The late afternoon sun dyed the arid landscape red-gold and slanted warm light through the tall narrow windows of the Jedi Temple on Ossus. As she walked down the corridor Allana stepped into gilded light, back to shadow, through light and shadow again. Tanith Zel walked alongside her; the younger woman had just returned from an intelligence-gathering mission on the edge of Hapan space and had come back with yet another revelation to rock Allana's world.

"None of our spies know anything about where Serissa was this whole time," Tanith was saying. "She didn't say anything in her coronation speech either, only that she would avenge the people who killed her grandmother."

"Is there any doubt she killed Demia?"

"There's no proof either way. Someone else could have killed Demia and set Serissa up as a puppet."

"Is that likely? What do we really know about Serissa?"

"Not enough."

Allana sighed. Even by the standards of treacherous Hapan court politics it was incredible that a queen might be killed and replaced by her own granddaughter. Serissa was still a teenager, which made it possible she was a pawn of someone else, perhaps the Sith, but Allana was skeptical. Allana herself had been a seventeen-year-old Hapan princess once, and at that age she'd been nobody's naive pawn. She doubted Serissa was either.

"What kind of ceremony did they give Demia?" she asked Tanith.

"A grand one. Thousands of mourners got to see her lie in state."

"Including your spies? What did they make of the body?"

Tanith shook her head. "The official cause was poisoning. There didn't seem to be physical damage but that sort of things is easy to cover up."

Allana hummed neutrally. It had taken a lot of Jedi equanimity not to hate Demia Lohr these past thirty years. Tanith, who'd lost both parents in the Hapan secession, had never hesitated to loathe the usurper queen. Most of the men and women on New Hapes would be celebrating the news. For Allana, it only brought grim uncertainty.

There was more than enough of that already. The events on Coruscant had cast the Alliance into chaos, and the Jedi were at the heart of it. Kyrr Esch was so busy fighting off no-confidence votes in the Senate that he hadn't been able to speak to Allana in days. Grand Master Lowbacca was on his way back to the Unknown Regions to try and sort all this out, but Allana didn't know how much he could do. The millions of Alliance citizens who'd lost loved ones on Coruscant would never understand what Abeloth was or how the Jedi had stopped her. They'd only understand that broadcast, made with poor Jodram's face, and blame the Jedi for their suffering. It was that monster's last, worst revenge.

Allana let Tanith go and rounded a corner into one of the garden atria built into the sloping side of the Temple pyramid. The transparisteel windows looked out on the setting sun and the harsh desert landscape, and the red light washed away all the varied colors of the plants and flowers artfully arrayed along winding, meditative paths.

Allana only had to reach out slightly in the Force to find the proper way. At the center of the garden a stream trickled into a shallow pool rimmed by rocks. Jade was there, draped in brown robes and seated cross-legged on one stone jutting out toward the center of the pool. Through the Force she exuded the same quiet, peaceful sadness that had enveloped her since her husband's death, but there was also something wistful on her face and bittersweet in her emotions as she watched the children around her. Her youngest son Kol was seated on the edge of the pool with his bare feet lowered into the water. He kicked his legs back and forth, slowly and steadily, watching ripples as they pulsed away. Nat was off to the side, seated on a short bench with Roan Fel. The two boys were playing some kind of game with black and white stones between them. The boys were distant cousins and, best Allana knew, hadn't seen in each other in years, but seemed content to be around each other. Perhaps, in a strange way, the three boys were taking consolation in their shared uncertainty.

Allana walked past Kol, Nat, and Roan to Jade. She crouched down on the rock beside her cousin and said, "You've almost got them all. Where's Vitor?"

"Taking a walk with his grandmother." Jade gestured to one of the pathways leading off into the leafy garden. "After what happened on Bastion they have a lot to talk about."

"I bet he's still missing Marin."

"That too."

"Do you know when they're set to arrive?"

