Page 107 of The Cinders

A firework spluttered above, like daybreak descending.His body snapped, broke and remade itself, and his fine hairs became coarse and thick and covered him over.The world grew larger, and he a different creature in it.Xian’s pieces put themselves back together.Every hiss of new cartilage stretching, every urgent growth of hair, every reformation of his bones, foreign yet familiar.

Run.Run.Run.

Xian moved on padded feet, stepping from a pile of white and gold.He sniffed at it, his black nose damp and searching.It was not snow; it was not sand.

It was not important.

He peered out into a world of amber.His thoughts fleeting.His tail a raised banner at his back.

A man stood nearby, a glowing man.He held two shoes.

Slippers.Dazzling and unique.

Mine.Mine.Mine.

But the fox did not hunger for the shoes.Only for their maker.

His whiskers twitched; his russet fur bristled.

The glowing man knelt beside him, whispering in his pointed ears the name of the place he would find refuge in.The name settled into the fox’s mind, where it would be kept safe until it was needed.

‘Now, get on with you, little prince, and stop flicking your ears at me like that.’Beneath the man’s words rumbled a great and terrible power.The fox heard it all.But he was not afraid.‘I’ll keep these slippers, and if we meet again, I’ll know it is you, for your shoemaker made them to fit no other.What a lucky creature you are.’

The fox sniffed the air and caught wind of the other prince’s great loneliness; the gaping emptiness that festered beneath his fire.

He turned his head.Hiding from that pain.

A distant scent brought the fox to rigid attention; the essence faint beneath the madness, but bringing his new and agile body to life.

Song Lim.Song Lim.Song Lim.

The fox prince bared his teeth, lengthened his claws and with a push from powerful haunches, he ran.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE SHOEMAKERstirred.And groaned.His head thumped with an ache that covered his crown like a leaden cap.

How many huanjiu had he had?He’d been trying to limit himself— the drinks made his hands shake and affected his work with the needle and thread.

Boom, boom.

Song Lim rubbed his head, his thoughts moving slowly as a spoon through porridge.

There must be a storm outside; the thunder was relentless.

‘Damned fool, you overdid it.’

He sat up to search for his lantern.Pausing a moment as his world spun in darkness.He pressed his lips against the rise of unpleasantness from his belly; waiting for the sensation to pass before he searched for his lantern.It should have been right beside him, just within reach of his sleeping mat, but his hand touched only air.His hip ached, the sort of pain that came with sleeping too long upon one spot.Lim patted his hand against the ground, searching, and found packed dirt instead of his mat.

The thunder crashed again, and again.

‘What the…’

He rocked onto hands and knees, bitterness hitting the back of his throat.One or two pats of his hand and the truth was startlingly obvious.This was not his home.

Panic arrived in a torrent, streaming from his aching head to the tips of his toes.Memory bubbled like a pot reaching the boil — the laced noodles, the salve that had made his wound burn.

The two sha dàn who decided he must be a monster because he could make a decent pair of shoes, and loved a cursed prince.Morons was not a good enough insult for Chen and his herbalist.