The Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon

them disgusting. Did you know that in that other world, a child is born from its mother's belly?"
    "I know. But what has that to do with this?"
    "Don't you think it filthy?"
    "I do not."
    "Well, I do. No taika born from a woman's belly belongs in this world. They should stay where they came from."
    "Heaven does not agree. Else why should taika be chosen as kings? What is filthy is to reject the Divine Will of Heaven."
    The Royal Kou smirked. "So I gather we won't be seeing eye to eye on this."
    "No, we shall not."
    "Still, I am your lord. You must follow my lead. Pursue her and kill her. She must not be allowed to escape Kou alive. Yes, the Imperial Army must be posted along the border with Kei."
    "Would it not be better to pay this unclean girl no mind? You call her a girl, you say she does not have the constitution to be a king, then why would you resort to murder to keep her from the throne?"
    "I will not have a taika king on the borders of my kingdom!"
    Kourin sighed deeply. "What, then, do you intend to do with the Kei Taiho?"
    "Give him to Joei. That'll shut up the province lords."
    "It may silence them for the time being, but it will not allay their suspicions for long. With his horn sealed, the Kei Taiho cannot return to human form. He cannot even speak. What kind of Taiho is that? You must not continue in this manner. Heaven will surely not overlook such indiscretions."
    "I never said that it would."
    "You may be resigned to your fate, but you forget your people."
    "The people of Kou are an unlucky lot. After I die, the next ruler may be of better stock. If you take the long view of things, then perhaps it's all for the better."
    "What are you saying?" Kourin again buried her face in her hands.
    The Royal Kou said in a blank, detached voice, "I was never meant to be a king." Perhaps he was already beyond hope, completely resigned to his fate. "Both you and Heaven chose badly, indeed."
    "This is not true."
    "True enough. My reign will end after only fifty years. En has stood for five hundred, Sou for almost six hundred. I am a mayfly compared to En and Sou, and yet I have reached my limit."
    "If you changed your heart now, your reign would be much longer."
    "That ship has already sailed, Taiho."
    Kourin hung her head.
    "This great task proved my stumbling block. I should have lived and died a provincial guard. Instead, I found myself blessed with this outrageous fortune, when I was not in the least qualified to accept it. A scant fifty years was the best I could do."
    "Do not call it scant. The reigns of many kings have been briefer."
    "So they have been. The late Empress of Kei, for one. And not just her. Kei has always been caught up in unrest, has fared far worse than Kou. Some of my subjects are ignorant enough to look at En and Sou and say how much poorer Kou is. But when compared to Kei, well, Kou is so much the better."
    "Neither En nor Sou were wealthy kingdoms to begin with."
    "I know. I did as much as I could. But for every step I take, the En and the Sou are two more ahead of me. And so Kou will be poorer than En and Sou forever. Simply put, I will never reach their level, never be their equal."
    "That is not so."
    "I can't compete with En and Sou. But Kei is different. Kei is poorer than Kou. But now, if a new king were to ascend to the throne and Kei were to become wealthier than Kou, then what? Kou alone impoverished? And I, the prince of fools who made it so?"
    "Will you lose the Mandate of Heaven over so slight a reason?"
    The Royal Kou did not answer the question. "Yamato is a wealthy country. Talk to the kaikyaku and you understand that very well. The En returned from Yamato, and his country is wealthy, too. Taika are different from those of us born in this world. When the kingdom of that En taika is so wealthy, why shouldn't I fear the Royal Kei? The taika know secret things that allow them to rule a country so. That's why, no matter what I do, I will never measure up."
    "You are talking nonsense."
    He smiled a faint, weary smile. "Yes, utter nonsense. I have come too far to back down now. And even if I did, the fate of Kou is set. Kou will go to ruin. I will die, and when I do, the Kei taika, too. We'll all go down together."

    You fool. The words came unbidden to Youko's lips, "What a jerk." The vision vanished. Exhausted, Youko set down the sword. "How could someone do something so stupid?"
    He didn't want to get left behind, but rather than seeking the cooperation of his neighbors, he