Through the window of the eastern chamber, moonlight drifted in with a quiet, patient grace. It pooled on the tatami mats in pale silver, touching nothing, asking nothing. Saya sat upon her bedding, knees drawn close to her chest. *Soichiro's words...* What he had told her in daylight. The truth behind the broken engagement. The secrets buried within these castle walls. And the way Nobuhiro had called her name. "Saya." That single word echoed through her chest again and again, each repetition leaving a tremor in its wake. She pressed her palm against her heart. Thump. Thump. The beating of her own pulse, audible and insistent. *Why am I... like this?* When she thought of Nobuhiro, her chest grew restless. Anxiety and something else—something unnamed—twisted together inside her. A cold-blooded warlord of the Warring States. A man who opened his heart to no one. Yet he had spoken to her. He had called her by name. However small that gesture might seem to others, to Saya it h