The night was quiet, save for the low rustling of wisteria vines brushing against the western wing's windows. A full moon hung low, tinged faintly crimson.
Ming Yue stood before an arched mahogany door at the far end of a corridor few servants passed through anymore. Dust motes hung like memories, and the carved lintel bore an inscription in Old Tongue she didn't recognize.
"Zhang Jia," she had asked earlier, "what's behind this door?"
The caretaker hesitated, then offered only: "Storage."
But storage didn't feel this sacred.
The lock gave way with an elegant flick of Ming Yue's fingers—bloodline passage had its perks. Inside, lanterns flickered to life, drawn to her aura.
Scrolls.
Pedestals.
And a faded tapestry, coiled beneath glass—depicting beasts she didn't recognize.
She approached one scroll, its casing lined with jet-black threads instead of gold. Her fingers tingled before she touched it. The title, etched in obsidian ink:
The Fifth Bloodline.
Confusion clutched her ribs.
Fifth? There were only four—Phoenix, Dragon, Tiger, Qilin.
She opened the scroll slowly.
It did not read like scripture.
It read like warning.
They were born of shadow. The ones who claimed no element, but devoured them all.
Born not from mercy, but from imbalance.
The Demon Line is not lineage—it is breach.
Once, they were sealed by beasts and ancestors alike. But seals can sleep. And shadows... stir.
Ming Yue felt cold creep into her spine.
She closed the scroll.
But as she turned to leave, her eye caught a faded journal bound in red string.
Inside: sketches of family crests.
One resembled a mirror image of the Qi emblem—but twisted. Reversed. A crescent moon fractured by black lightning.
Beneath it, a note in hasty scrawl:
Lu has been quiet since the girl returned.
Her breath stopped.
Lu. Old Lu. The servant with hollow eyes.
Outside the chamber, footsteps echoed—soft, slow.
Too slow.
Ming Yue remained silent, heart echoing like a war drum.
Whoever passed didn't stop.
But didn't leave either.
They lingered.
Some truths are carved in silence. And some names, once erased… try to remember themselves.
She was reborn in flame. But something nearby was reborn in shadow.