Chapter 36: The Cold Above
Far to the north, beyond the jagged glacial cliffs and frostbitten waves of the Unalome Sea, there rose an ancient bastion of blue and white, the Northern Water Tribe. A city carved from ice and pride. Its walls, tall as mountains, shimmered with veins of moonlit crystal, wrapped in fortresses and tiered citadels carved from the frozen marrow of the North Pole itself.
Above it all stood the Royal Palace, towering like a sapphire flame into the arctic sky. Its domes were slick with frost, curling into spiraled minarets that caught the low polar sun and refracted its dying light into rainbows across the snowbound courtyards below.
Inside the palace, the air was cool but alive, pulsing with the rhythm of fountains that danced upward in narrow channels along the walls, powered not by machines, but by master waterbenders, ever graceful in their routines.
Within the royal chambers, a solitary canopy bed lay beneath translucent silk curtains, shivering slightly in the frigid draft.
Then…
A scream.
It tore through the silence like a spear through cloth.
Princess Yue shot upright from beneath her pale blue sheets, sweat trickling down her temple despite the biting cold. Her lungs gasped for breath, chest rising and falling like a tide caught in a storm. Her eyes were wide with the distant look of someone who had seen something no one should ever see.
Blood.
Fire.
Screams not of the throat, but of the soul.
Her hands trembled as they clutched the sheets, her white hair tangled and damp against her face.
A moment later, the ornate door burst open with the creak of aged hinges.
"Princess Yue!" came the familiar voice. "I heard you, are you alright?"
A tall, elderly man in formal water tribe robes entered. His hair was tied tightly into a topknot of thick white, his beard neatly plaited. His eyes, though old, were sharp and unwavering. His stance, as always, was rigid as ice.
"Master Pakku?" Yue breathed, startled but quickly composing herself. She pulled the covers tighter around her nightgown. "What are you doing here?"
"I was on my way to see your father," Pakku explained, his tone measured but lined with concern. "We were scheduled to discuss reinforcing the outer defenses… but then I heard your scream."
She looked away. Her knuckles tightened against the blankets. "It was… a nightmare."
"Do you remember it?" he asked carefully.
She hesitated.
"I saw fire. Red skies. Earth shattered like glass. People, men, giants, ripping through the land like gods at war. I heard names I didn't recognize and others I knew all too well. I saw… devastation. In a place I've never been… but I could feel it. Nan-Hai."
Pakku was silent for a moment. Then he exhaled deeply.
"That… is no simple dream," he said. "Because this morning, just before sunrise, we received a hawk from our informants. There was a major engagement in the southern Fire Nation part of the Nan-Hai province."
She turned to him sharply.
"The Mad King himself led the assault," Pakku continued. "And opposing him were two of the Fire Nation's most formidable forces. Prince Zuko, the current crown prince and…" he paused, brow furrowed, "...General Iroh."
Yue's brows raised. "Iroh… the Dragon of the West?"
He nodded. "That's right."
"So then…"
"Yes. The two gods in your dream may very well have been them."
There was a pause. The torches in the wall crackled faintly.
Yue stared at her hands. "He… he's real then. The Mad King. I thought he was a myth."
"Many do. But King Bumi of Omashu is very much real," Pakku said grimly. "He was born during the years before the start of the war. He's not only survived, he's thrived. They say he once broke an entire siege line using only his toes and a melon."
Yue's eyes widened.
"He is the most powerful earthbender alive," Pakku said. "At least… since Avatar Kyoshi."
Yue swallowed.
"Well… it's good then. That he's on our side."
Pakku hesitated.
"…Perhaps," he said carefully.
Yue glanced at him.
"A character like Bumi is… unstable," he said. "He fights for balance, not loyalty. He's eccentric, unpredictable. He may stand with the Earth Kingdom now, but if he deems our allies to have tipped the scale too far… he may tip it back himself."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Well… thank you, Master Pakku," Yue said softly. "I… I'll be alright. You should go. My father's waiting."
Pakku bowed slightly, still watching her with quiet wisdom. "As you wish, your highness."
With a final nod, he turned and exited the room.
As the heavy door shut behind him with a thud, Yue sat still for a moment.
Then, her expression changed.
The fear melted.
Her delicate features hardened.
She was still. Too still.
Her eyes slowly slid to the far side of the room.
To the shadows beyond the curtain.
"You didn't tell him the real nightmare," a man's voice said from the darkness.
She didn't flinch.
From the wall's edge, he emerged, as if he had always been part of the cold itself. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with hair like a midnight glacier. His face was young, but his eyes were timeless. His presence filled the room like a tide.
Avatar Kuruk.
"I never do," Yue said.
"You saw more than the fire nation," Kuruk said quietly. "Didn't you?"
She nodded.
Her voice cracked. "It wasn't the fire or the earth or the destruction… it was the void between it all. Almost the same void I saw the night you first came to me."
Kuruk looked down at her, solemn. "It's awakening."
Yue's voice dropped to a whisper. "What is?"
Kuruk didn't answer.
Not yet.
Instead, he looked toward the window, toward the faraway province of Nan-Hai, where blood still steamed on shattered stone.
