"Nobody opens the staff gate until the blood stops moving," Tarev said from behind the glass. "Keep your hands away from every fitting attached to him, and if he reaches the floor, the warden goes in alone while the rest of you clear the room."
The ritual-record witness held the completion sheet against his chest. His fresh seal marked the lower edge beneath a stamped declaration: Vhar Blackvein had died on the altar.
The lead attendant stood several paces from the altar, nursing the hand struck by the reversing wheel. "The line under his waist is still tight, and I can release it from the side lever, though I would have to pass his free hand."
"Stay where you are," Tarev said. "He used the connected brass once, and I will not give him your arm to test next."
Vhar tested the broken strap around his left wrist while they spoke.
His left hand was free, but the other wrist, both ankles, and waist remained fixed. The brass fitting still hung from his forearm, joined to the founder by a tube filled with motionless blood. Above him, the black blood sac Devouring had drained lay deflated against the altar.
The woman who had worked beside his arm had retreated to the southeastern service door with its key in hand.
"I can clear the wash passage before the bell brings everyone running," she said. "There are six workers on the lower stair, and none of them know what happened in here."
Tarev nodded toward the door. "Clear the stair and lock the passage, but tell them the altar failed and leave the rest for me."
"That will be enough to make them run."
She slipped through the door and pulled it shut.
CLACK!
The outer lock engaged, and her footsteps receded as she called the workers away from the founder room. Buckets knocked against stone, water splashed, and several startled voices moved farther down the passage.
Vhar listened until the corridor beyond the door was clear. The workers had not tied him to the altar, and he would not drag them back toward the men holding keys and restraints.
The attendant glanced toward the side lever again. The warden stayed beside the staff gate with his master key at his belt, although the baton had already left its loop and rested in his right hand.
Neither man could free the remaining restraints without coming close.
Warm blood pulsed through the tube beneath Vhar's waist buckle. It ran under the altar to a metal arm in the wall, which pulled the strap tight. The attendant kept glancing at one waist-high lever.
"Is that the one holding my waist?" Vhar asked, looking directly at it.
The attendant's eyes dropped to the lever before he caught himself.
The glance gave Vhar the answer. That handle loosened or tightened the metal arm beneath his waist buckle.
Tarev saw the mistake as well. "Back away from it and leave the line where it is."
The attendant moved toward the wall. "If we leave him connected, he can reach the fitting with his free hand."
"Stay behind the altar and let the warden handle the floor."
The warden adjusted his position beside the gate, while Vhar dragged the broken brass fitting across his chest. Its attached tube slid over the altar edge and tightened. He pressed the blood-wet metal against the waist buckle where the hidden arm entered the strap.
The brass fitting and restraint arm remained joined by one unbroken length of metal.
Vhar whispered with measured intent.
| BLOODLINE RUIN |
Heat rushed from his chest down his left arm into the fitting, faster than blood should move. The metal arm beneath him jerked toward its wall mount and dragged the waist strap after it.
CRACK!
The locking arm buckled under reversed tension.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Alert]
[ HOST: Vhar Blackvein ]
[ EVENT: Uvar Reserve Changed ]
[ UVAR RESERVE: 7 / 18 -> 5 / 18 ]
[ RESULT: Further Active Use Must Fit The Remaining Reserve ]
[End Alert]
Five Uvar remained in Vhar's chest. He kept it for the people beyond the glass.
The bent arm dropped. Its handle struck the attendant's thigh and folded his leg beneath him, while the waist strap released and the line attached to Vhar's right wrist pulled toward its own support.
Vhar rolled left.
His right arm scraped across the altar as the restraint pin bent toward the founder. He planted his free palm, raised his shoulder, and pulled until the pin tore out of the frame with a shriek of metal.
The cuff remained around his wrist, but both arms were free. He sat up, reached his ankles, and ripped through leather already weakened by blood and hours of struggling.
The staff gate opened before his feet touched the floor.
The warden crossed the threshold and released the counterweight behind him, starting the iron leaf back toward its frame. He thrust the baton at Vhar's chest.
