Prologue

he early spring weather lingered without great conviction that day in Tai, the island kingdom situated off the northeast coast of the continent. The snow covering the hills and fields had yet begun to melt away. The buds of the plants and flowers slept beneath a blanket of white.

The lands above the Sea of Clouds were no exception. While the snowfall was not equal to that of the lands below, most of the trees and shrubs lining the garden groves remained in a deep slumber.

This was Kouki, the capital of Tai. The western quarter of the Hakkei Palace grounds.

Shaped like a horseshoe, the palace held the bay in its embrace. Woodlands covering the expanse of the arm stretching out to the northwest abutted Jinjuu Manor, the abode of the Saiho of Tai, and Koutoku Manor, where the marquis conducted the business of the provincial government.

Though the wooded parks were still locked in wintry desolation, the strangely deformed decorative stones and the ministerial estates had about them a kind of severe beauty. The evergreens contributed their deep hues to the frigid landscape and the plum blossoms approaching first bloom cast off a faint perfume.

Beneath one arbor was the shadow of a child. He leaned against a white stone pillar. His steel blue hair lay on his bowed back.

p. 9

This child was the Taiki, the kirin of the Kingdom of Tai. The kirin chose the new king, seated him upon the throne, and became the Saiho. At the same time he reigned as province lord in Zui Province, home to the capital of Kouki.

He was only eleven.

Six months ago he had carried out his most important duty and selected the king. This child, the cornerstone of the Kingdom of Tai, was now alone in the gardens.

The King was not in Kouki. Two weeks before he'd embarked on a journey to Bun Province. Taiki could not help but feel disheartened and anxious. His lord, Gyousou, King of Tai, had gone there to suppress an uprising.

Taiki could never accommodate himself to war. Not only was it in a kirin's nature to avert his eyes from violence, but the young Taiki had never experienced such conflict. His knowledge of the brutality of fields of battle was purely intellectual. Yet that was where his lord was headed.

To make matters worse, soon after Gyousou left on his journey, an ugly rumor spread throughout the palace: the rebellion in Bun Province was a plot to lure the king from his safe haven in order to assassinate him.

Bun Province was directly north of Zui Province. A rugged, soaring mountain range separated the two provinces. Gyousou had no choice but to cross over the narrow mountain trail that divided the range. According to the rumors, the rebels had holed up at a difficult stretch along the road to the center of Bun Province and there were lying in wait.

In fact, the day before Gyousou had been attacked in a surprise ambush. Disadvantaged by the unfriendly geography the fight turned ugly, or so Taiki's informant had told him. Distraught and fearful, Taiki felt as if a ton of bricks was crushing his chest.

Take care. Be safe.

p. 10

Taiki could do nothing but earnestly pray. There was no one upon whom to unburden the anxieties blackening his heart. Taking care not to frighten Taiki, the adults around him would see no evil and speak no evil. Rumors of the insurrection were mere gossip, they insisted, nothing to get worked up about.

So having secretly arranged a meeting and heard the bad news for himself, Taiki could share this information with none of the adults. He could, but he would undoubtedly be assured that he was mistaken and that it was all rumor and innuendo.

Unless he ducked out of his official meetings, chose a moment when few people were around, and escaped to a place otherwise devoid of human activity, even praying for his lord's safety was impossible. That he could not expect to be treated as anything but a youngster was both pathetic and exasperating.

He'd persuaded the loathsome shirei and sent them to Bun Province. At the very least, he wished to know if Gyousou was safe or not. If the fight turned critical he wanted to send what help he could.

It was the nature of the benevolent kirin to loathe bloodshed and hate war. Refusing to bear arms or protect themselves through force, they instead commanded the youma and used them as their weapons. But Taiki had only two such shirei at his disposal.

He ordered Sanshi and Gouran to go.

With that, he'd done all he could for Gyousou. If only he had more shirei. If only he was an adult and could work in concert with other adults and together devise a plan to protect Gyousou.

p. 11

The stark reality returning to his thoughts again and again, Taiki was left with no other option but to pray zealously in a corner of the gardens. His personal weakness was mortifying.

Take care. Be safe.

He had prayed more times than he knew when he heard the faint sound of footsteps behind him. He turned around and saw him standing there. Taiki was relieved to see that it was neither the royal headmaster nor his bodyguard. Rather, he was the one who'd informed Taiki about the dire straits Gyousou was in.

So he didn't have to pretend there was nothing for him to worry about. "Gyousou-sama is okay, isn't he?" Taiki asked as he ran toward him. "Have you heard anything more about him?"

The man shook his head.

"I sent the shirei. I'm sorry."

Promising to candidly pass along any information that came his way, the man had implored Taiki not to rashly send the shirei to Gyousou. But while the man had apparently kept his end of the bargain, Taiki hadn't done as he'd been asked.

"I simply couldn't stand by and do nothing while awaiting word."

The man nodded and drew forth the sword he wore at his waist in a single motion. Taiki stopped in his tracks. Not because he was particularly afraid. He still trusted the man. The man's actions simply perplexed him.

p. 12

"What's going on?" Taiki queried, suddenly beset by worry, noticing for the first time that the man was casting off a threatening aura that he'd hitherto hidden from view.

"Gyousou is dead," the man said.

Seized with an unconscious dread and beginning to retreat, Taiki's feet froze in place. "You're lying--" he said, looking up at the man.

The man brandished the sword. Taiki's eyes opened wide. He couldn't move. He couldn't cry out. He stood there like a post.

