1 Prologue: Fire Lotus

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The palace of the fire master, one of the royal family's training halls.

Six people were fighting on the sands of the training hall. Their battle was like hunting a wild beast. Five adult men, fully clad in the training armour of fire magic masters, were pouncing on one young girl, trying to keep her constantly surrounded, crowding her with their flames. With precise movements and precise strikes, they unleashed arcs and balls of fire, constantly forcing the enemy to defend themselves, dodging between attacks in the most unthinkable ways, and constantly wasting their strength.

To an unsophisticated outsider, the opponents' strengths were definitely unequal. Except that this girl was a genius in fire magic, surpassing all of her opponents by a head or two. The princess of the Fire Nation, Azula.

After releasing her anger along with the fire, she hid from the gaze of her opponents with a large shaft of flame.

- Kha!!!

After losing sight of their opponent for a moment, they found the body of their mate lying on the ground, with their opponent standing off to the side. Compared to the man lying on the sand, the girl looked small and harmless, but that was a false impression, as eloquently evidenced by the shrinking of her opponents.

Reluctantly, the remaining four masters began to surround the girl once more. Step by step, standing firmly on the sand, they were in no hurry to attack, well aware of the difference in strength.

The cold gaze of the princess's golden eyes followed their every move, allowing them to surround their owner once again. Imbuing them with a false sense of advantage.

In an instant, a synchronised strike sends four fireballs into the princess.

Tumbling, she gracefully evades all attacks, instantly launching a jet of bright orange flames at the nearest guard.

- Ahhhh!!! - The parts of the training armour that caught fire and the heat that penetrated behind it caused the man to fall to the arena. Trying to douse the flames, he rolled around in the sand, screaming in pain.

His thunderous cries instilled a slight fear into the hearts of the men left standing, causing them to hesitate for a moment. Azula instantly took advantage of this.

Leaning on her arm, the girl threw the other forward and the tips of her feet out to the side at her opponents, performing a beautiful weighted twine. Fireballs immediately erupted from their limbs, which the men had to defend themselves against.

The elite guards had no problem dispelling the attack, but it only delayed the inevitable end: the sight of the falling body of their comrade, with whom Azula instantly drew close, knocking him out with a single blow, proved it better than any words. The girl didn't stop there, throwing a fireball at the remaining pair, she began to pounce on the opponents more aggressively, showing terrifying speed with the onslaught.

The remaining guards had no choice but to defend themselves against the girl's increasingly frequent attacks. She attacked on the run, constantly changing the target of the fireballs. This couldn't go on forever, and very soon one of the men missed a fireball aimed at his leg.

- Ahhhh!!! - Part of his training armour immediately caught fire, causing him to fall to the sand in pain in an attempt to extinguish the fire.

The remaining man had the dubious pleasure of feeling the full force of the genius girl's onslaught, and soon made the same mistake as his partners: allowing his opponent to get too close. One lightning-fast and extremely accurate strike on the right point rendered him unconscious.

- Excellent, I'd expect nothing less from my daughter. You are ready for the ritual," came a commanding voice from the entrance.

- Your daughter is truly blessed by Agni himself: to defeat five fire masters at the age of sixteen is a great achievement. She is many times more worthy of the title of master than her opponents," the old man's voice answered him.

Breathing deeply, covered in sweat, the girl defeated five men who were considered masters of fire. The victory was not easy for her, but it was not very difficult. She was smarter, more cunning, faster and stronger than all her opponents. From the very beginning, the fight went according to her plan, and she executed it without making a single mistake. In a word: perfect.

The girl's gaze drifted to the entrance of the training room. There stood her esteemed father, master of the fire and lord of the entire nation, as well as one of the fire sages, who was unfamiliar to Azula, though she knew many of the servants and subordinates allowed into the palace. Quickly catching her breath, she pulled herself together, leaving a calm mask of concentration on her face, and made her way towards them, tentatively signalling the end of the battle to her defeated opponents.

Thanks to the training armour, they received only light burns, remaining conscious and continued to lie on the ground, defeated. If this had been a real fight, with real armour and hotter flames, the wounds would have been many times worse if they had been lucky enough to survive. But this was just a training session, not a real Agni Kai (a fire mage duel that often ends in a kill). As the princess walked through the spacious training hall towards the exit, the defeated mages began to rise from the sand, helping their comrades.

- Fire Lord, have you come to see my training? - Kneeling before her father, Azula said, looking down at his feet.

- 'Yes,' her father replied in a commanding voice, 'I have prepared a gift for you. Follow me.

- As you command.

They walked down the familiar corridors, the servants and guards bowing low at the sight of them. Decoration, beauty, grandeur and wealth were all familiar to the girl, she took it for granted. After all, she is the princess of the most progressive and powerful nation in the entire world.

Azula had climbed all the rooms of the palace since childhood, so she knew the location of most of the hidden rooms and various hiding places. Natural curiosity allowed the girl to learn a lot of things and more than once helped the princess in her life. She knew perfectly well where they were going. Except that upon arrival she was in for a little surprise. Entering one of the training rooms, she saw a stone pedestal painted with lamps in hundreds and thousands of shades of red-gold colour.

- 'Sage, explain the ritual to my daughter,' the Fire Lord spoke first as the others entered the room following the august figures.

- Yes, lord. The Fire Lotus is a rare flower that releases huge amounts of fire Qi when it burns. You will need to breathe its smoke while meditating to assimilate the maximum amount of energy. It is an ancient ritual to strengthen the lungs and body energy," Azula looked at her father questioningly; a barely perceptible nod was her answer.

- Why aren't similar rituals performed on all mages in our army? - She voiced her question with her father's permission.

