Indeera was as pale as a ghost when he found her standing in the middle of a group of abandoned shuttles. Stellan could feel anxiety rolling off her in spades. What in the light’s name could’ve happened to shake a Jedi as experienced as Indeera Stokes?

She looked up before he could ask. “It’s Bell.”

“What is?”

She nodded to a gap between the shuttles. “See for yourself.”

Stellan squeezed past the ships, thinking that nothing could be as bad as what he had seen on Valo.

Once again, the universe proved him wrong.

Bell Zettifar was curled up in a ball, sobbing gently, Ember standing guard. The charhound’s hackles rose as Stellan approached. She snarled, flames flashing behind her teeth.

Stellan raised a hand to ward off the animal.

“It’s okay, girl. It’s me.”

Ember’s growl turned into a bark.

“What’s wrong with her?”

Indeera was behind him now. She pointed beyond the traumatized Padawan to a lump of rock that Stellan hadn’t even noticed. The battlefield was strewn with rubble. What was one more rock among the devastation? But this one was different, its shape strangely familiar.

Two legs.

Two arms.

A head, twisted to the side, features frozen into a scream.

Elzar’s words echoed through his mind. They’re coming, Stellan. They’re coming, and we can’t stop them.

He took an uncertain step forward.

“I think it’s Loden.”

“Loden? Here?”

“He was on that ship. Bell sensed it. I sensed it, but then …”

Stellan bent down beside the petrified body, seeing the line of a noble brow in the rock, the line of ragged Jedi robes. He reached out a trembling finger and brushed what had once been Loden Greatstorm’s cheek. The face collapsed in on itself, the entire husk crumbling to dust before his eyes, and for the first time since he was a child, Stellan Gios was afraid.


Star Wars The High Republic The Rising Storm Chapter 76