A persons soul contains two parts the sliver you are born with, and the kai an entity that joins with the body eight days after birth.
At least, that was how it used to be, until the sinister truth of the kai was discovered. In the Ennian empire, dedicated hunters are trained to catch the kai before it manages to contaminate its host.
Caeles was bred to become a Venethori an elite kai hunter tasked with keeping people safe from dangerous kai, draconids, and other creatures. To aid him, he has his crossbow and his kai bound to him from birth but blocked from entering his body.
As a loyal servant of the empire he never questioned the imperial way of life, until the day he ends up in a situation where he is forced to ask himself; is everything really as simple as it seems?