“Arms pop turn step bend tail step turn—shit.” Sykora’s graceful dance skitters to a halt. She shakes her head like there’s a fly buzzing around it and resets, breathing heavily.

“You’re jerky, Majesty,” Vora says. “Drop the left quarter turn. It’s too helter-skelter.”

“Noted, Majordomo.” Sykora bends into a forward fold and touches her toes, swaying back and forth to loosen up the muscles in her legs. “So it’s arms, pop, step, bend, tail.”

“You’re drooling a little, Prince.” Ipqen nudges Grant.

Grant blinks rapidly and turns from his stretchy little wife, refocusing on the Taiikari musical workstation he’s trying to learn. It’s a long way from his beaten-up laptop with a cracked copy of Ableton on it, but there are transferrable skills, and all he needs to do is lay down a sketch of the arrangement. The sound engineers will fix it up the rest of the way.

“Do we really need all this choreography?” Tymar asks. He sits with Grant and Ipqen in one corner of the training room, in a nest of golden cushions, scarlet carpet, and crumpled, discarded notes. “The music and the message might suffice.”

“I learned how to dance, Tyme. Dancing I know how to do. If you are going to dress me up like some kind of piscine goddess and make me sing for my supper, I am not going without choreography.” Sykora narrows her eyes at her brother. “I need everything prepared. Including something to do with my hands.”

“It’s just—if we end up recording it instead of livecasting, they’ll be able to hear your voice stay steady while you move, and the effect will be ruined. And the Eqtorans place a premium on live music.”

“We are doing it live,” Sykora snaps. “What if we receive a transmission during it? A surrender, maybe? I need to stay reactive.”

“All right.” Tymar shrugs. “If you need this, you need it. Seven days left, remember.”

Sykora puts her hands on her hips. “Do you doubt I can do it?”

“A surrender during the performance would be—” Vora considers her next word carefully. “Wonderful, Majesty.”

“I think you can do anything, Kora,” Tymar says. “Anything your heart tells you.”

“Grantyde.” Sykora pouts at her husband. “They’re being sarcastic at me.”

“Vora, maybe.” Grant taps a rhythmic idea into his workstation’s pads. “I think Tymar’s just Tymar.”

“You didn’t grow up with him.”

“Neither did you, Majesty,” Tymar says.

“Well, still. It’s a sibling thing. I just know.” Sykora flounces back to her starting mark.

“What if it’s—okay.” Grant points at his workstation’s compact screen. “Big crescendo here, and then a sudden drop-out except for the vocal for a measure?”

Ipqen smacks her lips. “Just one vocal?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s heresy or whatever, I know. But in Maekyonite music, that’s a real wow moment. And we are being heretics.”

Ipqen holds her hand out for his headphones. “Let me hear it, anyway.”

Grant passes them over. Ipqen slots both ear cups another notch out to accommodate her big Eqtoran noggin. He hits the clacky little play button. Ipqen’s head starts grooving. “Oh, yeah,” she says, voice raised over the music in her ears. “Crescendo-drop is the way.”

Grant lets it loop for a while, then taps the Eqtoran’s knee to get her attention; she pulls the headphones off. “Does the dancing help? It doesn’t take away, does it? What do you think?”

“Hmm. What do I think.” Ipqen tilts her head and watches Sykora execute a serpentine shimmy of her hips. The Princess reaches the end of the sequence and lets out a girlish whoop of triumph. Her top has ridden up her waist; the crescent of blue stomach it reveals shines with sweat.

“I think your wife is hot,” Ipqen says.

***

“Six days, siblings.”

The Laudr kirk was supposed to be big enough to house the entire town; it’s overfull today, standing room only. In other temples, the clergy evacuated; not here.

“Six days and nights,” Ecclesiarch Noma calls. “A handful of turnings between us and the gods. And then our bravery stands like a star, undying and brilliant and impossible to ignore.”

The music under Noma’s words intensifies. Qe nods and sings with it. There’s a sheen of sweat on qer fringe.

“I’m gonna meet you on that shore. That far shore. Farther than tyranny can ever reach. And we will clasp hands there. With one another; with the gods of our homes, our homes we never abandoned. And we will watch with pride the example we’ve set for the children of Eqt. No running. No compromise. Courage on this world; comfort in the next.”

This many friends and neighbors, joined in song, are loud enough to rattle the windows. Loud enough to be heard from that alien warship, you could almost think, standing in its midst. You could almost think it.

“Courage on this world,” Noma cries. “Comfort in the next!”

Hroq came close a few times to convincing his wives to get on a transport and go. But by now, the regular rides have ceased; too many empty seats. The only way offworld now is by emergency charter. The wave was one thing, but now the wave has ebbed and left them beached here. He’s given up at this point. Moran and Aqva aren’t leaving. And he isn’t leaving them. So that’s that.

Whatever far shore awaits them, whatever shape it’s in, whatever god is burning the bonfire—they’ll wash up together.

