The sealed hearing chamber held two royal chairs beneath the King’s raised position. Didi occupied the left one with her ice-flower ledger, while the First Prince’s chair remained empty beneath a folded illness notice.
Hajin stood behind the territorial evidence line beside Ferra’s divided cradle inside the sealed chamber. Juna held the aperture witness record farther back, leaving every Ring closed while two royal recorders checked the chamber seals.
Three councilors shared the inner table: one from succession review, one from the royal archive, and one assigned to household procedure. The same offices had challenged Didi’s place in Hajin’s postwar review after she released his Sun Emperor Core.
The King entered without a herald, carrying enough restrained weight to quiet every chair before he sat. His twenty Shards remained hidden, although Divine Eye still refused to measure the complete pressure behind his ordinary breathing.
"Record the absence first," he said, indicating his son’s empty chair, "who submitted the notice, and who verified it?"
The household councilor opened the folded page beneath two glass weights before both waiting royal recorders. Its writing claimed sudden mana fever before dawn, private confinement, plus medical advice against entering a sealed room.
{First Prince hearing attendance: excused by acute mana fever.}
{Named attending healer: Master Orel, Royal Infirmary.}
{Submitted through: First Prince’s household office.}
Didi placed a second statement beside it without moving the illness page. Master Orel’s live treatment seal crossed both the current date plus his denial.
{I did not examine the First Prince, diagnose mana fever, recommend confinement, or authorize the treatment-seal impression copied upon his notice.}
The recorder aligned both blue marks beneath verification light beside the King’s central evidence table. Orel’s statement produced a changing hour line, while the illness notice held a flat archive impression copied from an older medical filing.
{Illness verification: false.}
{First Prince location: unconfirmed.}
The King did not excuse the empty chair or close attendance after reading the verified result. He ordered two record guards to verify his son’s listed rooms, then kept the false notice inside the active hearing file.
"His absence limits what can be judged against him," he said, looking toward Didi, "it does not prevent us from examining what he used to avoid this room."
Ferra opened one exterior shutter upon the socket cradle when the King reached Hajin’s evidence. Five disconnected ceramic surfaces remained around the intact component, exposing one narrow section without completing its old orbit.
The King raised one hand toward the hidden angle before she rotated the cradle farther.
"Keep the narrow refusal face downward," he said, following an empty curve hidden from everyone outside Ferra’s angle, "that seating direction belongs against foundation stone."
Ferra stopped without obeying blindly, then checked his instruction through two suspended gauges. The passive geometry did settle toward the cradle floor when she confirmed the orientation.
"The quarry report did not include its seating direction," Hajin said, watching the King’s attention remain upon the missing surface, "where did you see the same construction?"
"In sealed surveys beneath the central palace foundation," the King replied, leaving both hands visible above the table, "the geometry existed before my architects, my father, or this dynasty."
"Who built it?" he asked, keeping the capital bearing beside the cradle, "the Gold Mountain trace ends beneath this palace."
"The foundation predates my line," he said, meeting Hajin’s stare without offering another throne’s certainty, "that is what the surviving royal record proves. I will not give an unknown mason a convenient divine name."
Aria separated his recognition from the questions he refused to answer inside Divine Eye. The socket bearing pointed toward the central foundation, while Didi’s missing-worker routes ended beneath the western wing beyond that central block.
No current evidence proved both endpoints shared one chamber or any common connecting route. Their presence inside the same palace created a supported connection for investigation, not permission to collapse them into one claim.
Didi opened her ledger after Ferra resealed the shutter and faced her brother’s empty chair. Eight names occupied the first page before any diagram, office seal, or accusation appeared beneath them.
She read Sera Noll, Lorin Bale, Mera Doss, Perrin Holt, Avra Sen, Tollin Vey, Edda Pell, plus Kel Oris into the sealed record. The royal recorders repeated every name into the hearing ledger before accepting the next page.
Original duty marks showed each worker entering temporary service beneath separate signed assignment orders. Replacement rolls claimed departure, although no matching gate exit, release wage, household carriage, or lodging change existed for anyone upon the list.
Didi entered the blood-soaked child bandages under Sera’s disposal-cart chain without naming their wearer. She then displayed the four documented routes converging around a foundation block beneath the western palace wing.
The succession councilor objected before asking where any worker had gone or verifying one claimed departure.
"Princess Didi is a royal heir investigating the office of another heir," he said, pressing one finger against her seal, "her personal interest contaminates every selection she made from these records."
The archive councilor followed by attacking the borrowed academy room instead of identifying any missing source book. He argued that combining service copies outside their original offices created an unauthorized composite record, even though every source page retained its receipt plus ice-flower seal.
The household councilor invoked royal treatment privacy around the infirmary transfers beneath the western palace wing. She requested the entire western-wing map be excluded because Didi lacked authority to reconstruct destinations hidden by blood-household service rules.
Hajin watched all three objections enter the record without one councilor challenging a name, gate page, false departure, missing furnace count, or the bandages beneath Sera’s cart.
"Which worker do you believe left through an unrecorded gate?" he asked, looking across the inner table, "name the departure your procedure explains."
The succession councilor returned to Didi’s conflict instead of choosing a worker. The archive councilor requested original books already secured by the royal examiner, while the household councilor repeated that a hidden destination could remain lawful.
"Lawful privacy still requires living staff to return, transfer, or leave," Didi said, keeping both hands beside her ledger, "none of these eight did so anywhere the palace records admit."
The King let the final procedural objection finish before touching the names upon the first page.
"Procedure decides what force this hearing may authorize," he said, turning the ledger toward the councilors, "it does not make eight people disappear because their copies are inconvenient."
He admitted Didi’s ledger as investigative evidence rather than a finding of guilt. The distinction preserved every objection while preventing any office from closing the inquiry before the missing exits plus false notice were answered.
{Missing-worker inquiry: remains open.}
{Western-wing convergence: admitted for limited route verification.}
{Finding against the First Prince: none issued before response and location verification.}
One guard returned without the second, reporting that the First Prince’s public rooms were empty and his household secretary had presented another sealed privacy order. The King attached that refusal behind the false illness notice as a fresh obstruction entry.
"My son will answer when he is found," he said, closing the attendance section, "until then, we examine the other court claiming that his absence concerns more than this family."
The chamber doors opened to admit Eirwen plus her sealed silverwood case beneath the waiting recorder marks. Her unaccepted treaty strip waited upon the final evidence recess while the empty royal chair remained beside Didi.