The Drengir tentacles vanished. Their touch and the voice were cut away by Burry’s heady fear.

  Where was it? Gripping her lightsaber, Avar tried not to panic. She breathed past the nausea and the building dread, the sucking emptiness. She knew what came next. They would suck the life from her insides, devour her Force. Her song would shatter, her bones turn to ash, and beside her Elzar would die, crumbling in her arms.

  “Elzar,” she said. “Burryaga.”

  They had to hear her.

  “Avar,” Elzar gasped—right there. She saw the blue shine of his lightsaber. Her eyes focused again. “Elzar,” she said, and she felt him—a wave of fear and camaraderie. They were in it together.

  Even if it was dying.

  Even if it was losing the Force forever.

  Avar’s panic choked her. Her breath shuddered painfully as she clung to him—

  Burryaga warbled something desperate, and Avar remembered how to fight it.

  Use the fear. Together.

  * * *

  —

  Vernestra caught up with the two Drengir when they suddenly jerked to a stop and reared back, their tentacle-vines whipping, and tried to scatter in opposite directions.

  Fear hit Vernestra in the stomach, and she stumbled away, too. The clinging dread of Nameless was right here, somewhere—she flailed in a circle, but the effect surrounded her. She saw grassland, the gray blight, the tree line she’d left behind, and the Drengir, both of them whipping tentacles and sharp leaves, churning up the grass as they flailed. Vernestra backed away. If she could get far enough away, she could see it, and maybe her whip was long enough to reach without being overcome.

  One of the Drengir screamed so high and loud that Vernestra clapped her hands over her ears, pressing the hilt of her lightsaber too hard against her head.

  She thought, The Drengir are Force users, too.

  She tripped away, pushing grass back, stumbling as the Drengir screamed incomprehensibly, flailing everywhere. She wondered what the Drengir feared, under the spell of the Nameless.

  Vernestra swallowed bile. Waves of panic hit her, mingled with dread and fear, and she felt helpless fury, rage—the Drengir’s emotions, the cut of the dark side pushing at her.

  She needed to kill it and put it out of its misery, let it die.

  There was nothing else for her to do.

  Vernestra listened to the Force, moving slowly. There it was. The Nameless locked together with the Drengir, both of them roaring. The twisted, blurry white Nameless slashed at the Drengir, as the Drengir whipped around, reaching and flailing with its vines. The Nameless screamed—it sounded like children surrounding Vernestra, begging for help—and the Drengir bent itself back, trying to run. The Nameless leapt at it, grasping a vine in its gaping mouth.

  The Drengir whipped around, tearing its vine from the Nameless. Vernestra tried to focus. She could see the teeth of the Nameless suddenly, and then its vivid-white eyes as its attention snapped to her.

  But it froze. Vernestra stared as the Drengir twisted a tentacle-vine around the Nameless’s neck, even as its huge body shuddered. Vernestra’s fear came and went, tightening a grip around her throat and letting her go. The Nameless wasn’t focused on her. She activated her lightsaber, twisting the emitter ring, and struck out with the whip. Too far, she couldn’t reach. Too close, the fear choked her. Vernestra darted in and out, panting. Sweat broke out across her skin.

  Then she realized the fear was fading.

  The Drengir wasn’t running. Its tentacles pulled around itself, and it wailed. It huddled in, a tangle of vines and leaves and thorns.

  It was turning into stone.

  She could see the Nameless clearly as the fear faded: Instead of a distorted creature of bones and screaming, it was just a body—ghastly white and emaciated, strangled in the grip of the dying Drengir. Its own work killed it.

  Vernestra shook all over, adrenaline and pounding fear making her head ache.

  The Drengir’s beak clicked once, twice, and a few of the vinelike arms flicked. Vernestra felt pure terror wafting off the poor thing, the awful Drengir whimpering, flailing.

  She struck.

  A yellow lightsaber stopped Vernestra’s whip before it slashed through the Drengir, and shock had her pulling back. Then a foot kicked her hard to the side. Vernestra fell onto her hip, brain jarred in her skull.

