All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Cessy read the preserved ownership mark and refused to soften its meaning as she said through the warded mirror, "The Underworld calls this a birth claim," while tracing black grammar around the child’s frequency.

Cessy continued, "Returning her below would preserve her life, but the claim would remain attached to whichever court received her."

Lucan stood behind Cessy with one hand near the boundary controls while his expression revealed nothing and she continued beyond the answer their superiors would approve.

"Could the Underworld treat the extraction damage?" Vella asked, keeping the child’s copied circulation visible.

"Specialists could stabilize it," Cessy replied, "they would also register her blood, assign a throne, and evaluate which royal house owns the recovery cost."

Didi’s silver-gold Shards turned once behind her as she asked, "What if she rejects every house?"

"A child under an active birth claim has no recognized standing to reject assignment," Cessy said, meeting her eyes through the mirror, "an adult could contest after proving lineage strength, assuming the assigned court permitted the hearing."

The answer tightened something cold beneath Hajin’s ribs, because survival under that law meant remaining alive until the claimant decided what her life served.

Cessy displayed three Underworld precedents, each written as preservation law, as Aria recorded the result. One child had been assigned to a military court after recovery, and another entered a marriage compact at maturity.

The third disappeared from public record after a disputed lineage test. The documents called every outcome stable because each child remained useful to a recognized court.

None of the documents asked what the protected children wanted before their blood became useful, and Cessy said, "These are considered successful rescues," while allowing the official language to condemn itself.

"What happens if we remove the mark and leave her unclaimed?" Hajin asked, keeping his voice low.

Cessy’s gaze shifted toward the sealed route as she warned, "A damaged core produces a boundary scent, so Royal Collectors will follow it after your interference with Didi’s blood, and the first Collector may ignore which throne requested her."

Lucan finally spoke from behind her and said in an official tone that could survive later review, "This disclosure exceeds the requested technical answer, but the risk assessment is accurate."

Cessy glanced backward, recognizing the protection hidden inside his phrasing. Eirwen stood beside the table without her court staff, and twelve Shards remained quiet while she examined the child’s copied rhythm.

"The Alder Court could offer treaty sanctuary," Eirwen said, "our oldest form would place her under living-soil protection and deny extradition without a full council hearing."

"Could she understand that treaty before signing?" Hajin asked.

Eirwen did not evade the weakness in her own solution and explained, "No, a guardian would sign until her maturity, and the Court would call that protection while the guardian and council decided where she lived."

"Then the cage would have trees," Hajin said, "the lock would still belong to a throne she never chose."

Didi watched him and said, "The Fragment’s Sanctuary will connect her to you."

"A reversible refuge is acceptable only if it remains reversible," he replied, opening the incomplete description, "it creates no summon contract, service, permanent bloodline, or claim over her name."

Aria highlighted the distinction within the locked function, where Protected Bloodline Kin could shelter a compatible endangered core while Permanent Bloodline Integration remained a separate unavailable line.

The first state preserved an exit once the protected person could safely choose. It did not grant Hajin command authority, summon ownership, or the right to define her future.

"We verify every word on the final panel," he said, "if the skill demands ownership, we do not use it."

Eirwen requested that the same refusal enter the treaty record. Didi added her seal, and Vella signed as the intended healer rather than property attached to Hajin’s household.

The sisters could not yet write their names, so they pressed separate claw marks beside Ferra’s labels while the ink dried.

The sisters sat near the chamber map with their new Wings closed. They had listened through the contracts even when human vocabulary failed, and Rumi pointed toward the Underworld mark before pointing toward herself.

"Road there easy?" Rumi asked Cessy.

"Easier than dismantling the prison," Cessy replied.

Nari’s tail curled around her own ankle as she asked, "Easy road closes?"

"It closes around her," Cessy said after a pause.

Rumi looked toward Hajin and said, "Then hunt stays."

Nari touched her sister’s shoulder and said, "We choose stay."

Their contracts carried no compulsion from Hajin, and the sisters understood that their obvious spatial solution would not work, yet they remained because the trapped child had drawn their walking fingers in dust.

Didi asked Cessy for the ownership command’s exact grammar while Cessy supplied each response phrase, including the retaliation clause that would strike whoever used recognized royal blood to deny collection.

Lucan recorded the exchange as an analysis of Dominion contamination rather than an unauthorized Underworld disclosure. The wording protected the record, but it could not make the danger theoretical.

"The claim requires a protected subject and an accepting bearer," Didi said, testing the sentence without blood, "I name her without title, reject collection, then accept the authority’s answer through my Shards."

"The original claimant may open a boundary key through that answer," Cessy warned, "you should expect more than pain, and the response may distinguish your blood from the prison’s command."

"Gazel expected pain when he stood in front of me," Didi replied, keeping grief from changing her grammar, "I can at least stand in front of somebody else knowingly."

Cessy rehearsed the response with her until Didi could distinguish retaliation from transfer. The wrong final verb would redirect the rejected claim into Didi’s royal blood, creating a new ownership dispute instead of freeing the child.

Didi repeated the safer grammar without shortening it, even when every practice line made her Shards ache. Vella recorded the strain, because pain could warn them without becoming a reason to ignore the line.

The mirror dimmed after Lucan warned that further contact risked audit as Cessy touched two fingers against the boundary before withdrawing.

"Do not let another throne name the rescue for her," Cessy said, "that is how claims survive while changing uniforms."

Hajin closed the connection and assigned no loyalty where Cessy had offered only dangerous truth. The Underworld had supplied a route, but the route ended inside another system of ownership.

Eirwen remained after the others carried their plans toward the orchard. She followed Hajin into the empty gallery where damaged palace windows overlooked recovering districts.

"Most rulers accept authority when it makes difficult protection easier," Eirwen said, stopping beside the cracked stone, "you rejected two courts that could have made the child politically safe."

"Politically safe for whom?" Hajin asked, watching repair crews strengthen an ordinary bridge below, "the child’s life is not my problem to own, and fear does not make her consent transferable."

Eirwen’s expression changed without losing its mature composure as the interest she had admitted after Ring Five deepened into something more personal, though she did not burden the coming rescue with a declaration.

"Then protect the space in which she may someday answer," she said, "I will witness that your Sanctuary remains what you claim."

"And if it does not?" Hajin asked, keeping his voice quiet.

"I will stand with Didi and refuse yours as well," Eirwen replied.

Hajin accepted the promise because it did not ask him to trust power without oversight, then warned, "You may lose standing with your Court for opposing its treaty claim."

"My standing serves the judgments I believe," Eirwen said, turning toward the orchard route, "otherwise twelve Shards would only avoid responsibility."

Below the gallery, Rumi and Nari practiced opening, then closing only the marked retreat Ferra had verified. Didi repeated the Underworld grammar until every word preserved the child’s personhood.

Vella prepared to sustain a body she could not heal normally without crossing the protected line, and no throne received the girl by default.

The rescue would create room for her future choice or stop before replacing one ownership claim with another. Hajin looked toward the orchard map, where the verified basin waited as an empty destination that belonged to nobody.

That destination was not a promise of safety, only a place where the team could pause without handing the child to a throne, while the distinction remained written beside the Sanctuary conditions and the treaty witness marks.

Didi carried the grammar back toward the prison, repeating each clause until the retaliation and the refusal stayed separate in her mind, even when the Shards answered with pain.