CHAPTER 1471: STORY 1471: THE HUNGRY CHOIR

The tunnel was no longer stone. It was throat—ribbed and flexing, shuddering to the rhythm of the broken hymn. Every pulse drove the marrow-light phantoms closer, their mouths stretched in silent agony, their song thickening into a suffocating storm that scraped the inside of Elena’s skull.

Her steps faltered. The glow in her veins leapt with every note, aching to answer.

“Elena—” Mira’s voice cracked like glass. Her crystalline ribs flared dangerously, shards trembling as if ready to split apart. She staggered, falling to one knee. “It’s pulling me—”

“No!” Elena hauled her up, though her own body quaked under the marrow’s pull. The hymn didn’t just call—it demanded.

The phantoms’ mouths yawned wider, their song shifting, weaving words into the marrow’s tongue.

“Return. You are not yours. You are ours.”

The sound struck like a hammer. Elena reeled, clutching her head, blood trickling from her ears. Mira screamed, the cracks in her chest widening, light searing through. The song wanted them broken, unspooled, dissolved into the choir.

Elena’s fury cut through the terror. She turned on the phantoms, her own voice ragged: “We are not yours!”

Her ember flared in answer. Light burst from her chest, fire veined with marrow, and the nearest phantom staggered back, its outline blurring. The broken hymn faltered for a beat, but then the rest of the choir surged louder, angrier, their song pressing harder.

Mira gasped, clutching Elena’s arm. “It’s feeding on us—the marrow inside—we’re the only fuel it has left.”

Elena grit her teeth, heart hammering. “Then we starve it.”

“How?”

Elena looked at Mira, saw her body trembling, fracturing, and she knew the marrow wanted division—two broken vessels, easy to consume. But their bond was the only thing it couldn’t touch.

“Together,” Elena whispered. “Sing against it.”

Mira’s glasslike eyes widened. “Sing...?”

Elena pressed her forehead to hers, holding her as the phantoms closed in. “Hold to me. Match me. Whatever comes out—we don’t let go.”

The marrow-song clawed at them, pulling their lungs, their throats. But instead of resisting, Elena let the ember burn. She drew breath, and so did Mira.

And they sang.

Not words, not language—just a sound. A raw, defiant hum that rose from the ember and crystal alike. It wavered at first, almost swallowed by the choir. But as their voices braided together, something shifted.

Their light flared—not divided, but fused, ember and crystal weaving into a single brilliance. The phantoms reeled, their broken hymn stuttering. Their mouths gaped wider, shrieking now instead of singing.

The tunnel quaked violently, marrow-veins bursting into sparks. The song of the dead collapsed into chaos as the fused note of Elena and Mira swelled, pure and unbroken.

The phantoms dissolved, unraveling into mist. The marrow-veins in the walls recoiled, the tunnel contracting in pain.

When the last echo faded, only Elena and Mira’s voices remained—low, trembling, but alive.

The quiet that followed was not silence.

It was breath.

The earth itself seemed to inhale, listening.

And in that stillness, Elena knew: the marrow had not died.

But it had been changed.