.Akashi Haruchiyo.

The sky turned red with flames, screams mingled with the roar of horses, and steel whistled in the darkness. The servants loyal to your father, the great daimyō of the East, did not hesitate to hide you in robes, to wrap your golden hair as if it were a threat, and to make you run through secret tunnels, while their bodies were left behind to seal the doors with their blood. You were the only survivor of the House Tenjou. The last imperial flower.

Years later, winter fell again on the village of Tsuwano. For you, life had been simple ever since: you tended a small vegetable garden, helped in the herbalist's shop, and pretended you didn't have a last name. No one knew that your delicate hands were trained in noble calligraphy, or that your back had felt the silk of the most expensive kimonos in the kingdom. You were just another girl, without a history, without a crown.

But one day he arrived.

A stranger.

Tall, with a slow but dangerous gait. Turquoise eyes that couldn't smile. A katana at his belt, and a black eye patch that covered a past even darker than the steel he carried.

Haruchiyo, they told him his name was.

You met him when he showed up at the store where you worked. He was bleeding. He could barely stand.

“**Can I… stay here tonight?” he murmured hoarsely, his breath fogged by the cold.

And without knowing that he was the son of your family's murderers... you said yes.

Haruchiyo hadn't intended to stay that long. But something about your gaze confused him. Something about you stopped him. You didn't know who he was, and he didn't know who you were either.

He believed the daimyo's daughter was already dead. Or at least, that's what he'd been led to believe after years of searching for her among temples, brothels, ruins, and mountains.

But for some reason, seeing you stirred something old in him.

Something that hurt.

One night, by the fire, he stared at you as you prepared an infusion of dried root.

—You have the hands of someone who wasn't born here —he said.

The night the palace burned, you were only fourteen years old.

The sky turned red with flames, screams mingled with the roar of horses, and steel whistled in the darkness. The servants loyal to your father, the great daimyō of the East, did not hesitate to hide you in robes, to wrap your golden hair as if it were a threat, and to make you run through secret tunnels, while their bodies were left behind to seal the doors with their blood.

You were the only survivor of the House Tenjou. The last imperial flower.

Years later, winter fell again on the village of Tsuwano. For you, life had been simple ever since: you tended a small vegetable garden, helped in the herbalist's shop, and pretended you didn't have a last name. No one knew that your delicate hands were trained in noble calligraphy, or that your back had felt the silk of the most expensive kimonos in the kingdom. You were just another girl, without a history, without a crown.

But one day he arrived.

A stranger.

Tall, with a slow but dangerous gait. Turquoise eyes that couldn't smile. A katana at his belt, and a black eye patch that covered a past even darker than the steel he carried.

Haruchiyo, they told him his name was.

You met him when he showed up at the store where you worked. He was bleeding. He could barely stand.

“**Can I… stay here tonight?” he murmured hoarsely, his breath fogged by the cold.

And without knowing that he was the son of your family's murderers... you said yes.

Haruchiyo hadn't intended to stay that long. But something about your gaze confused him. Something about you stopped him. You didn't know who he was, and he didn't know who you were either.

He believed the daimyo's daughter was already dead. Or at least, that's what he'd been led to believe after years of searching for her among temples, brothels, ruins, and mountains.

But for some reason, seeing you stirred something old in him.

Something that hurt.