Part 1: Ashgrave's Edge
The rusted pipes above Cael Vire's cot groaned again—deeper this time, with a warped, animalistic tone that made the hairs on his arms rise. It wasn't the first time he'd imagined something slithering through those corroded ducts: the joke among Tier Five youth was that the Vault's breath ran through the walls. Not air. Not steam. Something else. Something aware.
Cael blinked up at the shadowed ceiling. The barracks were pitch-black except for the flickering red indicator on the door control panel. Power rationing again. He reached beneath his thin blanket and retrieved the leather scrap he used as a pillow, then sat up slowly, letting the frigid air bite his skin. His breath emerged in pale clouds.
The cot creaked under his weight. Iron on iron.
Seventeen. Today.
He rotated his shoulders, stretching the stiffness from his back. Every joint popped like poorly greased gears. Through the high windows, the sky over Ashgrave remained a perpetual bruise—a mix of sulfur, ash, and artificial dawn. The city never truly slept. Machines roared beyond the walls, forge engines heaving, coolant lines hissing, a never-ending mechanical heartbeat.
Most kids were excited for the Burden Ceremony. They were told from the moment they could walk that it was their *awakening*. Their *right*. The day they would receive their Vault Bond—a sacred link to the otherworldly beast that matched their soul.
Cael knew better.
Across the row, someone groaned.
"Still awake, Vire?"
Jonnel's voice, hoarse from smoke and worse. The boy was two bunks over, skeletal under his patchwork blanket. His face looked ghost-pale under the red light.
Cael rubbed the grit from his eyes. "Yeah. Can't sleep with all this ambiance."
Jonnel wheezed a laugh. "You think it'll be bad?"
"What, the branding? Or dying before my trial even starts?"
"Come on. Maybe you get lucky. Maybe you bond with something massive. A Ravager. Or a Flayer Drake."
"I don't want something massive. I want something smart."
Jonnel shook his head against the cot rail. "Smart things don't bond with us, Cael. They get bought by the Inner Tiers."
Silence returned, stretching thin and brittle. Cael stood and padded over the concrete floor toward the corner sink. The water spat rust. He cupped his hands and splashed it over his face anyway. It was bracing, if not clean.
In the mirror's cracked surface, his reflection wavered. Gaunt. His cheekbones sharper than last month. One eye darker than the other, the faint silver ring around the left pupil catching what little light there was. People noticed it. Some said it looked like a fracture.
His mother had called it his moon-eye.
He stopped thinking about her.
The cot rows stretched in either direction, dozens of boys on either side. Not friends. Not rivals. Just bodies waiting to be fed into the Vault.
Cael moved to his locker and pulled out his uniform—black-grey thermoweave, stitched and reinforced with salvaged armor plates. The sleeves bore no insignia. He'd never earned one. Those were for the Bonded—the chosen. The worthy.
He sat again, methodically lacing his boots, tugging tight until the cracked heels bit his ankles. Each motion had weight. Today, the world would brand him.
Whether he walked away was a different question.
---
The outer courtyard of Ashgrave Tier-Five Registry smelled of wet metal, charred polymer, and cold grease. The sky was a murky orange smear overhead, made worse by the vertical pillars of smoke rising from exhaust stacks in every direction. The Vault wall dominated the eastern skyline: obsidian smooth, seamless, and impossible. It rose beyond human measure, swallowing clouds, visible from every sector.
Today, beneath its shadow, stood a thousand teenagers.
Lines formed in silence. Some bore excitement on their faces, others barely concealed dread. Girls with shaved heads and mechanical augment plugs. Boys with nervous hands clutching charm tokens. Uniforms as colorless as the world around them. All waiting.
Cael joined Line Nine. The same position he'd been assigned since age seven. Line Nine meant nothing. But they told you it did.
He kept his eyes forward, ignoring the shifting glances. People remembered names when it came time to bet.
A voice broke his focus.
"You look like shit."
Cael turned his head slightly. Lira Thorn had appeared beside him like a shadow cut from smarter cloth. She wore a long coat over her registry uniform, the collar unfastened. Her boots were polished. Her gloves were Vault leather—the real kind, not repurposed synthetic.
"Didn't realize this was a fashion contest," Cael replied.
She offered him a smile so sharp it could cut meat. "It's not. Just observing the ambiance."
"Is that what they teach you in Tier Three? Observing ambiance?"
"No," she said, turning her head toward the Vault wall. "They teach us how to survive."
Lira had already been through her Ceremony. She bore the mark of the bonded: a black crescent scar that peeked from the base of her neck when she moved just right. Rumors said her beast was a Whisper Jackal. Silent. Lethal. Obedient.
She was out of place here. He always wondered why she kept showing up.
"You think they'll give you anything interesting?" she asked.
Cael laughed under his breath. "Not even the Vault wants me."
A loudspeaker crackled. "SECTOR FIVE. BATCH SEVENTEEN. PROCEED TO THE CHAMBER."
The lines shifted forward. Lira stepped ahead without looking back.
Cael followed.
---
The Ceremony of Chains was held in a dome-like chamber near the base of the Vault wall. The floor was steel-grate mesh, revealing power conduits and plasma veins below. The ceiling was so high it disappeared into darkness.
Teenagers stood in a massive circle. In the center, a raised dais and the Branding Pillar—a monolithic slab etched with glowing Vaultscript.
One by one, names were called.
The process was brutal. Efficient. A Warden in full armor stood at the front, reciting names, Burden designations, and Bonded creature types as if reading laundry tags.
"Selin Drae. Burden: Iron Skin. Beast: Splitfang Hound."
Cheers. Selin stumbled off the dais, her newly branded forearm smoking, a shadowy shape forming at her side. Her bond.
"Gareth Vome. Burden: Acid Blood. Beast: Tunnel Grub."
Laughter. A few jeers.
Cael waited. The line shrank.
"Cael Vire."
He stepped forward.
The Warden looked up. He was tall, helmeted, with a voice like sharpened gravel.
"Extend your arm."
Cael did.
The Branding Pillar lit with deep red runes. The Warden pressed the seal to Cael's forearm. It hissed.
Then nothing.
No glow. No beast. No name. The silence spread like rot.
The Warden frowned, tapped the panel again. Once. Twice. Then turned to the crowd.
"Result: No Bond Detected. Classification: Hollow."
Gasps. Someone snorted loudly. Laughter. Not cruel. Worse—pitying.
Cael didn't flinch.
The Warden handed him a strip of black cloth. "You will still report to Vault Trial 09. As statistical fodder."
He took it. Walked off the dais. Passed the sneers. The stares.
Lira watched him. No emotion.
And just like that, he was no one.
A hollow.
To be continued...