Cessy stayed behind the Chain while Lucan held their narrow retreat seam against the casement's returning ward.
"The First Prince built a damn matrix around that kid's core, and the sample twitches whenever the containment shifts, so what's underneath it?" Hajin scratched the ownership notation beside the sealed vial.
She lowered her hands toward the diagram without crossing the custody line beneath his link.
"A claim older than his apparatus."
Her tail curled once as she tapped the empty owner entry, "Minor demons receive the brand before they learn language, and the cycle carries it through every incarnation after."
"Whose claim?"
"The Underworld King's," she replied, resting her fingertip on the permitted margin, "a household gets custody, an officer gets enforcement, and the throne claims the cycle itself."
'A kid branded before it can talk, and three tiers of bastards lining up to hold the rope.'
