Twelve

The prisoners are released from their dark confinement cell and transported to an alien megastructure. Dafyd, Else, and others are presented to what appears to be Carryx royalty before being settled in habitable quarters designed for human accommodation. The chapter culminates with the arrival of Rickar Daumatin and a Carryx keeper-librarian named Tkson, who claims to oversee their group's welfare.

After weeks of captivity in a dark, freezing cell, Dafyd's strength returns and the prisoners settle into a routine of shared suffering and occasional singing. The calm voice of their captors suddenly announces a return to symmetrical space, triggering a disorienting transition. The cell detaches and moves, depositing the prisoners on an enormous platform within a vast alien world-city dominated by towering ebony ziggurats, silver arches, and mysterious luminous structures. Six Carryx—including a large bone-white one flanked by two red-armored giants—stand waiting. The prisoners are herded by Soft Lothark aliens toward the white Carryx for what Dafyd interprets as a presentation to royalty. A woman who defies the red-armored Carryx is instantly killed. Dafyd and Else are prostrated before the white Carryx, which communicates via chirping with the green-and-gold Carryx before the jailers lead them to a designated waiting area. Later, the group is taken to quarters consisting of ten bedrooms, a common area, and kitchen facilities—alien architecture that mimics human needs but with unsettling proportions. Jessyn struggles with the overwhelming privacy and quiet after weeks of crowded captivity, eventually showering and discovering a bottle of medication pills hidden in her old clothes, suggesting their imprisonment lasted approximately six weeks. She reunites joyfully with Irinna, Campar, and Tonner Freis, though tensions emerge between Tonner and Else regarding shared sleeping arrangements—she insists on maintaining her own room despite his expectations. Rickar Daumatin arrives with Tkson, a smaller Carryx with purple-beige flesh and two pairs of black eyes, who introduces himself as their "keeper-librarian" and cryptically states that usefulness ensures survival.