The Twelve Kingdoms: A Thousand Leagues of Wind

small garden behind the orphanage were covered in snow. The interior of the barn, usually warmed somewhat by the breath of the animals, was quiet and cold. Shoukei stamped her frozen feet to take the chill from her toes.
    The snow piled up deeper every day. The villagers had only recently gathered in the town from the outlying hamlets and the air was thick with the lively back and forth of the year's news. Come the new year, however, and by the end of January people would be getting fed up with each other's company. Spending the winter shut up together like this was one long trial. Pent-up feelings got out of hand and petty disputes started breaking out. About the time the bad blood really began to flow it'd be springtime, and everybody would happily return to the countryside, raring to go.
    She doesn't have the slightest idea what it feels like.
    As she hauled along the feed for the animals, Shoukei cursed the far-off empress of the eastern kingdom.
    What it feels like to live the threadbare life of a country bumpkin, wearing clothes reeking with the stench of farm animals, hands so chapped and frostbitten that the skin cracks and bleeds. Sleeping under a freezing blanket in a drafty, clapboard house so cold that in the morning the frost was white on the walls.
    I know. And what kind of life are you living?
    Silk curtains, scented bedding, a warm room suffused with light, disturbed by not a single errant breeze. Silk hems trailing behind her as she walked along, the obidama jewels in her waistband and tiara sparkling so brightly. Servants at her beck and call, ministers prostrating themselves before her. Her throne resting on a floor paved with gems, the throne and screens carved with an unsurpassed and delicate craftsmanship, inlaid with precious stones and lined with golden bunting and silver rattan.
    Ah, yes, those were her father's most sublime treasures. And now she had everything that Shoukei had lost. She was never hungry or cold and never would be. Worshiped by thousands, wielding authority over every official in the land . . . .
    With every step Shoukei took, a hole opened wider in her soul. Her silent imprecations swirled into the maw. At some point, without really noticing it, she had come to believe that everything taken from her had been stolen by the newly-crowned empress of Kei.
    Unforgivable.
    "Gyokuyou!"
    The shrill, jeering voice brought her back to her senses. She blinked, her mind blank. Then she realized that her name was being called. She hurriedly glanced around.
    Gobo was standing behind her, staring daggers at her. "How long you going to take divvying up this feed, huh? If you think dawdling around here's going to get you out of helping make breakfast, you've got another thing coming."
    "I'm sorry. I just got distracted there for a moment."
    "I don't want to hear your excuses!" Gobo grabbed a nearby stick and whacked Shoukei on the legs. "You should be working three or four times as hard as everybody else. You can't make anybody in this town feed you. You have to earn your keep with your own filthy hands."
    "Sorry," Shoukei said in a small voice.
    She had no choice but to put up with it. Humbly hang her head and it'd blow over sooner or later. She'd learned long ago that it was the only thing she could do. She was waiting for Gobo to spit out a nasty aside and leave when another swift blow with the stick caught her by surprise.
    "How about for once you apologize like you really mean it!"
    Shoukei fell to her knees and collapsed in the straw, suddenly aware of the fierce pain in her shoulders.
    "You think you're getting picked on by some fussy old hag? You give me lip service like that and you think I'm going to let you get away with it?"
    "I . . . . "
    Gobo once again swung the stick at her. Shoukei curled into a ball as the fierce blows fell on her back.
    "Why do I drag your dead weight around with me? Why is it up to us to put food in your mouth? Why did the children of this orphanage have to lose their parents? Huh? Do you even have the slightest idea?"
    Shoukei bit her lip. No matter how she was struck she wouldn't say a word.
    "Everything is that Chuutatsu's fault! Your father!"
    But that has nothing to do with me, Shoukei cried to herself as she lay on the ground. Ah, but Her Highness, the Royal Kei, knows nothing of this life! Her teeth still clenched together, Shoukei heard a faint voice.
    "Is it true?"
    She lifted her head. Gobo as well looked back over her shoulder. One of the