Avatar the last airbende.., p.1
Avatar, the Last Airbender, page 1
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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IISBN 978-1-4197-5679-5
eISBN 9781647004071
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Cover illustrations by JungShan Chang
Book design by Brenda E. Angelilli and Deena Micah Fleming
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For Karen,
who has seen my entire author career so far.
And to whom I’d like to show the rest.
DEPTHS
Chaisee understood from an early age that to be successful, you needed to be willing to go further than others thought possible.
To wit—the villagers of her little unnamed island dove for prized cucumber-sponges far below the glistening surface of the waters, where sunlight faded and ears threatened to burst. No one in the Mo Ce considered such a feat viable or worth the risk.
But Chaisee’s people ignored the prevailing wisdom. Without the aid of waterbending, they trained their bodies to accept the pressure, their minds to embrace the signals that they were dying. Dive after dive, they forced their way farther into the depths and scraped their hands raw against the slimy spikes of the reef to come up with little puffballs of a creature that, once carefully killed and dried, would fetch a generous string of coins on the open market.
She and her fellow villagers willingly took on the often-fatal endeavor again and again so they might eat for another season. And faraway nobles washed their faces with the cured exteriors of cucumber-sponges, the softest touch known in the Four Nations. A mutually beneficial agreement based on one party’s willingness to torture themselves and the other side’s complete distaste for the slightest physical discomfort.
As Chaisee grew older, she began to manage the village’s books. She took over from her father the negotiations with haulers who came to collect the sponges, pearls, dried shellfish meat—the secret was to spy on other suppliers while using uncharted islands as stashes to control market prices. She had no reason to suspect her future would contain any disturbances to this arrangement other than the occasional monsoon.
The ship that broke the cycle arrived with battened sails and swooping foredecks. Strangely, it bore flags of both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. The party that came ashore in longboats was led by junior ambassadors from both countries. In front of Chaisee’s assembled village, they read a proclamation decreeing that the inhabitants of this island would no longer be allowed to produce certain goods of the sea. By a vanishingly rare agreement between Earth King and Fire Lord, the exclusive rights had been granted to some merchant they’d never heard of in a faraway city that was completely landlocked.
This can’t be, Chaisee’s father had said, hushing her with a raised hand. Suddenly the negotiator again. We protest this decision. You must at least give us the chance to formulate a response. To buy time, he resorted to their island’s customs of hospitality. Let us entertain you tonight as honored guests. We can talk of bargains in the morning.
The officials agreed. They needed to reprovision and take on fresh water anyway. While the ship’s quartermaster negotiated the purchase and loading of supplies, a feast was quickly put together for the important visitors and their crew.
The general nervousness among the villagers ebbed as they shared good food and drink with the sailors around the burning fire in the square. The meal would remind these strangers that the island was home to families like theirs and that a measure of humanity should prevail over dictums sent from afar.
Chaisee did not partake wholeheartedly. She stayed removed and observed, as was her habit, which meant she saw in full when one of the sailors picked up a torch and flung it into the largest hut. Like one might offer a bone to a guard animal. She wasn’t fast enough to stop him or speak out.
The building was the one used to store the drying cucumber-sponges, and in their raw state the dusty, porous bodies of the sea creatures were better than the best tinder. The roof blew out with a roar, spewing heat and flame and embers over the adjacent huts. The fire spread so fast that half the village was ablaze before the screaming started.
Chaisee remembered the reactions of the ambassadors who had obviously given the order, their faces lit by the blooming, dancing flames. They rolled their eyes, snorted in contempt, and departed as calmly as they came. Annoyed with the whole affair at best. Her father was too distraught, occupied with fighting the fire, to prevent 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 power and voice of their rulers. There were no criminals here; her livelihood burning away was the law enacted. She might as well have tried to exact justice from the leaders of the Four Nations themselves. What fool could aspire to that?
We weren’t strong enough to keep this from happening, she thought as her neighbors desperately tried to carry water to the fire in buckets, gourds, cupped hands, wailing as their futures dissolved into smoke. We didn’t have the right friends.
Working yourself to the brink of oblivion was pointless if you couldn’t defend the life you made. Maneuvers, deals, negotiations were simply dance steps. Pageantry. The true arbiter waiting at the end of the performance was violence.
Chaisee’s ruined village was a kiln that baked the lesson into shape. She kept it in mind as she sought work on islands closer to the official Fire Nation archipelago. The form held hard and without cracks as she made her name in trade, mastering the codes of business spoken in every country while accumulating leverage over her partners and rivals alike. When the Platinum Affair clamped across the world, she was quick to see opportunity and predicted correctly how it would condense power even further into a few hands.
