Hollowborne: Ember

The ash has fallen for two hundred years. Cael Vantris has fallen further. He was a soldier once — decorated, trusted, loyal to a fault. Then his commander sent his squad into a corrupted zone to die for essence deposits that never panned out. Six went in. One walked out. When Cael reported the truth, the government promoted the commander and buried the soldier. Rank stripped. Record falsified. Dumped in the outer ring of Bastion Korrath, where the Veil barely holds, the air tastes like poison, and nobody asks what you used to be. Two years later, he teaches combat to kids who can't afford real training. He fights in underground arenas for food money. He carries six names in his head like stones he refuses to set down. Then the Veil breaks. During a Blighted incursion that rips through the outer ring's failing defenses, something wakes inside him — a class so dangerous the system can't even classify it. The [Hollowborne] doesn't just fight corruption. It *consumes* it. Devours the poisoned essence killing the world and reforges it into something pure. Every previous holder was terminated within a year. Now the Crucible — six rulers who control everything behind the walls — want him dead before anyone discovers what he can do. But Cael isn't the same broken man they discarded. He has a shield-bearer who never flinches, an inventor who never stops talking, a kid whose combat skills have no business existing, and a nobleman's son who chose the slums over his family's throne. The government wants him silenced. An ancient intelligence in the wasteland wants him for something worse. And the damaged system that rules them all has flagged him with a single word: CONTAINMENT. Cael Vantris is done being contained.