Arthur was fifty, tired, and forgotten. He died in a sterile hospital room, a man who had played it safe and lost everything. But death wasn't the end. He wakes up in the body of an eight-year-old boy named Kaelen, in a world where the dirt is stained with blood and the "Middle Ages" are just beginning to crawl out of the dark.
Sold to the Order of the Obsidian Veil, Kaelen is forged into a weapon. But unlike the other orphans, Kaelen has the mind of a man who knows the value of a second chance. As the world transitions from tribal warring to civilized empires, Kaelen moves through the shadows, caught between a forbidden love with a deadly rival and a conspiracy that threatens to undo the very civilization they are building.

Kaelen didn't attack Silas. He turned and slammed his bleeding hand onto the door's interface.


"Manual Override!" he shouted in the ancient tongue. "Protocol: Scorched Earth!"


The mountain groaned. The blue veins of Aetheria turned a violent, angry red. Silas's eyes widened in terror as his own brass grafts began to spark and smoke.


"I've initiated a feedback loop," Kaelen said, grabbing Lyra's limp body. "If you want the power of the Ancients, you can have all of it at once."


The alloy door didn't open, but it began to vent a supercooled gas. Kaelen used the fog to slip away, vanishing into the darkness as the deep foundations of the Nest began to tremble.


Chapter 28 - Chapter 28: The Ghost in the Shell