The royal carriage turned beyond the upper quarry road before Hajin tested the packet’s extra thickness. Both guards remained visible beside it until the King’s gold seal disappeared behind the retaining bank.
Marrick carried the signed transport amendment toward the mine ledger, but Hajin kept the official hearing cover in his left hand. A narrow ridge pressed beneath its rear fold where no listed attachment should have rested.
"The courier recorded three official pages," Marrick said, checking the delivery count against the closed cover, "anything beneath them traveled outside his receipt."
Ferra moved the socket cradle farther inside the evidence wagon before lowering a ceramic screen around Hajin’s hands. Juna watched the upper road while Hans closed the quarry boundary behind the departing royal escort.
Hajin separated the hearing pages from their stiff cover without disturbing the joined royal seal. A second sheet slid from beneath the stiff backing, folded twice around a pale-blue wax flower whose frozen petals carried Didi’s personal impression.
He had seen that ice-flower seal upon her campaign letter and the Sun Emperor Core release. It carried no Crown archive number, leaving the page protected only by the princess who had hidden it.
The first line used Didi’s precise court hand, although several later strokes cut deeper into the paper.
{Hajin, the hearing order gave me one safe packet, and I used its cover because my ordinary correspondence is being copied before it reaches the western gate.}
{Do not accuse anyone from this page alone. I have records, missing people, and one object that should not exist, but I do not yet have a room or a living witness.}
Hajin placed the personal sheet beside the amendment without allowing either edge to touch Ferra’s cradle. Aria copied its visible writing, then marked every claim as Didi’s report rather than verified regional evidence.
{Palace service rolls have begun losing names after assignment changes. The removed workers came from different offices, so the gaps looked ordinary until I compared the original duty books against their replacement copies.}
{Each change carries a valid service authorization. The final approval belongs to my older brother’s household record chain.}
Didi listed no direct accusation against the First Prince anywhere beneath that careful sentence. Instead, she copied the authorization shapes plus their archive positions, giving Marrick enough information to distinguish a genuine seal from her interpretation of its use.
"Those marks can reassign servants without dismissing them," Marrick said, following the copied entries, "a lawful approval explains movement, but not why the replacement rolls remove their destinations."
The missing entries used ordinary phrases such as night service, archive assistance, private infirmary transfer, and disposal rotation. None of the copied transfers named a receiving room after leaving the public palace schedule.
{I asked the household office where these people went. It produced valid transfer slips, but every destination ended at a sealed internal service route rather than another staffed post.}
{My brother’s secretary says the workers completed temporary assignments and left palace employment. The gate rolls contain no matching departures.}
Hans placed one finger beside the absent exit record without touching Didi’s page. A servant could leave through an unregistered private carriage, although several repeated disappearances required the same omission to survive multiple gate shifts.
"She has a chain of missing records, not proof that her brother took them," he said, keeping his voice beneath the ceramic screen, "the distinction is why she hid the warning instead of issuing an arrest order."
Hajin continued into the lines where Didi’s pen had scored the fibers. The careful spacing narrowed until each sentence occupied less room than the one before it.
{One missing laundry worker was named Sera Noll. Her last duty mark followed a sealed disposal cart from the western washroom toward the furnace intake.}
{The cart never reached the furnace count. I found it returned empty beside an unused linen passage, then opened its false bottom under my personal seal.}
{Inside were bandages soaked through with blood. They were cut and tied for a child.}
Juna turned from the road, fixing her attention upon that final line. Her claws stayed away from the paper while Hajin read Didi’s copied measurements beneath it.
The strips were narrower than ordinary adult wrappings and carried repeated knots designed around small arms, legs, plus a shallow chest. The palace infirmary reported no child patient matching their use, while the royal nursery denied issuing treatment linen.
{Sera hid the bandages beneath discarded uniforms before she disappeared. I believe she wanted someone to find them, but that belief is not evidence of who wore them or who hurt them.}
{The blood was still dark inside the inner layers. A royal examiner secured the cart after I opened it, and Father began a private inquiry before my brother’s office learned which worker I was tracing.}
Aria separated the direct observations from Didi’s inference without extracting an identity from written measurements. No soul signature, demonic residue, system designation, or living connection could be recovered from a letter describing blood.
Ash’s protected registry marker remained unchanged when Hajin checked it. Didi’s unknown child evidence created no response through his designation, the refusal socket, or the gray pathways beneath the cooling wrap.
"This is not Ash," Juna said, reading the inactive registry marker beside him, "and matching the size does not make it the same mystery."
"We keep both records separate," Hajin replied, closing Ash’s marker before returning to Didi’s page, "nobody turns one protected child into evidence against another."
The final section abandoned archive phrasing without losing the limits Didi had placed around every claim.
{Father allowed me to compare the service books because the missing gate departures troubled him. He will close the inquiry if I cannot provide a named victim, a surviving witness, or a location before the sealed council session ends.}
{He believes an open accusation against the heir cannot rest upon altered schedules plus unidentified blood. I understand that limit, but closing the inquiry will return every internal route to the office whose seals already erased the workers.}
{Come to the capital before that happens. Do not come because I have proven my brother guilty; come because I cannot reach the place where proof would be kept.}
Didi’s signature appeared without her title beneath the final request addressed directly to Hajin. Her ice-flower impression crossed the folded edge, proving nobody could reopen the hidden sheet without breaking her personal seal.
Marrick prepared a restricted witness envelope instead of copying the names into the public mine ledger. Hans signed only that he saw the intact personal seal, while Juna witnessed the page returning to Hajin’s custody.
"The hearing already has your answer," Marrick said, closing the envelope around Didi’s original, "this changes how quickly the regional handoff must become ready."
"It does not change who remains protected here," Hajin replied, looking from Ash’s inactive marker toward the socket cradle, "finish the authority schedule before anyone harnesses the capital wagon."
Ferra locked the ceramic screen around the refusal socket while Hans carried the closure ledger toward the command house. Hajin kept Didi’s sealed warning inside his coat, separated from the Crown order that had smuggled it through the quarry gate.
Beyond the retaining bank, the courier carriage continued south without the ruins it had expected to carry. Hajin watched its road line across Divine Eye until both the sealed hearing and Didi’s closing inquiry pointed toward the same palace.