Callum was born frail — too weak, the healers said, to survive an Awakening. Nexus cast him out before he ever had the chance to try, exiled to a forgotten valley to live out whatever life his broken body could manage.The monster that found him there wasn't supposed to leave him alive either.When death finally came close enough to touch, something answered — a power no one at Nexus had ever seen, let alone named. Not strength. Not a gift. A hunger. Every enemy Callum kills leaves behind a fragment of their soul, his to absorb, his to wear like a second skin — their memories, their instincts, their power, folded into his own.But nothing is taken for free.Every fragment he claims lingers, pressing against the edges of who he used to be. Every soul that joins the shelf inside his mind adds one more voice to the crowd, one more pull he has to fight not to follow. The stronger he grows, the less certain he becomes that the boy Nexus rejected is still the one making the choices.Betrayed by the very people meant to protect him, hunted by forces that fear what he's become, Callum climbs from the ashes of exile toward power no one can ignore — power that might finally make him undeniable.The only question left is what will be left of him by the time he gets there.