Prologue
Kaida
I wore the kimono he chose.
White silk. Hand-embroidered cranes. The same one his mother used to wear at festivals, before cancer took her voice.
I wore it even though the fabric scratched my skin and the collar tightened my throat.
I wore it because it pleased him—because it made his father nod with silent approval, because the clan’s wives whispered, "She’s finally learning. "
I practiced for hours how to pour tea without rippling the surface.
How to fold a futon in silence. How to walk without sound, how to bow just long enough to seem respectful but not desperate.
I bruised my knees on tatami mats learning the difference between a proper kneel and a disrespectful one.
I bruised my tongue swallowing back every opinion, every question, every part of myself that didn’t fit the shape of the bride they’d groomed me to be.
I learned how to smile without showing teeth, how to laugh without moving my shoulders, how to cry in a way that didn’t ruin my makeup.
I spent hours studying his mother’s old calligraphy scrolls, rewriting proverbs in brush and ink until my wrist ached and the paper bled.
I cooked his favorite dishes from memory, arranged flowers for ancestral altars I wasn’t allowed to touch, memorized family trees I was never going to belong to.
I became everything he told me he wanted. Everything his mother mourned never becoming. Everything his family demanded I perform in the name of tradition.
A perfect wife.
A proper woman.
A Japanese bride.
Even though I wasn’t fully one of them.
Even though half my blood marked me as different before I even spoke.
I lightened my skin with powders until my face stung.
I straightened my curls until they steamed and split.
I bowed lower, stayed quieter, erased everything about myself that didn’t match their memory of his mother—everything that reminded them I wasn’t born here, that I didn’t belong.
I wore the silence they demanded of tradition like armor. I let them mold me like wet clay, carving away softness, love, joy, until I was an artifact to be displayed, not a woman to be loved.
And it still wasn’t enough.
Not when she was there.
Not when the girl with the soft voice and sharp lies sat closer to him than I was allowed, her fingers brushing his sleeves like she had always belonged. Not when she wore lipstick I wasn’t permitted and giggled behind fans like her disgrace was a secret only I could see.
He said she was just a friend. A business confidante. A trusted ally.
But I watched her leave her shoes at the threshold of our home like a wife. I watched her use the tea cups I’d inherited. I watched her pick up the chopsticks I’d set for him and feed him in front of his men like I was the one who didn’t know my place.
And still, I said nothing.
Because that’s what good wives do.
Always there.
Smiling like she owned his heart because she did. Bringing him bento she didn’t cook. Crying in his study where I wasn’t allowed. Whispering in corners, always looking at me like I was the side character in her love story.
But I said nothing.
I played my role.
Even when he brought her into our home under the lie of clan business. Even when she left perfume on his robes and bruises on his collarbone. Even when the servants began to look at me with pity.
I didn’t cry.
I simply bowed deeper.
Cooked harder. Cleaned longer. Took the blame when his temper snapped and the glass shattered against the wall. I made my pain quiet, palatable, invisible.
Because that’s what good wives do.
Until tonight.
Until I found the envelope beneath his desk. A deed. A gift. Property signed over to her name in his handwriting.
She hadn’t earned it.
She hadn’t sacrificed.
And still, she was being rewarded for my suffering.
I’d only meant to confront him. Not accuse. Not even shout.
But he saw the letter in my hand and something inside him turned sharp.
“You were never meant to read that.” His voice was low. Dangerous. The same tone he used with traitors and street rats. He stepped closer. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing?”
My mouth parted. “I haven’t?—”
“She told me everything. You poisoned her tea.”
I froze. “That’s not true. I never?—”
“You tried to sabotage the business deal.”
“I didn’t?—”
“You want her dead.”
I flinched. “No!”
But it didn’t matter.
Because she had said it. And he believed her. He always believed her.
“You resent her because she gives me peace,” he said, voice trembling. “Because she doesn’t make me feel like I married a ghost.”
That hurt worse than anything.
He grabbed my wrist and dragged me through the house. I didn’t scream. Didn’t fight. Just stumbled after him, trying to make sense of how quickly my devotion had turned into a weapon against me.
He shoved open the shoji door to the garden. The koi pond rippled in the moonlight, red fish swirling beneath the surface like blood in water.
“She said you dream of another man,” he said, dragging me to the edge. “A foreigner. A ghost.”
“I never?—”
“You cry out in your sleep.”
I did.
I had.
But not with words.
Because my dreams weren’t clear. They never were. Just flashes of warmth. A voice I couldn’t hear, but felt in my chest like a hymn I’d forgotten the words to. Hands that touched me without taking. Eyes that watched without judgment. A presence that never once asked me to be someone else.