By the time she became eligible for the role of Zongdu in Jonduri, the war had already been fought and won. In the minds of the shangs, there were no rational choices other than Chaisee to lead the city. Her selection was unanimous.
In many ways, Zongdu Henshe, her counterpart in Bin-Er, was of a similar mindset as Chaisee. Though he was a fool who squandered information and resources with no regard for strategy or long-term consequences, he had successfully ground her plans to a halt by threatening to turn over everything he knew to the Earth King. He’d stolen the fruits of her labor, her means of becoming immune to harm in all the ways her little childhood village was not.
Henshe’s waywardness had posed a greater threat than any of the brilliant men and women whom Chaisee had tangled with in the past. The wise could be counted on to do what was wise; there was no predicting the actions of a buffoon. But now Henshe was gone, and with him her assets. Chaisee had been left without a move. She could only sit and wait.
“Mistress.” Chaisee’s newest attendant announced herself, pausing on the warped floorboard by the door of the nursery. Each shift of the girl’s socked feet produced a squeak like a pained bird. “Mistress, you have a—”
The baby woke. A scorching wail rose from the teak crib in the corner.
Chaisee rubbed her forehead, taking care not to cover her face completely. “I just got him to sleep!” She had to raise her voice, something she never used to do, in order to be heard.
“I’m sorry, Mistress, but you have a letter and—”
“Leave it and get out!” The attendant scurried over, laid the envelope on the desk in the nursery, and fled for her life.
She didn’t see Chaisee drop her snarl as soon as she was gone. The girl would report back to Fire Lord Gonryu that her mistress was cracking under the strain, uncharacteristically showing more emotion. Perhaps frustrated by her child. Distracted, and therefore less of a threat.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Chaisee’s son was a sharp reminder for her to stay focused. And his cries were a perfect deterrent to eavesdroppers. Taking her time, as calm as if she were listening to the serenade of a babbling brook, Chaisee opened the letter. She drew a chair over to the crib and rocked it gently while she read.
The message was nonsense. But it was written in a hand she recognized and contained hidden signals that let her know exactly where to find the person who’d sent it.
Her son quieted down, but she knew he would start howling again if she stopped rocking. Perhaps his skin was prone to rashes. A frustrating prospect, whe n she already bathed him with cucumber-sponges, which were much more expensive these days than back when she was a girl. She went through an amount that would have made her younger self gasp, but there was no softer touch she could resort to.
Chaisee folded the paper back up with one hand and looked around. The nursery she’d constructed in the mountaintop estate was dark and cool, a respite from the sweltering heat outside. But the entire house would pass to the next Zongdu of Jonduri once her term ended.
She’d have to leave this place behind soon and start over again. Those were the rules laid out by the heads of state, who never had to worry about moving on from what they’d built while they were still alive. The Avatar, young Yangchen, was like that too. She would be the bridge between humans and spirits for her own little eternity before she passed and a new Avatar was born.
There were a lot of powerful people in the way of Chaisee’s ambitions, laying exclusive claim to permanence. They’d be sovereigns of their domains until the very day they died, never having to fear their status being stripped away, never knowing what it was like to be naked and vulnerable.
Chaisee could be the last person standing among them, if she chose the right path, proved herself willing to go to depths beyond reckoning, and remained a step ahead of the other players in a game that could reshape the Four Nations themselves. An outrageous folly, but one she had the means for. And the will.
She looked at the letter again and smiled. With the right incentives, anything was possible.
ADORATION
“You only win at keep-away because you’re taller,” Yangchen said. She remained motionless, not grabbing for the airball held within reach.
Jetsun pushed the wicker sphere closer to Yangchen’s face. “Really. Nice excuse for never learning.”
“I can’t learn how to be taller! And it’s not a fair game if you always start with the ball! We never switch places!”
The airball loomed larger, the moon threatening to plunge into the ocean. “Come on,” Jetsun said. “Make a move.”
As soon as Yangchen did, she’d give away some tell and Jetsun would react quicker than a hummingfly’s wings, read her intentions, and retreat just far enough to make her think she still had a chance. “No. Not this time. Neutral jing.”
“Bwomp,” Jetsun said, pushing the ball lightly against the tip of Yangchen’s nose.
That settled it. Yangchen shut her eyes. Jetsun couldn’t predict which way she would go if she didn’t know herself. She lunged blindly, flailing her arms randomly about, and only once she’d clapped her hands around the prize and successfully torn it away from her sister’s grip did she open her eyes again. “Ha! Eat dust—”
Instead of the airball, Yangchen was holding on to a pulsing light, her hands lost in its undefined edges. Jetsun was standing a few feet away, deathly still. The older nun’s eyes were blank and without reflection, anchored in the distance behind Yangchen. Her lips were blue. Yangchen had torn Jetsun’s spirit from her body. No accusation, no voice told her so, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
She tried giving it back. The first instinct of a child who’d gleefully killed a bug but then regretted it. She pushed the light toward Jetsun. Here. Your turn. False start. I’m sorry. Never meant to.
