by Claudia Gray
“A clever girl, that one. She’s accepted our offer to send her to the school of her choice; she picked a leadership academy on Alderaan. I hope she’ll return someday, but frankly I wouldn’t blame her if she never set foot on Pijal again.” Orth folded her hands on her desk. “I suppose you and Kenobi will be off, then.”
Qui-Gon nodded. “After saying a few goodbyes.”
First he went to see Pax and Rahara aboard the Meryx. To judge by their joyful moods and newly intimate body language, Qui-Gon thought that after the escape from the Leverage, it was possible their relationship had progressed past “business partners.” It was none of his affair—but it was good to see them happy.
“As insufferable as I found your behavior on multiple occasions,” Pax said, “I find I shall miss you.”
“From you, Pax, I suspect that’s a great compliment.” Qui-Gon turned to Rahara. “Governor Orth tells me the ‘refugees’ from the Leverage have begun traveling offplanet.”
She nodded, leaning against the Meryx door. “Some of them have home planets to go to. Others have been offered funds to help settle newly inhabited worlds, and are taking the Republic up on it. At least a couple of them want to stay here on Pijal. Despite the bad memories they must have, it’s beautiful here.”
“Beautiful or not, we’ve tarried here too long already.” Pax sighed. “The money we earned selling ‘fools’ kyber’ will only just cover the repairs to the Facet. Important as this trip has been for us, it has utterly failed to be profitable.”
“About that.” Qui-Gon reached toward his belt and opened a small pouch he always kept there. “I thought this might help make up for, shall we say, sunk costs.”
When he held it out in his palm to catch the light, both Pax and Rahara gasped. It was Rahara who said, “Is that—a Mustafar fire diamond?”
Qui-Gon nodded. “Not as valuable as a piece of meryx, surely, but it ought to more than cover your time here on Pijal.”
“And would if we remained here another three years.” Pax looked at Qui-Gon in consternation. “And you’re just giving it to us? Are you sure?”
For one moment, Qui-Gon remembered when it had been given to him—twenty years ago, on Felucia. What it had meant, why it had been so precious that he’d kept it close every day since.
But he didn’t need the diamond to preserve that within his heart. In the end, the memories were what mattered.
Qui-Gon dropped the diamond into Rahara’s hand. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Finally, he went to bid farewell to Rael Averross.
Rael still lived in the regent’s quarters, mostly because nobody else had expressed any need for them yet. It looked as though he was packing to leave—though, given the mess, it was hard to tell.
“Figured I’d see you soon.” Rael stubbed out a death stick. “Your Padawan came by earlier. He’s a good kid. Someday he’ll be a great Jedi Knight.”
“Yes, he will.” Qui-Gon put one hand on Rael’s shoulder. “Have you spoken to Fanry?”
Shaking his head, Rael said, “Maybe someday. Not anytime soon.” He sighed. “I guess the Council was right after all.”
Qui-Gon didn’t follow. “About what?”
Rael sat atop a pile of not-quite-folded clothes on the unmade bed. “About how love warps our judgment. I cared so damn much about that little girl—but the way I went about it convinced her I didn’t care at all. That all of it was about Nim, and none of it was about her.” He sighed heavily. “Maybe someday she’ll see it clearer. Maybe I will, too.”
“When are you traveling back to Coruscant?” Qui-Gon asked. The sooner Rael had a new mission, the better, he thought.
Rael shrugged. “Not sure. I’m not even sure I am going back. Maybe this path—maybe it’s not for me.”
It had been shocking when Dooku left the Order. But as good a Jedi Knight as Rael was, in some ways, being a Jedi had never been an easy fit. It would be a shame to lose him, but not a surprise. “What would you do?”
“Still thinkin’ it over. Talkin’ to some old friends. You know.” Rael looked up at Qui-Gon with a sad smile. “When you’re on the Jedi Council, don’t forget me?”
“Impossible,” Qui-Gon said, before hugging Rael goodbye.
