She passed the hours in solitude. Day gave way to night and no word came from Master Dar’nala or Satele. She tried to sleep but failed. She dreaded what the morning would bring.

She lay in her bed, in darkness, staring up at the ceiling. Alderaan’s moon, gibbous and hazy, rose and painted the room in lurid light. Everything looked washed out, ghostly, surreal. For a moment she let herself feel as if she’d stepped into a dream. How else could matters have transpired so? How else could the Jedi have failed so?

Master Dar’nala’s voice replayed in her mind, over and over: I fear we will have no choice.

The pain of the words came from the fact that they were correct. The Jedi could not sacrifice Coruscant. The Republic and the Jedi Council would accept a treaty. They had to. All that remained was to negotiate terms, terms that must be favorable to the Empire. In the end, the Empire’s betrayal, the Sith betrayal, would be rewarded with a Jedi capitulation.

While Aryn recognized the reasonableness of the course, she nevertheless could not shed the feeling that it was wrong. Master Dar’nala was wrong. Senator Am-ris was wrong.

Such a thought had never entered her mind before. It, too, brought pain. Everything had changed for her.

Her fists balled with anger and grief, and she felt more shouts creeping up her throat. Breathing deeply, regularly, she sought to quell her loss of control. She knew Master Zallow would not have approved it.

But Master Zallow was dead, murdered by the Sith.

And soon he would be failed by the Order, his memory murdered by political necessity.

Her mind walked through memories of Master Zallow, not of his teachings, but of his smiles, his stern but caring reprimands of her waywardness, the pride she knew he’d felt when she was promoted to Jedi Knight.

Those were the things that had bonded them, not pedagogy.

The hole that had opened in her when she’d felt his death yawned still. She feared she might drain away into it. She knew the name of the hole.

Love.

She’d loved Master Zallow. He’d been a father to her. She had never told him and now she never could. Losing something she loved had ripped her open in a way she had not expected. The pain hurt, but the pain was right.

The Order had wrought a galaxy in which good capitulated to evil, where human feelings—Aryn’s feelings—were crushed under the weight of Jedi nonattachment.

What good was any of it if it brought matters to this?

Her racing thoughts lifted her from bed. She was too restless for sleep. She put her feet on the carpeted floor, hung her head, tried to gather the thoughts bouncing chaotically in her brain.