He didn’t have a name. Not one I could recall. He didn’t have a face. Just an outline, a shape in the dark, a shadow that felt like home. And even though I didn’t know who he was—I knew what he wasn’t.
He wasn’t my husband.
“Say his name,” my husband whispered. “Say it now.”
“I don’t know what you mean?—”
“SAY IT!” He pushed me.
The cold hit first.
Then the silence.
The koi scattered around me, scales catching moonlight as I sank. His hand pushed harder. The water closed over my head. My fingers clawed at the stone edge, slipped. I kicked. Struggled.
The silk kimono dragged me down.
So heavy.
Too heavy.
He never let go.
Not even when I kicked against him weakly, hands scraping against his sleeve, eyes wide with disbelief. My lungs screamed. My mind fractured. But he held me beneath the surface like my struggle offended him.
I felt everything. The cold warping my limbs. The burning deep in my chest as oxygen turned to agony. I heard the shriek of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
The silk tangled around my legs, wrapped around my ankles like shackles. I opened my mouth to scream and swallowed water instead. Saltless. Mute. Endless.
The koi brushed past me again. One of them stilled beside my face, staring with glassy eyes. Even the fish pitied me.
I thrashed slower. My nails dug into his wrist. Drew blood. He didn’t flinch.
He didn’t flinch when I gurgled. When I begged with my eyes. When I mouthed please.
And still, he didn’t let go.
Not until my fingers slipped from his sleeve. Not until the pain dulled into numbness. Not until the fight left my limbs and the world narrowed into soft light and bubbles and the faint, aching memory of a name?—
But I blacked out before I could grasp ahold of it.
I woke choking.
Not on air. On blood.
It bubbled at the corners of my lips, thick and coppery. I coughed, chest convulsing, lungs raw. My limbs trembled. My vision swam. Then—arms. Around me. Warm. Steady. Rocking.
Too steady to belong to a killer.
But killers didn’t always come with shaking hands.
“Stay with me,” a voice said. Deep. Hoarse. Laced with something ragged and broken. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you. Just hold on. I’m getting help.”
But help had always come too late.
My mind was slow. Sluggish. Drenched in confusion and pain. His face hovered over mine, half-shadowed, blurred at the edges like a dream I didn’t trust. A burn marked his forehead. Blood streaked his hands. His eyes were wide with panic. Or was it guilt?
The smell hit next. Smoke. Gunpowder. Metal. The scent of someone who killed for a living and prayed for no forgiveness.
I flinched.
He pulled me closer.
“Don’t close your eyes. Don’t go back under.”
His voice cracked. His hands pressed to my ribs like he was trying to keep my soul inside me. But he didn’t know me. He couldn’t have. And yet—he held me like I mattered.
That scared me more than anything.
Because I’d learned a long time ago that comfort was just another cage. And gentleness didn’t mean safety. My husband kissed my forehead the night he shattered my collarbone. My husband braided my hair the same week he left me bleeding in the bath.
So who was this man?
I didn’t recognize him.
Which meant I couldn’t trust him.
Maybe he worked for my husband. Maybe he’d been sent to clean up the mess. To pretend to care until I stopped breathing. His words didn’t match his face. His touch didn’t match the blood.
“Who—” I rasped, throat torn. “Who are you?”
He didn’t answer.
He held me tighter.
And I—broken, blind, drowning in suspicion—made the worst mistake of all.
I thought he was one of my husband’s men even though he didn't look like them. Maybe an assassin. I wouldn't put anything passed my husband at this point.
Even as my fingers twitched against his sleeve, even as warmth tried to bleed into my frozen limbs, even as my vision blurred with unshed tears—I didn’t trust him. Couldn’t.
I stared into his eyes, hollowed and wet and searching, and whispered, “Tell him… I hope he chokes on what he’s done.”
His mouth parted in shock.
But he said nothing.
And in that moment—strangled between breath and blood, drowning in betrayal—I realized there would be no justice for me in this life.
Not from the clan. Not from the gods. Not from the stranger holding my body together with shaking hands and bleeding guilt.
So I prayed.
Not to be saved.
But to start over.
If there was a next life…
If I’m given even one more breath…
I would make them all pay.
My father, for selling me. My husband, for drowning me. Her, for smiling while I bled. For this man I couldn't trust—not even with my dying breath.
I would not be soft again.
I would not bow.
And I would begin again.
And I died in the arms of the man who was sent to kill me.