The *Midnight Blade Castle* was a monument to grim opulence. Built into the side of a jagged mountain peak, its black stone walls drank the moonlight, leaving only sharp edges silvered by the night. Towers clawed at the starless sky like stone blades, and from its highest spires, the banners of the Yan family hung still and heavy—a deep violet embroidered with a single downward-slashing sword. Within those cold walls, silence reigned, a thick and waiting silence, broken only by the distant howl of mountain winds and the tense rhythm of boot heels on polished obsidian floors.
*Yan Mo*, Lord of the Midnight Blade, was pacing.
His study was a reflection of the man—sparse, severe, and intimidating. A massive desk of petrified wood dominated the room, bare save for a single sheathed dagger and a scroll case sealed with his personal sigil. The walls were lined not with books, but with weapons: straight swords, curved sabers, and cruel-looking hooked blades, each resting on iron brackets, gleaming in the light of cold fire crystals embedded in the ceiling. The air smelled of metal, aged leather, and a faint, sharp incense meant to sharpen the mind.
Yan Mo himself was a man carved from the same stone as his castle. In his late forties, his face was all hard planes and severe angles, framed by hair as black as a raven's wing and streaked with two dramatic slashes of silver at the temples. His eyes, the color of flint, held no warmth, only a calculating sharpness that missed nothing. He wore robes of charcoal grey, trimmed with subtle silver thread that mimicked chainmail. Every movement was efficient, controlled, a lesson in contained power. As a high-ranking *Path Master* of the Midnight Blade and a sworn subordinate to the dread *Abyssal Supreme*, Ming Ye, his ambition was a cold, smoldering coal in his chest. Tonight, he awaited the spark that would either ignite it or snuff it out.
The object of his focus—and his simmering fury—was the heavy oak door to his study. Beyond it, in the family's private chambers, his favored concubine, *Li Hua*, was in labor.
"A son," he muttered to the empty room, his voice a low gravel. "It must be a son."
A legacy. A true heir. Not just to this castle of shadows, but to the ambition that consumed him. His two existing sons, *Yan Kang* and *Yan Jun*, born to his second wife, Lady Wen, were… adequate. Kang, at seven, was boisterous and arrogant, already mimicking his father's disdain. Jun, at five, was quieter, too observant for Yan Mo's taste. They were blades, yes, but standard steel. Yan Mo dreamed of forging a weapon of legend, one that could one day surpass even the terrifying beauty and power of his master, Ming Ye. For that, he needed a perfect vessel. A first-born son of his favored line.
A muffled cry, thin and strained, echoed through the stone halls. Yan Mo's pacing stopped. His knuckles whitened where they gripped the back of his chair. He did not think of Li Hua, the gentle woman with the voice like wind chimes who had briefly softened the castle's gloom. He thought only of the child. The asset.
The door shuddered under a firm knock. Yan Mo straightened. "Enter."
The midwife, an elderly woman with hands stained with herb-juices and eyes downcast, slipped in. She trembled under the weight of his gaze.
"My Lord," she whispered, bowing so low her forehead nearly touched the cold floor. "The Lady Li Hua… she has delivered."
Yan Mo did not speak. He merely raised an eyebrow, a silent command.
The midwife swallowed. "A… a daughter, my Lord."
The words fell into the silence like stones into a deep well. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. The flint in Yan Mo's eyes hardened into something darker, more brittle.
"A daughter," he repeated, the word flat, devoid of meaning. A third daughter. Useless. A political bargaining chip at best, a drain on resources at worst. Not a weapon. Not a legacy.
Without another word, he strode past the cowering midwife, his cloak swirling behind him like a storm cloud. His boots echoed with finality through the torch-lit corridors, leading to the birthing chamber.
The room was warm and humid, smelling of blood, sweat, and the cloying sweetness of medicinal herbs. Li Hua lay pale and drenched on the large bed, her dark hair plastered to her forehead. Her beauty, usually a soft, delicate thing like a watercolor painting, was washed out with exhaustion and something else—*terror*. In her arms, swaddled in silk the color of midnight, she clutched a tiny bundle.
Li Hua's eyes, wide and dark as a forest pool, found Yan Mo as he entered. She saw the storm on his face, the utter lack of warmth, and her arms tightened instinctively around her newborn. She had hoped, prayed to forgotten household gods, for a son. Not for status, but for protection. A daughter in Yan Mo's world was a vulnerability.
Yan Mo stopped at the foot of the bed. He did not look at his wife. His gaze was fixed on the bundle. "Let me see it."
Li Hua's breath hitched, but she had no strength to resist. Gently, she tilted the swaddle.
The infant's face was revealed, still red and wrinkled from birth. A fine dusting of black hair covered her head. But even now, one could see the promise of beauty—Li Hua's delicate bone structure, a perfect bow of a mouth. Her eyes were closed, but as if sensing the oppressive presence, they fluttered open.
Yan Mo leaned closer. The baby's eyes were a startling, clear grey, like winter mist over a lake. They were alert, impossibly so for a newborn, and they did not waver. They looked directly at the shadow looming over her, not with fear, but with a silent, nascent intensity.
For a fleeting second, something twisted in Yan Mo's chest—not recognition, not love, but a spark of cold, intellectual curiosity. The gaze was… unusual. Then, the moment passed, buried under the avalanche of his disappointment.
He straightened, his face a mask of carved ice. "Lin Xiao," he pronounced, naming her after the midnight hour of her birth—a name of darkness, of an ending. "See that the mother recovers."
He turned on his heel. As he reached the door, he paused, not looking back. His voice was low, meant only for Li Hua's ears, but it filled the room with a chilling finality.
"Do not grow attached to weakness."
The door closed with a soft, definitive click. In its wake, the silence was heavier, more despairing than before.
Li Hua pulled her daughter—*Lin Xiao*—close to her heart, tears finally breaking free and tracing clean paths through the sweat on her cheeks. She looked down at the tiny, alert face. Those mist-grey eyes were still open, staring up at her.
"Oh, my little Luna," Li Hua whispered, using the tender name she would only dare speak in the deepest secrecy. "What world have I brought you into?"
But as she wept, another instinct, fiercer than fear, began to stir. Yan Mo saw a useless daughter. Li Hua saw her child. And in a castle of blades, a mother's love could become a different kind of steel. She remembered fragments of her own childhood, before she was given to Yan Mo—whispers of basic breathing techniques, stances meant for health, not war. Knowledge her scholarly father had called "the people's cultivation," useless for true combat, but a foundation.
As Lin Xiao's tiny hand curled instinctively around her mother's finger, Li Hua made a silent vow. She would not let her daughter be merely weak. If the world of the Midnight Blade demanded strength to survive, she would give her the only strength she could—a hidden one. She would plant a seed in the dark, barren soil of this castle, and pray it grew thorns