Back in 2019 , io9 divvy up the first look at F.C. Yee’sAvatar , The Last Airbender : The ascension of Kyoshi . The Shadow of Kyoshi followed in 2020 . Next up is Yee ’s third instalment in the best - sell chronicle of the Avatar serial : The Dawn of Yangchen , and once again we ’ve got a first peek at the narrative !
Yee wrote The Dawn of Yangchen “ in consultation with”Michael Dante DiMartino , the co - creator and executive manufacturer ofAvatar : The Last AirbenderandThe Legend of Korra , so you get it on going in that it already hasthe officialstamp of approval . Here ’s a summary of the Bible ’s events :
Yangchen ’s rawness may shew to be her greatest asset … beset by the vocalization of Avatars before her for as long as she can remember , Yangchen has not yet gain the deference feel for Avatar Szeto , her predecessor . In an era where trueness is buy rather than earned , she has little reason to trust her direction . When Yangchen travels to Bin - Er in the Earth Kingdom on political business , a fortune encounter with an informant distinguish Kavik head to a suspicious partnership . Bin - Er is a city rule by corrupt Shang dynasty merchants who have become resentful of the mercurial Earth King and his whims . To pull themselves from his influence , the shangs have one solvent in creative thinker : a deep weapon system of mass destruction that would place power squarely in their hands . As Yangchen and Kavik attempt to spoil the Shang ’ design , their unbelievable friendship deepens . But for Yangchen to chart her course as a singularly powerful Avatar , she must learn to rely on her own wisdom above all else .
Image: Amulet Books
And here ’s a flavor at the full cover . The jacket illustrations are by Jung Shan Chang , and the Word plan is by Brenda E. Angelilli and Deena Fleming .
And eventually , a glimpse of the prologue and first chapter , realize their introduction here on io9 !
vox OF THE past times
Image: Amulet Books
Jetsun paced down the hallway , trying to stay ahead of the screams .
The high-pitched ceilings of the Western Air Temple tended to make echoes of whisper and detonation of drop teacups . Though the girl was back in the infirmary being watched by the elders , her cries of painful sensation take form from every surface , bouncing off the hard stone .
Jetsun could n’t take it any longer and collapse into a full run . Ignoring decorum , she sped past her sisters , ruffling robes , upsetting inkpots , prematurely ruining coloured George Sand paintings that were mean to be ruined only once they were finished . No one scolded her or give her penetrating look in occur . They understand .
When she ran out of floor she jumped . The upside - down construction of the temple mean that despite its overall sizing , there was very picayune space to stand on , nothing connecting the spire but slight air travel and a three - thousand - animal foot cliff . She did n’t have her sailplane . Eminently dangerous , but she could make the leaping without it .
Air at her back and airwave against her gown gave her enough loft to land on the next column , the one hold in the Great Library . Tsering , chief caretaker of the books , waited in front of the tall shelf . The older woman ’s kind eyes were edged with worry . “ I saw you coming . Is it pass off again ? ”
Jetsun nodded . “ Mesose , ” she said .
Tsering blew out a breath , a silent whistle of frustration . “ That could be Mesose , far-famed scholar of the Ru Ming geological era . There ’s a Mesose Greenwich Village in Hu Xin ; it might have been named after a founding father . Or it could just be someone call in Mesose , in which case we ’re stuck . ”
Avatars tended to run in exalted circles . Or they raise the people around them to fame . “ It has to be the first one , ” Jetsun tell .
Another wail twist both their heads . The child was suffer . “ aid me and it ’ll go quicker , ” Tsering said . “ Northwest corner , start with the poesy shelves , Ru with the three drop of water radical . ”
They split up to seek different section of the ancient bank vault . Jetsun ran her eyes over labels and title as fast as she could . Not every rule book fit on a shelf . Many of the tome preserve at the Western Temple were so quondam they were spell on bamboo slips instead of paper . She pass rolled bales of text wider around than some of the pillars plug in the ceilings to the floor .
Five minutes later she emerge from the library ’s depths , clutching a treatise on she did n’t live precisely what . What mattered was the generator ’s name .
Tsering met her by the room access . “ I could n’t recover any leads . You ’re hold our best shooting . ”
“ give thanks you . ” Jetsun sprinted back in the charge she came , the book tucked under her arm .
“ Use your sailplane next time ! ” Tsering yelled .
Jetsun break back into the infirmary . The huddle of senior parted to let her through . The girl ’s whipping had settled into dry , cavernous sobs . She pounded her fist on her pillow over and over , not the nonvoluntary shaking of a febrility but rather the measured motion born of a steady , all - consuming anguish that should have been beyond her eight years .
“ We ’ll leave you two alone , ” Abbess Dagmola said . She and the remainder of the nun filed out . Too many people sometimes ruined the effect . Jetsun opened the account book to a random page and get down to record .
“ ‘ The level of risk can be determine by elevation , nearness to the root of water , exposure to speedy flows , and possible economic damage , ’ ” she said . Confused , she briefly turned the volume to look at the cover . A discussion on Floodplain Management .
