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“That makes sense. But why stay on Dathomir, then? With your powers, you could go elsewhere and rule many more people than you can here.”

It took Halliava a while to formulate her answer. “To go elsewhere would mean starting all over. Learning as a child does. I have been a child already. I will not yield one bit, one speck of the power and influence I have now.”

“Even to gain more, ultimately?”

“Even so. Surrender is failure. I refuse to fail.”

Vestara’s chuckle was insufficiently respectful. Halliava decided to let it pass. The girl was an offworlder, after all, not brought up with proper manners. She would learn.

“And if the Bright Sun Clan had stayed two clans, not joining with the Broken Columns, in order to gain power, would you have killed Olianne and Kaminne and Firen? Your friends?”

Halliava offered a disdainful sniff. “Kaminne stopped being my friend when she decided she could accept that Hapan man as her mate and equal. Not just a man, but a man without the Arts! I would have no regrets about killing her. That would make Olianne my enemy, so of course I would have to kill her. Firen—now, Firen is a follower at heart. She would follow me. Why do you ask?”

“I suppose I was just thinking about how you looked on betrayal.”

“We live in the natural world, Vestara. Affection may be real, love may be real, but alliances can only be based on mutual need. The first person to recognize that a need is no longer mutual is the one who can profit by breaking the alliance. She who profits is stronger, her line is stronger, they are better suited to crushing their enemies.”

“I agree. You are a good teacher, Halliava.”

They continued in silence for a while, until they were less than a kilometer from the meadow. Now Halliava brought them to a halt.

“Our pursuers?”

“Still with us. I think it is now time to find this tracking device.”

They searched their gear by touch. It took Halliava a minute to find an unfamiliar bulge in her waterskin. She pulled the item free and held it up into a sliver of moonlight. It was a comlink like those the offworlders carried, like those the members of the Raining Leaves traded for.

Vestara smiled, all white teeth surrounded by darkness. “That’s it.” She took it.

“I’ll find an animal.”

It took Halliava only another couple of minutes to make good on her promise. She detected and grabbed an albino night-hunting lizard before it was even aware of her. Immature, no longer than her arm, it thrashed helplessly as she carried it back to Vestara.

With a thong, Vestara securely tied the comlink to the creature’s neck. Then, from her pouch, she drew a small stoppered transparisteel vial holding a small quantity of brownish dust. This, too, she affixed to the thong.

Halliava frowned at the addition. “What is that?”

“Blood. Luke Skywalker’s blood. It took me a while, coming to Dathomir, to figure out how he was tracking me. Once I understood that it was through sensing his own blood, I’ve waited for a chance to use it against him.”

“Ah.”

Halliava released the lizard. Together they watched it disappear into the night.

“Now,” Halliava said, “we make ourselves small in their senses.”

“Small in the Force.”

“Yes.”

They did, each carefully willing her presence in the Force into a smaller and smaller glow. So good was Vestara at it that Halliava lost all sense of the girl before Halliava herself was through with her own spell.

They waited. Distantly, Halliava could feel their pursuers—there were moments of puzzlement, then the sense of the three offworld men changed in direction and distance.

They waited a few minutes more.

“Done.” Halliava smiled. “They are led astray. It will be some time before they find us again.”

“Good.” Vestara held her lightsaber up into the moonlight. It was, of course, not lit, but the hilt gleamed. “Would you like to know something lightsabers are good for, other than cutting?”

“What?”

“Hitting.” Vestara drove the hilt into Halliava’s solar plexus.

The blow, backed by physical strength but not accompanied by strong emotion, came as a