Avatar: The Rise of Kyoshi (The Kyoshi Novels, #1)

by F.C. Yee

her life had been an endless refusal, full of secrets unhappily kept to their destructive ends.

One had the latest news, the other more accurate news. He had to mind the asymmetry.

Zhang Dakou was here too, Jianzhu noted dryly. No Zhang worth his salt would pass up an opportunity to humiliate a Gan Jin.

He spoke out of kindness and sorrow, perhaps not as immutable as he claimed to be. “You will never be perfectly fair, and you will never be truly correct,” Lao Ge said. “This is your burden.”

She had the tongue of an animal in her mouth, the howl of a beast in her chest. Lao Ge was right about mercy having its price.