* * *
—
Obi-Wan sat in the stable, scratching his varactyl’s head. He’d only ridden it once, but would miss it all the same.
When his Master appeared, Obi-Wan patted the varactyl goodbye and went to Qui-Gon’s side. “Are we ready to leave, then?”
“We are.”
They walked together across the grounds, listening to the ocean, as they returned to the corvette. Obi-Wan spoke first. “I suppose you’re eager to return to Coruscant. To accept the Council’s offer.”
“If it still holds.” Qui-Gon shook his head ruefully. “After my refusal to sign the treaty, I’m not sure it does.”
“It does,” Obi-Wan said. When Qui-Gon looked at him in confusion, he explained, “When I called the Council to tell them what was going on, one of the Masters asked whether they should rethink your invitation. Yoda said they wouldn’t, that the invitation wouldn’t be undone. And everyone always says, as Yoda goes, so goes the Council.”
“That’s not invariably true,” Qui-Gon said. “But you’ve given me much to think about.”
What was there to think about? Then Obi-Wan had a thought. “Are you trying to choose my future Master?”
Qui-Gon nodded. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
* * *
—
Coruscant, hectic as it could be, was still home. Qui-Gon felt refreshed, even comfortable, by the time he presented himself to the Council.
“Hasty, you were, to risk so much on the strength of a dream,” said Yoda. “But a true future it revealed.”
“Not exactly,” said Eeth Koth. “If I understand Padawan Kenobi’s report correctly, Qui-Gon believed Fanry would be the victim in the incident, not the perpetrator—”
“That’s the most interesting thing about this, to me,” Qui-Gon said. “Because I’ve come to realize that I was not only meant to have the vision—I was also meant to misinterpret it.”
The Council members traded glances. It was Mace Windu who said, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, had I been on the dais with Fanry and Deren, they would’ve tried to sabotage my lightsaber instead of Obi-Wan’s. But Fanry only knew how Obi-Wan’s works. Mine has a very different inner mechanism. If she’d done to my lightsaber what she did to his, I wouldn’t have wound up with a modified weapon. I wouldn’t have had any weapon at all. Deren would’ve cut me down, Obi-Wan would almost certainly have remained on the planet’s surface, and the conflict above Pijal—rather than being swiftly defused, with no loss of life—could well have sparked a war.”
Yoda’s ears swiveled. “Sure you are of this?”
“As certain as the Force allows,” said Qui-Gon.
He knew, now, that the prophecies were real. What he had seen, the ancient mystics had seen. The Force meant for him to understand this. He knew also that he had seen the kyber that wasn’t kyber—which meant the days of prophecy were at hand. Everything would change. It might even be in Qui-Gon’s lifetime. In those days, slaves could be freed. Peace could be won. Qui-Gon knew that was less certain, but…he chose to believe.
Mace Windu seemed ready to move on from the topic. “The time has come to address your invitation to the Jedi Council. That invitation stands. While some felt your behavior to be rash, others recognize that you perceived something extraordinary through the Force. That ability is one that can only enhance this Council’s deliberations.”
“You honor me,” Qui-Gon said. “I have only the greatest respect for every one of you. So I hope you’ll understand that this isn’t a repudiation of you. But I must decline to join the Jedi Council.”
&nbs
p; Silence. Qui-Gon wasn’t sure anyone had turned down an invitation before, at least not in the past several centuries. Several of the Council members stared at him, and Poli Dapatian kept blinking hard, as though he wasn’t sure he was seeing correctly.
Mace regained his aplomb before most of the others. “May we ask why?”
Qui-Gon knew the Council to be wrong about many things. He felt they’d allowed the Jedi Order to become a sort of chancellor’s police, rather than concentrating on knowing the Force. Yes, they were wise to refuse to rule—but unwise to simply accept the status quo. Short-sighted, to lose touch with the living Force by spending so much of their time and energy on enforcing laws that could as easily be left to civilian authorities. Immoral, to refuse to act against evils such as slavery.
But none of those were the reasons he’d chosen to decline.
