The rise of kyoshi pdf download

Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! The first of two novels based on Kyoshi, The Rise of Kyoshi maps her journey from a girl of humble origins to the merciless pursuer of justice who is still feared and admired centuries after she became the Avatar. The longest-living Avatar in this beloved world's history, Kyoshi established the brave and respected Kyoshi Warriors, but also founded the secretive Dai Li, which led to the corruption, decline, and fall of her own nation. The first of two novels based on Kyoshi, The Rise of Kyoshi maps her journey from a girl of humble origins to the merciless pursuer of justice who is still feared and admired centuries after she became the Avatar The discovery of Yun, a young Avatar, brought stability to the four nations until Earth Kingdom-born Kyoshi, Yun's friend and servant, demonstrated remarkable bending during a mission to the South Pole.

When growing unrest among her allies turned to violence, Kyoshi was forced to flee the Avatar mansion with her fiery friend Rangi, taking little more than the metal war fans and headdress her parents left behind. She was only able to bend very large pieces of earth without any precision; regarding these abilities as useless for her servant job, Kyoshi rejected Kelsang's urgings to get training and generally refained from using her bending at all.

Over time, Yun, Rangi, and Kyoshi grew increasingly close, the presumed Avatar and the servant girl in particular spending much time together. One of Kyoshi's duties would be to help Yun sort through the many gifts sent to him by officials and sages from around the Earth Kingdom. One night while sorting through them, Yun placed his head in her lap as the two joked around. The two of them nearly kissed but stopped themselves before it happened, believing that a relationship would be impossible due to their different social stations and duties.

Neither of them mentioned this incident again, but whenever Yun saw fire lilies he would look back and forth between them and Kyoshi until she smiled and blushed. One day in BG when Kyoshi and Kelsang were helping out in the kitchens, Kelsang got the rest of the workers reciting improvised poetry to the tune of a sailor's song.

Kyoshi decided to take a turn and just started saying whatever first came to her mind, but unknowingly repeated a love poem Avatar Kuruk had written years ago. After she finished Kelsang, demanded to know where she had learned the song, but she insisted that she just made it up. Kelsang took her out of the kitchens so that no one would hear them and revealed to Kyoshi the truth about the song. This caused Kelsang to question whether or not Yun actually was the Avatar, as he still wasn't able to bend any elements other than his native element of earth, and while Kyoshi hadn't shown any such indication herself, Kelsang also knew that she had chosen one of the Avatar relics from amongst the toys when she was younger.

Kelsang and Kyoshi decided to keep this revelation to themselves as they didn't want to invalidate Yun as the Avatar right when a treaty was about to be signed with the ruthless band of pirates known as the Fifth Nation. She would later be given a set of green battle armor that would become part of her iconic look as the Avatar. At the South Pole, their group confronted the leader of the Fifth Nation, a pirate queen and slaver Tagaka whose large fleet ravaged the Earth Kingdom's coastline and had recently taken some citizens hostage.

Yun was captured and his group scattered in an ambush on the sea, leaving Kyoshi to confront Tagaka. The situation seemed hopeless, as Kyoshi had no apparent access to earth to battle the pirate queen and her followers.

Tagaka offered Kyoshi to join her, but she angrily refused and managed to lift parts of the seafloor to destroy much of Tagaka's fleet in a surprising, Avatar-powered feat of bending. This action marked the turning point of the battle, as Yun's other companions rallied and launched a counter-attack against the remaining pirate forces.

Despite having saved her allies and friends, Kyoshi's impressive display of bending cast doubts on her identity as a regular earthbender, and Yun's identity as the Avatar. Many were left injured after this incident, including Kelsang and Kyoshi herself.

With the identity of the Avatar being called into question, Jianzhu relieved Kyoshi of her duties as a servant in order to evaluate her bending abilities. After an unsuccessful attempt to get her to firebend with Hei-Ran, the firebending master in charge of training Yun, he took Kyoshi and Yun to a remote and unoccupied village.

Initially, Kyoshi and Yun thought he intended to trigger the Avatar State, but he told them he merely wanted them to meditate and commune with a suffering spirit. However, when they meditated in preparation to meet the spirit, Jianzhu lit some incense that rendered Kyoshi and Yun mostly immobile, but Kyoshi was able to open her eyes and see what was happening.

