The students who’d called me “Imperial whore” hadn’t been wrong, not really. That was exactly what everyone believed I was. It’s what Haru’s payment made me.
And Sakurai . . .
My stomach turned and my skin crawled with remembered touches. They were clinical, educational, and violating in their careful precision.
“Arch your back more.” His voice filled my memory, that detached professional tone that made it somehow worse than if he’d truly loved me. “Good. Now remember that angle. Clients appreciate the aesthetic.”
“Breathe through it. Your body knows what to do.”
“Stop thinking. This is mechanics, just flesh responding to touch.”
How could I tell Yoshi about Sakurai? About the intimacy training that had been forced on me, the lessons in pleasure I’d never wanted to learn? They weren’t violent, never cruel, but a violation all the same. They were still my body being taught responses I couldn’t control, being shown how to give and receive pleasure I never consented to offer or take.
My fingers traced the place on my hip where Sakurai would grip to adjust my position—always the same spot, sometimes until it bruised, until my body learned to move automatically at his touch.
Would Yoshi understand that I’d had no choice?
That refusal meant death or worse?
Or would he see me as soiled, another man’s leavings?
The way he’d touched me earlier, reverent and possessive, like I was still the same boy he’d loved in Tooi—would that change if he knew how many others had seen me perform?
How many had bid on my first night?
And those degradations weren’t even the worst of my secrets.
The vows I’d made burned in my mind. My vows to the shadows, to the Emperor himself. The blood on my hands from those I’d killed or helped kill in service to the throne. The network of spies and assassins I was now part of, bound by oaths that superseded everything else.
Even love. Even Yoshi.
If the shadows commanded me to leave tomorrow, I would have to go. If they ordered me to kill someone in this temple—one of his classmates, his uncle, even Prince Haru—I would have to obey. This reunion, this happiness, was allowed only as long as it servedtheirpurposes.
What would Yoshi say if he knew I belonged to something darker than he could imagine? That my first loyalty could never be to him, no matter how much I loved him? That I’d traded my freedom for the skills to survive, and now those skills owned me?
But did they have to?
The thought came so suddenly, so desperately.
What if I just . . . stopped?
What if I renounced the vows, walked away from the shadows, chose to be just Kaneko again? What if I was no longer a weapon,no more a spy, not the Emperor’s blade in the dark? Just a fisherman’s son who loved aDaimyo’s heir.
My heart raced at the possibility. I could tell them I was done, explain that I’d served well, helped protect the throne, but now I needed to be free. Others must have left the shadows before—surely some could retire after faithful service. There had to be a way to be released honorably.
The work was important, yes.
Protecting the Emperor, maintaining the divine balance that kept our world from chaos—I understood that. I believed in it, even, but couldn’t someone else carry that burden now? Hadn’t I given enough?
Yoshi and I could leave together, find some remote village where no one knew our names. I could fish, and Yoshi could . . . he could do anything. Teach. Farm. Live.
We could justlive.
Without empires and rebellions and shadows binding us to purposes greater than ourselves.
The hope was so bright it hurt.
I sat up, energized by the possibility. Tomorrow, I’d find a way to contact them. I would send word through whatever channels they used, explain that I was grateful for the training, for the protection, for the honor of serving the throne, but that I’d found something worth more.
