I woke to the dancing light of fire on stone.
Vaulted above me was the ceiling, its walls carved with swirling flames that seemed to beat with a soft, unnatural life. My breath caught. The air was hot—almost too hot—and thick with the pungent smell of incense. It clung to the back of my throat like the smoke on cigarettes. I rose slow, each movement accompanied by the rustle of heavy silk robes—robes not my own, robes never worn.
And I heard it. The soft clatter of footsteps.
Five forms knelt on the glowed obsidian ground. Heads bowed. Robes of red and gold were spread around them in pools, as if blood fallen on purpose.
"Your Majesty," one spoke, his presence calm, even. "You've returned from the Dreaming Cinders."
I started to speak, shut my mouth tight. My heart scrambled in my torso like loose stones in a can. This was not a dream—I could feel the sting of heat on my cheeks, the rough embroidery against my collar. This was not one of those delusions that occur late at night after too much coffee and too little sleep. Finals week was over yesterday. Yesterday, I was sitting in a library carrel, trying to memorize the order of Fire Nation monarchs and drinking vending machine tea that had a metallic taste.
And now…
"What the devil is this?" I breathed.
The servants looked nervously at each other. The speaker, the elder one, the one with Fire Nation braids in his beard, looked up, but not for long. "My lord?" he repeated, as though he had heard me wrong.
I kicked my legs off the dais—no, not a dais. A dais of black stone, with flame sigils carved into it. Pillows embroidered in gold thread around me. I stood up. My knees buckled.
They did not stir to help me. Naturally, they did not. Fire Lords do not fall. But I was not a Fire Lord.
"I—I need a mirror."
The bearded one inclined his head. "At once, Fire Lord Gonryu."
Gonryu.
The name hit like a cold slap. I remembered it—from books, from a lost chapter in Fire Nation history. A mediocre ruler. Born in peace, left nothing behind, died under a cloud. No war, no glory. Just a name on a chart. A trivia question.
I was Gonryu now?
A servant—youthful, sharp-eyed—pressed a highly burnished bronze mirror into my hands. I looked.
The face was mine. But not.
Cheekbones were more prominent, eyes wiser in some inexplicable manner. A scar below the left ear, as if earned in war or ritual. My hair, longer and more luxuriant, was pulled up in a smooth knot held by a pin of gold fashioned in the form of a phoenix. I knew it. It did not feel odd. That was the first to frighten me.
"This is not real," I breathed.
The servants were silent. There stood a quiet there—heavy, waiting.
"Where am I? What's happening?"
The older servant remained on his knees. "The throne room awaits your command. The Council has met."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. It burst out of me, cracking and biting.
"You want me to go lead the Fire Nation? I—I was studying for a poli-sci final twelve hours ago."
"Pol-i…sai, my lord?" the young one echoed, furrowing his brow.
I whirled, walking away, shaking fingers. "No. No, this isn't some kind of... reincarnation. Or spirit switch. That's only supposed to happen with the Avatar. I—I didn't do anything! I've never been anything!"
But even as I talked, I felt pressure building at the base of my mind. As though something ancient were stirring. A memory—a feeling. The press of armor. The heft of ceremony. The eyes of a hundred watching behind masks. I was seeing a boy—a ten-year-old boy—kneeling in the Hall of Embers, forehead against the volcanic rock.
I had never entered that hall before.
I had knelt there countless times.
I staggered once more.
"My lord," the older servant whispered. "The Council."
"I don't know what I'm doing," I said. "You don't understand—I don't belong here. I'm not this—this Gonryu. I'm just a student. I had a group project due Monday."
He bent lower. "Then let the Fire Sages declare you reborn. The blood is identical. The throne acknowledges you. Spirit or soul, Gonryu has returned."
"Do I have any say in this?"
Another silence.
Of course not.
I looked at my hands—steady now. White calluses on the fingers. Practice with the sword. No. Dao blades, I suddenly understood, and I did not know how I understood that. I clenched my teeth.
"Fine," I growled. "Let's go."
—
The throne room was enormous. Every inch screamed power. Tall banners flamed with the Fire Nation sigil—deep red with golden sunbursts. Courtiers lined the walls, eyes behind lacquered masks. Dark-robed ministers in semicircles. Every step seemed rehearsed, as if I hadn't read the script to the play.
And I had to perform.
They noticed me climb onto the dais. I wanted to apologize, to plead for delay, to speak and say I have no idea what the devil is going on.
But something within me stayed the words.
I sat down instead.
The throne was firm, warmer than I had anticipated—laced with gold stripes that ran like heat. It hummed under my flesh. As though it remembered me. Or asserted ownership.
A man stepped forward. Silver-haired, thin-lipped. He bowed from the waist, low but not servile.
"Fire Lord Gonryu. The Council awaits your word to discuss the border levy dispute. The Earth Kingdom's envoy awaits your response."
"What's the controversy?"
The man blinked.
