Also by Tessa Gratton

  Star Wars

  The High Republic: Defy the Storm (with Justina Ireland)

  The High Republic: Path of Deceit (with Justina Ireland)

  The High Republic: Quest for Planet X

  Chaos & Flame Series

  Chaos & Flame (with Justina Ireland)

  Blood & Fury (with Justina Ireland)

  Five Mountains Duology

  Night Shine

  Moon Dark Smile

  Innis Lear Duology

  The Queens of Innis Lear

  Lady Hotspur

  The Gods of New Asgard

  The Lost Sun

  The Strange Maid

  The Apple Throne

  Gold Runner

  Lady Berserk

  Glory’s Teeth

  The Blood Journals

  Blood Magic

  The Blood Keeper

  Strange Grace

  Star Wars: The High Republic: Temptation of the Force is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2024 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House Worlds, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House is a registered trademark, and Random House Worlds and colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9780593723098

  Ebook ISBN 9780593723104

  randomhousebooks.com

  Cover art: Grant Griffin

  ep_prh_7.0_147301323_c0_r0

  Contents

  Dedication

  The Star Wars Novels Timeline

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  _147301323_

  For Matt and Joanne Gratton, my dad and mom,

  the first Star Wars fans I ever knew

  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

  Worlds suffer inside the formidable Occlusion Zone, where Marchion Ro and his band of Nihil marauders, untouchable by the Republic, rule with an iron fist.

  Jedi Master Avar Kriss has escaped from this occupied space and, along with fellow Jedi Elzar Mann, leads the Jedi and Republic in a desperate fight against the Nihil and their Nameless creatures.

  But a new danger now threatens the galaxy. A mysterious BLIGHT has begun to spread randomly across worlds, slowly infecting areas and turning all life in its path to dust….

  Prologue

  Seswenna Sector, Inside the Occlusion Zone

  Porter Engle drifted.

  It was not the first time he’d died—or nearly died—nor was it likely to be the last. Someday the final death would arrive, and he would be one with the Force.

  The last clear memory he had was of standing over the void of space, on the torn edge of a ship, his lightsaber lost, his shoulder bleeding, and that old Mirialan grinning desperately at him from above: “Goodbye, Porter Engle.”

  Goodbye, Porter Engle.

  You are not alone.

  No, that wasn’t—

  Porter groaned softly and fell back into drifting.

  He remembered screeching metal, the hiss of a lightsaber blade against beskar. He remembered sending someone off—you are not alone—again, always sending others away, watching them leave, driving them off—

  No.

  It had been Avar Kriss this time, determined to make it, filled with a fire of hope.

  He remembered white braids whipping like ropes and a laugh, chasing after that laugh, chasing after promises, tears, and lightsabers clattering to the ground all around him like an avalanche.

  General Viess. Older. Stronger. Goodbye, Porter Engle.

  Then, on the tattered metal edge of what once had been a hangar bay, Porter remembered sitting down to welcome the Force. He had closed his eye and let the pain diffuse into light, the blood sticking to his skin a warm reminder of the life he was leaving.

  It drained out of him, and he listened to the Force. He felt other beings scrambling in the ruined ship, heard the wail of steel, the burst of engines, and the whisper of blades cutting through air: the Force all around him.

  Porter Engle had never sought death, though through his long years, it had often come calling, but now he could welcome it through the Force.

  Except.

  Porter was here. On a bed with a thin mattress. It gave oddly, like a material pulled over metal bars. A cot. His head throbbed, and his shoulder tingled. There was a noise he should be able to recognize. It was familiar. Rhythmic.

  By the Force, his body ached.

  He was alive.

  Not quite ready to open his eye, Porter let his breath deepen again and internally studied his situation. He wore what felt like a thin clean robe. He smelled medicine and a soothing astringent smoke, like incense maybe. No shoes on his feet. No eye patch. A bandage was wrapped on his left shoulder where Viess had stabbed him. He could move his fingers and toes.