But injuries couldn’t be undone. No healing reversed time. As Yangchen advanced with the light, Jetsun retreated, floating just out of reach, never moving more than necessary to confirm Yangchen’s crime.
Take it back. Please, take it back. Yangchen was no longer pleading with Jetsun but the spirits, the Four Nations, the universe. Please. I’ll do anything.
As Yangchen gave chase, her feet splashing against emptiness, tendrils of mist enclosed Jetsun, as if her sister were being webbed by a spider-fly. A corpse shroud of fog, and only when Jetsun’s mouth was about to be covered did she part her lips to say—
“Aagh!”
Yangchen woke with a start, her head snapping up from the desk. A paper came with her; drool had glued the document to her cheek. She swiped at her face, briefly thinking she was under attack, the victim of some kind of screening maneuver, until she regained her bearings.
The cold was the first sign, the cramped, drafty wood paneling the next. She was in the tiny room on the upper floor of the Bin-Er gathering hall that she’d commandeered for an office. Yangchen rubbed her eyes. This place was going to become her tomb.
Jetsun. There but not there. Of all the lives that could have haunted Yangchen in her sleep, it had to be her own. Jetsun’s presence must have been a dream, not a memory, because in it they were about the same age. I’m on the verge of catching up, Yangchen thought.
The dream was accurate enough. One way or another, she was responsible for Jetsun’s death by the severance of her spirit. The younger version of herself, the current version of herself, it didn’t matter. It was her fault Jetsun had died.
A knock came at the door. “You were late before,” Boma said from the other side. “Now you’re very late.”
“What do you mean before?” Her guardian normally eased her into the mornings.
She could hear Boma grunt, the sound of a sigh being plugged. “You asked for a few more minutes. I left and came back. The shangs are waiting.” He lowered his voice. “So is the inspector.”
Yangchen didn’t remember the conversation. She must have been sleep-talking. She’d worked throughout the night above the room where the meeting was supposed to take place, napped on top of her documents, and she still wasn’t on time. “Where’s my staff?”
“You left it by your chair downstairs.”
An important heirloom sitting there forgotten, for all to see. She swore at herself. You’re a mess. Get it together.
She scrambled to get ready as best she could, gathering her hair and checking in a mirror that ink hadn’t bled onto her face. Reluctantly she shed the blankets around her shoulders. She couldn’t be seen clinging to comforts.
Strength, she told herself. Control. Don’t worry that you’re walking away from your sister.
Yangchen joined Boma outside the office and he followed her down the spiraling stairs to the ground floor. The main room was barred by double doors, and she pushed them open with air pressure. The gesture was more dramatic than she intended, her arrival announced by a gale of wind. Loose papers tumbled down the aisles. Gasps came from the seats.
And before Boma had to say anything, the people waiting for her in the grand hall stood as one. “The Avatar,” he declared, trying to catch up.
The shangs of Bin-Er. The select group of merchants who controlled the flow of international trade to and from the city. “Apologies for my tardiness,” Yangchen said to the assembly.
“No need, Mistress Avatar,” replied Shang Teiin, one of the more senior representatives. “Your presence is a blessing no matter the circumstances.”
Next to him, a woman wearing earrings made from pearls the size of grapes lowered her head. The dangling jewelry pointed to the floor as she bowed. “We’re ready—We’re excited to discuss the next phase of your proposals,” said Noehi, who’d once made sport of mocking Yangchen when she thought she could get away with it.
Half a year had produced a marked shift in attitude among the powerful men and women who’d originally fought her efforts to aid the poor in Bin-Er. Afraid of being implicated in the disaster that led to three unimaginably powerful Firebenders causing havoc over the city, they’d seen the wisdom in partnering with Yangchen. If they failed to dance in tune together, the merchants would lose their heads for treason against the Earth King. And Yangchen would become one of the greatest failures in Avatar history—a history she could remember in excruciating detail.
“Shall we begin?” Noehi asked. Her gaze darted to Yangchen’s empty seat on top of the central dais, and then to a man behind it at the recorder’s desk, slightly off to the side. He was a heavily bundled official from Ba Sing Se whose brush moved faster than a master musician’s fingers. As he glanced up from his pad of papers and made eye contact with Noehi, her lips twitched in fear.
For the sake of the spirits, don’t look at him like that, Yangchen thought. You’re acting suspicious already.
