The letters smelled like smoke.

Not metaphorically—literally. The edges were singed, crinkled just enough to suggest they’d once flirted with fire, but survived. Zuko had found them deep in a neglected archive of the royal wing, inside a box labeled in his father's sharp, slashing hand: “Burn. Trivial.”

Trivial.

The top letter was from her. Age eight. Signed in scrawled ink and dried flower juice. A drawing of a dragon doing a cartwheel in the margin. The next was his, written in embarrassingly careful strokes, telling her he wished she hadn’t been reassigned and that “Azula is the worst and my tea is cold and everything is dumb.”

Zuko sat there, Fire Lord, hand trembling over faded parchment—feeling twelve years old again.

He dropped everything. Cabinet meeting delayed. Agni Kai training postponed. National security? Paused. He scoured the census. Found her. Not in exile or hiding or prison—working. In his government. In his cabinet. All this time.

He stormed into the Department of Infrastructure and Trade like a royal thundercloud in gold-hemmed robes. She was trying to fix a transport route bottleneck. He was trying to fix his entire soul. She looked up, stunned. He didn’t say anything at first—just held out the box of letters.

They both cried. Openly. In front of seven horrified junior clerks.

Within days, they were inseparable.

At meetings: sitting too close. At tea: whispering like conspirators. At court: exchanging glances that could ignite curtains. At night: long walks under lantern light, not holding hands, definitely not, unless you counted when he offered her his arm after she tripped. Which she never did.

Iroh was delighted. He began requesting she join them for tea so often, the staff assumed she lived in the palace. One morning, Zuko walked in to find Iroh humming cheerfully and flipping through four bridal magazines.

“Oh,” Iroh said mildly. “These? Just for the recipes. Of course.”

Zuko hadn’t said anything yet. But every time she smiled at him the way she did when they were kids, his heart ached like a flame pressed too long to skin.