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The world of the animated sequence Avatar: The Final Airbender continues to develop in quite a lot of media, with the gacha RPG recreation Avatar Generations, the tabletop RPG recreation Avatar Legends, and a sequence of three animated motion pictures in regards to the grownup variations of Aang, Katara, and the remainder of the TV present’s solid on the way in which. Because the present’s story strikes ahead in time, the novels proceed to look again on the conflicts and triumphs of people that served as Avatar lengthy earlier than Aang, attempting to carry peace and stability to the 4 Nations.
F.C. Yee’s newest ebook within the Chronicles of the Avatar sequence concludes the story of Avatar Yangchen, an inexperienced younger girl attempting to cope with a scheme that may ship the Nations to warfare with one another. But it surely opens with a brand new perspective on a seeming villain, which you’ll be able to learn within the excerpt under.
Right here’s Amulet Books’ description of the novel:
Avatar Yangchen has succeeded in bringing a measure of stability to Bin-Er, however her successes have been restricted to a single metropolis, and rumors regarding Unanimity—a weapon able to complete obliteration—have led to rising tensions among the many 4 Nations. Determined to revive diplomacy, Yangchen makes an attempt to de-escalate hostilities between heads of state. However within the wake of a brutal assassination and the liberating of Unanimity, Yangchen is compelled to carry Kavik—the trusted former companion whose betrayal crushed her—again into her fold. Because the 4 Nations teeter on the point of battle and she or he begins to unravel the power-hungry Zongdu Chaisee’s true agenda, Yangchen is compelled to measure the price of humanity, and the way a lot could be sacrificed within the title of stability. This taut and provocative fourth installment within the Chronicles of the Avatar sequence follows Avatar Yangchen as she charts the course of her legacy, lastly making peace along with her decisions and dealing with Avatarhood with the braveness it calls for.
The sequence is written in session with Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, co-creators of Nickelodeon’s award-winning sequence, Avatar: The Final Airbender and The Legend of Korra, which reside on in a fandom of tens of millions.
Learn a full free chapter of The Legacy of Yangchen under, displaying that power-hungry villain in a unique mild.
Chapter 1: Depths
Picture: Amulet Books
Chaisee understood from an early age that to achieve success, you wanted to be keen to go additional than others thought attainable.
To wit—the villagers of her little unnamed island dove for prized cucumber-sponges far under the glistening floor of the waters, the place daylight pale and ears threatened to burst. Nobody within the Mo Ce thought-about such a feat viable or well worth the danger.
However Chaisee’s folks ignored the prevailing knowledge. With out the help of waterbending, they skilled their our bodies to simply accept the stress, their minds to embrace the indicators that they had been dying. Dive after dive, they compelled their method farther into the depths and scraped their fingers uncooked towards the slimy spikes of the reef to give you little puffballs of a creature that, as soon as rigorously killed and dried, would fetch a beneficiant string of cash on the open market.
She and her fellow villagers willingly took on the often-fatal endeavor many times so they could eat for one more season. And faraway nobles washed their faces with the cured exteriors of cucumber-sponges, the softest contact recognized within the 4 Nations. A mutually helpful settlement primarily based on one get together’s willingness to torture themselves and the opposite aspect’s full distaste for the slightest bodily discomfort.
As Chaisee grew older, she started to handle the village’s books. She took over from her father the negotiations with haulers who got here to gather the sponges, pearls, dried shellfish meat—the key was to spy on different suppliers whereas utilizing uncharted islands as stashes to regulate market costs. She had no cause to suspect her future would include any disturbances to this association aside from the occasional monsoon.
The ship that broke the cycle arrived with battened sails and swooping foredecks. Unusually, it bore flags of each the Hearth Nation and the Earth Kingdom. The get together that got here ashore in longboats was led by junior ambassadors from each nations. In entrance of Chaisee’s assembled village, they learn a proclamation decreeing that the inhabitants of this island would not be allowed to supply sure items of the ocean. By a vanishingly uncommon settlement between Earth King and Hearth Lord, the unique rights had been granted to some service provider they’d by no means heard of in a faraway metropolis that was utterly landlocked.
This may’t be, Chaisee’s father had mentioned, hushing her with a raised hand. Immediately the negotiator once more. We protest this choice. It’s essential to at the very least give us the possibility to formulate a response. To purchase time, he resorted to their island’s customs of hospitality. Allow us to entertain you tonight as honored friends. We will discuss of bargains within the morning.
The officers agreed. They wanted to reprovision and tackle recent water anyway. Whereas the ship’s quartermaster negotiated the acquisition and loading of provides, a feast was shortly put collectively for the essential guests and their crew.
The final nervousness among the many villagers ebbed as they shared good food and drinks with the sailors across the burning fireplace within the sq.. The meal would remind these strangers that the island was house to households like theirs and {that a} measure of humanity ought to prevail over dictums despatched from afar.
Chaisee didn’t partake wholeheartedly. She stayed eliminated and noticed, as was her behavior, which meant she noticed in full when one of many sailors picked up a torch and flung it into the most important hut. Like one would possibly supply a bone to a guard animal. She wasn’t quick sufficient to cease him or converse out.
The constructing was the one used to retailer the drying cucumber-sponges, and of their uncooked state the dusty, porous our bodies of the ocean creatures had been higher than the perfect tinder. The roof blew out with a roar, spewing warmth and flame and embers over the adjoining huts. The fireplace unfold so quick that half the village was ablaze earlier than the screaming began.
