The Wings of Dreams

understand what that’s like. If that was true, nobody would ever venture into the Yellow Sea. It’s the koushu who don’t get it. It’s obvious to anybody who gives it a few minutes of thought that the koushu got dealt a bad hand in life. But that’s no excuse to beweep their outcast state, curse their fate, and envy those better off than them. And then when they’re in a place they know like the backs of their hands, lord it over everybody else.”
    “Shushou—?”
    “No matter how familiar they may be with the Yellow Sea, if they’re going to use that knowledge as some sort of retribution, they’d be better off as ignorant as the rest of us. That’s all I’m going to say. I am indebted to them for bringing me this far.”
    “I see,” Chodai said with a thoughtful nod.
    “I just don’t want to be around them right now. At any rate, Ren-san, you’re going to keep following the road, aren’t you?”
    Chodai shook his head. “No. This once we will probably heed the advice of the goushi and follow them.”
    “Why? Up to now—”
    “Because this turned out to be the kind of thing the goushi said they wanted us to know.”
    “The goushi sent you a message?”
    Meaning that, amazingly enough, Chodai had spoken with the goushi of his own volition.
    “The goushi went out of their way to inform us. That means something really dangerous must lie ahead. I am not so reckless as to want to see for myself. I wasn’t ever interested in seeking out alternate routes simply in order to defy the goushi.”
    “But—”
    “I detoured around the marsh because I knew there was something in it worth avoiding. The goushi obviously knew about it and took measures not available to us. If the goushi would go to such lengths, we reasoned that it shouldn’t be crossed at all. Don’t you think?”
    “That does make sense.”
    “We looked for a way around, again, not because we wished to defy the goushi. So if the goushi say the way ahead is impassable, we’ll listen to what they have to say. Seeing as they’re going to the trouble of carving out a new route, we might as well follow them.”
    “I see.”
    “Though Kiwa and his group seemed to have pushed the trees aside and proceeded along the road.”
    Shushou started, her eyes wide. “Shitsu-san did what? Really?”

    “You okay with this?” Rikou asked Gankyuu.
    Gankyuu rose to his feet to run after Shushou then stopped in his tracks, searching out the place he’d last seen her with his eyes only.
    “Let her do what she wants. She paid me up front anyway.” But there was little sense of triumph in his words.
    “Huh.”
    “For the life of me, I can’t understand how that girl thinks.”
    “Really?” said Rikou.
    Gankyuu glanced back at him. “So you say. Aren’t you the one who came all this way in order to escort that handful of trouble to her destination?”
    “That I did.”
    “In which case, you go,” Gankyuu said, and sat down on the spot.
    Rikou grinned. “Don’t be mean. Putting distance between yourself and a koushu in the Yellow Sea is dangerous to your health.”
    “Maybe.”
    An unfathomable smile rose to Rikou’s face. “Even I hold my own life dear. It’s not something, alas, I wish to cast aside on behalf of somebody else.”
    “Then why did you come all the way to the Yellow Sea?”
    “I believed my presence might prove necessary. Though I suspect it no longer is.”
    Gankyuu cocked his head to the side. “I don’t get that at all.”
    “Chasing after Shushou would be easy enough. But without you there, it’d be an empty gesture.”
    Gankyuu raised his head. Meaning what? the expression on his face said.
    “Shushou probably ended up with Chodai or Kiwa. She’s not so foolish to believe she could navigate the Yellow Sea by herself. I don’t think she will reach Mt. Hou without a koushu by her side.”
    “I see,” said Gankyuu, his mouth twisting into a frown. “There’s no need to guard Shushou if she’s not going to become empress.”
    “If Shushou doesn’t become empress, I’ve got no reason to be here.”
    When Shushou told Rikou she was going to Mt. Hou, the feeling she was destined to become empress took root inside him. He hadn’t ended up in that town with any thought of meeting her or anybody like her. For whatever reason, that was where he’d decided to stop for the night. For whatever reason, he’d circled around the town to check out the cemetery. And then for whatever reason, he’d left