The Hall of Welcome hums with the finished blueprint, low and steady. Sable lifts the last clay brace from Soul-Cutter, and the blade answers with a bright void-lit sheen.

The ledger’s silver-white memory light dips at once, drawn straight toward the sword like a needle to a lodestone. The match is exact, too exact.

The room tightens. The hum under the floor becomes a signal, not a settling. Kynes feels the old tracking mark in his palm answer the same pulse.

Nezznar steps back in alarm as the ledger light pours into Soul-Cutter, turning the blade into a beacon for the Reeve's office. The hidden trap reveals itself, built into the very harmony they thought they had won.

The resonance does not merely bounce off the steel. It pulses from the very core of the blade, where the void-tether was fused into the metal, confirming the sword itself is the anchor point for the Reeve's signal.

Kynes lays two fingers to the hilt and traces the buried seam with a thread of light. The mark answers at once, not with force, but with a neat, ugly script buried under the blade’s calm pulse.

The tether is not a crack in the metal. It is a legal hook, knotted through the blade’s void-work and tied back to the Reeve’s ledger by name and claim.

The revelation comes clean, but it costs him. The crimson pulse snaps through Kynes’s fingertips, leaving his palm numb and smoking with cold pain.

Above the table, the ledger’s silver light brightens in answer, as if it has just recognized the blade by scent. Soul-Cutter’s glow steadies, but now it steadies like a lantern under inspection.

Sable stands motionless, their brass fingers still resting near the blade, showing no sign of deceit or hidden intent. The construct's internal resonance remains clear and untainted by the Reeve's administrative script.

Sable turns their brass palms over, watching the faint, lingering void-light dance across their fingertips with a look of genuine, unburdened peace.

Kynes reaches out, his fingers brushing the hilt of the Soul-Cutter, and the metal hums with a familiar, jagged rhythm that matches the scar on his palm. The tether was never a recent addition, but a foundational script woven into the blade's very core since its forging.

Kynes leaves Hall of Welcome behind and arrives at Reeve's office.

The Reeve's office greets Kynes in a wash of cold lamplight and shadow, the portal behind him breathing like a wound. The Soul-Cutter rests in his grip, its steady crimson flicker now threading through the room's dark aura.

He lifts the blade just enough to catch the light. The hilt answers with a low, ugly hum, and the echo finds the pulse in his palm immediately.

Across the office, ledgers, seals, and waxen tags shiver on their shelves as if something has recognized its own name. The open portal glows wider for a breath, then steadies.

Kynes settles his stance and keeps the sword level, testing the reaction. The crimson flicker does not spread, it locks, precise and deliberate, toward the room's records.

The shadow aura tightens around the desk and file stacks, and the blade gives one clean, answering pulse, as if confirming the office has already found him.

Kynes drives the Soul-Cutter straight through the desk wood. The blade bites deep, and the room flinches with it.

He speaks in demon tongue, low and hard, and the hilt drinks the words like blood. The crimson flicker tightens into a hard line.

A black seam of script crawls from the blade into the desk, then sinks into the grain. The records on the shelves stop shivering and go still.

Then the tether turns. Not outward, but waiting, coiled on the sword like a hook with a name on it.

The binding lands cleanly, but the backlash scorches Kynes’s palm with cold fire. The office gives one soft, answering pulse, as if something aboveground has already tasted the new mark.