Into the Void: Star Wars (Dawn of the Jedi)

Thanks to everyone at Del Rey, LucasBooks, and Dark Horse for their help and encouragement.
And as ever, a big thanks to my agent, Howard Morhaim.

Even at the beginning of our journey I feel like a rock in the river of the Force.
Lanoree is a fish carried by that river, feeding from it, living within it, relying
on the waters for her well-being. But I am unmoving. An inconvenience to the water
as long as I remain. And slowly, slowly, I am being eroded to nothing
.

—Dalien Brock, diaries, 10,661 TYA

She is a little girl, the sky seems wide and endless, and Lanoree Brock breathes in
the wonders of Tython as she runs to find her brother.

Dalien is down by the estuary again. He likes being alone, away from all the other
children at Bodhi, the Je’daii Temple of the Arts. Her parents have sent her to find
him, and though they still have some teaching to do that afternoon, they’ve promised
that they will walk up to the boundary of the Edge Forest that evening. Lanoree loves
it up there. And it scares her a little, as well. Close to the temple, near the sea,
she can feel the Force ebbing and flowing through everything—the air she breathes,
the sights she sees, and all that makes up the
beautiful scenery. Up at the Edge Forest, there’s a primal wildness to the Force that
sets her blood pumping.

Her mother will smile and say that she will learn about it all, given time. Her father
will look silently into the forest, as if he silently yearns to explore that way.
And her little brother, only nine years old, will start to cry.

Always at the Edge Forest, he cries.

“Dal!” She swishes through the long grasses close to the riverbank, hands held out
by her sides so that the grass caresses her palms. She won’t tell him about the walk
planned for that evening. If she does he’ll get moody, and he might not agree to come
home with her. He can be like that sometimes, and their father says it’s the sign
of someone finding his own way.

Dal doesn’t seem to have heard her, and as she closes on him she slows from a run
to a walk and thinks,
If that was me I’d have sensed me approaching ages ago
.

Dal’s head remains dipped. By his side he has created a perfect circle using the stones
of chewed mepples, his favorite fruit. He does that when he’s thinking.

The river flows by, fast and full from the recent rains. There’s a power to it that
is intimidating, and, closing her eyes, Lanoree feels the Force and senses the myriad
life-forms that call the river home. Some are as small as her finger, others that
swim upriver from the ocean almost half the size of a Cloud Chaser ship. She knows
from her studies that many of them have teeth.

She bites her lip, hesitant. Then she probes out with her mind and—

“I told you to never do that to me!”

“Dal …”

He stands and turns around, and he looks furious. Just for a moment there’s a fire
in his eyes that she doesn’t like. She has seen those flames before, and carries the
knotted scar tissue in her lower lip to prove it. Then his anger slips and he smiles.

“Sorry. You startled me, that’s all.”

“You’re drawing?” she asks, seeing the sketchbook.

Dal closes the book. “It’s rubbish.”

“I don’t believe that,” Lanoree says. “You’re really good. Temple Master Fenn himself
says so.”

“Temple Master Fenn is a friend of Father’s.”

Lanoree ignores the insinuation and walks closer to her brother. She can already see
that he has chosen a fine place from which to draw the surroundings. The river curves
here, and a smaller tributary joins from the hills of the Edge Forest, causing a confusion
of currents. The undergrowth on the far bank is colorful and vibrant, and there’s
a huge old ak tree whose hollowed trunk is home to a flight of weave birds. Their
spun golden threads glisten in the afternoon sun. The birdsong complements the river’s
roar.