She’d gone only a few steps when there was a gasp. The room had fallen silent behind her, and as Yana turned she could see why. The creature had left the Mother’s side and was following Yana like a lost child following an older sibling. The glowing blue creature sat before Yana and let out a low bellow that felt like a bell echoing through Yana’s chest. It was more energy than actual sound, and for a moment Yana wasn’t sure what the thing wanted. But then she saw its face tendrils reaching toward the Rod of Seasons.

  “The Leveler has chosen its champion,” the Herald said, his deep voice startling Yana from her musings. Her gaze met his inky one, so like Kor’s it made Yana want to weep, and he gave her a slight nod. This was her chance to deny it, to say the creature was merely attracted to the Rod of Seasons. But Yana put it behind her back, reaching out with her free hand to let the creature’s face tendrils curl around her fingers. The rod grew warm in her hand, but it was nothing unbearable, and it was worth it for the expression on the Mother’s face.

  For a moment her calm, benevolent facade fractured and a cold, calculating rage was revealed. But just as quickly it was shuttered, and she was smiling benignly once more.

  “I am humbled that this agent of the Force has chosen me,” Yana said, her words slow and deliberate. “I will take this duty just as seriously as I did being one of the Mother’s faithful Children.”

  “You have always completed your duties admirably, and now you will be the Leveler’s champion,” the Mother said before the Herald could speak. “What an incredible day for us all.”

  Yana tucked the rod away, her gaze finding the Herald’s for a moment before she was surrounded by well-wishers, Elders congratulating her on being a great asset to the Force.

  Yana barely heard them all. There was a plot afoot, and whatever the Herald was planning, she was now wholly a part of it.

  She just hoped that meant she would eventually get to watch the Mother die.

  Marda walked with a numb clarity through the underground tunnels. The lightsaber hummed before her. She felt it through the metal, in both her palms. Comforting. Bright. She understood why the Jedi liked this weapon.

  Ahead, from the direction of the Mother’s listening room, voices of excitement drifted toward Marda. Nothing like what she’d expected: fear, battle, distress. How could Kevmo have died in such a way, and there in the Mother’s warmly lit room, people gathered as if to celebrate?

  First Marda saw the Herald and several Elders surrounding Yana, who accepted their attention with obvious discomfort. Elder Aris Ade caught sight of Marda and lifted a hand in greeting with a smile. But Marda’s gaze shot past her to the Mother, kneeling on a pillow near a strange creature that glowed blue and stared with knowing eyes at Yana.

  When she entered, the golden glow of Kevmo’s lightsaber was swallowed by the brighter lights of the room. Like an afterthought. It broke her heart. He had been alone in the tunnels, and now he was dead. Marda’s lips trembled, and she wanted to call out to her cousin. She understood the quavering depths of that grief Yana had felt. She wanted to be comforted. She wanted…

  On the floor of the cavern room, a dark gray statue in Jedi robes.

  Marda blinked.

  The Jedi Knight’s face was twisted in fear and agony. The tip of her nose had crumbled.

  Marda approached. Her breath heaved, and the lightsaber in her hand slashed through the air as she lowered it. The tip gouged the rug with a smolder and hiss, and Marda thumbed it off. Still in a daze.

  The Jedi Zallah Macri, Kevmo’s master, was just as dead as her apprentice. Turned somehow to mineral. “What happened?” she said. Her voice was soft, but it carried through the new silence.

  “Marda,” Yana and the Herald said at the same time.

  But Marda slid her gaze toward the Mother. The Mother’s eyes were shut, her hands on her lap, palms up, as she sat on the floor pillow. Beside her, the creature’s long neck waved, its eyes on Marda. Studying her before once again turning its attention to Yana.

  “You have the Jedi’s weapon,” one of the Elders said.

  “Did you stop him?” asked another.

  “He’s dead,” Marda said to the Mother.

  “Good,” the Herald said, and Marda snapped her head around in shock. “Do you know if he had a communication device? A way to let others know before he succumbed?”

  Marda ignored him and stepped toward the Mother. The Herald was to be obeyed; he understood the Path, but the Mother was who mattered. “What happened?” she asked again.

