Mahir looked at her steadily.
"I've read the Knight Collar Governance Charter from the original drafting period," Elara said. "Sections nine through seventeen specifically — the extraction protocol documentation, the consent frameworks, the oversight requirements." She paused. "The collars in their current configuration were never legally authorized under the Charter. The extraction function was added fourteen years ago under a discretionary amendment that bypassed the oversight committee. It was signed by the Empress Dowager's office." Another pause. "It was never disclosed to the knights who wore them."
Mahir said nothing.
"That's not a collar system," Elara said. "That's a surveillance architecture designed to look like one." She looked at the document stack. "What you and every knight in this palace has been wearing — what you've been serving under — was constructed without your knowledge to function in a way you never agreed to."
