Unblessed

PRAY IT NEVER BLOOMS.

Raised in solitude behind the stone-veiled walls of her ancestral fortress, Sczephyrin Sōzanka was never taught how to live - only how to contain. Born heir to a bloodline burdened by an ancient demon-flower, she bore the weight of the Hyakkōhana: a crimson shuriken forged to imprison a monstrous bloom that devours the living with its vines and feeds on screams. It speaks only one language - ruin.

To protect the world from its wrath, the Sōzanka followed sacred law: isolate the bearer, silence the bloom. Erin grew up alone, watched by temple keepers and taught to pray the flower never woke. But one night, it did. Her family was slaughtered without mercy, with their blood soaking the very soil they once kept sanctified. Left with no one but the sealed terror in her hands, Erin fled, carrying the Sōzanka clan's most feared inheritance.

Now she wanders the fractured kingdom of Behrtio, hunting the mysterious assassin who carved through her lineage - and the truth of why. Her eyes no longer weep, but something still blooms in them: vengeance. And behind her, in silence, something older stirs. It coils in shadow, it roots in grief, and it waits to bloom. For when sorrow runs too deep, the flower awakens. And the Hyakkōhana... hungers.

Book I - Of Petals and Teeth