Chapter 49: Long Live the Prince
The battlefield still smoldered. The cries of the wounded rose like a broken hymn above the crackle of burning catapults and the hiss of dying flames. Corpses lay half-buried in shattered earth, the soil blackened by fire and soaked through with blood until it became a thick, foul sludge. The stench of iron, ash, and death hung heavy.
It was then that Admiral Kuvak arrived.
Unlike the rest of the men, he was untouched by blood or soot. His armor was polished, his crimson cloak flowing behind him like a war-banner of its own. Flanked by his personal guard of elite firebenders, he strode onto the battlefield as though he were stepping onto a parade ground. His boots crunched over charred remains without hesitation. His eyes, sharp, narrow, calculating, scanned the ruin of Nan-Hai with a commander's detachment, not the faintest flicker of pity in their depths.
"Form ranks!" his voice cut like a blade through the haze. "Extinguish stray fires, salvage what can be salvaged, strip the enemy dead of arms and armor. This province belongs to the Fire Nation now. I will have it cleansed and ordered before the moon rises."
The men, ragged and exhausted, hesitated at first. Many had only just lowered their weapons, blood still dripping from their knuckles. But Kuvak's tone brooked no resistance. One by one, then in groups, squads snapped to their tasks, dragging wounded comrades into lines, executing earthbenders too slow to flee and taking others prisoner, piling corpses into smoldering heaps for burning.
"Catapult crews, recover what's intact," Kuvak barked, pointing toward the shattered lines of the Earth Kingdom siege machines. "I want those stones re-carved, wheels mended, and ropes rewoven before dawn. What the enemy left behind will serve us now."
His guards relayed every word with the discipline of trained officers. Fire Nation soldiers, worn to the bone, their armor dented and uniforms scorched—found themselves working like oxen, driven forward by sheer will and the Admiral's commanding presence.
Lieutenant Commander Donji approached, his face still streaked with grime and blood. "Admiral, the enemy is routed. They won't regroup soon, not without Fong."
Kuvak's gaze lingered on him only a moment before sweeping out across the chaos. "The enemy is scattered, not destroyed. Despair can turn to defiance if left unchecked. Pursue those who fled. Hunt them through the hills, through the villages—leave no seed for rebellion to grow."
Donji bowed, hesitating for just a second. "And our own wounded, sir?"
"Their survival depends on the strength of their comrades," Kuvak said flatly. "The Fire Nation's future depends on victory, not pity. Triage them. Save those who can fight tomorrow. The rest…" he let the words trail, his silence more damning than anything he might have said aloud.
Rin, standing nearby with his sword still dripping crimson, clenched his jaw but said nothing. His eyes flicked to the men struggling to carry Zuko's stretcher toward the rear lines. Their prince still breathed, though shallowly, his body a ruin of cuts, burns, and bruises.
Kuvak's gaze followed, narrowing. For a heartbeat he said nothing, only studied the stretcher as though weighing its worth. Finally, he spoke, voice smooth, almost oily. "See that the Crown Prince is stabilized. His survival is essential-for morale, if nothing else."
He turned, cloak snapping in the evening wind. "But do not mistake his reckless gamble for victory. The Fire Nation won today because I brought order to chaos. Because I brought reinforcements when you would have been overrun." His voice rose, carrying across the field so that nearby soldiers, even wounded ones, heard every word. "Do not forget who commands this province now. Nan-Hai is mine to secure."
The words stung. Rin's nostrils flared, Donji stiffened, and even Lee, still crouched at Zuko's side, sweat streaking his soot stained face, felt the venom of them. But none spoke against the Admiral. Not yet. The battlefield was his stage, and every soldier too weary to raise a challenge.
As the sun sank low, torches lit across the plain. Lines of Fire Nation troops marched through the ruin, spears and blades glinting red in the dusk. Fires devoured the corpses of the Earth Kingdom's fallen, their banners turned to ash that drifted upward into the darkening sky.
And through it all, Admiral Kuvak stood tall at the center, orchestrating the aftermath with the cold efficiency of a man who saw war not as tragedy, but as ledger, losses and gains tallied without sentiment.
Nan-Hai was his now. At least, that was what he meant everyone to believe.