Chaisee remembered the reactions of the ambassadors who had clearly given the order, their faces lit by the blooming, dancing flames. They rolled their eyes, snorted in contempt, and departed as calmly as they got here. Irritated with the entire affair at greatest. Her father was too distraught, occupied with preventing the fireplace, to stop the outsiders from reaching their longboats and leaving the shore unimpeded.
She watched the delegation go, understanding {that a} confrontation would have achieved nothing. The letters they bore granted them the ability and voice of their rulers. There have been no criminals right here; her livelihood burning away was the legislation enacted. She would possibly as effectively have tried to precise justice from the leaders of the 4 Nations themselves. What idiot may aspire to that?
We weren’t robust sufficient to maintain this from taking place, she thought as her neighbors desperately tried to hold water to the fireplace in buckets, gourds, cupped fingers, wailing as their futures dissolved into smoke. We didn’t have the proper associates.
Working your self to the brink of oblivion was pointless in case you couldn’t defend the life you made. Maneuvers, offers, negotiations had been merely dance steps. Pageantry. The true arbiter ready on the finish of the efficiency was violence.
Chaisee’s ruined village was a kiln that baked the lesson into form. She saved it in thoughts as she sought work on islands nearer to the official Hearth Nation archipelago. The shape held laborious and with out cracks as she made her title in commerce, mastering the codes of enterprise spoken in each nation whereas accumulating leverage over her companions and rivals alike. When the Platinum Affair clamped internationally, she was fast to see alternative and predicted appropriately how it could condense energy even additional into just a few fingers.
By the point she turned eligible for the position of Zongdu in Jonduri, the warfare had already been fought and gained. Within the minds of the shangs, there have been no rational decisions aside from Chaisee to guide the town. Her choice was unanimous.
In some ways, Zongdu Henshe, her counterpart in Bin-Er, was of the same mindset as Chaisee. Although he was a idiot who squandered data and sources with no regard for technique or long-term penalties, he had efficiently floor her plans to a halt by threatening to show over every thing he knew to the Earth King. He’d stolen the fruits of her labor, her technique of turning into proof against hurt in all of the methods her little childhood village was not.
Picture: Abrams Books
Henshe’s waywardness had posed a higher menace than any of the sensible women and men whom Chaisee had tangled with previously. The clever may very well be counted on to do what was clever; there was no predicting the actions of a buffoon. However now Henshe was gone, and with him her belongings. Chaisee had been left with no transfer. She may solely sit and wait.
“Mistress.” Chaisee’s latest attendant introduced herself, pausing on the warped floorboard by the door of the nursery. Every shift of the woman’s socked toes produced a squeak like a pained hen. “Mistress, you’ve a—”
The infant woke. A scorching wail rose from the teak crib within the nook.
Chaisee rubbed her brow, taking care to not cowl her face utterly. “I simply received him to sleep!” She needed to increase her voice, one thing she by no means used to do, with a view to be heard.
“I’m sorry, Mistress, however you’ve a letter and—”
“Go away it and get out!” The attendant scurried over, laid the envelope on the desk within the nursery, and fled for her life.
She didn’t see Chaisee drop her snarl as quickly as she was gone. The woman would report again to Hearth Lord Gonryu that her mistress was cracking underneath the pressure, uncharacteristically displaying extra emotion. Maybe pissed off by her youngster. Distracted, and subsequently much less of a menace.
Nothing may very well be farther from the reality. Chaisee’s son was a pointy reminder for her to remain centered. And his cries had been an ideal deterrent to eavesdroppers. Taking her time, as calm as if she had been listening to the serenade of a babbling brook, Chaisee opened the letter. She drew a chair over to the crib and rocked it gently whereas she learn.
The message was nonsense. But it surely was written in a hand she acknowledged and contained hidden indicators that allow her know precisely the place to seek out the one that’d despatched it.
Her son quieted down, however she knew he would begin howling once more if she stopped rocking. Maybe his pores and skin was liable to rashes. A irritating prospect, when she already bathed him with cucumber-sponges, which had been way more costly today than again when she was a woman. She went by an quantity that may have made her youthful self gasp, however there was no softer contact she may resort to.
Chaisee folded the paper again up with one hand and appeared round. The nursery she’d constructed within the mountaintop property was darkish and funky, a respite from the sweltering warmth exterior. However your entire home would cross to the following Zongdu of Jonduri as soon as her time period ended.
She’d have to go away this place behind quickly and begin over once more. These had been the principles laid out by the heads of state, who by no means needed to fear about shifting on from what they’d constructed whereas they had been nonetheless alive. The Avatar, younger Yangchen, was like that too. She could be the bridge between people and spirits for her personal little eternity earlier than she handed and a brand new Avatar was born.
There have been loads of highly effective folks in the way in which of Chaisee’s ambitions, laying unique declare to permanence. They’d be sovereigns of their domains till the very day they died, by no means having to concern their standing being stripped away, by no means understanding what it was wish to be bare and weak.
Chaisee may very well be the final particular person standing amongst them, if she selected the proper path, proved herself keen to go to depths past reckoning, and remained a step forward of the opposite gamers in a recreation that would reshape the 4 Nations themselves. An outrageous folly, however one she had the means for. And the desire.
She appeared on the letter once more and smiled. With the proper incentives, something was attainable.
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