Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Reckoning of Roku (Chronicles of the Avatar Book 5)

by Randy Ribay

“I tell the clan otherwise because it reassures them. People long to know that they are special, that they are favored by the spirits. When they feel such comfort, they are far less likely to question their leaders, and we are free to do what must be done.”

“Imagine permanently being in the Avatar State.”

“Please—they’re cogs in a machine. It’s the machine we have to figure out how to destroy.”

Gyatso stepped forward. “You’re Sozin,” he said with an uncharacteristic frostiness.

Funny. I actually thought the book would involve all three working together.

If he so willed it, he could blaze instead of burn, incinerate instead of warm, combust instead of spark. He could open his mouth and breathe dragon fire or extend his hand and cast lightning.

“As the world changes, we must adapt,” Ulo said. “Perhaps that means that to defend, I must learn to attack.”

“So, this is your—what do you call it—secret tunnel?”

“You don’t trust me? I’m an Air Nomad.” “Exactly,” Sozin said. “As my father always says, never trust anyone who won’t eat meat.”

“Stop Firebending!” Ulo shouted from atop the hill. “You’re going to destroy the cave!” And maybe he was right. When Roku had tried to throw a simple jab of flame, a canon blast of white fire erupted from his fist for several seconds, overshooting Ulo and scorching a hole through the wall that rocked the entire cavern. When Ulo sent more ice spears his way, Roku had put up a wall of flames to defend himself that rose all the way to the ceiling and punched new gashes in the earth overhead. And when Roku tried to bend his flames into daggers, they crackled in his hands like bolts of lightning that seared his palms so painfully, he had to let them dissipate.

Roku’s wild attacks eventually pushed Ulo into a retreat that left the top of the hill vacant, and Roku launched himself upward on blazing jets to take the high ground—but the flames below his feet surged and coalesced into a whirling column of fire. Stretching all the way to the ground, it enveloped the lower half of his body and propelled him faster and higher than he’d intended. A blazing sphere encircled him as he smashed into the stone ceiling, sending rubble tumbling down.

Relying on the avoidance tactics of Airbenders alone had not worked. Falling back on the overwhelming offense of firebending did not work. It was not about trying to be one or the other, switching between modes or styles like playing Pai Sho using one strategy for one game and then switching to another strategy for the next match. He had to use fire and air together. He had to embody both elements simultaneously.

At least, she thought—in that final moment before excruciating pain overcame her—she had tried.

That was always the problem with vicious women who thought too much. Useful tools until they weren’t. It was only a matter of time until Dalisay’s mind also took her over the edge. As much as Sozin had come to enjoy her company, he was prepared to do what would be necessary if he couldn’t keep her in line.

No, Roku wasn’t cut out to be the Avatar. Not like Yasu, who had been born minutes before Roku. Not like Sozin, who had been born minutes before Yasu. Perhaps, he thought—not for the first time—this had all been some cosmic miscalculation.

I love how Raava basically skipped Sozin and Yasu

Energy coursed through his chi pathways like blazing fires within a furnace. He only needed to open the furnace door to channel the energy into any of the legendary firebending powers he’d lusted after his entire life—no need to waste years with arduous training, no need to prioritize. Protected by indomitable strength like this, the Fire Nation could be truly safe, truly free. If only it could last.

“We can’t kill our way to peace.” Kyoshi kept her silence.

He looked within. Then he moved the earth.

Not a fan of this. He is learning the elements out of order and too quickly. Wasn’t there an omen about learning out of order in the original lore?

He’d have to find a way to help people understand the essential truth that nobody would be safe until everyone was safe. That was the real task that lay before him as Avatar.

“They found her body yesterday,” Gyatso said, voice thick with emotion. “In a collapsed section of the tunnels.”

Wouldn’t they have found her body burnt to a crisp though?

About the cosmic collision of two ineffable spirits.

Was he sensing Raava and Vaatu? No… Vaatu is in the Tree of Time right now.

“She was as powerful an Avatar as everyone believes.” Roku sat up straighter. “Were you one of her companions?” “For more than twenty years. In fact, I was her final airbending companion.”

“Kyoshi had lived so long, become so powerful as Avatar, that I believed she had lost perspective on the inherent value of individual lives. Don’t get me wrong, you could study the entirety of human history and you might not find someone who did as much good as she did for the world. But in her relentless pursuit of justice and peace, she seemed to hesitate less and less when determining whether the threat someone posed outweighed their right to live. “After one mission—our last together—it turned out a daofei leader in the Earth Kingdom we’d been pursuing was the son of a man she’d executed many years prior. Every terrible thing he and his group of outlaws had done—and they had committed many of the worst atrocities you could imagine—had been for the sole purpose of drawing Avatar Kyoshi’s attention so he’d have the chance to face her himself.”

I asked her to consider how many of the fires we’d been running all over the world to put out might have been lit by her.

“I’m guessing she didn’t like that.” “To put it lightly,” Sister Disha said. “Therefore, I left. I shared my concerns with the Council. Word spread, and no other airbending master was willing to assist Avatar Kyoshi anymore.”

“Know that you do not need to be the same as Avatar Kyoshi to be a great Avatar. As the world changes, so too must the Avatar. And never forget what she told you when you connected with her: Everything is already within you. The real struggle is inward.”

“What are you proposing, exactly?” “Let the Airbenders open a temple in the capital. A place where they can teach others their philosophy. If it goes well, maybe they could open more temples in the other nations.”

The breeze also made Roku shiver as it slid over his head, which Gyatso had helped him shave that morning, making Roku already regret agreeing to go bald so long as the irritating Air Nomad promised to never comment on his hair again.

He had managed to plant Ta Min as a “diplomat” in Queen Guo Xun’s royal court several months ago, though she hadn’t informed him of anything about this yet. In fact, she hadn’t reported back in weeks.

Roku had always been easily influenced, always looking for someone to tell him what to do. Especially after Yasu’s death.

Without Sozin’s guidance, the Air Nomads had managed to indoctrinate Roku with their naïve, idealistic worldview. Sozin had done as promised and allowed them to build their little temple in the capital—which they called the Fire & Air Center of Learning—but it was struggling to gain any followers and probably wouldn’t exist this time next year.