"Soon," Jade said simply, and looked over at Nat and Roan playing their game. She didn't have to say that she was glad to have the Fel boys here to distract her sons from their grief. As Jodram had passed peacefully into the Force, his dying hadn't left the boys scarred and frightened as Jade had been after her mother's murder by Darth Xoran. Still, they were disconsolate. At just three years old, Kol could barely even grasp what death was. Nat, four years wiser and more mature, could still only grasp some of it. Neither of them knew the how of Jodram's death, or that their father's name was undeserving being used as a curse across a thousand worlds. One day they'd have to learn, and Allana could see the burden of that future revelation in Jade's eyes.

It seemed to Allana a sad fate that so many descendants of Anakin Skywalker grew up under the pain of loss. Luke had lost his mother and stepparents and learned too late the truth of his father. Ben had lost his mother, Jade hers, and now Kol and Nat would grow up in the shadow of their lost father. Allana, in turn, had lost her own father after seeing him transmuted into something awful, and had felt estranged from her mother for many years. Only Jaina and her descendants seemed blessed by an undivided family, but even that was coming to an end.

"When will the Grand Master be back?" Jade asked eventually.

"Anxious to have your ship?" Allana tried a smile.

Jade nodded. "We need him now."

"I know. He should be here within a day."

Jade nodded again and looked down at the shallow pool. Kol's still-steady kicks distorted their reflections in constant rhythm. Just watching the water, the ripples and changes, brought to mind what Allana had really come here to talk about. From the way she stared thoughtfully into the water, Jade might have been thinking about it too.

"When I talked to Lowbacca," she began, "He said that before he loaded everyone aboard Jade Shadow and started home, he went down into the tunnels beneath the ruins. He retraced his steps back to the pool you found."

"The Pool of Knowledge," whispered Jade. "Did he look into it?"

Allana nodded grimly. "Nothing had changed."

The younger woman stared hard at the water but her voice quavered. "You mean it was still… him on the throne?"

"That's right."

They both looked down, saying nothing, letting the possible implications wash over them. Allana had never been comfortable knowing about the vision Luke Skywalker, Jade, and her father had all seen of her on this Throne of Balance, and not just because of the horrors Jacen had produced to bring it about. The burden of destiny, that awful Skywalker load, had been weighing her since before she was born. On becoming Chief of State of the Alliance she'd thought the prophecy fulfilled, but the future, as she'd been told, was always in motion.

In a whisper, so the children couldn't hear, Allana said, "What my father did to change his vision of the Dark Man released Abeloth. Do you think that, in killing her, finally killing her, we changed things back?"

Jade shook her head. "It didn't change when we killed Abeloth. It changed when she…. took Jodram. In that vision I saw he and I were together, protecting you."

If so it meant that, with Jodram gone, Allana was in more danger than ever. She was no stranger to that kind of risk; no Hapan princess could be. Still, it was another grim reminder of how uncertain the galaxy was becoming.

"There's another option," Allana whispered. "Maybe the vision changed because, when she took Jodram, Abeloth doomed herself. From that moment she was fated to die forever and that was why the vision changed."

Jade frowned. "I don't get what you mean."

"When she took Jodram's body she made conflict with you inevitable. Both of you." Allana reached out and squeezed Jade's arm. "She'd been alive for thousands of years. She was more powerful than any mortal Force-user could ever be. But you defeated her together."

"Jodram killed her," Jade swallowed.

"It was your raw power. His bravery. The love that bound you two together. Because of that Jodram did what no Sith or Jedi before him ever could or ever will again. The rest of the galaxy may never know what a hero he was but we do. Your sons have to know that too."

"They already do." For a moment Jade's face wavered with restrained tears; then she sucked them back, blinked them away, and added, "The lies they'll learn later. But they already know the truth."

Both women fell silent and watched the three boys. Kol withdrew his feet from the water and tried drying them with the sleeves of his tunic. Nat made a wining score of whatever game he was playing a beamed proudly at Roan. There was no telling what was in store for these children as they'd grow to adulthood. Allana sadly doubted they'd grow up happy, with stable families untouched by tragedy; the descendants of Anakin Skywalker had never much luck on that score. But if they learned something through their pain and, by their sacrifices, left something greater for their own sons and daughters, it would be enough.

Roan suddenly perked his head up. Nat noticed his alarm and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," the other boy said. "It's my parents. They're here."

