Aris Ade turned one of her wrinkled hands over, palm up. “Marda, do you think you would be able to guide the Path on Jedha, amidst great distraction and noise?”

  “Yes,” she answered immediately. It was a struggle not to let her hands turn to fists. “I know I can. I have done it every day of my life. I have held my own with the Jedi.”

  “The young Jedi is very open to you,” Elder Delwin said, and Marda barely managed not to lower her eyes in embarrassment at his tone.

  “The Jedi has been a challenge I have met well,” she insisted softly.

  “Padawans are not a challenge,” the Mother said. She had returned her attention to the jewel, caressing it gently. It seemed to respond to her affection, glowing brighter.

  “Mother,” Marda said tentatively. “What…is that?”

  The Mother smiled. “A gift from the Force.”

  Marda stared at it, looking for what the Mother saw. It was lovely, but Marda’s lack of sensitivity to the direct will of the Force did not let her appreciate it the same way. If anything, the longer she looked at it, the more the skin along her spine crawled. That she could never admit. She clicked her teeth together, then straightened her shoulders again. “Would it not be wise to send me, with my cousin, to Jedha first, as a—a vanguard? To learn the way of the planet, and of the council? Yana has been one of the Children for years and knows your needs, Mother. And I have experience with giving of the Path and passing unnoticed.”

  “Two Evereni will hardly remain unnoticed in a place like Jedha,” Elder Delwin said.

  This Marda had an answer for, and eagerly said, “Two Evereni bringing only gifts freely given, and the peaceful Path of the Open Hand, could be exactly what people need there. Sometimes surprise is the best open door.”

  The Mother actually smiled indulgently at Marda, and she felt victory nearing.

  But the Herald frowned again. “That is hardly Yana’s skill set.”

  “She’s one of the Children,” Marda said, slightly confused. “Of course such proselytizing is within her abilities.”

  Aris Ade said, “Yana’s skills are not what you are here to argue.”

  “Yes,” Marda said. “I am here because I am suited to this. I know the Path. I live it, Mother. I do not hear the Force as you do, nor am I blessed with visions, but I work every day to live in harmony and clarity with it. I have sworn to see the Force free. I—it is what I want more than anything. And it feels right. To give myself even more to the Force and the Path. I am asking for this opportunity to be, myself, a gift freely given to the Outer Rim. Please.”

  Both Elders and the Herald watched Marda with what she thought to be approval. She did not add to her argument. This was the heart of it: she was a devoted disciple of the Path, eager to spread the word, and singularly suited to representing the Path on Jedha. They would agree. They had to.

  “I do not want the Path on Jedha at this time,” the Mother said with finality.

  Breathless at the firm denial, Marda bowed. “Mother. Yana will leave us. Forever. This is the only way.”

  “Begging is unbecoming,” Elder Aris Ade said, but very gently.

  Tears burned in Marda’s throat. She nodded, remaining in her bowed position.

  “You will one day be among our greatest,” the Mother said. “But not today. Be patient.”

  “Soon, Marda-chi,” Aris Ade said.

  It was enough of a dismissal. Marda stood, trembling, and looked at the Mother. Her eyes had drifted closed, and she held the jewel against her body as if already communing with the Force. Marda looked at the Herald, who seemed displeased. She had failed him, too, in failing to find a way to keep Yana on Dalna with them.

  With a final bow, Marda fled.

  Up on the surface, under the sun, she dug her hands against her stomach until she could feel the tips of her nails. This did not feel right. She knew she was supposed to go.

  Turning her face up to the bright twin suns, she stared. Her eyes could take it better than most, but it still burned the longer she looked.

  I do not want the Path on Jedha at this time, the Mother had said. The words rang in Marda’s skull.

  I do not want

  I do not

  I

  Not the Force.

  Marda frowned. She’d never heard the Mother express her own needs in such a way. It was always the Force’s needs, the will of the Force.

  No—this was a slip of the tongue. The Mother was the will of the Force as far as Marda was concerned.