  Elder Aris Ade said, “The Jedi attacked the Mother.”

  Old Waiden frowned. “Are you injured, Marda?”

  The Herald began to speak, but the Mother finally opened her eyes. “Marda. This is the Leveler. It is what happened.”

  Marda knelt in front of the creature. It was a quadruped the size of a charhound, with delicate hooves, a tail, and a long neck. It emanated bluish energy, and something that felt like…wisdom. Marda folded her hands around the lightsaber. “It killed the Jedi.”

  “Yes. They abused the Force, and the Leveler returned balance. It is a pure agent of the Force.”

  Marda glanced sharply back at the crumbling body of Zallah Macri. “To stop their abuse of the Force from harming others,” she murmured. Awed, she carefully evened out her breathing. She closed her eyes, and tears she hadn’t noticed spilled onto her cheeks.

  She’d told Kevmo again and again he couldn’t take from the Force. She’d told him. He hadn’t listened, and now he was dead. This avatar of the Force had appeared to bring harmony again.

  Marda’s hand curled into a fist around the lightsaber. Why hadn’t he listened? He’d been raised so wrongly. He was dead because of the Jedi and their ways. They could not be allowed to maintain their lies. Corrupting the galaxy with their virtuous-seeming abuse of the Force. Turning bright boys like Kevmo Zink into ashes and chalk.

  “We have to stop them,” she said quietly. But when she opened her eyes, the Mother was watching her with the most open expression Marda had ever seen: Agreement. Understanding.

  “We have to stop them,” the Mother said so everyone could hear Marda’s words. “We are vessels of the Force, Marda knows. We live in harmony with a free Force. This blessed creature is the will of that Force, and it will stop them. This creature and its incredible siblings, in harmony with the Force.” She reached a hand toward Marda.

  Keeping one hand on the lightsaber—her lightsaber now—Marda put her other hand into the Mother’s.

  Standing over Marda, the Herald said, “Yana Ro has been chosen by the Leveler to be its champion.”

  Marda looked to Yana. Her cousin looked back. Yana was angry. But not trying to leave. Not trying to hurt the Mother. “Has Yana accepted?” she asked the Herald, but she was looking only at Yana. She needed Yana. She would trust only the Force, but she needed her cousin.

  Yana bared her teeth slightly. And nodded.

  “The Mother has seen a vision of us,” Old Waiden said. “In the stars.” His voice quavered with uncertainty. A question.

  “It is time to take to the Gaze Electric,” the Mother said.

  “Take the Path to the stars,” the Herald added.

  “I know where we are needed,” Marda said, thinking about the Convocation on Jedha. They would take proof of what the Jedi had wrought upon themselves. They would take the Leveler. They would take the Path of the Open Hand.

  She stood up but lowered her gaze to the Leveler. It wavered in place, as if moving in a breeze or to a song only it could hear. The Force.

  Marda felt an indescribable rightness as she looked at it. She held Kevmo’s lightsaber. Then she looked at Old Waiden. At Elder Aris Ade. Elder Sarevelin. They each had the upper half of their face painted full blue. The same blue as the Leveler’s glow.

  The Mother’s smile was beautiful when she turned it to Marda. “Marda Ro will be at my side. A guide along with our champion. The Force sees these cousins. They are vessels of its will.”

  Marda nodded at the Elders. She bowed to them, hands out: lightsaber in one, the other an open palm.

  Sunshine looked out the viewport of the Mother’s quarters aboard the Gaze Electric onto the inky black of open space. How had he gotten there? It felt strange to think that he was embarking on a new adventure with the Path, at the Mother’s side. Every time he considered the fact too closely, he felt unmoored, adrift, as though he’d somehow ended up there without really taking a single step.

  But then Elecia would smile at him and it wouldn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. There was nothing as important as her happiness.

  When the door slid open to reveal Elecia on the other side, Sunshine felt his world constrict. Elecia was all there was. She was darkness and she was light. She was everything Sunshine had ever wanted.

  When she stumbled Sunshine was there to catch her, quick on his feet despite his size. But she waved him off. “I mustn’t look weak,” she said.

  “You could never be weak,” he murmured, but she made her way to a low couch positioned opposite the door. Everything in this room, the finest aboard the ship, was designed to impress. Sunshine had never been anywhere so fine.

