He was the least remarkable son of a clan, born to a concubine. On the night he was born, an ancient lamp that had burned for three hundred years went out for the first time, and his father died beneath it. Deep in the Great Wilderness, the sky split open like a mouth, known as the "Rift." When the ancient lamp shines, the Rift is sealed; when it goes dark, all manner of beasts cross over. The thirty-six clans revere the Temple of the Heavenly Constitution as heaven itself, and use "registers" to determine a person's rank. Those marked with patterns are born guilty. An old servant carried him into the lamp chamber, where he became a boy tasked with keeping the lamp alight. He wasn't even worthy of a name. Yet somehow, he could see what others could not: the patterns on the beasts, the fate of the ancient lamp, and what was really leaking through a world held together by "watching over it." From a lowborn lamp keeper to the sovereign who commands all beasts, he has never sought to defy any one person. He means to defy the very decree of this world that says, "This is how things must be." Freedom is not simply going wherever you please. It is being able to remain composed after you have held your ground.
