The Empress of Salt and Fortune

An interesting story, as told to a travelling monk collecting narratives for an archive at their temple, of a young woman from the North that is 'presented' as a bride to the Emperor of the South. It is there that the storyteller, named Rabbit, gets involved with the foreign empresses who strangely excels in games of chance and strategy.

When the foreign Empress gives birth to an heir, she is summarily exiled to a palace far to the west to live out her days. It is here that the monk later meets Rabbit, now the maid to the Empresses, who tells the monk the story (via objects recorded by the monk) of how the Empresses was part of a scheme for the North to conquer the South. But Rabbit herself would turn out to have an unplanned part in the plot.

Told as a story within a story, the fantasy elements remain mainly in the background but are still important by providing some context to the environment the story is set in. Still an interesting start to a series of stories involving the recording monk.