“The lightsaber is not—is not the tool of a murderer.” Dez coughed. He couldn’t even stand up; how could they expect him to fight? He had no idea who or what was here—a pirate? A smuggler? Leox Gyasi? It didn’t matter. He refused to slay another sentient being for the Drengir’s amusement. “Let him go free instead. Kill me.” Then, at last, it would be over.

“That tells us nothing,” the Drengir said. He was speaking to himself as much as to Dez. “We wish to see more than that.”

Another thorn pierced Dez’s flesh, and he cried out in pain—but in the very next heartbeat, the pain vanished. He sensed that it wasn’t gone, only masked, but that alone felt like reason to live.

Whatever had been injected into him had other effects, too. His heart beat too fast, and his muscles began to tighten and shake. Adrenaline, whispered some part of his brain that was still functioning but was all too far away.

“Fight and the pain stops,” the Drengir said. Through his blurry vision, Dez saw the door of the cage swing open. “Fight and be free.”

His mind no longer mattered. Dez was nothing but his body, nothing but anger and desperation and a wild chemical frenzy. He clutched for his lightsaber, and the Drengir let him take it. Instantly Dez swung the lightsaber in a long, low arc, slicing straight through the Drengir, which fell in two pieces to the ground.

Was that what he was supposed to do? He’d killed something; would they set him free now?

Each part of the Drengir twitched. Then twitched again. Then began to grow tendrils. Dez’s vision doubled, trebled, then doubled again as the tendrils reached toward each other. They grew fast and thick, splicing the Drengir back together until he stood intact.

“Very good,” said the Drengir. “Now we will take you to the new intruder, and you will do that again.”

Chapter Twenty

Using the Force to shape another’s will came instinctively to some Jedi. The teachers even had problems, occasionally, with younglings who’d gotten the hang of it but didn’t yet understand not to play with others’ minds. For other Jedi, however, it was a trick that could take years or even decades to master.

Reath was in the latter category. So when one of the Drengir returned to the clearing, dragging a human figure behind it, Reath was at first even more astonished than pleased. I actually did it?

Any thoughts of his own accomplishment vanished the second he recognized the man being pulled forward. Reath had known who it had to be, but his face split in a smile as he yelled, “Dez!”