The remaining source left Academy storage inside an iron cylinder no wider than Vhar's forearm.
Four witnesses moved with it through the covered service court. The evidence officer carried the cylinder against her chest, the meter reader held the route sheet, and the comparison-yard runner walked ahead with the amended witness copy visible in one hand. A maintenance worker followed because Nyra had required someone outside the protected authorization chain.
Vhar stayed beside the open court rather than crowding the evidence. Food, sleep, and Ember circulation had restored what the previous day spent, and his clothes concealed everything the yard had already learned to fear.
Nyra had gone to lodge the authenticated chain in a separate office before the transfer began. Elara and Nima watched from the far work platform because the comparison order had made their bodies part of the same evidence family.
Nima had asked why that required her presence when she wanted nothing from the tissue.
"Because someone joined your name to its offer," the evidence officer had answered, "and Nyra refused to let us separate the records again merely because the comparison ended."
"Am I allowed to leave?"
The officer had looked toward Elara before answering, which made Nima's mouth flatten.
Elara noticed. "She asked you."
"Yes," the officer said. "You may leave, but your statement remains protected only if you give the witness copy to another named holder first."
Nima considered the court, the cylinder, and the eastern arch. "I'll stay until it reaches the inner door, although I want the record to show that I chose it."
The runner added the line in front of her. Only after reading it did she climb onto the platform beside Elara. Vhar offered no protection she had not requested.
"The receiving room is through the eastern arch," the evidence officer said. "Nobody changes hands before the inner door."
The maintenance worker looked up at the old stone gallery crossing above them. "Nobody changed the ceiling either, although somebody has removed two brace pins."
Vhar followed his gaze.
One empty pin hole showed fresh metal beneath old dust. The second brace had been cut almost through, then packed with gray wax so it would appear whole from the court.
"Put the cylinder down," Vhar said.
The evidence officer did not ask why. She lowered it toward the marked transfer block.
A figure in a worker's loose coat dropped from the gallery.
One hand struck the cylinder latch while the other hauled against the waxed brace.
SNAP!
The brace parted, and the support failed.
Stone shelves tilted above the court. Loaded repair blocks, timber lengths, and a suspended pulley frame shifted toward the people beneath them.
The thief caught the inner source tube as it sprang from the opened cylinder and ran for the eastern service arch.
Vhar could reach that body before the next footfall landed.
He could also hear Nima beneath the first falling shelf.
"Elara!"
Elara had already moved. She struck Nima behind the knees with one arm, drove both of them off the platform, and turned her shoulder beneath the descending edge. The shelf clipped her practice shield and spun it away.
The runner froze under the pulley frame. The maintenance worker shoved the meter reader clear, leaving his own leg between two sliding blocks. The evidence officer remained beside the open cylinder while the gallery's central arch split above her.
The thief crossed the eastern threshold.
Vhar turned away from the source.
Vhar reached the evidence officer before the first stone reached her. He caught her around the waist, placed her beyond the collapse line, and released no more force into her body than the rescue required.
Dust had not yet risen from his first step.
He redirected.
CRACK!
The gallery arch broke apart.
Vhar planted his right foot beneath the falling center block and drove one shoulder upward. Compressed mass met descending stone.
BANG! CRACK!
The block stopped against him so violently that fractures raced across its underside, but his footing sank only a finger's width.
The rest of the arch struck around him.
BOOM!
Broken stone buried his feet.
Crimson heat crossed the inscriptions beneath Vhar's clothes. His shoulder rose another handspan, and the central block stayed high enough for the evidence officer to crawl through the space he had opened.
"Runner," he called. "Move left when I throw this."
The boy looked at the pulley frame above him. "It will follow me."
"Yes, so wait for the timber to turn."
Vhar shifted his shoulder by less than a handspan and released the block into the empty side of the court. The stone crossed the falling timber and struck its loaded end.
BOOM!
The pulley frame spun away from the runner. He stumbled left through the opened route while ropes and iron hooks crashed where he had been standing.
Elara had regained her feet. Blood marked one scrape along her forearm, but she used the broken shield to lever a timber length off Nima's ankle.
"She can move," Elara said. "The worker cannot."
The maintenance worker's trapped leg had disappeared beneath two square repair blocks. The upper gallery continued settling, and every breath shook grit from its remaining joints.
Beyond the eastern arch, running steps faded down the service road.
Vhar heard them until distance and stone swallowed the sound.
