‘Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith’ Features a Mysterious but Familiar Character in New Excerpt
On the heels of tomorrow’s release of Brotherhood, comes a new peek at another highly-anticipated novel; Shadow of the Sith by Adam Christopher follows Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian as they search for Exegol and whatever dark force might be threatening the galaxy. A new excerpt courtesy of io9 features an unknown character, but one that is sure to be near the center of speculation up until the release.
When we got the reveal of the official cover and a stunning first look inside the pages a little while back, there was a lot to dissect. One of those things was the third figure on the cover with Luke and Lando. If you haven’t seen the full cover, here it is again:
The identity of this masked character is one of the many mysteries Christopher will be solving in Shadow of the Sith, a book that already has the job of tying up some loose ends of The Rise of Skywalker. According to io9, this figure is indeed a familiar name, who now appears to be answering to the Sith Eternal as they hunt down Luke and Lando.
Collectors of Barnes & Noble’s exclusive editions know they typically come with a miniature poster. Shadow of the Sith will come with a poster of the character which io9 got a look at. Check it out below.
And now without further ado, here is a piece of the excerpt that is from the point-of-view of this familiar, but masked face. You can find the rest on io9.
Something moves in the darkness—a shadow, cast long, crawling through the abyssal night. The shadow is a thing apart: neither alive nor dead.
It is a relic. It is an . . . echo. A presence from an older time, a malignancy that somehow survived, somehow found a way.
Found a path.
She can see it now. Black and blacker still, moving, always moving. An intelligence, yes. A mind, but one without form or substance.
But here—present—nonetheless.
She closes her eyes. It makes no difference. There is nothing to see but a gulf, a nothing, where the shadow lives.
Where the shadow thrives.
In the darkness, in the forever night inside her head.
And the void is not silent. It is anything but. It is a cacophony, a sound so loud it lights up every nerve fiber of her entire being, even though she knows there is nothing to hear, physically.
It is the sound of pain. The sound of death. The sound of a thousand souls crying out in sorrow and agony before they are snuffed out in an instant. Brothers and sisters. Sons and daughters. Mothers and fathers. Podlings, branchlings, kithkin. Sporechilds and denmothers; space fathers and their brethren, and their gene-clusters and their shoots. Spawn, and offspring. Children.
Entire generations of the living, consumed, their dying cries absorbed and left to reflect forever, trapped inside a dark vessel crafted centuries ago by a power uncommon, inhuman.
By a darkness.
By a shadow, cast long.
And there is another sound. A voice, from the ancient past. It is far distant, a call echoing across a huge valley of space and time.
The voice is terrible.
The voice is as familiar as her own.
SOON.
She opens her golden eyes. The room is bright and, mercifully, silent. Her ears ring like a bell, the sudden absence of screams almost as painful, the echo of the voice still reverberating in her mind.
Slowly, slowly, she remembers where she is. As she lies on the floor and blinks the world into existence around her, she pulls up a hand and touches her face. It is warm, and wet, the blood on her fingertips the bright blue of the Pantoran sky.
The place is lit by flickering flame, and the flickering flame lights the plinth of meteoric iron, and beside the plinth lies the mask made of the same starstuff. The mask faces away from her. It rocks, gently, like it has just been thrown.
She stares at the back of it, the curve of nothing, of darkness, of deep shadow.
And she hears the voice again.
SOON.
SOON.
Shadow of the Sith releases on June 28th and is available for pre-order now.
Nate uses his love for Star Wars and movies in general as a way to cope with the pain of being a Minnesota sports fan. When he's not at the theater, you can usually find Nate reading a comic, listening to an audiobook, or playing a Mario video game for the 1,000th time.
