The Hopes I: Stormbone

Sean Hope never wanted to be a hero. He was the useless son of a war hero, a quiet boy from Pelt Town who only wanted to survive, stay close to the people who cared for him, and avoid being sent to Tsuki’s discipline schools. Then a thunderstorm woke something beneath his mother’s grave. After surviving a swarm of mutated ants and bonding with a strange Lightning Bamboo, Sean becomes valuable to the Tsuki Empire, dangerous to his hometown, and inconvenient to his father’s legend. A doctor who refuses to abandon him.A wounded veteran who jokes when everything is falling apart.A town that needs someone to blame.An empire that turns names into numbers. By the end of one rainy night, Sean is no longer just a son, a patient, or a boy from Pelt Town. On paper, he is a traitor. In the white halls of Facility 3339, they call him 3339. But somewhere no record can reach, he still remembers his name.