Vhar stepped off the altar and turned past the strike. Both hands closed around the warden's forearm before he pulled the man sideways into the returning gate.
WHAM!
The warden's ribs struck the iron upright. Two broke beneath the impact, and his breath left in a wet gasp as the baton fell from his fingers.
Vhar folded him over the stone skirt and kept him there. The gate pressed into the man's back but could not close while his body blocked the threshold.
The master key came free from his belt.
Vhar could have driven the fallen baton through his throat, but a corpse would have slid from the gate and left the opening clear. He kept the warden alive so the man's body still jammed the iron leaf.
Behind the altar, the injured attendant crawled toward the founder controls. The measurer abandoned his instruments and reached for the alarm handle.
"Ring it twice and bar the western door," Tarev said. "The responding wardens can wait in the antechamber until we know which fittings are still dangerous."
GONG-GONG!
The alarm rolled through the walls.
Vhar stepped across the injured warden and entered the protected lane. His knees dipped as blood loss and starvation caught up with the movement, forcing him to take the fallen baton long enough to steady himself.
Tarev moved toward a narrow record slot beside the western door with the folded sheet in hand. Vhar reached him first and drove the baton into the wood beside his wrist, pinning the loose sleeve of his robe without breaking the arm inside it.
"Leave the sheet here," Tarev said, pulling once against the trapped cloth before stopping. "Its seals release the ninth branch grain, and my witness mark makes me answer for every word on it."
Vhar took the record from his hand.
The name at the top was clear: Vhar Blackvein.
Vhar kept the name because it belonged to the living body and the evidence in his hand. House Talvern could claim it on paper, but no debt or order written for the former youth would move Vhar's hands unless he chose to honor it.
He held none of the dead boy's memories. From this moment, Vhar Blackvein would mean the man standing here.
"Your record says Vhar Blackvein died here," he said as he folded the sheet into the driest layer of his ritual robe. "I will carry it until the rest of the world can see the mistake."
Tarev's attention followed the sheet. "Every gate belonging to House Talvern will receive your description once the alarm reaches the outer hall."
"I expected the walk to be unpleasant."
The blade rack beside the northern instruments opened with the warden's master key. Two matched execution blades rested inside oilcloth sleeves, their steel carrying Vhar's blood and darker founder residue.
The steel was ordinary, yet leaving his blood and the founder's residue behind would only help House Talvern.
Vhar tied the sleeves together with their maintenance straps and secured them high across his back, keeping his waist and both hands clear for the locked doors ahead.
Boots struck the floor beyond the western door. Tarev raised his voice so the responders could hear him through the wood.
"Hold the antechamber because he reversed two fittings, and I will not lose more people by sending you through blind."
Vhar returned to the staff gate. The injured warden had begun dragging himself away from the iron leaf, so Vhar pressed a foot against his shoulder and pushed him back into the protected lane before stepping through the gap.
BANG!
The gate closed behind him. House Talvern would have to reopen its own barrier before anyone could follow.
At the southeastern service door, the master key turned the linked emergency bars from inside the ritual bay.
CLACK-CLACK!
Both bolts withdrew. Vhar pulled the door inward and entered a narrow passage smelling of hot water, old incense, cleaning ash, and blood.
The lead attendant shouted from the chamber, "Seal the lower stair! He has the death record and both blades!"
A distant worker answered with confusion rather than obedience.
Vhar locked the service door behind him, wedged the key against the old frame, and broke it inside the lock. Pursuers would need tools, another key, or a different entrance.
The passage widened around a wash station and covered collection cart. Steam rose from a stone basin, while shelves held folded cloth, buckets, and the tools used to clean the founder room after an accepted sacrifice.
No one had laid out clean cloth or water for the offering to arrive first.
Vhar wrapped his bleeding wrist with a clean strip of cloth as he walked. One stair climbed toward the public founder hall, where boots and voices were converging, while another descended toward the occupied service lanes the worker had just cleared.
He took the lower stair.
Vhar descended into House Talvern's service levels carrying ordinary steel, bleeding wrists, and written proof that its founder hall had declared him dead.