I slipped my fingers into the cage, holding my hand open so the doves could eat the crumbs. Sunlight filtered through the door of the balcony, warming my feet, though the day was colder than the previous one. It was odd, to me, that the days seemed to have been getting colder since Ice-breaking Day, when they were supposed to get warmer. Since then, ice had formed over the temple doors again, and every morning, the air was full of the sound of servants breaking the ice over the wells to get water.

The doves cooed as they ate from my hand.

"Do not worry, little friends," I whispered. "Tonight, you will be free."

And I will be a captive.

I closed the cage door once the crumbs were gone from my hand. The doves leaned against each other, cooing softly as they shut their eyes. Looking at them, I could not help but think about that strange little bird that I had seen before. I wanted to see it again, up close, but the rest of the previous day had gone by without any sight of the creature.

I rolled up my futon before I finished my breakfast of hot broth, and hurried to dress. I chose from my own clothing, pulling on the plain blue robes that I had hardly worn back at home. They smelled of home, of Father's pipe...it was the last chance I had before the ties to my old life were severed.

I twisted my hair to the top of my head before I turned to the mirror to make sure I was presentable. I could hardly recognize myself anymore, a milk-white face hanging like the moon over the blue sea of my robes. I had never thought of how pale I really was, and when I visually compared myself to the soft yellow tones of those around me, I looked, as Itsua had described, almost ill. Already my face had begun to thin out, perhaps with the worry and dread that filled me when I faced the closeness of my wedding.

A knock sounded on my door. Expecting it to be Komo, to take me downstairs to prepare for the final fitting of my wedding robe, I hurried to the door, sliding it open.

Instead, standing before me, was Itsua.

"What do you want?" I demanded, wary of his presence.

"That's a harsh way to speak to an old friend."

"You were never a friend, Itsua," I said. I noticed he had a parcel in his hands, and he noticed my staring at it.

"Isama and Umoko heard that you were being wed to Lord Ashiro-han," he said, holding the parcel up. "They wanted me to bring you this gift. I didn't have the chance to give it to you yesterday."

I took the parcel, and moved back into my room to open it, pulling at the strings and unfolding the paper.

Silk scales shimmered in the light. I dropped the paper and lifted its contents, holding it up in the light of the sun. It was a sleeveless coat, black as the finest ink, with the white dragon of Inugoya on the back. A gasp came from me when I felt the smooth silk on my fingers. I lifted it over my shoulders, feeding my arms through the holes, letting it fall onto my shoulders. I twirled in the sunlight, watching the coat swirl with me.

"Itsua, it's beautiful," I said, looking back up at him. He had moved into the room, and I stopped my twirling when I saw the look on his face. He was watching me with an intensity like the way a cat watches a mouse, and I was suddenly alert.

"Don't look at me like that," I said.

"Forgive me," he said, with a dip of his head. "You just...you looked very lovely twirling like that."

"You were never one to consider me lovely," I said, remembering the way he had treated me the day I had asked the Creator to keep me from marrying him.

"No, I wasn't," he said. "It was just, right there, when you put that coat on, I saw something that I had never seen before. I wonder if, even if you had become my wife, I might have never seen it. And now you are being handed over to another man, and what I had seen twirling in the sunlight might never be seen again. A pity, that I can't be the man to see it should it resurface."

The way he was speaking puzzled me. "You're not in love with me, are you?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't think I ever could be."

He was still looking at me in a way I had never seen him look at anyone. His eyes looked...lost. Like he was looking at something he had lost, and the emptiness of them carried a sort of hunger. Except I had seen that look before on his face...

I had seen it once, when I was probably twelve or thirteen, and Itsua had come to my house for something he needed to speak about with Father. It had been summer then, when the air was thick with the smell of moist earth during a rain. I had been in the garden under the protection of an umbrella, and I had pulled my robe up to past my knees so I could wade in the muddy pond by the bathhouse. Itsua had emerged from the house, and was crossing the garden to the gate that led to the city street, when he stopped and looked my way. I had already known he was to be my husband then, and I had been trying to avoid him. I could do nothing but stand there, ankle-deep in the mud of the pond, my legs exposed, and painfully wait for him to leave. Even from that distance, I could see a strange look come over Itsua, could see the way his chest rose and fell with a deep, almost struggling breath, before he turned and hurried on his way to the gate of our house.