  Taking a deep breath, Marda looked away from the suns. She would tell Yana of her plan, and what the Mother and Elders had said. Maybe it would be enough to keep Yana for a few weeks, until the Gaze Electric was complete.

  Marda strode back to the heart of the commune to find her Littles. She had not been defeated—she needed only to be patient. Now that she knew what she was supposed to do, now that it had rooted inside her, she would not give up. She would just find a way to show the Mother, her cousin, all the Path that this was the will of the Force.

  Yana didn’t want to romanticize her last job with the Children, but she found she couldn’t help it. Even the presence of a grubby prospector with unknown debts to the Mother didn’t tarnish the shine of nostalgia too badly.

  The Scupper, Sunshine Dobbs’s ship, was a run-down pleasure yacht that stank like sweet smoke and old fish. As they boarded the ship, Treze began to complain about how smelly humans were, or at least Sunshine, and Yana thought, This is almost the last time I will have to endure Treze’s constant whining. When Treze then began to criticize the plan to gain entry to the compound under a centuries-old tradition on Thelj called the Rite of Hospitality, Yana didn’t even get angry.

  It was amazing how freeing it was just to know she was leaving, even if the hurt glances Kor shot her way felt like actual blaster bolts lodging in her chest.

  Yana tried speaking to Kor when they boarded the ship, but the Nautolan flipped her head tresses over her shoulder and ignored Yana, opting to chat with Treze instead, who was delighted by the turn of events. Yana didn’t say anything or let her frustration show. Instead she just strapped into a chair and began to read one of the newest romances from the holonet. This one revolved around a senator who fell in love with a Jedi, who was torn between his allegiance to the Order and the love of his life. Yana thought it was a bit far-fetched, but it was a good way to pass the time in hyperspace, especially since Thelj was four sectors away from Dalna. The trip would’ve taken multiple jumps on the public hyperspace routes, but Sunshine had the access codes to a private hyperspace route, so the entire trip would take only three days total: a day and a half there and a day and a half back. He was definitely the Mother’s source for their previous private routes. Yana wondered, not for the first time, how the Mother made these contacts if she was just a prophet working to maintain the balance of the Force. It seemed like obvious proof the Mother was anything but what she said. Fortunately, that wouldn’t be Yana’s problem for much longer.

  Just the people you are leaving behind, whispered a traitorous voice in her mind. She quashed it.

  Based on Sunshine’s intel, Cincey had sent a query to the personal secretary of Jacinda Graf, the owner of the compound on Thelj, about the Grafs possibly selling the Jedi Tears. It was an artifact that was rumored to be part of the same set as the Rod of Seasons, which they’d lifted from Hynestia, and in the message Cincey pretended to be a buyer interested in possibly making an offer for the artifact on behalf of the Hynestian royal family. The return message had been polite and forthcoming: Jacinda Graf and her entourage were off planet for at least the next month, but she would be happy to discuss a possible transfer of ownership sometime after that.

  It was all Yana needed for her plan to make sense.

  A compound full of Grafs would have been a problem. The Grafs were known as a ruthless hyperspace prospecting family, one of the first at the beginning of the rush. Even the holo-documentaries Yana had watched made a point of discussing the Grafs’ dedication to security, a nice way of saying they were known for their mercilessness in dealing with their enemies.

  But if there were no Grafs in residence, it stood to reason that the security would be lax. Employees were always less attentive when their employers were nowhere to be found, so Yana began to think perhaps this plan actually had a chance.

  “You lot should get ready,” Sunshine called from the cockpit when they exited hyperspace with a bump. “We’ll be there soon.”

  Yana grabbed her robes and threw them on over a fitted black shirt and trousers. Her slicer set hung at her hip, and she watched as Kor began to do her warm-up exercises as usual. Treze was watching, as well, and he winked at Yana when their gazes met.

  “I cannot believe you’re going to leave all this behind,” he said before moving off to use the refresher in the back of the ship. Yana waited until she heard the click of the locking mechanism before turning to Kor.