The morning countdown fills Hroq with so much dread now that it’s hard to get out of bed sometimes. The three lovers just lie there instead, in the muggy morning, and hold each other and weep.

But then the stark and insubstantial numbers fade, and the aerial picks up the rich, meaningful music again, and the determination comes back. The aliens up there may have yoked the entire sky in their chains. They will not shackle the children of Eqt. The children of Eqt are not afraid.

(Not after they’ve had breakfast and a good cry, anyway.)

He glances out the kirk window at their bright death, hanging in the sky in front of the mangled moon. The alien sigil is x-shaped; their ship floats close to the center. Let it float. Let them brand the entire galaxy with their arrogance if they want to.

That’s that.

***

“High neckline, here?” Sykora’s clothier holds his tailor’s tape up past her bust. “Or shall we be showy?”

Sykora plucks at the edge of the tailor’s tape and drags it lower. “Showy. At every option, we’re taking the showier one, please. And structured. Some lift in the bandeau. If I’m going to look like some kind of cowled crustacean, I would at least like for my ta-tas to look nice.”

“Is the headdress too long in the back?” Vora clucks her tongue as she paces around her Princess. Her inquisitive reflection gazes at Sykora from a half dozen angles in the semicircle of mirrors they’re standing in. “Maybe we should take this in, some. Don’t want to tangle the tail.”

The clothier sniffs and adjusts his anticomps. “I am doing what I can with grainy photocopies out of a faded cult manuscript, Majesties.”

“We don’t need total faith,” Tymar says. “Marry it to the Imperial look in places you’re not sure. Or where Sykora couldn’t bear otherwise. The more we broadcast union, the better.”

“Are we worried about too much skin?” Grant asks.

“We’re already deep in the heretical, man.” Ipqen looks up from the technical manual she’s reading. A stack of them is by her elbow, all lent by Waian. “I wouldn’t fret about taste. It’s not like Eqtorans are gonna be mad about seeing a pretty lady. Seeing a pretty lady dressed up like a mythological creature from a death cult?” She shrugs. “Maybe. But the song’s sounding pretty sweet.”

“Religion and sexiness are kind of—at odds, where I’m from. Song of Solomon notwithstanding.”

“Huh.” Ipqen turns the page on her manual to a section that’s been heavily redacted with a thick black marker. “Seems like a great way to get people to quit.”

“Kind of,” Grant admits. “Attendance was down.”

“Your planet is still dealing with healthcare access and sexually transmitted diseases,” Tymar says. “The severity of the exhortations against lust in Abrahamic religions will need to be addressed during the uplift, I think, but it makes a certain amount of sense. Especially considering your species’ focus on pair-bonding.”

“Just two people seems so lonely,” Ipqen says. “Who’re you gonna talk with about being in love with someone? And birthday gifts and such?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Grant says. “But generally speaking, you figure it out yourself.” He lapses into quiet contemplation about what sort of gifts he could even get Sykora. Do Taiikari have birthdays?

“All I’m saying is working out what someone likes in bed is more fun and efficient with someone to bounce off of. Pun intended.” Ipqen flips to the manual’s index. “Eqt’s tits. Waian’s too good at redacting. I need this algorithm or I’ll go deepdweller.”

“You’ll have it soon.” Sykora holds her arms out and lets the tailor pin a flowing sheet of silk across her. “Five days, and you’ll have everything you need from us.”

***

They get a hero’s welcome at the meetinghouse. Eqtorans Ynaqi has never met, from across the republic, cheering and slapping her on the back and passing her xhurr leaf (which she politely declines and hands to Tennek).

The whole time, the touch of Suqen’s hand never leaves hers, or Tennek’s.

They sit together, tails criss-crossed behind them like a braid, before the crackling bonfire at the meetinghouse’s center, as the citizens of Yuvik bombard them with updates on their captivity and questions.

“Has there been any combat out there? Any dogfights?”

“They swiped me off a roadside. I just know my autosledge has been impounded at this point. Scrawny little bastards.”

“So you got shot, and they just fixed you like it’d never happened?”

“They have this pink-and-white fish they’ve been giving us and it’s incredible. You gotta try this. Here.”

“Are we gonna be okay, do you think?”

This from a familiar voice. That’s Ruaq-nai-Taqa, the woman who spoke with them aboard the Rivenland.

“Depends,” Tennek says. His big warm arm is around Ynaqi’s waist. “What do you mean, we?”

“Uh.” Ruaq gestures around the circle. “Us, here.”

Tennek nods. “I reckon so. Yeah.”

A sturdy guy with a lquok on his knee raises a hand. “What about the republic?”

The new lovers share a look.

“By the time we’re out of here,” Ynaqi says, her fingers slipping protectively into Suqen’s back pocket, “there ain’t gonna be a republic.”

***

Sykora’s voice spirals up into the air and holds a soaring, silvery note. The line strains and frays and cracks into a discordant cry of frustration.

“Fucking hell,” she snarls, and paces away from her music stand. The beads and bangles of her half-finished getup clatter as she walks. “Two days out. Two days and I still can’t get this fucking song right.”

