In the year 1311, in the Cloud of Sparrows castle, a beautiful woman watches as enemies gather below. As she calmly awaits her fate, she writes the secret history of the Okumichi clan, of the gift of prophecy they share and the destiny that awaits them.Six centuries later her writings are discovered by American Emily Gibson, whose path has already crossed Lord Genji of the Okumichi clan, a nobleman with a gift of prophecy who must defend his embattled family. Emily knows her heart belongs to the one man she cannot have so she devotes herself to translating Genji's ancestral history. As she unravels its magical stories, she begins to see threads of her own life woven in.As past and present collide, a hidden history and a secret prophecy shrouded for centuries comes to life in a spellbinding tale by the bestselling author of A CLOUD OF SPARROWS.