"Three weeks past, the Earth Kingdom requested lowering port tariffs in the Gaoling province. The south insists warships be reallotted. Your predecessor—you yourself—tabled a decision."
I stared.
Words came to the top of my mind—Gaoling. Tariffs. Maritime strength.
They weren't my thoughts. But I did know them.
I parted my lips—and then, very softly, spoke, "Let the south retain their ships. We'll increase levy revenue from coastal itineraries. But the Earth envoy must provide something in exchange. Send a reply—an offer of iron shipments. From their mountain furnaces."
The minister frowned.
Then, slowly, nodded.
"As you wish."
I sat back.
What did I do just then?
I saw it. I saw the politics. The strategy. The play.
Someone else's intuition? Or my own?
No. Not theirs.
Mine now.
The words had rolled off too smoothly. And then I knew something: I wasn't returning. Not yet. Possibly never.
**
They started testing me the moment the ink dried on the very first scroll after my signature.
It wasn't covert. They believed it to be so. But I saw it in the slight squinting of Minister Qan's eyes when I spoke of realigning trade corridors—him, being a longtime proponent of internal bolstering. I recalled reading that as a footnote. When I was back in the university library still studying for my final. His name arose in a case study. Hilarious, how such minutiae was keeping me alive today.
"Fire Lord Gonryu," he declared the next day, sweeping into the war room with a armful of documents and a smile so warmly polite I gritted my teeth. "There's been trouble at the Ember Island docks. Labor. We've drafted a response."
I unrolled the scroll, snapped the wax seal. A classic military deployment. Deploy guards. Crush dissent quickly and quietly.
"No," I said to him.
Qan blinked.
"No?" he asked slowly.
"Too expensive. And short-sighted," I added, feigning a glance at the scroll. "You deploy troops, you create martyrs. Instead—double rations for the next three weeks, then provide the Guild with a ceremonial audience in the Hall of Phoenixes. Make them feel heard. If we do this just so, they will placate themselves."
Silence as dense as a fog hung in the air.
"You… wish to negotiate, my lord?" he said, with the well-oiled voice of a man who had just been slapped deferentially across the face.
"Is that an issue?"
Qan hesitated. "Not if you believe it will be in the interests of the Fire Nation."
"I do," I said. "And more critically—so will they."
He stiffly bowed and withdrew. I didn't have to ask to know the court had noticed. Four additional ministers "happened" to approach me with issues that required "immediate review" alone that day.
Each question was more absurd than the last.
"If the Northern Colonies request lowering jade tariffs by two percent, what precedent is there to challenge the 41st Decree of Fire Lord Izan?
"How many Dragon-class vessels are berthed in the Western Reaches?"
"What rights do the Shu family hold over the Eastern Strait, and how did those change under Fire Lord Kurizo's reforms?"
It wasn't a question of what I knew.
It was a question of how I knew it.
And I answered them all. Not in flat memorized words of a set of facts, but in the voice of a person who had signed the decrees, rearranged the fleets, knelt at the altars. The memories weren't mine, not quite. And yet they glowed on the edges of my mind like coals ready to be breathed upon.
At other times, they had color with them. Scent of roasted chestnuts on a Shu village street at autumn festival time. The way cliffside wind once felt, on my first naval inspection. My—his—sister's laughter, before illness took the tone from her voice.
I was already dreaming in his flesh.
It was still too much speech, though.
They needed proof.
And so they staged the duel.
The invitation was phrased as ritual—a demonstration of power, a show, to honor the balance between ruler and flame. But I knew what it was. A crucible. If I failed, if I stumbled or slipped, I'd be dead by dawn. A quiet death. Poison in a tea cup, or maybe a "training accident." It wouldn't take much.
The Royal Guard escorted me to the courtyard—open-sky, sun at its peak. A circle of red tiles and obsidian pylons carved around it. I'd already seen it. On canvas. And now, again, I had that strange feeling of memory leading memory.
My heart was racing as we walked. I kept my hands folded behind my back so nobody would see them tremble.
"You don't have to do this," a voice said.
I spun around.
It was Baishi, my private advisor—appointed the day I awoke in this hell. Tall, lean, younger than the others. Maybe twenty-eight? His gaze was too sharp for his years. Loyal, but not stupid. The kind of man who keeps count in silence.
"They're testing me," I said.
He nodded.
"They'll kill me if I fail."
"Or worse," he said.
"Worse?"
"They'll steal your throne while you're alive. That's slower."
I swallowed.
"I've never firebent," I said. "Not really."
He tilted his head. "Not really?"
I curled and straightened my fingers. Heat trembled under the skin. Since waking in this body, I could sense it—weak and dormant, a sleeping beast.
"I think. I might know how. I just don't know if it's me doing it."
He didn't laugh. Didn't sneer. Just bowed.
"Then let your instincts recall what your mind forgets."
—
The field was filled to capacity.