“My relationship to the Force has changed,” Qui-Gon said. “I wish to…be silent for a while. To surrender to it. To accept whatever the Force brings. Joining the Council would take me far away from that goal. But this is the path I must follow.”
That, in the end, was why the prophecies weren’t dangerous to him, not the same way they’d been to others who’d been led to darkness. The danger came in thinking that knowing the future became a form of control over it. Finally Qui-Gon understood it was the exact opposite. Knowing the future meant surrendering to fate. Surrendering to the ebb and flow of life. Only through that surrender could the Force be truly known.
After the Council meeting, Qui-Gon set out to find Obi-Wan. Of all places, he turned out to be in the gardens. That gave them a quiet place to sit together while Qui-Gon explained what he had decided, and why. Obi-Wan was staggered at first, but he came to understand very quickly.
“I suppose in the end you couldn’t agree with the Council even about your being on the Council!” he said. “But if this is the path you’re called to, then this is the path you must follow.”
“Which comes to the question of whether you’ll follow it with me.” Qui-Gon took a deep breath. “I realize we’ve had difficulties. But this mission changed things, I think, and for the better. If you would prefer another Master, I won’t be offended. If it were up to me, though, we would continue on as we are.”
Slowly, Obi-Wan began to smile. “You know, Master, I’ve realized—I wouldn’t learn nearly as much from someone who always agreed with me.”
Qui-Gon grinned back, and they clasped hands, more truly partners than ever before.
* * *
—
It was nearly midnight when Averross’s comm unit chimed. He groaned, ready to yell at whoever thought this was a great time to call—then realized this was the communication he’d been waiting for.
Averross hit the holoprojector, and a beam of light took the form of Count Dooku.
“Rael,” Dooku said, his voice deeper and graver than ever. “Have you thought more about my proposal?”
With a short laugh, Averross said, “Like I could’ve thought of anything else.”
Dooku continued, “You would learn much here on Serenno with me. You have yet to even imagine the truth of the Force, but you could find the way. There are so many things I’ve learned, that I could teach you—far more than they ever told us at the Temple. You will gain more understanding, more power, than you can yet comprehend. If we stood together—we would be unconquerable.”
“Glad you think so,” Averross said. “But actually, I’ve decided. I’m goin’ back to Coruscant. Not sure what the Council’s gonna do with me, but I guess I’ll find out.”
Dooku drew himself up. Still stiff as a plank, Rael thought. “Why would you choose the path that leads to weakness? The path that is destined to fail?”
“We don’t choose the light because we want to win.” Averross smiled sadly. “We choose it because it is the light.”
With that, he snapped the projector off, and Dooku disappeared.
Queen Amidala entered the shrine, dipping her head so that her elaborate hairstyle wouldn’t scrape the ceiling. When Obi-Wan looked up, she knelt carefully by his side. “It’s nightfall.” Her voice was gentle, patient, like a woman far older than her years. “Are you ready?”
Am I ready to see my Master consumed by the flames? To know I will never see him again? “Give me one more moment.”
Amidala pressed her hand to his forearm, then went back outside.
Within minutes, Qui-Gon’s pyre would be carried outside and burned. It was the proper end for a Jedi, and it would be accompanied by the greatest honors. Qui-Gon’s death was the will of the Force. But Obi-Wan could reconcile himself to none of it.
Qui-Gon lay on a white cloth, his face as placid as it had once been in the depths of meditation. Obi-Wan had chosen not to dress him in a new tunic, but to allow those at the funeral to see the burned mark where the Sith Lord’s lightsaber had pierced him through. It was the only hint of the violence of Qui-Gon’s death.
The first Jedi killed by a Sith in a thousand years, he thought numbly. That fate should never have fallen to anyone. But if it had to happen, why didn’t it happen to me instead of you?
Obi-Wan remembered that, for the first few years of his apprenticeship, he and Qui-Gon hadn’t gotten along—but he remembered it the same way he remembered dates in Jedi history: as flat facts, with little life to them. Instead, when Obi-Wan thought on his time as Qui-Gon’s Padawan, he always thought of the years after that mission to Pijal—the years when they had become both partners and friends. He’d expected to go through the trials, to be knighted in the proper ceremony with Qui-Gon at his side, and for the two of them to remain friends for the rest of their lives.
