SPOILER WARNING!

SPOILERS FOR SILVER HILLS OF RUINS, THE BLACK MOON (SHIROGANE NO OKA, KURO NO TSUKI)

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED ALL FOUR BOOKS!


Encumbered


It started the night they set out for Bun Province—or perhaps she'd simply slept too deeply within the relative safety of Kinpa Palace to notice before.

A soft cry woke Risai in the dead of night. Her mind was catapulted from the haze of dreams, instinct of the long hunted dredging up the latest details of her life on the run. She was in a half-deserted village in Ten Shire, sleeping in a room borrowed from one of Kyoshi's contacts. Across the room from her lay Taiki. The cry had come from his bed.

Risai was on her feet in an instant, hand darting beneath her pillow for her sword. She fumbled to draw it one-handedly as she crossed the scant feet between their beds.

The room was lit by a single candle, kept burning so they'd have some light if they needed to make a quick getaway. The candle sat on the desk between the two beds, throwing deep shadows over Taiki's huddled form. She saw no menacing figure loomed over him, nothing to explain the sharp cry he'd given. Yet his breathing was ragged, and he was trembling from head to foot.

Does he have a fever? she thought in concern, memories of the coma he'd so recently awoken from rearing their ugly head. Was this a lingering symptom of his blood fever?

Gently, Risai laid her hand on his shoulder. "Taiho?"

He started, twisting onto his side to face her. He made no response, and the room was too dark to discern his expression.

"Are you alright?" Risai ventured again.

"Fine," came the quiet response. "I'm sorry, was I loud? Did I say anything?"

You sleep talk? was her first thought. She kept it to herself. "Just getting up for a drink," she lied. "I noticed you shaking. Is something wrong?"

"Nothing, just a dream," replied that voice she still wasn't used to—older and quieter and more somber than she remembered. "Nothing for you to worry about."

What kind of dream, she wanted to ask. A dream of Hourai? Of his maddened shirei? Or was it a dream of the ruined kingdom all around them? A resurfacing memory of Asen's attack? A torturous imagining of Gyousou's straits?

"I'm here if you want to talk," she offered softly.

In the dim candlelight, she saw his head bob in a nod of acknowledgment. But he didn't say a word.

Risai hid a sigh. "I'm going to boil myself some water," she said, setting her sword down on the desk and taking up the candle. "Would you like any?"

"Yes, please," Taiki said, the candlelight illuminated his face. It was so pale, and the circles under his eyes so dark. Risai couldn't say she was pleased to see him getting out of bed, but neither did she want his nightmare to resume, whatever it had contained.

"Wait here," she said, "I'll be but a moment."

***

In the coming nights, Taiki's nightmares returned. Each time she'd shake him awake, each time offering to listen if he wanted to talk. He never did, except to apologize.

"You're losing sleep because of me," he'd mumble, head hung in guilt and dejection. "After all you've done for me already …"

"Don't concern yourself with such trifles," Risai laughed. "Hardly any different than catnapping on campaign. More pressingly, I'm worried such poor rest will disturb the Taiho's recovery."

Taiki hadn't convalesced for nearly long enough. She really wished she'd been able to at least convince him to stay another month or two in Kei. The way she saw it, being in Tai, seeing the destitution of the common folk in Tai, was making his sleep ever more agitated, delaying his recovery and straining his health. She was tempted to take him to a doctor, but what if the doctor could tell he wasn't the human boy his outward appearance suggested? She didn't dare risk it.

The next day as Kyoshi set out to inquire at the local temples for a place to spend the night, Risai left Kouryou to keep watch over Taiki and sidled up to Houto. "I have a favor to ask…"

"What is it?" Houto asked, that ever present cheerful note in his tone.

"Would you happen to have any medicine to ease dreams?"

***

"So it was you who found the medicine, Risai-sama?" asked Juntatsu.

She'd come to call on Taiki in the innermost halls of Soukou Palace. It was the sixth month of the year, their allied forces assembled and launching the campaign to reclaim Hakkei Palace. Taiki had returned from his convalescence on Mount Hou mere days before Gyousou set out for Kouki. Despite the kirin in question's protests, he'd been left in Soukou Castle for the duration of the war. Risai was likewise stationed here to hold the castle against enemy forces, though she would lead her army to the front in a few weeks once the volunteer recruits to the Kou Provincial Guard had been adequately trained.

"The medicine?" Risai asked in confusion. Only when Juntatsu held up a familiar looking bottle did she suck in a knowing breath. "Oh, right, I forgot about that…"

Houto had given her a Taoist herbal elixir that would send its drinker into a sleep too deep for dreams. Though that would make it harder to wake him in the event of an emergency, Risai hadn't been overly worried, reassuring herself that out of her, Kouryou, Kyoshi, and Houto, someone would be available to carry Taiki to safety should the need arise. In any case, the nightmares stopped once he began drinking the elixir.

Taiki bowed his head. "Thank you so much. It really helped me out in Asen's court."

Rumors of Taiki's cold war in the halls of his enemy had circulated like wildfire. Though Risai had the reports on better authority than most, she was not immune to the sensationalized tales going around the general public. She couldn't help but think that in a palace with enemy eyes and ears everywhere, Taiki's night terrors, had they continued, would have been discovered and used against him.

