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“Vestara, no!” Ben blurted. His voice was coming from four or five meters away, a little below her and well off to one side. “What’s wrong with you? You’ll kill yourself!”

“Sure I will,” Vestara said, raising her blade above her head. “That’s just like you Jedi, trying to take advantage of a blind girl.”

“Blind?” Ben sounded genuinely surprised. “Vestara, I’m serious—you’re hanging over a cliff.”

“A cliff?”

Vestara deactivated her lightsaber and returned it to its hook. Then she pulled a spare energy bar from a thigh pocket and let it drop. She did not hear it hit the ground.

“Okay, so I’m hanging over a cliff.” Vestara could not keep the quaver out of her voice—and she did not bother trying. She was usually very good at concealing her emotions, but Ben had been using the Force to track her when she ran into the blossom, and he would have sensed her terror in her aura. “What are you going to do about it?”

She did not sense Ben moving any closer. “Why should I do anything?”

“Ben, you’re wasting time.” Vestara’s eyes burned as if someone were spraying hot ashes into them, and she could feel the lids beginning to swell. If she didn’t get the pollen flushed out soon, she would be blind for days—and on this planet, being blind was a death sentence. “If you were going to kill me, you wouldn’t have told me about the cliff.”

“Maybe I like you where you are.”

Vestara exhaled in exasperation. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“You didn’t,” Ben replied. “Have a chance, I mean.”

Vestara turned her head in his direction, then used the Force to draw her parang from its scabbard and send it flying toward his voice. A strangled cry of surprise escaped Ben’s lips, and she heard the undergrowth rustle as he dived out of the weapon’s path.

“There’s always a chance, Ben,” Vestara reminded him. As she spoke, the vine tightened around her wrist, and she had an uneasy feeling that she was being drawn into the crown of whatever tree had captured her. “Now stop wasting time and tell me what you want.”

“Not much.” Ben sounded closer now, as though he had come over to the edge of the cliff. “I’d just like to know where you’re going in such a hurry.”

Vestara furrowed her brow, trying to puzzle out what Ben hoped to learn by asking such an obvious question. “Where do you think I’m going?” she asked. “The same place you are.”

“To the ruins,” Ben confirmed, “to tell Taalon that Ship is on its way back?”

Vestara whistled as though she were impressed. “You Jedi are smart. I didn’t expect you to figure that one out.”

“That part was easy.” Ben’s voice was even, betraying no hint that her sarcasm was bothering him. “What I want to know is, why you didn’t take the Emiax?”

It was a revealing question, and one so unexpected that Vestara had to consciously still her Force aura to keep from betraying her surprise.

“Why do you think I didn’t take it?” she asked, buying time to think. Whatever Ben threatened, no matter how angry he was about her latest betrayal, he wasn’t going to leave her hanging there blind and doomed—he couldn’t afford to, because he needed her to find his way through the jungle. “The Emiax is Lord Taalon’s shuttle.”

“And you were afraid I’d shoot it down,” Ben finished, supplying a better answer to his own question than Vestara ever could have. “Smart girl.”

“I have my moments,” Vestara said. Again, she had to work to conceal her surprise. It hadn’t occurred to her that Ben would actually fire on her after she had gone to such pains to spare his life … but these Jedi were full of surprises, which was what made them so dangerous. “Here’s what I’d like to know. After you broke out of the medbay, why didn’t you just take the Shadow and fly back to the ruins? You would have beat me by an hour.”

“That’s easy,” Ben said, leaving a long pause that suggested he was developing an explanation. “I was, uh, worried about you.”

“Worried?” Vestara echoed. “About a Sith? One who has betrayed you how many times?”

“You’re just an apprentice,” Ben replied