Child of Ash (Ashes of a Hollow Sun)

There are dark things that haunt the quiet places of the world. They slip through forgotten ravines, ruined villages, and the hollow spaces between prayers. From the Hollow come the Hollowborn, demons sent at their lord’s behest to feed on the souls of the living. Only the Church of the Radiant Flame stands in their way. Its paladins are trained to hunt what others cannot face. They are taught faith, steel, and obedience. They are taught that the Flame sees all, and that its Oracle speaks only truth. Auren was a child when the Hollow came for his village. He remembers the fire. The screaming. The demon with violet eyes who murdered his parents and then, for reasons no one can explain, let him live. Found in the ruins by a grizzled paladin, Auren grows into the Church’s weapon, striving to silence the demons in his own mind, and the one that still watches him in his dreams. But faith cracks under scrutiny. Prophecies arrive at convenient moments. Truths are withheld. And the Church’s certainty begins to feel less like salvation and more like control. As Auren’s path pulls him deeper into forbidden knowledge and older powers, one question begins to haunt him: What is he truly fighting for? And if fate is real… why does it feel so carefully arranged? Read more