It began with a single page.
The manuscript arrived in a polished cypress box, delivered by a courier who refused to meet her eyes. Inside, nested in faded silk, lay a single sheet of washi paper. The calligraphy was exquisite—a 14th-century renga poem, its ink still stubbornly black after seven hundred years. But what made Honami’s heart stutter was the third line. It was wrong.
The poet’s ancient eyes glistened.
But her heart—her foolish, romantic, truth-starved heart—reached for a pen.
Honami’s scholar’s mind warred with her trembling body. “Who are you?”
“That’s not possible,” she whispered, her breath fogging the glass case.
He was young—or seemed young—dressed in the ink-stained robes of a medieval poet. His face was handsome in a way that felt dangerous, like a blade polished to beauty. His eyes, though. Those were old. Ancient. They held the cold patience of a river that had watched empires rise and fall.
“You changed it,” Honami whispered.