She saw Jianzhu speaking with a spirit he called "Father Glowworm," asking which of the teenagers was the Avatar. The spirit requested blood from each of them to tell, but when it reached for Kyoshi, Yun regained control of his body and pushed her away. Despite their efforts, the spirit took blood from them and declared Kyoshi the Avatar, prompting Jianzhu to sever the spirit's hold on Kyoshi and drag her away, leaving Yun behind, Jianzhu feeling that he was no longer of use.

Angered, the spirit dragged Yun into a cave as payment for the attack, and Jianzhu sealed the cave with his bending, trapping both the spirit and Yun. Kyoshi screamed in anguish over losing her friend, and fire came out of her mouth; the first time she had bended any element other than earth.

Kyoshi tried to fight Jianzhu, but he overpowered her and forced her into submission, earthbending a gag that nearly caused her to suffocate before he removed it, while trying to justify his actions as necessary for the good of the world. Kelsang then appeared, having flown to where they were despite his painful injuries from the encounter with Tagaka, after becoming suspicious of Jianzhu, Kyoshi and Yun's unexplained absences.

When he found out what had happened from Kyoshi, Kelsang declared that Jianzhu was no longer fit to serve the Avatar, and that he would take Kyoshi away from him. This angered Jianzhu, who declared that there was nowhere Kelsang could hide Kyoshi from him. Kelsang urged Kyoshi to run before attacking Jianzhu, but was easily killed due to his injuries.

Kelsang's death prompted Kyoshi to enter the Avatar State for the first time and destroy the small village, but not before Jianzhu hid beneath the ground. Before he could re-emerge, Kyoshi fled back to the Avatar estate. After arriving at the estate, Kyoshi found Rangi waiting for her at the door, wondering where she had been. Kyoshi told her what happened and that she had to leave, before hastily packing her few things, including the chest and journal her parents left with her when they left her in Yokoya, and the clay turtle she picked from the toys used to determine the Avatar years ago.

She broke the chest open to retrieve the metal war fans, a matching headdress, and a set of makeup, along with her armor would later attribute to her iconic look as the Avatar. She then went to make her escape on Kelsang's flying bison Pengpeng, where she found Rangi packing the bison with supplies she hadn't thought to pack such as food and blankets. Rangi left with her, telling Kyoshi that she "won't last an hour without help. The two traveled into the chaotic and lawless inner provinces of the Earth Kingdom.

Unable to trust anyone who might be an ally of Jianzhu's, the pair used Kyoshi's journal to find allies in the Flying Opera Company, now reduced to a handful of members in a single village; the waterbender Kirima, and the earthbenders Lao Ge, Flitting Sparrowkeet Wong and Bullet Lek. Tensions quickly brewed between Kyoshi and Lek, who had been taken in by.

Kyoshi took an oath to the group to secure their trust, swearing to remain loyal to them, and to live by their code and against the law.

Having realized that she was the Avatar, Kyoshi attempted to train in secret while Jianzhu searched for her to bring her back. She also wished to train so that she can bring Jianzhu to justice by exacting revenge on him for killing Kelsang and Yun, whom she felt guilty about for taking away his Avatar identity, believing he would have done a better job than her.

To achieve this, she asked a member of the group Lao Ge, whom she has figured out is an infamous assassin, to train her to kill someone. Rangi openly disapproved of Kyoshi's decision to associate with criminals.

When the group visited a secret daofei village, Rangi surprised Kyoshi and the others by participating in a lei tai, a fight which often ended in death or near-death. While managing to do well against the champion, Rangi took a blow that knocked her out after looking into Kyoshi's eyes, leaving Kyoshi feeling helpless as she watched her friend nearly get killed.

However, Rangi woke up in time and broke the man's leg, establishing herself as the new champion. Later on, the Flying Opera Company was called in on a job by the Autumn Bloom, another daofei group that rose to power after the fall of the Yellow Necks, to whom the Flying Opera Company were indebted after they saved Lek's life. The job was to free a prisoner from the house of an Earth Kingdom governor named Te. Mok, the leader of the Autumn Bloom, told the Flying Opera Company they would be free of their debt to his group once the job was complete.

