Ashes of the Innocent

Auren Vale is a quiet craftsman with a believer's heart, until the Synod's holy war drags him from his workbench to the trenches. In mud, fire, and hymn-smoke, he discovers two unnerving talents: surviving, and telling the kind of stories men cling to. His letters home make him a symbol. His faith makes him useful. The thought of Liora waiting in Leon keeps him breathing.

But symbols have a way of swallowing the men beneath them. As sermons sharpen into orders and miracles begin to look like logistics, Auren must decide what a "good" man is worth to a machine that calls itself holy.

Part war diary, part confession, Ashes of the Innocent follows a naive optimist forced to look at evil up close, and asks what's left of a man when the banner starts to look like a mirror.