Gold-Blooded Animals

Welcome to Gashigura-a kingdom of strict tiers, quiet pagodas, and one gigantic secret: the Gold-bloods.

They look human, work ordinary jobs, and complain about customers. But they bleed gold, wield impossible powers, and are the only reason Gashigura hasn't been overrun by the warlords and bandits tearing the outside world apart.

Miyuki, a sharp-tongued 15-year-old refugee, learns this the hard way. Between a prejudiced landlady, market thieves, and a school that's constantly being wrecked by giant centipedes, fitting in is the least of her problems. Especially when her own strange ability-one she can't control-begins to surface.

Then there's her new "friends":

· Prince Kenji, the heir who's secretly the anti-emperor pamphleteer Pojo Mio-and wears a grotesque mask of his own father's face in protest.
· Ren, a detached foreigner who's annoyingly lucky, eerily observant, and always where the chaos is.
· Wei, an Aspirant hiding her own fears about a friend who's changing in dangerous ways.
· Yan, the so-called "Coach"-a smiling manipulator who's decided every Gold-blood his age should be under his thumb.

In Gashigura, the supernatural is mundane, school is a survival course, and rebellion wears the emperor's face. And Miyuki's about to learn that in a city where everyone's hiding something, the most dangerous secret might be her own.

Gold-Blooded. Ordinary. And nothing in between.