The Twelve Kingdoms: A Thousand Leagues of Wind

pearls, harvested in the southern waters of the Red Sea.
    All gone. All those beautiful things that had once been hers, locked away in the imperial repository in Hou, waiting for the next king to be crowned.
    "But they were all mine."
    They had been made for her, tailored to her specifications, presented to her by her retainers. Why must they pass right under her nose to the next empress? Shoukei found herself possessed of the conviction that she must be the next empress of Hou.
    I am the Empress. Just like that girl the same age as me. The Royal Kei.
    That girl got lucky and robbed her of everything that had once been rightfully her own. Here she was, crawling and groveling, being worked to death, growing old and decrepit without a speck of joy or happiness, while she was adorning herself with all these treasures.
    Unforgivable.
    The Royal Kei had taken everything Shoukei had lost. A girl who had been a big fat nothing until the kirin chose her, and then she went and grabbed everything Shoukei had lost. A peon like her didn't deserve a thing.
    Right now she'd be in the imperial palace in Kei, living it up on cloud nine. Like Shoukei, she'd never dream that one day she'd lose it all. She'd be too busy dressing herself up in all her countless gowns and adorning herself with ruby hairpins.
    I'll steal it all back. Shoukei would take from that girl everything that had been taken from her. She casually placed the phoenix diadem on her head. There was a mirror in the corner of the room. She removed the dust cover and gazed into the glass.
    Still fits me like a charm.
    She quickly straightened her clothes and prettied up her hair.
    Let's say I take this from the Royal Kei.
    And the throne as well.
    If it was okay for Gekkei, that monster who'd killed her father and cast her into these miserable circumstances, then it'd be okay for her, too. Shoukei glanced in the direction of the Royal Kyou's living quarters. I'll take it from her, she thought momentarily. But it would never fill the void in her soul the same way taking it from the Royal Kei would.
    She said aloud, "I'll usurp the throne of the Royal Kei."
    And when she did, she'd cheerfully tell the Royal Kyou to put up or shut up. The license you gave to Gekkei, now you give to me. Then at last she would be at peace.
    Shoukei put down the diadem. She carefully wrapped it in its cloth and placed it back on the shelf. Instead, after perusing all the objects, she chose several smaller baubles and ornamented belts, and hid them inside a pile of rags in her cleaning hamper. If she broke them apart and sold the gems, she had enough to cover her travel expenses to Kei.
    Of course, she'd be found out. Everything in here was under the purview of a conservator, and his underlings came by every day, dusting off and polishing the merchandise. But that a concern for tomorrow. They had all completed their work for the day.
    She inspected the position of everything on the shelf, filling in the spaces left behind. With an innocent look plastered on her face, she did her cleaning and then hid the bounty in the undergrowth in the garden. Wearing a guileless expression, she washed her rags and ate dinner. She returned to her room with four other servants and pretended to sleep while she waited for night to fall.
    In the dead of night, she strapped the hamper to her back and approached the main gates to palace complex. She called out to the night-watchman there, saying that as a punishment for her carelessness, she had been ordered by the empress to clean her riding tack.
    With a doubtful look on his face, the night-watchman let her pass.
    If there were no mounts there to fly her away from the gates, she'd never get out. The pegasi were kept in the royal stables outside the gate, but they couldn't be ridden by ordinary servants.
    But I'm no ordinary servant.
    Entering the stables, her eyes fell upon a flying horse called a kitsuryou. She quickly saddled him up.
    "I used to have a kitsuryou of my own."
    She grinned, flung open the stable doors, laughed in the face of the night-watchman running toward her, and launched herself into the sky.

    "Amazing."
    Shushou sat her flabbergasted self down in the chair. According to the night-watchman, a servant had commandeered a pegasus and, ignoring his commands to halt, had flown away from the palace gates. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Shoukei, the princess from Hou given over to her custody. And not only that, several valuables had