The Twelve Kingdoms: A Thousand Leagues of Wind

studied at home, so I was really bluffing when I said I wanted to go to college."
    Shoukei looked at Rakushun, a jumble of feelings going through her. "I don't think anybody's going to give you a reward for taking me to En."
    "That had nothing to do with it. You looked pretty miserable sitting there in that jail cell."
    "Me?"
    "Yours was the face of somebody who had taken about all she could take." He narrowed his eyes. "It reminded me of the Royal Kei when I first met her."
    "So you picked me up and took me to En."
    Rakushun laughed. "Like I told you, these chance encounters seem to be my destiny."

Part XI
    n is situated to the southeast of Ryuu, but the winters don't differ that much. Just as in Ryuu, it was a hardship to travel except by horse-drawn wagon. Though in En, people used carriages. The team of horses pulled a solidly-built coach and took them south on well-groomed roads.
    Poorer travelers walked along the shoulders of the road. The blowing wind was cold, and you could freeze even while keeping on the move. They clutched onjaku to their chests, heads ducked into the wind, and carried over their shoulders sacks filled with a little charcoal and firewood. Here and there along the highway, the firewood would feed bonfires where they could warm themselves. They cast sideways glances at the stagecoach as it rushed past.
    "It must be rough to have to travel on foot," Shoukei said to Rakushun, sitting across from her.
    The coach seated two facing bench seats that each could sit three people. Shoukei and Rakushun were the only passengers.
    "Shoukei, do you still want to go to Tai?"
    Shoukei let out a breath. "I really wanted to go to Kei."
    "Eh?"
    "I wanted to go to Kei and work for a minister, get close to the Royal Kei. I'd ingratiate myself with her. And when the opening presented itself, usurp the throne. Something like that. I'm pretty sure half of it was in my imagination. But half of it was serious. You mad at me?"
    "No. But if you really were serious, there's no way I could look at you again."
    "You're right." Shoukei laughed. "I needed to get registered on the census. I heard that if you went to Tai and caught a boat to Kei, you could get land and get registered in Kei."
    Rakushun gave her a surprised look. "I hadn't heard of that."
    "The original goal was to go to Tai with the kitsuryou. But for the time being, it's just as well going to Kei and looking for some land there."
    Shoukei looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. "In fact, being the princess royal was a big deal to me. I didn't want to give up living in the palace and my luxurious lifestyle. It was really embarrassing working in the fields and wearing commonplace clothes. When I heard that the Royal Kei was the same age as me, I envied her so much. I couldn't forgive her for having all that I had lost."
    "I see."
    "To tell the truth, it's still hard for me to stay in cheap hotels. It's mortifying to have to wear wool. But that's the penance I've got to pay." She clenched her hands, turning the tips of her entwined fingers white. "All I did was play around at the palace. I didn't do anything else. I didn't know people hated my father so much that they wanted to murder him. I didn't want to know. And now I'm paying for it. That's why Gekkei--he's the marquis of Kei Province--erased me from the Registry of Wizards. I get it now."
    "Yeah."
    "If I hadn't been the princess royal, I would just be another child at the orphanage. I'd still be in my minority, without the wits to become a government official. That's why I got sent to the orphanage. I didn't have a clue. I just didn't get it."
    "Better you get it now than never."
    "Yeah," Shoukei laughed. "The Royal Kei, what kind of person is she?"
    "She's about the same age as you."
    "But not an idiot like me."
    "Oh, she would call herself an idiot. And then she would say: But they made me empress, anyway! "
    Shoukei laughed again. "She sounds like me."
    "Perhaps. But you are more, well, feminine. The Empress is kind of rough about the edges."
    Shoukei giggled and looked out the window at the passing scenery. "I'd like to go to Kei." She wanted to meet this empress. And if not meet her, she wanted to see what kind of a kingdom she was going to create.
    "Returnee groups are forming all over En and heading to Kei."
    "You mean, since the Royal Kei was enthroned, people have been going back."
    "Quite a number of people. They don't really know what kind of monarch she'll turn out to be, but in any