Mira found my parents' recording among the files that had made it through the archive.
Most of it was damaged. In one surviving recording, my father stood beside an early model of the Crown. Two control nodes lay on the table, joined by a single line.
"Predator mode began as a flaw in the safeguards," he said. "If two owners simultaneously claim an exclusive right, the circuit does not compare legitimacy. It counts the bonds they hold."
My mother asked:
"Can one refuse to take part?"
My father ran a test: when one node disconnected, the other immediately received full rights.
"The first owner's refusal counts as defeat."
The next recording began in the middle of an experiment: both nodes were lit, and between them stood a third, free of any seal.
"An independent witness can stop one command by entering the circuit with equal rights," my father said. "There is no more data."
The screen went black.
"Where's the rest?" Leon asked.
Mira checked the ledger.
"The experiments were shut down. Three days later, the laboratory was accused of ties to the Demon Cult."
My parents had left neither a safe way out of the Crown nor a ready command that would defeat it.
Only a personal fragment had survived. My mother held Styx's egg while my father argued with someone the recording had failed to preserve.
"Tell Rex nothing," she said.
"If Kane finds the mode, the boy will remain the seal's sole heir."
"All the more reason not to tell him. If we raise a child to make the right sacrifice, how are we any better than an owner who raises a beast to die the right death?"
The recording cut off.
My parents had not appointed me a saviour. They had not even known whether the Crown could be destroyed and survived. Everything we had taken for a plan was an unfinished experiment by people who had been stopped before they found the answer.
Mira laid out what she had managed to determine.
If we did not enter the circuit, Kane would complete the absorption and take everyone still held by the old seals. If we accepted equal rights, one of his commands could be revoked. After that, the Crown would demand a single owner.
"What if I destroy my own control node from within?" I asked.
"The circuit might lose its claim to the bonded creatures," Mira said. "It might give them to Kane. It might burn both owners."
Styx sat on the edge of the table. All that remained of her former shape were transparent wings and several red spots on her chest.
The System showed the future evolutions again.
We could restore the Queen of Scarlet Wings, raise the swarm and seal the city against new herds. Never again stand with my hands tied before a man who had written the warrant in advance.
All we had to do was win and remain the better master.
"Do you want to go?" I asked Styx.
She stared at the tower for a long time.
"I want him to let go."
"And if that means taking everything for yourself?"
"Then ask me."
It was neither a vow to refuse nor a promise to win the right way. Styx had merely restored the condition she had once already given the city.
While Cole gathered people at the gates, Leon bound the dragon's damaged wing, and Rem dictated the numbers of the surviving documents to Lily. Taya returned to the flooded quarter: the houses had to be reinforced before the assault, because some of the people had no intention of following us.
I did not close the panel of future forms.
It would have been too easy to pretend power no longer tempted me.
I left the offer before my eyes and set off for the tower, knowing it would become more persuasive at the heart of the Crown.
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