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"there." She was "alive" but had not yet born. Her embryonic life found its way to the womb of a Yamato woman and nine months later she was born.
    Naturally, she had no memories of the raika. As far as she was concerned, she'd been born and raised as an utterly ordinary child. Even after learning that the truth of her existence was entirely different--even being brought here and told that she'd been "born" here and that she was Empress--it was no different to her than being dragged down an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole.
    Though she could hardly swear to it in court with a clear conscience, she probably had been born that way. The fact that she was here was pretty hard to dismiss, and so that had to be the way things had been.
    That was how she dealt with her reality. She'd returned from there and reigned as empress for two years. There was like a fantasy world to her now. And being born and raised in the exotic land that was Japan was something she'd experienced in a dream.
    "Taiki is how old?" she asked herself.
    Behind her Keiki answered. "I believe he was ten when the Royal Tai was named king." Keiki was the kirin of Kei who had brought Youko back from Japan and seated her upon the throne.
    "The enthronement was seven years ago, so that'd make him about my age." Knowing that another person shared the same dreams as herself, Youko felt a strange sensation come over her. Perhaps they dreamed of the same phantom country. Perhaps they dreamed even of the same places in that same phantom city. When she'd been a young child, another child like herself--a kirin--had been there too.
    How extraordinary. According to what the Chousai and Saiho were telling her, this child of her dreams had been part of her reality.
    Youko knew of at least two other taika in this world: the Royal En and the Saiho of the kingdom to the north of Kei. Together they'd built a great, five-hundred year dynasty. They were taika, but the medieval Japanese they spoke was equally fantastic. Theirs was the ancient Japan she read about in history textbooks and saw in the illusions painted on the silver screen. It was all the same fantasy, but their Japan was not the same Japan that haunted her dreams.
    She had acceded to the throne with the help of Enki and the Royal En. The stormy seas they had seen her through left her forever in their debt. But Youko had never felt the same way around them as she did now. She'd never felt that they'd emerged out of the same dream as herself.
    But she and Taiki could have stood together at a crosswalk or passed by each other on the street.
    He was the kirin of the Kingdom of Tai. He'd chosen the Royal Tai, they had established the Imperial Court, and Risai--the general whose body was scarred from head to toe--had come to Kinpa Palace at the risk of her own life on their behalf
    "Something on your mind?" queried Keiki, furrowing his brows.
    Youko came back to herself. "Ah, no. It's nothing. I felt a little weird there for a moment. That's all." She smiled wryly. Concern showed on Koukan's face as well. "Sorry, Koukan. Where were we?"
    "Taiki," Koukan said, looking at her. He glanced down at the manuscript. "A shoku transported him to Yamato where he was born a taika. After that, he returned to Mt. Hou. Though that was ten years later."
    "Ten years later? And he's ten years old?"
    "Yes, and--?" queried Koukan.
    Youko shook her head. But when his taika was swept away and implanted in the womb of a human woman, a life in utero must have already been there. The implications came to her with something of a shock. The vessel that would become Taiki already existed in his mother's womb. It moved. It had a heartbeat that its parents could hear. In its place Taiki's taika took root.
    But what happened to the life that was already there? Was it expelled by Taiki? Had she likewise been born after stealing the place of another? Thinking about her birth in these terms, she was overwhelmed by strange feelings of guilt. Though perhaps it was