Ashes of Silk and Steel

A political marriage. A hostile empire. A forgotten power that burns in silence. Traded like a coin between kings, a princess from the sun-baked kingdom of Marwar is sent to the Yamato Empire—a land of ritual, ice, and shadow—as part of a delicate peace treaty. She is not welcomed. Her skin, her silks, her songs—they are strange in a court that values obedience and silence. Princess Devi. The prince she is given to, Katsuro Takamura, is elegant and unreadable, trained to rule through restraint. Yet even he cannot help but watch her. She was born believing she possessed no divine gift. That she was ordinary. Unworthy. But buried within her blood is one of the rarest Kigan—Dragon’s Breath, a power tied to the ancient gods and thought to be lost to time. As political storms rise, and war whispers through the shoji screens, her presence becomes more than symbolic. It becomes essential. But in a court ruled by masks, how do you survive when your very existence threatens to burn the veil away?