  “Are we going to discuss it, or are you going to pretend that I’m standing here talking to myself?” Yana asked.

  Kor snorted. “You’re the one who decided that I no longer exist, not the other way around.”

  “Kor,” Yana began, but then shook her head. “You’re right. I should’ve told you first. Before I spoke with the Mother. But we’ve been talking about leaving the Path and Dalna for years.”

  “Exactly,” Kor said, rounding on Yana, her stretches forgotten. “So why now? Why do you all of a sudden think it’s a good time to leave when you’ve never been in any kind of hurry before?”

  “Kor. There are Jedi on Dalna. It’s just a matter of time until they find the artifacts in the caverns.”

  “So? The Force will protect us,” Kor said. “It wants to be free, and by taking those artifacts away from people who use them to exploit the Force, we’re helping maintain the balance in the Force.”

  Yana shook her head. “The Jedi use the Force, and if the Force actually felt some kind of way about that, I doubt the Jedi would still exist.” Yana looked to the cockpit, where Sunshine was steering them over a flat, frigid landscape that looked to be a frozen emerald ocean. Yana lowered her voice. “The Mother will lead everybody away from Dalna as soon as the Gaze Electric is complete anyway.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she could feel the rightness of them. “Leaving now is the only way to do it freely,” she said, flashing her teeth in annoyance.

  Kor shook her head. “You’re wrong. Leaving with the Mother is freeing, too. Her work with the Force has saved my own mother’s life.”

  “The medicine the Path finally bought saved your mother’s life,” Yana said with a sigh. “Kor, I love you. My heart breaks at the thought of leaving you behind. But how can I ask you to leave when you love the Path, when your mother is on the mend?”

  “You should’ve asked,” Kor said. Then the ship was landing, and there was no more space for conversation as Treze departed the refresher, his knives in their holders on the bandoliers crisscrossing his body.

  “All right,” Sunshine called from the cockpit. “I set us down about a kilometer from the compound, so you’ll have to walk a bit in the cold. There are some cloaks I managed to scrounge up so you’ll look like proper pilgrims.”

  “These stink,” Treze said, opening the compartment Sunshine had indicated.

  “You think religious dedicants have time to stop and do laundry?” the human said in response. “You have four hours. This ship will be running, so be quick. Fuel is still expensive thanks to the war between E’ronoh and Eiram, and after that it’ll be dicey whether or not we can get off planet and to the rendezvous point. Got it?”

  The Children nodded. Then Sunshine opened the boarding ramp. A blast of icy air assaulted them, whipping their robes and cloaks about, and despite the smell of the material, Yana was thankful for the layers. She rarely felt the cold, but Thelj was colder than even Hynestia, and Yana was hard pressed to walk out into the frozen landscape.

  One more job, she thought, and stepped out onto the ice.

  The settlements on Thelj existed only in temperate zones created by the original settlers of the planet. The data Yana had read on the planet stated that it had been settled as a potential colony of the Republic nearly three centuries earlier, but shortly after that the planet’s sun had gone dark, collapsing into nothing. The result was a planet that quickly froze, killing nearly everyone unable to escape. A few scientists had found a way to use the planetary core to create vents of heated air that made life possible, and in the distance the dome of Thelj’s lone city, Bhatiqu, glowed. But it was the only landmark in the entirety of the landscape. Green ice extended before them in all directions, the soft glow of lights under a dome the only sign that they were not the only living creatures on the entire planet.

  “Are we in the right place?” Kor asked. Her voice seemed unnaturally loud. There was no sound at all, now that the wind had died down, just a heavy silence that seemed to press in on all sides. The stillness was a relief, though, alleviating some of the bite in the air.

  “That’s the Graf compound there,” Yana said, pointing to a smaller lighted spot on the horizon. There was no dome, but the Graf compound was the next step in the engineering that allowed Bhatiqu to exist, a system of atmospheric generators that used the energy of the planet’s core to create a temperate zone.

