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“The meaninglessness and despair from which you suffer,” Nom Anor said silkily, “is the inevitable result of your bankrupt religion. This Force of yours, it has no purpose. It merely is what it is: corrupt with the rot that infects this whole galaxy. Full of lies and illusions, petty jealousies and betrayal. But there is purpose in the universe. There is a reason to get up, and you can find it. I can share it with you.”

He’s been listening, Jacen thought. Of course. Vergere would have led him here.

“Now is the time,” Nom Anor continued, “for you to leave behind your useless Force. Now is the time to leave behind your life’s darkness and delusion. Now is the time to take your place in the pure light of Truth.”

Jacen’s voice seemed to echo around him, as though the calm, quiet void from which he spoke was a vast cavern. “Whose truth?”

“Your truth, Jacen Solo,” Nom Anor said with a flourish. “The truth of the God you are!”

“The God I am …?”

From within one of those voluminous sleeves, Nom Anor produced a lightsaber. All twelve of the warriors tensed, their faces twisted into masks of loathing, as he triggered the blade and stepped forward. Brilliant purple energy sliced through the arachnoid webs; Jacen watched without expression as Nom Anor swiftly and efficiently carved away the spit cables that had webbed him into the chair.

The executor released the activation plate and knelt at Jacen’s feet. He lowered his head in obeisance, and offered up the deactivated lightsaber to Jacen on outstretched palms.

Jacen recognized the handgrip’s design.

It was Anakin’s.

He looked at Vergere.

She returned his gaze steadily. “Choose, and act.”

Jacen saw with preternatural clarity the choice he was being offered. The opportunity.

Anakin’s lightsaber. Anakin had made it. Anakin had used it. It had changed him, and he had transformed it. Its crystal was not like those of other lightsabers, but was a living Vonglife gem.

Part Jedi. Part Yuuzhan Vong, he thought. Almost like me.

They were offering him Anakin’s life: his spirit, his skill, his courage.

His violence.

Jacen had first used a lightsaber in combat at the age of three. He was a natural.

And now he could feel the Yuuzhan Vong. And the Force was with him.

He could follow Anakin’s path. He could be pure warrior. He could be even greater than his brother had been: with the dark power he could command, he could surpass any living Jedi, even Uncle Luke. Surpass even the Jedi Knights of old.

He could be the greatest sword of the Force who had ever lived.

More: He could avenge his brother with the weapon his brother had forged.

I could pick that up, he thought, and kill them all.

Is that who I am?

Is that who I want to be?

He looked at Nom Anor.

The executor said, “Take up the blasphemous weapon and slay—or choose life. Choose to learn the Truth. Choose to teach the Truth: to share Truth with your people. Let me teach you the truth you can share: the truth of the God you are!”

Jacen reached for the lightsaber, but not with his hand.

The handgrip seemed to levitate, bobbling in the air above Nom Anor’s palms—then it flipped away, hurtling toward Vergere. She caught it neatly, and set it on the table at her side.

He stared at her, and not at her—he gazed at his own reflection on the glossy black curves of her bottomless eyes. He gazed silently, expressionlessly, until he felt himself reflect the reflection: he became pure surface, gleaming over an infinite well of darkness.

A mirror for every image of night.

He filled himself with stillness; when he was so still that he could feel the universe wheel around the axis he had become, he stood up.

Nom Anor hissed soft triumph. “You will become a star, a sun, the Sun—and you will fill the galaxy with the Light of the True Way.”

“All right,” Jacen said. A cold, still surface, flawless: unrippled by weakness, or conscience, or humanity.

“Why not?”

PART THREE

THE GATES OF DEATH

ELEVEN

TRAITOR

For the sake of argument, suppose the conquest of Coruscant has caused casualties