Too Far Away

Chapter Thirteen: Man, I Thought That I Would Never Get Warm

The Seventh Letter

The silence of the night had the habit of pressing down on anyone without the security of a ring of firelight. The Blue Spirit had done his best to become an unfeeling part of that silence, but every unexplained sound, every movement he hadn't already noticed made his pulse accelerate to the point of barely being able to hear anything over the raging sound of his heartbeat.

Despite his surmounting anxiety, however, he wouldn't allow himself to turn his gaze away from the Yu Yan Archers from his place on top of the watchtower overlooking the courtyard in which they were practicing. If they noticed him, he knew that they would end his life in less than an instant. The archers really had become a part of the night.

Though his gaze remained on the archers, his focused was on the conversation happening below, inside of the watchtower he was hiding on top of. Both of the men were certainly talking loud enough for him to hear what they were saying.

"Absolutely not," one of them was saying. "The Yu Yan Archers stay here. Your request is denied, Commander Zhao."

The Blue Spirit thought it was worrying that Zhao had been promoted so quickly, but he was pleased that the other man seemed to have the right idea about him. "Colonel Shinu, please reconsider," said Zhao. "Their precision is legendary. The Yu Yan can pin a fly to a tree from a hundred yards away—without killing it. You're wasting their talents using them as mere security guards."

"I can do whatever I want with their talents. They're my security guards, and what I say goes."

"But my search for the Avatar is—"

"—is nothing but a vanity project!" snapped Colonel Shinu. The Blue Spirit smiled under the mask. "We're fighting a real war here, and I need every man I've got, Commander."

"But—"

"That's final! I don't want to hear another word about it."

Before the last word had left the colonel's mouth, a shape encased in the shadows of the night dove past him. The Blue Spirit's pulse skittered and breathing turned shallow as he flattened himself to the roof, and then he hurried over to the side of the watchtower. His heartbeat was uneven and loud and made it difficult to focus, but the shape had definitely been a messenger falcon. For a fleeting moment, the Blue Spirit thought that it was Tongyi, and he panicked, but then he started taking in that the falcon was smaller, darker in color, and had two perfectly intact eyes. He shrank away from the side before any of the archers could see him, straining his ears for news with bated breath.

"News from the Fire Lord?" asked Zhao, and the Blue Spirit's heartbeat seemed to pause. A moment passed, and then Zhao added, "It appears I've been promoted to Admiral."

Oh, no.

"Admiral?" asked Shinu. "I was under the impression that Vice Admiral Hegu was next in line for that position. What happened to him?"

"Hegu is... unable to take up a new post at the moment. And, Shinu? My request is now an order."

At that point, it was hard to hear anything over the roaring in his ears. With no more to learn, the Blue Spirit scaled down the side of the watchtower, careful not to let the archers notice him. His mind was racing almost as fast as his heart was.

After he made it a decent ways away from Shinu's fort, he took the mask off and wiped perspiration from his brow. He didn't enjoy wearing it—it's significance to his mother was stronger than anything else he owned. As he walked back to the ship, staying close to the road but out of sight of anyone traveling on it, he considered everything he had heard. Why had the order come directly to Zhao from the Fire Lord? Was the Fire Lord aware of Zhao's obsession with capturing the Avatar, or was the promotion unrelated and Zhao was simply taking advantage of his new position?