The Fire Nation Prince

Chapter 15: The Fire Nation Prince

The wind had died.

Only the slow churn of seafoam filled the silence now. On the blackened coastline of Kyoshi's eastern ridge, two small groups stood across from one another, the rocks damp beneath their boots, the sun finally dead beyond the horizon. No moon had risen yet. Just the red glow of Zuko's engine ship behind him and the smoldering cigar in Captain Tsu's teeth.

The two sides stood in a loose crescent. Zuko, Jee, Rin, Lee, and Hinaro facing Tsu, Irah, the two brawlers, and the scrawny youth with blade-like shoulders and too-sharp eyes.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Tsu grinned.

"Nice place you've got here, Zuko. Quiet. Isolated. Pretty little beaches. Stone paths."

Zuko didn't blink. "You rowed into my territory uninvited. That doesn't entitle you to compliments."

Tsu chuckled, deep and gravel-rich. "Just making conversation. Never know how long these things are gonna take."

"Then get to it."

Tsu stepped forward, boots crunching over seaweed and grit. "Alright, fine. Straight talk it is." He turned, slowly pacing in a wide arc.

"I was out east a few weeks ago. Picking through some forgotten coastline village no one cares about. Good raid. Light resistance. Got me a few maps, some brandy, a Fire Nation steelbox, which you're welcome to try and steal back later, by the way, and a lot of rumors."

He gestured lazily at the island behind them. "Funny thing. None of those rumors mentioned anything about Kyoshi Island being under new management."

Zuko remained still.

Tsu grinned again. "Not Fire Nation management. No no. You. Prince Zuko. The exile. The failure. The golden son who got his nose broken and now comes back swinging like a politician with a sword."

Jee's fingers tightened at his sides. Rin didn't flinch.

Zuko didn't smile. "That's a bold accusation."

Tsu raised a brow. "Is it?"

He turned his head. "Rat."

The thin youth stepped forward, nearly tripping over his own feet, but catching balance with an unnatural smoothness. His eyes scanned the group with quick, birdlike flicks. When he spoke, his voice was reedy but confident.

"Hall of Clouds. Two nights of preparation into one hour of rushed weddings. Five arranged marriages. No public registry. All records destroyed before the feast."

He turned to Zuko directly now. "Your soldiers bowed before the ceremony. So did the villagers. They called you Prince. Not guest. Not lord. Prince. In the shrine square."

Tsu looked back at Zuko, grin returning.

"You wanna keep playing dumb?"

Zuko exhaled slowly. His hands remained folded behind his back. "You went through a lot of trouble to confirm what you already knew."

"Gotta be sure before you play with fire." Tsu took another drag of the cigar. "So go ahead, Your Highness. Drop the mask. You're not hiding anything now."

A pause.

Then Zuko stepped forward, just a little.

His eyes were dark. Not angry, cold. Measured.

"Fine."

He looked at the island for a long moment, then back to the pirates.

"Yes, I took the island. It's mine. Not under the Fire Lord's command. Not under any court or colonial wing. Not even my uncle knows."

Hinaro twitched behind him.

Zuko kept going.

"These people?" He gestured with his chin toward the distant treeline and the village hidden beyond it. "They're pawns. Stubborn. Weak. Compliant when threatened, loud when ignored. But they follow orders."

He glanced over his shoulder briefly, just long enough for Hinaro to see the calculation in his eyes.

"I'll breed their culture into something loyal. In two generations, there won't be a Kyoshi Warrior who doesn't carry fire in her veins. Their traditions? Their sacred shrines? I'll repaint them red."

Hinaro took a step forward.

Jee noticed. Rin tensed.

Zuko didn't turn. "They bow to me because they're too broken to stand. They married into me because I gave them something better than dying in a street. And they'll stay mine, until I burn the name Kyoshi off their tongues and they only say mine."

"Zuko…" Hinaro whispered, breath caught between fury and disbelief.