Later in the night, Kyoshi confronted Rangi about taking such a risk and making her feel helpless in the lei tai. Rangi got angry at her and told Kyoshi that she had been doing the same thing to her ever since they ran away from Yokoya, revealing that she had only entered the lei tai so that Kyoshi would feel that same helplessness.

They acknowledged that they wouldn't be able to stop taking risks now that they were on the run. Kyoshi also revealed that she wanted to kill Jianzhu not only to bring him to justice, but because she was scared of him and didn't know what else to do. Rangi told Kyoshi that although the Avatar can be reborn, Kyoshi couldn't and that she deserved happiness; that she deserved to feel loved, not afraid.

Kyoshi told her she did feel loved before kissing her. Kyoshi was afraid when Rangi pushed her away, only to feel relieved when Rangi told her to kiss somewhere else because that part of her face had been injured in the fight earlier in the night. With that, the two of them became a couple. Kyoshi and Rangi had agreed to keep her Avatar identity a secret from the bandit group, but when a shirshu sent by Jianzhu tracked them down, the group deduced she must be important, so she revealed her identity.

When the group assumed she would leave them, as they believed the Avatar shouldn't associate with criminals like them, Kyoshi surprised them by deciding to stay with them. The members then took it upon themselves to train her to bend the four elements; Wong and Lek training her in earthbending, Kirima training her in waterbending, and Rangi training her in firebending.

Lao Ge taught her what it took to kill someone, but Kyoshi battled with herself over whether she should resort to such methods. Lacking an airbending teacher, Rangi taught her some airbender techniques in the hope that she would be able to airbend on her own.

As the group prepared for their raid on Te's estate, Lao Ge told Kyoshi that she should help him kill Governor Te as practice for when she killed Jianzhu, justifying this on the basis that Te was a corrupt leader. At the same time, Kyoshi worried that Mok would take more lives than necessary during the raid, and devised a plan with Kirima and Rangi that would minimize deaths while also achieving their goals, but would revolve around her bending water as well as earth.

As the raid began and the others went to save the prisoner, Lao Ge and Kyoshi broke off to find Governor Te, who turned out to be a year-old who had been imitating his father's leadership style because he didn't know any better.

Instead of killing him, Kyoshi blasted Lao Ge with airbending and fled with Governor Te, sending him away to save his life despite the fact that he saw her bend two elements, while also warning him to be a better ruler. Kyoshi and Lao Ge then returned to the rest of the group to find that they had successfully freed the prisoner.

The Autumn Blooms promptly revealed that they had been the remnants of the Yellow Necks the entire time, functioning under a false name to avoid detection.

With their leader free, the group declared themselves restored. Kyoshi and her comrades were shocked about this revelation: Xu and his Yellow Neck rebels were infamous because of their fanaticism and the atrocities they had committed during their past rebellion.

Though Kyoshi and the other Flying Opera Company members were treated cordially by Xu, who appeared thankful for their help, the Avatar immediately recognized that Xu's friendly demeanor thinly veiled an underlying madness. Having absolved themselves of their debt to the Autumn Bloom Society, the friends thus excused themselves and retreated from the Yellow Necks' camp.

Afterward, however, discussions erupted about what to do next: On the one side, they did not want an insane mass murderer like Xu to go free, but at the same time they could not defeat him and the rest of his small army in an open battle. Eventually, Kyoshi decided that they should monitor the Yellow Necks before intervening. Just as they had feared however, Xu immediately ordered his followers to resume their rampage, attacking a nearby civilian family. Fearing for the family's safety, Kyoshi decided on a whim to challenge Xu to a duel per the daofei code of conduct, to halt his reign of terror before it could truly begin anew.

To her shock, Xu - in reality a firebender - struck her with lightning at the start of their fight, incapacitating her in seconds. The young Avatar fell unconscious for a short moment, and Xu continued to fire several more blasts of lightning at her seemingly lifeless body while accusing her of ungratefulness.

In truth, Kyoshi awoke, and though in immense pain, was grounding the lightning thanks to the armor under her clothing. After waiting for a few moments, Kyoshi entered the Avatar State, but this time with full control of her powers. Her glowing eyes and the bending of multiple elements terrified both Xu Ping An and his followers, who started to flee the scene.

