He held up his palm. She tried to raise her hand, but it fell back. Her eyes unfocused.

"No!" Obi-Wan screamed.

He felt for her pulse with shaking fingers. There was no beat of her blood, not even a flutter.

Agony ripped through him. He looked up at Nield and Wehutti. He couldn't form the words. It was as though he had forgotten how to speak.

Tears ran down his face as the pain grew and expanded to every corner of his brain, his heart. It seemed unbearable. His body could not hold this much pain. It would simply break apart. Yet he knew it was only the beginning.

The shock waves of Cerasi's death echoed through Zehava. She had been the symbol of peace. Her death became a symbol, too.

But it was not a symbol of reconciliation. Each side took her death and fashioned it to fit their own ends. For the Elders, she was a symbol of the irresponsibility and recklessness of the Young. For the Young, her tragic death was a symbol of the inflexible hatred of the Elders. Each group blamed the other for her death.

The Young and the Elders were more bitterly divided than ever. Though Wehutti and Nield were both in seclusion, their factions patrolled the streets, now openly armed. Each faction gathered more support every day. The rumor was that war was inevitable.

Obi-Wan knew that Cerasi would hate what her death had become: a reason to fight. But he could not begin to struggle with meanings and symbols. He could only grieve.

Nield had not attended Cerasi's funeral. Her ashes were now being stored in the Hall of Evidence where her parents' remains were.

Obi-Wan was alone. The loss of Cerasi was with him constantly. As soon as he opened his eyes he felt it. It was as though his bones had left his body, leaving an empty, yawning space. He wandered through the city streets, wondering how people could continue to eat, shop, live, when Cerasi was gone.

He relived the moment over and over. He asked himself why he hadn't run faster, or started toward her earlier, or anticipated that she would be there. Why couldn't he have caught the blaster fire?

Then he would see the shock in her crystal eyes as the fire hit her, and he would want to scream and pound the walls. Rage kept him as occupied as grief.

The loss of her presence hit him afresh from moment to moment. The knowledge that he'd never talk to her again made him ache. He missed his friend. He would always miss her. She had been a vivid presence in his life.

They still had so much left to say to each other.

So Obi-Wan kept on walking. He walked until he was exhausted, until he could barely see. Then he slept for as long as he could. As soon as he awoke, he began to walk again.

Days passed. He did not know how to climb out of this grief. Then one day he found himself at the plaza where Glory Street ended and Cerasi had died. Someone had hung up a banner and stretched it between two trees.

AVENGE CERASI CHOOSE WAR

Something snapped in Obi-Wan. He ran at the banner and jumped up to grab it. The material was hard to tear, but he kept at it, muscles aching, fingers stiff, until he had ripped it into tiny pieces.

Cerasi could not be used this way. He had to stop it. He had to take his grief and his love for her and fight to stop it.

He had to talk to Nield. No one else could help him.

Obi-Wan found him in the tunnels, in a room far away from the vault where they'd first met. It was a room they'd used for a short time as storage. Nield sat on a bench, his head down.

"Nield?" Obi-Wan entered the room hesitantly. "I've been searching for you."

Nield didn't look up. But neither did he ask Obi-Wan to leave.

"Our hearts are broken," Obi-Wan said. "I know that. I miss her. But if she could see what is happening, she would be furious. Do you know what I mean?"

Nield didn't answer.

"They're mobilizing for war and using Cerasi as a reason," Obi-Wan said. "We can't let that happen. It would violate everything she stood for.

We couldn't protect Cerasi when she was alive. But we can protect her memory."

Nield's head still hung down. Was his grief so huge that he couldn't hear Obi-Wan? Or had he reached him?

Then Nield looked up. Obi-Wan took a step backward. Instead of the grief he expected to see, Nield's face was twisted with rage.

"How dare you come here," Nield said, his voice throbbing with fury.

"How dare you say you couldn't protect her? Why not, Obi-Wan?"

Nield stood. In the small space, his head nearly touched the ceiling.

His anger filled the chamber.

"I tried to get to her," Obi-Wan began. "I — "

"She shouldn't have been there at all!" Nield shouted. "You should have been watching her, protecting her, not rushing into situations trying to save strangers like a… Jedi!"

Spitting out the last word, Nield took a menacing step toward Obi-Wan.

His dark eyes burned. Obi-Wan could see the unshed tears in them. Tears of grief and rage.

"Jedi, always with their minds on higher things," Nield continued bitterly. "Always better than those they protect, unable to connect with living beings, with flesh and blood and hearts.."

"No!" Obi-Wan cried. "That's not what Jedi are about! That's exactly opposite of who we are!"

"We!" Nield cried. "You see? You are a Jedi! You have no loyalty to us.

You're a stranger. You influenced Cerasi, you made her oppose me-"

"No, Nield." Obi-Wan struggled to keep his voice calm and steady. "You know that's not true. No one could ever influence Cerasi or tell her what to do. She only wanted peace. That's why I'm here."

Nield's hands curled into fists. "Peace?" he hissed. "What is that?

What is peace next to loss? Cerasi was killed by the Elders and they must suffer. I won't rest until every filthy Elder is dead. I will avenge her or die!"

Obi-Wan was taken aback. Nield sounded like a hologram in the Halls that he detested.

"What are you doing here, Obi-Wan Kenobi?" Nield asked, disgust choking his voice. "You aren't part of the Young. You never were. You're not Melida.

You're not Daan. You're nobody, you're nowhere, and you are nothing to me."

The anger left Nield's voice, and weariness seemed to pull him down on the bench. "Now get out of my sight… and get off my planet."