  But Elecia didn’t seem to see the grandeur. Instead she scowled. “The Leveler is the only thing I need to be strong again, to regain my influence.” She paused a moment before turning to Sunshine. “Before, you said there was another rod. On Jedha, correct?”

  “Ah, yes. The Rod of Daybreak.”

  “Did you ever find its location?”

  “Yes, but it’s in a vault. One controlled by the Jedi, last I heard. Very inaccessible.”

  “Maybe, once before. But with the Leveler, all things are possible.” The Mother closed her eyes and leaned back, and for a moment Sunshine thought she was resting. But then her eyes flew open. “I need you to go to Jedha. Prepare for our arrival.”

  Sunshine blinked stupidly. “I…How do I do that?”

  “By letting everyone know just who we are. The Path of the Open Hand will not be stopped.”

  Yana looked out into the emptiness of space and tried not to feel the grief that pounded behind her eyes. Kor would have loved the view from the temple hall of the Gaze Electric. The sun opal tapestries hadn’t been finished and flickered despondently in shades of blue, but the floor-to-ceiling viewscreen was impressive. It made Yana feel small and weak. Insignificant. Which was probably the intent of the design.

  “I thought I’d find you here.”

  Yana turned to see the Herald approaching. He had exchanged his robes of blue and gray for fitted black shirt and pants, a swath of blue material draped asymmetrically across his shoulders. His twin blasters were visible at his hips. He had changed in those moments in the cavern, something in him hardening just as the Jedi had been turned to stone.

  “I needed a moment to breathe.”

  It was true. Ever since Yana had been named the Champion, the Rod of Seasons had been secreted under the layers of her robes, but that only meant whenever she was near the Leveler, the creature followed her around. It frustrated the Mother that the creature appeared to like Yana more than her, and Marda saw it as a sign that Yana had returned to the way of the Path. It was exhausting to maintain the ruse, so Yana had taken to speaking even less than before, and when queried about it, she always said she was listening to the pulse of the Force. That made people steer clear of her, everyone except Marda. She wanted Yana to describe what it sounded like.

  “She would’ve loved this,” the Herald said into the silence, and Yana had to take a moment to recalibrate and realize he was talking about Kor, not her cousin.

  “Yes.” Yana hesitated. The Herald had never much cared for Yana, and she doubted their new arrangement had changed that. But Kor was gone, and perhaps the man would appreciate a new memory of his daughter. “We used to talk about leaving Dalna, and one of the things Kor always said was that she wanted to spend the first year on a hauler of some kind, just seeing the galaxy, especially the Core Worlds. Coruscant and Hosnian Prime and places like that. She really wanted to go to Alderaan. I never understood why, but she talked about it all the time.”

  The Herald said nothing for a moment before nodding. “I miss her.”

  “I do, too,” Yana said, sudden tears clogging her throat. She took a deep breath and let it out, burying the pain deep as her mother had taught her long ago. “The Mother has to pay for what she did to her.”

  “And Treze, as well,” the Herald said, his voice even. Cold and emotionless. “I know you didn’t care for the boy, but he was a victim, too. I spoke with his girlfriend in Ferdan. Did you know he has a baby on the way?”

  “Yes, and I’m not going to lie, the thought makes me a bit ill. But I’m happy to avenge him, as well.” Yana adjusted the Rod of Seasons where it lay at the small of her back, tucked under layers of material.

  “We will bide our time and destroy the Mother when the opportunity arises,” the Herald said. “We both know what kind of person she truly is, and to let her continue to exploit the Force for her own personal gain is not an option. Lucky for us, the Mother is weak, and out here in space her hold will weaken. But while we wait for the perfect moment to strike, you must corral your cousin.”

  “Marda? What does she have to do with this?” Yana asked, feeling put out.

  “Your cousin is a true believer,” the Herald said. “Where she goes, the rest of the Path will follow. Have you seen the way they look at her? The Elders, the Littles? She makes them brave when they are scared, and she shows them kindness when they are bereft. Marda should be the next Mother, giving guidance and care to our members.” The Herald hesitated. “No. She will be something more than a mockery of parental love. She will be our Guide.”

