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Jianzhu hadn’t thought of what might happen after the children who failed the test were told to leave their selections behind and make room for the next candidate. The tears! The wailing, the screaming! Trying to get toys away from kids who had only moments before been promised they could have their pick? There was no force in existence stronger than a child’s righteous fury at being robbed.
The parents were worse. Maybe Air Nomad caretakers handled the rejection of their young ones with grace and humility, but families in the other nations weren’t made up of monks and nuns. Especially in the Earth Kingdom, where all bets were off once it came to blood ties. Villagers whom he’d shared friendly greetings with in the days leading up to the test became snarling canyon crawlers once they’d been told that their precious little Jae or Mirai was not in fact the most important child in the world, as they’d secretly known all along. More than a few swore up and down that they’d seen their offspring play with invisible spirits or bend earth and air at the same time.
Kelsang
would push back gently. “Are you sure your child wasn’t earthbending during a normal breeze? Are you sure the baby wasn’t simply . . . playing?”
Some couldn’t take a hint. Especially the village captain. As soon as they’d passed over her daughter—Aoma, or something—she’d given them a look of utter contempt and demanded to see a higher-ranking master.
Sorry, lady, Jianzhu thought after Kelsang spent nearly ten minutes talking her down. We can’t all be special.
“For the last time, I’m not negotiating a salary with you!” Jianzhu shouted in the face of a particularly blunt farmer. “Being the Avatar is not a paid position!”
The stocky man shrugged. “Sounds like a waste of time then. I’ll take my child and go.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jianzhu caught Kelsang frantically waving his hands, making a cut-off sign at the neck. The little girl had wandered over to the whirly flying toy that had once entertained an ancient Avatar and was staring at it intently.
Huh. They weren’t intending to get a genuine result today. But picking the first item correctly was already improbable. Too improbable to risk stopping now.
“Okay,” Jianzhu said. This would have to come out of his own pocket. “Fifty silvers a year if she’s the Avatar.”
“Sixty-five silvers a year if she’s the Avatar and ten if she’s not.”
“WHY WOULD I PAY YOU IF SHE’S NOT THE AVATAR?” Jianzhu roared.
Kelsang coughed and thumped loudly on the floor. The girl had picked up the whirligig and was eying the drum. Two out of four correct. Out of thousands.
Holy Shu.
“I mean, of course,” Jianzhu said quickly. “Deal.”
They shook hands. It would be ironic, a prank worthy of Kuruk’s sense of humor, to have his reincarnation be found as a result of a peasant’s greed. And the very last child in line for testing, to boot. Jianzhu nearly chuckled.
Now the girl had the drum in her arms as well. She walked over to a stuffed hog monkey. Kelsang was beside himself with excitement, his neck threatening to burst through the wooden beads wrapped around it. Jianzhu felt lightheaded. Hope bashed against his ribcage, begging to be let out after so many years trapped inside.
The girl wound up her foot and stomped on the stuffed animal as hard as she could.
“Die!” she screamed in her tiny little treble. She ground it under her heel, the stitches audibly ripping.
The light went out of Kelsang’s face. He looked like he’d witnessed a murder.
“Ten silvers,” the farmer said.
“Get out,” Jianzhu snapped.
“Come on, Suzu,” the farmer called. “Let’s get.”
After wresting the other toys away from the Butcher of Hog Monkeys, he scooped the girl up and walked out the door, the whole escapade nothing but a business transaction. In doing so he nearly bowled over another child who’d been spying on the proceedings from the outside.
“Hey!” Jianzhu said. “You forgot your other daughter!”
“That one ain’t mine,” the farmer said as he thumped down the steps into the street. “That one ain’t anyone’s.”
An orphan then? Jianzhu hadn’t spotted the unchaperoned girl around town in the days before, but maybe he’d glossed over her, thinking she was too old to be a candidate. She was much, much taller than any of the other children who’d been brought in by their parents.
As Jianzhu walked over to examine what he’d missed, the girl quavered, threatening to flee, but her curiosity won over her fright. She remained where she was.
Underfed, Jianzhu thought with a frown as he looked over the girl’s hollow cheeks and cracked lips. And definitely an orphan. He’d seen hundreds of children like her in the inner provinces where outlaw daofei ran unchecked, their parents slain by whatever bandit group was ascendant in the territory. She must have wandered far into the relatively peaceable area of Yokoya.
