Chapter 29
Haru
The walk to the gardens was an ordeal.
Every step was a negotiation with gravity and balance and the impossible weight of the eight hundred layers they’d draped about my body. The headdress pulled me forward. The outer drape pulled me back. The collar choked me. The stiff silk and gold made me sweat despite the near-frigid morning air.
Father, how did you do this for so many years?
The Imperial escort strode before and behind me—silent guards in ceremonial armor that gleamed like black ice, golden pauldrons catching the light, the Imperial chrysanthemum emblazoned across every chest. They stared forward with rigid discipline, careful never to let their eyes fall on me.
Already, I was too sacred to be looked upon.
We reached the bronze doors that led to the gardens. They were massive things, ancient as the Empire itself, carved with scenes of Jimmu Tennō’s ascension, the first emperor, the first to bind himself to Amaterasu, the first to become something more than human.
Now it was my turn.
A gong bellowed three times. The sound rolled across the palace like thunder, announcing to everyone that the moment had come, their emperor had come.
The doors creaked open, bronze grinding against stone, revealing the gardens beyond.
I sucked in one last breath—as much as the collar would allow—and stepped forward.
Amaterasu’s warmth blanketed everything.
I felt Her immediately—not as a physical presence but as something deeper, a touch against my soul, a whisper in my blood. The goddess was here, watching, blessing this moment with Her presence even if She couldn’t touch me directly.
I am with you, I felt Her say, though I heard no voice. I am always with you.
The gardens had been transformed overnight.
Every tree was in bloom, petals drifting down like snow—white and pink and gold. The paths had been swept and blessed, marked with sacred symbols in colored sand. Braziers burned incense at intervals, the smoke rising in perfect columns toward heaven.
And there were people.
So many people.
The route winding through the gardens, deliberately circuitous, was designed to give the new emperor time to find inner peace before ascending the throne. In practice, it doubled the distance I had to walk in those impossible robes, fighting to keep my balance, fighting to breathe.
So much for inner peace.
As I walked, the path curved and wandered.
It also gave everyone time to see me, time to witness, time to believe that this was real, that their emperor lived, that the Empire would survive.
The full gravity of it struck when we rounded the final turn.
The public gardens opened before me, and I nearly froze.
Thousands.
There were thousands of people.
The Imperial Guard lined the paths, an unbroken wall of armor—black and gold, steel and discipline.
Between them stood ranks of Samurai in brilliant colors, each representing their clan, their lord, and their sworn loyalties.
Reds and oranges and blues and greens and grays, a riot of color that made the already lustrous garden blaze with life.
Beyond the warriors stood the nobles, hundreds of them, dressed in their finest, their faces showing everything and nothing—hope and fear and desperate relief.
The ministers of the Daijokan stood near the front, including Uncle Satoshi and Uncle Ryuji and Uncle Teruma, all in formal robes.
Behind them stood lesser ministers, court officials, merchants wealthy enough to merit an invitation.
And in the back rank, behind the minor ministers, I caught sight of a familiar face.
Kaneko.
He stood alone, wearing simple formal robes. His face was composed, but his eyes were bright. He’d witnessed everything—Father’s funeral, Kioshi’s desecration, my rise from third prince to heir.
And now he was here to see me crowned.
I couldn’t nod, couldn’t acknowledge him openly without breaking the sacred protocol.
Hells, if I tried I might’ve tipped over sideways, but despite it all, I let my eyes linger on him for a heartbeat longer than necessary, let my eyelids close in the barest suggestion of recognition before moving on.
Kaneko’s lips quirked in the tiniest smile.
I see you. I’m with you, he seemed to say.
I edged forward.
The time constraints for the funeral and coronation had been brutal. Messages sent only yesterday couldn’t reach the far provinces in time for their lords to make the journey, but some had found a way, some had made the effort.
The Yumi Daimyo stood in robes of pale blue and white, his silver hair adorned with pins shaped like cranes and a topknot banded by intricately carved jade.
Beside him, the Chinami lord wore deep purple embroidered with silver thread, his weathered face showing the strain of rushed travel but also determination.
These two had come themselves. They were loyal, committed, and willing to drop everything to witness their emperor’s ascension.
But the others . . .
