The Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon

see.
    A palace, and in the palace, an emaciated woman.
    "I wished no women to remain in Gyouten."
    "But . . . . "
    That was Keiki, trying to voice a contrary opinion. Youko guessed that the woman was the Late Empress Yo.
    "Criminals refuse an imperial order. Why do you hesitate administering justice to criminals?"
    The only life left in the Empress Jokaku was in her eyes. She had the skin of a corpse, sunken cheeks, the tendons stood out in her neck, there was a sickly pallor all about her. Youko sensed these were the woman's last days. She must be suffering much to be that shrunken and skeletal. Despite the mounting pain and knowing the foolishness of her crimes, she was not able to stop herself from committing them.
    Youko saw the ruin of the Kingdom of Kei. She thought Kou was poor, but it was nothing compared to the destitution in Kei. She saw villages decimated by youma, the burning huts of the poor caught up in the conflagrations. The land and fields overrun with rodents and locust, rivers overflowing their banks, inundating the paddies with mud and sludge, countless bodies bobbing in the water.
    This is the destruction visited upon a kingdom that loses its king.
    "The kingdom will fall into ruin," she had heard over and over. The stark reality of those words finally came home to her. Living in Japan, they would have meant very little. Here, she understood what she had been repeatedly told with such passion.
    The next thing she saw was a mountain road.

Chapter 63
    T here were two people on the road. One wore a dark shroud over his head like the Grim Reaper. The other had golden hair. They were surrounded by a horde of beasts.
    "Forgive me," said the golden-haired woman, her face buried in her hands. The same woman Youko had encountered on another mountain road.
    That would be Kourin.
    "I assume, of course, that you were begging my forgiveness."
    The Grim Reaper let the shroud fall from his head. What appeared was the deeply wrinkled face of an old man. Nevertheless, he had a large stature that seemed incongruous with his age. A brightly colored parrot perched on his shoulder.
    "A helpless girl. It's too bad we couldn't finish her off, but wandering about in these mountains, she shouldn't last long. Though we seemed to have miscalculated about whether or not she had accepted the covenant." The man spoke in a disinterested tone of voice, devoid of emotion. "Oh, well. She'll die a dog's death at the side of the road, or try to sneak into a village and be arrested. Either way, Taiho. Either way."
    "Yes."
    "I'll be upset if something like this happens again. No matter what, that girl must be exterminated."
    When the man said, "that girl," he must be referring to herself. That meant he was . . . the Royal Kou.
    "But such a weak-hearted thing. She does not have the constitution to be a great king. You go all the way to Yamato, and that is what you bring back?"
    The man spoke to one of the beasts. It looked like a deer with only one horn. You could call it a "unicorn," but only in overall appearance. The mane was a luxuriant gold, the coat a more subdued yellow. The speckled pattern of colors on its back resembled that of a fawn, though these were strange and fantastic colors, glimmering faintly in the sunlight.
    "Good fortune does not seem to favor your masters, wouldn't you say, Kei Taiho?"
    Kei Taiho . . . then that was . . . Keiki.
    This is a kirin.
    She recognized the mountainous location as the road she had traveled from Hairou. What she had taken then for Keiki had been Kourin. What Jouyuu had called "Taiho" had been Keiki in his kirin form.
    Kourin said, "As she is a mere child, would it not be better to leave her to the elements? Two men of Kou have died. Please, can you not end all this?"
    She looked up at the Royal Kou, tears in her eyes. Youko had observed the same expression on her face at another time, in another place.
    "All men die," her lord answered. "Dust to dust."
    Even now, Youko did not perceive a flicker of humanity in him.
    "Heaven will not countenance such actions. Sow the wind and Kou will surely reap the whirlwind. Your lordship shall prove no exception."
    "I have already reaped the whirlwind. You lecture me in vain. I've come to the end of my tether. Kou will fall. And when Kou falls, Kei will fall as well. As God is my witness, I will drag the Royal Kei down into the depths with me."
    "How can you hate the taika so much?"
    The Royal Kou laughed a hollow laugh. "I don't hate them. I find