town.

She’d heard from other maids, one from Shu Jing, another from the eastern ports. Stories of black-clad soldiers storming homes at night. Scrolls being confiscated. Scrolls with Prince Zuko’s name, his image, anything even hinting at sympathy.

The Fire Lord’s propaganda machine moved fast.

The official scrolls all said the same thing now:
Prince Zuko was a traitor. Prince Zuko dishonored the throne. Prince Zuko deserved exile.

But the people knew.

Kaida had seen it firsthand: the quiet fury in their eyes, the grief they weren’t allowed to name. Her village might be small, but it was not blind. And neither was she.

Akio had died in silence. Forgotten by the generals who used him.

She wouldn’t let that happen again.

Chapter Text

Chit Sang was a guard in the palace. His daughter was in the 41st. And although he didn’t hear the meeting, he heard what happened from the maids.

The red walls of the palace had always felt suffocating. But after that day, they felt like they were bleeding.

He had been on guard rotation by the south gate when word started to spread. Not official announcements, those came later, dressed in gold and lies. He got the real kind of news. The kind whispered in kitchens, in guard barracks, between servants dusting the pillars.

He’d already known about the 30th division. 

He’d argue that he’s known of them too late. Only hearing about them when he got stationed within the palace. Months after his dearest Hana had graduated from the academy, months after she had been drafted into the military. There was nothing he could do but worry and pray to Agni that he outlives his daughter, that she remains safe and healthy. 

He was on break when he mentioned it to Kaida, the new palace maid. She had been shadowing Mei that week, fumbling through the mountains of curtains. 

“She got picked for the 41st,” he said casually, a proud smile tugging at his scarred face. “Hana, my daughter. Graduated early, top marks in defensive formations. They say her fire is fast. Too fast sometimes. Gets that from her mother, I think.”

Kaida had looked up from the pile of curtains she was folding. She said nothing, but her expression visibly darkened. She nodded, polite and quiet.

“My…my brother had also been in the military.” She says quietly. 

Chit Sang, sensing that it was a sensitive topic, tried to think of another thing to talk about. Perhaps a funny anecdote to lighten the mood. But before he could even open his mouth, Kaida continued. 

“I don’t want to dampen your pride, nor do I want to give you unnecessary worry, but please tell your daughter to be careful. That it’s okay to run away if it means saving herself.” 

Chit Sang disagrees with her sentiments. To run away during battle? That is the most ridiculous thing he’s heard, but Kaida looks serious and so he asks, “What do you mean?” 

The young maid moves closer to Chit Sang and whispers, “My brother’s division, the 30th, was used as bait to capture a stronghold. Bujing’s bright plan apparently.” 

She says something else, but he doesn’t remember it clearly. All he can remember is that after she said those words, his mind went blank. 

Sent to the front lines near a supposedly minor Earth Kingdom island. The 30th wasn’t meant to win that battle, they were meant to lose just loud enough to wake the Earth Kingdom forces. To draw them out. To be bait.

When Chit Sang heard, he couldn’t stop thinking about the 41st Division. 

That was Hana’s division. His daughter. Barely seventeen. Just out of the academy, her flame still wild and full of heart. She’d hugged him before deployment, smiling like she wasn’t afraid. He hadn’t asked questions then, not wanting to plant fear in her. But after hearing what happened to the 30th division...

His stomach had been in knots ever since.

And then came the Agni Kai.

He hadn’t been inside the war chamber, it wasn’t his place. But Kaida found him in the laundry corridor during midday shift, pale and shaking.

“He— Prince Zuko— he spoke up. In the meeting,” she whispered. “Said something about a plan, just like the one before. Just like Akio’s division— ”

Chit Sang's blood ran cold. Kaida looked distraught, she looked like she was about to break down right there and then. 

“He tried to stop it?” he asked.

Kaida nodded once. “He told them not to go through with it.”

He could see her trembling and wanted to comfort her. Get her away from the corridor, offer her a glass of water, and a quiet place to sit. But before he could take a step, Kaida grabbed his arm in a vise-like grip.

