Prologue

Kyoto, Kōmei 18 (1864)

Men shouted orders. Girls shrieked and wept. In the courtyard, horses' hooves churned up dust as they pulled cannon carts and wagonloads of weapons into place. The front gate groaned and then, beams creaking and hinges shrieking, it twisted, swelled inward, sagged, and crashed open. The enemy swarmed in, striking without quarter and firing at anything that moved. Smoke filled the air, adding to the confusion. In the dark of the new moon, the zing of bullets and the clash of swords rang through the inn, and the halls filled with pounding feet and colliding bodies. Laundrywomen and cooks, chambermaids and stable boys scurried for safety. Soldiers and apprentices, weapons in hand, surged toward the fracas. Against the tide, two silent figures slipped unnoticed toward the rear of the compound.

The Kohagi-ya was under attack.

"Come."

Minutes before the chaos had erupted, he'd appeared in the kitchen doorway. She'd been alone, the evening meal long over, the other girls back in their rooms. She liked this time of calm after the frenetic afternoon—stumbling over each other preparing so much food, then the serving and the cleaning up—and so she always lingered in the empty kitchen. It was a time for her own thoughts as she neatened the contents of shelves and straightened stacks of dishes, details that no one cared about but her. At his unexpected voice, she glanced up and was startled to find him standing not an arm's length from her; she could feel his body heat. With a sharp jerk of his head, he slipped back out into the hallway. Mystified, she dried her hands on her apron and stepped through the open doorway, but found the corridor empty. As her eyes adjusted from the bright kitchen to the unlit hallway, she saw a slight movement in a dark recess. He waited there, holding two packages, and her stomach flipped when she recognized the one she'd had packed since that day in his room—the day when Katsura had, in every meaningful way, married them.

"What—?"

"It's time. Take my hand."

Before she could speak again, he shifted her bundle into her arms, grabbed one of her wrists, and turned and pulled her after him, just as the first alarms from the guards reached them. His iron grip hauled her along the dim corridors that led to the alley behind the inn. Even here, deep in the labyrinth of halls and rooms and gardens that were the rebels' headquarters, the acrid smell of gunpowder stung her nose and eyes. The growing cacophony overwhelmed her, and she felt panic rising. She struggled to keep up, and she stumbled several times. He didn't look back, and he didn't slow, but pulled her along behind him at a steady pace. She held her bundle tighter, and grieved the things she'd left out for the last minute—her best hair ribbon, her favorite scarf, her last letter from Akira.

The surge of people thinned as they moved deeper through the building, farther from the conflict, and the din faded with each passageway they passed. By now, the back halls were deserted and silent. Eerie. She felt as if she were entering a dream.

He stopped just inside the exit to the alley. He released his grip on her, and looked at her for the first time since the kitchen. "Wait here." Then he slid aside the heavy door—a storm was on its way, and the fresh breeze that swirled in, dotted with moisture, lifted the hair by her cheek—and disappeared through the crack he'd made, leaving her standing in utter blackness, out of breath and heart pounding. "It's time," he'd said, and the moment that she'd never really believed could ever come was on her, taking her breath away.

"You know," a soft voice sounded at her back, and she spun to see her friend, the inn's proprietress, silhouetted in the glow from a dark lantern in her hand. "The iris blooms best in the rain, even if it's a rain of blood." She set the lantern on the floor, and pressed a hand on Tomoe's shoulder. "Turn around."

Ōkami's words swirled in Tomoe's head—they made no sense. The older woman's hands were at Tomoe's waist, untying the apron, then slipping it off over her head. Tomoe turned back to face her friend. "The iris—? A rain of blood… What—?"

"I mean that you two—" But the woman was interrupted. Kenshin had slipped back in through the door. Without a word or a look, he took hold of Tomoe's wrist again. As he tugged her toward their escape, Ōkami just had time to finish—"Irises should always be arranged in pairs"—before the door closed between them.