  “Get out of the way, don’t interfere,” said a harsh voice.

  She’d heard him before, coldly announcing ownership of the galaxy, and she’d watched him execute Grand Master Veter.

  Marchion Ro.

  He held a lightsaber that cast bright-yellow light on his face and down his tattooed chest. His other hand curled around something small tucked against his palm. A strange rod glowed softly pink-violet at his belt. His black eyes stared at the calcifying Drengir.

  Vernestra followed that gaze and felt tears fall down her cheeks. The body of the dead Nameless shivered in the Drengir’s grip. The Drengir didn’t seem to be turning to stone anymore, but whatever the Nameless had done before it died was enough. Vernestra could feel it. She could feel both deaths clinging to her skin.

  She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. The hiss and spark of smoldering grass caught her attention, and she deactivated her lightsaber.

  She couldn’t do anything but watch as the Drengir shriveled into itself and gasped a final breath.

  Next to her, Marchion Ro stepped forward as he disengaged the lightsaber, shoving it beside the pinkish rod on his belt, and kicked the dying Drengir. It collapsed in on itself, and he hummed thoughtfully.

  Vernestra was too numb to do anything but stare for a moment. The sound of rustling leaves drew her attention to the third Drengir. It huddled not too far away, knotted around itself as if afraid, as if in the same pain as its companion. But all of it remained green and alive.

  The hive mind. It must make the Nameless effect even worse.

  This Drengir had felt everything the dead one felt—the fear, the grief. It didn’t deserve such an end, such a shared devastation. Not even a killing monster like the Drengir.

  Marchion Ro had done this.

  Vernestra got shakily to her feet. She reignited her lightsaber and swung it at him. He dodged smoothly, a blaster appearing in his unoccupied hand from a holster on his thigh. Ro turned and considered her with the expressionless face of a predator.

  “Tsk tsk,” he said, and shot at her.

  Vernestra startled back, her saber barely moving fast enough to counter the bolts.

  He kept firing as he moved around the dead Drengir toward the remaining one and its high wailing. Vernestra followed. She focused on each step, on Marchion Ro. She gave herself to the Force, tracking his shots just well enough to block them.

  Ro huffed and then said, “If you’re so determined to irritate me, little Jedi, I’ll bring my Nameless for you when it finishes with your friends.”

  “Go ahead,” Vernestra spat. There was blood in her mouth. Her skull pounded. She couldn’t stop him.

  Ro lowered his blaster. He stared at her thoughtfully, then toward the blight. The race toward the Drengir had brought Vernestra near enough to see the small figures of Elzar Mann, Avar Kriss, and Burryaga facing off with a Nameless in the distance. There was nothing she could do. She was closer to Ro and the Drengir. If she was going to die here, better to die facing Marchion Ro, keeping him away from the other Jedi. Or to stop the last Drengir. Maybe, maybe Burry could pull off another miracle if she could only keep Ro and the Drengir away and distracted.

  The shriek of fighter engines brought her attention and Ro’s up to the battle between Republic Skywings and his Nihil. Ro frowned.

  There were more RDC ships than Nihil. Good.

  But Marchion Ro’s frown turned into a smile as he watched the sky, and he glanced at Vernestra. “Here we go.”

  A shadow passed over the sun, and Vernestra looked up again to see the Gaze Electric itself descending, cannon ports open, bays mouthing wide to let go fighters of their own. It was massive and could destroy all of them in a single sweep of its cannons.

  The final Drengir suddenly groaned and dragged itself up, recovered enough to move. It went slowly away from the blight toward the relative sanctuary of the forest.

  Ro ambled casually toward it while Vernestra tried to understand what was happening.

  Blaster reholstered, Ro skimmed his fingers against the glowing rod, then opened his left hand and tossed what he’d been holding at the Drengir.

  A pale-gray rock.

  Vernestra’s eyes widened. If she didn’t know better, she’d say it was a chunk of the blight itself. But that was impossible. Nobody could touch it. It ate everything.