“Chit Sang—” she choked out, her voice shaking with panic. “They’re sending the 41st.”

For a moment, everything inside him stopped. The noise of the corridor dulled, the hum of distant pipes disappeared, and even the heat of the laundry room seemed to fade.

The 41st. That was his daughter’s division.

His legs nearly gave out. A ringing filled his ears as if he’d been struck, and his hand instinctively reached for the wall to steady himself. His breath caught in his throat. He tried to speak, but no words came. Only a sharp, shuddering exhale.

“No,” he managed at last, voice cracking.

That was all he managed to say before they were interrupted by footsteps.

Chit Sang didn’t know what to do.

His body moved before his mind could catch up, half-turning as if to run, but stopping short each time. He wanted to go to his daughter, to find her, to do something, anything! But he didn’t even know where she was. 

He wanted to go home, to tell his wife, to hold her, but the palace was sure to be on lockdown because of this.  

Even if he could send a letter, where would he send it? He had no idea where the 41st had been stationed last and no forwarding address. Just a name on a roster and a hollow ache in his chest.

He felt utterly powerless, like he was watching a fire consume everything he loved and couldn’t lift a finger to stop it.

Later, Chit Sang would learn more from whispers and secondhand retellings: Prince Zuko, just thirteen, had spoken out against General Bujing’s plan to use the 41st division as bait. The same tactic that cost the 30th their lives. The boy had called it dishonorable.

But it was what came after that that made Chit Sang's anger burn like hellfire.

An Agni Kai. Not against that bastard Bujing, but against the Fire Lord himself.

Everyone knew it was a warning. Speak out, and you’ll burn.

He hadn’t seen it happen, but the sound—the scream—echoed through the halls like a war drum. Sharp and unending.

It didn’t sound like royalty. It didn’t sound like treason.

It sounded like a child.

Afterward, the palace quieted. Unnaturally so.

Prince Zuko had been dragged out of the arena, half his face scorched, unconscious. There were whispers that Ozai held him down during the burn. That no healer was called. That they dumped him onto a ship like a sack of broken bones and sent him off with a mission no one had completed in a hundred years.

“Find the Avatar,” they said. “Redeem yourself.”

And the public announcement? A flaming pile of bullshit.

“Prince Zuko proposed a dishonorable strategy that would endanger Fire Nation troops. When challenged, he refused the Agni Kai. He has been banished for his dishonor.”

Chit Sang nearly spat when he heard it.

They were painting Zuko as the villain for daring to defend boys and girls who hadn’t even tasted real war yet. And now his dear Hana was as good as dead, and for what? Land? Power? Nothing could ever be worth his daughter’s life.

He saw Kaida again the day after the announcement. 

They didn’t speak at first. Just stood near the back garden wall, staring at the horizon. The ship carrying the prince was long gone by then.

“I heard from one of the messengers. General Buijing’s pushing forward with the plan,” she murmured.

Chit Sang said nothing, but the heat building in his chest could’ve split stone.

Zuko had tried to stop it. He had tried to save his daughter, and the Fire Nation burned him for it.

He didn’t care anymore. His daughter was being sent to her death, and there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even leave this damned palace because he still had a family to feed. He tries not to think about Hana too much because he doesn’t know what he’d do. He was so angry. So helpless.

Chit Sang didn’t even remember standing up.

It started in the guard barracks. Someone made a joke, called the prince weak. A coward. Said he should’ve taken the Agni Kai like a man if he wanted to play politics with the generals, and that it served him right.

He remembered the heat in his face. The way the blood pounded in his ears. The slam of his fist against the table. The way his voice cracked when he said,

“He was thirteen.” Chit Sang said, making sure to stare directly at the bastard who made that stupid joke. “He was thirteen and he stood up to protect our soldiers, and he was punished for it.”

He continued before he could even stop himself. 

“I would follow that boy into war before I followed any of those cowards in that war room.”

Silence followed.

The kind that carries weight. The kind that gets reported.

No one said anything then. But the next day, he was reassigned. Not to his usual rotation near the palace gates, but to inventory duty in a supply shed on the edge of the compound.

