The slugs had drawn to a stop inside the throne chamber, and now attention turned to them. The king or queen, if that’s what manner of thing occupied the throne, ceased issuing instructions to his torturers and allowed the Speaker to say something in their language, gesturing to Layanna.

The monarch stood and chittered, and his torturers dragged the framework bearing the victim off. The so-called Speaker dismounted and his underlings followed, removing Janx, Hildra and Avery from the slug as well. Avery’s legs shook as the creatures set him on solid ground, and he collapsed in a shuddering heap, his bloody hands just barely catching his weight. Janx, not much better, doubled over and sucked in long breaths, while Hildra sank to her knees, gasping.

The Speaker and his creatures moved to Layanna and helped her down, not gently, exactly, but with a certain air of deference. Now that the screaming had stopped, Avery caught snatches of the conversation between Sheridan and the R’loth.

“ ... have done,” the Collossum was saying. “And you will be rewarded.”

“But the Starfish,” Sheridan said. “Surely—”

“Yes, and that is why you will take it to him in Ghenisa. I lack the machines here.”

He gestured to the shadows, and two Magons stepped out bearing a strange box between them, composed of some material Avery was not familiar with and covered in equally alien symbols.

“The box shields it?” Sheridan said.

“You’re safe,” the Collossum said. “Go now. These Magons will carry the relic to the dirigible ...”

Avery’s attention was diverted when two other Magons, taking Layanna by the arms, steered her toward the dais on which the monarch sat, and the monarch, to Avery’s surprise, rose to his or her feet and descended the dais as the Collossum drew near, as if unwilling to sit above its god.

The Collossum, taking little notice of the Magon ruler, said one last thing to Sheridan, who nodded, turned and strode from the chamber. As she did, she passed by Avery, and her eyes went to him. They were haunted.

Then she was gone.

The Collossum stopped before the stairs that led up to the dais and turned to receive Layanna and the others as they approached. Magons with venom-whips stood nearby, and Avery understood why they had not needed the help of the pirates to keep Layanna subdued; they had both whips and a Collossum.

“Davic,” Layanna said, inclining her head in a gesture of acknowledgement—no more—to the handsome Collossum. “It’s you, isn’t it? I’ve never seen you in this form before, but I can feel you.”

Davic, if that was his name, nodded back. “Layanna. I’ve wanted to see you again for some time.” He regarded her gravely, but with some other feeling Avery could not recognize—love? hate? It was some powerful emotion, of that Avery was certain, and barely contained. “You look strange in this form.”

She said something to him in some tongue Avery did not recognize, and Davic’s face twisted in anger. With surprising speed, he backhanded her across the face, and she fell in a heap. Avery stooped to help her up, but Magons pulled him back.

Layanna wiped blood from her lip and rose back to her feet. Meeting Avery’s eyes and perhaps reading his confusion, she said, quietly, “Davic and I were married.”

“Married?”

“Well, that is its equivalent. Remember, I told you I’d once had a R’loth husband.”

“But ... I thought ... all of your family was purged ...”

“They were exterminated after she betrayed her kind,” Davic said. “All our children died. Killed because of you, Layanna.” His face reddened.

“You had R’loth children?” Avery couldn’t help but ask. She had told him she had once before, he vaguely remembered, but somehow he’d allowed himself to forget.

Davic’s gaze swung to him. “Keep your mouth shut or I will remove your jaw.”

Avery kept silent.

“What do you want of me, Davic?” Layanna said. “You didn’t change your form to come to my aid.”

“I was offered the choice of serving the Great Elders and proving my loyalty by leading the new navy based here—or following the fate of our offspring. I chose the former. And that path has led me here, to you, even as dozens of specially bred and designed starfish move toward the coast to level the broken remains of our enemies.”

“Dozens?” Janx said, saying what Avery had been forbidden to.

“The world you know will be laid waste,” Davic said, not addressing Janx, necessarily, but the gathering as a whole.

“Fuck,” said Hildra.

Layanna stood straighter. “What do you mean to do with me?”

Davic stared at her for a long, hard moment, then said, “Eat you, of course.”

Wind fluttered in from outside, bringing with it the smell of rain.

“Is that why you brought me here?” Layanna said. “Instead of letting the pirates kill me? Revenge for our children? I am sorry. You know that, surely. I’ve mourned for them every day since I made my decision to join the Black Sect.”

“My feelings can hold no sway in the greater scheme,” Davic said. “The Elders want you dead. Once it was learned that you were in the hands of loyal followers, it was decided that I have the honor of dispatching you. More than that, though, I’m supposed to search your mind.”

“For what purpose?”

“You designed the machine that undid Octung’s weapons. No one knows how you did it, not even those who worked on reversing its functions, and it’s believed that if that machine can be built again, reversed and activated, or simply built in reverse and activated, then perhaps the weapons we gifted to Octung will be operational again. It would make things easier. At any rate, I’m to find that information if I can. If not, I’m simply meant to—”

With shocking swiftness, Layanna’s other-self exploded outward. Strange colors danced on the walls as her alien form shot not toward Davic but the Magons bearing the whips. Recovering from their surprise, they lashed her viciously, but she managed to scoop up two of them and devour them before they drove her back toward Davic, who had brought forth his own other-self. Amber and violet, a huge swollen sac of gorgeous organelles and nightmarish pseudopods alive with unearthly light, he attacked Layanna from the rear, slamming his limbs down on her and thrusting his tendrils through her sac wall. He was quite a bit larger and more powerful-looking than she was.

Oddly, she did not fight him, allowing his sac to envelop hers and begin eating into it. Her sac shrank ... shrank ...

As soon as it had begun, he drew away, leaving her withered but alive, and at once both of their other-selves withdrew into their human bodies with a double slurp. The two collapsed to the floor. Layanna, sweaty and spent, panted, recovering, while Davic picked himself up and reeled back toward the stairs, looking ill. His face had gone gray and sweat beaded his skin.

“What ... what ... what did you do to me?”

“The whips’ poison filled me,” she said, grinning, “and I filled you.”

“Bitch!”

“I will not be eaten.”

He straightened, as if trying to resemble his old self, but he still appeared wretched. “You will. First, though, why don’t you experience a little more of what you’ve already seemed to enjoy.”

He nodded to the whip-wielders. They stepped forward, raised their weapons and began lashing Layanna. She screamed and arched her back. Avery called her name. One of the guards struck him in the abdomen with the flat of a large pincer. He doubled over. Layanna tried to edge away, but the Speaker, who must be some sort of high priest, subordinate only to the monarch, snapped instructions to his underlings, and they surrounded her, hemming her in. The whips rose and fell, and blood coursed along the floors. Avery’s heart twisted.

“They’re gonna cut her to pieces,” Hildra said, as the humans were pulled away from the area of the dais.

The torture went on, and it quickly became obvious that Davic did not mean for this to end quickly. The whips weren’t heavy enough to slice Layanna to the bone in a few strikes; it would take many, and each one would sting with awful fire. Unable to watch, Avery shifted his gaze, and something caught his attention.

“We’ve gotta do somethin’,” Janx said. Moisture beaded his face, and the leather patch covering his nose hole had become slightly dislodged, revealing a ragged edge of the cavity. “Our hands are free. We could rush ‘em. I think I could take one, maybe two—”

“No,” said Avery. He didn’t fear being overheard by Davic or the Magons, so loud were Layanna’s screams and the heavy breathing of the whip-wielders.

“Janx’s right,” Hildra protested. “We can’t just sit here.”