Chapter 1

The air in the Japanese garden was thick, heavy with the scent of blooming sakura and the damp, earthy undertone of rain that had fallen just an hour before. It clung to my skin like a second layer, cooling the sweat that had already begun to bead at my temples. I stood at the edge of the koi pond, the stone path beneath my bare feet slick with moisture, and watched the paper lanterns sway gently in the breeze. They were hexagonal, made of rice paper stretched over thin bamboo frames, glowing with a warm, amber light that cast long, dancing shadows across the moss-covered ground. The sound of the city was muffled here, distant and irrelevant, replaced by the rhythmic *plip* of water droplets falling from the curved branches of the ancient cherry trees and the low, melodic hum of cicadas hiding in the dark. I was alone, or so I thought. My dress, a slip of silk the color of midnight, clung to my curves, the fabric damp from the humidity. I had come here seeking solitude, a place to escape the noise of my life, the expectations, the suffocating weight of being a grown woman who still