Katara, of the Fire Nation

Chapter 30

The word is nothing but ash and white noise, Zuko struggles to get up onto his knees, his eyes burn and his throat rasps as he tries to breathe around the smoke that lingers in the air.

Katara.

Her name hits him like a ton of bricks, he looks to the summer palace and his heart sinks, the palace has been stripped down to the bones; it's charred and black bones. Zuko looks around and sees guards struggling to get up, some don't move at all.

Where's Katara?

A coughing fit hits Zuko's lungs, he tries to hack up the smoke and soot that burn his lungs, this draws the attention of the guards.

"My Fire Lord," they gape, some racing over to him to help him up from the ashen courtyard.

Zuko pushes the others away and he races into the crumbling palace, he ignores his guard's pleas as he races to where their room used to be. Zuko ignores the pain in his chest, he ignores the way he has to lean on blackened support beams as he passes them.

There, sitting on top of a dresser where she left it, miraculously spared by the fires, is Katara's necklace, whole and intact.

Zuko closers his fist around the necklace and presses it to his heart as agony rips through him.

A guard rushes in after him and Zuko grabs the man by his shirt.

"Where is she?" Zuko asks, his voice rasping as he chokes on smoke, "Where's my wife?!"

...

Katara stayed in the room, she stayed behind the guards, but she grasped a sword in her hand, her knuckles white as she listens to the commotion outside. The fight seemed to be coming closer and closer to the room and Katara prepared herself for a fight.

A woman bolted into the room, she moved faster than the guards could track. After a second of entering, the woman had one guard killed and was dodging the attack from the other one.

Katara tried and failed to summon her bending, her heart raced as she stepped in front of the other guard and blocked the assassin with her sword.

The assassin locked swords with Katara and she found herself staring into a pair of tawny eyes that cut like steel. The rest of the assassins face is obscured by a black mask, but the eyes are enough to tell Katara that this woman is a trained killer.

Katara grinds her teeth and pushes the assassin back, she goes into a fighting stance and the assassin snarls under her mask, she pulls out three small knives from her sleeves and throws them with expert's precision.

Katara barely doges the knives in time, but she recognises the small steel blades, her eyes widen and as she breathes a name falls on her breath.

Mai.

The remaining guard charges forward and Mai grabs him, turns him around and then cuts his throat. Blood sprays over the room, splattering Katara in most of it. Katara watches in horror as the guard falls and flops like a fish out of water. He claws at his throat, gurgling on his own blood as he bleeds out.

Katara attacks, she and Mai fall to the ground, weapons discarded as they wrestle.

"What are you doing?!" Katara snarls, pinning Mai under her weight like she had done to Zuko numerous times.

Katara pulls Mai's mask off and the deadly assassin snarls like a wild animal.

"Mai, stop!" Katara snaps, pinning her arms again, "I don't want to kill you."