The Dawn of Yangchen (The Yangchen Novels, #1)

by F.C. Yee

“Humility isn’t more important than the truth. I think you pulled this off yourself.”

The city might have doubled in size while she’d lived here, but the old woman wasn’t going to let the customs of Water Tribe hospitality be forgotten. Food was meant to be shared with anyone who needed it.

The tonic he used in the foot-long beard that hung off his chin must have been water-based, because it was starting to turn into an icicle.

Henshe cleared his throat. “Are you asking my masters for alms, Avatar?” She was glad for the direct question; it meant she could stop flowering her language. “No. I am asking you to help me create a place where alms aren’t necessary.”

There is a direct chain of events between excessive desires in the present and widespread pain in the future.”

Her bulky, dragging robes snagged on a crumbling column. Yangchen swore under her breath using words she’d overheard down at the docks.

Earned. That was the thing about these merchants. They feigned enterprise and risk-taking when all they were doing was drinking from a river no one else was allowed to approach.

Nowhere in any great library of the world did it say one had to let a mighty injustice occur before getting out of your chair. Better to parry the sword than heal the wound it made in the flesh.

“Sneaking out of the city without clearance usually means forgoing enough provisions or the right knowledge to make it safely to the Air Temple. We have to patrol the surrounding areas on our bison to pick up the lost and stranded.

“You saved someone’s life. You have to hold on to the victories and let go of the defeats, or else you’ll never sleep again.”

“You named your bison ‘Arrow’? A little unimaginative, don’t you think?” “I was eight! Shut up about it!”

He’d been such a glum boy in Bin-Er, but now, his happiness was downright infectious. Yangchen felt warmer, as if struck by a sunbeam. She liked things that made her feel warm.

She preferred the artwork on the walls, paintings of monks against the clouds done in colors meant to fade over time to teach the lesson of impermanence. Maintaining them required passing on skills from generation to generation, constant effort through the centuries. The exercise was ultimately futile against the power of time but still worth pursuing. Like most things in life.

“People should know the weight of water. The purpose of life isn’t convenience.”

Yangchen could tell her new agent saw the chain of events leading from greed to negligence to suffering. More importantly, he was willing to see it. And his reaction was one of deep discontent.

Without further warning Akuudan jammed the rods deep into Kavik’s nostrils to realign his breathing passages. Ah, blinding pain. His old friend.

“So we don’t follow her out of a deal,” Akuudan said. “Nor because she’s the bridge between humans and spirits. We follow her because she’s a person who will help others without question.”

Tayagum leaned over and pressed his nose against his husband’s cheek.

I am here for gay

Huiliu’s Ten Chapters on Celestial Circles and Other Artful Mathematics. She’d read those too—though had it been her or another Avatar? The treatise explained how to calculate the unending ratio between a circle’s outside and its width by using ever-narrowing straight-sided shapes.

There was a common interest across the world in losing oneself with the help of light and sound and the senses.

For a brief moment, Yangchen wondered how future generations would look upon an Air Avatar challenging a Fire Nation noble to an Agni Kai. She’d win too; she was pretty certain of it.

The smell of life was also the smell of decay, overwhelming rot and fertility attacking through her nose.

Someone had made the conscious decision to end Qiu’s life. Treating his killers like a feature of the landscape took the blame away from people who deserved to hold it longer.

He recognized the way her single voice split into many, nose accompanying throat harmonizing with tongue to say the rites.

“You don’t have to be close to someone to know they deserve better,” Yangchen said.

“I don’t understand how an Air Nomad is this familiar with the rules of commerce.” Yangchen shrugged. “I was an accountant in a past life.”

There was a group on the opposite side of the street, huddled around an outdoor fire and a steaming cauldron of hot fermented rice drink.

Warm sake

She steeled herself for what she was about to do, and she was glad she was alone. Henshe had the measure of it. She’d neutralized him and the other members of Unanimity by using a vile ability, one she could not let anyone know about.

It was a good thing they were alone. What kind of fool would insult the Earth King to his face? An honest one, Feishan would hopefully assume.