It was a look that had somewhat disturbed me then, a look I had quickly forgotten in my youthfulness, a look that I remembered as Itsua stood before me.

"I would like you to leave now," I said.

Itsua took a step towards the door, and hesitated, as if he was to say something to me, but he shook his head and went through the door, shutting it behind him. Once the sound of his wooden sandals clacking on the floor had faded away, I pulled the coat off myself, and sank to the floor before my low table, hugging my arms to myself. I could feel myself beginning to shiver, the strange, empty, hungry look on Itsua's face burned into my brain.

I could not tell if I was happy to leave my life behind me.

I stood on the balcony and faced the wind, the salty air carrying the bite of winter, watching the distant smudge of the mainland far away. Clouds hung over the mountains, concealing their peaks, and I was sure that the angry gray sky carried snow with it. Below me, on the silver, white-capped sea, I could see a trio of long boats gliding without effort through the water on their way to the island. One of them carried my brother and his family, and perhaps even my father's brothers. I had not seen Yoshi for a whole year, since the birth of Yoshi's second child.

I wondered who the other boats carried—perhaps other lords or nobility, or simply upper-class families, who were coming to the island because of the tradition. If a lord was to be married, then other lords might have arrived, though I suspected that the marriage of the lord of the lowest tier would not have had a large turnout of guests, especially if the same guests had been to six previous weddings.

I went on my way down the balcony, to the steps I had ascended only a short while earlier. I did not know if I was to greet the guests with Ashiro, but I wanted to make sure I was in my room should Komo send for me.

I spotted a familiar figure as I reached the level where my room was—the flash of a red coat, the way he carried himself, the slender hands reaching for the door to my room-and I hurried to reach him.

"Hotaki!" I called. He turned, his face brightening when he saw me.

"There you are," he said with a grin. "How do you feel?"

I remembered, with a jolt, what was to come that night. "I don't know," I said. "It hasn't...it hasn't struck me yet, I don't think."

"It will," Hotaki said. He breathed on his hands quickly, rubbing them together to warm them. "Do you mind if we go into your room?"

"Not at all," I said. I opened the door, letting him in. "What did you need? Am I needed to greet the guests?"

"Guests?" Hotaki raised an eyebrow at me as I shut the door. "Oh—no. Lord Ashiro-han is seeing to that."

My heart sank. "I was sure my brother was on one of those boats," I said. "I would have liked to see him before the wedding."

"You will." Hotaki looked about the room. "Komo is actually expecting you to show up at the dressing room in a few minutes, but I wanted to steal a few of them to spend with you."

I still had tea from lunch sitting on my table. I lowered myself to my knees. "Would you like some tea? It might be cold, but it's good."

Hotaki knelt across from me. "Certainly," he said. He waited as I poured his tea, and he accepted it from my hands with a bow of his head. He sipped it, and the look on his face was almost comical with disappointment. "It is very cold," he said.

"Forgive me. I wasn't expecting any guests."

He sipped his tea again, and glanced at the black coat that sat on my futon. "Where did that come from?" he asked.

I looked over my shoulder at it. "Itsua," I said. "He said his daughters wanted him to give it to me."

"Itsua...was that the one who you were to be wed to?"

I remembered the way he had looked at me before leaving my room, the way it had made me feel like a thousand spiders were crawling over my skin, and as I sat there, despite how I was drinking tea, my throat went dry, and I found myself having difficulty swallowing it. Hotaki appeared as if he noticed my discomfort.

"You wish not to speak of him."

I shook my head. "I'd rather not."

He finished his cup of tea. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," he said.

"I don't know if he's angry that I'm not marrying him," I said. "He was furious when he found that all of the family's money was gone. He seemed more concerned over the money than me, but I don't know if I am to feel good over that or not."

"Is he in love with you?"

"No," I said. "At least, he said so himself."

