By the time I turned eight, the palace had stopped pretending I was merely gifted.
Prodigy was the word they used aloud.
Monster was the word they avoided.
I could already shape blue fire as easily as breathing. Not wild bursts or reckless displays—perfect arcs, condensed heat, flames that burned hotter because they were restrained. I no longer trained with children. I trained with masters—and surpassed them.
Lightning came soon after.
Not through rage. Not through loss of control.
Through clarity.
When I first separated the energies within myself, the instructors panicked. Lightning was not meant for someone my age. It was dangerous. Unstable.
I produced it anyway.
Clean. Silent. Precise.
After that, they stopped correcting me.
They stopped raising their voices.
They stopped standing too close.
I was stronger than most of the Fire Nation's generals now—not physically, but absolutely. Skill, control, foresight. They knew it. I knew they knew it.
And power, once recognized, spreads.
I didn't command the military.
I didn't need to.
Whispers traveled faster than orders. Officers spoke of me in lowered tones. Cadets watched me from the corners of their eyes. When decisions were made, they asked themselves—What would the princess think of this?
That was enough.
In the academies, children repeated my opinions like facts. They mimicked my posture, my speech, my discipline. I never asked them to. I never needed to.
They wanted to be close to certainty.
They wanted to be on the winning side.
Mai and Ty Lee remained with me, as they always had.
To the outside world, we were inseparable—laughing together, training together, moving through the palace like a matched set. They followed my lead openly now. No pretense.
They knew the hierarchy.
They accepted it.
Ty Lee thrived under structure she didn't have to define. Mai found comfort in having expectations laid out cleanly, without emotional noise. I gave them both exactly what they needed—and nothing more.
They didn't resent me.
Resentment required believing there was an alternative.
Sometimes, I wondered if they still thought of me as a friend.
Sometimes, I didn't care.
We acted like friends. That was sufficient.
At night, alone in my chambers, I reviewed everything calmly. The generals. The instructors. The students. The servants. The palace itself.
A web of influence—quiet, orderly, invisible unless you knew how to look.
Father ruled by fear and fire.
I ruled by inevitability.
And the most amusing part?
No one had ever crowned me.
They had simply begun to behave as if I already wore it.
Power does not wait for permission.It arranges itself around those who understand it.
And I understood it perfectly.