by Timothy4525
In the beginning, the Star Watchers walked among humans in peace. Then one called Shem grew curious about worship, and his whispers shattered the world. Cursed by the Unnamed Master with the full weight of human conscience--doubt, grief, and guilt, the Watchers who refused to repent hardened into the Brutes: cruel, powerful beings who spread their corruption across the earth. From their unnatural unions with animals and humans came the Ogres and the Giants, fracturing the world into a "bloody mess" of warring families. Now, centuries later, the Giant families rule their domains while the Brutes descend in periodic red-sky raids, and the Ogres wander, playing their deadly games. But in the shadows of the Thine slums where the mixed-blood outcasts scrape by on bounties and betrayal, a boy named Oak hides a dangerous secret. Born to a human mother captured in a raid and a Thine father who learned to love her, Oak carries something his people mock as weakness: a conscience. In a world where mercy is a punchline and empathy will get you killed, Oak must hide his heart to survive. But the Unnamed Master has not forgotten the world below, and a storm is coming that will ask everything of the lowest of the Thines. A tale of cosmic fall and personal survival, where the impure may yet be chosen.
