Raven at the Gate is an urban fantasy noir about inheritance, grief, and the terrible cost of keeping the world intact.

Raven Yazzie did not come to Tokyo looking for magic. She came to survive. Her mother is dead. Her father is distant and buried inside a military career that smells like secrets. Japan was supposed to be a clean break. Instead, the city starts listening to her.

When a buried fire stirs beneath Tokyo, Raven discovers that magic is not hidden. It is regulated, monetized, surveilled. Spirits bleed through infrastructure. Old gods are sealed under concrete. And the lullaby her mother once sang to calm her at night turns out to be something far more dangerous. It is a lock.

Pulled into a shadow war between occult syndicates, government agencies, and entities that wear human faces too well, Raven is forced to navigate a world that wants to own her power or erase it. Alongside an onmyōji who believes in control, a kitsune bartender who believes in survival, and a city that hums with unfinished grief, Raven learns the truth about the Gate beneath Tokyo and her mother’s role in sealing it.

This is not a story about chosen ones. It is a story about what people leave behind. About the violence of containment. About love that does not save you, but tells you what is worth losing.

Raven at the Gate blends noir sensibility, modern myth, and emotional realism into a story where magic is a system, grief is an engine, and the most dangerous choice is the one made out of love.