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Pain exploded on my left flank as the red-haired woman—Dustrose—raked the tip of her blue lightsaber across my flesh. I caught the stink of burned down and it almost overrode the pain. I spun away with impossible quickness, turning a full circle and bringing my red-gold blade around to bat her blade aside.

She was good, but I knew I was better.

My Caamasi muscles tensed, then brought the blade back up in a rising slash that slipped beneath her guard and opened her from hip to shoulder. Dustrose reeled back, then flopped to the ground. An explosion of blue energy instantly consumed her body, knocking me back and down.

Through the link with the Saarai-kaar I felt a jolt of grief at Dustrose’s death, but it was as nothing as I looked to the left. I saw Spicewood on the ground, his lightsaber beyond his reach. I knew that if I could concentrate, if I could push past the pain, I could move his lightsaber back into his hand. It would only take a moment, and the Anzati Nightsweat’s gloating clearly appeared to give me that moment.

Then Spicewood dove for his blade and Nightsweat stabbed down. I could almost feel the blade burning its way through my friend, severing the ties his life had to his body. I would have expected him to die instantly, but he managed a smile. The azure blade fixing him to the ground sputtered and died and in an instant I knew what he had done, how he had employed the rarest of all Jedi gifts, and what a terrible price he had paid for it.

Nightsweat rose into the air, then convulsed and seemed to implode. I saw the body fly back through the tents built beneath the duracrete dome. Nightsweat exploded, as did the dark Jedi Desertwind had slain. Their mortal bodies no longer able to contain the dark-side energy, it flashed out in a blue fireball that shattered the duracrete dome. I rushed to Spicewood, pulling him clear as the dome began to collapse. I felt Desertwind supporting the dome around me, then he let it go as we got clear.

I knelt in the dirt, cradling my friend’s head in my lap. Desertwind stood by my side, resting a hand on my shoulder. “I think he knew Tyris was a good enough swordsman to get one or the other of us. Nejaa knew he could not defeat him with a lightsaber, so he found another means to protect us.”

I caressed my grandfather’s face, wiping away the blood from the cut on his head and the corner of his mouth. “To have survived so much to die here. It is sad.”

“But to die in the defense of all that is good, it must be celebrated and remembered.”

I nodded. “It will be a sadder day when such nobility is forgotten.”

“Or feared.”

“Worse yet, yes.” I smiled, breathing deep of Spicewood’s scent, then was aware of the lessening of his weight upon my thighs. I looked down and saw him fade away, his burned clothes collapsing, his lightsaber settling into the dust. Beyond his boots, a last section of the dome groaned and sagged in, with a couple of the tiles that had been set into it exploding into fragments. I picked one up and ran my thumb over it, feeling the strange glyphs incised into it.

I began to shiver and Desertwind supported me. “You’ve been hurt, my friend. We have to get you away from here. In a place of evil like this, there can be no healing.”

“I can make it back to Yumfla.”

“Good, and then to Corellia.” Desertwind helped me up. “Nejaa’s family will know he died a hero.”

The memory faded out as my vision of the room flooded back. I tasted salt on my lips. I reached up and swiped away at tears. I turned to thank Elegos, but could not speak past the tightness in my throat.

Elegos nodded. “I know.”

The Saarai-kaar began speaking in a small voice. “I know well the pain of lost comrades your uncle felt, Caamasi. I mourn for him, but his belief that he and his friends were right in no way means they were. When that dome collapsed, my husband was crushed. We lost a half-dozen friends and I was left alone with three other apprentices.” She pressed her hand against her stomach. “And the