Instead, Obi-Wan had become a Jedi Knight that morning via a hasty field promotion. He would never again have Qui-Gon’s advice, support, or companionship. In fact, his only inheritance from Qui-Gon was rather more complicated.
He glanced to the door of the shrine. Though night was falling, Obi-Wan could make out the silhouette of little Anakin Skywalker.
After Pijal, Qui-Gon’s devotion to the prophecies had never faltered. Still, Obi-Wan would never have guessed that Qui-Gon would confidently identify the Chosen One as a small enslaved boy. Less would he have expected to be abruptly cast aside in favor of that same boy—a wound in his relationship with Qui-Gon that had only just begun to heal before his Master had died. Obi-Wan understood Qui-Gon’s reasons, but he hadn’t shared his Master’s conviction that Anakin was the Chosen One.
And yet, Obi-Wan thought, maybe this is as the Force wills it. Qui-Gon came to believe in the prophesies again in Pijal, where he first began arguing that the Jedi should push the Republic harder on combating slavery. Never had Qui-Gon stopped arguing this to anyone who would listen—but he had never betrayed his mandate, not even on Tatooine. If Anakin is the Chosen One, and he keeps his promise to free the slaves, it will fulfill all of Qui-Gon’s hopes.
With his dying breath, Qui-Gon had asked Obi-Wan to train Anakin as a Jedi. Most Jedi Knights didn’t become Masters until years after they’d passed their own trials, the years during which they got to forge their own path. For Obi-Wan to take a Padawan after having been a Jedi Knight for a few hours was—unprecedented, surely. Possibly also unwise.
But Obi-Wan had promised. It was the last thing he’d ever said to Qui-Gon. So it had to be true.
“I will train him, Master,” he said, bowing his head low until it almost touched Qui-Gon’s still hand. “I will do everything for him that you would’ve done.”
Qui-Gon had faith that Anakin Skywalker was the Chosen One. Obi-Wan would have to find faith in it, too.
Looking at Qui-Gon’s face for the last time, Obi-Wan whispered, “I choose to believe.”
I owe significant thanks to everyone in the entire publishing process—in particular Michael Siglain, Elizabeth Schaefer, Jennifer Heddle, Pablo Hidalgo, Matt Mar
tin, and the long-suffering copy editors whose names I do not know. Also, I owe a debt to the many friends and fellow writers who helped me stay focused through the process, in particular Cavan Scott, Daniel José Older, Stephanie Stoecker, Marti Dumas, Sarah Tolscer, Alys Arden, and Brittany Williams. Certainly none of this could’ve been accomplished without the tireless help of my assistant, Sarah Simpson Weiss, and the support of my agent, Diana Fox. Above all, I’d like to thank Paul Christian, who supported the writing of this book in every way possible—from researching various ancient theories about prophecy to doing the laundry. I am so grateful to every single one of you.
By Claudia Gray
STAR WARS
Star Wars: Lost Stars
Star Wars: Bloodline
Star Wars: Leia, Princess of Alderaan
Star Wars: Master & Apprentice
EVERNIGHT
Evernight
Stargazer
Hourglass
Afterlife
Balthazar
SPELLCASTER
Spellcaster
The First Midnight Spell
Steadfast
Sorceress
FIREBIRD
A Thousand Pieces of You
Ten Thousand Skies Above You
A Million Worlds with You
CONSTELLATION
Defy the Stars
Defy the Worlds
Defy the Fates
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claudia Gray is the author of Star Wars: Lost Stars and Star Wars: Bloodline, as well as the Firebird, Evernight, and Spellcaster series. She has worked as a lawyer, a journalist, a disc jockey, and a particularly ineffective waitress. Her lifelong interests include old houses, classic movies, vintage style, and history. She lives in New Orleans.