The Fire Nation Prince

Chapter 16: Ash and Authority

The world didn't breathe.

The fireball still hovered, a miniature sun, five meters wide, pulsing in the sky like a wrathful omen, casting long, flickering shadows across the blackened coastline. The heat it gave off had no wind to disperse it. The rocks beneath their boots steamed. The ocean hissed and recoiled. Even the scent in the air had changed, iron and salt, blood and scorched leather.

And at the center of it all, Zuko and Captain Tsu, their hands locked on the glowing saber, neither man yielding.

Zuko's palm still pressed flat against the flat of the blade, his skin smoking, the metal pulsing with raw heat. It had begun to glow white, trembling faintly, warping under pressure.

Tsu's knuckles bulged, the leather grip fusing into the skin of his fingers. Pain lanced through his palm and up his forearm. He could feel it. Muscle tightening. Bone heating. Tendons beginning to scream. The saber was turning against him.

But he would not let go.

Not yet.

He stared down at the prince, sweat starting to bead at his brow despite the sea-chill clinging to his back.

Zuko did not flinch. Did not sweat. Did not blink.

Just stared.

The silence stretched again.

The heat wrapped tighter.

In the corner of his mind, Zuko could feel it: the stillness of the moment, the memory of his uncle's voice, "The moment before a flame is not silence, it's decision."

This was his moment.

He wasn't pretending anymore.

He wasn't asking.

He was declaring.

In his mind, Tsu's thoughts twisted.

What the hell are you, boy? That ain't normal fire… That's bending fed by something deeper. Rage? No. Not rage. Focus. Like you've already accepted burning with the world.

His mouth was dry.

Every breath scalded the back of his throat.

He could feel the saber hissing at his grip, the sizzle of flesh fusing with steel.

But he still didn't pull away.

He had bent to no man in thirty years. He had held the Southern Strait against three fleets. He had slit the throat of his own lieutenant for bowing to a governor once.

You kneel now and you'll never stand again.

But still.

The weight in the air was undeniable. The fire in the sky wasn't just heat.

It was presence.

It was a claim.

The kind you couldn't ignore. The kind that wasn't asking your permission.

He's not bluffing.

Behind him, he could sense his crew shifting, Irah still stone-faced, but watching. Watching Zuko, not him.

That stung more than the saber hilt.

Tsu's jaw clenched harder. His voice came low, gravel grinding under pressure.

"...You've made your point."

He took a step back.

Zuko let go of the saber.

The moment he did, Tsu dropped it.

The blade clattered to the rocks, half-melted, the grip scorched and smoking. The wrapped leather had seared into the imprint of Tsu's fingers.

He stared at it. A weapon no longer. Just… wreckage.

Zuko still hadn't looked away.

He didn't move when Tsu pulled his hand back, flexing it slightly. The skin across his palm had blistered, red and raw. Every flex sent fresh flashes of agony up his wrist, but he held his expression flat.

"I don't kneel." Tsu said it low, through clenched teeth.

Zuko didn't reply at first.

Then:

"Then leave."

Tsu looked up. "What?"

Zuko's voice didn't waver. "Leave my island. Take your crew. Take your ship. If I see you here again, you burn."

He turned away. Not fast. Not arrogantly.

But with absolute confidence, as though the conversation was over. Because, in his eyes, it was.

That almost enraged Tsu more than anything else.

But then he looked at his hand again. At the saber. At the fireball still hovering in the sky, flickering like a god's unblinking eye.

It still hadn't dissipated.

Still hadn't cooled.

Still hadn't needed his attention to stay alive.

That… terrified him.

No bending master he'd seen, not in the Earth Kingdom, not among the pirates, not even the Dai Li, had ever maintained an expressionless posture with a weapon like that hovering overhead.

Zuko had made a second sun, and then ignored it.

He heard Irah step closer behind him.

Tsu didn't turn.

Irah's voice came low. Barely audible. "He's not who he used to be."

Tsu grunted. "No. He's worse."

There was a long pause.

And then, from behind them, a shift.

Jee stepped forward, dropping the flame in his palm but keeping his eyes sharp. "You came here wanting to test him. Now you know."

Lee, beside him, hadn't moved since Zuko's command. But now, he spoke quietly: "We could end this now, Captain. But the cost would not be in gold."

Rin gave a shrug, heat still dancing along his knuckles. "Frankly, I was hoping you'd swing again. Haven't had a workout since the last pirate decided he had balls."

The rat licked his lips, but didn't speak. Even he knew the temperature had changed.

Only Hinaro looked ready to burst. Her fingers were white around her sash, her jaw trembling with the effort of silence. Her eyes were locked on Zuko's back. She wasn't looking at him in awe.

She was looking at him like he'd betrayed something sacred.

But she said nothing.

Lee's hand rested just against hers. Not tightly. Just a reminder.

They were still at war.

Even if no one had moved.

Tsu bent down, retrieved the smoking hilt of his saber with his uninjured hand, and slung it across his back without a word.

The pain in his palm was bad.

But the pain in his pride was worse.

Still… it wasn't time yet.

He turned to Zuko's back and let out one last cloud of smoke.

"I'll leave. This once."

He stepped back toward the small boat.

"But know this, Zuko, you may have the heat…"

He looked to the sky, where the fireball still hung like a suspended threat.

