There, at least, the barriers stood strong. While Elzar felt—no, knew—that Avar still had feelings for him as well, he also knew that she would never break her vow. So why did this trouble him so?

Elzar and Avar did it together, nudging the air, helping it do what it wanted to do anyway, helping the individual bits of water become one.

Elzar stepped forward into the space between them that she had created. He grabbed her and kissed her, crushing them together. Avar held on to his wrists and opened up to him. The kiss lasted only an electric moment before Elzar stumbled away.

“Assault? Marshal Kriss, must I remind you that the council has recommended caution? And must I remind you, Stellan, that time is running out. The Nihile have a weapon that can turn our people to dust. Lourna Dee is the key to that weapon.”

“We are Jedi,” he said. “We are,” she replied. She looked away, and let go of his hand, and he was no longer drowning, but perhaps some part of him wished he was.

“You sound like you’ve already broken into the wine.” Avar squeezed his hand. Elzar laughed a little. “I need my feelings. Hope. Compassion. Even if they keep me on the edge—the edge is where I do my best work.” “Yes,” Avar agreed. “It is.”

“Sounds like it’s ramping up. You want to put away a few glasses of whatever they’ve got? I wouldn’t mind dancing, either. Should we go dance, Jedi Master Elzar Mann?” He wondered what she thought of the look he was giving her just then. If she might be drowning a bit, too.

He wanted to tell Avar. To ask her how she balanced it. He wanted to listen to her answer and accept her words. To hold her hand. To…hold her. All of her. To Xylan Graf’s scowling face, Elzar said, “There’s someone on Naboo I care about, too.”

She should get them some tea or water or food. They should talk strategy. She should tell him what Cair San Tekka had said about the blight. Instead, they only stood there, pressed lightly together, breathing. It was a gentle meditation. A sway of the tide and a soft lullaby.

“Do you know what Jedi teach about choosing the light?” “Remind me,” he murmured with a little smile. A grin spread over her mouth, and Avar leaned in to speak against his lips, “It takes practice.” “Practice,” he said, his voice warm with laughter. “I like practice.”

The song of the Force had become distant and discordant, too, as if everything was broken, misaligned. She could still feel it there, still call on it when she needed to, but her connection to the Force lacked the harmony and peace that it had once provided.

Avar drifted. Surrounded by light, a gentle blanket of a billion stars, she drifted and listened. It started with a pulse. A quiet echoing rhythm. The first breath before a song, then: a hum. She remembered her name and the Force, and then the bright tone of her own melody.

Elzar took another breath and reached for Avar. Her song reached back, and they connected. Elzar. He felt his name in her voice and replied, Avar. Hearts together through the Force.

Avar suspected it was not repeatable, or if it was, it was something only she and Burry could do together, or she and Elzar because of their connection.Avar sensed that if she gave in to that nothingness too often, she wouldn’t return from it. She’d barely returned this time.

His heartbeat was the same as the tide of the Force, a rhythm, part of a song. And not just any song: Avar’s. She was at the other end, a pulse that connected them. And she was here, too, because the Force was everywhere.

This was how it should have been immediately after Starlight. Them, together, holding each other. But Avar had rejected him, again, and a big part of her could hardly believe he trusted her enough to keep trying. She wasn’t sure she deserved his trust.

“I’ve just begun operating from the quartermaster’s office.” “Operating in what capacity?” “As the marshal of Starlight.” Saying it was every bit as fulfilling as it shouldn’t have been. Her eyes widened. Avar would’ve been less shocked if he’d walked up and slapped her.

Elzar took a step forward. He opened his mouth to speak, but then seemed to remember where he was, and held himself back, glancing away. Avar wanted to run to him. But she couldn’t. Not here. Oh, Elzar. What happens next? Because the truth is, I need you, too.

Avar had always heard the Force as a song, a beautiful refrain that encompassed every living thing, that brought them together as a sort of choir, filling the galaxy with light and peace. It was a song that traversed time, space, and individuality.

The look she gave him was like that sea he found inside himself, the Force, deep and endless and impossible to fully comprehend. You could drown in it.