  The rock hit the Drengir and the monster twitched. It spun to face Marchion, but Ro laughed and turned his back to it. He threw Vernestra an obnoxious grin and took off running—directly toward the blight.

  Chapter Sixty

  Vixoseph I

  In the orange sky of the setting sun, the Gaze Electric loomed, spitting out more fighters to meet the Skywings.

  But on the ground, Avar, Elzar, and Burryaga were surrounded by nothing but fear. All they could do was push out with the Force and hold their lightsabers to keep the creature away from them. All the music Avar heard and all the strength of the Force vanished as the Nameless stalked them. It growled and roared, its long, sickly whiskers twisting as it darted nearer, then backed away from the jagged, flailing cut of the lightsabers. Avar trembled, barely holding the hilt. She felt its gaping hunger, its nothingness, so clearly. Beside her, Elzar panted, his shoulder knocking against hers. They were too close. Burryaga completed their triangle, the three of them moving, locked into their fear.

  It wasn’t working. Focusing on the fear, finding a direction the way Burry had done. Avar had no idea where the creature was, and she couldn’t fight it this way. “Can you see it?”

  “I see something,” Elzar said, his face pallid under his beard. His blade was held out in defense, and Burry’s, too. They shifted around Avar, making a shield as best they could with trembling hands, unable to trust their senses—or even the Force.

  Burry called a soft negative, his voice too quiet. Fear radiated off him. They had to get rid of it.

  “I have an idea,” Avar said, her voice barely a whisper. She holstered her lightsaber and held out her shaking hands. “Burry, do what you did before. Focus on the fear for me.”

  Burry put his larger hairy hand in hers. The Wookiee was so open, so ready, that he and Avar slammed together into a network of two without Avar having to do much.

  Elzar switched his lightsaber to his left hand, and took Avar’s. She squeezed too hard. “Elzar, it’s you.”

  “What’s me—” he said, but she closed her eyes.

  Avar opened her heart.

  She opened to the terror and the panic, tears springing to her eyes and her knees buckling. Burryaga and Elzar held her up. Burry understood instantly what she needed, and he let the feelings hit him, whimpering, focused on it. Avar held on to his terrified song as she sank down, and instead of pushing away, instead of directing, she pulled fear into herself through Burryaga, pulling it from the Force, pulling it from the thing that made her so terrified, and pulling it away from Elzar Mann.

  “Go,” she managed to say.

  * * *

  —

  Suddenly, Elzar could see it clearly. No more distortions, no more panic, no more visions of burning Jedi and crumbling friends.

  The Nameless creature, the pale, twisted thing of all their nightmares. He’d seen it on the holoscreen when it stalked Grand Master Veter, sucking him dry of life and Force, of everything. It was before him. Huge and awful, with metal fused to its spine, metal spikes on its whipping tail.

  Somehow the fear wasn’t quite so debilitating any longer. He felt it, but there was so much more to feel again.

  No, he knew how: Avar.

  Avar was doing it. And Burryaga.

  They channeled his fear away together.

  The absence left him room for light.

  An empty clarity edged along the gentle pressure of Avar and Burry pulling at him, at his emotions, at the tide of the Force ebbing and flowing deep inside him.

  The creature came toward them, and Elzar lifted his lightsaber, filling his presence with the living Force. Avar and Burry glowed with it, the Force a glaring song loud enough that Elzar imagined the whole world here could hear it.

  He saw the Nameless turn toward it with all its hunger and pain. Unnaturally fast, its metallic spine elongated, it spun and slashed out with its spiked tail.

  Elzar reached for the Force and pushed.

  The Nameless slid backward.

  Elzar stepped forward again, his lightsaber raised. Avar released his hand, but the connection remained strong. Gloriously strong. He focused on the Force, on gathering the great ocean of it into him and pushing. Shoving. He was the center of the tide; the power was immense, more than him, beyond him, and he dragged it through him, making himself a river to channel all that strength. The ocean of the Force hit the Nameless, and its mouth opened. It gouged at the grassy ground, twisting and upset.

  It glowed with the surge of the Force.

