Chapter 4

The ground was sandy brown beneath her feet. Hot with the residual heat from the burning afternoon, they scorched her feet despite the protection from her sandals. Elsewhere, the people that still struggled to live on the dying land walked with no shoes. Shoes were a luxury in a kingdom that had winters that barely chilled your toes. Crumbling buildings lay in waste for as far as the eye could see. This was Shun that Amaya first knew. The sun beat down upon her as she wandered around. The people that she passed where too tired to even stir. Perhaps they were dead for there was a smell of death around them.

A boy of fourteen or fifteen was tending to the cracked ground. The girl with fiery hair wandered around the bare soil seemingly unused to the heat and dryness of the air. He paused in his motions to take in her red hair, her porcelain skin, her shoes. She stuck out like a sore thumb. Her eyes were filled with such sorrow and pity for the people that she walked passed that the boy was almost certain that if he asked her for anything on her, she would have given him gladly. Had there been school like it would when a King was on the throne, the boy might have been one of the smartest, but there was none save a hermit sage that lived not far from his shack. The hermit sage was once a general that now lived his days out far from the capital. He taught the boy everything he knew and trained the boy well with what energy the boy could muster. She must be the kirin, the boy quickly deduced. Either the kirin of Shun or the queen of Kei, whichever she was it meant that respect was due.

"Your noblest," he knelt down before her. His face pressed into the parched earth. Straining his ears, he could make out her tremulous voice reply.

"Please rise."

Her tone was a tone unused to people kneeling before her. His teacher had taught him the various ways to read into people and with those skills, he realized that she must be the kirin for the Kei Queen had been on the throne for much too long to be unused to giving such commands. He stood before taking an involuntary step back. The typical kirins had purple eyes of varying shades, but the kirin that stood before him had eyes like fresh blood. There may have been better words to describe bright red, but for the boy who had never seen red flowers, the only bright red thing that came to mind was the colour of fresh blood.

This was Shousen's first memory of Shunrin.

Shunrin lay motionlessly on the bed. Her red hair fanned out on the white pillow case. Her pale skin was splotched with patches of black skin. Shousen could still recall the first time he saw her. She had given him her shoes. They did not see each other again until after her king was throned. There were not many people who remembered him when he was first crowned. Shun King, Ryukusei Hanashen, was not just a taika king. He was first of the many kings before him to push through the crowd of incompetence and growing laziness of his ministers. There had been many ministers that held Kei Queen in contempt despite her long reign for an incident that they call 'The Vanishing', there were many variations of chronicles of that incident. However Shousen was thankful that Shun King had adopted many of Kei Queen's policies and methods of dealing with things. Shousen had always considered Kei Queen upright and straight-forward with her dealings, never bothering to hide behind flowery words. There was a popular saying in his department, "upright like the Kei Queen." It might be because of Shunrin's attachment to Kei Queen, but it helped to foster good relations with Kei despite the Kei Queen to have become reclusive.

It was not so long ago that Kei Queen had one day sought an audience with Shun King. Shousen remembered it clearly for she had worn too casual for a royalty, her hair tied plainly into a ponytail with only an adorned clasp as her hair decoration. It was quite unlike the noble women that he had seen in the palace and outside. Yet she was the queen as the second longest reigning queen. She sat down with Shun King, neither had much regards to the palace codes. Kei Queen warned Shun King that he was falling out of the way. Cold as Tai's winter her tone was; she spoke frankly, not even bothering to mince her words. Shousen was dimly aware of the spies in the levels of ministers. To say dimly aware would be to imply that Shousen was not very capable. In fact Shousen was notoriously famous for having an iron memory. It helped him greatly as a Daishiba, but these spies were much like the shadow of a passing wind. Never really existing and when you realized they did, they were gone. The only things he knew of them was that they served to assure that the king or the court had not gone corrupted and they were never the same people.

So when he heard Kei queen mentioning of the watchers as she called them and how Shun King was dangerously about to fall off the way, it made Shousen very nervous. He did his best to stop it from happening. However his efforts were like a tree trying to stay upright amidst a growing typhoon: pointless and futile.

The sky was shrouded in a devouring darkness that mirrored the heart of the king. Unlike the heart of the king, the sun would surely rise again. Today the dark of the day wrapped them in its cool embrace. There was only the tiniest silver of the moon in the ashen sky, not even the stars peppered the sky. Hiding them from the King's suspicious eyes, Shousen moved his only piece left in hopes to arrest the king's descent.

It was the cloying scent of night sky and grass that Amaya woke up t. The faintest hint of summer blossoms that yet to bloom wafted in the breeze, summer was upon them. She opened her eyes, hoping against hope that all that had been merely a dream. The wilted grass told her otherwise. Shousen was here. She could feel his presence despite him being motionless.

"Where am I?" She asked, licking her cracked lips.

"Not too far from the battlefield. But not near enough for the blood sickness."

There was a certainty in his body that she could not understand. How could he be so certain where there were so much uncertainty? She shook a small shake only to realize the throbbing in her head from the blood sickness was gone. Blood sickness of that magnitude would have lasted at least a week.

She sat up in alarm, her weakening body almost giving out on her as she did. "Shousen," a tone of alarm crept into her voice as she asked, "how long was I out?"

"Two days," he replied as he stood to brush the dust from his pants. Stiffly, he did a half-bow to the figure behind Amaya that she had not noticed. It was the white hair that she had noticed first, followed by the piercing green eyes and hair red as hers.

"Yoko."

There was a brief pause as her statement hung awkwardly in the air. Yoko was here. A surge of hope burned through her. Reliable Yoko, wise Yoko. Amaya reached out to her, her body trembled in its efforts to contain the hope that threatened to leap out of her. The Hekisoujo fell from her hand and onto the ground.

"Yoko," she said again, this time as though she savored each syllable. "Do you bring news?"

Of course she brings news! Why else would she be here!? Amaya chided herself for stating the obvious. Yet as Amaya scrutinized Yoko's face, there was not even a ghost of a smile found on her.

"I do," Yoko replied haltingly. She sat down on the makeshift bed to pull Amaya into a gentle hug. Sometimes Yoko hated herself only knowing to go straight to the point. Her words never had the softness that Shoukei had even when telling bad news.

"But it is not good," she continued in a low voice. "I cannot assist you, even if you came riding at the head of my army under the pretense of supporting the king."

Yoko could feel Amaya's weight snag against her. "I'm sorry." There were no words that could comfort Amaya. Yoko knew that, but even the insignificant sorry felt better than none. She motioned to Keiki, who came carrying a brown paper bag.

"Amaya," Yoko called out, trying to shake Amaya from her grief. "We did bring something that might remind him of the man he once were. Or accelerate it."

Yoko looked grimly at Amaya. It was a risk, but in the rapidly descending situation there was nowhere to go but upwards. In the bag was a bunch of photos and news articles - Kaikyaku items, pictures of Shun King and his family and print outs of old news articles.

Shun King, Ryukusei Hanashen, had given up more than most royalty had in order to ascend the throne. His family, his fiancée, his soon to be born son and his dreams, he had discarded them.