Convergence (Star Wars: The High Republic)

by Zoraida Córdova

Axel interrupted, “I’m not a member of the Path.” “Of course. But the Mother never forgets her Children,” Binnot said, taking Axel’s drink and knocking it back. “She wants you to come home.” But Dalna wasn’t his home. When he’d been at his lowest, it might have been, but no more. Axel Greylark was not a member of the Path of the Open Hand. Even the thought that he’d ever uttered the words “the Force will be free” made him grimace. The only freedom he cared about was his own. How could he ever achieve that if his entire life was bound to who he was. His very name. Greylark. Once, the Mother had taught him to not simply channel his chaos but to embrace it as a good little soldier. She’d seen his potential since the moment Ney Madiine sent him to the Path to deliver ship parts for the skeletal frame of what would be the Gaze Electric. Back then, on Dalna, it seemed he’d found the one corner of the galaxy that did not worship the Jedi Knights. That’s why he’d first lingered. But the Mother was why he’d stayed. She reminded him that his pain, that bruise in his heart, was the only reminder that he had survived while his father had died. He needed to press down on it, to remember. When he began to forget, to return to the Axel Greylark that Chancellor Kyong wanted him to be. When he closed his eyes, and he couldn’t conjure his father’s face from memory. When he couldn’t breathe, when he began to settle like dust. He pressed down on that bruise, and he learned to need the pain it...