-{}-

The Emperor's shuttle and Arlen's ship arrived together and set down in the Jedi Temple's hangar as one. The reunion on the flight deck gathered more people than Davek had expected. As he and Marasiah descended from their vessel their sons were waiting; so was Davek's mother. Arlen, his daughter, and Tamar Skirata descended from Starlight Champion. Also waiting for them were Allana Solo Djo, Jade Skywalker Tainer, and both her sons.

This gathering, as full of Skywalkers and Fels as anything Davek could remember, should have felt more joyous than it did. Its necessary brevity was just one pall hanging over things. So too were the absences of Jade's husband and Davek's father, so was the recent disaster on Coruscant and the war waiting to resume back in Imperial space.

For Davek, the biggest shadow over the meeting was his mother, and as soon as he could he drew her aside so they would walk through the Temple's corridors and say what needed to be said.

"I didn't want to do it," he told her. "I did what was necessary."

"Necessary for what?"

"To protect the Jedi. You and my sons. The Empire."

"Your father's legacy," Jaina said with a sigh.

"Yes. Exactly."

Jaina turned her brown eyes up at him. "Do you really believe Jag would have wanted this?"

"What other option was there? Veers had to be stopped. He would have destroyed the Empire and still failed to turn the clock back a hundred years."

"You didn't have to declare yourself Emperor, Davek. You should have called for free elections."

"I'm sorry, mother, but I did. Veers isn't the cause of all this, he's a symptom of a revolution father left half-finished. He thought he could reform the Empire from within, make it more free and equal and just, but do it by gradual democratic means. He meant the best but he was unrealistic. Democracy gives the people what they want but unless the people are, as a whole, willing to take massive risks then democracy is an inherently conservative and indecisive form of government. Democracy put moffs like Veers and Thane into power. It promoted weak leaders like Avaris who tried to placate all sides and accomplished nothing. If father's revolution is going to be finished, the Empire needs a strong leader who will force his values through, even on people who still yearn for Palpatine. We have to choose between democracy and justice. We can't have both."

"And do you think Jag would appreciate the posthumous honor of being the first Emperor Fel?"

There was bite in her tone. It hurt but Davek stood his ground. "Yes. He would seen the necessity of what I've done and, in my place, he'd have done the same. He would have made that hard choice and defended justice over democracy."

She searched his eyes, like she wanted to make certain he believed that. When she saw that he did the sadness on her face only deepened. He pressed, "I never wanted this. I never wanted any of this. But someone had to take the burden. Someone had to be strong enough. I was the only one who could do it."

Jaina reached up. Her cold, thin fingers tickled his cheek. "Oh, Davek. You sound so much like… him."

"Who?"

She withdrew her hand. "My brother."

Davek shuddered. "I am not Jacen."

"His intentions were so good. But he tried to do everything himself and save everyone the burden. He became convinced that his way was the only way and everyone else became the enemy."

"I won't become a tyrant like him. I'll never be a Sith. I can't."

"I know." For the first time this conversation she sounded relieved.

"Mother, there's no Dark Side of the Force to seduce me. No Sith Lords trying to trap me. There's no Force at all. I'm not like you or Jacen. I'm like father. I'm just a man. I make my choices every step of the way."

"Power can corrupt anyone."

"I won't be corrupted."

Her eyes searched his. Whatever answer she found he couldn't tell; she just looked away. "What about the Jedi?"

"They'll be Imperial Knights now. Marasiah will lead them."

"As your Empress?"

"That's right. She'll be a strong leader, and a symbol."

"You'll be one together."

"That's right."

"And my grandsons?"

"They'll defend the Empire."

"Even if it means falling to the dark?"

He put a hand on her arm and squeezed. "No. I promise. Vitor and Roan will be good men. And good knights."

"And when you grow old, will Vitor succeed you? Will he be the third Fel Emperor?"

"Perhaps."

"That's an awful burden to place on someone so young."

"We all have burdens put on us by our bloodline. You and your brother did. So did Arlen and I. Vitor and Roan are the same."

"It was unfair to us all."

"I know, mother. But we do what we must."

