Chapter 26: Under the Same Flame
Evening fell with a heavy silence over Nan-Hai.
The chaos of the day had softened into something almost… structured. The burning smell that had haunted the harbor for days had faded beneath the salt of the sea breeze. Fresh torches lined the outpost's pathways, their flames dancing across repaired scaffolding and open stonework.
Inside the main dining hall, the clatter of bowls and quiet laughter of weary soldiers gave the place a false warmth. The room was long, built with function in mind, not comfort, sturdy walls, no decor, and wooden rafters blackened from years of oil lamp soot. A line of war maps hung at the far end near the elevated table where senior officers gathered.
Zuko sat at the center, a bandage peeking beneath his collar, his hair tied back in a loose knot, the shadows under his eyes darker than usual. Beside him sat Commander Donji, back straight, face stony, his armor half-unbuckled at the chest. Sergeant Rin nursed a ceramic flask of bitter leaf tea, already three sips in.
Around them, a few lower-ranking officers filled seats at either side of the hall, each engaged in their own muted conversations.
"The grain reserves should last us now," Donji said, tapping the edge of his plate with a pair of lacquered chopsticks. "With the Princess's supply ship unloaded, we'll be able to minimize rationing for at least a fortnight."
"More than enough time to plan a counterstrike," Rin muttered. "Assuming Fong doesn't decide to start flinging boulders again tomorrow."
"He won't," Zuko said, his voice low. "He's regrouping. Pulling resources. Now that he's sent for reinforcements, he'll wait."
Donji nodded. "If King Bumi gets involved, though…"
"He will," Zuko cut in. "We have to assume he already has."
"And now the Avatar's with them," Rin added. "He's not just a wildcard anymore."
Zuko was silent a moment, swirling the broth in his bowl.
"Nan-Hai isn't just a staging ground anymore," he said finally. "It's become a front. If we lose this province, we lose the southeast coast and access to the lower Earth Kingdom territories."
Donji leaned back, arms crossed. "If we win, though…"
Zuko's eyes flickered. "Then this becomes the proving ground for who controls the direction of this war."
The conversation paused as the dining hall door opened again.
The quiet murmurs of the room shifted. Heads turned.
Princess Azula entered.
She moved with her usual grace, gliding between tables without a single step out of rhythm. Her coat was formal, though looser than before. Her golden eyes gleamed beneath the warm torchlight. Behind her trailed Ty Lee, her pink uniform spotless, and Mai, silent as a shadow, eyes already half-lidded with boredom.
Every soldier they passed stood instinctively. Not out of duty. Out of reflex.
Azula's gaze swept the room until it landed at the long table and the empty seat beside her brother.
Zuko didn't stand. He simply nodded.
"Princess."
"Prince," she answered coolly, as she slipped into the chair beside him.
Ty Lee and Mai peeled off wordlessly, taking up two open seats further down the table near the officers, where conversation dulled instantly out of respect and subtle fear.
Donji offered a formal bow from where he sat. "Your Highness. Welcome. I wish we could have received you under… better circumstances."
Azula smiled faintly, her voice smooth. "It's alright, Commander. War never lends itself to beauty. But chaos, after all, has its uses."
Zuko's fingers tightened slightly around his tea cup.
Donji, to his credit, only nodded. "I trust your quarters are adequate?"
Azula offered a breath of a laugh. "Let's just say they're not quite fit for a princess… but we'll survive."
Rin hid a smirk behind his cup.
"The structural integrity is functional," Lee's voice rang out from down the table, he'd just joined. "According to quartermaster logs, the suites were refurbished only last month. The floors are lacquered red cedar, and I oversaw the bedding request myself."
Azula glanced toward him, blinking once.
"You oversaw it personally?" she asked, voice lilting.
Lee didn't notice the tone. "Of course. As per the Prince's directives, among my many duties I serve in a logistical capacity as well as a field coordination role."
"Remarkable," Azula said, turning back toward her brother with amusement in her voice. "Where do you find them?"
"Libraries," Zuko muttered.
Rin chuckled into his drink.
Ty Lee laughed across the table, waving at Lee.
"You're adorable, you know that?"
Lee tilted his head. "Thank you?"
