This book is a continuation of both Youko's story and Taiki's story, but it's more about Tai than anything. Fuyumi Ono's Sea of Wind was my absolute favorite Twelve Kingdoms book, and, as a fan of that book, this one broke my heart. Ono stomps on Tai and several characters from Sea of Wind, keeps stomping on them, and barely lets up in time for the ending.

When Risai arrives at Youko's palace in Kei, she's in bad shape. Had she not been immortal, she'd have died of her injuries. As it is, she loses her right arm and is bedridden for a large portion of the book. While recovering, she tells Youko and others the terrible story of how Tai came to be in the position it's in. It has now been four or five years since Taiki and Gyousou disappeared. A pretender sits on the Tai throne, Tai's people are being killed in droves, and the rules of the Twelve Kingdoms aren't equipped to handle a situation in which both a kingdom's ruler and its kirin are still alive but missing and unable to ask for help.

Risai has come to Kei with the intention of committing a great sin. She will take advantage of Youko's lack of knowledge about Twelve Kingdoms history and convince her to send soldiers to Tai in order to overthrow the pretender. It's similar to what the Emperor of En did for Youko, with one very important difference: Risai isn't Tai's emperor. If Youko sends soldiers to Tai on the request of anyone but Tai's emperor, Heaven will quickly strike her down and leave her to die a bloody and terrible death, no matter how good her intentions. Risai knows this, but she's willing to do whatever is necessary for Tai's survival.

Sea of Wind was so fluffy, gentle, and sweet that this book, by comparison, was a bit like being kicked in the gut. Risai's suffering, Tai's suffering, the possibility that Risai would drag Youko and Kei down with Tai, flashbacks to the betrayal that tossed Taiki back to Japan, and Taiki's gradual contamination and deterioration in Japan as he forgot his kirin nature and tried to live as a regular human boy. It was aggressively unpleasant, with only a few moments of humor and hope here and there.

I admit, I was a little surprised at how much time Ono devoted to the flashbacks of Tai's downfall. I had expected that more page-time would be devoted to efforts to save Taiki, Gyousou, and Tai as a whole. I was also surprised at how badly Gyousou bungled certain aspects of his new position as emperor. I wonder, if Gyousou had kept Taiki in the loop and given him the option of objecting to his actions, would things have turned out better?

As nice as it was to read another volume in this series and find out more about the situation in Tai, I felt that, story-wise, this was one of the weaker entries in the series. Ono spent too much time on certain events and characters, glossed over others, and adopted techniques that became repetitive after a while. For example, each scene with Taiki in Japan was basically “he and his shirei are becoming more contaminated.” It didn't help that it was almost entirely from the perspective of his shirei, who didn't experience the world so much as defend Taiki from it.

I also felt that the emotional aspects of this book were lacking. The most obvious stuff, like Risai's pain and grief for Tai and Taiki, was there. Youko still had doubts about her abilities as a ruler, and she still thought about Rangyoku, the girl who died in A Thousand Leagues of Wind, the Sky at Dawn. However, Taiki's reaction to what happened to him, and what he lost as a result, seemed oddly flat. I suppose he could have still been in shock, and maybe he hadn't yet realized the full extent of what he'd lost. Still, I felt like I was more upset about what had happened than he was.

I was iffy about most of this book's new characters. Kaei showed promise but in the end was mostly “Risai's friend who could see, before everyone else, that Tai was coming apart at the seams.” I was disappointed that Asen's motives were never explored – as with so many other things in this book, I can only hope that a future Twelve Kingdoms novel fills in the blanks. I did at least like the Emperor of Han and his kirin. They were a perfectly matched pair that contributed most of the book's few light-hearted moments.

I don't regret having read this, but I wish a proper conclusion to Taiki's story were available. This book was originally published in 2001, and it makes me sad to think that Tai has been in this miserable state for 15 years and counting. ( )