  It stopped moving nearer, swallowing Elzar’s power even as he let it all go. The Force was boundless, unlimited, especially with Avar at his side. Elzar yelled hoarsely with the effort of walking closer. He was almost there. Seconds passed under pounding heartbeats that felt like a hundred years—Elzar didn’t know. Time and self were slippery, but the Force was all.

  He stood directly in front of the Nameless. One whirling blue eye stared back at him, growing larger and larger, until it fit over all of Elzar’s vision. It screamed.

  Then it surged toward him. Elzar screamed back at it, driving his lightsaber into its flank.

  The Nameless knocked him away hard enough that he fell, his breath slammed out of him. He saw the Nameless break through Avar and Burryaga’s hands, separating them. Elzar yelled for her as Avar scrambled up and threw herself at the monster.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Vixoseph I

  Ro ran directly into the blight, heedless of its destructive capabilities. Vernestra scrambled up and pulled out her comlink, yelling, “Ro is here, on the ground! At my position to the north—north of the blight. The Gaze—”

  Ro turned, kicking up ashes from the blighted land. He raised his blaster, and Vernestra stopped so fast she almost tripped. She dropped her comlink and had her lightsaber out and flashing just in time to catch his fire. Vernestra wished she’d taken one of those blasters Cair San Tekka had offered her all those days ago on Naboo so she could shoot back.

  Breathing through the smell of her own blood, Vernestra let the Force flow through her, guiding her as she blocked and dodged his shots. Ro seemed almost casual about it, amused, as he backed up slowly. But Vernestra didn’t follow him near the blight.

  Just then the Gaze Electric let loose a huge blast, and a row of Skywings blew up into a fireball. The concussion threw Vernestra back to the ground. Pain shocked up her hip, and she wiped hair and sweat from her face.

  The giant ship lowered over Ro, and a ladder dropped from one of its lower hatches. Vernestra lifted her hand to shield against the pressure of the wind as it descended. It was too high for her to leap, even with the Force.

  Ro holstered his blaster as the ladder reached him. Vernestra stretched her arm toward him, her hand cupped as if to grip the air, and pushed with the Force. If she could knock him down, back, the blight had to catch hold, or she could drag him to her, anything!

  A bolt of energy sliced down at her. Again. Vernestra dropped her hold on the Force and jumped back, her lightsaber raised. Someone was covering Ro from the tiny hatch high above.

  Vernestra watched, panting, as Ro took the glowing rod from his belt, then bent over and picked something off the blighted meadow. Vernestra felt her mouth drop open. Ro wound his other arm through the ladder, and turned to smile at her.

  “See you soon, little Jedi!” he called brightly, and the Gaze Electric lifted, taking Ro with it.

  * * *

  —

  The moment before she touched the Nameless, a sudden slam in the ribs flung her aside, shocking Avar out of her body.

  She hit the ground, and pain blossomed everywhere, but she barely felt it: A great ringing filled her.

  She was alone. She was everything. She was bones and flesh and stars and song.

  There was nothing outside of her, and she was boundless.

  Avar understood it would be all right to let go. To become the galaxy. Everyone’s destiny was the same.

  Then she snapped back into herself.

  Cold-hot agony encased her ribs, but Avar Kriss remained a song. A song could not be contained by mundanities like pain—pain had its own resonance, its own tune. The Force was beyond life and death, was of a realm where such concepts were the same experience. She’d experienced them all in a fleeting, gasping moment.

  The pain grounded her. A star in her chest. She let the feeling ring out and felt the answer in Burryaga and the lush tendrils of his Force. She felt the planet under her feet, alive and aching, too, dead and breathing, a point of light in the galaxy. The entire galaxy was here with her.

  And—

  Elzar.

  All of them connected to her, and the Force was so strong. The Nameless couldn’t devour it fast enough to stop her. Avar pushed up from the ground, through the pain, radiating intention. She pulled on the Force, on every feeling she could reach, supported by Burryaga’s endless acceptance. Avar pulled and pulled, willing the galaxy to run through her. It gushed and spilled like an ocean tearing under her skin.