Azula returned her attention to the meal as the first of the warm dishes were brought forward by the quartermaster's staff. Braised eel, fermented cabbage rolls, and wild rice steamed from iron trays. The scent of sesame oil filled the air.
As bowls were filled, the conversation shifted again.
Donji leaned slightly toward Zuko. "We've confirmed small Earth Kingdom skirmish camps being assembled along the northern ridgeline. Scouts say they're staying out of artillery range, but they're watching us."
"Let them," Zuko said. "We'll return the favor."
Azula toyed with her rice for a moment before speaking.
"You'll be launching a counter-offensive soon, I assume?"
Zuko didn't answer right away.
He chewed.
Swallowed.
Then glanced at her.
"Yes."
"Good," Azula said softly. "I came here expecting things to move quickly. I'd hate to be disappointed."
Rin leaned in. "You may get your wish your highness."
Azula smiled.
But beneath the table, her fingers drummed lightly against the lacquered wood, perfect rhythm, perfect calm, hiding the gears already turning in her mind.
So this was the stage.
And all the pieces were now in place.
The clatter of bowls and cutlery had dulled to a low murmur, the communal dining hall now thick with the warmth of fire-lit shadows and the unspoken weariness of officers who'd seen too much in too little time.
The lull didn't last.
Azula tilted her head, her gold eyes locked on her brother.
"So, dear brother…" she began smoothly, letting her voice cut through the background hum like a drawn dagger, "What was in the message you received that night?"
Zuko didn't look at her right away. He kept his gaze on the rising steam of his soup.
"What message?" he asked flatly.
"The one you burned," Azula said, her smile razor-thin. "The one delivered just before you left the Capital in the dead of night."
Zuko's jaw didn't clench. His face didn't flinch. But he set his chopsticks down, slowly, purposefully.
"I receive many messages."
Azula leaned in, voice velvet. "Do you burn them all in front of Iroh and storm off without alerting your guards?"
The table tensed. A few of the other soldiers nearby exchanged subtle glances before wisely returning to their food.
Zuko gave a small shrug.
"There was a situation in Tutanaki," he said simply. "A matter left unresolved from my time in exile."
Donji looked up. Even he hadn't heard this version yet.
Rin said nothing.
Azula's tone dipped into mock sympathy. "Oh, how quaint. A sudden emergency in… what was it?" Her eyes gleamed. "Ah yes, Tutanaki, wasn't it? That charming little moldy corner of the world."
"I had supplies stored there," Zuko said, lifting his cup and taking a long, slow sip. "Salvaged weapons. Communications equipment. Powder stores buried in a cliff vault. We didn't have time to send formal dispatches."
Azula leaned back in her chair, eyebrows raised with dramatic amusement. "Mm. How convenient."
Zuko didn't blink.
She pressed on, her voice sharpening with each word.
"Father was furious. He said you humiliated him before the entire war council. Said you disappeared like a petty thief in the night."
"I had orders to secure Nan-Hai," Zuko replied calmly. "The province was under imminent threat. I acted accordingly."
"Then why the detour?" Azula's voice darkened. "Why vanish for four days before arriving here?"
Zuko turned his head slightly, eyes finally meeting hers.
"My decisions are my own," he said, voice low, resolute. "And if Father has questions, he can ask me himself."
Azula's smile returned. But now it was thin. Cold. Controlled.
"Just try to come up with better lies when he does," she said softly. "Because that one?" She tapped the table once with her finger. "That one's pathetic."
The silence hung long enough to make the stew in their bowls grow cold.
Then, mercifully, Rin cleared his throat, breaking the spell.
"We've received confirmation that the Avatar has been seen in Omashu," he said, directing the room's energy away from the siblings. "Traveling with two companions. Likely arrived only yesterday."
Azula sat back, visibly relaxing into her new angle.
"Well, well… the boy lives."
"We never confirmed his death," Rin said. "Only Commander Zhao's incompetence."
Zuko's eyes narrowed. "The Avatar is being protected by King Bumi."
Azula raised an eyebrow. "The old madman?"
"He's more than that," Zuko said, tone firm. "He's an elite. One of the greatest earthbenders alive. Maybe the greatest."
