Daughter of the Moon - Book Three: Fire

Chapter 18.6: It Was Not a Good Idea to Go to the Boiling Rock

- Elara -

It didn't take too long for Sokka and I to figure out an escape plan once I had found him, and now the only missing piece was the execution.

It all seemed fairly simple. While I had been speaking with Jade (and while Zuko was being taken prisoner), Sokka had deduced that the Coolers being used to punish the firebending prisoners were perfectly insulated to not only keep the cold in, but also to keep the heat out. And using this logic, he explained to me that if we could somehow manage to pop one off the side of the prison, it would work as a perfect raft to get across the boiling lake.

Once we had determined our means of transportation, we then made our way carefully around the perimeter, testing the currents and finding blind spots where we could set off without setting off any alarms. It was a rather tiring process, but once we had solidified our plan, I was fairly confident that it was going to work.

However, when it came to explaining the details to Zuko, Jade, and Suki, they didn't seem as convinced.

"But how are you going to get the cooler out?" Suki asked, her face mirroring the same look of confusion and doubt that Zuko and Jade were wearing.

Sokka's face lit up at the prospect of explaining his genius once again, but he didn't get the chance before he was abruptly cut off—by an unwelcome visitor, no less.

"Yeah," a man chimed in from the stairwell above us, his beady eyes glaring right into our hidden meeting room. "How are you going to get the cooler out?"

"What?! We didn't! We..." Sokka panicked as the man slid his body between the bars of the railing, quietly landing next to our group and crouching so as to not be seen. "We didn't say that!"

"Yeah," Zuko added calmly as he glared at the intruder. "You heard wrong."

The man shrugged dismissively at our feeble attempts to divert his suspicions, and it was then that I recognized him as the man who had been tossed in a Cooler earlier that morning after a run in with one of the guards.

This man was about to make our situation a hundred times more difficult. I knew that for a fact.

"I heard you hatching an escape plan," he said with a mischievous grin, "and I want in."

"Don't be ridiculous," Jade dismissed him, giving him a look that would kill as she tried to throw him off our scent. "There's nothing to get in on."

"Yeah," Sokka agreed sheepishly. "The only thing we're hatching is...an egg?"

Sokka was an idiot.

Zuko, Suki, and I exchanged an exasperated sight as the intruder's smirk grew even wider, our cover having been blown by the supposed brains of the operation. I just about had half the mind to smack Sokka upside the head for his incompetence, but I knew that causing a scene would only make our situation worse. So, I just crouched down silently, dreading the moment where this new guy would mess everything up.

"Okay," the man continued haughtily as he began his empty threat. "Well, I come with you, or the Warden hears about this egg too."

"You could," I answered coolly as I drew my Moon Blade from my hip and began to pick at the tip of the condensed water. "But if you try, the Warden may be too busy trying to find the body of a prisoner who stuck his nose into somebody else's business—"

"Elara," Sokka cut in as he put a hand on my shoulder, and I had to make a conscious effort to ignore the sheer look of disgust painted on both Sokka's and Zuko's face (although, I was pleasantly surprised to find that neither Suki nor Jade had even flinched. They seemed to agree with my threat).