Elzar.

  He was there, suddenly. Next to her. Avar blinked. She saw the orange-streaked sky. She felt fire gripping her ribs, digging toward her heart. Saw his back, his brilliant lightsaber. Between her and the Nameless.

  She tasted nothing but blood. But Avar could bear it for Elzar to have a chance.

  She slammed her hands against his back.

  * * *

  —

  A star exploded in Elzar’s chest: Light and Life, so brilliant there was no room for anything else, not even a shadow.

  Avar.

  The Nameless’s body heaved as it breathed through the charred lightsaber wound in its side. It hunched over, staring at them, its tail whipping. Avar’s blood smeared on the spikes. Elzar could see it all. He reached out his hand, offering a piece of this Force star: It sucked at his power, swallowing it completely—a bottomless pit. He charged, leaving Avar’s hands behind, but she remained with him, their connection inalienable.

  The Nameless didn’t move, feeding, hungry for every spark of life Elzar could shove at it. Drowning.

  He swung his lightsaber, and it cut the Nameless across the throat again and again, until the metal shrieked and its skin singed and its head fell away, completely severed.

  Elzar stumbled in the sudden lack of fear, drained and suddenly awash in a painful feedback of energy. Turning, he looked around. Avar leaned into Burryaga’s arm. The Wookiee bent protectively over her.

  Her eyes were sunken, shut, bruised, and her lips parted as she gasped for air with every inhale. Blood plastered her robes to her side. Her hand pushed against her wound, and Burry covered it with his own.

  “Elzar,” she murmured.

  Burry murmured something—exhaustion. Elzar could feel it through the connection Avar hadn’t let go of. He felt it right before Burry wavered and sank to his knees.

  Elzar reached them just as Avar fell. He caught her in his arms.

  In the sky, the Gaze sent a wave of cannon fire at all the remaining fighters, chasing them off as it turned toward the stars, its engines lighting to full power. Distantly, Elzar could hear voices in his comlink, and a Vector buzzed over them, veering down to land close by.

  Elzar clung to Avar and vaguely felt Burry’s long arms drape around them, too. The three of them slumped together on the grassland.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Coruscant

  Ghirra Starros sipped a cold cream tea from a crystal glass in one of the busier cafés in the heart of Coruscant. The sun shone on the opalescent courtyard, and floating planters spilled pink wave zinnias and vibrant-orange gladiolix blossoms. The table hovered, too, just in front of her knees where she knelt on a silkensteen pillow, and cold-matrix hearths flickered with pale silver flames to create gentle breezes.

  Idyllic, pleasing, and very public.

  That was the idea: Be seen. Be overtly Nihil in her representation and not at all worried about sitting here idly, enjoying her drink.

  She was alone at the moment, but Jayd, the gray-skinned Kexing with vestigial teeth along her cheekbones, was nearby, as were a complement of other Nihil attendants and bodyguards chosen to blend in just well enough. If anything happened, Ghirra’s miniature shock knife and of course the disruptor beacon tucked into her elaborate braids would suit for defense. But Ghirra didn’t expect any assassins. That rarely happened in the heart of Coruscant these days.

  The sun glinted. Ghirra did her best to think only of her future plans and not her daughter or the Jedi or the presumable rancor pit of messiness Boolan was getting up to. No, Ghirra tried to perform simple enjoyment for those reporters with the holoimagers across the way.

  Her comlink pinged.

  Barely twitching an eyebrow, Ghirra settled the blue-topaz-encrusted earpiece over her ear and pinched the activator button. “This is Ghirra.”

  “Priority message for you, Minister, from the Gaze,” came the answer.

  “Very well,” Ghirra said, tilting her chin up. She remained calm. “Security lock seven-two-two-illius-cat-verictum-nine.”