Ministers. Nobles. Even a few of the sages had come down from their temples to witness. Five Masters of the Royal Guard stood at rigid attention in crescent formation—armor darkened by years of flame and combat. None of them bowed.
A gong sounded.
The first advanced.
I didn't.
He vomited a plume of flame from his hand—tight, concentrated, rapid.
I twisted—not unwillingly, not by choice, but because I had to. My body moved without my control, and the flame was at the width of an hand from my face, close enough to feel it whip against my cheek. My robe caught fire at the hem. I spun on the ball of my foot and turned on it, and my right hand went up in a great curve.
Fire answered.
Not blaze. Not flood. Just ribbon—clean, sweeping, as if a line of brush being painted out of the sky. It didn't roar. It whispered. Self-contained. Volitional.
I heard someone take a breath.
The Master recovered in an instant. He came at me, low sweep. A flood of flame roared at my feet. I sprang—too high, too fast—but landed in a stance I should not have learned. Left foot forward, open palm behind, back straight. It was... natural. Like falling into rhythm with music I had not realized I knew.
He came again. Two hands this time, overhead strike. Half a second to react.
I didn't think.
I stepped in.
An arm came up to block the blow—his flame met mine, and heat exploded in the air. Our flames clashed in a flash of gold light, and in an instant, I could sense him. The force of his bending. The push and pull. The beat of the heart behind it. My flames wrapped around his, engulfed them, ate them.
He reeled. His eyes widened.
I pursued him in.
A quick breath. A turn on the heel. I dropped low and launched a punch forward—not a wild fling, but the kind I'd seen in training scrolls, tight and controlled.
A burst of flame shot out of my fist and struck him squarely in the chest. His armor caught most of it, but the force sent him stumbling back across the arena floor.
The crowd murmured.
I stood up straight.
The second Master advanced. Older. He did not wait for an opening. He attacked first—two rapid bursts, then a kicking spin that burst into flames mid-air. I sidestepped the first, avoided the second, but the third was swift.
I curled my arms—raised.
The kick landed. Fire flared against my guard. I staggered back, boots squeaking on tile. Pain blasted through my wrists, but I maintained.
I maintained.
Then I counterattacked.
I swept my leg in a low arc. Fire followed, licking the hem of his robes. He leaped back—too late. I charged forward, fists clenched, and unleashed a twin pillar of flame that engulfed his guard. He bent it aside—just.
But I was already past his guard.
I hit again. Flame jabbed on my elbow as I struck him in the chest. He blocked me. I spun around his arm and came up with a swift, ruthless upward jab to his chin.
He went down.
Two were down.
No one cheered. No one made any noise.
The third and fourth at once.
Coordinated. Smart.
They closed in on me, fire licking in tandem. I parried one, batted another, then whirled as a kick sent fire down my side. It burned. I had blood in my mouth. But I didn't stop.
I channeled that pain into something sharp.
I moved in between them, too close, too close to strike long. I used elbows. Knees. Flame broke from my shoulders as I jabbed one into the taller Master's chest. The other punched wildly—missed. I took his arm. Twisted. Razed my forehead down onto his nose.
He went down screaming.
The taller one was still rising—kneeling, hand on the ground.
I loomed over him.
He looked up at me.
I let the flame flicker in my palm—not as a blow, but a threat. A vow. He ducked his head.
I left him there.
Four.
One was all that remained.
The final Master stood frozen. Silent. Gazing.
She stalked up on him. No aggression. No flame yet.
We faced each other across the circle.
"You are not the same," she stated, not a question.
"No," I replied.
And then she struck.
She acted swiftly.
A column of white-flaming vortex raced at me. I took it in both hands, whirled it, threw it into the ground. It exploded in sparks at my feet. She pushed home immediately—spinning, with a burning crescent scything at her heel.
I responded step for step. I bent low, fire in both palms, threw forward with a palm strike. She absorbed it on, whirled away, countered with a stream from her knee.
We danced.
Back and forth. Blow for blow.
My body hurt, but not with pain. With presence. Every punch she threw, I knew before it landed. I didn't just react—I anticipated.
It was like the fire was speaking. Her flames danced, and mine answered.
Then I found it.
The opening.
She hurled a final salvo—flames parted in two, meant to funnel me. I stepped through the middle. Her eyes grew wide. I was already there.
My fingers skimmed over the top of her chest.
I didn't turn her into a cinder.
I willed the fire to tremble once—once in order to toss her tumbling backward, heel-scrauching to land on her bottom.
She lay there.
Silence.
A pause, another one. More silence. Then—
She made a deep bow. Flat-out hands.
The others copied, one at a time. Some bowed in obvious reluctance. Some out respect.
The nobility said nothing.
No claps.
But I didn't care.
I stood alone in the middle of the ring, smoke curling from my sleeves, chest heaving.
I didn't win because I was stronger.
I won because I was unbeatable.
They saw it now.
Whatever I had become… this was no imposter.
This was the Fire Lord.
And I was here to stay.