The First Prince spoke through the prison wall before showing his face. His voice entered the blood-authorized channel without crossing the child’s soul membrane.
"You have spent two days frightening my patient with incompetent tests," he said, "step away before your concern destroys the only successful subject."
Didi rose beside the nullstone opening, with four walls surrounding one frightened child between her and her brother, and said, "A patient can leave treatment, but your walls kill her if she moves."
The Prince replied as a concealed gallery opened above the chamber, "She would have died years ago without those walls, and you confuse continued life with evidence against its architect."
He emerged behind royal glass in plain white robes beneath a thin ceremonial breastplate. His weak royal trace wavered at both wrists and almost disappeared beside Didi’s three complete Shards.
Two palace guards accompanied him without meeting anyone’s eyes. Their circulation threaded through the gallery controls, with thin lines visible at their throats and wrists.
Hajin used Divine Eye before the Prince reached the floor, and the man’s blood signature carried the stolen foundation key alongside a film of Dominion authority, yet no independent avatar occupied him.
He remained a mortal collaborator protected by royal mechanisms, and Hajin pointed to the threads at the guards’ throats as he said, "Release them from the control line, then explain why three earlier subjects died under your signed orders."
The Prince looked toward the preservation cases visible through the breached corridor and said, "They proved which pressures a demonic core could not survive, and this one survives because I corrected their failures."
Didi lifted the first victim’s record and asked, "Her name was removed and replaced with a number, so did that correction strengthen your results, or did it make the death easier to file?"
"Names create sentimental interference in longitudinal work," the Prince said without hesitation, "you should understand the cost of royal necessity better than these foreigners."
The child heard his voice and folded inward before both hands covered her hair, which showed the response had existed long before Hajin arrived.
Rumi crouched near the outer opening with her ears flattened. Nari positioned herself between the gallery and her sister, despite the glass preventing any immediate attack.
"She fears you before she fears the needles," Hajin said, keeping his anger outside the hybrid pathways, "that is not survival you can claim credit for."
"She fears interruption," the Prince replied, finally studying Hajin, "pain becomes predictable when treatment is consistent, and you will make it meaningless by breaking the structure that preserved her."
Didi placed all three records across the stand, each marked with her brother’s corrections, and said, "You told the tribunal these victims proved an outside conspiracy, but your handwriting says you increased the extraction after each seizure."
The Prince shifted his attention from the records to her Shards and said, "The tribunal listened because your signature remained active," with resentment entering his controlled voice.
"You received protection, military training, and succession fear merely because our blood answered you, but mine remained too weak to command a gate without borrowed authority," the Prince said.
"So you cut cores from children until a gate noticed?" Didi asked, keeping her voice level while frost gathered beneath her nails.
The Prince indicated the foundation and said, "I built strength from materials the Crown wasted, while our father inherited a network capable of ruling forces beyond kingdoms and treated it as a troublesome cellar, so I chose comprehension."
The King’s pressure struck the gallery from above, but the stolen foundation key redirected it through older channels, and cracks crossed the royal glass while the Prince stayed protected behind the node his dynasty misunderstood.
"Open this gallery under my authority," the King said through the strained ward line, "you will answer before the court you claim to strengthen."
"Your court measures inherited pressure and calls it judgment," the Prince replied, addressing the voice without looking upward, "I will answer after the foundation recognizes a ruler capable of commanding it."
The King’s next attempt stopped when the prison needles tightened around the child, and he withdrew before paternal authority could become another weapon through her body.
"You were not denied personhood because your trace was weak," Didi said, stepping closer to the wall, "you were denied a throne you believed should prove your worth."
"Easy words from the daughter everyone feared might inherit one," the Prince said, "even your refusal increased your value, because whenever you fled, the court called you dangerous, while whenever I remained, they called me inadequate."
Hajin recognized the wound without accepting what the Prince had built around it. The man had been measured against blood from childhood, then decided every weaker life could become material for changing the result.
"The court harmed you," Hajin said, holding the Prince’s gaze through the glass, "these three people did not, and the child did not volunteer to prove that your family was wrong."
The Prince looked toward the preserved cases. "Costs do not become crimes merely because the cost has a face."
Vella’s fingers curled against her palms, yet she kept the neutral rhythm so the child could breathe. Ferra continued the prison measurements, denying the Prince even the satisfaction of stopping their work.
"Your patient has never consented," Vella said, keeping her voice quiet for the child, "her body survives despite your extraction, not because separation became care."
"Spirit constructs imitate compassion because their makers require obedience," the Prince replied, "do not lecture a living researcher about mortality."
The Spirit Ring around Hajin’s finger turned cold, and one Ring formed around his forearm as he said, "Vella decides what she says, and you will address her as a person while you remain within hearing range."
The Prince’s guards stepped forward under a command neither had chosen. Didi froze the gallery control line before their weapons cleared their sheaths.
Silver-gold frost stopped at their wrists without touching living blood or altering the agreed sequence. One guard managed to release his sword before the control returned.
The weapon struck the gallery floor, and his frightened eyes fixed on Didi with silent gratitude. Hajin recorded the resistance beside the Prince’s confession so the proof showed that obedience inside the laboratory did not establish consent.
The second guard fought until he turned his blade away from Vella, and Didi extended the frozen interval by one breath so both men could step outside their assigned attack positions.
"Release them," Didi said, her Shards casting long reflections across the glass, "or I remove your authorization one sentence at a time."
Once the stolen key pulsed, it drew the guards through a rear seam before her frost could advance while the Prince remained for one final moment as deeper machinery answered him beneath the chamber.
"You still think this is about permission," he said, watching the child hide, "when the foundation opens, every throne will understand what I became."
After the gallery folded closed, his blood signature passed beyond Divine Eye’s immediate range, and Didi did not strike the empty wall.
She collected the three records and sealed his spoken confession beside them, while Hajin tracked the fading foundation route and said, "He wants recognition more than escape, which makes the child proof he will move before abandoning her."
Inside the prison, another needle cycle began. The Prince had left the shadows, and the life he called his achievement trembled at the sound of his departure.
Vella resumed the breathing match without letting anger alter the treatment rhythm. Rumi and Nari stayed visible at the opening, while Didi kept the confession under her own seal.
"We continue the test only when she can see the choice," Hajin said, turning back to the copied frame, "his arrival changed the urgency, not the order in which we protect her."
Didi placed the confession beside the maintenance dates and kept both beneath her independent seal. The evidence now showed the pattern clearly, with the Prince’s motive and authority.
It recorded the guards he controlled and the living subject he still called a success.
Vella watched the child’s breathing settle after the gallery closed as the next needle pulse arrived on schedule.
The girl did not fold as far inward because the people outside the prison had stopped treating her fear as an obstacle to overcome.