The Twelve Kingdoms: A Thousand Leagues of Wind

That fear, coupled with the conviction that the Royal Kei would save him, had created these foolish expectations. Better to have taken him to a doctor in Goto, right after they got off the boat. If they only hadn't come here.
    "Seishuu . . . I'm sorry." The sobs still filled the throat. Her tears had not dried. "I'm sorry."
    A cloud passed across the sun. Suzu stared at her own shadow.
    "Miss, the gates are closing."
    She turned blankly toward the sound of the voice. She saw a figure of a smallish person. For a moment, she grasped at false hopes.
    "You going to be here long? Your teeth are chattering."
    "Leave me alone."
    He looked three or four years older than Seishuu. About fourteen. A small-framed boy with black hair. The boy said, "In Kei, it's still not safe to be caught outside a city at night."
    Suzu glared at him. "Leave me alone. Don't worry about me."
    "You want to get eaten by a youma? You got some sort of death wish?"
    "You wouldn't understand. Go on ahead."
    The boy didn't answer. For a little while, standing behind her, she felt his eyes on her back. "Nobody understands how I feel at all!" she cried.
    The boy answered quietly, "Crying out of self-pity does no respect to the dead."
    Suzu's eye widened in surprise. People who cry because they feel so sorry for themselves. "Who are you?"
    "I'm from Takuhou. Shall we return together?"
    Suzu got to her feet. Once again she looked down at the small mound of earth. "Do you know who he was?"
    "Everybody knows about it. You came from Sou?"
    The boy held out his hand. Suzu took it. He had a warm, delicate palm. She said, "This child is a child of Kei. He fled the kingdom and went to Kou. Then he fled Kou and went to Sou. And now he was returning to Kei."
    "I see," the boy said to himself. He looked back at the mound of earth. "That is sad."
    "Yes," Suzu nodded. The tears spilled down her cheeks. Still weeping, the boy's hand in hers, they returned to the city.

    "Are you from Takuhou?"
    They arrived back at the city just as the gates closed. Inside the gates, Suzu averted her eyes from the right-hand side of the road and more tightly gripped the hand in hers. She didn't let go until they had crossed the main boulevard.
    "Are you from Kei, then?"
    "No. From Sai."
    "That's a long voyage. Do you have a place to stay?"
    Suzu nodded her head. "Thank you for talking to me."
    "Sure," said the boy. He looked at her. "Cheer up. If you don't walk facing forward, you'll end up falling into a hole."
    "Into a hole?"
    "The hole of your own self-pity."
    "Yeah," Suzu muttered to herself. That would be disrespectful to Seishuu. She could hear Seishuu still scolding her. "You're right about that. Thanks."
    "No problem."
    "What's your name?"
    "Sekki."
    "Hey," said Suzu, looking into his face. "Do you know if that guy who ran over Seishuu has been arrested?"
    Shh, Sekki said, signaling with his eyes. "Better you don't talk about such things so people can hear." He led her into a nearby alleyway. "That guy won't be arrested."
    "You mean you know who it is?"
    "Not an acquaintance, if that's what you mean. I wouldn't want to be known as an associate of that beast."
    The vehemence with which he spoke surprised her. "Who is it?"
    "Everybody in the city knows: The governor killed the boy traveler. "
    "The governor?"
    The governor, Shoukou. Remember that name. The most dangerous man in Shisui Prefecture."
    "He killed Seishuu?"
    "The boy fell down in front of Shoukou carriage. The carriage stopped. And then--"
    "And then--he would do something like that?"
    "Shoukou is completely capable of it."
    "That's awful." Suzu slumped against the wall and slid to the ground. "Seishuu couldn't even walk straight." She hugged her knees. "I should have carried him on my back." Why had she been so unwilling to? He hardly weighed anything at all. She could have done it.
    "You shouldn't blame yourself, Suzu."
    Suzu shook her head. There was no way she couldn't but blame herself.
    "And it does no good to blame Shoukou."
    "Why not!" A fierce expression rose to Suzu's face.
    "To begrudge Shoukou is as good as getting murdered by him all over again." He turned and added almost as an aside, "I guess no one taught you that until now."

Chapter 40
    F rom the eastern quarter of Ryuu, Shoukei and Rakushun crossed Mt. Koushuu and entered En. As soon as they had crossed the border, Shoukei gaped at the splendidly maintained roads.
    They had traveled parallel to the ridgeline of the Koushuu mountains, making their way