That did make some tasks easier, though. Satisfied that nobody was approaching, she went back to working boards loose from the barn’s frame at the rear of the building. There was no other exit if she were ambushed, so she was making one.

She concentrated on the boards, fixing their shape and position in her mind. Then she visualized them separating and moving aside, creating a gap. Move, she thought. Just part,swing aside... and the boards did indeed move. She rehearsed shifting them with the Force a few times, letting them fall back into place quietly.

Yes, she could use the Force. When she felt confident and controlled, she could master everything Fulier had taught her; but those days could be few and far between. She wrestled with a temper unbefitting a Jedi. She watched those with serene acceptance of the Force and envied their certainty. She wondered why Jedi blood had bothered to manifest itself in someone who was so fallible.

Etain hoped she could manage to use the Force to do something more momentous than moving planks if the situation demanded it. She was certain that the next few days would test her beyond her limits.

Jinart arrived just after it grew completely dark. Despite watching intently through the crack in the wall, lightsaber ready, Etain didn’t see her approach, or even hear her until the door swung open.

But she felt her. And she wondered why she hadn’t felt her before.

“Ready, girl?” Jinart asked. She was wrapped in a filthy shawl that seemed about to walk of its own accord. It was a pretty convincing disguise.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Etain asked.

“Tell you what?” Jinart asked.

“I might be less than the ideal Padawan, but I can always sense another Jedi. I want to know why.”

“You’re wrong. I’m not that at all. But we are serving the same cause.”

Jinart cast around and picked up the remnants of a loaf that Etain hadn’t finished. She shoved it under her shawl.

“That wasn’t an explanation,” Etain said, and followed her out the door. There were no gdans to be seen. If this woman was strong in the Force and not a Jedi, she had to know why. “I need to know what you are.”

“No, you don’t.”

“How do I know you’re not someone who has turned to the dark side?”

Jinart stopped abruptly and spun around, suddenly faster and more upright than an old woman should have been. “I can choose when I am detected and not detected. And given your competence, I’m the one who’s most at risk. Now, silence.”

It wasn’t quite the answer Etain was expecting. She felt the same authority as she had in the presence of Fulier, except that he exhibited peaks and troughs of the Force, while Jinart projected an infinite steadiness.

She was certainty. Etain envied certainty.

Jinart led her into the woodland that skirted Imbraani to the east. She was keeping up a punishing pace, and Etain decided not to ask any more questions for the time being. At various points along the way, Jinart deviated: “Mind the warrens,” she said, and Etain sidestepped holes and depressions that told her colonies of gdans had been busy beneath the ground.

They finally paused half an hour later, having covered an arc that brought them north to the edge of the Braan River. As rivers went, it was more of a large stream. Jinart stood still, apparently looking at the water but not appearing to focus. Then she jerked her head around and stared west, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly.

“Walk upstream,” she said. “Follow the riverbank and keep your wits about you. Your soldier is still there, and he needs those plans.”

“A soldier. One?”

“That’s what I said. Come on. He won’t be there much longer.”

“Not a group, then. Not even a few.”

“Correct. There are others, but they’re a little way from here. Now go.”

“What makes you think I have plans?”

“If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be risking myself to direct you toward your contact,” Jinart said. “I have other work to do now. When you find your soldier, I’ll try to persuade Birhan to take him in for a while. He’ll need somewhere to hide. Get on with it. He won’t hang around.”

Etain watched Jinart start away toward the town, looking back just once. The Padawan slipped out her lightsaber and tried to get a sense of what might lie west along the river-bank, and when she glanced back again Jinart was nowhere to be seen. She was aware of the scrabbling of small clawed feet around her. Whatever influence had kept the gdans at bay while Jinart was with her was gone. She kicked out occasionally and hoped her boots were thick enough.

If she went back to the farm, nothing would have changed and she would be no nearer to delivering the information. She had no choice but to go on.

The bank was overgrown in places and she stepped into the river, knowing it would be shallow. The knowledge didn’t make it any more pleasant to wade in sodden boots. But it was a reliable route, and it kept the gdans from trying their luck with her.

They were wary of Jinart. Etain wondered why the Force didn’t deter them from stalking her as well. It was more confirmation, if she ever needed it, that she really wasn’t much of a Jedi when it came to utilizing the Force. She had to concentrate. She had to find that single-minded sense of both purpose and acceptance that had so long eluded her.

Although Etain had clearly not yet come close to mastering control of the Force, she could see and feel beyond the immediate world. She could feel the nocturnal creatures around her; she even felt the little silver weed-eels parting to avoid her before they brushed her boots on the way downstream.

Then she became aware of something she wasn’t expecting to encounter in the wilds of the Imbraani woods.

A child.

She could feel a child nearby. There was something unusual about the child, but it was definitely a youngster, and there was a feeling of loss about it. She couldn’t imagine any of the townspeople letting a child out at night with gdans about.

Ignore it. This isn’t your problem now.

But it was a child. It wasn’t afraid. It was anxious, but not scared as any sensible child should have been, wandering around alone at night.

Suddenly there was something touching her forehead. She put out her hand instinctively as if shooing away an insect, but there was nothing there. And still she felt something right between her brows.

It dipped briefly to her chest, exactly on her sternum, and back up to her forehead. Then she was suddenly blinded by a light of painful intensity that shot out of the darkness and overwhelmed her.

She had nothing to lose. She drew her lightsaber, prepared to die on her feet if nothing else. She didn’t need to see her opponent.

There was a slight ah sound. The light snapped off. She could still sense a child right in front of her.

“Sorry, ma’am,” a man’s voice said. “I didn’t recognize you.”

And still she detected only a child, so close that it had to be next to the man. For some reason she couldn’t sense him in the Force at all.

Red ghost-images of the light still blinded her. She held her lightsaber steady. When her vision cleared, she knew exactly who she was staring at, and she also knew Jinart had betrayed her.

She’d probably betrayed Fulier, too.

Etain could see the distinctive full-face Mandalorian helmet of Ghez Hokan.

The sinister T-shaped slit told her all she needed to know. She raised the lightsaber. Both his hands were resting on his rifle. Perhaps the child—the unseen child—had been a lure, a distraction projected by Jinart.

“Ma’am? Put the weapon down, ma’am—”

“Hokan, this is for Master Fulier,” she hissed, and swung at him.

Hokan leapt back with astonishing reflexes. She didn’t recognize his voice: it was younger, almost accentless. He didn’t even raise his rifle. The monster was playing with her. She spun on the ball of her foot and very nearly took his arm off. Sudden rage constricted her throat. She slashed again but found only air.