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“Oh, I’m not bright enough to be done yet.” Jag resumed the ready position. “Again.”

Zekk snorted, amused. “Would it be wrong of me to admit that I’m really starting to enjoy this?”

“Yes.”

“Go.”

Jag tried the same maneuver. Jaina stepped aside again, swung—

Jag took the blow on his left forearm. The glowing blade bounced. Jag’s arm didn’t twitch, didn’t react at all to the electric shock.

He reached out with that arm. Fast as a blaster duelist drawing and firing, he caught the hilt of Jaina’s practice weapon just above her hand and squeezed.

The weapon crumpled. The beam cut off.

Jaina, caught off guard for only a fraction of a second, stepped back, chambered her leg, and kicked Jag in the solar plexus.

His solar plexus went konk, a metallic noise.

Jag rapped his training sword against her support leg. It spasmed and she fell. She rolled out of her fall, but Jag was already swinging in the direction of her roll. His blade caught her across the back of the neck. She completed her roll, ending up on her back, looking up at him with a pained expression. “What was that?”

Jag shrugged and pushed up his visor again. “I won.”

Jaina’s face twisted in anger. “Flying’s what you’re best at. So fly.” She gestured as if pushing the air before her.

Jag’s feet left the ground. He hurtled backward five meters and crashed into the bole of the glade’s shade tree. Then he slid down atop the tangled roots. Leaves rained down on him.

“Jaina!” Zekk ran up to Jag, bent over him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Jag grimaced. “Punishing me. For embarrassing her.”

Jaina flipped acrobatically to her feet and stalked toward Jag. “I am not embarrassed. You tricked me.” She was shouting now, and Zekk saw distant heads turning to look—Wookiees working in the area, humans in the Falcon hangar.

“What part of tricking you would be impossible for Alema Rar or Jacen Solo to do?” Stiffly, Jag began to rise, and accepted a hand from Zekk for aid. Jag’s gloved hand felt, to Zekk, rigid and metallic.

Once Jag was on his feet, Zekk rapped the man’s forearm with his knuckles. “What have you got on under there?” He repeated the experiment on Jag’s chest, which also rang metallically.

“The crushgaunts and beskar breastplate from the other day.”

Jaina came to a stop in front of Jag, almost spitting in her anger. “What are you trying to prove?”

“That you’re training yourself to lose. To die.”

That stopped her. She stared up at him, her anger vanishing in an instant, replaced by surprise…and doubt.

“Jaina, I’ve watched you for a long time now, preparing yourself for a confrontation with Alema and—and you’re not kidding anyone here—your brother. You’ve trained and trained and sweated and persevered, and as far as I can tell you’ve done a brilliant job at the wrong task.”

“Explain that.” Her eyes searched his.

Zekk was surprised not to see more anger in hers. She must have been afraid of exactly what Jag was talking about and, in typically Jaina-ish fashion, not discussed it with anyone, not dealt with it except through avoidance.

“Sword of the Jedi. That’s what you are, even though nobody’s sure what it means. But I’m sure of this. There are two important words there. Sword and Jedi. You’ve been sharpening yourself into an amazing sword, but you’ve forgotten what it means to be a Jedi.”

“You’re not qualified to say that—”

“Answer me this. What Jedi do you know who would have thrown me into that tree that hard for winning a practice bout? You didn’t know my armor protected my back. You could have broken my spine. The helmet didn’t protect my neck. You could have broken that. What Jedi would have done that to a friend?”

She shook her head. It was as though Jag’s arguments were blaster bolts, and she was batting most of them harmlessly out of the way—but the occasional bolt was getting through, striking her, searing her.

“So. You’re a good Sword and a rotten Jedi. But even if you get back to being a good Jedi, you’re going to die. You know why? Because you’re training in Jedi skills as though