The Twelve Kingdoms: The Shore in Twilight

That was why she couldn't bring herself to pray until that day.
    Risai had watched the people of Tai mutely visit the shrine. Watched them solemnly trudge to the shrine in the middle of snowstorms. Wordlessly, lest any word of protest might reach Asen's ears, they silently approached the shrine and placed a keihaku flower atop it. They expressed thanks for whatever blessings remained, and prayed for the safety of he who had given the flower to them.
    While regretting that the people of Tai could do no more than that, Risai had not once visited a shrine. She hadn't been able to. It'd been the same since she'd been told the search for Taiki had commenced. More than the expectation that they would find him was the fear that they might not. And even if they did, what happened then? Taiki's return guaranteed nothing.
    Then what did it all mean? It meant that Taiki was a candle on the water.
    An old hermit Risai knew through acquaintances had once offered her refuge. He told her to give up. "There is no king here anymore."
    Garyou, Gyousou's home village in the mountain valleys of I Province in Tai, had been reduced to embers. Risai had gone to I Province in search of Gyousou with the hope he was hiding out in the land of his birth. All she found were ruins shrouded in fog.
    "And you need to take a load off as well."
    "I'm doing fine."
    "A kingdom without a king goes to wrack and ruin. Everybody knows that. But we don't know that the king is dead. If the royal rites aren't conducted, does the kingdom decline then? Or does the king's presence itself protect the kingdom?"
    Risai shook her head. "I don't know."
    "The era has begun during which Tai shall have no king. You have been looking for him all this time and to no avail. Haven't you done enough already?"
    Risai reacted with surprise. "Are you telling me to abandon the king?"
    The old man shook his head. Deep lines ran through his wise and weathered face. "I'm only saying you should consider your own welfare. You are also one of the king's subjects, one of all those he must redeem."
    "I--"
    "If you are to talk about the happiness of the people of Tai, shouldn't you include yourself among them? If you intend to bear the pain of all on your own shoulders, nobody will end up happy."
    Risai nodded dejectedly.
    "And yet he remains the only person who can save this kingdom--"
    With a sad sigh, the old man got up and left the room, leaving his granddaughter there alone. She gave Risai a sad and wistful look.
    "Do you think me a fool as well for wandering around after the king?"
    The girl shook her head. "I don't know. I've never met the king. I don't understand politics. The king is somebody who lives above the clouds. Even Taiki is far, far above our stations. But the smoke--"
    "What's that?"
    "Looking down from the gates, you can seen the whole of I Province and all the smoke hanging in the sky above it."
    "Ah," Risai said.
    Asen could not condone the existence of anything connected to Gyousou. Or anyone Gyousou had governed. Or anyone who had ever found fault with Asen personally. Any burg that did not agree with his fancy was rooted up and burned to the ground. Those who turned their backs to him were scattered and driven from their lands.
    "Is it true that kingdoms to the south enjoy springtime weather all the year round? That it never snows in Sou? I've heard the rivers never freeze over. That the sun shines warmly even in winter. And when the storm clouds part, the skies above are as blue as forever--"
    Risai nodded. She had never been further south than the Yellow Sea. But the sun shone so brightly there, and the sky was truly as deeply blue as forever.
    "From the first snow until the last, how many days will the skies be clear? They could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And so the smoke--"
    Risai grasped what the child was saying. Instinctively she seized her hand.
    "And those few clear days as well are obscured by the smoke. The fires scorch the ground and melt the snow and freeze the rubble solid. How long must the people of Tai await the spring? It seems like the Imperial Palace is the single remaining spot of blue in a land covered by low, thick clouds. Even those blue skies are turning gray. The smoke that covers Tai like snow blankets Kouki as well. This kingdom has no clear days left."
    The girl looked up at Risai, her eyes brimming with sadness. "Kouki must yet dwell under clear skies. In Kouki must be that one spark of spring, that one ray of sunlight