The silence was worse than the screaming.
It pressed down over the plain like a lid, sealing away even the sound of Mira’s ragged breathing. The vessels knelt in frozen formation, their faceless heads bowed, their flas guttering as though awaiting permission to exist. The molten veins across the shattered ground dulled into cooling glass, cracks glowing faintly with the afterpulse of their song.
Elena swayed where she stood. Her body was no longer whole flesh—half her fra glimred like fractured crystal, her veins rivers of light that pulsed too slowly. Her ember, once a contained fla, now flickered erratically, too large for her, too hungry to retreat.
Mira caught her before she collapsed. The heat seared her palms, but she didn’t let go.
“Elena—stay with . Don’t fade.”
Elena’s head tilted toward her, but her eyes glowed with the mirrored shimr of the vessels. When she spoke, her voice arrived in layers again, only thinner, strained.
“They won’t move. Not unless I breathe. Not unless I think.”
Mira’s gaze darted to the kneeling choir. “Then let them rot. You don’t need to be their heart.”
Elena’s laugh was hollow, frayed by exhaustion. “They don’t have hearts. I gave them mine.”
A ripple passed through the vessels at those words, as though even her despair fed them. Their bowed fras leaned forward, reverent. Waiting.
Mira gritted her teeth. “Then take it back.”
“I can’t,” Elena whispered, her fingers trembling against her chest lattice, where only the ember blazed. “Every fla I lit in them... was a piece of . If they die, those pieces don’t return. They just... burn out.”
The third fla overhead pulsed weakly, as though confirming her confession.
Mira’s shards spun faster, their edges quivering with rage. “So what? You keep feeding them until there’s nothing left of you?”
Elena’s lips parted, but no answer ca. Instead, the vessels stirred. Not rising, not singing—just a faint tilt of their heads in unison, as though listening to sothing deeper.
The ground beneath Mira vibrated. She steadied her stance, her shards flaring outward defensively.
“What now?”
Elena’s glow faltered. Her face went slack.
“They’ve chosen.”
The vessels lifted their heads. A single fla ignited atop the foremost one—weak, sputtering, but distinct. Others followed, sparks gathering on their faceless crowns. Together, the flas bent toward Elena like stars bowing to a collapsing sun.
A crown of fire.
Her body seized. Threads of light pulled from her chest, weaving upward, tethering her to them in a ring of embers that hovered above. The vessels didn’t move otherwise; they simply offered. Every flicker tied her tighter to their hollow fras.
Mira lunged, trying to wrench her free, but the heat from the crown forced her shards back with a hiss.
“Elena, don’t you dare—don’t let them do this!”
Elena’s knees hit the glassed ground. Her voice was a whisper, breaking apart between her own and theirs.
“They already have.”
The crown solidified, burning steady, every vessel’s fla circling her ember.
And for the first ti, the plain itself knelt.
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