Meanwhile, Kyoshi lifted Xu high into the air, and for a short moment thought about what to do with him. When she realized that his shock had changed into hateful dismay without regret, she realized that he would never change his ways.

In response, Kyoshi let him fall to his death, and then returned to the ground. She greeted her anxious friends, assuring them that she was still the same, and before addressing the remaining Yellow Necks.

Unlike those who had fled, these bandits regarded her with reverence, and only left when she ordered them to. Having done so, her grievous injuries finally resulted her into falling unconscious for three days. The Avatar was brought by her comrades to a nearby village where a Earth Kingdom healer and Kirima attended to her; nevertheless, horrible scars remained on her hands due to the burns she had received from Xu's lightning attacks.

When Kyoshi eventually awakened, Lek was in her room, and the two talked about their pasts and Kyoshi's parents, Lek suggesting that they had left her in Yokoya to spare their daughter the dangers of the daofei lifestyle, and that they had taken him in because he could be replaced far more easily than their own flesh and blood.

Kyoshi told Lek that she was glad he was the one raised by her parents, if it couldn't have been her. Having fully overcome their past differences, the Avatar was very happy when Lek addressed her as "sister" for the first time.

Thereafter, Kyoshi, Lek and Rangi went to buy gloves for the wounded Avatar. On the way to a local leather shop, Kyoshi was annoyed to learn that most locals were terrified of her because some of Xu's followers had spread rumors about her being some kind of demon, and also that she had become the de facto head of the remaining Yellow Necks by killing Xu. To her pleasant surprise, the leatherworker had understood that she was the Avatar and saved them from the resurgence of Xu; he thus gifted her a fine pair of military gloves for her burnt hands.

As they went back to the healer's house, the group was ambushed and shot with shirshu-spit darts that rendered them motionless. Rangi was dragged away, and to her horror, Kyoshi saw how Lek allergically reacted to the poison, slowing dying without her being able to do anything. After regaining control, the devastated Avatar took Lek's corpse to the healer's house, informing Wong, Kirima, and Lao-Ge of what had happened.

They also found a letter. Full of hatred, Kyoshi swore that she would finally kill the sage once and for all. The group proceeded to bury Lek, before hatching a plan according to which the Avatar would confront Jianzhu while her friends saved Rangi. Kyoshi met Jianzhu in a stone teahouse in Qinchao, home to the Chin clan. There, the old master threatened to collapse the building on everyone inside if she refused to become his disciple.

Disgusted at his methods, Kyoshi told him that he truly honored his nickname among daofei, "Butcher of Zhulu Pass". Amused, Jianzhu finally told her the full story of what had happened at Zhulu Pass, relishing his act of mass murder, and affirming that his methods might be cruel, but that they also worked.

Kyoshi once again rejected him as her teacher, whereupon the angered master began to earthbend the building down. Kyoshi responded by countering his bending with her own, and the two struggled on equal terms before noticing a new presence in the teahouse.

To the horror of both, the presence was a believed-dead Yun. Though externally unchanged, Kyoshi sensed that something was horribly wrong about her old friend, and was shocked when he effortlessly killed Jianzhu before leaving without a word.

Kyoshi continued to hold the building up until all civilians got out, and then left the village as the local law enforcement attempted to apprehend her. She made her way to the Avatar estate in Yokoya, meeting Kirima, Wong, and Lao Ge on the road with a rescued Rangi and her sick mother Hei-Ran, who had been poisoned as part of Jianzhu's schemes. Kyoshi told the group what had happened and they subsequently decided to part ways, as the Avatar wanted her friends out of harm's way when she revealed her identity to the world.

Kirima and Wong opted to lay low, Lao Ge went off on his own, and Rangi and her mother traveled to the Northern Water Tribe for the best chance at healing her mother. Meanwhile, Kyoshi covertly joined a group of pilgrims who were journeying to the Southern Air Temple. There, she revealed herself as the Avatar to the Air Nomads through a displaying of her bending powers. She consequently rested at the air temple, preparing herself for further training.

Kyoshi also affirmed her decision to follow the code of the daofei for the rest of the life and pursue her own style of Avatarhood regardless of what posterity would think of her. The Air Nomads consequently began to convey the news from around the Earth Kingdom to her; in this way, she learnt that Jianzhu had bequeathed all his wealth and lands to her in his testament.

