Falling for the Enemy (Sun and Moon Book 1)

Chapter 62 - Bloodbending

"Come on, Toph, hurry up! We'll be late for dinner!'

"No, Sokka, listen! Can't you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Aang touched Toph's arm worriedly. "I don't hear anything."

"It sounds like people screaming."

"Where's it coming from?"

"I don't know!" Aang looked at Sokka. It wasn't like Toph to be wrong or to hear things. Sokka nodded.

"Let's check it out. We'll follow you."

Toph nodded once and stomped her foot. A pillar of earth rose from the ice, and she put her hand to it, frowning. A minute later she took off running through the streets.

"This way!" Sokka and Aang followed her, both confused but trusting Toph. It was the only lead they had, anyway.

**__**

"Can you feel the power the full moon brings? For generations is has blessed waterbenders with its glow, allowing us to do incredible things. I've never felt more alive." I watch Hama as she opens her arms to the moon, and I close my eyes, tilting my face up towards her.

I've always loved the full moon, even back when I didn't know I was a waterbender.

I met Zuko under a full moon.

That was when I first saw the real him-

I scowl. But it wasn't him. It was never him- it was all an act. He never loved me. I turn back to Hama, feeling the cold wind whip around me as it descends from the ice canyon we're in.

I'm ready to learn whatever she has to teach me.

**__**

The ran through the streets, with Toph stopping every few minutes to raise a pillar of earth and check that they were going the right way.

The left the city behind, heading into the outskirts, then the tundra. They were heading for the pole itself, when Toph stopped suddenly and pointed at an ice cliff several feet to their left.

"That's it. It's coming from in there!"

Aang touched the ice, and his eyes widened. "You're right! There are tunnels leading back into the rock!"

He stepped back and threw his hands to the sides, oppening a door in the cliff face. It was pitch black inside.

"I can't see anything in there."

"That's why you have me. Let's go!" Toph grabbed Sokka's arm and leaped into the darkness, and Aang followed them, hoping that this would be the answer to Chief Arnook's troubles.

They ran through the ice tunnels, heading deeper inside, until they reached rock. They turned a corner and met a metal door, with torches on either side. Toph didn't hesitate- she ran up to it and bent it open, and it flew against the opposite wall.

Inside was another tunnel, no longer in ice but in the cliff itself. Sokka grabbed a torch and they ran through, only to stop in shock as the firelight revealed men and women chained in a small, circular room. They looked up at the light.

"We're saved!"

"I didn't know that spirits made prisons like this." Aang looked around in wonder. "Who brought you here?"

"It was no spirit."

"It was a witch."

"A witch? What do you mean?"

"She seems like a normal old woman, but she controls people, like some dark puppetmaster." Toph went around, breaking the chains that held them, as Sokka queried the prisoners.