WHEN Rey returned to Maz’s table, Han and the pirate queen were still debating what to do with BB-8. Rey didn’t linger. She felt drawn to explore the castle, to discover some quiet nook where she could be alone. BB-8 joined her.

Rey wandered along a passageway, finding a stone staircase that spiraled down into semidarkness. She descended. The last step took her into an underground corridor. BB-8 tittered, but she continued onward. The corridor led to a sealed door. Before she touched the lock, the door opened.

She entered what appeared to be a storeroom. Boxes were stacked under arches. Odd-sized containers packed the shelves. What tarps didn’t cover was coated in a thick layer of dust.

In the middle of the room stood a small wooden table. On that table rested a small wooden box.

It caught Rey’s interest like nothing else in the room. She went over to the box and opened it.

She heard breathing—more like ventilated rasping—and spun. The door she had entered had been replaced by a dark hallway. At the end, two silhouettes—one in a helmet and cloak, the other a young man seemingly not much older than her—dueled each other with laser blades. One red, the other blue. Lightsabers.

“Rey.”

She searched to see who had spoken her name. “Hello?” No one responded. Not even BB-8. Where had he gone?

At the end of the hallway, a strange boy stared at her.

She hadn’t taken more than a few steps toward him before everything around her whirled. Dizzy, she tumbled, sideways, into a wall that for some reason suddenly became a grassy field.

Into the grass stabbed a blade of crimson light. Then the skies clouded and darkened. Rain poured. The lightsaber was wrenched from the ground. It arced, like lightning in the storm.

The recipient of its swing was a man. She couldn’t see his face. But she could hear his scream.

Drenched, she got up. Seven warriors, swathed in dark cloaks, advanced on her.

Rey tried to run. Tripping again, she glimpsed fire in the night. A temple in flames.

When she turned, the warriors were gone. In their place stood another cloaked figure and an R2 astromech unit. The figure touched a metal hand to the droid’s silver dome.

Like the seven warriors, this scene also vanished.

In the blink of an eye, she was kneeling in a forest. Snow blanketed the ground and the limbs of trees. She’d never seen real snow before. Only sand.

She stood, shivering. Deep in the forest she heard the sounds of war. The ping of blasters. The sizzle of lightsabers. Death.

Someone spoke behind her. Calm, kind, and eerily familiar. “Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”

She peered into the darkness between the trees. “Where are you?”

“I’ll come back, sweetheart. I promise.”

Rey did not want the owner of the voice to come back. She wanted the speaker to stay. “I’m here! Right here! Where are you?”

As in her dreams, she heard no reply. She continued to dash through the forest, not giving up in her search.

A man in a metal mask, cloaked in black, strode out in front of her, the hilt of a lightsaber in his hand.

The cold stare of his mask stopped her dead in her tracks. Not one to scream, that’s exactly what Rey did as she fell.

Snow didn’t cushion her fall. The ground she hit was made of stone. Aching, she sat up. She was once again in the subterranean hallway of the castle.

“There you are.” Maz stood in the corridor before the staircase.

Her head still spinning, Rey could barely get out the words. “What…was that?”

Maz glanced at the doorway to the storeroom behind Rey. “It called to you.”

Rey rose, shaky. “I shouldn’t have gone in there. I’m sorry.”

“Listen to me,” Maz said. “This means something. Something very special—”

“I need to get back.” Rey took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

“Yes, Han told me that,” Maz said, sounding compassionate. “Whatever you’ve been waiting for—whomever—I can see it in your eyes, you’ve known it all along…they’re not coming back. But there’s someone who still could. With your help.”

After all Rey had been through—after seeing Finn walk away—her emotions were in turmoil. “No.”

Maz held Rey’s hand. “That lightsaber was Luke’s. And his father’s before him. It reached out to you. The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it. The light. It’s always been there. It will guide you.

“Take the saber.”

Rey recoiled. “I’m never touching that thing again. I don’t want any part of this!”

She dropped Maz’s hand and ran. Up the stairs. Through the castle. Out into the forest. Never stopping.

Captain Phasma stood with a gaggle of generals and admirals on an elevated platform above the parade grounds of Starkiller Base. Assembled below them the military’s best and brightest spread out in neat formations, all at attention. Rows of TIE fighters and walkers bordered the grounds, around which loomed treacherous snow-capped mountains.

Behind Phasma flapped what was perhaps the most impressive sight, the object on which everyone below was focused: a colossal flag of the First Order.

General Hux addressed the rally from the edge of the platform. “This fierce machine which you have built, and upon which we stand, will bring a final end to the worthless Senate and the New Republic’s cherished fleet.” His amplified voice echoed through the mountains. “When this day is done, all the remaining systems will bow to the dictates of the First Order. All will remember this as the last day of the last Republic!”

It was quiet at first. Nothing but the icy breeze dusting snow back and forth across the parade grounds. Then there was an eruption. Out from the mountains shot a beam of light so intense many had to look away. Phasma’s visor protected her from being blinded. She stared directly at the light. The sound came next, a shockwave that toppled many formations. Phasma stood tall, keeping her balance.

No one could see what happened then. The planet that was home to Starkiller Base was too distant from the intended target of the beam.

Outside the castle with Chewbacca, Han surveyed a section of Takodana’s sky through a compact ponipin telescope. He’d heard many theories about the origin of the star that had recently blinked into existence. None made any sense. New stellar bodies didn’t just brighten the sky all of a sudden.

Han’s ponipin measured that the new star was also many, many light-years away, which under normal astronomical circumstances meant that it had actually blazed to life years before. Moreover, if the calculations proved correct, the stellar coordinates happened to be the same as those of the Hosnian system, where the capital of the New Republic was located.

Could the Hosnian system have gone nova? Could it—dare he even consider—have been destroyed? And if so, how had it happened so quickly?

“It was the Republic capital,” Finn said, approaching Han and Chewie from behind. “The First Order, they’ve gone and destroyed it.”

Han lowered the ponipin. His mind hatched worst-case scenarios. If Leia was in the capital—

“Where’s Rey?” Finn’s eyes roved around the castle yard.

“I figured she was with you.”

Maz walked toward them. “Rey is where she needs to be. You three come with me. There’s something you must see.”

Maz took Han, Chewbacca, and Finn back into the castle, then down a flight of stairs, into a storeroom packed with crates. She went over to a small table on which rested an opened box. She reached into the box and took out a cylinder of a quarter arm’s length.

Han knew what it was because he had seen it in action. He’d even used it himself. It was the hilt of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.

“Where’d you get that?” he demanded.

Maz admired the hilt in her spindly fingers. “Long story. A good one—for later.” To everyone’s surprise, she looked at Finn next. “Your friend is in grave danger,” she said. “Take this—and find Rey.”

She held out the hilt to Finn. He took it.

A detonation shook them all. Bits of the ceiling rained down. The rumbling continued in other areas. It wasn’t a firefight that had gotten out of control or an old grenade losing its cap. The castle was under attack.

“Those beasts. They’re here,” Maz said.