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“I did, too,” Luke said. “But I saw Mom in the Lake. And she said it wasn’t her.”

Ben gasped and drew back slightly. He didn’t need confirmation on who it actually was. “That’s … really creepy, Dad.”

“I know,” Luke said, and grimaced slightly. “But the good news is, we can use that against her.”

“She did seem particularly interested in you,” Vestara said. They both turned to look at her.

Ben let out an exasperated sound. “Again, Ves, why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t think it was personal. I just thought she was gravitating toward power.” Her voice was sincere, almost apologetic. “I am sorry. I should have said something earlier.”

“Well, at least we know it’s not our imaginations,” Luke said. “Come on. Let’s meet up with Taalon and the others and follow where Vestara’s hound is leading us.”

She was there, waiting for him. She stood outside the entrance to her cave, between the two large boulders on either side. Her dress clung to her tall, strongly muscled form, blown back against her by a gentle wind. It toyed with her thick dark hair, and as she turned to him, smiling widely, her gray eyes were alight with joy.

“Dyon,” she said. “You’ve found me. You’ve come home.”

He stood for a moment, trembling from the exertion, sweat gleaming on his brow, drinking her in.

He loved her. He felt her need of him, her wanting, her yearning—not passionate, but as sweet as it was intense. It was like a vine entwining about him, pulling him toward her. He was unable to resist it, but then, he did not try. He felt seen and known and cherished. Like a lost child who finally has found his way back to a loving mother, Dyon stumbled toward Abeloth.

Peace radiated through him as she caught his hands with her own. Peace, and certainty. She looked up at him, only a little way, for she was tall, and her gray eyes crinkled in a smile.

“I’ve been so alone,” Dyon whispered.

“I know,” she said, touching his cheek gently. “All that you have known, all that you have learned—these beings do not understand who we are, what we are. You have brothers and sisters, Dyon. Scattered everywhere. Once you were with me, here in the Maw. Once, you were all with me. Now you are apart, but one by one, you are all awakening. And once awake, you can hear my call, and come to me.”

“I come,” Dyon whispered. “This is where I belong. All my life, I’ve searched for a purpose.”

“And now you know that purpose,” Abeloth agreed, closing what little space remained between them with a step. Only a few centimeters separated them now. They were so close he could feel and smell her breath, sweet as flowers, caressing his face. “To serve me. To be with me. Part of me. I need you, Dyon. I need you very much.”

“I want to be with you, with my brothers and sisters,” Dyon said. “I want to understand.”

“You will,” she assured him. “You will be with them … with me. As long as I live. And I,” she whispered, reaching up to cup his cheeks with her strong, warm hands, “will live forever.”

And that was when the torment started.

He stood frozen in place as securely as if his feet had rooted there. He couldn’t move, couldn’t pull back, couldn’t cry out in pain or in warning, for now he suddenly realized that this being was not what he had thought, was not what she—was it even a she?—had pretended to be. The smile, so loving, grew cruel. It spread across her face, widening like a crack in the ground, the lips growing hideously full in that dreadful smile. Her eyes turned from gray to silver to white and grew smaller, seeming to recede into the suddenly black depths of her eye sockets like something falling into a well. Her hair sprouted, grew, undulating as it rippled to her feet, and the hands, the strong, human hands that had cupped his face so tenderly now became tiny, slimy tentacles that seemed to thrust into his skull, into his brain, and suck out what they found there.

A terrible heat, white hot, seared him there, and he smelled burning flesh. Then his heart spasmed in terror as she moved that hideous, huge mouth closer, closer, until