  All told, not a bad summation.

  This was a small room, based on the echo of that familiar rhythmic noise.

  Oh, it was only music.

  Someone in the room was playing some kind of harp, though not especially well.

  As Porter focused, he heard the sound of breathing and the ruffle of clothing. A distant, muffled thrum of life outside well-insulated windows. So a city, perhaps.

  Porter reached with the Force and identified one other being in the room. They felt mostly at ease, if frustrated by something. Not an immediate threat.

  Below them more beings moved, alive with the Force. He was on the second story of a building. Alone with the musician.

  Slowly, Porter turned his head toward the musician and opened his eye to daylight.

  The player was human, by the looks of him, wearing a black tunic and robe with bright-red ribbons tying his sleeves tight to his forearms as he stood over a horizontal harp and gently picked out a song by tapping the strings with little hammers. Concentration pulled his young, handsome tan face into a frown, and strands of black hair fell from a messy topknot.

  The human looked harmless, and Porter’s wounds had been tended, but better not take chances.

  Carefully, Porter settled himself and welcomed the Force toward him. He waited until he felt it gleaming around him, sharp as a hundred blades, humming in his mind like kyber.

  He moved.

  Porter leapt up and swept across the room between two strikes of the ha
mmers, ending with his side against the human’s back and one arm around his neck—too loose to kill, too tight to allow for a struggle.

  The human froze.

  “You’re, ah, awake,” he said.

  Porter grunted. “Who’re you?” he said, voice dry and cracking. Unused for the Force knew how long. Maybe it had been a day, maybe weeks.

  “Cair,” the young man said quietly. His hands slowly lowered the hammers, placing them gently against the strings of the harp. A dulcimer, Porter thought. He’d seen them before.

  “Where are we?”

  “Seswenna City.”

  Porter nodded, his right hand clenching, inadvertently tightening that arm around Cair’s neck. “How did I get here?”

  “I rescued you,” the human said, and for the first time Porter detected a tone in his voice: lighthearted, purposefully gentle, the way one might speak to a wild predator.

  Porter had been a lot of things in his long life, including a predator. A hunter. It wasn’t his natural state or his preference, but this was still the Occlusion Zone, and the Nihil were still in charge. He’d closed his eye on a fracturing Nihil ship and opened it here. The most logical explanation was that this Cair was Nihil, too. Despite his music, despite Porter’s lack of restraints.

  Snorting, Porter shook the young man slightly. “Rescued me, ah? How? That ship was littered with Nihil and only Nihil.”

  “Well,” Cair admitted, “I do sometimes run supplies for them.”

  Porter sucked air through his teeth.

  “But!” Cair was fast to explain, his hands lifting urgently in surrender. The left hand was a prosthetic made of black alloy. “I do it to keep my clearances, you know, against scav droids, and to be able to move around. I smuggle under their noses. Information, goods, sometimes people, but that’s more difficult.”

  “Difficult is what this story is to believe,” Porter said, more cranky than usual because of all the things he didn’t know, as well as his aching shoulder and the expanse of anger growing in his guts. “I’m to understand that a non-Nihil Nihil just happened to come across me, get me out of the wreckage, and nurse me to health?”

  Cair shrugged abortively under the weight of Porter’s grip. “Not…not so hard to believe if you trust the Force.”

  Porter barked a laugh and again tightened his arm around Cair’s neck. “The Force?”

  “Let me show you something, old man,” Cair said, turning his head to show Porter the gleam of a dark-brown eye and the edge of his grin.

  For a moment, Porter did his best to stare into that eye, feeling his way with the Force to discern if Cair was setting him up. He sensed an earnest nature, a thrill of fear and excitement. Nothing more.

  Well, Porter hadn’t made it this long without throwing himself off a few metaphoric—and literal—cliffs. “All right.”

  Releasing Cair in one swift motion, Porter stepped back and tightened his fists at his sides. He was the blade. And the Force was with him.