But before she could take a full step…

"No."

Lee's voice, close and sharp. He had stepped closer to her, hand discreetly brushing hers, just once. Not in comfort. In signal.

"Do not speak. Not now."

Her jaw trembled.

But she stopped.

Zuko didn't glance back.

Tsu clapped once, loud and slow.

"Well, damn. You finally stopped pretending."

Zuko gave him nothing.

Tsu exhaled smoke, then turned his head toward his crew.

"So here's where we are. You've got an island. You've got yourself a bunch of ceremonial wives, some bruised villagers, and a few officers playing house."

He stepped forward now, toe-to-toe with Zuko.

"You also have a secret. A very, very expensive secret. And secrets, Zuko…"

He smiled wide.

"...are currency."

Zuko's eyes narrowed. "Name your price."

"Coin, of course," Tsu began. "Access to the docks. Silence bought in gold. Maybe passage rights. I'll even throw in a trade agreement."

Then he glanced past Zuko, right at Hinaro.

"And one of the girls."

The beach went still.

Zuko didn't blink. "Excuse me?"

Tsu shrugged. "One of the Kyoshi Warriors. Doesn't matter which. Maybe her." He nodded directly toward Hinaro.

"She looks fiery."

Lee stepped forward half a pace. Rin tensed. Jee's hand twitched near his belt.

Zuko said nothing.

Hinaro didn't breathe.

Tsu grinned again. "Relax. I'm not asking for marriage. Just a gift. A gesture of goodwill. Your little colony pays tribute, your secret stays buried."

Lee spoke, calm but sharp. "You mean ransom."

"Call it a cultural exchange," Tsu said.

Irah shifted, speaking for the first time. His voice was low, polished. "Tsu doesn't take anything for free. He likes balance."

Rin scoffed. "Yeah? And what do you offer in return?"

Tsu turned back to Zuko. "You know the sea, kid. Rumors travel faster than fleets. My silence is the only thing keeping a dozen opportunists from smelling blood. You want to build something here?"

He leaned in closer, smoke curling between them.

"Then you'd better start paying your taxes."

Zuko's eyes flickered with something dangerous. Not rage.

Calculation.

He stepped back, slowly.

"No deal."

Tsu's brow twitched. "Didn't say it was negotiable."

Zuko's voice cut low and sharp. "I didn't say it was either."

They stared at one another across the cold black stone, the wind finally stirring again.

Tsu took another drag of his cigar, exhaled it toward the sand, and grinned wide.

"Well," he said, "looks like we've got ourselves a standoff."

The silence that followed Tsu's last sentence was sharp enough to slice the wind.

But Zuko's voice, calm and cold, cut it cleaner.

"This isn't a standoff."

The waves rolled lazily against the black rocks. The red glow from the metal ship's smokestack pulsed gently behind the prince, casting his outline in flickers of molten gold.

"I was considering your offer, Captain. Weighed it. Balanced it in my head."

Zuko took a slow step forward, his boots crunching the loose gravel beneath him. Tsu didn't flinch, yet.

"I thought, maybe. Maybe giving you one Kyoshi warrior wouldn't break the spine of what I'm building here. Maybe it would buy me time."

Another step.

"But then I thought again."

Zuko now stood barely three strides from Captain Tsu. His voice sharpened with each word, not louder, but honed like a drawn blade.

"Why should I? Why should I bow to an old legend? A man with a ship and some sea-worn monsters? This waters may have been yours once… but not anymore."

The wind shifted. A dry heat began to rise from the rocks around them.

"You should have stayed away, Tsu."

Zuko took the final step.

And now he stood before the towering pirate captain, a prince staring up into the weather-worn face of a man who had ruled the coastlines of the Eastern Sea for decades.

They were inches apart.

Zuko's voice dropped to a near whisper, but it carried.

"You shouldn't have come here."

Tsu's nostrils flared. His lips parted into a grin that wasn't a grin at all. "Is that a threat?"