The stretcher jolted as the three soldiers carried it across uneven ground, their boots slipping in blood-soaked mud. Each lurch wrung a groan from Zuko, though his eyes never fully opened. His body was mangled: ribs bruised and cracked, skin split in deep burns and slashes, his armor a shredded ruin half-clinging to him. Sweat mixed with blood, stinging his eyes even when he tried to keep them closed. The battlefield still roared somewhere behind him, but to Zuko, it was muffled, distant, like echoes underwater.
"Careful!" Rin barked, walking beside the stretcher. His voice carried a hard edge, more protective than commanding. His hands twitched as though he wanted to seize the stretcher himself, but instead he kept his sword in one fist, blade still painted in red. He had learned the cruelty of battle well enough to know an injured prince made an easy target. His eyes scanned every shadow, every cluster of men, for threats that might still linger.
Lee, soot-streaked and bruised, trudged at the other side. He kept glancing at Zuko, his scholarly face hardened with worry. "He's burning up," Lee muttered, reaching to brush damp strands of black hair from Zuko's bloodied forehead. "This fever, if he doesn't receive treatment soon…"
"Shut it," Rin snapped, though not unkindly. "He's not dying. He's too damn stubborn to die."
Zuko's lips curled into a ghost of a smile, though his voice was weak and slurred. "You… sound… so sure."
The soldiers carrying him nearly stumbled at the realization he was still lucid. One muttered a prayer under his breath; another bit his lip hard, forcing himself to keep his grip steady.
"Prince Zuko," Lee said, bending low so his voice could reach past the din of the march. "You shouldn't be speaking. Conserve your strength. Please."
But Zuko forced his head to the side, eyes squinting half-shut. Even blurred, he could still make out the burning landscape. Charred mounds of bodies. Fire Nation troops fanning across the plain in new formations under Kuvak's orders. The enemy routed, their banners in pieces, their catapults still smoldering husks. He had done this. Him, not Kuvak. And yet the Admiral was already stamping his name upon the victory, already turning the tide of narrative.
Zuko spat blood to the side, his chest heaving. "Don't… let him take… everything."
Rin leaned closer. "What do you mean, 'him'?"
Zuko's swollen lips cracked into something like a smirk. "Kuvak… won't stop… here."
Lee's throat tightened. He remembered the way Kuvak's voice had carried over the battlefield earlier, cold and commanding, already reshaping what had happened. He knew Zuko was right.
They reached the rear lines at last, where makeshift tents had been erected from what remained of supply wagons. Here, the smell of burned flesh gave way to the acrid bite of poultices and boiled herbs. Medics rushed forward, their uniforms stained with blood, hands slick with it.
"Lay him down, carefully," one healer ordered. The stretcher was lowered onto a bedroll, and the medics swarmed over him, slicing away the remains of his armor, dabbing at burns, applying salves that hissed when they met open flesh. Zuko hissed with them, his body jerking in reflex, but he clenched his teeth, forcing his voice down.
Rin stood stiff at his side, arms folded, jaw tight. Lee knelt, refusing to leave until ordered. Donji, arriving moments later with his armor dented and cape tattered, took in the scene with a grim frown.
"He fought like a demon," Donji muttered, low enough so only Rin and Lee heard. "I never thought I'd live to see a man make fire into a sun. If Kuvak tries to claim this day as his alone, he'll find many who remember otherwise."
"Words won't matter if the Admiral weaves his own story fast enough," Rin growled, his eyes never leaving Zuko. "Soldiers obey the man who feeds them and commands them today, not the one who bled for them yesterday."
Zuko stirred, hearing fragments of their whispers through the haze. His voice was raw, broken, yet it forced itself out. "I'll… make sure… they don't forget."
Lee bent close again. "My prince, please, save your strength. You've already pushed beyond…"
"No," Zuko hissed, a flash of fire briefly curling from his lips with the word. His eyes, cracked with red veins, glowed with the faintest ember of defiance. "If I die… if I fall… they'll remember Kuvak's order, not my fire. That cannot… happen. It won't."
Rin's hand clenched tighter on his sword hilt. For once, he said nothing. He simply bowed his head, a vow unspoken.
Outside the tent, Kuvak's voice continued to thunder commands, reshaping the aftermath of the battle with each order. His soldiers moved with brutal precision, extinguishing dissent and carving their Admiral's name into the province itself.