Donji nodded in agreement. "He's been King of Omashu for nearly a century. They say he can bend entire causeways with one hand. He personally destroyed three Fire Nation siege engines during the First Campaign alone."
"He survived the White Dagger Rebellion," Lee added quietly. "That wasn't even a war. That was a purge."
Azula laughed once, sharp and dismissive. "He's a crazy old man who talks to rocks. Don't glorify his tantrums."
Zuko set his cup down.
"I'm not glorifying him," he said. "I'm respecting the danger. The same way I'd respect stepping into a wildfire or challenging Uncle Iroh or father in a duel."
Azula's stare held him for a long moment.
"You're afraid," she said.
Zuko didn't rise to the bait.
"I'm cautious."
"No," Azula said, her voice now carrying an edge. "You're backing away from the deal."
The words dropped like coals on dry wood.
Donji's brows creased. Rin blinked once. But no one dared ask what that "deal" meant.
Zuko didn't deny it.
"I remember the agreement," he said, voice low. "And I plan to honor it. But I'm not going to march into Omashu with a half-healed ribcage and pick a fight with a man who could bury us all in a landslide."
Azula studied him.
Her eyes flicked to his collar, where the bruises from Fong's assault still peeked through.
She smiled again. "Of course. Let's be smart, then. Let's be strategic."
But in her head, a different thought burned:
You're slipping, Zuzu. And I will be the one to catch your fall and push you over the edge.
---
A little later, after dinner. The room was dim.
The oil lamp on the corner desk flickered gently, casting its warm glow over sprawled scrolls and charcoal parchment, each page filled not with orders or tactics, but lines curved, precise, mathematical.
Zuko sat hunched over the desk, his robe loosened, one arm gently resting across his wrapped ribs, the pain dulled but ever present. His brush glided in smooth, deliberate movements, strokes refined by habit rather than need.
He wasn't writing a speech.
He wasn't charting a battle.
He was listing equations.
One after another.
The quadratic equation formula. Sharp symmetry stretching across a clean row.
A few inches below, the nth term formula for arithmetic sequences. Then the sum formula. Then the geometric sequence structure, variables aligned like ancient poetry in Fire Nation glyphs.
On the next scroll: the cosine rule, written twice, as if verifying itself.
None of this had anything to do with Nan-Hai. Or Fong. Or Azula.
This was... him.
Back when he was Victor Krane, slouched on a desk with a notebook open, battered Casio calculator nearby, chewing the back of a pen cap as the ceiling fan spun above.
He used to do this when things got difficult. Not because it solved anything. He wasn't some super genius with a calculator for a mind but it soothed him. Distracted him from all the troubles that would be going on in his life.
But because math didn't lie.
It didn't play politics.
It didn't bleed or betray.
The numbers were what they were. Beautiful in their truth. Elegant in their cold order.
Now, with half the province on fire and a dozen lies between him and every person he trusted, it was the closest thing to peace he had left.
He dipped the brush again.
Wrote it out…
Then repeated it in Fire Nation script.
He frowned.
This one… doesn't feel right anymore.
His fingers flexed. The pain in his ribs flared. He leaned back with a soft exhale and looked at what he'd written.
'Back home,' he thought, 'I used to need the book to give me problems. I couldn't trust my mind to make up something I didn't already know how to solve.'
Now… it was worse. He knew too much. His memories overlapped like waves crashing into one another. Earth and Fire, past and present.
The numbers blurred.
The parchment wrinkled under his fingertips.
And then…
A knock.
Not loud.
Not urgent.
But clear.
He blinked. His hand slowly went to his side as he stood wincing slightly at the pull in his ribs. He pulled his robe tighter and crossed to the door.
With one hand braced against the frame, he opened it.
Standing there was Hinaro.
She wasn't in armor.
Nor was she in her Kyoshi uniform.
Just a deep red wrap over her shoulders, her hair slightly windblown from the harbor breeze.
Her arms were folded. But there was no hostility in her stance. Not tonight.
Zuko stared at her a moment, wary.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice more tired than sharp.
She met his gaze. Calm. Focused.
"I think," she said, "it's time we spoke honestly."
The oil lamp behind him flickered.
The numbers on the page waited.
Zuko stepped aside.
Said nothing.
And let her in.
[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.]