Chapter 4
Kaneko
The dining hall was nearly empty by the time Yoshi and I stumbled through its doors. Only cold rice remained in the serving bowls, the good portions long since claimed by students who hadn’t spent their entire day being thrown around like a rag doll.
“Even the pickled radishes are gone,” Yoshi groaned, scraping the bottom of a ceramic dish.
“Here.” I found half a steamed bun someone had abandoned, probably because it was hard as stone. “Soak it in the tea. It might soften.”
We collapsed onto a bench, too tired to maintain proper posture. My shoulders ached, my legs burned, and I hadn’t even been the one training. Just watching Yoshi struggle with his gift had been exhausting enough.
“Prince Haru moves like water,” Yoshi said between bites of rock-hard bun. “Like wind. Like—”
“Like something not quite human,” I finished quietly.
Yoshi nodded, his eyes distant. “And he says I’ll be like that.”
The evening bell rang before I could respond, its bronze voice echoing through the temple grounds.
Meditation.
We both groaned.
“Maybe we could skip it,” Yoshi suggested hopefully. “Say we’re ill.”
“And have the master check on us personally? He already dislikes that Haru monopolized your training today.”
We hauled ourselves up, leaving our barely touched meals, and trudged toward the meditation hall. The other students were already arranged in neat rows on their cushions, backs straight, hands folded. We slipped into our places near the back and tried to be invisible.
Master Ito stood at the front, his reed in hand like a sword. “Tonight, we contemplate emptiness,” he intoned. “The void from which all things arise and to which all return.”
Dear gods, I was already empty.
Empty of energy, empty of thought, empty of everything except the desperate need to lie down. Beside me, Yoshi’s breathing had already deepened, the weariness of the day seizing control of his body and mind.
His head began to nod forward.
Thwack.
The reed caught him across the shoulders. “Meditation is not sleep, Yoshi-san.”
“Yes, Master,” Yoshi mumbled, jerking upright.
I tried to focus on my breathing, on the prescribed emptiness, but my eyelids felt like stones. The incense smoke made everything hazy and dreamlike. My chin dipped toward my chest.
Thwack.
The reed struck my back, but I barely felt it through my exhaustion. “Presence of mind, Kaneko-san. Always presence of mind.”
I’m not even one of his students. What in all the hells? But that was my mind’s voice. Aloud, I said, “Yes, Master.”
The hour crawled by like a wounded animal.
I counted my breaths to stay awake—one, two, three . . . I lost count and started again. Yoshi swayed beside me like a reed in wind. Twice more the master’s switch found us, but the strikes barely registered. All I could think about was my bedroll and the promise of horizontal rest.
Finally, mercifully, the closing bell rang.
“Dismissed,” Master Ito said, his disapproval clear. “Though some of you were clearly dismissed from consciousness an hour ago.”
The other students filed out in orderly silence. Yoshi and I struggled to our feet, legs protesting after sitting so long.
“I need to get fresh clothes from my chamber,” I told him as we reached the corridor where our paths diverged. “For tomorrow.”
“Want me to wait?”
“No, go ahead. You look like you’re about to collapse where you stand.”
He nodded, too tired to argue, and shuffled off toward his room. I watched until he turned the corner, then climbed the narrow stairs to my own chamber, each step an effort.
The corridor was dark. Only a single oil lamp flickering at the far end. My footsteps echoed off the wooden floors, unusually loud in the silence. Something felt different about the temple at this hour, as if the shadows held weight.
I slid open my door and froze.
Nothing looked disturbed.
My few possessions remained exactly where I’d left them—my spare training clothes folded on the shelf, my bokken leaning in the corner, the small carved fish Yoshi had given me sitting on the windowsill. Yet the air felt wrong, charged with a presence recently departed.
I stepped inside, closing the door behind me with deliberate slowness. My exhaustion had vanished, replaced by the same sharp awareness that had kept me alive in the House of Petals. My eyes swept the space again, searching for what had triggered my instincts.
The window was latched.
The floor showed no marks.
Even the dust motes floating in the moonlight seemed unconcerned.
Then I saw it.
