Path of Deceit: Return to The High Republic in new excerpt

The High Republic is set to return with Phase II next Tuesday with The High Republic: Path of Deceit. The YA novel is co-written by returning luminous author Justina Ireland, as well as new-comer Tessa Gratton. StarWars.com just released a new excerpt to promote the forthcoming addition to the series.

Phase II takes us back 150-years before the events of the prior Phase. We are introduced to galaxy that feels much less interconnected than what we are accustomed to, with the main highways of hyperspace travel still being charted out. Path of Deceit brings us to Dalna, a planet whose significance was foreshadowed throughout the events of Phase I.

This lengthy excerpt introduces us to the peddler of Force artifacts, Sunshine.

"Radicaz Dobbs, known as Sunshine to his friends and far worse to his enemies, landed his decrepit pleasure yacht in the docking yard on Dalna, a nothing planet in a nowhere part of space. The frontier was full of hardship and scarcity, but Sunshine had never seen such a terrible docking yard. . . . As Sunshine set down his ship, the Scupper, he wondered just how there could be a collector of rare Force-related artifacts in such a miserable outpost."

Soon thereafter, we are introduced to the “the Herald”: a Nautolan devotee to the Path of the Open Hand. The Herald welcomes Sunshine to Dalna, and escorts him to his fellow followers.

"When he peered down to see who had been hammering the side of his ship, he saw a massive Nautolan dressed in strange blue-and-gray robes, blue paint smeared across his brow and decorating his hands and bare arms. But that wasn’t the most noticeable thing about the man: his head tentacles had been shorn away, leaving behind blunted and unnatural stumps. It was a brutal reminder that despite the man’s kind smile, the galaxy, and its citizens, could be very, very violent."

Finally, we meet “the Mother”, or Elecia. She is a woman of great influence within the Path. She is no Jedi, and would not even call herself a Force user, but she does interact with it. A self-described prophet, the Mother has brought her group together on Dalna as they search for Force artifacts. She even has a connection to the Eye of the Nihil, Marchio Ro.

"The lone human among the group, a brown-skinned woman with soft curls and bright eyes, wore silver, the cut of her robes noticeably better than the others. Her smile was calm and welcoming. . . . Sunshine blinked, forgetting himself for a moment. His wariness melted away. “Ah, you must be the Mother.”“Please. Call me Elecia. The Mother is a title, not the name I go by.” She flashed a smile, and a warm sensation began to spread through Sunshine, like when he’d had a bit too much to drink. “These are some of our Elders. They assist me in making difficult decisions.”"

Read the full excerpt on StarWars.com.

The High Republic: Path of Deceit arrives Oct. 4 and is available to pre-order now.