  Yana was annoyed that the Herald had made this about Marda, but then he rested his hand on her shoulder. “With Marda as the Guide, communing with the Force and making its will known, we will need someone to protect her from harm. You will be the Guardian, forever at your cousin’s side, protecting her from all those who would seek to strike down her vision.”

  “And what will you be?” Yana asked, but the Herald was already moving away, back into the belly of the Gaze Electric. He didn’t answer Yana, and when he was gone, a feeling like suddenly being weightless came over her. She wished she knew what his plan was. But it didn’t really matter. The die had been cast, and Yana had made her choice. She would see this through until the end.

  Once the Herald had taken his leave, Yana made her way back to the chamber she shared with her cousin. No one else had wanted to room with Yana, and for the first time ever, it had nothing to do with her being Evereni. Rather, most people in the Path feared the Leveler, and they did not want the risk of angering the Champion. Yana thought it was more about the possibility that the creature would visit during a sleep cycle. Luckily, Marda was not so wary. It was as if nothing made her afraid anymore.

  Yana entered to find her cousin humming a low tune as she drew her devotional lines. She’d also changed the style of her robes—nothing obvious, but Yana noticed that Marda wrapped her outer cloth tight enough to hold the Jedi’s lightsaber against her ribs. It was always with her now.

  “Yana,” Marda said, “the Mother asked me to lead our evening meditation.”

  “Congratulations. You deserve it.” Yana dropped onto her bed, the Rod of Seasons digging into her flesh. It was a constant reminder of the choice she’d made, and the discomfort it caused seemed right.

  Marda turned to her. Yana was surprised to see Marda’s devotional lines were no longer three wavy brikal-shell blue smears across her forehead. She had instead drawn three hard vertical lines down her face: one bisecting her left eye, another her right, and a final line from her hairline down the bridge of her nose and all the way to her throat. Marda smiled. Not tight-lipped, not like she used to. She apparently felt confident enough to show her teeth now. Yana liked it on her; she only wished it hadn’t come at such a high price.

  “What’s up with your face paint?”

  “It is a new day for the Path, now that we are in the stars. Now that we have the Leveler to cut through abuse of the Force without bias. I will not be caught unaware again, Yana. I will serve the Force and make it free. And so I no longer will wear the lines of my devotion as a gentle symbol, but cut them through my eyes, illuminating the truth of the Force. And my Path.”

  Something about the new pattern made Yana hesitate. She couldn’t have said how or why, but there was definitely something…unsettling about it. And the gleam in Marda’s black eyes.

  And then Marda was gone, leaving Yana in an empty room, wondering how long until misfortune would find them, as it did all Evereni.

  What had Yana agreed to? More important, would she survive it?

  Jedi Knight Azlin Rell stood amid the remains of an abandoned settlement on the small planet Dalna, under a scatter of stars. He was alone in the dark but for his astromech, C-9, and the ghosts.

  The settlement had been abandoned quickly, most supplies and belongings taken, though remnants remained, marking the lives of those who had lived there. A scatter of spilled grain. Tattered blankets snagged on the splintered doorframe of a barn. Chairs and stools straight and tipped over. A hastily harvested garden. Thin blue smears in horizontal lines up the trunk of a narrow gray tree with waxy leaves that glinted reddish in the starlight. The smears were labeled with what seemed to be names, as if children had marked their heights. Those were the sorts of ghosts Azlin saw.

  C-9 beeped quietly to itself about the thick pink mud sticking in the tracks of its rollers. There’d been a portion of the road from Ferdan too muddy for it to easily cross, and it had blazed a trail through flowers that popped loudly when crushed. Azlin allowed himself to be comforted by C-9’s muttering. Though the green-domed astromech had slowed him down slightly, it was worth it to have it along. Two months into this tour of the Outer Rim, C-9 had improvised itself a new arm out of a strangely charged alloy it identified on one of the Relik moons and stuck it to its own dome. That little arm was remarkably sensitive to certain electromagnetic fields, and often C-9 knew something or someone was approaching even before Azlin did. When he’d pointed that out, C-9 cheekily suggested they call the new appendage its Jedi hat.