On my bedroll, precisely centered on the thin pillow, sat a paper crane—but not the cheerful colored paper children folded during festivals. This crane was black as a moonless night, its edges sharp enough to draw blood.
My hands trembled as I picked it up.
The paper felt strange. It wasn’t quite silk or rice paper, but something that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. I knew this texture. I’d felt it once before, on the night a shadow-wrapped figure had first whispered promises of power and purpose.
With infinite care, I unfolded the crane.
The creases resisted, as if the paper itself begged to maintain its shape, to keep its secrets hidden. Inside, silver ink shimmered and shifted in the dim light.
Remember your vow. Your time comes.
The paper slipped from my now-numb fingers, drifting to the floor like a feather.
My vow.
The words I’d spoken in desperation when the shadows had offered me a way to survive the House of Petals, a way to become more than a whore for wealthy men.
I’d thought they were merely words then, a price for the training that had kept me alive, but as Sakurai had said, the shadows never forgot a debt, never released a tool once forged.
I sank onto my bedroll, the black paper stark against the floor beside me.
What did they want? And why now, when everything at Suwa had finally begun to feel like home, when Yoshi needed me more than ever?
The memory of Prince Haru’s demonstration flooded back—that terrifying beauty of controlled power. Yoshi would become like that, perhaps even greater, but what if the shadows saw him as a threat?
What if my “time” meant—
No. I couldn’t think it.
I picked up the black paper again, studying the silver words.
Your time comes.
Not “has come” but “comes.” In the future. It was preparation, not a command.
But preparation for what?
A soft knock at my door made me shove the paper beneath my pillow, heart hammering.
“Kaneko?” Yoshi’s voice, concerned. “You’ve been up here a while. Are you all right?”
I forced my breathing to steady. “Fine. Just couldn’t find my clean clothes in the dark.”
“Want some help?”
“No.” The word came out sharper than intended. I softened my tone. “No, I found them. I’ll be right down.”
His footfalls retreated, and I pressed my palms against my eyes.
How could I protect him from a threat I didn’t understand? How could I honor a vow that might demand his destruction?
I grabbed my spare clothes and headed for the door. The black paper remained beneath my pillow, but its message burned in my mind like silver fire.
Remember your vow.
As if I could forget it.
As if the shadows would let me.
I found Yoshi waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his face creased with worry despite his exhaustion. “You look pale.”
Tell him. The words pressed against my teeth like caged birds. Tell him about the training in Bara’s shadows. Tell him about the coin that burns cold against your chest even now. Tell him about the crane and the vow and the darkness that owns a piece of your soul.
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
How could I explain that while he’d been learning honor and discipline at Suwa Temple, I’d been learning to kill in thirteen different ways?
That the same hands that steadied him during practice knew precisely where to press to stop a man’s heart?
That every night in the House of Petals, after learning the arts of pleasure with another man, a shadow-wrapped figure had taught me to become a weapon?
My chest constricted.
If I told him now, that trust in his eyes would shatter. He would look at me and not see his lifelong friend but a tool of the shadows—something dangerous, something tainted, something to be feared. Worse, he might feel obligated to keep my secret, and that burden could destroy him.
Or he might feel honor-bound to tell Haru or the masters, and then . . .
No.
The shadows had eyes everywhere.
If they learned I’d revealed their existence, they wouldn’t just come for me. They’d come for Yoshi, too, to eliminate any loose ends. My silence was his shield.
I was his shield.
Always and forever.
“I’m just tired.” I managed a smile. “Today was . . . a lot.”
“Haru is pretty incredible,” Yoshi said, his eyes bright. “Do you think I could really become like that?”
“You’ll be even greater,” I said, and meant it.
And I’ll protect you, I added silently. I’ll guard you from the shadows, from the Empire, from whatever comes.
Even if it meant breaking my vow.
Even if it meant the shadows came for me instead.
As we walked back to Yoshi’s chamber, I felt eyes on us from the darkened corridors. Maybe it was paranoia, maybe not. The shadows had reached into Suwa to leave their message.
They could reach in again whenever they chose.
Your time comes.