The Twelve Kingdoms: A Thousand Leagues of Wind

for you to stay at another hotel, but I'm afraid they are all booked as well."
    "I guess it can't be helped."
    "Unfortunately, not in this case. If you would please follow me, I shall show you to your room."

    Shoukei was shown to a room on the third floor. They walked down a corridor that overlooked a small courtyard and arrived at a room toward the back. It was hardly the best room in the place. In these types of buildings, the higher you went, the lower the ceilings became. Besides, the best rooms faced the gardens.
    "Here is the room."
    The room he stopped at was in a wing in the back of the hotel. The beautiful fretwork on the door was glazed with glass, revealing the interior of the room. Behind the door was a living room arranged with furniture of above-average quality.
    Opening onto the living space were two wide doors. These led to the bedrooms. The key fitted the bedroom door. There was no key for the door into the living room, as it was not considered a private room. This was how double-occupancy was accommodated.
    "Thank you."
    She handed some change to the bellman who delivered her luggage to the room, and sat down in a chair in the living room.
    "What a stupidly prosaic room." A smirk came to her lips.
    She didn't feel even a twinge of guilt. The Royal Kyou had it in for her and had driven her to this, and so what was so bad about giving her a taste of her own medicine? The Royal Kyou could lose any number of her personal accouterments and hardly notice a thing missing. At any rate, she'd probably inherited most of it, and so Shoukei had "inherited" it in turn from her.
    "If I take it easy on this trip, I should get to Kei in six days."
    The capital of Kei, Gyouten. The capital of the eastern kingdom that the Royal Kei now occupied. Once she got there, then what? She had to start somewhere. In order to get close to the Royal Kei, she had to get into the imperial palace. And that wouldn't be easy.
    Shoukei didn't have a passport that could vouch for her identity. She'd left behind the papers given her in Hou. She'd heard that there were officials who would forge passports for a price, but she had no idea where to find the kind of corrupt bureaucrat who could do such a thing.
    Getting into the imperial palace in Kei with only a passport was far from impossible. The empress had only recently acceded to the throne and so there was likely a considerable turnover in the staff. Shoukei was cultured and educated. If she expressed a desire to serve the empress, the odds of her getting hired were good. At the same time, after so short a time on the throne, the empress would no doubt be lonely. No matter how many officials and bureaucrats she was surrounded by, somebody genuinely nice would no doubt catch her eye. She was perfectly capable of sucking up to the Royal Kei. She'd wait for the chance, and strike.
    And besides, she knew the workings of an imperial palace inside and out.
    "But maybe I should go take a look at Tai."
    In a kingdom that had lost its king and was in chaos, you probably didn't need a passport.
    The Royal Tai had acceded to the throne two years before Hou changed governments. Not more than half a year later, an imperial rescript was issued to all the Twelve Kingdoms announcing the king's death. The rescript was delivered by the new king. But an imperial rescript was hardly required when the king of another kingdom died. A phoenix bird in every imperial palace would sing forth, making the announcement. The phoenix birds had remained quiet in regards to the Royal Tai. There was no doubt about it: when Shoukei was living at Youshun Palace, the phoenix bird hadn't uttered a peep about the demise of the Royal Tai.
    If the king lived, there was no reason for a new king to arise. Clearly, this was a pretender. In fact, nobody really knew what was going on in Tai. Kingdoms tended to keep their internal affairs to themselves.
    If they had lost their king, then Tai was in the same predicament as Hou, and there was no way she was going back to Hou. For the time being, she muttered to herself, Tai it is.

    "So, where are you headed?" asked the waiter who brought dinner.
    Shoukei looked down at the dishes being placed there and furrowed her brow.
    Oh, great.
    The table was being set for two. She'd be eating with some complete stranger. She made a face. Answering the waiter's call, she saw someone came out of the other bedroom--apparently they'd been in there all along--and lowered her brows. Bad enough