"What cursed thing did you bring into my house?" Li Jing's blade slashed the air. "Father—" Yin Madam stepped between him and the birthing pallet. She smelled of sweat and sea salt. "It is our child." "Child?" Li Jing spat. "That light—this noise—look at it!" "We need the whisper-paper, now!" the senior midwife barked. Her hands trembled as she tore a strip from her robe and read a blessing. She kept one eye on the window where red light still smeared the sky. "Bring the brazier," another woman said. "If it is a demon, we burn the mark and spare the house." "Do you hear yourselves?" Li Jing's blade hovered over the pallet. "You would burn my roof to the ground for a rumor?" "Your honor," the midwife said, refusing to meet his eyes. "The mark—" "Show me the mark," Li Jing snapped. A hand lifted the swaddled thing. The infant's skin was milk-bright. A curl of hair lay on its forehead. There, faint and red as a pressed flower, was a lotus mark. "Devil's bloom," murmured a junior servant. The infant opened its mouth and made a sound like a hiccup. The midwife recoiled. Yin Madam's voice cracked. "Please—name her—" "She cannot speak," the senior midwife said, disbelief in every syllable. The infant's eyes snapped open. They were dark and intent. It reached, tiny fingers splaying, and its mouth shaped a sound clear enough to freeze the chamber