Avatar, the Last Airbender: The Reckoning of Roku (Chronicles of the Avatar Book 5) by Ribay Randy

Author:Ribay, Randy
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Amulet Books
Published: 2024-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

TERRIFYING AND TEMPTING

There was a traditional condolence in the Fire Nation offered by the devout whenever someone mentioned the name of the dead: “May their flame light our way.”

Roku hadn’t uttered the sacred words aloud when he and Gyatso had talked about Yasu and Yama, because Roku wasn’t in the habit of doing so. His family—like much of the nobility these days—were not particularly spiritual. But Roku couldn’t stop thinking of the phrase now.

He had walked in a direction that had simply felt right after chuckling to himself at the memory of his brother’s final jab at his poor sense of direction. Each time the tunnels—which Roku guessed were ancient lava tubes based on their similarity to others he had seen across his nation’s volcanic archipelago—split or branched off as they snaked their way through the earth, he imagined Yasu next to him, pointing the way. He also noticed that the firebending he had been using to light his way required less and less energy. His flames burned as effortlessly as breathing. And as he walked deeper into the earth, he began to feel a thrumming through his spirit that amplified with each step and turn he took as if some great force was drawing him toward it.

After a few hours of following this ineffable pull, Roku reached the end of the tunnel. It opened up into an unbelievably vast cavern. The air was cool and felt as sacred as any temple’s. Dull gray morning light leaked through a wide fissure high in the stalactite-covered ceiling, revealing a chamber large enough to hold the Royal Palace. The domed walls were layered with lines that marked millennia of ancient lava flows and veined with a black ore that had a red sheen. The ground—which was several feet below the mouth of the tunnel—was comprised of a dark, damp, and densely packed gravel that sloped up to a low mound in the exact center of the cavern.

And upon that central hill, dwarfed by the sheer size of the surrounding space, were three people positioned in a triangular formation, dancing slowly and silently in perfect coordination.

Roku edged behind a cluster of stalagmites at the mouth of the tunnel and watched. There were two older women and one younger man. They weren’t wearing the green robes or armor of the Earth Kingdom, so they must not be the rest of Oh Wen’s group. Instead, the women wore tolgè skirts, and the man was in a wanoh loincloth. The fabrics were woven with the traditional red, black, and gold patterns of the Fire Islands, but it had been hundreds—if not thousands—of years since any clan in the Fire Nation had dressed like that outside of historical reenactments or theatrical performances.

But the three had no audience that they were aware of as they continued their synchronized slow dance. So measured were their movements that it took Roku several moments to realize they were not dancing—they were bending. And it took him several more to recognize that

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