Otori Shigeko

Otori Shigeko (also known as Maruyama Shigeko or Saga Shigeko) is the eldest daughter of Lord Otori Takeo and Lady Shirakawa Kaede. Appearing in The Harsh Cry of the Heron, Orphan Warriors and Sibling Assassins, she is one of the main point-of-view characters.

Despite the male-dominated society of the Eight Islands, Shigeko has been raised as her parents' heir, both to their personal domains and as overlord of the Three Countries. Well-trained and educated both by her family and by the monks of Terayama, she is beautiful, compassionate, wise and highly skilled with both the sword and the bow. Unlike her mother, Shigeko has never shunned her younger sisters Maya and Miki for their Tribe abilities or their unfavorable status as twins, although she does not possess any of her fathers' Tribe powers herself.

At the age of fifteen, Shigeko becomes ruler of the domain of Maruyama in her own right (as it was her mother's and can only be inherited through the female line). While accompanying her father on his journey to visit the Emperor in Miyako, she falls in love with her chief retainer and former teacher, Sugita Hiroshi. She initially helps Takeo win a contest to determine the leadership of the Three Countries, then contributes to his defeat of Saga Hideki in battle by shooting Hideki in the eye. Soon after, however, Takeo is compelled to abdicate due to unrest in the Three Countries, declaring Shigeko his successor and head of the Otori Clan. Despite her love for Hiroshi, Shigeko ultimately chooses to accept a marriage-alliance offer from Saga Hideki, on the condition that her rule- and her parents' reforms- remain unchanged in the Three Countries. By the close of the book, she has been recognized as Lady of the Otori by not only the clans, but by the Emperor himself.

However, paranoid and jealous of the Otori, Hideki ultimately does not keep his end of the bargain, and Shigeko's marriage traps her as a hostage in Miyako. She tries to form a covert alliance with the Empress and use what little influence she has to soften Hideki's harsher policies. Unfortunately, the arrival of her half-brother Kikuta Hisao threatens her position even further, as Hideki chooses to recognize him as heir to the Otori (as the son of Takeo). She and Hiroshi are ultimately betrayed by Hisao, resulting in Hideki accusing them of adultery and sentencing them to death. She is saved through both human and supernatural intervention when Hideki is killed; initially, she is appointed Regent by the Empress, but when her mother Kaede offers to take her place, she is released to her domain of Maruyama. She and Hiroshi marry and have two daughters.

Brilliance of the Moon and background
Shigeko was born about seven years after the end of the War of the Otori Succession, which saw her parents become joint rulers of the Three Countries. Although a son was considered preferable (especially as her parents had conceived no children in their first two and a half years of marriage) neither Kaede nor Takeo were disappointed. As Lady of Maruyama, Kaede could only pass the domain to a female heir; as for Takeo, he was secretly relieved, for he had been told a prophecy years before stating that only his son could kill him.

Shigeko grew up to be an exceptionally beautiful woman, looking almost exactly as Kaede had before her disfigurement. Her younger twin sisters were born two years later.