The car came to a stop a hundred meters from the front of the house, beside a large mosaic design set into the ground. “Your first Trial,” Thurfian said as the canopy slid back. “Find your path. If you succeed, you’ll be invited inside. If you fail, get back in the car and you’ll be taken back to the spaceport.” He climbed out, walking along the edge of the mosaic, and headed toward the mansion.

Gingerly, Thalias stepped out of the car, frowning at the mosaic. It seemed familiar…

And then she got it. The whole thing was a stylized map of the Ascendancy.

Find your path, Thurfian had said. Did that mean she was supposed to trace out her hopes for the future?

No, of course not, she realized suddenly. The whole existence of this homestead was a grand gesture to Mitth family history. She wasn’t supposed to trace out her future; she was supposed to trace out the path that had brought her here.

She took a deep breath. She barely remembered her life before the sky-walker corps, but she knew she’d been born on Colonial Station Camco. That was…there. Walking gingerly across the map, making sure she didn’t touch any other planets along the way, she stepped onto the Camco mark.

For a moment nothing happened. She was wondering if she needed to lean over and touch it with her hand when the area around the planet lit up briefly with a green glow.

She huffed out a relieved breath as the glow faded away. Okay. From there she’d traveled to the Expansionary Fleet complex on Naporar, where she’d received her sky-walker training. Again being careful not to touch any of the other planets, she walked over to Naporar and stood on it. Again, she was rewarded by a green glow. Next…

She froze. Next had been a series of voyages outside the Ascendancy in her role as a sky-walker, guiding military and diplomatic ships to alien worlds and nations.

Only none of those worlds were on the map. Should she go to whichever Chiss system had been closest to those?

No, that couldn’t be right. The mosaic was a flat projection of a three-dimensional region of space, and there was no way to know from here which Chiss planet was closest to a given alien nation. But then what was she supposed to do?

She looked up at the house. History…but the history of the Ascendancy.

She looked back at the map. The last trip she’d taken as a sky-walker, the one where she’d met Thrawn, had been from Rentor to Naporar. She crossed to Rentor and gingerly stepped on it.

To her relief, the mosaic again glowed green around her feet. She crossed to Naporar, and was again rewarded.