The Noonday Lamp Ledger

On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the moon had just risen above the eastern city wall when the last public lamp in Ashen Town went out. Three hundred years ago, the sun went dark. The ancients dismantled its remaining heart into nine torches. Since then, light could be measured, daylight bought and sold, and people's names entered into the lamp registry. The Directorate of Daylight claimed that only by gathering everyone's fire could they hold back the sun-eaters beyond the long night. Lu Zhaoye, an apprentice lampwright, had only wanted to protect the town lamp. But that night, he found his mother, Gu Heng, on the list of those with unpaid lamp dues. She had been missing for eleven years. Beneath the old well, countless voices still waited for a promise to be fulfilled. Above its mouth, Cleansing Flame was burning away every trace that they had ever existed. Lu Zhaoye can borrow the “unfinished fire” of those whose names have been struck from the records, but the price is surrendering his own memories connected to their promise. To keep others from being forgotten, he must decide just how much he is willing to forget. This time, he isn't borrowing a lamp. He's borrowing the dawn, held by a handful of people for three hundred years.