Across the Nightingale Floor

In a country modeled on feudal Japan, a boy called Tomasu returns home to find his village massacred by the soldiers of the cruel warlord Iida. Rescued by the nobleman Lord Shigeru, he is given the new name Takeo and drawn into the deadly politics of the Otori clan. Takeo learns that his slain father belonged to the Tribe, an ancient web of families gifted with preternatural skills of stealth, and that these gifts now run in him. His path crosses that of Kaede, a young noblewoman held hostage and bartered between rival houses. As Shigeru plots revenge against Iida, Takeo trains for a single mission that will carry him across the nightingale floor, a corridor built to sing under the feet of any intruder.