Prologue

Kara was dreaming, and it was a very strange dream. She was in a dark room, the only lights a pair of lanterns, slowly spinning around her, stretching shadows this way and that in a steady rhythm. Outside the pulsing ring of light, there were gentle voices that sounded ominous nonetheless. She only caught snatches of what they said.

"...more than we've ever tried before…"

"...an anchor, someone she knows…"

"...he keeps asking about her…"

She wanted to cry out, to ask about him as well. But the lights kept spinning, making her dizzy and confused. She knew something was wrong, but couldn't remember what it was. If only the lights would stop…

A loud noise woke her suddenly, the sound of something being smashed, accompanied by shouting voices from the street below. Kara started out of bed, one hand flying instinctively to cover the bulge of her stomach, eyes searching the dark room in vain for the person who should have been lying next to her in the bed.

"Here," came her husband's voice from the doorway, low and urgent, just audible over the noise in the street. It sounded like the riots that had ravaged the lower ring last summer all over again. Kara groped through the darkness, grateful the shutters of their little second-floor apartment were closed tight.

Her hand finally found his. "Mama," came another voice, small and frightened.

"Hush now, Hiro, Mama's here," Kara replied, taking the child from his father's arms. Hiro immediately hid his face against her shoulder, and her husband drew her close to his chest. Their whole family held in one embrace, Kara felt safer. The chaos outside would, spirits willing, stay outside.

Soon Hiro settled and fell asleep, and the noise of the rioters passed on to some other street. Her eyes adjusted to the dark by now, Kara drew back from her husband slightly to look up at him. She could just make out the shape of his eyes, one fixed in a permanent squint by the scar that covered that side of his face. "Lee," she whispered. "What's happening?"

"They said Long Feng is dead," Lee whispered back. "The Avatar has overthrown the Dai Li."

In the immediate aftermath of that harrowing night, life went on more or less as usual in the lower ring. Shopkeepers sighed as they assessed damage and repaired broken windows, those who had been injured nursed their wounds, and no one came to help them - but that was as it had ever been. Lee returned to work at the foundry the very next day. It was harder work than his old job at the tea shop. He had longer hours and came home filthy with soot and sweat, and tired enough to drop. But the foundry paid better for firebenders, and with their growing family, they needed that money.

That day was laundry day in their building, and Kara joined the usual gathering in the courtyard with her neighbors - Su Li and her daughters who lived across the hall, the widow Peng who occupied the ground floor apartment with her son's family, and Kai and Jai, the twin sisters who each lived in one of the third floor apartments with their husbands, who were also twins.

It was an ordinary domestic scene, the women bustling around the large tubs of water, scrubbing clothes and bedsheets clean, and Kara speeding the drying process along with her bending. Hiro and the other children ran about in the bright spring sunshine, laughing and playing without a care. Even the women were largely care-free, discussing the downfall of the Dai Li with no more particular excitement than any other bit of neighborhood gossip. Why should they be concerned, after all, when the fall of the Earth King at the hands of the Fire Nation six years ago, and the subsequent expulsion of the Fire Nation by Long Feng three years after that, and the proclamation of the Dai Li protectorate of the city, had all brought little change to their lives?

Lee came home from work that night a little later than usual, for there were still streets blocked by overturned carts and other wreckage, but aside from that it was an ordinary evening. They ate dinner, put Hiro to bed, and Kara worked on the clothes she was sewing for the new baby while Lee washed up. It was only once he finished and sat across the plain wooden kitchen table from her that the subject of politics came up at all.

"Did you even know the Avatar was in the city?" Kara asked, not looking up from her sewing.

"No," Lee replied. "No one did."

By "no one", Kara knew he meant none of the other men at the foundry. She came to the end of the hem she was stitching, and tied off her thread. "Well, has he made any kind of announcement yet?"

"Not that I've heard." Lee leaned back, draping one arm over the back of his chair and letting his face tilt towards the ceiling. "And who cares anyway?"

Kara gave a noncommittal hum as she cut the thread and turned the little baby gown so the right side was out. It was a dull version of the yellow shade that Earth Kingdom mothers put on their babies for good luck. She would have liked to dress her children in blue, of course, but that color was far too expensive in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se. The dark blue ribbon of her mother's necklace was the only such luxury she had.

"I guess I'm just wondering why he did it," she said with a shrug, folding the baby garment in her lap. "I'd think the Avatar would have bigger problems to worry about…"

"Or other people's business to interfere in," Lee interrupted.

Kara shot him a look of annoyance, but didn't argue. The Avatar was a subject on which their opinions differed, and she probably shouldn't have brought it up. "It doesn't make sense to me," she concluded, collecting her sewing supplies and returning them to their basket.

Lee sighed and got to his feet, taking the basket from her and putting it away on the shelf where it was kept, safely out of Hiro's reach. "It doesn't make sense to me either," he admitted, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together. "But it's not our concern, is it?"

"I guess not," Kara agreed as he led her towards the bedroom. Who were they to the Avatar, after all?

Aang couldn't help but feel that the former Earth King's palace had not been improved by its open occupation by the Dai Li. Tapestries and vases had been stripped from the halls, walls whitewashed, gold ornaments sold off or melted down - and yet rather than achieving an asceticism that he could have admired, the effect was rather alienating. Long Feng, unlike the monks of the air temples, had cared nothing for beauty, proportion, or harmony.

But it was not aesthetic concerns that had brought the Avatar to Ba Sing Se, nor that primarily interested him now. He'd come on behalf of the minor kings to deliver an ultimatum, and enforced the consequences when that ultimatum was refused. Now, his job was research.

No one knew what had become of the Earth King Kuei. If he had been a prisoner during the Fire Nation occupation of his city, surely Azula would have paraded him through the streets in chains, or staged a public execution, but no such event had ever taken place. And when the new Fire Lord withdrew his support from Azula, and the Dai Li drove her out, there had been no mention of the Earth King then, either. Long Feng had simply declared himself Lord Protector of the city.

Of course, Aang reflected bitterly, the Earth King was hardly the only person to have disappeared without a trace in Ba Sing Se.

If Kuei was still alive, the minor kings wanted him back on the throne. If he was dead, his successor would have to be chosen. But first, the truth had to be uncovered, and the secret archives of the Dai Li were as good a place for the Avatar to begin his search as any.

And maybe, while he was there, he might find some clue as to what had happened to Katara.