Why in the humans do we have this book ? Jetsun stimulate her head . It did n’t matter . “ ‘ Understanding late amount taken to palliate the impairment from flooding is essential , for they might compile danger instead of reducing it . ’ ”
The lady friend accept a shudder pant of melodic line and relaxed . “ Half a year and that ’s as far as you ’ve gotten ? ” she said , smile at no one . “ You have to stop over hold on so many labor at once , Se - Se . ”
It mold . give thanks the spirits , it worked . Jetsun kept reading , treat through the unfamiliar construct mechanically . “ ‘ On the topic of silt deposits . . . ’ ”
The first meter the baby plump through this , they had no clue as to what was happening . The healers did their good to cool down her febrility and keep her as comfortable as they could . As the incident reoccurred , her babble , incoherent at first , start to coalesce into sentence , name , slices of conversations . The words meant nothing to her caregivers until one day they heard her spill to His Majesty the Earth King Zhoulai . A valet she ’d never met , who ’d die three one C ago .
gratefully , the abbess had remember to take notes . She ’d spell down every intelligible scrap , and in scouring her pages she nibble together a pattern . The names . Angilirq , Praew , Yotogawa . Names from every commonwealth .
name of preceding Avatar companions .
Not every apparition the youngster spoke to had made it into the annals of history , and some that had were never recognize as take faithful ties to an Avatar . Jetsun could only reckon the stories drop off to time , filtering through the little girl , merest fragment adhere in her throat .
And the conversation were pleasant , often enough . She would laugh with her admirer in towns that had been rename , provinces that no longer existed . Jetsun had watched her saltation from her bed and bellow at the succeeder of fabled winter hunts , model on the floor and meditate with someone else ’s inner peace .
But from time to time she would have waking nightmares . Bouts of sorrowfulness and madness that threatened to tear her aside . She would n’t mutter name but scream them as if she ’d been shop by the universe itself .
By accident , they discovered she could sometimes be calmed by figuring out the past image she was talking to , when it was potential , and verbalise back to her from that perspective . The deep they could plunk into the role the good , like parent read a bedtime story , doing voices and parts . Familiarity was the best balm they had , and they move their hearts out for her .
The girl nodded off by the prison term Jetsun reached a chapter on the proper construction of seawalls . Tsering entered the way . No sailplane , Jetsun noticed . She probably wanted to see if she could still make the leap too .
“ How is she ? ” the bibliothec asked .
“ Better , ” Jetsun allege . “ Who was Mesose ? ”
“ A companion of Avatar Gun , ” Tsering aver , come over to the bedside . “ Skilled poet and technologist , who died in Ha’an when Gun fail to hold back a tsunami . ”
Jetsun find out a rancid perceptiveness rising in her mouth . “ flunk ? ” Not the choice of words she would have used for someone , Avatar or not , bravely confronting a strength of nature . Ha’an still stood today as a port when it sound like it could have been wiped off the map along with everyone who ’d lived there at the meter .
“ It ’s what ’s write . After Mesose drown , Gun disappeared for quite a while before returning to duty . ”
You were aggrieve . If the piddle that Gun push were the same 1 that kill Mesose , then both the missy and the past animation reproof through her might have personally find their Quaker take their last breath before plunging below the waves . They would have seek for a body in the wreckage .
And worst of all , Jetsun thought , they would have had to struggle with the terrible question of what if I ’d done thing differently ? What if , what if , what if ? Perhaps Gun was the one who ’d involve the label of failure .
It was merely unjust . To remember the events of a single life was painful enough . live over dozens of lives would be . . . well , it would be like getting caught by a tsunami . span aside by forces beyond your control .
“ She ’s a smart Thomas Kyd , ” Jetsun articulate . “ If she maintain have these visions , she ’ll figure out who she is long before she turn sixteen . ”
Tsering suspire . She reached out and stroke the sleeping female child ’s hair , now matted with stew .
“ Oh , little Yangchen , ” she said . “ What are we run low to do with you ? ”
THE FIRST STEP
At the age of eleven , Yangchen had know who she was for a while on an rational stage , and care for her Avatarhood with a child ’s seriousness at the behest of her elders . This is a very important closed book , all right ? Like Tsering ’s custard formula . Best not to talk about it until we figure a few more things out .
The involuntary bouts of lifelike memories still hap . The relief with which past Avatars slipped into Yangchen ’s speech troubled the leaders of the Western Temple . She would eavesdrop on their discussions about her , zephyr spouting herself under windowsills , hide behind pillars .
“ You know , we keep take that interrogative sentence , what do we do with her ? ” she heard Jetsun say one day , sharper than she usually was with her elders . “ The answer is , we ’ll prevent her from reach her oral sex on the priming , and when the memories are over , we ’ll hold on . That ’s what she needs from us , so that ’s what we ’ll give her . Nothing more , nothing less . ”
As if Yangchen needed another reason to worship her older sister . Jetsun was n’t come to to her by ancestry , or maybe she was in the manner of quaternary or fifth cousins , but it unquestionably did n’t matter . The girl who cut up yield in a stunned path but at least gave you the symmetrical small-arm was your sister . The girl who showed you no mercifulness on the airball court and express mirth in your case as she kept you scoreless was your sister . Jetsun was either the mortal who would listen to Yangchen cry out with utmost forbearance , or the one who ’d tip over her in the first position .
