Chapter 1477: Story 1477: The Joining Vein

The vessel’s chest yawned wider, spilling light so raw it looked less like radiance and more like exposed nerve. Ember-fire pulsed on one side, crystal gleamed on the other, but between them stretched a fragile seam—a trembling vein of raw possibility. Neither flame nor shard. Something that had no name.

Mira’s breath rattled as she knelt before it. The cracks in her body spread like spiderweb fractures, light leaking from the fault lines. Yet her eyes locked on that center seam, wide and wet with wonder. “Elena… do you feel it? It’s not hunger. It’s… asking us to finish the pattern.”

Elena staggered, her ember twisting against her ribs. The fire inside her recoiled from the hollow’s light, but not in hatred—almost in fear. “Finish it how? By letting it carve us apart? By letting it decide what we become?” Her voice broke, because deep in her marrow she already knew the truth: the choice wasn’t just theirs anymore. The marrow wanted to share.

The cavern throbbed with that pulse. The silent faces in the walls leaned closer, lips open in wordless anticipation. The ground itself vibrated, humming with the vessel’s heartbeat.

Mira reached again, trembling, her hand hovering over the seam. Her veins sang in resonance, brighter and brighter, shards tearing free and scattering like broken stars. “If we touch it together… it won’t belong to one of us. It’ll belong to both.”

Elena snarled, torn between rage and terror. “And if it takes us both, Mira? What then? We won’t be us anymore. Just another voice swallowed by marrow.”

Mira’s tears glistened. She turned to Elena, voice breaking into something softer than plea—confession. “Maybe that’s the only way it stops. Not one of us winning. Not one of us sacrificing. But joining. Together.”

The vessel shuddered violently, its hollow cracking, light bleeding faster. The ember in Elena’s chest flared hot enough to blister her skin. The crystal in Mira’s veins split deeper, tearing her flesh with each heartbeat. They could both feel it: if they refused now, the marrow would collapse in on itself, devouring the hollow and taking them down with it.

Elena’s hand clenched, flame licking between her fingers. She wanted to burn it all, to end this before it grew into something worse. But when she looked at Mira—bleeding light, veins fracturing, eyes wide with faith—her fury faltered.

The vessel lifted its faceless head once more. And then it did something neither fire nor crystal had ever done.

It wept.

A soundless sob, its chest quaking as golden ichor streaked down its hollow body. The cry was not hunger now. Not mimicry. Not even plea. It was the sound of something that had never been whole, begging not for dominance—only for belonging.

Elena’s flame cracked inside her, searing through her ribs. But it didn’t rage this time. It leaned. Toward the crystal. Toward Mira. Toward that trembling seam of in-between.

Her hand lifted without her command. Mira mirrored her, glass-slick fingers reaching through blood and light.

Together, their hands closed over the vessel’s chest.

And the seam burst.

Not fire. Not crystal.

Something else.

Something that tore the cavern open with light—

And bound them tighter than blood.