Dawn broke over the ancestral seat of House Veros like a gilded blade, its light piercing through the delicate shoji screens and casting shadows that danced across my chambers like spirits of the ancient dead. I stood before the mirror, a prisoner of ceremony, as layer upon layer of silk wrapped around me like the coils of duty that bound us all.
The furisode was a masterwork of obsidian silk shot through with threads of gold, each pattern a reminder of the weight of my bloodline. House Veros had not survived twelve centuries by eschewing tradition, and so I bore the burden with practiced grace, even as questions gnawed at my mind like hungry ghosts. What dire circumstance had driven my father to summon me at such an hour?
“You look radiant, Sirah-sama,” Keiko murmured as she adjusted the final folds of my hakama. Her fingers moved with the precision of a surgeon, though I knew she watched my face in the mirror, noting the tension in my jaw. She had served me long enough to read the subtle signs of my disquiet.
The corridors of the estate stretched before us like the throat of some great beast, its wooden bones polished by the passing of countless generations. Chochin lanterns cast pools of amber light that did little to dispel the shadows gathering in the corners. How many of my ancestors had walked these same halls, bearing the weight of similar summons? Their portraits watched our passage with painted eyes that seemed to follow our every step.
My father’s voice reached me before I saw him, deep and resonant as temple bells. It carried the authority of his station – Kōshaku Edan Veros, master of our house and keeper of secrets I had yet to learn. When Keiko slid open the door to the main hall, I found him standing beneath the great tapestry of our lineage, my mother, Lady Ayame, at his side like a sword in its scabbard – beautiful, deadly, and perfectly positioned.
“The Kōtaishi comes,” my father announced without preamble, his words falling into the silence like stones into still water. “The Aureate Chrysanthemum throne has need of House Veros.”
I felt my pulse quicken at the news, even as my training kept my face still as a frozen lake. The Crown Prince himself, coming to our house? The last time the Imperial family had called upon us directly, three hundred souls had burned in the fires that followed. I thought of my dreams then – visions of flame and steel and strange ships that crossed the void between stars. Perhaps Keiko was right to see portents in such things.
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We made our preparations with the precision of a military campaign. Servants moved through the estate like schools of fish, their movements synchronized by generations of protocol. I watched it all with the eye of one who had been trained since birth to notice the smallest details, for it was often in such things that destiny turned.
The Crown Prince’s arrival was preceded by the whisper of anti-grav engines, a sound like silk tearing across the morning sky. His vessel descended with Imperial grace, its hull gleaming with the golden seal of the Aureate Chrysanthemum. The ship settled onto our landing pad like a raptor coming to rest, powerful and precise.
The Imperial Guardians emerged first, their armor catching the light like scales on a dragon’s hide. They moved with the fluid grace of predators, taking positions with geometric precision. Then came the Kōtaishi himself, and I understood at once why the old poems spoke of Imperial blood as starfire made flesh.
He wore armor that put the Guardians’ to shame, each plate etched with histories I could spend a lifetime studying. The golden chrysanthemum on his cuirass seemed to pulse with its own inner light. But it was his eyes that held my attention – dark as the space between stars and just as deep. When they fell upon me, I felt the weight of a thousand years of Imperial rule pressing against my thoughts.
“You must be Sirah-san,” he said, and his voice carried the same gravity as my dreams of fire and void-ships. “I have heard much about you.”
I bowed, careful to maintain the precise angle that demonstrated respect while acknowledging my house’s elevated status. “The honor is mine, Denka.”
As we proceeded to the chashitsu for tea, I could not shake the feeling that we stood upon the edge of a blade, with destiny waiting to see which way we would fall. The Crown Prince’s presence was like a lodestone, drawing all eyes and thoughts toward him, even as my mind raced with questions I dared not voice.
What need could be so urgent that it would bring the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne to our door? And why did his arrival send such tremors of recognition through the chambers of my dreaming mind?
Some questions, I had learned, were best left unasked until the proper moment. So I followed in silence, my silk-clad form moving with the grace that had been beaten into my bones since childhood, while beneath my carefully composed expression, my thoughts churned like storm-tossed seas.