Grant lowers his guitar. “Don’t think about the timer. Don’t even think of it as a strategy or a solution. Just think of it like a song.”

“I’m sorry, dove. I’m ruining it.” Sykora runs her hands through her hair. The bangles on her wrists clatter. “You had the answer and now I’m ruining everything. I can’t—I was never taught to sing. Dancing, yes. But singing…”

“You don’t need a trained voice,” Grant says. “You need emotion and you need confidence. You have both.”

“Confidence. I feel ridiculous. This outfit. This headdress.” She tugs it from her crown like it’s on fire. “I feel like a fucking ridiculous goof, Grantyde. I shouldn’t dance. I should just stand there.”

“I’d have agreed with you when we started. But now I’ve seen you dance. We need godly—that is godly.”

“I’m not ready. I can’t do this.”

“You are. You can.” Grant stands up and crosses to her. “You have been fearless in front of these people as their conqueror. That’s a costume, same as this.”

“That’s what I am,” Sykora says. “I’m the Void Princess. That’s what I was created to do, Grant.”

“Maybe it is. But you’re different now. You fell to Maekyon and fell apart and we’ve put you back together. The two of us. And now you’re something else. You can still be a conqueror. I’ve seen it. But it’s not how you got me, and it’s not how you get them.”

She’s chewing the end of her tail where it wraps tight around her. It’s a nervous habit she’s picked up. Grant kneels.

“How about this, okay? I’ll be there when you do it. Off camera. And I’ll play along and sing with you. We’ll only pipe your voice out, but I’ll sing with you, too. Just for you. All right?”

She vents a shaky sigh. “All right. Okay. Let’s try that.”

“Just imagine there’s some glass between us,” he says. “And I’m in a dumb coverall. Imagine we’re starting to fall in love.” He feels the downy skin of her cheek as she leans her face against his arm. “Sing like you sang back then. Because that was the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard.”

***

“They’re not leaving.”

Councilor Taqqua worries the tasseled enclosure of her robe with fingers worn down from nervous chewing. “One day left, and millions still on Taiqan. Those people are going to die. These rogue dioceses—the mayors. Nobody’s doing public flights anymore. If we don’t intervene—”

“That’s their choice.” Councilor Prana Makqi is holding court at the ivory altar, the usual wizened, gold-clad attacker at the center of her scrum. She’s emerged as the loudest voice in the council; and that voice never goes off-target on its rhetoric. “The flights have stopped because the flights are empty.”

“That’s their choice. Have you reviewed these music programs?” Taqqua looks around the Highhall chamber, trying to will the councilors in their oval pews to look her way, to hear what she’s saying. “They’re all Book of Thorns. I’m seeing ecclesiasts who have already evacuated pumping that stuff back down into the atmosphere. The atmosphere we’re creating. Willing those people to die for a faith they aren’t even putting themselves in front of. This is a feedback loop. This is the sort of thing our radio department heads were supposed to prevent, and they aren’t. You think that’s okay? You don’t think that we’re responsible for that? The word of the gods—”

“The word of the gods has been written and read and sung,” Makqi cries, her open palm slapping the altar. “The word of the gods is clear. The Book of Thorns is as holy as the Book of Journeying or the Book of the Sunrise. Just because you don’t like what it’s saying doesn’t mean you can shut it up. The radio stations are playing the requests they’re getting. And what they’re hearing is we are ready. We know what is asked of us.”

“Millions, councilor.” But Taqqua’s deflating. “Millions. That’s on us.”

“We all float to the far shore, eventually.” Another Ivory councilor breaks in. “Our lives are the most priceless things we can spend. Spending them like this—that is sacred.”

Someone stands up in the oval. “Move to vote. Now.”

“Councilors—wait.” Taqqua’s fringe goes pallid. She’s been trapped. “You’re not letting me clarify my position.”

“I think we have what we need from you, Councilor Taqqua.” Makqi gives her one last look of imperious victory before turning to High Councilor Qilik’s balcony. “I second the move to vote.”

“I don’t need the measure to mandate evacuations,” Taqqua says. “I don’t. Surely we can find common ground on modulating the music program, at least—”

Makqi’s attention snaps back to her. “No. No common ground. Not with the Tamuraq.”

The name echoes through the Highhall. The hum of conversation crashes to a halt in its wake.

“So it’s been spoken.” An elderly gold-suited man shakes his spotty head by Qilik’s shoulder. “In this hall. The first time in decades. Tamuraq.”

“Of course it has.” The High Councilor finally speaks. “It’s here. This is it. This is all. Makqi has her vote. And you all know what I’d urge. The Taiqan faithful are meeting it with open eyes and fearless spirits. Any mandate we could put in front of them is a violation. These are the final days. The final choices.”

She gazes out the chamber window, at the distant yellow flicker of Taiqan.

“This council must stand aside and let them make theirs.”

Morning is coming to the distant surface of Taiqan, to the settled continent that faces them. Way out there, the brutalized moon is sinking below the horizon.

The final day has come.