"...but fire burns out. Eventually. When it does, we will be there. I will show you just who I really am."

Zuko said nothing.

Tsu climbed into the boat.

Irah followed silently.

The rat gave one last side-glance at the prince, then the warrior girl, then boarded.

The two brutes hauled the boat back into deeper water. The oars dipped in.

And slowly, they drifted back into the dark.

The moment the paddleboat was gone past the first tidebreak, Zuko finally moved.

His hand lifted toward the sky.

He closed his fist.

The fireball above flickered…

…and vanished.

The heat remained for a few seconds.

Then came the cold.

The real cold.

The kind that settled in after something ancient had passed.

Jee exhaled first, long and ragged. "Spirits above…"

Rin stretched his neck. "My back is killing me. You know how hard it is to stay coiled in a fighting stance for that long?"

Lee, ever composed, nodded once. "That was… sufficient display of deterrence."

Zuko said nothing.

Then he turned, finally, to face them all.

And he looked at Hinaro.

She didn't flinch.

But her expression hadn't softened.

And her eyes still burned with something other than awe.

Zuko didn't explain himself.

Not yet.

He simply said:

"Let's go."

The heat was gone.

But it hadn't taken the pressure with it.

The five of them moved slowly across the black sand, climbing the path that led up toward the cliffs that overlooked the eastern inlet. Wind curled in now where fire had once ruled, and the silence between them was brittle, the kind of silence that knew it wouldn't survive the next minute.

Zuko walked ahead. Alone. His back straight, his hands behind him. The air around him no longer glowed, but something deeper clung to his shoulders, a gravity, a presence, a weight that had no shape but dragged behind him like a shadow too large to belong to one man.

Jee, Rin, and Lee hung a few paces back, exchanging glances but offering no words. Hinaro had walked in silence since they left the beach. Her posture was stiff, breathing shallow, the fire in her chest climbing steadily toward her throat.

And finally, when the trees returned around them, and they were alone beneath the canopy of pine and fern…

She snapped.

"What the hell was that?"

Zuko didn't stop.

She pushed forward. "You said all that back there like it meant nothing. You called us pawns. Tools. You said you'd erase our name. That we'd be yours. That you'd make Kyoshi bleed Fire."

Still he didn't stop.

"Do you believe that?" she hissed. "Do you actually think that? Or did you just say it to flex your little prince muscles?"

Zuko's foot caught a root. He stepped over it cleanly. "Not now."

"No, now." Hinaro moved beside him, stepped in front of him. Forced him to stop. "You don't get to act like that and then walk away like a damn ghost."

Zuko stared at her. His eyes weren't hot anymore. Just tired. Still.

"Move."

"Answer me first."

He didn't.

So she kept going.

"Is that what we are to you? All of us? The warriors, the villagers, Suki, me? Just pieces in a puzzle you get to reshape into a crown for yourself?"

The wind picked up through the trees. It smelled of pine sap and distant smoke.

Zuko sighed once through his nose, then looked away.

"It was a bluff."

She blinked.

"What?"

He finally looked back at her. "Most of it. Not all. Just enough."

"That's not…" she stammered, "you don't get to say things like that and brush it off as strategy!"

"I didn't brush it off."

"You didn't deny it either!"

Zuko stepped toward her, not fast. Not angry. Just closer.

"I said what I had to say. Because if I hadn't, he would have taken one of you. Or two. Or worse. He would have returned with more ships. You don't know what Tsu does. He doesn't raid for treasure. He raids for reminders."

His voice dropped. "So I became the reminder."

Hinaro's breath caught. Her heart was pounding in her chest and in her ears. Her fists clenched.

"But what if he believes it? What if they all believe it?"

Zuko didn't blink. "Then I'll make it true."

She reeled. "Are you listening to yourself?"

He took another step. Now he was close. Not close like Tsu, closer. No weapon between them. No fire. Just words.

His voice wasn't loud.

"Who's going to stop me?"

Hinaro stared at him.

Zuko kept going.

"Your Mayor? Already bowed."

"My Commander? Married."

"Your elders? They gave their daughters away like trade goods."

He leaned forward, just enough to lower his voice to a whisper only she could hear.

"You?"

She held her ground.

"I could burn this forest right now. I could call down another sun. And you know what? They'd call it a blessing."

Her lip curled. "Is that what this is to you? Power? Worship? Are you building a throne or a shrine?"

Zuko didn't smile. "Does it matter?"

"Yes," she hissed.

"Why?"

"Because if it doesn't, then you're not better than the monsters you pretend to protect us from."

That landed.

Not hard. Not like a blade.

But like a truth he wasn't prepared to carry yet.

His jaw worked once.

Then he stepped back.

Slightly.

Only slightly.

But enough.

He looked up through the trees. The stars had finally broken through. Scattered and cold.

"I don't want to be just a monster."

"Then stop playing one."

"I want to be the one monster, other monsters are afraid of..."

She blinked. "What the fuck!!?"

"Because monsters," he said, voice low and steady, "win."

They stood in silence again.

The trees watched them.

Finally, she stepped aside.

Zuko walked past.

He didn't apologize.

She didn't ask him to.

But her hands trembled as she let him go.

[A/N: Read 15 to 20 chapters ahead available right now on patreon.com/saiyanprincenovels.com. Please sent a powerstone, like and comment. It helps, and thank you for the support.]