"Too bad you've only got two shirei." The sword glimmered like white ice as it arced downward. "Your mistake was choosing Gyousou."

Even Taiki would have found it impossible to say whether the naked blade struck first or whether--exercising the only best option at hand--he had already reflexively turned his body and readied to run.

In either case the assassin's sword bit deeply into Taiki's horn--that he possessed as a unicorn, not as a person. Taiki howled, a pure and visceral reaction. Not from the pain alone, but from the sense of betrayal and the agonizing loss of his irreplaceable lord.

p. 13

The cry of a beast in extremis, its life in the balance. A cry whose intensity knew no equal. Driven by his instinctual will to flee this place, Taiki abruptly melted away.

"Taiki?"

The violent shock aroused from Sanshi a high, piercing scream. The white and frozen mountains reached out beneath her. Bun Province lay before her. She emerged at the summit of a small peak in order to determine her location.

Something had happened.

"Taiki--"

What was this pain? The frightening pain and numbness raced through her body. Sanshi moaned. No sooner had she come to her senses but she dissolved her body and psychically projected the essential nature of her self within the earth. Her body slipped into the ground.

She knew the veins and courses that laced the mantle of the earth. Carried along without form, her "self" raced along these subterranean streams that were at once there and not there. Though "raced" was a poor description of the actual meaning. She traveled as if through the dark ocean depths, in the midst of nothing but the chaos of oblivion, with nothing but the weight of that oblivion surrounding her.

Sanshi plunged forward in her mind and with all her might. Far in the distance she set the bright, vivid splash of golden light in her sights.

p. 14

Pressing forward through the veins of the earth, she rose as if to sea level. Bursting from a dragon's lair she rode a current of air, flying forth and soaring high. So great was her velocity that the world above the ground shrouded in mist and quickly lost shape and form.

The golden light grew stronger. Gleaming, sparkling, growing all the more brilliant, illuminating her vision and then filling the entirety of her vision with light.

A golden color like twilight. The moment she slipped into the dusky, golden darkness, Sanshi was soundly thrashed and ejected from it.

Taiki's shadow.

And Taiki own psychic stream, twisting with a frightening force, tearing free of the circulatory systems of this world.

Her flesh crawled with fear. It so closely resembled the golden fruit torn from the silver branch right before her eyes so long ago. I've lost him again. Feelings of despair greater than any of her anxieties assailed her senses.

She leapt from her stream. Hakkei Palace stood before her. The distortions of the atmosphere were so great that the tiles along the rooftops bent and buckled. Beyond the roofs of the palace the sky was as black as the grave.

p. 15

The other world.

A shoku. A small shoku uniquely brought forth by the scream of a kirin.

She spotted a distant shadow, as if it'd been thrown into the center of the undulations. The shadow of a jet-black beast. Its mane cast off a faint glint of light.

"Taiki!"

The wavering palace. The gardens shimmering in the warped air. The twisted and tortured arbor. And leaning beside the arbor, a bent and twisted silhouette.

Who?

Sanshi's gaze flashed across the horizon. The gate was closing. Without a moment's hesitation she jumped, dissolved her form, and closed in pursuit.

His arm. She reached toward the arm there in her mind's eye. Her fingers grasped at air. Just a few inches more.

The stream bearing her along shattered behind her. The color of the stream--its feel around her--changed. It had merged into that other world.

She reached out with her heart and soul, clawing at the escaping saffron shadow. Her fingers found purchase--or so she believed.

The trembling rooftops, the shimmering thoroughfares, the warped woods. Beaten down by the surging waves, in a single breath they snapped back into normal shape and form. At the same time Sanshi managed to slip into the gloomy, golden penumbra.

p. 16

"Taiki!"

A bystander would have observed an unbelievable spectacle unfolding before his eyes.

A small village, old buildings standing in rows between tiny fields. A narrow asphalt road winding through the village. Bathed in fresh April sunlight, gentle waves of warm air rose from the asphalt.

A fierce force rent the gentle waves of air, the waves strengthening and expanding, thickening and solidifying, as if the asphalt itself had exploded in fire. The waves rose to the height of a large man.

A shadow floated within. The waves slowly disgorged the figure of a person. The person took a step and stumbled forward. The unsteady silhouette of a child. Two or three more uncertain, tottering steps and his forward progress stopped.

The child stood on the asphalt. The shimmering waves of heat at his back evaporated into thin air.

And then all that was left was the peaceful spring landscape. A bright, hazy blue sky blotted with silken clouds. From somewhere high above came the song of a skylark.

A warm, gentle breeze rustled the flowers in the fields, bent the stems of the shepherd's purse along the footpath between the rice fields, touched the surface of the road. Reaching the child's shoulders it ruffled his long hair.

p. 17

The child stood there in a daze. Or rather, he stood there numb, seeing and feeling nothing. He stared straight ahead with unblinking eyes. As if pushed by the gentle wind at his back his feet moved. He took a step, and then another. He started walking almost like an automaton, his stride at length growing more even.

After a few steps he blinked once and suddenly seemed to take hold of his senses. His feet stopped. He took in his surroundings and blinked several more times in amazement.

Tidily arranged fields and rice paddies dotted with old buildings. And among them he spotted newer houses as well. It was a small village somewhere out in the countryside.

He tilted his head to the side, the expression on his face still half-dreaming, half-awake. Ahead of him, where the road met the footpath, he saw a curtain of black and white funerary bunting.

He had crossed over the Kyokai, the Sea of Nothingness.