And where destiny had begun to stir.
Yue sat at the edge of her bed, the soft furs pooled around her waist, her legs tucked beneath her. The sky outside was painted with the pale hues of early morning, but her mind remained rooted in the darkness from which she had just awoken.
Kuruk still stood as if he could see through time itself.
"I haven't told anyone else," Yue said, her voice soft but steady.
Kuruk didn't turn to face her, but his head tilted slightly, acknowledging her words.
"It started about a month ago… when the Avatar returned," she said, hands gripping her bedsheets. "At first, I thought I was imagining things. Just the excitement. Just the nervous energy of the world starting to change again. But that night, when I knelt in the temple of Tui and La…"
She paused. Her throat felt dry.
"…I felt it. My prayers, my connection to the Moon Spirit, it was like something had pulled it taut, like a string stretched to its breaking point. A tension I've never felt before."
Kuruk turned his head halfway, his expression unreadable.
"It passed," Yue continued. "Just as quickly as it came. But it came again. Yesterday. Just before the hawk arrived with news of the battle in Nan-Hai."
She looked at him now, eyes searching.
"It was different this time. More jagged. Older. As if something ancient brushed past me. I could feel it in my bones, in my chest… like the Moon Spirit recoiling. Not in fear… but in recognition."
Kuruk still said nothing.
"I was born under the moon, Kuruk," she whispered. "I was born… because of the Moon Spirit. I know its rhythm. Its calm. Its anger. Its silence. And what I felt… was not from this world."
The air in the room grew colder, somehow. The ice-lined walls seemed to hold their breath.
Kuruk finally turned to face her.
"As you know," he began, "I spent much of my time as Avatar… not dealing with nobles, or councils, or even nations. I walked in the shadows. I spent my life fighting spirits that wished to escape the spirit world and consume this one."
He took a slow step forward.
"I became more than just a bridge between the worlds, I became a ward. A hunter. A guardian."
He stood before her now. His presence was immense, yet somehow sorrowful.
"I felt the hollow that lingered in the places those spirits had been. I learned to taste their energy in the very winds that passed through forgotten temples."
He crouched before her, their eyes level now.
"…And I can tell you this, Yue. What you are sensing… is not one of them."
Yue's brow furrowed. Her lips parted slightly.
"Then what is it?" she asked. "If not a spirit?"
Kuruk looked away. Not to hide something. But because even he didn't know.
"I don't know," he admitted finally. "But I know little of the old ones. The ones who never had names. The ones who crawled through the gaps of the spirit world in silence, who didn't whisper madness, they became it. And this… this may be them."
Yue stood now, slowly, the cold tiles beneath her feet quickly kissed with warmth from the furs still clinging to her ankles.
"Then explain my feelings," she demanded gently. "Explain why Tui and La feel farther than ever before. Why when I kneel in the temple, I feel… watched. Why I wake in cold sweat and know I've seen places that don't exist."
Kuruk clenched his jaw. His gaze drifted upward again. Toward the sky. Toward the moon, though it wasn't visible in the daylight.
"It's something new," he said finally. "Or something so old, even the spirits forgot it."
Yue wrapped her arms around herself. "Why won't they speak to me anymore? Why do they feel like they're hiding?"
Kuruk slowly stepped forward and placed a single hand on her shoulder.
"Because whatever this is… even the spirits are afraid."
Her breath hitched.
Kuruk stepped back. The moment between them softened slightly.
"But Yue," he added, "that doesn't mean you are helpless. Your connection to Tui gives you clarity. It means you are seeing truth, even if that truth is incomplete."
She nodded slightly, her resolve hardening in her chest like frozen water.
"I need to know more," she said. "About the Moon Spirit. About… whatever this is."
Kuruk gave a single solemn nod.
"Then you must find someone who sees like you do," he said. "Someone who also walks with a spirit."
"…The Avatar?" she asked, almost hesitantly.
Kuruk's mouth formed a faint smirk. "The boy… yes. But there is another."
Yue's eyes narrowed.
Kuruk turned again to the window, his silhouette framed in faint, glacial blue.
"Someone who came from beyond the wheel. A soul not born of this world, but forced into it. Someone who shouldn't exist… and yet does."
Her heart skipped a beat.
"You mean…?"
Kuruk did not say the name.
She turned away, eyes distant.
A long silence passed between them.
Then, slowly, Yue walked back to her bed, sat down again, and ran her fingers across her temple. "Then it's true," she said quietly. "Our fates are tangled already. I could feel it. But I didn't want to believe it."
Kuruk looked back at her. "You won't find your answers here forever. I believe you will meet both of them very soon."
She nodded.
"And when the time comes… you'll have to choose what you protect."
She didn't speak after that.
Kuruk stepped back into the shadows.
And just as he came, he vanished.
Leaving Yue alone with the moonlight now beginning to break through the clouds outside.
[A/N: Can't wait to see what happens next? Get exclusive early access on patreon.com/saiyanprincenovels. If you enjoyed this chapter and want to see more, don't forget to drop a power stone! Your support helps this story reach more readers!]