The day after that, they came for him. Two soldiers in black and red. 

He didn’t even resist. What would’ve been the point? All he could do was pray to Agni to keep his family safe and fed. To keep them warm when they mourn not just Hana, but him as well. 

Kaida likely found out that he'd be arrested. He knew she did because the day before his arrest, she left a bundle in the laundry room. Some dried pork, a pouch of tea leaves, and a handkerchief folded over a note. It said: I’ll keep speaking. Stay alive.

His arrest was buried, of course, very on brand for them. 

He was apparently “transferred,” that was the word they used. Just like they “banished” Prince Zuko. Just like they “redeemed” the loss of the 30th with some twisted speech about sacrifice and honor.

Chit Sang didn’t get a trial because there was nothing to charge him for, nor did they need one to make him vanish. They just loaded him onto a transport and flew north.

Boiling Rock.

That was the end of his career, of his family, and of everything he thought he’d built.

He never got to say goodbye to Hana. Not even a letter. 

One day, she was just his little girl, and the next, she was a name on a division list, and he was in chains. He didn’t even know if she would still be alive by the time he arrived at the prison. The not knowing was the part that hollowed him out. Ate at him in the quietest moments.

He didn’t get to say goodbye to his wife either. Or his mother. Back at the village, they'd probably heard stories, or maybe they hadn’t heard anything at all. Maybe they still held out hope, still waited for him to send a letter or to come back through the door. But he wouldn’t. 

The first night in the Boiling Rock, he lay awake listening to the hiss of steam and the hum of molten metal beneath the prison floor. There were no windows, just heat and stone and silence.

He made a vow then, whispered to himself through gritted teeth. If he ever made it out of this place, he would find the young prince, and Chit Sang would stand by him.

Just as he did in that Agni-forsaken palace. And he'd do it again if given the chance.

For now, though, all he could do was try his hardest to survive. 

In the Boiling Rock, words were currency and Chit Sang had plenty of them.

He kept his head down during the first few weeks. Learned the layout. Who ran the kitchens, who bribed the guards, who snapped too easily. He listened more than he spoke and watched more than he moved. But even here, behind steel and steam, there were people who wanted to know.

What’s happening outside?

What really happened to the prince?

So one night, over watery soup and the clink of metal bowls, he told the story to other prisoners for now. Quietly. He won't make the same mistakes twice. 

He told them about the war meeting. How Prince Zuko had stood when no one else would. How he questioned the sacrifice of loyal soldiers, including the 30th Division. How the Agni Kai wasn’t against some general, but his own father. The Fire Lord.

He told them everything he knew and heard. How the boy had begged, knelt, and screamed until he passed out with his face aflame.

He didn’t embellish. There wasn't a need for embellishment when the truth burned hotter than any fire he could conjure.

At first, they thought he was exaggerating. But when the same story came in whispers from other prisoners, from a former palace steward locked up for “theft” and a cook dismissed for “insubordination,” the doubt slowly faded.

They all knew how this nation worked.

You didn’t get sent to the Boiling Rock for nothing. And such petty crimes definitely won’t get you sent here either. You got sent here for saying the wrong something. 

And so Chit Sang kept telling it. A little here, a little there. A quiet word during chores. A whispered truth passed between bunks.

And the thing about fire? Even a small spark spreads fast.

Some of the older prisoners didn’t care. But the younger ones, the ones who’d joined the war effort wide-eyed and full of Fire Nation pride, they listened. Even some of the newer guards who had heard their whispers didn't punish them for their insolence; instead, they had listened in as well. 

They’ll remember the young prince even when they never knew him. They'll remember the boy who used to train until dusk, who used to visit villages and actually look at the people instead of through them.

Chit Sang will make sure they remember.

They were trying to erase him, after all. Smear him, forget him, burn him out of history.

But in the quiet corners of the prison, where the warden didn’t look too closely, Prince Zuko became something else. He became proof.

Proof that even in the heart of the Fire Nation, there were still people who cared.