Origin Curse

DYNASTY CODES: ORIGIN CURSE © SARAH KATE ISHII 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ISBN:978-1-922956-32-3 (paperback)978-1-922956-33-0 (eBook) Cover artwork by Florianne Briffaut. Map artwork by Giulia Calligola. <www.lunarmorriganarts.com> Printed in Australia by Ocean Reeve Publishing www.oceanreevepublishing.com Published by Sarah Kate Ishii and Ocean Reeve Publishing Author’s Note Unless mentioned otherwise, all full names in this book are written with the family name first and then the person’s given name. In some cases where a person is introduced with just a single name, it is their given name. To the dreamers. You can. The Dynasty Codes Magic is disappearing. Gone are the days when mages wandered the globe and spirits crossed over from the world beyond. No longer do people deal out curses, receive wishes, or buy items imbued with magic, and the legendary creatures that inspired popular folk tales have been so rarely sighted for generations that they’ve slipped into myth. Instead, the final dregs of magic linger on the cusp between worlds, noticed only by the few with connections to both the spirit world and the land of the living. There, the veil between worlds tore and the laws of this dying magic transformed when a curse placed on a noble family in the east unravelled the fragile and unspoken dynasty codes over the globe, forcing the world into a new age. Where magic will belong in that new age depends on the actions of just a few. Contents Author’s Note The Dynasty Codes World Map Hié Region Map Origin Curse Snippet from Book 2—Dynasty Codes: Ocean’s Guard Glossary Prologue Centuries ago—before westerners set foot in the far eastern countries, battling open seas in great wooden vessels for adventure and trade to make their fortune in uncharted lands—the far east of the map marked the edge of the world. At this edge, a small country named Hizen is left yet untouched by the expanding west. Hizen, ruled over by the military power of warlords, was led by the shōgun and split into domains guarded like kingdoms by powerful families and their ruling household member, the daimyō. For centuries, these families fought to expand their territory, creating a feudal era of civil war that kept the country locked in a state of tension, creating a country with a dominant ruling class of warriors—the samurai—noble and strict to their code of honour, loyal to their daimyō and avowed to protect their domain. But should threat ever come from beyond the lands of Hizen, by the power of the shōgun, these warring states would unite under a single banner to protect their country, putting aside their grievances with the neighbouring domains to keep the land safe. On the southern coast of Hizen, an ancient warring family rules a large domain called Hié, headed by a powerful matriarchal line that has gone back for generations. This family, being close to the shōgun and as trusted members of the Hizen court, was given great trust and position in the Hizen nobility, awarded a rich region with good natural defence. With the Taiheiyō Ocean to the south and east and a mountain region with rich forest to the north, the Hié region thrived, rich in crops and trade, with people living in 1 The Castle of the Dragon Daimyō Night shrouded the tenshu keep of the Hié castle compound, and Ii Yoshiko flinched as wooden floorboards creaked under muffled footsteps in the corridors outside her sleeping quarters. Her heart thudded, and her fingers stopped tying her indigo-dyed haori as Yoshiko paused to listen to the quick steps shuffling towards her room. Her eyes flicked to the window. The light of dawn wasn’t yet bleeding into the sky—daylight was still a way off. She frowned. This sound didn’t match the footsteps of her maid, Haruki, who padded confidently down the tenshu’s wooden passageways, and no-one else should be coming towards her chambers at this time. The hour before dawn was for training. Yoshiko’s mother, daimyō Ii Asumi, the ruling warlord of Hié, had insisted her daughter learn to fight and defend herself from a young age, and now Yoshiko was nearing adulthood, Asumi expected Yoshiko to rise for dawn training on her own, without prompting from castle staff. So Haruki wouldn’t be coming here yet, nor anyone else. Yoshiko crouched, reaching instinctively in the dark for the short tanto blade she kept by her futon, and watched where the moonlight faintly hit the sliding paper door to her room. She tucked her long, straight black hair behind her ear and over her shoulder, out of the way, narrowing her dark, almond-shaped eyes and listening to the shuffling. It paused on the other side of her door. Yoshiko slipped across the tatami floor and waited beside the door, blade ready, out of view of whoever entered. The door slid in its frame, and a young woman peered into Yoshiko’s room, the