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“Do you think it’s possible your Master actually went to Prakith and found Andeddu’s Holocron?” Set asked, making no effort to conceal the naked hunger in his voice.

“Bane’s journeyed into the Deep Core before,” she admitted, remembering his trip to Tython.

“So you finally decided to tell me your Master’s name.”

Zannah uttered another silent swear. She had meant to keep that information to herself as long as Bane was alive. But the realization of what he had done, of how he had betrayed the Rule of Two, had her rattled.

“I still don’t understand how this ties in with Doan,” Set wondered aloud.

That was one piece of the puzzle Zannah hadn’t figured out yet, either, though she had a feeling it was all connected somehow.

“Whoever attacked him must have come for the Holocron,” she guessed. “Whoever took Bane would have taken the artifact as well.”

“So you think it’s on Doan?”

It was obvious Set was more interested in claiming the Holocron than in finding and dealing with Bane. But Zannah had no idea who or what she would face when she went back to the mining world, and she suspected she’d need all the help she could get.

“You may not have been willing to risk a trip into the Deep Core to claim Andeddu’s Holocron, but are you willing to travel back to Doan one more time?”

Set graced her with another of his extravagant bows.

“Lead the way, Master.”

16

Serra sat alone in the small, windowless office, trying to gather her courage. The only furnishings were a simple desk and the chair she currently occupied. The unadorned walls were a depressing shade of brown, their stone surface rough and unfinished. A small safe had been built into the rock wall, and a single door led out into the hall beyond.

The princess wasn’t naïve. She understood that the room reflected the opinion most offworlders had of Doan; they saw it as an ugly, grimy pit. She knew that those who lived in the strip mines on the planet’s surface felt the same. But she had seen the planet’s true beauty.

Built on the plateaus atop the rock columns towering high above the choking clouds of dust and pollution, the cities of the nobility were blessed with bright blue skies nearly every day of the year. Each morning the rising sun reflected off the burnished spires of castles built on plateaus hundreds of kilometers to the east, lighting them up like candles in the gray of the early dawn. In the evening the sandstorms rolling across the desert seemed to dance on the horizon, alive with flickering bursts of color as the setting sun flashed off quartz chips caught up in their swirling embrace.

Even after all these years, it could still take her breath away … just as it had when she first came to Doan. After leaving her father’s camp on Ambria she had traveled the worlds of the Outer Rim, using what he had taught her to help the less fortunate and establishing her reputation as a skilled healer. When the crown prince contracted a mysterious illness, the king had hired her to tend to his son.

She had instantly recognized the symptoms of Idolian fever, a deadly but treatable infection. For three months she nursed him slowly back to health, and by the time Gerran recovered the two of them were in love.

You saved his life then. But you didn’t have the power to save him from the terrorists. If you were stronger, he might still be alive.

Serra shook her head in momentary confusion. The thought had been in her own voice, but it had somehow seemed alien … as if someone else was speaking inside her head.

Except for herself, the office was clearly empty. The door was closed, and with the sparse furnishing there was no place for someone to hide. She cast a wary glance at the small, four-sided pyramid sitting on the edge of the desk.

It had been stashed away almost carelessly in a small duffel bag the mercenaries had brought back to her. Serra’s connection to the Force was strong enough for her to feel the power inside the artifact, trapped beneath the surface, just waiting to be released.

Why didn’t the Iktotchi claim this for herself? She