Nowthatwas an interesting twist to a tedious day.
The hallway opened into an antechamber where my eldest daughter waited. The blood-red plates of Katsumi’s armor caught the torchlight like fresh-spilled wine, each piece lacquered to a mirror finish that reflected my face back at me. At eighteen, she was everything I’d been at that age—fierce, ambitious, beautiful as a blade’s edge. She’d inherited her father’s height and lean build, but her dark eyes were all mine—filled with the same calculating gleam that stared back from my own mirror each morning.
She handed me a bowl of sake without being asked, her gauntleted fingers careful with the delicate ceramic. I noticed she’d painted her lips the same crimson as her armor—a touch of vanity I’d normally discourage. But rather than adding to her feminine grace, it made her look like war incarnate. So I approved.
I swirled the colorless liquid, watching light flicker against its surface. “Go find Kitaro,” I told the messenger without looking up. “I want my uncle with me for whatever this may be.”
The messenger bowed and scurried away, his thin frame disappearing into the shadows like smoke.
“Why would the Emperor send his eldest son?” Katsumi whispered once we were alone. A strand of black hair had escaped her helmet, hanging like a silk thread against her pale cheek. I was briefly jealous of the color of youth marking her features. It had been so long since I had such a complexion.
I raised a brow—a gesture made more dramatic by the scar that sliced across the left side of my forehead. “That, daughter, is the question of the day. Either Takashi’s strength is so great he fears nothing, or he’s desperate enough to risk sending his heir as a messenger.”
“Our spies—”
“Yes, our spies report an old, feeble Emperor with an even weaker guard.” I cut her off with a wave, rings glinting on every finger except my thumbs. “Are you willing to wage open war on the word of men who take money to swim in gutters?”
“What about thegeisha? Our best information often comes from them.”
“True,” I admitted, setting down the sake untasted. “Pillow talk has won more wars than swords. Still, sending the Crown Prince himself? It is either brilliance or madness, and I have not decided which.”
“Has Kat bedded another?” My uncle’s growl filled the doorway like smoke. “Shall we remove her armor before the spanking?”
Kitaro stormed in like violence given form—shorter than me by a head but twice as lethal. His steel-streaked hair was pulled back in a warrior’s knot so tight it stretched the weathered skin of his face, almost granting him a second youth. The pointed ends of his meticulously waxed mustache gleamed with oil, and his dark eyes glittered like a hungry crow’s.
“Uncle.” Katsumi grinned as she bowed.
The hardened Samurai softened infinitesimally. She’d always been his favorite, the granddaughter he’d never had.
“Niece. You appear ready for battle. Whose head are we severing this fine day?”
His hand rested comfortably on his sword hilt—a habit so ingrained that I doubted he knew he did it. The blade was famous in the northern provinces, its black-wrapped handle worn smooth by four decades of use.
“Takashi’s whelp,” I said casually, enjoying the way his bushy eyebrows shot upward.
“Don’t toy with me, Eiko. Takashi’s a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
I let out an exasperated huff that set my jowls quivering. “Believe what you will, Uncle. The most divine Imperial heir is waiting in our audience hall as we speak.”
“By all the gods.” His scarred fingers tightened on his sword. “Let me gut him and be done with this. One less Imperial brat to deal with later.”
“Can we hear the boy out first?” I asked with exaggerated patience, adjusting the thick gold chain that marked my rank—its weight around my neck as familiar as breathing.
“Fine,” he grunted, but his fingers drummed against the wrapping of his sword hilt. “But my blade begs for blood, and our enemy stands in our hall. Remember that as you waste time talking.”
I turned to Katsumi with a conspiratorial smile. “Sometimes the most important thing we women do is make sure the men’s leashes are strong and tight.”
My daughter’s laugh was melodic, her red lips parting to show perfectly white teeth. Even Kitaro’s scowl couldn’t quite hide his amusement as we entered the audience chamber.
The space had been designed to intimidate—high vaulted ceilings painted black as night, shadows that pooled in cornerslike waiting assassins, and my throne elevated just enough to force people to look up. My guards, all in matching crimson armor, snapped to attention with two sharp raps of their polearms against stone, a quaint gesture I’d picked up from one of the surrounding islands years ago. The sound echoed like thunder.
And in the center of it all stood a boy.
No—that wasn’t fair.
Crown Prince Kioshi had seen twenty seven summers, but in his simple black silk robes, he looked barely older than my youngest son. Rather than a topknot collared in gold, his hair fell to his shoulders like polished obsidian, framing a face that was all sharp angles and large, dark eyes. The Imperial chrysanthemum gleamed on his wide chest, the only ostentation he wore.
He carried no sword, wore no armor, and stood alone—with no guard.
