I stowed my datapad in my leather jacket and pushed myself to my feet with a slow groan. My entire body hurt, and the meds hadn’t even touched some of the soreness. Dad said I’d probably be hobbling for a few days. How did peoplelivelike this?
When I reached Sian, Noola was sitting on his shoulder, snacking on a fresh grape and purring.
The creature chirped, and I scratched her under the chin as I sat down.
He gave a start. “Oh,” he said, realizing, “it’s just you.”
“Justme? I’m offended,” I remarked, and knocked my shoulder against his. We settled into a comfortable silence. After a while I asked, “How do you do it?”
Confusion flickered across his face, but soon it melted into understanding. I had meant how did he exist knowing there were monsters like—like thatKylo Ren. That anyone could turn to the dark side, even peoplehe loved—peopleIloved, like Valor. That evil wasn’t defeated—that it was still here. Still festering. Still thriving like an infection under an already-stitched wound while we slept off the fever, hoping it would go away.
He brushed the curls out of my face and kissed my forehead. “By meeting people like you who tell me good is worth the fight, and that’s how we survive.”
My throat felt tight. “It was all luck, Sian.”
“What do you think hope is, if not a little luck and hard work and sacrifice? And that doesn’t mean that what you did wasn’t extraordinary. Never apologize for hoping, Starlight. We need that in this galaxy—people like you. People who teach pessimistic nerf herders like me that if we didn’t have at least a little of that, we’d be lost.” He threaded his fingers through mine and kissed the back of my hand. “I’dbe lost.”
I leaned toward him and pressed my lips to his. They were dry and cracked, and he no longer tasted like dust and mystery and spices but blood and salt and sweat. “Thank you for coming back,” I whispered against his mouth, because he could have left—he could have taken the lander and fled.
But he hadn’t.
He’d come back.
He held my hands for a long time, tracing myknuckles with his thumbs. “Enough people have died for this saber, Starlight. I didn’t want you to be another.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder and studied his fingers laced through mine. “Still,” I whispered, “it was brave.”
Just like Mom had said—even when you let them go, the things that were meant to return did.
And it was more than I could put into words, but luckily I didn’t have to, because he understood and kissed me again in reply, as if to say,Of course I came back.It was the kind of kiss that was soft and comforting and languid, the kind of kiss that took its time because he wasn’t going anywhere.
He was staying right here.
The kiss filled my heart so full, the encroaching fear dissipated like an echo in a cave, and what remained was what always remained—the parts of me that were knitted together from all the years I’d lived on theStarfarer. The parts of me that couldn’t diminish, couldn’t die, even when faced with things so dark they smothered everything else they touched.
Home.
“Honestly,” he murmured against my mouth, “I learned it from you—”
“Ah! Is that the saber I’ve heard so much about?” Mazcame up to us and picked up one half of the crystal. She inspected it in the light. Sian and I immediately sat up and separated, and she slid a sly look between us. “Don’t get uncomfortable on my account.”
A blush ate across my cheeks. The tips of Sian’s ears went red.
She grinned, eyes dancing. “Vek told me you were a good egg, my boy.”
Sian’s embarrassment washed away in a wave of surprise, and he looked like an orphan boy who’d just heard someone say his parent’s name. “You knew my mentor?”
“Crossed paths a few times,” Maz replied, setting the broken crystal back on the stump. “We agreed a lot on thereclamationbit of her work. The galaxy is worse off without her in it.”
He swallowed thickly. “Yeah.”
Maz hummed. “You know, I haven’t seen this saber in years. It’s a pity that that warlord destroyed it.”
“He didn’t care,” Sian replied. “He thought it wasn’t Luke Skywalker’s.”
“It is.”
Sian gave a start. “What?”