So it made perfect sense that Jetsun would channelise her through her first effort at meditating into the Spirit World . A guide was an anchorperson as much as a scout , a address voice in the darkness . “ Do n’t have so many arithmetic mean , ” Jetsun told a Yangchen buzz with excitement . “ Not everyone has the power to baffle between region . You wo n’t be less or more of an Avatar , or an Air Nomad , or a person , if it does n’t happen . ”
“ Pfft . If you did it , I can do it . ” If you did it , I necessitate to do it . To become more like you .
The older nun wheel her eye and flick Yangchen on the os frontale where her arrow point would eventually be .
They become topside to the meadow above the cliffs of the Western Air Temple . There was no need to go all the agency to the Eastern Temple , the jump - off point for many spiritual journey , when they could try closer to base first . Besides , Jetsun flout , the special sanctity of the Eastern Temple was more repute and less proven truth .
In the grass was a speculation rope , a pit slab storey position level in the earth . Five columns of rock protrude out around the circle , unevenly space . They bet like fingers and a thumb , the ternary Air Nomad whorls at their tips the prints . Yangchen live about this place but had always avoided it . “ It feels like a giant is about to grab me . ”
“ Or let you go , ” Jetsun say . “ A hand either opens or closes . But it ca n’t do either of those double in a row . ”
Yangchen never roll in the hay how Jetsun managed to be so point-blank and sibylline at the same time . The two of them sit down in the giant ’s laurel wreath , face each other . They were n’t alone . Abbess Dagmola and Librarian Tsering had fall along and bump themselves to assistants , sic up incense , a windhorn . The abbess herself was going to ring the speculation Alexander Melville Bell . There was no hesitancy by the two much old women in shelve to Jetsun as guide .
The seance began . The smolder incense was sharp and earthy , like tree resin . Yangchen could feel the overtones of the saddle horn through her stone seat . She mislay numeration of the bell strike that both marked time and pointed out its meaninglessness .
She on the spur of the moment go out a hopeful glow through her unsympathetic eyes , as if she ’d been labour under clouds the whole time . When she opened them , the light was intense but not blind . colour were bright , as if the elements themselves had been ground in a mortar and then repaint on the funding of the earth . ruby efflorescence in the meadow glowed like embers , fleeceable nervure pulsate through canopying leaves the size of theater roofs , and the sky was naughty than a bar of solid Indigofera tinctoria dyestuff .
Yangchen had performed a feat of Avatarhood . It had not materialize to her involuntarily , it had not shine her down like thunder between her temples , it had not racked painfully through her limbs to damage the landscape . She ’d done it . She ’d done it .
Her victory . And good of all , her favorite individual in the reality was right there beside her to deal the moment . “ Huh , ” Jetsun said , in one of her classic understatements . “ First try . ”
Yangchen wanted to express mirth and jump a mile into the melodic phrase . But she would maintain a cool head , just like her template . “ Maybe I only commend how . ”
“ Humility is n’t more important than the truth . I think you pull this off yourself . ”
She think her heart would burst . Over the mound of the Spirit World , a pod of big winged whales , translucent and gelatinlike , easy floated through the sky . Nearby , a bouncing mushroom released a cloud of spore , which turned into twinkle fireflies .
She was strike by a question . “ What do we do now ? ”
“ That ’s the beauty of it , ” Jetsun said . “ We do n’t do anything . There is no use to the Spirit World , and therein lie the great example . Here , you do n’t take . You do n’t anticipate or contrive ; you do n’t struggle . You do n’t interest about note value gained and lost . You just exist . Like a spirit . ”
A hornpout of letdown scotch Yangchen ’s lips . “ Do we have to be in this one spot only ? Can we at least search ? ”
Jetsun grin down at her . “ Yes . Yes , we can . ”
Yangchen took her sister ’s hand and decided there was a chance she might wish being the Avatar .
accommodate excerpt from the upcoming bookAvatar , The Last Airbender : The Dawn of Yangchen ( Chronicles of the Avatar Book 3)by F.C. Yee , publish by Amulet Books , an imprint of Abrams ; © 2022 .
Avatar , The Last Airbender : The Dawn of Yangchen by F.C. Yee get July 19 ; you’re able to pre - order a copyhere .
desire more io9 news ? Check out when to anticipate the latestMarvelandStar Warsreleases , what ’s next for theDC Universe on motion-picture show and TV , and everything you need to know aboutHouse of the DragonandLord of the Rings : The Rings of Power .
AangAvatarFantasyFilmsKorraThe Legend of Korra
## Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , science , and culture news in your inbox day by day .
newsworthiness from the time to come , deliver to your present .
## You May Also Like
