The chamber was silent except for the hum of the relic.
It hovered in the air, a jagged shard of black glass, its glyphs glowing like molten silver. Kaelen felt the pull of it—deep, irresistible, like gravity for the soul. He couldn't look away.
Lyra paced in a slow circle, blaster steady in her hands. "It's bait. Whatever that thing is, it's not a gift. It's a demand."
The glyphs flared brighter, as if answering her. The whispering voice returned, lower, crueler this time:
"To claim knowledge, a price must be paid. One must give. One must bleed. One must be less, so the other may be more."
The shard split in two, hanging like twin blades of obsidian. Between them, a figure materialized—neither human nor alien, but something shifting, faceless, cloaked in darkness. Its presence pressed against their skin like the weight of a deep ocean.
It pointed to Kaelen. Then to Lyra.
And finally, to the relics.
Kaelen swallowed hard, his throat dry. "It wants us to… sacrifice?"
Lyra's lips thinned. "No. It wants us to choose."
The cloaked figure extended its hands, and pain stabbed into Kaelen's skull. Visions flared—of his body hollowed out, his knowledge drained, feeding into the shard so Lyra could wield its power. Then it shifted—Lyra broken, stripped of strength and memory, her fire extinguished, so Kaelen could rise higher.
The figure's voice echoed, jagged and merciless:
"Only one may ascend. Only one may carry the weight. Decide."
Kaelen stumbled back, shaking his head. "No. No, we can't—"
But Lyra was already stepping forward. Her blaster hung at her side, forgotten. Her eyes were steady, but Kaelen saw the war behind them.
"I know what it means," she said softly. "And I'm not letting it be you."
Kaelen's heart clenched. "Lyra, stop—"
She cut him off with a look sharp enough to silence him. "You're the one who understands this place. The relics, the glyphs—they're speaking to you. I'm just muscle. If one of us has to burn, it's me."
Kaelen grabbed her wrist, hard enough to hurt. "Don't you dare. Don't you ever talk about yourself like that. You've kept me alive in here more times than I can count. Without you, I wouldn't last a second."
The figure raised both shards higher, the glyphs blazing so bright the air itself seemed to scream.
Lyra's voice dropped, barely above a whisper. "Then what do we do, Doctor? If we don't choose…"
The chamber shook violently, cracks tearing through the floor. Darkness surged up from below like molten tar, swallowing the edges of the room.
Kaelen's pulse thundered in his ears. He looked at the shards. At Lyra. At the collapsing chamber.
And for the first time since entering the sphere, he realized the truth.
"This isn't about sacrifice," he whispered. "It's about defiance. It wants us to believe only one of us matters. But the sphere underestimates one thing—"
He locked eyes with Lyra, fierce and unyielding.
"—we don't play by its rules."
The relics screamed as Kaelen reached forward, seizing both shards at once.