Cursed Ground

Read the opening

first year Bamboo blades wrapped in charms. “Hit it where I’m not.” Hana Ebisu first year Thread Shadow: binds a creature to her own shadow. “Mm.” Tatsuya Kurogane Cinder Step: leaves burning footprints. “Pathetic.”

Folded paper charms that burn without flame.

Stands on the bell tower. No face has been seen.

Kai Mizuhara had been told, on his first morning at Ashiyama Academy, that the cursed things did not care how brave he was. He had nodded and written it down, the way you write down a rule you are sure you will never break. Then the bell rang at dusk, and the courtyard went cold. It was not the wind. The lanterns along the stone path dimmed one by one, as if something were walking past them and breathing out. The gravel went quiet under his shoes. Across the yard his classmates stopped talking at the same moment, and that was how he knew they had felt it too. “Stay behind me,” said Sensei Oda. He did not raise his voice. He was a tall, thin man with a grey scarf and a face that looked carved and then left out in the rain. He carried no weapon, only a folded paper charm between two fingers.

The sample pages on this site continue the opening — and the full book is available in print.