Amused, she noted how he continued to try to influence her and the world even after his death. Kyoshi trained the first Kyoshi Warriors to help the women of her adopted homeland to defend themselves as well as their homes.

Eventually, Kyoshi mastered all four elements and the Avatar State, becoming feared and effective while restoring order in the world. She also did not hide her bisexuality, and attempted to effect greater tolerance for non- heterosexual people in the notoriously conservative Earth Kingdom.

Nevertheless, these efforts had little impact. Kyoshi eventually returned to Yokoya, fully adopting it as her home. When Kyoshi visited the ports of her homeland peninsula, she constantly had to put carousing men in their place after they caused trouble to the female villagers.

Eventually, she decided to train the women in defensive combat so that they could defend themselves. These women later formed the first band of Kyoshi Warriors. During Kyoshi's life, the 46th Earth King's rule was unpopular among the populace of the Earth Kingdom. Using this to his advantage, a warlord named Chin launched a war to conquer the continent. He was successful until he reached the peninsula where Kyoshi lived, finding the Avatar waiting for him.

Standing before his army, Chin demanded their immediate surrender, and Kyoshi warned him that she would not sit idly by as he took her home. When he refused to back down and assumed a challenging earthbending stance, she unfurled one of her fans and fired a powerful air blast at him, leaving the humiliated warlord down to his underwear.

Kyoshi subsequently entered the Avatar State and separated the peninsula from the mainland by using a combination of earthbending, lavabending, and airbending, forming Kyoshi Island and thereby protecting her homeland from subsequent threats. An indignant Chin was left standing on the edge of the newly-formed cliff, which began to crumble beneath his feet and, as he refused to budge from his unstable position, caused him to fall into the sea and drown.

His death ushered the world into a great era of peace. Because of Kyoshi's act, the people of Chin Village on the mainland founded Avatar Day to vilify Kyoshi, and all succeeding Avatars, for the death of their leader.

The people of Kyoshi Island, meanwhile, founded "Kyoshi Day" on the same day as Avatar Day, to honor her creation of the island and the restoration of peace to their village.

They also erected a large totem, topped with a statue of Kyoshi in her memory. Sometime after her final confrontation with Chin, Kyoshi was summoned to Ba Sing Se upon the request of the Earth King, since his unpopular rule had led to a peasant uprising in the city.

By the time Kyoshi reached the city, the peasants had already destroyed everything that represented the "old government", including ancient and valuable artifacts that held historical and cultural importance. The King demanded that she stop the uprising by whatever means necessary.

However, Kyoshi staunchly refused, stating that it would not be right for her to do so. Incensed by her defiance, the Earth King ordered his guards to arrest her. However, the King was left cowering on his throne as Kyoshi dispatched his guards with ease and admonished him in turn for daring to defy the Avatar. Held at the point of Kyoshi's war fan, the quivering monarch agreed to a compromise: the Earth King would give the peasants a voice in his ruling, while Kyoshi, in turn, agreed to protect Ba Sing Se's cultural heritage from further desecration.

She proceeded to train an elite platoon of earthbenders called the Dai Li, though their subsequent corruption weighed heavily on Kyoshi in her afterlife. Kyoshi died in the year 82 BG at the age of , making her the oldest confirmed Avatar and human in history,though some other individuals were rumored to have lived even longer.

It is possible that Kyoshi learned the secret of immortality from her spiritual teacher, Lao Ge. Wooden statues of Avatar Kyoshi are erected in every village in Kyoshi Island and in sukii's village, a shrine was dedicated to Kyoshi, which displayed the late Avatar's outfit and war fans.

In course of the next centuries, several details of Kyoshi's life faded out of public memory. Most notably, one of her successors, Avatar Aang, falsely believed that she had been born in the area that later became Kyoshi Island. The Kyoshi Medal of Freedom, regarded as the highest recognition conferred upon exemplary military personnel in the Earth Kingdom, and Kyoshi Bridge in Republic City both share her name. Kyoshi manifested through Aang to inform the inhabitants of Chin Village of her encounter with Chin.

During his trip to Kyoshi Island, Aang observed the statue erected in her honor. Kyoshi later manifested herself through Aang to testify in a trial proving the Avatar's innocence, though she confessed to killing Chin while doing so.