"Does he want you?"

I looked up quickly. Hotaki was pouring himself more tea, and he raised his eyes to me. "I...don't know," I said.

"The way he looked at you throughout tea yesterday: I've seen that look on a man's face before, and every time I have, it hasn't ended well."

I swallowed, and took another sip of tea, hoping to moisten the dryness. "Do you mean lust?"

He shrugged. "Lust, desire: say it any way you want. I've seen it on a man's face for a fraction of a second, before it vanished, and I've seen it barely contained within a man, turning him into a savage beast. I will warn you, Yori, that if you see a man with that look on his face, it is best you run away from it."

I could see myself, those years ago, standing in the mud, facing Itsua. "I have been betrothed to him since I was eleven," I said. "In all those years, he has never made a move on me. Certainly, if he has desired me, he has been continent enough to wait until marriage. I see him as no danger."

Hotaki shrugged to himself, looking into his tea. I found myself studying his face again, and I felt the urge to reach out and touch it, to run my fingers over his high cheekbones, to slip my hands into his hair and look deep into his eyes. I studied his hands and imagined them holding mine, touching my face, pulling me close to be enveloped in his warmth.

My face was on fire. I didn't know if it was red, but I lifted my hands to my face, hoping the cool touch of my fingers would subdue the heat that had begun to creep down my neck to the rest of my body. It would do no good to think of a man in such a way, especially when my wedding was in a few hours. They were stupid, meaningless thoughts, formed from my own loneliness, misery, and self-pity I felt over being wed to a man I hardly knew.

Oh, if only Hotaki, or any handsome young man, could look at me the way Itsua had, and I could stumble forward into his arms and we could make that lovers' dance under the moonlight!

I wanted to slap myself. I had never had such intrusive, passionate, sensual thoughts before. I lowered my head, begging for the Creator's forgiveness. A woman should not have let her mind wander in such a way.

A silence had fallen over the room, and the sound of Hotaki setting his cup onto the table made me flinch.

"Hotaki," I said quietly.

He looked up, and my heart leaped within me when our eyes met. How foolish I had been to think of him, drunk with thoughts of desire. It was only now, when I knew my wedding fast approached, that I could not have a man like Hotaki, or have him myself.

"Yes?" His tone was his usual bright one. Of course he could not feel the same things I did. He looked at me in the light of truth: a merchant's daughter becoming a lord's wife.

"You have never looked at a woman with that same look, have you?"

He laughed. "I hope to the Creator that I haven't!"

"Have you ever been in love?"

His smile vanished. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. Perhaps...perhaps because the thought of being in love is so distant to me now that..." I couldn't finish. I didn't know what to say.

"Yori..."

I looked up. "I shouldn't be talking like this. It's a foolish way to think, especially with my wedding so close." I should have been thinking about staying alive, being dutiful, bearing a child.

Hotaki's face told me that nothing I said had affected him greatly. He stood. "I've stolen enough time from Komo," he said. "Come, I'll take you to the dressing room."

He offered his hand to me. After thinking about him the way I had, I was reluctant to even touch him, but I gathered my strength and took his hand. I stood, and as I rose, the closeness of his face to mine robbed me of my breath. He didn't seem to notice at all, and released me, hurrying to the door and opening it for me.

"Hurry up," he said, "or else Komo will have your hide."

I allowed myself a smile as I slipped through the door. "You said she never gets angry."

"Did I? I must have been wrong."

As we hurried down the hall together, I took a deep breath, praying for the spirit of purity to cleanse my head. But something tingled in the back of my brain...something I had meant to ask Hotaki.

"That look," I said, "the one that had been on Itsua's face."

"Yes," he said, urging me to continue.

"Have you ever seen it on Lord Ashiro's face?"

His gait slowed, until we both stopped. His brows drew together, and he finally shook his head. "No, I don't think I have."

"You said it is dangerous."

He nodded, and we resumed walking.

"If...if he was to look at me that way, am I to run?"

Confusion crossed his face. "I don't know," he said.

I faced ahead, my hands tucked into my sleeves, and the two of us made our way to the dressing room in silence.