Cessy kept her gaze fixed upon the sealed evidence case while Lucan checked the structural wards near the casement.
Eirwen raised her drawn bow again, ensuring the arrow tip shadowed whichever demonic operative drifted toward the desk.
"You asked whether anyone below this palace claimed her as property," Hajin stated, drawing a single chain link across the table.
"The First Prince constructed an artificial matrix around her core... and the fluid answers whenever that containment shifts."
"Then your imperial prince discovered an ancestral claim far older than his surgical experiments," Cessy replied quietly.
"Minor demons receive an ownership brand before they learn language, and the cycle binds that mark across subsequent incarnations."
"Explain who commands the mark beneath that cycle," he demanded, observing the grim set of her jaw.
"The Underworld King claims the metaphysical cycle itself," she answered, clasping her hands loosely before her scarlet skirt.