  Cair darted past the harp and quickly moved around the cot where Porter had been unconscious. On the other side was a small metal table with several drawers. Cair pulled the top one open, and Porter tensed, calling on the Force in case the human took out a blaster.

  But it was no such thing.

  In the young man’s hand was a lightsaber—Porter’s lightsaber, which had gone rolling away from him on the ruined deck of General Viess’s ship. Porter stared at it as Cair flipped it and offered the hilt to him.

  “I haven’t known many Jedi,” Cair said. “But I’m from the Core and didn’t always live out here. I wasn’t always trapped under Nihil cruelty. I know a lightsaber when I see one, and I know Jedi even without their robes.”

  Something about the words settled heavily on Porter’s shoulders. He drew a long breath and reached out for his lightsaber with the Force.

  Cair let go and the weapon flew the short distance to gracefully land in Porter’s palm. It felt like years since he’d held it. “How long since you found me?”

  “A little more than a month,” Cair said. “You had to be in stasis for a while, because of your injuries. And also, honestly, I don’t have access to the finest medicine under Nihil occupation, so it took me a while to safely track down the right help.”

  “That hand looks pretty fancy,” Porter said, though he was starting to believe the kid.

  “It’s a long story,” Cair said glumly, flexing the black prosthetic. But his attention spiked again, and he stepped eagerly toward Porter. “Listen, I know how the Force works. It had to have led me to you for a reason. I’m trying to help people out here. I can’t do what Jedi do, but regular people are doing our best.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Porter murmured. In the past year, he’d seen so much, good and terrible.

  “You can help. I know a lot about setting up undercover operations, spying and smuggling, but I don’t know about tactics and—”

  Porter shook his head. “Stop.”

  “But—”

  “Look for a human named Rhil Dairo and for an Ugnaught pilot named Belin, who’s been doing runs for the Nihil like you. They’ll help you.”

  “Oh.” Cair blinked as if his mind was working overtime.

  Porter said, “I’m not your prisoner, am I?”

  “No!” Cair said, eyes wide with surprise.

  “I’m leaving. Where are my things?”

  Cair pointed to a bin beside the cot. “Boots, belt, jacket are in there.”

  Porter nodded and put it all on, then strode for the only door.

  “Wait!”

  Porter ignored him, gripping his lightsaber in his hand. It felt so right. He knew where he needed to go.

  Before he touched the door release, Porter paused. Turning only his head, he said, “If you meet other Jedi, if you hear of them, don’t mention you saw me. Don’t mention I’m alive.”

  “Why not?” Cair looked incredulous.

  Porter pressed his mouth into a firm line and held the young man’s gaze. His missing eye really wanted to open, the phantom awareness of it clear even after all this time. He was going to need a new patch.

  He said, “I don’t need any Jedi trying to find me. Where I’m going, they can’t follow.”

  With that, Porter Engle hit the door release. It swished open.

  Cair said, “Tell me your name, at least. I won’t give it away.”

  “Sure.” Porter nodded almost to himself, but he said, “Porter Engle.”

  “Thanks. Goodbye, Porter Engle, Jedi,” Cair said. “If the Force is with us, I’ll see you again.”

  It should have been nice, to hear faith in the Force from someone out here in the Occlusion Zone. But Porter could only think of where he was going. Of what lay ahead.

  Goodbye, Porter Engle.

  Chapter One

  Coruscant

  Avar Kriss walked quietly down the corridor of the Jedi Temple, a ceramic bottle of sourstone mead in one hand, a box of keldov nut pastries in the other. When she reached Elzar Mann’s quarters, she paused, tucking the liquor under her arm, and flattened her palm to the cool metal door.

  In most of the Temple, the song of the Force flowed peacefully, easily. This place was no exception. She pushed her awareness outward, reaching for her friend. He was in there. A small smile played on her lips, but before she could knock, the door slid open. Elzar was scratching at his beard, but his hand fell away at the sight of her. “Avar.”