"I'm glad to have been able to play my part," she responded sincerely, pulling up a chair.

She deliberately placed the chair in front of Taiki's bedside table and the pile of documents on it, at which Juntatsu was leveling a venomous glare. Now Taiki would have to order her out of the way to bring work into his recovery bed.

"How are your dreams of late?" Risai asked innocently, as though she would never dream of impeding the Taiho's work.

"Better now I'm back in Tai," Taiki said. "It's just this last week they've been troubling me again, so I had Juntatsu send for more of the elixir."

By this last week he must mean since the king he'd nearly lost once before had again marched off to war. With that on his mind, small wonder his nightmares should return.

She wondered how long Taiki would stay here in Kou Province. Gyousou had seemed intent on housing him safely in Soukou Palace until Hakkei Palace was firmly in their grasp, but Risai had all too much experience with trying to convince this older Taiki to play it safe. She gave it until they took over a neighboring shire castle, at the very latest.

"How is His Majesty?" asked Taiki, a strained note in his voice. He had been quite reluctant to part with Gyousou, and perhaps it was just Risai's imagination, but his eyes seemed to be darting to his window as though a siren's call lay beyond it.

Wondering if perhaps she should have seated herself in front of the window, Risai replied, "He's crossed the border into Zui Province safely, and should be arriving in the suburbs of the capital within the fortnight. Every mile His Majesty marches, the number of his ranks swell, people from near and far joining the line."

Of course farmers and miners armed with scrounged up weapons could accomplish little physically. However, their presence was sure to be a dramatic visual to onlooking eyes. Local support alone did not win a war, but it certainly eased the process.

Taiki nodded, mumbling, "A fortnight…"

Juntatsu turned to Taiki with narrowed eyes. "Taiho, I believe I hardly need remind you that your constitution, reviving as it may be, will not hold up if exposed to blood."

"Ah, of course," Taiki said, a chagrinned look flashing across his face. "I know that, as the situation stands, I'm of most use to Gyousou-sama from a distance… I know that, just…"

Risai took his hand. The chambers they were presently in had been Gyousou's recovery room from his and Seirai's days of treatment in Soukou Castle. Seirai's items had been moved out, with Taiki now occupying the bed Gyousou had arranged for the tortured man. Gyousou's items, that which he could not carry with him, had been left where they were. Perhaps Taiki found the sight of them comforting, like a promise to return. Physical evidence of the master he could not meet.

"Why don't you write to him?" Risai asked brightly. "Give him an update on your recovery, and what you're getting up to these days?"

Taiki's eyes lit up, then he hesitated. He shook his head in regret. "I couldn't waste His Majesty's time on such trifles."

"No, it's those kinds of little things that keep a soldier going," Risai insisted. "A letter from home is something to look forward to even on the bleakest of days, like a ray of sunlight in the break between storm clouds. I'm receiving daily updates from the front anyway, it would easy enough to arrange."

Impulsively, Risai reached onto the desk behind her and pulled out a blank sheet of paper and a writing board that looked suspiciously easy to use in bed. Taking a pen and inking it, she held it out to Taiki.

"Well, what does the Taiho think?"

Taiki hesitated, then his hand closed over the pen. "Thank you."

***

By the time Risai departed for the front, Taiki and Gyousou were exchanging letters daily. Taiki kept his master's letters in an embossed box by his bedside, right next to the bottle of his sleeping draught. He'd seemed to grow stronger as the days drew on, moving about the castle full of life and vigor.

Finally, it was the tenth month of the year, and Hakkei Palace lay within their grasp. Risai wiped the sweat from her brow as she hurried through the halls towards the king's quarters.

Opening the door to his private residence, she announced, "Your Majesty, I have secured the perimeters…"

Risai stopped at once, before she even noticed Gyousou holding a finger to his lips in silent command. For there, asleep with the king's lap as his pillow, was a black kirin.

He must have transformed and rushed over. Contrary to the suspicions of those around him, Taiki hadn't snuck away to join Gyousou during the campaign. Instead he'd hung just one castle behind the fighting, just that far enough from the bloodshed not to reignite his blood fever. With the king focused on reclaiming the throne, it fell to the kirin to see to the needs of the people—the administration of the law, the coordination of the harvest, the readying of the storehouses and dispatch routes for winter—all of that Taiki and Seirai had organized while the king and his generals confronted Asen's forces. With so much work to do and so few hands to do it, Taiki hadn't been able to afford to take ill.

Now, despite the lingering smell of killing and blood in the air, it seemed he'd reached his limit.

"… send a message to Seirai," Gyousou said in a barely audible whisper, his hands running through the kirin's silvery mane. "Inform him the Taiho has come to Hakkei Palace, and instruct him to ready the civil division to likewise prepare for one last transfer of headquarters. They are to join us here."

The kirin's ears flicked at the petting. Four legs pawing at the air, he buried his muzzle deeper against Gyousou, his breathing the slow, steady rhythm of unencumbered sleep.

Unable to keep a smile off her face, Risai bowed and ran off to carry out her king's command.