The Oni's Bride

Chapter 1: The Last Night

The wedding kimono weighs exactly twenty-three pounds.

Yuki Tanaka knows this because she's been wearing it for six hours, and every ounce feels like a stone dragging her toward her grave.

It's beautiful, of course. Pristine white silk embroidered with silver cranes, worth more than her apartment, more than her tiny flower shop, more than anything she's ever owned. Her mother cried when they put it on her this morning. Happy tears, she claimed.

Yuki didn't cry.

She hasn't cried since she was fifteen years old, when she learned that her life was not her own—had never been her own—and that everything she thought she knew about her family was a lie.

"You look perfect," her mother says now, adjusting the elaborate obi for the hundredth time. "Absolutely perfect. The Nakamura family will be so pleased."

The Nakamura family.

Old money, old power, old blood. The kind of family that owns half of Tokyo's financial district and has politicians in their pocket like spare change. Their eldest son, Kenji, is thirty-five, moderately handsome, and completely soulless. Yuki has met him exactly four times in the two months since their engagement was announced.

She knows nothing about him except that he smiles like a shark and looks at her like she's a particularly expensive piece of furniture.

"The ceremony begins in one hour," her mother continues. "Remember everything I told you. Bow deeply. Speak softly. Don't—"

"Don't embarrass the family." Yuki's voice is flat. "I remember."

Her mother's face tightens. "This marriage is important, Yuki. The Nakamura alliance will—"

"Secure our position. I know." Yuki turns away from the mirror, unable to look at herself anymore. "You've told me a thousand times."

What her mother hasn't told her is why. Why the Tanaka family, wealthy in their own right, needs the Nakamura alliance so desperately. Why her father looks haunted every time the wedding is mentioned. Why there are protective charms hidden in every room of their ancestral home, seals that glow faintly when she passes them.

Yuki has asked. For ten years, she's asked.

She's never gotten an answer.

"I need a moment alone," she says. "Please."

Her mother hesitates, then nods. "Five minutes. Then we leave for the shrine."

The door slides shut.

Yuki sinks onto the floor, the kimono pooling around her like a white ocean. Through the window, she can see the gardens of the Tanaka estate—cherry trees heavy with spring blossoms, koi ponds glittering in the evening light, a perfect picture of traditional Japanese beauty.

She hates it.

She hates all of it.

For twenty-five years, she's been the perfect daughter...