  It was too bad she wasn’t somewhere more private. Ghirra shifted in her seat to stand, but barely had time to turn her back to the rest of the café before—

  “Ghirra, my Ghirra,” Marchion Ro said in her ear, a purr and a command that trailed down her spine to settle prickling in her tailbone. “Are you on Coruscant?”

  “I am, my lord,” she said, tilting her head as she spoke to deter any lip-readers or recording devices. “I hardly recognize your voice after all this time. One presumes you are well?”

  “Well enough.”

  “In that case, how can I serve you?”

  He laughed at her tone. “You said they want to hear from me.”

  Ghirra braced herself, her entire body going rigid. No missing that, if anyone observed closely. “They do.”

  “I’ll be in the stars above Coruscant by tomorrow.”

  Ghirra managed not to close her eyes in irritation, but she clenched a fist. How dare he surprise her like this? All to keep her on her toes.

  “What sort of message are you bringing, Marchion?” she asked lightly.

  “Oh, tell them it’s a message even the chancellor herself will approve of.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said, though obviously she would do no such thing. “Is there anything else I should be aware of?”

  “I expect them to welcome me and listen to what I have to say. They won’t like it if they refuse. See you soon.”

  “My lord—” Ghirra began, but the buzz of the comlink cut out.

  The dread building in her since the start of the call did not dissipate when she stood up, waving at Jayd to collect her. There were some eleven hours until dawn, and she had too much to do.

  * * *

  —

  Chancellor Lina Soh was tired. She’d been so for ages, years even. But it was worse ever since Valo, when it had become clear the Nihil weren’t a onetime threat, a gang of pirates interested only in chaos.

  Their Eye was interested in so much more, and he took it.

  Lina didn’t know what she would do if she’d lost her son.

  So many people had lost so much—hells, Lina herself had lost friends and allies, whole systems they only barely managed to seize back.

  But her son. He was so good and, honestly, helpless. He needed her. And she wasn’t there. Lina Soh put her head in her hands and dug her nails into her forehead. She was so tired.

  But there wasn’t time to sleep. These reports needed reading before her next meeting, and she worried that if she dozed off she’d miss Elzar’s message about whether or not they’d found Ro. Whether or not they’d figured out this…blight.

  The very thought of it drained her even more.

  The Republic had faced such things before and had won. Had survived.

  They would again. They had to.

  Lina didn’t need to be the person who saved them. But somebody had to. She was here, so if she could…she would.

  She wouldn’t worry about her son. Or Admiral Kronara. Or Elzar Mann.

  She would worry about what was before her. One step at a time. Even if that step was reports on a system-wide strike in the Ossiathora system that was disrupting the harvest of a grain necessary to—what was it?—distill a particular alcohol for deglazing engines caught in the Pyrlix Miasma in the Tyus sector? That mattered. The ripple effects could reach every edge of the Republic. But it didn’t feel as immediate as the Nihil.

  Everyone in her territory was her responsibility. We are all the Republic, Lina always said, pushed, insisted upon.

  She had to act like it.

  The report included a bulleted list of potential responses, some easy to dismiss but others would require a nuanced consideration. That was something Lina was good at. Using details to bolster people, to find wide-ranging solutions.

  Still, it was almost a relief when her aide Norel Quo tapped against the doorframe and said, “Chancellor, Ghirra Starros is here, insisting on—”

  “Let her in,” Lina said, standing immediately.

  Norel blinked, but then he bowed and hurried out through the greeting room.

  Lina went more slowly, tucking hair up into her headdress, smoothing out the wrinkles in her gown. She breathed deeply and made her face blank.

  When Ghirra swept in, Lina allowed herself to feel the anger this former senator caused to flare in her.

  Ghirra paused in the door. The two women sized each other up. Matari, one of Lina’s targons, huffed with something verging on irritation.

  But the so-called Nihil representative smiled smoothly. “Chancellor. I’ve come because you wanted a message from Marchion Ro.”

  Lina’s heart froze. Ro’s messages were massacres.