When helping Aang to reconnect with her and his other predecessors after being shot down by Azula's lightning, she apologized to him for the wrongful murder charge in Chin Village and explained that after Chin's demise, she helped the world live in balance; she accomplished a lot of good but also made mistakes, one of which being the creation of the Dai Li, as she could never have foreseen how corrupt and cruel they would become.

Kyoshi imparted Aang with the wisdom that all their action have consequences, even if they do not manifest in their own lifetime, and sent him to find her predecessor. Before the arrival of Sozin's Comet, Aang summoned Kyoshi's spirit, seeking advice on how to defeat Phoenix King Ozai without killing him. Kyoshi reminded him that her forceful ending of Chin the Conqueror's war for dominance brought a great era of peace.

Aang pointed out that she was not directly responsible for Chin's death, arguing that it was a result of his own arrogance. Kyoshi said she saw no difference in this, and told him that she would have done anything to stop Chin. She left Aang, telling him that only justice would bring peace. Aang regretted consulting Kyoshi on this complex matter after hearing her advice. While Aang was trying to establish contact with Avatar Yangchen for a solution to the situation with General Old Iron, Kyoshi appeared in a vision which represented Aang's restored connection to his past lives after restoring his link with Roku.

Kyoshi, alongside many other past Avatars, appeared to Korra after she had lost her bending to Amon. This appearance was representative of Korra's ability to establish a connection with her spiritual side and for the purpose of having her bending restored.

While Unalaq was attacking Raava, Korra envisioned Kyoshi as part of the Avatar lineup, which she had seen prior to regaining her bending; however, the latter's connection to Korra was severed due to Unalaq's assault on and subsequent destruction of the light spirit.

As the Avatar, Kyoshi was able to bend all four elements and enter the Avatar State at will. Her most spectacular known feat was using the Avatar State to separate her home peninsula from the Earth Kingdom mainland and push it far out to sea to create Kyoshi Island. To do so, she first cut down to the earth's mantle with earth and lavabending to sever the landmasses, followed by airbending to push the island out to sea.

This is one of the two known instances in which Kyoshi used the noncontinuous Avatar State, the other being when she levitated two massive badgermole statues. Apart from the elements, Kyoshi was a skilled warrior and well-versed in the art of tessenjutsu, wielding a pair of golden metallic war fans with great skill and dexterity.

She was also known to use these weapons to augment her bending, as demonstrated when she separated Kyoshi peninsula from the mainland. Kyoshi was exceptionally strong, and able to lift a grown man with one hand as a teenager. Trivia Despite being an earthbending master, Kyoshi uses fans to generate something similar to airbending, as it was when she formed the Kyoshi Island.

This can be a reference to the meaning of her name, "teacher", and the fact that she began two different factions of warriors, training them in two different fighting styles. Kyoshi's only known child and daughter, Koko, succeeded her as governor of Kyoshi Island and eventually became famous in her own right, having had children named after her over three hundred years later. Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

All Rights Reserved. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales abramsbooks. A common pitfall of prequels? Since the reader already knows how things eventually turn out, they are one step ahead of the hero.

Done well, however, a prequel can expand and deepen a beloved fantasy world by exploring its history and characters in new ways. This is the case with The Rise of Kyoshi. Readers familiar with the original Nickelodeon series might recall that Avatar Kyoshi was a legend, even among the impressive pantheon of Avatars.

But how did she become a woman dedicated to fighting injustice throughout the world? And why was she so feared by her enemies? These were the questions left unexplored. In my first talks with F. Yee, we discussed a few possible plots but also asked ourselves: What kind of character is Kyoshi, what drives her, and what kind of events in her past could have caused her to develop into such a legendary figure?

And of course, there is never a shortage of epic bending battles. Though all Avatars share certain rites of passage—such as mastering all four elements—each one must have a unique journey and face different personal and political challenges on their way to becoming a fully realized Avatar.

In The Rise of Kyoshi, we meet a young woman so unlike the legend she is to become that we wonder how she could possibly transform into such a remarkable figure. Entrusting another writer with a world and characters that I helped create is always fraught with anxiety for me. In the wrong hands, it can be a disheartening experience.

But when I read The Rise of Kyoshi for the first time, I was immediately drawn into the story and entranced by its intriguing new characters and backstory. I was eager to read on to find out how Kyoshi would overcome all the obstacles in her way and Yee throws plenty of them in her path.

