The Lotus War

Griffins are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father are sent to capture one for the Shogun, they fear that their lives are over. Soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in the wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. As Yukiko learns the horrifying extent of the Shogun’s crimes against her country and her family, she becomes determined to make him pay.

A Shattered Empire: Shogun Yoritomo has been assassinated, and the threat of civil war looms over the Shima Imperium. The Lotus Guild conspires crush the growing rebellion. A Dark Legacy: Yukiko and the mighty thunder tiger Buruu have been cast in the role of heroes by the Kagé rebellion. But Yukiko herself is blinded by rage over her father’s death. A Gathering Storm: Kagé assassins lurk within the Shogun’s palace, plotting to end the new dynasty before it begins.

The flames of civil war sweep across the Shima Imperium. Blood turns against blood as the Dragon and Fox clans compete for the empty throne. The traitor Kin walks the halls of Guild power, his destiny only a bloody knife stroke away. And as the earth splits asunder, as armies destroy each other for rule over an empire of lifeless ash and the final secret about blood lotus is revealed, the people of Shima will learn one last horrifying truth.

Your blood-red skies are filled with smoke. Your bleach-white histories with lies. You walk sleeping. Wake senseless. Breathing deep of toxic blooms and forgetting all that has gone before. But I remember. I remember when two brothers waged bloody war over the right to sit in their father’s empty chair. I remember when the skies above Shima were not red, but blue. Filled with thunder tigers. I remember when they left you. And I remember why. Let me tell you, monkey-child…