Zuko's answer came low and dry.

"It ain't a damn party invitation."

The tension in the air twisted like a taut rope.

Then, Zuko's gaze sharpened, his brow lowered, and with absolute clarity he said:

"Kneel."

The word rang out like a lightning strike.

Jee's eyes widened. Rin's mouth parted.

Even Lee froze.

Captain Tsu tilted his head slowly, like a beast regarding something small and foolish.

"I kneel to no man," he growled.

"Neither does he," said Irah, stepping forward.

"Or me," added the rat, his voice twitchy with forced bravado. "We don't kneel. Not to kings. Not to gods."

Zuko's tone didn't shift.

"Kneel."

And then, the air changed.

It didn't just heat, it pressurized.

The rocks beneath their feet began to radiate warmth. The mist from the tide hissed as it touched the stones. The tension wasn't metaphor anymore.

It was fire.

Tsu's grin faltered.

Then, with a blur of motion, he drew his saber.

The curved blade came up fast and stopped dead at Zuko's throat, the tip glinting in the fading light.

But Zuko didn't flinch.

He didn't breathe.

He didn't blink.

He just stared.

Eyes locked on Tsu. A stare full of weight and death and disdain.

"What say you now, boy?" Tsu sneered, inches from his target.

Zuko said nothing.

His right hand came up slowly, with eerie control.

And then, he touched the flat of the saber.

A hiss. A shiver.

Then a crackling sound, like metal groaning under the weight of its own pain.

The saber began to glow.

Not orange. Not red.

White.

The steel beneath Zuko's fingers blistered, warping in shape. The air sizzled. The smell of burnt oil and something worse, flesh, drifted into the air.

Tsu gritted his teeth. A thin hiss of pain slipped out between them.

Irah took a step forward. Slowly. Controlled. His hand brushed the edge of his sword.

Zuko turned his head just slightly.

That was all.

Just a glance.

And Irah stopped.

Behind Zuko, Jee lifted his right hand, a flame roaring to life in his palm.

Rin mirrored the motion on the left, a spinning disc of fire already dancing across his knuckles.

Even Lee, reserved and controlled, had ignited a thin arc of fire along his fingertips, his expression grim, no longer calculating, committed.

Across the rocks, the two pirate brutes drew their axes, teeth bared. The rat crouched low, two curved daggers glinting in either hand, his breath sharp and eager.

No one moved yet.

But the heat was rising fast.

Tsu's blade trembled in his grip, glowing now from hilt to tip. His skin hissed against the handle. Still, he did not back away.

And then, a whisper from Irah.

"...Oh shit."

Tsu's eyes didn't move. "What?"

"Look at the sky."

Everyone looked up.

Except Zuko.

The sky above was darkened from the west. The moon still hadn't risen.

But there, hovering just above the ocean, a few meters behind Zuko's head…

…was a massive sphere of fire.

Five meters wide.

It hovered like a second sun, perfectly still, its outer edges roiling with heatwaves, pulsing in slow, terrifying rhythm. It gave no sound, but it didn't need to. Its existence burned the air around it.

Even the pirates stopped breathing.

Even the sea was quiet.

Zuko's face didn't change.

He was still staring at Tsu. Still unmoved. Still holding the burning saber, even as smoke now curled from the captain's hands.

The realization came slow, but it came.

Tsu looked down.

Then back up.

And it sank in.

This fire, this sun, was not a trick. Not a signal. Not a prepared scroll trap.

It was him.

Zuko.

Zuko, who had said nothing.

Who hadn't even looked up.

Who had raised the sky without moving a muscle.

Tsu's throat moved. He didn't speak.

And then…

"Kneel."

Zuko said it once more.

The air boiled.

The stones cracked.

And the world held its breath.

[A/N: Read 15 to 20 chapters ahead available right now on patreon.com/saiyanprincenovels.com.]