Situated on the edge of Whaletail Strait, it could have been a major restocking point for ships leaving one of the many harbors that supplied Omashu. But the strong, reliable prevailing winds made it too easy and cost-effective for southbound merchants to cruise right past it and reach Shimsom Big Island in a straight shot. Jianzhu wondered if the locals knew or cared that ships laden with riches sailed tantalizingly close by, while they were stuck elbows-deep in the cavity of another elephant koi.

Only a quirk of fate and weather kept piles of gold, spices, precious books, and scrolls from landing on their doorstep. Instead their lot was fish guts. A wealth of maws and gills. The landward side was even less promising. The soil of the peninsula grew thin and rocky as it extended farther into the sea. Here, a farmer would have to be grateful for whatever sustenance they could pull from the dirt. The settlement lay at the intersection of three different nations—Earth, Air, and Water.

And yet, none had ever laid much of a claim to it. The conflicts of the outside world had little impact on daily life for the Yokoyans. To them, the ravages of the Yellow Neck uprising in the deep interior of the Earth Kingdom were a less interesting story than the wayward flying bison that had gotten loose from the Air Temple and knocked the thatching off a few roofs last week.

All in all, Yokoya Port might as well not have been on the map. Jianzhu trudged uphill in the wet, mucky snowfall, his neck prickling from the bundled straw cloak around his shoulders. He passed the wooden pillar that marked the spiritual center of this village without sparing it a glance.

There was nothing on the sides or on top of it. It was just a bare log driven upright into the ground of a circular courtyard. Weathered houses lined the broad, eroded avenue, poking steeply into the air like spearpoints. His destination was the larger two-story meeting hall at the end. Kelsang had set up shop there yesterday, saying he needed as much floor space as possible for the test. Whatever helped. Jianzhu sent a quick prayer to the Guardian of the Divine Log as he pulled off his snow boots, laid them on the porch, and ducked through the door curtains.

The interior of the hall was surprisingly large, with far corners draped in shadow and thick- planked walls cut from what must have been truly massive trees. The air smelled of resin. Ten very long, very faded yellow cloths stretched across the worn floorboards. A row of toys lay on each one, evenly spaced like a seedbed. A bison whistle, a wicker ball, a misshapen blob that might have been a stuffed turtle duck, a coiled whalebone spring, one of those flappy drums that made noise as you spun it back and forth between your palms.

The toys looked as worn and beaten as the outside of this building. Kelsang knelt at the far end of the cloths. The Airbender monk was busy placing more knickknacks with a carefulness and precision that rivaled an acupuncturist setting their needles. As if it mattered whether the miniature boat sailed east or west. He stayed on his hands and knees, shuffling his great bulk sideways, his billowing orange robes and wiry black beard hanging so low they made another sweep over a floor that had already been scrubbed clean.

He spotted a large white marble that looked too close to the edge of the fabric and, with a graceful extension of his wrist, levitated it with earthbending in front of Kelsang. It hovered like a fly, waiting for his attention. At this point they were well past doing it right.

Like a certain friend of theirs from the Water Tribe always said, it was better to ask for forgiveness than wait for permission. And as far as Jianzhu was concerned, the time for waiting had long since passed. When Avatar Kuruk, the keeper of balance and peace in the world, the bridge between spirits and humans, passed away at the ripe old age of thirty-three—thirty-three!

Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and then Earth again, an order as unchanging as the seasons. Seven years of fruitless searching. Jianzhu had pored over every available record from the Four Nations, going back hundreds of years, and the hunt for the Avatar had never faltered like this in documented history.

No one knew why, though revered elders traded guesses behind closed doors. The world was impure and had been abandoned by the spirits. More magazines by this user. Close Flag as Inappropriate. You have already flagged this document.

Thank you, for helping us keep this platform clean. The editors will have a look at it as soon as possible. The demo comes 1 exclusive single player campaign First Punic War with 3 scenarios and multiplayer support LAN and Internet for up to 4 players.

Author: F. Published in July 16th the book become immediate popular and critical acclaim in fantasy, young adult books. The book has been awarded with Booker Prize, Edgar Awards and many others. One of the Best Works of F.