Kati used the light of creation to win a war, and now, as empress, she must forge new alliances with former enemies. When her daughter, Yesui, is born with powers exceeding her own, Kati discovers that raising a super-being is no simple task. Yesui, a willful prankster, enjoys torturing her baby brother, Mengjai, who also turns out to be much more than he seems. But Yesui is the true Empress of Light and is later called upon to save a dying gaseous planet by adding mass to its core. There she falls in love with a gentle empath and must help in resisting a coup that endangers his family. Along the way, she discovers beings with powers even greater than her own, and learns that death is only a transformation to something new.