  Ghirra continued, “The Eye of the Nihil wants to address you in person. So he is on his way here, to Coruscant.”

  “I see,” Lina Soh managed. She folded her hands behind her back, clenching them together. “He expects to be greeted as anything but a prisoner of war?”

  “He expects to be greeted as a king,” Ghirra said, with a little curl to her lip.

  “We will see about that.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Vixoseph I

  Burryaga should have been in a medical suite but instead insisted on this vigil. Again.

  Bell and Vernestra Rwoh sat with him, each weary, injured, but unable to rest.

  Burry did not want to become accustomed to watching the slow creep of this blight or the desiccating corpses of Drengir.

  It was nighttime on the Vixoseph grassland, and Burry had yet to sleep. He’d chewed obediently on the ration bread Bell had put into his hand, but like everything else on this planet, it seemed to crumble to ashes in his mouth.

  They’d remained behind when Master Mann bundled Master Kriss up into one of the RDC carriers and darted off for medical attention. Burry was glad. They needed each other; he’d felt it. They could heal and chase Marchion Ro all the way back to Wild Space if they wanted. Elzar had commed down to Bell at the last minute before the cruiser jumped away, asking for a detailed report on the Drengir, the blight, and the remaining Nihil. The rest of the Jedi had left with them except for Vernestra, whose Vector was a wreck along the tree line in the north.

  She was the one who’d directed Burry to this particular dying Drengir and said that Marchion Ro had stopped her from attacking it during the battle. He’d wanted her out of the way. Then he’d thrown something at it. Something that looked like a chunk of the blight. And now the Drengir’s body was being consumed. They were dozens of meters away from the current edge of blighted grassland, but it was here, calcifying as it died. And the blight was starting to spread from the new ground zero of the dead monster.

  Bell’s emotions were soft with sleepiness right now, but the edges of them felt awful. Burry felt Bell’s struggle to put his master’s death from his mind. In the face of this blight and their encounter with the Nameless, his friend struggled. Vernestra stared at the dying Drengir with an uneven kind of peace—no, resignation. She’d told them already what she’d seen Ro do.

  Burry asked if she truly thought Marchion Ro could control the blight.

  Vernestra shook her head, looking haunted. “I hope not. But I watched him walk into it. Maybe he found something that it can’t affect and put it in the soles of his boots. I’d rather believe that than…nothing. And maybe that Drengir got too close to the blight on its own. But maybe…Marchion Ro took the blight and planted it into this Drengir. Poisoned it. I don’t know how else to interpret what I saw. And we do know he can control the Nameless. And we don’t know what the blight is, or what its…purpose is. What it wants.”

  “The Drengir want to eat,” Bell said. “They want to survive, like most living things. Surely they aren’t part of the blight. It ruins what their food would be. It ruins everything.”

  “But they might be running away from it,” Vernestra said.

  “Maybe they can sense it before we can see it,” Bell said, sounding unconvinced. “The dark side is still part of the Force.”

  While they discussed, Burry stepped up to the edge of the calcified grassland and peered into the darkness. This world had two small moons that cast dull orange-white light, and behind Burry the hovering lights pushed his shadow into the blight itself. There were a dozen perfectly preserved little flowers just recently overtaken. And there in the scattered remains of thicker grasses was the calcified body of a rodent with long skin-fans down its back that might’ve been sun protection or ears when it lived.

  Burry crouched, careful not to touch anything. He opened himself up to the Force, aware that his edges felt rawer than usual after the past few weeks. Facing the Nameless twice and both times channeling terror on purpose had taken a toll, physically, mentally, and emotionally. And what Master Kriss had done when they linked had been like a deluge through his system. It had worked, though.

  Maybe it could work again. Burry was good with emotions. Maybe he could learn to channel the fear away as Master Kriss had.

  He hoped she lived.

