The Iron Toll

The Sinker Freeholds have declared independence, and the Empire that tried to exterminate them is losing. Nineteen-year-old camp survivor Finn - the Wolf of the Pass - has united a scattered, poisoned people into an army capable of defeating null-stone weapons, imperial legions, and the High Council's own scientists. But victory has a price the history books won't record: the Deep Hunger sealed beneath the Sunken Fortress left fragments behind, small and patient and scattered across the continent like seeds waiting for rain, and one of them has just started to wake.
As the Empire's council splits between generals who want to burn the Freeholds to ash and a lone voice arguing for peace, Finn has to hold a fragile new nation together while an enemy older than the war itself gathers strength in the dark. A war fantasy about what it costs to win, and what keeps waking up underneath the ground you thought you'd already secured.