The Wings of Dreams

glanced up at Gankyuu. “If I became your apprentice, I wouldn’t have to wait until I was eighteen.”
    “Becoming an apprentice may be out of your reach even now. Shouldn’t you be more concerned about what you’ll do as empress?”
    “As empress—” Shushou muttered to herself, turning to look at Gankyuu again. “How about this? If I don’t, then you take me on as your apprentice. If I do, then you become my retainer.”
    Gankyuu grinned. “Me?”
    “Yeah, you. People are dying in Renshou, getting attacked by youma. Once you’ve seen Ken, it makes sense why. Renshou isn’t prepared to deal with youma in the slightest. If the whole kingdom were as well defended as Ken, and even half the koushu were available to teach people the best ways to deal with youma, the casualties would go down a whole lot.”
    Gankyuu only shook his head. “That’s not something you need to worry about. Once the throne is filled, the youma will go away.”
    “Yeah, what everybody says. It speaks volumes that nobody was prepared for the destruction. When there’s an emperor and life is good, people only care about making their way up in the world. They don’t seriously consider the downside until the throne is vacant.”
    “Of course.”
    “If I become empress, the goushi will be out of a job. If they all become shushi, they’ll produce a surplus and the market for kijuu will collapse. In that case, joining the civil service will pay a lot better, no?”
    “Government work isn’t exactly suited to my temperament.”
    “Then I’ll hire you as a goushi. The kingdom’s been going downhill for a while now. The place is overrun with harpies a lot nastier than mere youma. When you’re not working as my bodyguard, you can travel here to the Yellow Sea and hunt kijuu for me. Hunting kijuu will be more enjoyable once I make you a wizard. At least you’ll fare better the next time a youma takes a swipe at you with its talons.”
    “Well, I’ll think about it.”
    Is this the child or the adult? Gankyuu mused to himself. It was undoubtedly the child who, aroused by the ruin around her, impulsively decided to go on the Shouzan. But successfully executing such an audacious plan was an extraordinary achievement for any adult, let alone a child.
    “Oh, that’s right,” Shushou piped up. “Those bastards who prowl about Ken hunting other people’s kijuu, they’re first on my agenda.”
    Gankyuu laughed out loud.
    At that moment, “Ahoy!” called out a third voice. They looked up to see a kijuu galloping down the slope of a nearby hill. The kijuu was a suugu.
    “Wow! It’s Seisai. Rikou came to meet us.”
    “He did a good job of finding us, considering how far we’ve come from where we fought it out with that harpy.”
    “Indeed. Maybe he tracked our scent.”
    Shushou laughed and raised her arm. The suugu covered the rest of the slope with a flying jump and landed a few yards away from the haku.
    “You two seem to have made it through okay.”
    Shushou puffed out her chest a bit. “Because I was there. You’re looking good too, Rikou. Did you meet up with the goushi?”
    “Without you, though.”
    “And a good thing, too.”
    Rikou chuckled. He dismounted and patted the suugu on the neck. Seisai leapt high into the air, landed on the top of the hill, looked over the other side and then back at them.
    “The goushi? They came all the way here?”
    “Yep,” Rikou said with a nod.
    “They sure didn’t have any trouble finding us. I was saying how maybe they followed our scent.”
    “Your scent? Well, there is that. What with all the commotion, it wasn’t hard tracking you down.”
    Shushou tilted her head to the side and peered back at Gankyuu. Gankyuu appeared no less confused than her. Rikou didn’t say anything more. He reached up. The still perplexed Shushou took his hand and climbed out of the saddle.
    Urging Gankyuu forward, Rikou asked. “How’s that leg of yours?”
    “It’s fine, thanks again to Shushou’s good luck. What’s going on?”
    Rikou said with a sly grin, “A big commotion.” He gave the haku a grateful pat on the neck. “Nice to see you in one piece too.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I do think myself more suited to a haku. It’d be fine with me if you want to take back the suugu.”
    “I wouldn’t mind but I think the haku would.”
    Shushou bit back a laugh. “Oh, that’s not it. The haku is special.”
    “Don’t ask,” Gankyuu said, as Rikou led them