“Shaken,” Reath said. “Not…guilty, exactly, but not not guilty, either, if that makes sense. I just—I just keep thinking about that moment, and wondering if I could’ve done something differently so that man would still have his arm.”

Dez sat cross-legged on a patch of soil. An 8-T droid laboring nearby scanned him swiftly, must’ve determined he posed no risk to any roots, and kept on working. “Probably there was something else you could’ve done,” he said. Reath felt it like a lash. But Dez kept speaking. “You don’t know what that would’ve been. Neither do I. In that moment, did you feel like that was necessary in order to rescue Nan?”

“Yes. Otherwise I’d never have done it.”

“You know,” Dez said, “every couple of years or so, an apprentice gets into trouble for being too aggressive. Using a lightsaber instead of words, resorting to action when diplomacy or negotiation would’ve better resolved the situation. You wouldn’t be brought up on that kind of review, Reath. It was a dangerous moment. The threat was clear. Your response was proportionate to the risk to Nan.”

It helped a little to hear Dez say that. But not that much. “I keep thinking about it—replaying it over and over in my head, trying to think of a different way it could have ended.”

“Good. It takes strength to question your own actions. Just don’t dwell on the past to the point of forgetting the present.”

Reath managed a crooked smile. “You’re good at this.”

“Tell Master Jora that sometime.” Dez grinned back. “She won’t believe it.”

Already Reath’s spirits had improved. The weight of what he had done would linger, but only in the ways that would help him learn from the experience. Still, he couldn’t stop wondering: “That guy—the one I—how is he?”

Dez replied, “Oh, he’ll live. Unless Orla Jareni finishes him off.”

“It’s a clean severing—right at the joint, so you can move to a prosthetic quickly—and the wound was instantly cauterized,” Orla said as she saw the painkillers finally taking full effect on the red-scarved man. “You don’t have to worry about infection.”

“Infection’s not what I’m worried about! I’ve lost my arm!” the man bellowed. Full consciousness had returned, with fury not far behind. “You Jedi are responsible for this—”

“Just as you are responsible for the attempted abduction of a young woman.” Orla got to her feet, taking care with the small confines of the Vessel’s utility bay and making no effort to disguise the contempt in her voice. “You were warned to stop. You could have stopped. But you chose not to, because you thought a Jedi Padawan wouldn’t be able to prevent you from stealing the girl. You’re reaping the consequences of being very, very wrong about that.”