Slowly, grimly, Jaina nodded. It wasn't approval. He hadn't been hoping to win that from her. But it was acceptance. It was enough. It would have to be.

-{}-

When he found an opening Arlen slipped away from his daughter, pried Marasiah from her sons, and guided her to the edge of the hangar. Twilight had fallen over the Jedi Temple, turning the outside desert black.

"You have to watch out for him," Arlen said simply.

"I know," she said, looking out at the dark.

"And for your sons. And for all the Jedi on Bastion."

"Arlen, I know."

He watched her profile and tried to get a sense of her. Even when he'd trained her as a knight his sister-in-law had been hard to read. From childhood she'd imposed harsh discipline on herself as a way to bury self-doubt. Small wonder she'd found a match in Davek.

Trying a lighter tone he asked, "Are you really okay with what's happened?"

"Of course not," she said softly. "But Davek is right. It was the only thing we could do."

"Including severing ties with the Jedi Order?"

"They were always Imperial knights. Patriotism runs strong in most of them. You were always…. an outlier." She softened the words with a faint smile. "They'll miss your guidance. And I'll miss your help."

"Marasiah, even if you're not part of the Order you have to be a Jedi. You can't let you or any other knight be tempted by the Dark Side. No matter what happens, you have to keep your knights committed to the Light. And you have to keep Davek committed too."

"The Dark Side can never touch your brother."

"You know what I mean."

"Do you really think Davek is corruptible?"

"I think he'll have the power to do anything he thinks is right. Please, as a Jedi, make sure what he does stays right."

She turned from the night to look at him. "Arlen, do you think you have to tell me to protect Davek?"

"I just want to make sure you protect him from himself too."

She nodded curtly and looked back at the night. "Of course. That's what spouses are for."

An odd way of putting it, but it drew Arlen's attention back into the hangar. He looked over his shoulder and spotted Marin talking with Vitor; Roan, Kol, and Nat surrounded them, children looking up at the teenagers with mild awe. Tamar in Champion's shadow, apart from them, apart from everyone.

He heaved a very deep sigh, which caused Marasiah to turn and ask, "What?"

"Sorry," Arlen shook his head. "I've got too many goodbyes tonight."

-{}-

Tamar and Arlen walked through the garden. One moon shone through the Cron Drift, illuminating its swirling gases and in turn casting a soft silver glow across the ferns and flowers, dirt paths and trickling streams. She almost felt at peace here.

"It will take time for her to get used to being here," Arlen said. "It's going to be very different from the Academy on Bastion."

"What about you?" Tamar glanced at him sidelong.

Arlen have one of his loose, obfuscating shrugs. "I never totally fit in on Bastion. You know that."

She did. He had too much of his mother in him to be a good little Imperial. "I left my ship at Ravelin and need to pick it up. I'll be hitching a ride back with your brother if he'll let me."

"I think I can arrange it."

She wasn't looking forward to a flight back. She'd never gotten along well with Davek or his wife when she'd been, more or less, part of the family. She'd feel even less welcome among them now, but she needed to get back to Bastion.

"What happens when you get your ship?" asked Arlen. From his tone he knew the answer.

"With Auchs dead things are going to change. If I can be with my clan, I will."

"What's the latest from Mandalore?"

"Confusion. Nobody knows who's in charge or what's going on."

"Sounds like everywhere lately," he said without humor. "What happens if Auchs' family comes after yours?"

"Ba'slan shev'la. Strategic disappearance, we call it. Wouldn't be the first time we've pulled one. We scatter but keep in touch. Come back together when the osik's died down." He said nothing. She added, "I want to be with them, Arlen. I have to."

He didn't say anything, and in the low light she couldn't make out his face, but she got something from him in the Force; an entreaty she hadn't expected.

It tempted her. She was surprised by that. Despite it all she and Arlen still worked well as a team, and so much of her craved to be with their daughter, raising and guiding her like a proper mother- Jedi or Mando- should. But the possibility of that was gone now.

