When The Moon Remembers

The Eleven Houses

The Four Families were not alone.

Beneath their authority existed eleven ancient Houses, each preserving a

different spiritual tradition.

Kitsune.

Tsukimori.

Kazehara.

Mizuhara.

Hiromori.

Yamashiro.

Kagetsu.

Kurotsuki.

Hoshino.

Fujinaga.

Seishin.

Airi discovered the names in an old genealogical record.

The final pages described the Divine Guardian.

The Guardian was not necessarily born into one family. Every five

hundred years, the spiritual balance could call a Guardian into a new life.

The strange part was that the Guardian might not remember.

Memories could return through dreams, places, objects or people.

Airi read the sentence again.

The Guardian may forget the face, the name, and even the life—but

never the bond.

She felt an inexplicable chill.

Ren stood beside her.

“What if the Guardian is already here?” he asked.

Airi closed the book.

“Then they might not know.”

A bell rang somewhere in the building.

But school had already ended.

They looked at each other.

A second bell sounded.

Then every light in the archive went out.

In the darkness, someone whispered:

“Find the Guardian before Lim does.”

When the lights returned, one page had been removed from the book……….