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“No.”

“Good.” She came at him.

Dei took her first attack, blocking with both skill and sheer strength, a defense meant to look contemptuous, meant to intimidate.

Leia was not intimidated. She retreated a step before he could shove her away, disengaged, kicked. His blade swept through the air where her leg should have ended up, but she hadn’t followed through. Sand propelled by her foot spattered against his face—the right side of his face. He grinned. Hers had been a viable tactic, countered by damage he’d already sustained.

Then it was on, a full-speed duel to the death.

Relaxing into the Force, into instinct and muscle memory and training, Dei decided that the moment was one of perfect complementarity. His hot anger against her cool restraint. Male and female. Sith and Jedi. Glowing red against glowing blue. Strength against suppleness. He felt a thrill of delight at the beauty of it.

Complementarity—their blades locked, sizzling, then they spun away from each other, and Dei realized he’d made a mistake. Spinning toward his off-hand as he’d done thousands of times, he lost sight of his opponent a fraction of a second early, betrayed by his missing eye. He felt Leia surge in the Force. He whirled his blade in a defensive, protective pattern, but it encountered nothing.

They came to a stop facing each other. Dei felt a curious sense of detachment.

Then he found himself staring at the sky. He didn’t know how, but suddenly he was looking up at the stars. Then at the camp beyond the overlook, and it was upside down. Then at the backs of his own legs and feet.

His head hit the sand a moment before his body collapsed. His head rolled a few meters, then came to a stop. The last thing he saw was the nexu, puffed up, blood-spattered, sitting staring at him.

And darkness washed that image away forever.

Two kilometers away, in the cockpit of the Cryptic Warning, Fardan suddenly straightened in his seat and paled.

Hara looked over at him. “What’s the matter?”

“Father …”

They rested for a minute on the sand, turned toward the camp and away from the dark man’s body, Allana in Leia’s lap, Anji grooming herself a meter away.

Allana leaned in against her grandmother. “I had to. It’s what the dreams showed me. I didn’t understand them at first. Not until a minute ago. But it had to be me.”

“I understand.”

“You’re not mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

Then there were drops like rain falling on Allana’s face. She wiped them away. “Grandma, why are you crying?”

“Because it’s too soon, sweetie. Too soon for this sort of thing to happen to you.”

“I’m all right.” Allana held up the remote. “We have to get the bomb out of See-Threepio.”

“Yes, we do.” Leia pulled out her comlink. “And we need to get back to camp. There may be more Sith out here.”

A few minutes later, they reentered camp, walking slowly. Javon and his core group of troopers, stone-faced, rejoined and escorted them.

The camp was very active. Crowds from the gathering at the center were now dispersing. Talking. Embracing. Quarreling.

Leia received a call on her comlink. She listened to it and her face fell. She led them all in a change of direction.

Allana looked up at her. “What is it?”

“I’m so sorry, sweetie. I had to tell people about the bomb in Threepio. They’ve taken him off into the desert and disarmed him. He’s safe. But the Hapan security people—an assassination attempt on the Queen Mother—her security detail insisted, and she doesn’t have any official reason to linger—”

They came to a stop at an intersection of lanes between tents and waited as a party passed by. The Hapan Consortium party, headed back to the landing craft.

Allana looked among all the veiled faces, took only a moment to find her mother’s. Tenel Ka was staring straight at her as well, pride and sorrow visible in her eyes.

Allana raised a hand, gave her mother a tiny wave. Then the Hapans went past and were gone.

CRYSTAL VALLEY, NAM CHORIOS

THREE STEALTHX STARFIGHTERS DESCENDED TO WITHIN A HUNDRED meters