For so many years she'd made Gevern Auchs the locus of her pain. Sometimes she'd conjured up the memory of his bare face and focused on it, making it the embodiment of everything that had gone awry with her life. Her failure to become a Jedi, her failure to be a wife or mother, her failure to be a good Mandalorian like she'd always assumed she'd be; it had been so easy to blame Auchs for it all. Now he was gone. She'd gotten what she'd wanted and found herself more uncertain than ever. The face responsible for her shabbed-up life was the one she saw in mirrors.

Auchs' death had at least saved from all the lies she'd been telling herself. She could almost accept that, if not for the cost Marin would have to pay.

"It's better if I stay away," she said. "For her sake. Auchs' clan will never find out who killed him. I can protect Marin better if we're apart."

"Does she know that?"

"I'll tell her. I'm not abandoning her. I'm just laying low. For a while. And once things are settled down…."

"What?" He wasn't asking about her this time, or about them. Only Marin.

She didn't have an answer. She stopped on the path, facing him in the moonlit dark, and said, "Be careful with her. After what she's been through she's not going to be a cute little apprentice anymore."

"You think I don't know that?"

"She's going to have regret and anger and doubt all thrown into one nasty package now. Don't let that get the best of her. You don't want her to end up like her mother."

"Tamar," Arlen said, put both hands on her shoulders, and stopped. A patch of moonlight fell through the surrounding ferns and cast silver on his face, showing all the familiar details.

"Just be careful with her. If anyone can guide her through all that it's you."

He squeezed her shoulders and spoke his wordless offer. It was still tempting but too sweet to be believed. For one second, though, she let herself give in. She leaned in and kissed Arlen on the mouth, short and dry, then pulled back.

"Don't over-think that," she said.

He blinked. "I won't."

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow."

With that she stepped around him and walked quickly away, retracing her course down the dark and winding path.

-{}-

Jade had a lot of memories of Ossus. Almost all of them were colored by Jodram or her father. A few included the Chiss boy then called Ran'wharn'csapla. It seemed like only a handful had been made by her alone. She recalled one time, a few days or a week after her father's death, she'd stumbled out of her sleepless bed before dawn, walked up to the highest balcony on the Temple pyramid, and sat down to watch the sun rise. She remembered how it had chased away the night sky and colored gases of the Cron Drift and replaced them with cloudless blue, how it had warmed the dry wind and turned the desert from stark and sterile to something harsh but bright.

The morning after the Fel brothers arrived at Bastion, Jade went onto the same balcony and got the same sights. One thing about arid, rugged Ossus was that each day went pretty much the same. She remembered that had annoyed her growing up, when both Jodram and her father had been around, but this morning at least it felt like a balm.

Her aunt's arrival marked a change from last time around. Jaina opened the door of the balcony and soundlessly shuffled over to the ledge were Jade sat. Using the Force for a touch of strength, the old woman lifted her feet off the stone deck and placed herself next to the younger one.

"You're used to this, aren't you?" Jaina asked as she looked at the last shades of stars and stardust visible in the brightening sky.

"I was," Jade said. "But we spent so much time on Fengrine I thought… I thought that was home."

"You're not going back." Not even a question.

"We'll stay here on Ossus, I guess. With you and Allana. And Arlen and Marin."

"We'd all like that."

Jade found she didn't want to be here; it was too haunted with old memories of people who'd never come back. Fengrine was the same, but the memories were fresher. A part of her wanted to run off someplace new, someplace where no one ever called on a Skywalker to suffer loss for the galaxy's gain, but she couldn't. She had to raise her sons and raise them as Jedi, because even if they tried to hide their destiny would find them, as it had found her.

"It'll be so hard for them, growing up." Jade whispered, knowing Jaina would understand.

"Their father was a great Jedi. He did what no knight has ever done and saved us all."

"We know that. But to the rest of the galaxy they can't be Jodram Tainer's sons."

"They will be, in their hearts. And that's a good thing."

She wondered how Nat and Kol might handle that strange burden; whether they'd shoulder it together or whether they'd adapt to carry it in their own ways, ways that would drive them apart like Arlen and Davek.

She glanced at her aunt, saw the deep knowing in her eyes. She understood too much. For all their differences Jade and Jaina were at that moment the same: two women sharing the pain of a husband's loss and wondering if their sons would be forever divided by it.