  He wondered if there was an emotion charged to the blight the way fear radiated off the Nameless through the Force. A key of some kind to challenge it, to push back.

  Or even to feed it better, so well that it stopped swallowing entire worlds.

  Burry let the Force flow through him, roots and branches and millions of tiny leaves flickering in a galactic wind. It reached through his body and outward again, only to fade drastically against the edge of the blight.

  Imagining Light and Life, imagining the warmth of a sun and growing forest, Burry tried to feed the blight.

  The power he accumulated drained into it. Readily.

  The blight was hungry. Like the Drengir. Like the Nameless.

  But the blight was enormous. Maybe a thousand Burrys could feed it well enough to slow it down. Not one. He couldn’t do it alone. Bell was right. Burry wasn’t enough. The Jedi weren’t enough. Oanne was going to die.

  An ache built in Burry’s chest, spilling out of him, mirrored by the blight.

  He could not give in to despair. There would be something. The galaxy didn’t die like this. They would find something, eventually. He had to nurture that hope and work toward it.

  The best way to do so was to learn.

  Burryaga stepped away from the blight, and under the dull moonlight he sank into the deepest meditation he could reach. Could he connect to the blight? Not just push back, not fight it. Welcome it.

  Like a friend, like a part of the Force.

  The nativity trees on Oanne and the people there were fully integrated, which was why they couldn’t leave. The Force—the galaxy—welcomed interconnection. At its heart, that was what the Force was.

  There couldn’t be anything separate from it. Could there?

  Burry didn’t want to believe it.

  Burry gave to the blight through the Force, open and willing to connect. Slowly, he let his awareness move nearer to the gnawing feeling.

  The Force spilled into the blight as if the blight were a cliff, an endless abyss of nothingness, that all the Force could fall into forever.

  But—

  It wanted something.

  Not hunger. Not quite longing. It was more specific than that.

  It was—

  Burry’s eyes snapped open, and he made a strangled cry at the rightness of the feeling. He knew it. He had felt it himself.

  Homesick.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  The Axiom, Hyperspace

  Avar drifted.

  Surrounded by light, a gentle blanket of a billion stars, she drifted and listened.

  It started with a pulse. A quiet echoing rhythm. The first breath before a song, then: a hum.

  She remembered her name and the Force, and then the bright tone of her own melody.

  Someone was holding her hand.

  The cushion beneath her was thin but soft. The reverberation of the room around her told her she was on a ship. Hyperspace.

  When Jedi Master Avar Kriss opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the dull ceiling over her bunk. The second was the face of Elzar Mann.

  She flexed her fingers around his, and Elzar smiled as relief flooded over his expression, smoothing it out. Relief flooded into her, too, through him.

  Avar swallowed, her tongue tacky. Her chest ached. The entire right side of her body had a dull, medicated pain feeling. She’d tried to feed herself, her Force, to the Nameless to buy Elzar and Burry time. It had hit her with something. The metal tail. She probably had broken bones. Avar took a deep, slightly stuttering breath.

  “Thirsty?” Elzar asked.

  She nodded and he stood to get her water. Avar sat up, watching him. She didn’t want to take her eyes off him. Returning, Elzar perched on the edge of the bed and handed her a cup.

  As she drank, he studied her. His concern rippled into Avar, and she listened, feeling the curiosity behind it, and…affection.

  After draining the cup, Avar looked up and met Elzar’s waiting gaze. He felt it, too. The give-and-take of feelings, the hum of connection. She wondered if she’d done something when she linked with him and Burryaga to fight the Nameless. If it had connected all of them.

  Elzar shook his head and murmured, “It’s just us. Not Burryaga.”

  Avar’s breath caught. Elzar had known exactly what she was thinking. Her pulse picked up.

  Elzar took the cup to set aside, but kept her hand, rubbing his thumb against her palm. Avar focused on the soothing sensation, on the way it tingled up her wrist along the veins there, almost a tickle. A promise of more to come.