Page 23 of The Cinders

Lim cleared his throat, reluctantly breaking their shared gaze.‘Well, his cart had overturned, I stopped to help, of course.’Now was the part he’d sworn never to tell another because that first fellow had been right to laugh at him.The talewasridiculous…but here it was, wishing to spill from his lips.‘I said he was a strange man, well, when we were reloading his wares, I glimpsed his ears…now I hadn’t had a lick of rice wine, nor baijiu, so I know what I saw.His ears were tapered to a fine point at their uppermost tips…and though he was friendly, and I felt no fear of him…his teeth were unnaturally sharp in his mouth.I’ve met a lot of curious people on my travels, but he was by far the most curious.’

He flicked his gaze to the prince, ready for laughter, or, considering his royal breeding, a polite nod of the head and quick change of conversation.Xian’s eyes widened with interest.‘He sounds very strange.Were you truly not afraid, Lim?’

He should have known he’d receive no mockery from a man who knew mockery too well.

‘Not at all, and I don’t say that to boast.He had a calming presence…’Like yours, Lim wished to say.‘Some would say he was a daemon, a yaoguai who’d not transformed himself properly, or something equally as stupid.But I’m not a superstitious man.I think the world has answers for any question put to it.He was disfigured, that was all, I’m sure.’

Xian shifted.The move was subtle, perhaps not even consciously done, but Lim regretted speaking of deformity at once.He’d not been able to get an honest answer regarding the prince’s injuries.Some claimed the wounds still wept, soaking through bandages daily; others, more hysterical, declared he looked as though he’d been attacked by anaoyin;the prince half devoured by the flesh-eating monster of lore.More superstitious nonsense.

‘Never mind, I’ve taken you the long way round, and I should just get to the point.’Lim lifted the lid.A light, silver as that of the pedlar's hair, glinted from inside the box.

‘What does your box hold, Lim?’Xian breathed.

‘A gift that must have come from the Three Star Gods themselves.’He was not a superstitious man, but believed in the gods more fully after working with this divine material.‘The man offered me a fabric, in exchange for my help…I said no, that I wanted nothing in return…but then I saw what he offered…and when he told me it would make the most beautiful shoes the world had seen…I did not doubt it.’He picked up one slipper; the shoe light as a peony in full bloom.The odd man had said more than that, but Lim did not elaborate here.‘I have never, in all my years, seen anything like it.’

He raised the slipper, tilting it towards the prince, whose lips parted with awe.Xian leaned forward, reaching hesitantly.

‘Go ahead,’ Lim urged, stretching his arm to bring the shoe closer to him.

‘I am fearful I shall break it.’

Lim grinned.‘I assure you, it is sturdier than it looks.’

‘Astonishing,’ Xian whispered, fluttering his fingers around the toe, the contours of the fabric like those of a cut gem, and clear as a mountain lake.‘It looks as though it is made of glass, but surely that cannot be?How would one wear such a shoe?’

‘No one has ever worn these.’Lim watched his face, enjoying how the shoes made Xian’s eyes shine.‘I had not completed them until a short time ago…the heels remained to be covered, but that was a simple task, they are low heels as you can see, and the fabric…well, it is remarkable to work with.It did not take me long.’

‘Nothing of this shoe is simple, Song Lim.’He shook his head slowly.‘Even I, with no expertise in your valuable trade, can see that.They are…sublime.’

The prince touched his finger to the rounded tip of the left shoe.Lim tilted his hand back and forth, searching for when the angled cuts of the unusual fabric would do something remarkable.

There.The flash of sudden light against the facets.

Xian gasped, and Lim smiled.

The shoe shone as though each angled facet were a mirror, and each mirror caught the light of a full moon.He’d seen it first in the workshop, when the material was being cut to the slippers’s shape; a sudden gleam, rare and precious.Not the reflected glow from his candles, but a light more unique; a diamond gleam and sparkle, created by the shoe itself.

He sat silently, watching Xian trace his finger along the length of the shoe, tracing its impossibly translucent angles.The slippers appeared as though made of glass, but a glass more pure and clear than he’d ever seen; not opaque or with any colour added intentionally to resemble jade, the more valuable precious element.The facets that made up this fabric were crystal clear.In fact, Lim had decided itwassome kind of crystal, polished to an astonishingly fine thinness, then cut to resemble gemstones; made pliable through some technique he could only dream at.He tilted his hand back and forth, drawing another endearing gasp from Xian.

‘Try them on.’

Xian pulled his hand back as though stung.‘I fear my feet would break them.’

‘No.They won’t.They will fit you perfectly.’Lim knew enough feet and enough shoes to match a customer’s size by sight.But his certainty here came from an unusual source.

He drew the other slipper from the box; equally brilliant as its pair.

‘The silver-haired man told me something more of them.’He swallowed, because now he really was entering the realm of mystical nonsense he usually turned his nose at.‘He said they would be beautiful, and that I should make them as soon as I could, not to wait for any customer to order them done.Make them, and when their owner arrived, I would know to whom they belonged.’

Xian blinked.‘What a curious thing to say.’

They were leaning in towards one another, Xian higher on his cushion tower, Lim lifting slightly off his heels; the slippers held between them.

‘He was a curious man that was certain.’

Lim had thought him just another wandering pedlar who’d gone mad with the loneliness, but now…feeling as he did, Lim knew he had misjudged the fellow.

‘Will you try them on, your highness?’