Jora opened her mouth to tell her Padawan what she sensed—that the pirates were going to try to surprise them by swooping upward—but Reath was already guiding the airspeeder up and over the spiderweb of construction beams, toward the brilliant sky.

His strength in the Force isn’t remarkable, not among the Jedi, she thought as she studied her young human apprentice. The wind blew his dark brown hair into even more of a nest than usual. But Reath works harder than almost any Padawan I’ve ever known. He tuned in to my thoughts not through his natural gifts but through effort of will—and he did it faster than the naturally gifted ever manage. He’ll go farther than many of them…perhaps in ways he doesn’t yet understand.

Prologue - 1