And the Sith had betrayed them. She had fought the Sith on Alderaan before, during the battle for the planet. She would do so again. Now.

“How do you know this, Aryn?”

But Syo’s voice, his doubt, did not erode her certainty.

“I know,” she spat.

The Sith knew, too. They had known all along. She could see it in their faces.

Her view distilled down until it consisted entirely of the two Sith and nothing else. A roar filled her ears, the crashing surf of grief and burgeoning rage. She heard a voice calling her name from some distant place, repeating it as if it were an invocation, but she paid it no heed.

Both Sith eyed her, their stances ready for combat. The man wore the same contemptuous sneer, the curve of his thin lips uglier than the scars that lined his face.

“Aryn!” It was Syo calling her name. “Aryn! Aryn!”

They knew. The Sith knew.

“They knew all along,” she said, speaking as much to herself as Syo.

“What? Knew what? What has happened?”

She did not bother to answer. She fell into the Force, drawing on its power.

Time seemed to slow. She felt as if she existed outside herself, watching. Her body moved across the antechamber, her boots scattering the coral of her bracelet. Violence filled her mind as she moved among the statues of men and women of peace.

“Aryn!” Syo called. “Do not.”

She did not reach for her lightsaber. Her need would not allow for such antiseptic justice. She would avenge Master Zallow’s death with her bare hands.

“No clean death for you,” she said through the wall of her gritted teeth.

Some distant part of her recognized her emotional slippage, recognized in passing that Master Zallow would not have approved. She did not care. The pain was too deep, too fierce. It wanted expression in violence and the two Sith in the room became the focus of its need.

The male Sith reached for his lightsaber. Before he could activate it, Aryn unleashed a blast of power that lifted both Sith from their feet and blew them into the wall. Two Alderaanian statues, caught in the effect of her power, slammed into the wall to either side of the Sith and shattered into chunks.

The Sith must have used the Force to cushion their impact, for neither appeared hurt. Both leapt to their feet and spaced themselves apart for combat. Hilts came to hands and their lightsabers made red lines in the air. The male held his blade high over his head in an unusual style, awaiting her charge, light on the balls of his feet. The female held hers low, in a variant on the medium style.