Lin Zhao is a special forces soldier from Earth. At 2:41:36 a.m. on November 17, 2029, he picked up a grenade and threw it one second too late. His heart stopped once, then started beating again. When he opened his eyes, he was lying in the red sands of Mars: a cream-yellow sky, a blue-white sun, and two moons in broad daylight. The air was too thin to hear his own voice, and gravity was only a third of Earth's.
The seagull watch on his wrist had stopped at that very second, like a rope tethering him to his home on Earth.
Mars is no lifeless wasteland. There are the Black Sand Tribe and Redglow City, the Sandmane Queen Helan, the Torchbearers, the regent, and the royal court. There are also the Corrosion Cult's secret machinations, the periodically awakening Rust Tide, and the Great Dust that swallows the sky. A soldier from Earth, unable to understand alien languages or tell friend from foe, finds his footing in the sandstorm through the discipline of ten years in the military and the simple words, "Reporting in."
He teaches the Martians what the sea is, and they teach him what it means to live. But his stopped watch keeps reminding him: he belongs on the other side. When the "gate" connecting the two worlds opens, Lin Zhao must carry the fire of this planet back to Earth, and bring Earth back with him.
A mysterious entity called the Torchbearer dwells within him, and he possesses the Military Archive System. A mission to return to Earth lies before him. But as he grows closer to the Martian tribes, their bonds hold him fast. He is no longer fixated solely on going home. He begins fighting for ordinary people to have a chance to survive, and gets drawn into the vast whirlpool of the royal court, the Heavenly Ladder, and the sacrifice of the kindling. With his distant homeland Earth on one side and the Mars he is determined to protect on the other, Lin Zhao is forced to stand between two worlds and make a difficult choice.
