Herrek hadn’t gotten the chance to see Lethe before it burned. Born on the frontiers of the empire, he had always had his eyes turned home.
But the empire was too large, Lethe’s influence too wide-spanning, for just anyone to return home. Travel was expensive, and not without risks—how little they had known—so he had been stuck on a frontier world mired in dust, mud, and rebels.
The Hammer had been his chance to return to the land of his forefathers, to go back to Lethe.
He arrived to ashes, the burnt shell of a once-proud civilization.