The Twelve Kingdoms: The Shore in Twilight

overcome by sorrow. She at least wanted Kaei to understand her.
    "How could you do something so despicable?"

    Risai and Kaei fled their pursuers to a hill in Sui Province. They had come here intending to meet with the Province Lord. Shisen was the capital of Sui Province. Shisen's Ryou'un Mountain towered above them. It was spring in name only. The fierce winds buffeted them.
    Looking back toward whence they had come, they could see the small hamlet at the base of the hill. The fields surrounding the hamlet lay fallow. Several burial mounds had been built there and abandoned without so much as a prayer for the dead.
    Kaei and Risai had walked through the hamlet before climbing the hill. The original landowners had deserted the place long ago. Instead, a small number of travelers were seeking warmth and shelter in the dilapidated houses. They had left their own home towns behind, escaping to any place closer to another kingdom.
    Risai and Kaei had begged a few cups of thin gruel and listened to the stories and rumors the refugees had to share. They said that a taika sat upon the throne in Kei.
    "One of my relatives' kids was in the port city. The word on the street there is that she's a young empress. Perhaps even the same age as the Taiho." The woman spoke listlessly. She was badly wounded. Sui Province was infested with youma.
    It was said that the winds of oppression and subjugation sweeping over Tai had spared Sui Province alone. They'd left their home towns and fled here together, but a fortnight later these few alone had survived. The woman held a child wrapped in rags in her arms. Risai hadn't seen the child stir once since she and Kaei arrived.
    "People say that if the Taiho is alive and well, that's how old he'd be."
    Risai expressed her thanks for the gruel and left the hovel, a new sliver of hope in her grasp. Her mount was tied up in front. "A teenage empress. A taika--" she muttered to herself, taking up the reins of her mount.
    Kaei turned to her with a puzzled look. "What do you mean by that?"
    "What do you think? Do you think Royal Kei might still harbor fond feelings for the land of her birth?"
    "Risai?"
    "She might be homesick for Yamato, I mean. She might long for some connection to her life there. Don't you think so?" There was an additional note of enthusiasm in Risai's voice.
    From the look on Kaei's face, she clearly didn't know how to respond.
    "The Taiho is also a taika. They're close to each other in age. If the Royal Kei learned more about the Taiho, shouldn't she want to meet him, want to help him? Not to mention that Kei has the full support of En."
    Kaei gaped at her. "You're not really thinking of going to Kei to beg for assistance?"
    "Why shouldn't we?"
    "Risai, the empress could not violate the borders of another kingdom. And doing so under arms would provoke grave and immediate consequences. Dispatching troops to another kingdom is impossible."
    "But you just heard them say so yourself! The Royal En lent his support to Kei. The Royal Kei was escorted to her ravaged kingdom by En forces."
    "Those were unusual circumstances. The Royal Kei sought asylum in En. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Royal En who crossed the borders to seek her out. In the end, the Royal Kei borrowed the En Imperial Army and returned to her own kingdom. Here in Tai, however, His Highness is nowhere to be found."
    "But--"
    "You're familiar with Jun Tei incident in the Kingdom of Sai?"
    "The Jun Tei incident?"
    "Long ago Jun Tei, the Sai King, grieved by the ongoing chaos in the Kingdom of Han and desiring to save the people of Han, sent in his Imperial Army. As a result he met an untimely death. Even to spare the people of a kingdom, Heaven will not countenance the army of one kingdom crossing the borders of another. Do you think any other monarch would wish to follow in Jun Tei's path?"
    Risai shook her head. Then suddenly she looked up. "That's right. The Royal Kei is a taika. Perhaps she's unfamiliar with the Jun Tei incident."
    "You can't seriously mean to do anything so abject and cowardly!" Kaei's pale, exhausted face twisted with shock and repugnance. "Are you suggesting that Kei be sacrificed to save Tai? Because that's what it sounds like."
    "That is the--"
    "No, Risai. Anything but that!"
    "But what becomes of our kingdom?" Risai exclaimed. Gripping the reins in her hands she motioned at the base of the hill. "Look at that hamlet. You saw the people living there. That is what Tai has become. No one knows