The Twelve Kingdoms - Novel 07 - Dreaming of Paradise.pdf

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Dreaming of Paradise

A Twelve Kingdoms novel

Fuyumi Ono

White Heart edition (ISBN: 4-06-255573-5).

Visit

www.eugenewoodbury.com

for the annotated online version and more

information about the Twelve Kingdoms series.

Winter Splendor

hen Taiki left the building, the Imperial Palace looked

completely different.

He stopped in the promenade, looked around and blinked several

times. The building itself had not changed. Neither had the great

array of magnificent pavilions or the gardens and courtyards. The

white walls and indigo tile roofs, the officials passing back and forth

—it was the same scene as always.

But now they all seemed to glow with a wan, inner light.

Everything was wrapped in a soft luster, as if a thin gauze was

draped across the unusually clear winter sky. The blue was faded, the

sun a stained smear of white, the shadows falling at Taiki's feet a

washed-out gray.

And yet the scene before him was brighter than what he would see

at noonday.

This was different than fog, but something like a fog suffused the

surroundings. The light was tinged with something too faint and too

fine to see—or at least that's how it felt to Taiki.

Behind him, Seirai asked, "Is something the matter?"

Seirai had accompanied him from the main palace. Taiki glanced

over his shoulder. He gestured at the expansive gardens as if to say,

How does one account for this?

"Ah, yes." Seirai smiled and looked up at the sky. "Strange indeed.

A white sun."

Seirai was Taiki's regent. He was also the prime minister of Zui

Province, home to the capital of the Kingdom of Tai. It was common

practice to assign a regent to a young Saiho like Taiki. The regent

always remained close by and attended to everything that needed

attending to, from the Saiho's private life to government affairs. At

the same time, he served as Taiki's tutor.

"A white sun?"

"That's what weather like this is called. It is clear below as well."

As Taiki looked no more enlightened by this explanation he added,

"The storms beneath the Sea of Clouds have abated for a spell. The

sunlight is reflecting off the snow covering the world below."

"Wow."

Taiki gazed again at the landscape shrouded in white light. It

looked like rays of the sun streaming through the paper panes of a

shouji

door. It reminded him of waking up on a clear morning back

in Japan, a place that seemed like a distant, foreign world to him

now. He couldn't help feeling a brief pang of homesickness.

"There can't be a cloud in the sky and the weather must be perfect.

It doesn't happen very often. We struck the jackpot today."

"Do you think the world below is visible from here?"

"Shall we go see if it is?"

Taiki answered with an enthusiastic nod. The Imperial Palace

itself appeared like an island floating in the midst of the ocean. The

world below should be visible through the enveloping Sea of

Clouds, but come winter, that view disappeared as well as the storm

clouds gathered and blocked the view.

Seirai laughed and reached out his hand. Taiki seized his regent's

warm hand and looked up at him. "If we don't hurry, the clouds will

probably close in again."

As if taking this information into account, Seirai smiled. "Well, I

know a shortcut. Let's go."

Taiki agreed delightedly. He had a particular fondness for his

regent's "shortcuts." Seirai made liberal use of the paths and

alleyways otherwise reserved for the lower-ranked civil servants, at

times even cutting through a shuttered palace or an official's

courtyard.

The Twelve Kingdoms - Novel 07 - Dreaming of Paradise.pdf

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