The Cho, still undeclared and unaligned, sent a high-ranking minister, not their Daimyo. That was understandable, given the distance and the man’s advancing age. The Kohana, also undeclared, sent their Daimyo’s eldest grandson, young and uncertain in gray robes shot through with crimson thread.
The Toshi sent no one at all.
How could they?
Their Daimyo was dead. Their heads were reeling. They were leaderless and trying to survive under the boot of Eiko’s occupation. I didn’t fault them for their absence. I grieved it.
And then there was the Anzu.
Yoshi stood where his father should have stood, wearing the deep blue of his han embroidered with silver. He was no longer a guest or an observer. He stood as heir in the place of the Anzu Daimyo who could not make the journey in time.
His presence was significant.
It was a statement.
The Anzu had only just declared for the throne. Takashi’s murder had sealed that fate. I knew, deep in my heart, that Yoshi’s father would have attended, would have offered his blade personally, had time and the wakō blockade not prevented him from doing so.
Still, the Anzu heir stood for me. Yoshi stood in his father’s stead. He stood in the place of honor reserved for the great clan lords, not hidden in the back with minor officials.
The undeclared han watched me warily. They waited to see what kind of emperor I would be, whether I would be strong enough to save them from the darkness ahead.
I laughed inwardly at this. If only they knew how desperately I waited for similar answers.
Tradition dictated my eyes remain fixed on the path ahead, that I walk like a statue, untouched by the mortal world, focused only on the divine.
But I wasn’t divine. Not yet.
And I needed these people.
I let my gaze drift to each representative as I passed—the Yumi and Chinami Daimyo, the Cho minister, the young Kohana prince, and Yoshi standing proud in his Anzu blue.
I let them see me look at them, let them see the subtle incline of my head—my respect and acknowledgement that I valued their effort to be here.
It broke protocol, but protocol hadn’t saved Father.
Protocol hadn’t brought Kioshi back from his mission of peace.
Sometimes an emperor had to be willing to bend the rules—and unlike every other part of my new role, that was something I knew intimately.
As I passed, the crowd fell prostrate. Like waves crashing against a cliff, they dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads into the earth. Thousands of them, one after another, the sound like distant thunder.
Only the warriors remained standing. Only those sworn to protect me could look upon me during this sacred walk.
Closest to the dais stood my family.
Grandmother wore formal black robes, her ancient face showing pride and grief in equal measure.
Sakura, my sister, stood by her side, holding her hand.
Uncle Ryuji looked fearsome in his gold and black Dai Shogun armor.
Other relatives I barely knew, cousins and aunts and uncles, all wore the Imperial chrysanthemum somewhere on their robes.
And then there was Mother.
She stood apart from the others, wrapped in a cerulean kimono that shimmered in the light. She bowed deeply as I approached—acknowledging the solemnity of the occasion, acknowledging the office, acknowledging everything I was about to become.
But her knees remained unbent.
Since wedding my father, she had kneeled to only one emperor in her long life. She would kneel to no other, not even her son. It was her right, her privilege, the last vestige of her own Imperial dignity.
Our eyes met as I passed, only for a moment, barely long enough for me to see the weight of last night in her gaze. I still felt the tears she’d wept, heard the words she’d spoken. I could almost make out the mother she’d tried to be, too late and too briefly.
Be better than your father, her eyes said. Be stronger. Be kinder.
I would try.
The dais rose before me, elegant wood draped in billowing fabrics of plum and gold, fluttering in the morning light.
At its summit waited a simple seat of ancient wood.
It was plain, unadorned, and so old it looked like it might crumble to dust if I sat too hard.
Legend claimed it was the first throne of the Empire, crafted long before anyone had envisioned one carved of jade.
It was believed that Jimmu Tennō himself had sat upon it when he became Amaterasu’s first Son, that every emperor since had added their weight to its ancient wood, binding themselves to the line, to the legacy, and to the burden.
Father had cursed this seat. He called it a torture device with splinters that caught his robes, a seat so hard it made every ceremony agony.
Now it was mine.
One step.
The robes pulled at me.
The headdress threatened to topple me.
I fought for balance, fought for dignity, fought to make this look effortless when every muscle in my body screamed.
Another step.
The crowd held its breath.
Every eye that was allowed to look was looking.