But inside, the stretcher lay with Zuko still breathing, clinging to consciousness with sheer will alone. Bloodied, broken, but unyielding. The men closest to him, Rin, Lee, Donji, knew with every fiber of their being: so long as that fire still smoldered in his eyes, so long as his chest rose with each labored breath, this war was not Kuvak's to claim.
It was his.
Zuko's fingers, bloodied, trembling, yet still strong, clutched Lee's hand. His grip was desperate, the kind of hold that anchored not just a man, but a memory. His voice rasped from cracked lips, heavy with pain and conviction.
"Lee… what happened here today, cannot be forgotten. Do you hear me? Even if I fall, even if they bury me in ash… this victory must never wear another man's name."
Lee's throat tightened as he bent low, his face inches from the prince's battered one. He could smell the copper of blood, the smoke clinging to Zuko's skin. "I hear you, my prince," Lee whispered, his voice breaking with something between fear and reverence.
Zuko's grip loosened, his eyes flickering closed as exhaustion pulled him under again. But the fire in those words lingered, hot and undeniable. Lee sat frozen for a moment, his hand still cradling Zuko's, before he finally pulled away. He turned to Rin and Donji, who both stood stiff and silent, watching their prince with grim respect.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Lee murmured, voice steady now, but his eyes alight with something fierce.
Neither Rin nor Donji moved to stop him. They only followed him with their gaze as he stepped past the medics, past the cluster of soot-stained soldiers lingering near the triage tent. His boots crunched over shattered stone and blackened earth as he made his way toward a jagged outcropping of rock, one torn and bent high during the chaos of battle.
The wind carried the acrid stench of fire and blood, but Lee felt none of it. He climbed, pulling himself higher, until he stood above the battered assembly of Fire Nation men, thousands of them still catching their breath, still alive by sheer chance, their armor dented, their eyes hollow with the shock of survival.
Lee raised both arms wide, and his voice rang out over the field, raw but unshaking.
"Soldiers of the Fire Nation!" he cried, and dozens of tired heads turned. Then hundreds. Then more.
Lee's chest swelled as he looked at them, their soot-streaked faces, their weary postures. "You saw it with your own eyes! You stood here and bore witness to fire turned into a sun itself. You watched your Crown Prince bleed for you, fight for you, nearly die for you! It was not another who broke General Fong. It was not me, nor Donji, nor Rin. It was him, our Prince, who faced the giant alone and struck him down!"
The murmurs rippled through the crowd like sparks on dry tinder. Helmets lifted, shoulders straightened.
"He is more than heir to the throne," Lee continued, his voice rising against the wind. "He is proof that the Fire Nation is unstoppable! He is proof that our blood burns hotter, fiercer, than any earth that dares rise against us! Remember this day! Burn it into your minds and your hearts! Let no man or admiral or officer steal it from you!"
His fist struck against his chest plate, ringing out with a metallic crack. "When you speak of Nan-Hai, you speak of Zuko! When you remember this victory, you remember the prince who turned his body into fire and seared a legend into the bones of the earth itself!"
A roar began at the front, one voice, then another. Then a hundred. Then thousands. The chant grew, deep and pounding, until the very battlefield trembled with it.
"LONG LIVE THE PRINCE!"
The shout echoed, again and again, shaking the very stones. Men bloodied and limping raised their fists. Firebenders still smoking from their own strikes let flames dance over their palms. Cavalrymen banged weapons against shields. Even those too wounded to stand raised their voices, hoarse and ragged, but loud enough to join the tide.
"LONG LIVE THE PRINCE!"
Inside the command circle, Admiral Kuvak stood stiff as the chant reached his ears. His jaw tightened, his hands clasped behind his back. He stared toward the rock where Lee stood, bellowing still, his voice swallowed by the chants of the army.
Kuvak's eyes narrowed. He did not miss the sting. The battle had been won, but in the eyes of the men, the glory belonged not to him. It belonged to the battered boy carried on a stretcher, the boy he was meant to watch, to control.
The chant swelled once more, louder than before.
"LONG LIVE THE PRINCE! LONG LIVE THE PRINCE!"
And in that moment, there was no doubt: Nan-Hai's victory belonged to Zuko.
[A/N: Can't wait to see what happens next? Get exclusive early access on patreon.com/saiyanprincenovels. If you enjoyed this chapter and want to see more, don't forget to drop a power stone! Your support helps this story reach more readers!]