The silence pressed so deep Elena thought her ears had ruptured. Her ember-fire hissed, confused, shrinking back against her ribs like a wild animal confronted with something it did not understand.

The vessel remained on its knees. Its faceless head bowed, chest cavity pulsing weakly with the twin flickers of ember and crystal. Hands extended, trembling—not in demand, not in threat. In offering.

"Elena…" Mira's voice rasped, shredded by pain. She was doubled over, clutching the jagged crystal tearing through her shoulder, light leaking from the cracks in her veins. "It's… giving itself up."

"No." Elena's voice came harsh, but the conviction wavered. "It's… tricking us. That's what it does."

But the vessel didn't move. Didn't rise. Its body shook as though every breath cost it pieces of existence. The cry—once a marrow-shattering wail—was reduced now to a faint whimper, almost human in its fragility.

Mira crawled forward, dragging herself across the trembling stone. Elena caught her wrist again, but Mira tore free with surprising strength. "Don't you see?" she gasped. "This is the first choice it's ever made. Not hunger. Not mimicry. Surrender."

Elena's ember snarled in protest, heat flaring against her ribs. She wanted to believe it was right—that the marrow was playing at weakness, trying to anchor itself through pity. But the fire didn't burn steady. It flickered, uncertain, caught between fury and… something else. Something dangerously close to recognition.

Mira reached the vessel. Her hand hovered just above its crystal-filled palm, her veins vibrating in resonance with the shard inside its chest. She was crying openly now, each tear catching light like liquid glass.

"Elena," she whispered. "We always thought it was a predator. But what if it was just… broken? A thing born incomplete."

"Broken things kill too," Elena snapped, though softer now, her voice fractured. She had seen countless predators bow only to strike harder. Yet this didn't feel like that. There was no coil, no trap. Only exhaustion.

The cavern itself seemed to wait. The walls had stilled, their faces pressed silently into the stone as though watching with bated breath. Even the marrow's pulse had quieted, slowing into something that almost resembled… a heartbeat.

Elena lowered her ember-hand reluctantly. The flame dimmed, smoldering in confusion.

The vessel's hollow chest flared weakly in response, a flicker of hope. Its hands shook more violently now, as though it could barely hold onto the ember and crystal it carried.

Mira's fingertips brushed the light in its palm. Her body arched with the contact, veins blazing, shards splitting skin. She bit back a scream. The vessel jerked, its faceless head snapping upward as though the pain was shared.

"Elena!" Mira gasped, voice cracking under the force of it. "It's not just asking… it's offering to split itself. Fire and crystal—both—so neither of us has to carry it alone."

The cavern trembled, a resonance humming through their marrow. The vessel opened its chest wider, hollow light spilling into the air like molten sunrise.

Choice, again. But not fire. Not crystal.

Something between.

Elena's ember strained. Mira's crystal cracked.

The marrow wasn't demanding they surrender to it anymore.

It was asking them to join.