Sacrifice

Jacen turned. "What, whether you intended Ben to be killed, or who I have to kill to achieve full Sith Mastery?"

"I know the answer to one but not the other."

Jacen decided there was a fine line between a realistically demanding test of Ben's combat skills and deliberately trying to kill him. He wasn't sure if Lumiya's answer would tell him what he needed to know anyway.

"There's another question," he said. "And that's how long I have before I face my own test."

The Sith sphere ticked and creaked, flexing the upper section of its webbed wings. Lumiya stood on the edge of the hatch and looked around for a moment, as if she was nervous about entering the hull.

"If I knew when, I might also know who," she said. "But all I feel is soon, and close." Something seemed to reassure her, and she paused as if listening again. Perhaps the ship was offering its own opinion. "And you know that, too. Your impatience is burning you."

Of course it was: Jacen wanted an end to it all—to the fighting, the uncertainty, the chaos. The war beyond mirrored the struggle within.

Lumiya was telling the truth: soon.

MEETING OF THE CLANS, MANDALMOTORS HALL, KELDABE, CAPITAL OF

MANDALORE

A hundred or so of the hardest-looking males and females that Fett had ever seen were gathered in the stark charcoal-gray granite building that MandalMotors had donated to the community.

The hardest face of all was that of his granddaughter. Mirta Gev watched him from the side of the meeting hall with his father's eyes. My own eyes.