samarawilde
At the foot of the Ki Gon mountains, deep within an ancient forest, lays the resting place of gods and town long forgotten to time.
Katsuri Shira is the only living resident in the cursed town of Aoi Dai. Raised by the spirits of her family, friends, and neighbors, she protects both town and people with self-taught sacred magic and the ability to predict one's death from soul eating phantoms. Everyday she undertakes back breaking work by carrying out the former occupations of her family, staving of decay, and making sure her loves are safe and happy. Her only reprieve is daily visits and prayer to her mother's shrine, reading her father's books, and the annual Summer's End Festival.
Its happy life. One filled with prayer and quiet. Yet it is the only life she has ever known. Katsuri dreams of the world that lies outside of the Ki Gon. A world only gleamed through the books and scrolls of the Four Temples and her father's estate. A world where her father lives and the answers to his sudden disappearance may lie. However, Katsuri's world starts to change when she saves the life of Adahlei, a soldier of the Empire of Minas and a knight captain of the Divine Guardians. To save herself and her family she travels to the city of Lackra to learn sacred magic.
At the side of some of the empire's most powerful leaders, Katsuri attracts curiosity where ever she goes. The world far from Aoi Dai and the Ki Gon is frightening, strange, and beautiful, and when she becomes apprenticed to the Divine Guardian's head physician and expert on sacred magic the secrets to the curse that imprison her family start to unravel. With her powers growing stronger and Minae suffering a phantom pandemic Katsuri becomes a valued member of the court. But as the unraveled secrets behind phantoms, sacred magic, and Aoi Dai's curse complicate her quest and threaten her life, Katsuri soon finds herself in a fight that will determine the future of Minas and the world beyond.