The Knife in the Dark

The moon hung above Glory City like a silver seal.
Cold. Remote. Watching.

Its pale witness fell over the training grounds, across stone columns and wind-bent grass. The night was deep, but not empty — it breathed. Shadows clung not just as absence of light, but as presence. Ancient things woven into the world, remembering what the day chose to forget.

And through them, Nie Li walked like a man condemned.

His robes fluttered loosely — too formal for what he was about to do, too thin for the night’s chill. He held the scroll against his ribs like contraband, sealed in oilskin, marked with the shape he had sworn never to draw.

The Second Seal.
Not spell.
Not map.
Scar.

Six points, one center.
Six tribes, a promise of a seventh.

Even with his eyes shut, it pulsed behind his thoughts.

Nie Li walked with clenched fists. His jaw tight with the absurdity of what he was about to do.

“Perfect,” he muttered under his breath. “Absolutely perfect. Spend an entire day searching the markets for an obsidian knife — nothing. Not one. Just walk empty-handed to the Winged Dragon family’s pride, the most brilliant and cultivation-obsessed girl in the institute, and ask her to abandon everything.”

He barked a hollow laugh.
“Patriarch? Father of tribes? And here I am, about to beg a girl for a knife I can’t even find.”

The scroll pressed heavier against his ribs.

The Voice stirred.
Not loud. Not thunder.
But close. Like the wind had chosen to speak.

“You still speak as though strength saves.
Trust Kairos.
Trust Me.”

Nie Li flinched. Not from fear — from recognition.

Kairos.

Not mere time. Not chronology.

But the hinge — where eternity split open the world like a wound, and grace walked through.

The moment when the hour and the holy align.

He swallowed. “This is madness.”

And yet he kept walking.
Because somewhere in the shadows, Xiao Ning’er was waiting — brilliant, broken, and bleeding out her strength with every breath.

And he carried something she needed.
Even if it cost them both the world.

She was there.

A single figure kneeling on the far platform, nearly invisible in the moonlight. Legs folded, spine rigid, shoulders trembling.

Her skin, usually bright with vitality, was pale under the silver seal of the moon. Her brow glistened with sweat. Her aura flickered — not steady flame, but candle guttering in wind.

Nie Li felt it at once.
“She’s still cultivating. And it’s killing her.”

The Voice’s words from the library echoed in him: She was born bearing the ache of the First Seal. Cultivation deepened the wound. He could almost feel it now, bleeding from her spirit — every cycle she forced through her soul-gate was tearing it further apart.

He stepped closer. Quiet.
A pebble shifted under his foot.

Steel hissed.

Xiao Ning’er had risen in an instant. From her side she drew a knife from its scabbard — obsidian edge drinking the moonlight, swallowing it whole.

“Who’s there?” Her voice cut the silence like steel. Steady. Fierce. But her hand trembled with exhaustion.

Nie Li froze.
“It’s me,” he said softly. “Nie Li.”

She didn’t lower the blade. Her chest rose and fell fast, but her grip stayed firm.
“What are you doing here?”

Nie Li raised his hands, not in fear — in respect.
“I came to find you. I… need a favor.”

Her eyes narrowed.
“A favor?”

He nodded. Slowly. Then pointed to the knife in her hand.
“Where did you get that?”

Suspicion deepened. “Why?”

“Because I searched the city all day for one like it. And failed.”

She looked at the knife, then back at him.
“It’s a family heirloom. My grandmother gave it to me. Said it belonged to our line before the Winged Dragon family rose to power. She said it came from… a time before.”

“The Hei Jin Kingdom?” Nie Li asked quietly.

That stopped her.
Her eyes sharpened.

Her grip tightened. For an instant, he thought she might strike first and ask later. The blade tilted, black edge swallowing moonlight, steady at his chest.

“How do you know that name?”

Nie Li stepped closer. His gaze was not on her. It was on the blade.
“That knife isn’t forged for battle,” he said. “Obsidian was sacred to the Sealed. It was used in their rituals — not wounds of death, but marks of refusal. Tools of remembrance.”

She stared at him, lips parting. Then she whispered:
“When the blade was passed down, there was a scroll. Strange writing. I never understood it.”

Nie Li’s breath caught.
“Hei Jin script?”

“I think so.”

“I can read it,” he said without hesitation.

Xiao Ning’er crossed her arms, knife still in hand. Her voice cooled.
“And you expect me to believe a commoner knows a dead royal tongue?”

Nie Li smiled — tight, weary.
“I don’t expect you to believe. I just want to see the text.”

A pause. Her eyes searched his.

Then, slowly, she slid the knife back into its sheath.
“Tomorrow. After class. In the library. I’ll bring it.”

Her voice lowered, sharp as the blade itself.
“But if you’re lying… or trying anything foolish… you’ll regret it.”

He bowed his head slightly.
“Thank you.”

For a moment she lingered, her gaze steady as stone.
Then:
“What were you really doing out here, Nie Li?”

His breath hitched. He almost laughed.
What was he supposed to say?

I came to ask you to carve a forbidden Seal into my spine. To abandon your cultivation path. To join a covenant that will exile you from the entire hierarchy of this world.

No.

Instead, he forced a smile.
“I was looking for truth. And I think I found someone else chasing it.”

The words almost broke into something truer: I came to ask you to carve the scar into my flesh, to bind our fates by a wound older than this city. He bit it back, forcing the safer phrase.

She held his gaze another beat. Then turned.
Her silhouette dissolved into the night.

Nie Li stood alone again.

The moon watched, cold and unblinking.
The shadows leaned, as though they had listened.

And the Voice whispered from the wind:
“The knife is found.
The priestess bears the First Covenant.
And the scar waits for its patriarch.”