The offer hung in the air, more paralyzing than the deepest cold of the frozen sea. The synthesized voice of the Listener drone was gone, leaving only the stark proposition echoing in the space it had vacated. Around them, the world was a study in violent contrast. To their backs, a newly liberated ocean sang a triumphant, chaotic symphony, waves of liquid music lapping against the last circle of black ice. Before them, the obsidian monolith hummed its sterile drone, and the Listener hovered, a silent, red-eyed arbiter of this terrible bargain.
*A logical exchange. The song for the singers.*
The words were a poison that seeped into the warmth of their hard-won victory. It was the ultimate perversion of their journey. They had fought to save the music, and now the price was to become silent, permanent exhibits in the Architect's collection. Their resonance, the very essence of what they had become, would be pickled in a jar for study.