The source was gone.
He crossed to the trapped worker.
"Can you feel your foot?"
"Enough to resent it."
"Keep resenting it because I am moving the upper block first."
The man gripped the intact brace beside him. "That will drop the shelf behind you."
"Elara, can you take its outer edge?"
She examined the angle instead of answering from pride. "For one turn. Nima, stay at my right shoulder and pull the worker when his boot clears."
Nima's face had gone pale beneath the dust. "I can pull him."
"Tell me if that ankle fails," Elara said. "Do not decide pain is an instruction to become quiet."
They moved together.
Vhar hooked both hands beneath the upper repair block. His legs settled, his back straightened, and the stone rose before its broken corner could grind deeper into the trapped boot.
He lifted.
CRACK!
The lower stone fractured where its corner had trapped the worker's boot. Elara caught the descending shelf with her shield rim, turned her hips, and forced its weight toward the empty court instead of trying to hold it forever.
Nima dragged the worker by his coat and belt. His boot tore free, and the shelf struck empty stone behind them.
BANG!
Elara released the shield and moved with them. Nobody remained beneath the load.
The meter reader called from the outer court. "The evidence officer is clear, and the runner has reached the west wall."
"Count again," Vhar said.
She named each role instead of assuming movement meant safety. The worker answered through clenched teeth, Nima raised one dusty hand, and the evidence officer responded while holding pressure against the runner's hairline.
The count still lacked one.
Vhar looked beneath the pulley frame and saw a boot moving behind its rope drum. The worker who had opened the outer gate had fallen into the shallow service channel, hidden below the court's edge.
Vhar crossed the broken stone, tore the bent drum away without allowing its axle to strike the man beneath it, and lifted him from the channel. The worker coughed dust against Vhar's shoulder, found his feet, and joined the count aloud.
Vhar had not lost a single motion to a wasted breath since the first stone fell.
The second Ember circuit closed through that moving recovery.
Capacity widened from ninety to ninety-six. What he had spent did not return for free; forty-two Uvar remained inside the larger vessel.
Vhar deliberately reached inward.
[SSS PRIMEVAL BLOODFORGE: Bloodmark Record]
[ REALM: Ember Vessel ]
[ BLOODMARK: 2nd ]
[ CIRCUIT: Lung-Return Retention Loop ]
[ CURRENT FUNCTION: Exhalation Retains Usable Current / Inhalation Supports Deliberate Recovery / Interrupted Movement Resumes Without Losing Cadence ]
[ UVAR CAPACITY: 96 ]
[ UVAR RESERVE: 42 / 96 ]
[ STATUS: Stable ]
[ BOUNDARY: Active Recovery Preserves And Restores Current Through Living Breath And Movement / It Does Not Create An Instant Refill ]
[ EVOLUTION: Ember Vessel Bloodmarks 3-9 Open / Successor Evolution Unbounded ]
[End Bloodmark Record]
The record ended while Vhar was still moving.
He crossed the court once more, checked every shadow beneath the collapsed gallery, and found no person left inside it. The maintenance worker could stand with help, Nima's ankle carried her weight, and Elara's forearm had stopped bleeding beneath the passive pressure of her own grip.
The maintenance worker kept one hand on the intact brace while they bound his boot where he sat. Nima washed dust from her scrape, and the meter reader counted the people who had entered until every living body answered.
The evidence officer knelt beside the empty cylinder. "The inner tube carried all remaining tissue."
"Did you see the thief's face?" the runner asked Vhar.
"No. I saw the route and chose not to take it."
The boy looked toward the eastern arch. "You could have caught them."
"Yes."
Elara returned with Nima leaning lightly against her uninjured side. "You left the source."
"The source was leaving, but they were falling."
She studied the ruined gallery, then the empty service road. "Most people only call it impossible after they've decided whose body doesn't matter."
"Expensive, not impossible."
The maintenance worker raised one dusty hand from the ground. "For what it is worth, I approve of the expense."
Nima let out a breath that became a shaken laugh. Elara crouched to tighten the binding around the man's boot because standing over him would not make the line safer.
Dust settled across an empty court where nobody remained beneath the broken gallery. Beyond the eastern arch, the thief's footsteps had vanished with the remaining source, and Vhar's hands held no hidden fragment in compensation.
On the broken transfer block, the cylinder remained open and empty.
That absence was the proof of what he had chosen.