In Edo period Japan, a strange new disease called the Redface Pox has begun to prey on the country's men. Within eighty years of the first outbreak, the male population has fallen by seventy-five percent. Women have taken on all the roles traditionally granted to men, even that of the shogun. The men, precious providers of life, are carefully protected. And the most beautiful of the men are sent to serve in the shogun's Inner Chamber...

Although Prince Kazu expected to hate her life in Edo, her marriage to the shogun Iemochi unexpectedly became a source of true comfort to her. But now tragedy has destroyed her fragile happiness, and Prince Kazu must struggle alone to find some solace in the shattered remnants of that brief joy.