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“Oh, Kyoshi,” Rangi cried with sudden dismay. “Your hands.”
They’d been the first injuries she’d noticed after the duel as well. Kyoshi held them up to show they’d healed. “They feel fine.”
“But the scars.” Rangi entwined her fingers with Kyoshi’s and brought them to her cheek. Kyoshi was glad she’d washed thoroughly.
“You had such beautiful hands,” Rangi said, nuzzling at her palm. “Your skin was so smooth and—”
Lek coughed loudly. “I have an idea for that. Come on, love-birds. Let’s go shopping.”
Zigan hadn’t been particularly friendly to strangers the first time they’d entered to buy food. Now in the light of a new day . . . it was worse.
The townsfolk stared at her with fear and hostility rather than the plain rudeness of before. Doors and shutters slammed closed as they walked by. Residents who couldn’t afford such nice entrances vigorously shook their hanging rugs and curtains for emphasis.
“Do I still have paint on my face?” Kyoshi said. “Why are they looking at us like that?”
“Well, for starters, a lot of Zigan saw flashes of lightning and a pillar of wind and fire from your duel with Xu,” Lek said. “And then some of the daofei passed through town as they fled, telling stories of a giant with eyes of blood who drank the soul of their leader. These idiots haven’t necessarily put together that you’re the Avatar. I heard one shopkeeper say you were a dragon in human form, which explained why you could fly and breathe fire.”
“But I saved them from the Yellow Necks!”
Lek laughed. “Kyoshi, by a strict interpretation of the Code, you are now the leader of the Yellow Necks. Dr. Song’s no dummy, and it took a lot of begging to get her to think about helping you. She saw a daofei girl who’d challenged her elder brother for control of their gang and won. Face it, sister. You are dangerous.”
Kyoshi was surprised at how much it irked her. The first heroic, selfless feat she’d performed as the Avatar, and it was tainted. The context had already crumbled away, leaving her no better than Tagaka the pirate queen.
But then, hadn’t she understood this from the very beginning? Her legacy was part of the cost she’d been willing to pay to bring Jianzhu to justice. It always had been. It was simply . . . a higher price than she’d anticipated.
That was the story she repeated to herself as Lek led them inside a cramped shop. A brush of a hand against her face made her squeak. It was a glove, dangling limply from a hook on the ceiling.
An old man as dried and stretched as the skins he sold sat on the floor. He nodded at each of them, without the fear or disdain of the other villagers.
Kyoshi thought she knew why. Leatherworkers and tanners, peasants who made their living by crafting products from animals, were considered unclean in many portions of the Earth Kingdom. It was part of the hypocrisy that Kyoshi hated so much. People from all rungs of society depended on and clamored for such goods but despised their neighbors who made them. She remembered the fine boots Yun had worn that day back in the manor, and her heart ached for him.
“We’re looking for a pair of gloves for my friend,” Lek said. “They’ll have to be big, of course.”
The shopkeeper gestured at one wall where the largest examples hung. Kyoshi pressed her hand against the glove at the very end of the row and shook her head.
“I got one or two more, bigger, in the back,” the old man said unhurriedly. “But they’d be no good for regular wear. Not unless you figure on fighting a battle every day.”
“I think . . .” Kyoshi said, “we should give them a shot.”
He shuffled around, staying seated, and rummaged in a pile. “The back” of the shop was simply whatever was behind him. He produced a cracked hide bag and pulled apart the drawstring. “Made these for a colonel on the rise in the army a long time ago,” he said. “Poor fellow died before he could pick them up.”
The gloves were more like gauntlets. The thick, supple leather fastened to gleaming metal bracers that protected the wrists. Kyoshi pulled them on and buckled the straps. The fingers were snug, a second skin, and the armored portions heavy and reassuring.
There was no way these gloves would be acceptable in polite company. Their very appearance was aggressive, a declaration of war.
“They’re perfect,” Kyoshi said. “What do we owe you?”
“Take ’em,” the shopkeeper said. “Consider it a gift for what
you did.”
He elaborated no further. Kyoshi bowed deeply before they left the shop, grateful to the core.
There was at least one person who saw the truth.
They walked down the street in high spirits. Kyoshi pulled one of her fans out and levitated a pebble. She could bend perfectly with her new gloves.
“If only it were this easy to find shoes that fit,” she grumbled.
