This is the third book in the Tales of the Otori series, set in a land similar to feudal Japan. Takeo Otori is preparing to fight his adoptive father Shigerus relatives in order to retake the lands he inherited from Shigeru. He has also vowed to recover the ancestral lands belonging to Kaede, the wife he secretly married at the end of the previous book. But his efforts are hampered by pursuing assassins and the brutal schemes of the vengeful Lord Fujiwara, who wants Kaede for his own.