The King opened the direct-line blood register after Didi returned to the archive table. Gazel’s service case remained sealed beside her, while both royal recorders placed fresh receipt ribbons around the older lineage volume.
Hajin stood beside the open commission seal without reopening the private Stream. His right arm remained under Vella’s wrap, leaving Divine Eye available through careful examination while Phase Lock stayed outside the day’s safe options.
The register separated Shard development from royal resonance across every living descendant. Ordinary mana capacity occupied one column, while a narrower sealed line recorded whether sovereign blood produced an active channel, weak authorization, or no measurable response.
"Shard count does not establish this inheritance," the King said, opening the page beneath his children’s birth marks, "the channel can remain dormant inside someone whose ordinary mana continues developing separately."
Didi’s entry carried three ordinary Shards plus an active Sovereign channel held beneath dormant restrictions. Its early examinations matched the destabilizations that had repeatedly weakened Gazel’s protection oath throughout her childhood.
{Royal descendant: Princess Didi.}
{Ordinary mana development: three Shards.}
{Sovereign channel: active / dormant expression.}
{Stable personal Brand circulation: unformed.}
{Blood authorization within Crown wards: full direct descendant.}
The First Prince’s entry occupied the facing page beneath an earlier birth seal. His ordinary Shards had developed without producing the active Sovereign channel identified inside Didi, leaving only a weak royal trace accepted by palace infrastructure.
{Royal descendant: First Prince.}
{Ordinary mana development: recorded separately.}
{Sovereign channel: inactive / insufficient for awakening rite.}
{Royal authorization trace: weak but valid.}
{Blood authorization within Crown wards: full direct descendant.}
Didi studied both pages without treating the channel as a measure of personal worth. The difference granted her no office automatically, yet her brother’s weaker trace still opened every direct-blood passage inherited by their family.
"He could enter the foundation because the palace recognized descent," Hajin said, following the weak trace through the ward diagram, "the same record refused him the current he believed should accompany it."
The King opened a chained petition section beneath the First Prince’s page. Its earliest request sought access to restricted awakening rites years before Sera Noll or any other missing worker disappeared from the palace rolls.
The royal examiner denied that request because the rite required an active channel to stabilize its return. Forcing the process through a weak trace risked core damage without creating the inheritance absent from his circulation.
{First request: access to Sovereign awakening rite.}
{Decision: denied by royal examiner.}
{Reason: no active channel available for stable return.}
{Known servant disappearances at request date: none.}
A second petition asked whether a protection oath could reverse its direction and supply the heir instead of a sworn guard. The answer rejected that construction because Gazel’s route borrowed from an existing source rather than manufacturing one.
The First Prince appealed through the succession council after the second denial. He argued that an inheritance favoring his younger sister threatened orderly succession, although neither blood record had changed his legal position inside the royal family.
"He believed this page made him lesser before any council ruled upon the throne," Didi said, keeping her hand away from the active-channel mark, "did he ever state what he intended to do after you refused him?"
"He stated that the Crown had hidden a rite capable of correcting an accident of birth," the King replied, turning toward the later petitions, "I treated that language as resentment seeking leverage inside succession procedure."
Repeated requests moved from awakening rites toward old royal interfaces, oath-current histories, plus methods for preserving a core during forced circulation. Each denial preceded the first verified disappearance, while the final requests approached the same subjects found inside his withdrawn treatise.
The Treatise on Demonic-Core Separation and Vessel Survival left the western index nine months before Sera vanished. Its withdrawal followed the petition sequence, carrying his personal blood impression plus no approved research purpose outside succession study.
{Awakening petitions: repeated before known disappearances.}
{Later research subjects: oath direction / royal interfaces / forced circulation / core preservation.}
{Demonic-core treatise withdrawal: nine months before first verified disappearance.}
Hajin kept the final evidentiary limitation visible beside the complete petition timing. A denied request demonstrated motive plus direction, although it did not prove the Prince later abducted anyone or performed the procedures he had asked to study.
The stronger chain came from evidence gathered afterward: eight erased workers, hidden treatment cycles, demonic child blood, incarnation sockets, maintenance routes, plus a living blood command closing the concealed corridor.
"The petitions explain what he wanted before the laboratory existed," Hajin said, placing each later finding beneath its separate receipt, "his choices after denial establish what he built to pursue it."
Didi copied the first request date beside Sera’s final shift without reducing the missing woman into the Prince’s motive. Every vanished worker remained a person whose route required proof, regardless of which inheritance had fed his resentment.
The King turned toward the succession review attached to his son’s third petition. His own decision described the Prince as politically aggrieved, ambitious, plus unlikely to endanger Crown stability while his legal position remained protected.
That judgment kept the petitions inside family procedure instead of sending them to the ward office, royal infirmary, or palace maintenance auditors. No investigator compared his research terms against the scattered purchases later feeding the western incarnation node.
"I believed he wanted the recognition he thought Didi’s channel stole from him," the King said, keeping his seal beside the failed assessment, "I treated resentment as a succession problem and never investigated what he might build beneath it."
Both royal recorders entered the admission without altering the earlier succession decision page. The King’s original conclusion remained visible beside the hidden laboratory his son’s weak authorization trace had allowed him to conceal.
"You knew he was searching for a way to force the inheritance," Didi said, facing her father across both blood entries, "you protected the family from scandal while his household gained years to make people disappear."
"I knew his requests plus resentment," he replied, leaving no claim that he had predicted the child or avatar, "I failed to connect them with the service routes under his authority when the first warning appeared."
His failure did not compel the First Prince to borrow the demonic treatise, redirect palace materials, or sustain repeated extraction inside a hidden room. Each later action carried separate authorization beneath a man still choosing what to do with denial.
It did explain why early warnings remained divided among offices unable to see their shared source. The King had classified the motive as private family tension, allowing lawful blood access to hide the means while servants carried the cost.
{Commission finding: unequal Sovereign inheritance established.}
{First Prince motive before disappearances: forced access to active royal channel.}
{King’s prior classification: succession resentment.}
{Failure admitted: no cross-office investigation before hidden construction advanced.}
{First Prince responsibility for later choices: unchanged.}
Didi requested certified copies of both blood entries plus every petition date. She left the originals inside royal custody, preventing anger from becoming another reason to break evidence rules she had demanded from everyone else.
Her own active-channel diagram remained beside the complete prayer record after the copies received their seals. Silver touched the edge of her frost for one instant before she closed her fingers around the paper.
"Gazel followed a route designed for someone without this channel," she said, looking toward the warded training-hall register, "I need to know what happens when the actual source completes the prayer."
Hajin kept Gazel’s documented soul-combustion warning clearly visible above Didi’s copied channel diagram. Didi had found the inheritance her brother lacked, but possessing its source did not prove that forcing his borrowed method would leave her unharmed.