  “Look,” Treze said, pointing down at the ice beneath their boots. Far below, dark shadows shifted in mesmerizing patterns, circling.

  “It’s an ocean,” Yana said, gesturing to encompass the landscape that surrounded them. “Or maybe a lake of some kind. It must be why it’s so flat.”

  “We should get moving,” Kor said, looking down at the creatures circling beneath. “The ice is thick, but I don’t think we want to tempt them.”

  They all began to walk, taking long strides. They didn’t run, but it was a near thing, and by the time the sentry point to the Graf complex was in sight, their gaits were jerky, their shoulders hunched against the cold seeping into their bones and bodies. Yana wished they’d done more to prepare for the weather.

  The sentry point was monitored by a very shiny enforcer droid. Even the Grafs weren’t coldhearted enough to make an actual person guard the area outside of their temperate zone. But this seemed a bit over the top.

  “State your business,” the droid demanded. It had plenty of panels sure to be packing blasters and worse.

  “We seek to invoke the Rite of Hospitality,” Yana said, careful in her phrasing. The research she’d done had been clear that the Rite of Hospitality must be invoked, and even then it entitled the guest only to warm their bones for an hour unless an additional offer was made by the host. Yana didn’t think any such offer would be forthcoming, so invoking Thelj’s old-fashioned tradition was more about gaining access than anything else.

  The droid hesitated before replying. “The Rite of Hospitality is acknowledged. Please proceed.”

  Yana nodded, and they continued on their way, the air warming quickly. They’d gone only a few steps before their shoulders relaxed, the temperature changing from frigid to balmy in a matter of steps. By the time they gained entrance to the gardens, Yana had stripped off her borrowed cloak and was beginning to wish she could strip off her Path robes, as well.

  “Can I help you?” someone trilled from a nearby doorway. A pale-skinned human woman with a kind smile and gray hair, wearing a household uniform, stood nearby, the blaster on her hip unmistakable.

  “Forgive us, kind friend,” Treze said, the Mikkian falling into his role effortlessly. “We are but humble pilgrims seeking a moment to warm ourselves.”

  “You get an hour. No more,” the human woman said, her friendliness leeching away. “And you can keep that Church of the Force nonsense to yourself.”

  “We are not from the Church of the Force,” Kor said with a bow, her hands outstretched, palms facing the icy sky above. “We are from the Path of the Open Hand.”

  “I don’t care if you’re Jedi,” the woman said. “You may remain here in the waiting garden until the hour has passed, and then you must be on your way.”

  “That is no problem, and we are sorry for the imposition,” Yana said, her head bowed. “I do not suppose there is a refresher I might use?”

  The woman’s lips twisted with annoyance, and then she sighed heavily. “Follow me.”

  Yana followed the woman, but as she did, a couple of other similarly dressed people—a large human man with swirling blue tattoos covering his shirtless torso and a smaller Duros man with blue-green skin and bulging red eyes—went out to the garden, ostensibly to supervise Treze and Kor. A spike of worry shot through Yana, but she tamped it down. This was fine. They could do this.

  The refresher was down a long hallway, and the woman indicated it with a wave of her hand. Yana bowed in the way of the Path, palms up, and entered. She didn’t have much time, and she would have to work fast.

  Once inside the refresher, Yana stripped off her slicer kit and jammed it into the port meant for adjusting the lights within the space. One of the curious things she had read about the compound was how everything was controlled with a single system. The environmental controls, the security system, and the communications operated through a central hub. That meant that, theoretically, the communications and security could be reached through the environmental controls. It didn’t always work that way, especially when a good engineer was paranoid enough to make sure there was an impressive barrier between systems, but rich people were funny in that they didn’t always pay for the best kind of help when it came to things like their networks.

  And Yana was pleased to discover that the Grafs were like too many other rich people the Children had stolen from: more worried about saving a credit than double-checking the work of their hired help. There was no digital barrier between the environmental controls and the others, so she accessed the security functions easily.

  Right as the screaming started.