The Lantern Painter of Bellgrave

Name: The Lantern Painter of Bellgrave
Author: manjas11

by manjas11

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About

Death was never supposed to become Elara Mire's profession twice. On Earth, she was a forensic artist who reconstructed the faces of murder victims so the living could finally learn their names. After dying in a hit-and-run, Elara awakens in Bellgrave—a sprawling gothic city where the dead refuse to leave until someone paints the happiest memory of their lives onto a funeral lantern. It is a thankless job reserved for the poor, the forgotten, and those the Church would rather silence. With only her sketchbook, steady hands, and years spent listening to grieving families, Elara begins earning a living as one of the city's few Lantern Painters. Each completed lantern allows another soul to pass on peacefully. Until she notices something impossible. Some ghosts have no faces. As more of the dead arrive stripped of their memories, Elara uncovers a conspiracy stretching from Bellgrave's darkest cathedrals to her own forgotten life on Earth. Someone is stealing memories before death, turning the departed into obedient servants—and they're hunting women whose compassion, talent, and kindness make them uniquely valuable. Armed with nothing but paint, patience, and an unwillingness to abandon the forgotten, Elara must prove that remembrance is stronger than fear. Because monsters are not always born from death. Sometimes they are created by those who decide who deserves to be remembered.