- Flowers are extremely rare, and the ritual must be performed at adulthood. Usually..." the sage stammered, glancing at the Fire Master.

- 'Tell her,' the ruler of the fire nation threw out an order.

- Yes, lord. Normally only the Fire Lord's heir could afford such a ritual. However, your father was the second past Fire Lord, and did not undergo it unlike the dragon of the west. The ritual is exclusive to the Fire Lord's family, and is a secret to the world. After the ritual, your flame and control over it will increase, your lungs will absorb more air, your aura will become brighter, and your body will be infused with great Qi power.... - The sage continued to praise the ritual while Azula listened to him intently. Since she knew that there was no such thing as useless information.

- Princess, the zenith of the sun is approaching, it's time to begin the ritual, are you ready? - he turned to the girl after his speech, feeling the location of the light thanks to magic, as there were no windows in this hall.

- 'I am ready,' she climbed the stone stairs, keeping her back straight and majestic, not wanting to hit the dirt in front of her father. Whatever the test was, she would pass it and prove herself worthy of being her father's heir. Sitting down on a rock, Azula began to meditate, breathing with the full force of her lungs.

- Begin," the Fire Master said, watching the ritual with mild interest.

- As you command," the sage spread his hands, pointing his index and middle fingers at the flowers, and flames instantly burst from them, igniting the flammable plants.

Milky white smoke began to fill the room. The fire consumed the red-golden flowers, rising higher and higher, dancing around the heir to the throne but not harming her in any way. The smoke and flames caressed her like a tame pet. The princess felt no heat or danger, everything was fine.

Breathing fully, Azula quickly sensed a change. It wasn't the usual smoke, it didn't interfere with breathing, but it affected the girl differently. She was still conscious, but her mind was as if in a trance. The princess watched the flames dance around her and couldn't think about anything. Her mind was like a fog, time was stretching out, it was hard to tell how long she had been sitting like that. It became difficult to concentrate on the fire, as if hypnotised by its dance. After that she began to see hallucinations or were they visions from Agni himself?

The flames played with all the colours of the rainbow, rising to the ceiling, gradually turning blue-white. At the peak of its power, it seemed to her that the smoke gathered together into something resembling a dragon, which immediately fell upon her as she once again inhaled a full breath. An unknown force began to spread through her body, from her lungs to her heart, from her heart to everything else: muscles, bones, skin, organs...

The fire quickly burned away all the flowers, filling the altered training room with milky smoke. The Sage and the Fire Master outwardly remained calm, they waited for the blue flames to disappear. Knowing full well that the fire was harmless to the one and only heiress. Azula was indeed one of a kind. A fortunate cross between the genes of the descendants of Avatar Roku and the Lord Sozin before last. The men stood waiting, watching the girl as the blue flames quickly died down around her, leaving only ash behind.

One of them was watching with mild interest, but the other was doing his best not to show any excitement. The sage did not lie that only the Fire Master and the heir had performed such a ritual before. He only learnt about this ritual from the Lord's order, from books and secret scrolls. And if something happened to the princess, he would be better off burning in his own flames than waiting for punishment from the girl's father. The sage might well have made a mistake in the ritual, since it was the first time he had performed it himself. However, the orders of the Fire Lord were not to be discussed, much less challenged. In these moments, the old man needed all his experience and fortitude to maintain a calm face next to the ruler of the strongest nation in the world.

Meanwhile, the smoke from the precious lotus flowers began to dissolve in the empty windowless room. Dissolving precisely, not flying outside. Showing the figure of the heir to the throne, who continued to sit on the stone pedestal, frozen in a meditation pose.

- Princess? - A barely perceptible excitement slipped into the voice of the fire sage.

- It's all right. Did I do well? - calmly, without any emotion in her voice, the princess replied, starting to slowly descend from the pedestal. Nothing in her gait suggested heaviness or difficulty in walking, but her eyes were as empty as ever. It was as if she were in a trance.

- 'Undoubtedly,' replied the Fire Lord, to follow up, 'normally people would faint during the ritual, but you have surprised me again, especially with the colour of your flame.

- I serve the Fire Lord," the girl bowed to her father, stammering slightly in the process. The effects of the ritual were making themselves felt, no matter Azula's efforts to hide her weakness, her father saw her.

- Go to your chambers, you need to rest," the ruler deigned to give the order before going about his very important business.

The Sage of Fire could breathe a sigh of relief, the heiress was fine. He had not miscalculated the ritual, and he would not be executed for treason.

- As you command, my lord... - after waiting for the man and the elder to leave the room, Azula tried to rise, but instead she collapsed silently to the floor, which was covered in a light sludge of ash.

Her entire body felt cotton-wooly and unruly, and her consciousness was just as threatening to go into slumber. Her breathing was quiet, she couldn't even hear it, let alone control it. A terrible mistake for any fire conqueror to make. With a lot of effort to pull herself together, the girl stood up on the second attempt, walking over to the wall, she shook the ashes off her robes, and slowly made her way to her chambers.

Before leaving the ritual room taking herself in hand, she took in the appearance of a perfect heiress. The journey to her room was as hard as ever, but she was used to various hardships in her life. There was no telling what effort it took for her to maintain a regal demeanour, rather than plop down on a bench somewhere and sleep there. It had been a mostly normal day for her, during which she had completely exhausted herself by training a little harder than usual. But being tired didn't give her the right to show her weakness! Azula couldn't afford such a thing, she had no choice but to walk to her room with a perfectly straight back and her chin proudly raised.

No matter how hard the road was, the princess slowly reached her chambers without showing her weakness to anyone, kicked out the servants, changed her clothes and lay down to rest.

Sleep took over the girl's mind as soon as her head touched the pillow, and the next morning an unpleasant surprise awaited her.