Just as any other noble family, the Saimori household began their day with a leisurely breakfast in the living room of their sprawling traditional Japanese residence in the capital. Or at least it would have been leisurely, were it not for a shrill voice that pierced the fresh morning air.
“What’s this supposed to be?!”
Scalding-hot liquid splashed on Miyo’s face and chest. She didn’t even whimper as she groveled on the floor. The beautiful younger woman holding a teacup raised her eyebrows in outraged disbelief as her older sister, dressed in a threadbare serving girl’s outfit, bowed in abject apology. As usual, the house staff present in the room averted their gazes.
“The tea is so bitter, it’s undrinkable!”
“I’m terribly sorry…”
“Make me a fresh cup at once!”
Despite having brewed the tea exactly the same as always, Miyo demurely acknowledged her half sister’s request as if she was her servant and hurried to the kitchen, head hung low.
“Goodness me, she can’t even make tea properly. Has she no shame?”
“Indeed. She’s such an embarrassment.”
Miyo pretended she couldn’t hear her half sister and stepmother snickering at her derisively as she left the room. One might think her father would intervene and stop them from mocking his daughter, but he simply continued his meal as if nothing had happened. He hadn’t defended her once in the past several years, and by now, Miyo harbored no hope that he ever would.
✦ ✦ ✦
Unearthly creatures had plagued this country since time immemorial. Some of these beings resembled humans or animals; a few were so twisted they defied description; and still others fluidly changed shape, refusing to settle on a fixed form. These otherworldly entities, also referred to as fiends or spirits, were malicious to humans.
The task of hunting them fell to the Gifted, descendants of bloodlines that possessed supernatural powers. Only this select few could see the Grotesqueries using Spirit-Sight and dispatch them with supernatural attacks, their sole weakness. Indispensable to the empire, the Gifted enjoyed high social status.
The Saimoris were a long-established noble line, one of the families who’d risen to prominence through ridding the land of Grotesqueries. Miyo was the eldest of her generation. Her parents’ marriage had been purely strategic. Both her father and mother possessed the Gift, and their respective families had arranged the marriage to improve the bloodline. Although her father had been opposed to this, his protests went unheeded. Eventually, he broke off his relations with his lover and reluctantly consented to marry the woman who was to become Miyo’s mother.
Their loveless union resulted in Miyo’s birth. Apparently, they had cherished their daughter in her first few years of life. Her memories of that time were hazy at best, but she’d heard that her father used to dote on her and that she was the apple of her mother’s eye. Everything changed, however, when her mother passed away from illness when Miyo was two years old and her father married his former lover.
Miyo’s stepmother hated her for being the child of the woman who’d separated her from Miyo’s father. Her father, meanwhile, was so overcome with guilt toward his second wife that he deferred to her in everything. To make matters worse, he lost all interest in Miyo when her half sister was born, since he preferred the daughter of his beloved.
Kaya, Miyo’s younger sister, was not only the more beautiful of the two, but also skilled at twisting people around her little finger. To top it all off, she possessed Spirit-Sight, which Miyo lacked. It hadn’t taken long for the younger girl to begin treating her sister with scorn, just as her mother had done.
Then Miyo turned nineteen, an age when girls from good households would usually marry. But since even the servants outranked her in the house, she received not a single proposal. Furthermore, she was penniless because her family had never given her a stipend, which kept her from moving out.
“Here’s your tea.” Miyo placed a freshly brewed pot of tea on Kaya’s tray. Her stepmother huffed but didn’t comment.
Miyo was convinced she’d spend the rest of her life as their slave.
She’d already given up hope.