"They'll be Jodram's sons, always," Jade whispered. "But to the rest of galaxy, they'll be Skywalkers."

She and Jaina both understood that in that name alone, destiny waited to be born.

-{}-

The Imperial shuttle and Starlight Champion were such a contrast sitting side-by-side in the Jedi Temple's hangar bay. Davek's ovoid ship was smooth and gleaming, an imperious red; Champion was the same gray, angular, unusual ship Marin had known all her life.

It was a time for goodbyes. After staying the night on Ossus, her aunt and uncle were ready to leave. So, to, were Vitor and Roan. Her mother would be going with them as far as Bastion, then leaving to rejoin her clan.

Strangely, a part of Marin wished she were going with Tamar. The Skiratas had been different from everything she'd ever known. Everything with them was blunt, personal, often angry; the very opposite of what she'd been trained to be as a Jedi, but they weren't dark either. There was too much love between them. Alien as Ninet, Dorn, and the rest had seemed she missed them. The Jedi Temple on Ossus was similar to the academy on Bastion but after just one night she could tell it was different in a thousand subtle ways that added together to alienate. Unlike her short mission with the Skiratas, she would stay on Ossus, with these Jedi strangers, for a long time.

She could have accepted that if not for losing Vitor. They'd stayed up late last night, talking in private, telling everything of what had passed between them like they'd shared everything before. It had been harder this time for them both. Vitor had no name for the emotion he felt looking into the face of the young Sith woman he'd killed. When Marin thought of Gevern Auchs's decapitated helmet rolling across the deck of his ship she felt cold and empty inside.

They might have worked through that confusion together, but they'd never get the chance.

When everyone started to say goodbyes Marin stood back. Jaina embraced her younger son tight; then Vitor and then Roan. Arlen pulled Marasiah into a hug and slapped her back. He and Tamar kept their distance; no hugs, no handshakes, but a pair of shared nods and something in the Force Marin couldn't read. She'd already said goodbye to her mother in private, but Tamar stepped forward for one more embrace.

When it came time for Davek and Arlen to part, they hesitated, stuck two meters apart. A Force-push from their mother sent them both stumbling forward, but the coy shove brought no chagrin or release. Davek extended a hand. Arlen shook it firmly, then let go. The brothers stepped away without sharing a word.

Marasiah took Roan by the hand and guided him up the ramp and into their royal red ship. Once they'd disappeared inside its hold Tamar went up alone. Davek got halfway up before he stopped, turned, and saw his son still at the base, looking across the short distance at Marin.

She crossed to him. They stood close enough to touch but stared at each other's boots, uncertain what to say.

"We'll see each other again," Vitor offered finally.

Marin wasn't sure how, since her father had been effectively banished from Imperial space. Been banished or banished himself, she wasn't sure. Nothing made sense anymore.

But she forced a smile and said, "Yeah. I'm sure we will."

Vitor held his arms up and to the sides, inviting a hug. Marin stepped up, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and squeezed them tight.

"You're going to be a great Jedi," Vitor said as he squeezed her back. "I know it."

Marin wished she could believe him. She'd taken it on faith that she'd become that, someday, just as she'd assumed Vitor would be there with her. Now that finality seemed distant and uncertain; it didn't even feel as desirable as it had, though she had no idea what else she could ever be.

As she released him she said, "Stay safe, Vitor."

"You too." He gave her arm one last squeeze and released. Their eye held; then he turned and walked up the ramp. Marin waited until he joined his father and both marched out of sight to step away from the shuttle.

She joined her father and grandmother and stood beside them to watch the shuttle retract its ramp, fire its repulsors, and rise into the air. Marin watched it pivot and turn and leap out of the hangar, into the morning, where its two thrust-trails streaked white across sheer blue until the white dwindled and dissolved into sky.

Once it was gone the hangar went quiet. Jaina left first without a word. Arlen, deep in his own thoughts, did the same. Marin lingered longest on the flight deck, watching the empty space where her family had been. Eventually she turned and went join what was left of it.