CHAPTER 1 CHIRRUT ÎMWE Silvanie Phest said We require the assistance of a Guardian Chirrut Îmwe dropped his chin against his chest and smiled but said nothing Silvanie Phest's voice was a comfort to him a reminder of better days and hearing hearing her always gave him pleasure She was an Anomid one of a handful she had led from their homeworld of Yablari to Jedha Anomids had no vocal chords communicating communicating with one another through a sophisticated and terribly subtle combination of hand and body language that even were Chirrut not blind he would never have been able to follow Outside of the confines of her colony Silvanie therefore employed a vocoder to communicate and either through accident or intent the programming on the device had given her voice a 3
4 delicate and subtle harmonic singsong Even among the din of NiJedha Chirrut found her voice soothing There had been a time when that modulated voice had risen so beautifully in her devotions that every Guardian at the Temple of the Kyber would pause to hear it whenever whenever she sang her prayers Then the Empire came to Jedha The Imperials stripped the Temple of its artifacts of its history They barred the doors and posted stormtroopers around the perimeter forbidding entrance if not forbidding devotion devotion The Disciples of the Whills who had worshipped so diligently for so long had been cast out and the Guardians who had watched over them with the same vigilance alongside them Now as far as Chirrut knew all that remained of those who had tended the Temple of the Kyber in NiJedha in the Holy City were a paltry handful of Disciples of whom Silvanie Phest was one and two Guardians of the Whills with nothing left to guard and who were too stubborn to abandon their home Or if you were to listen to Baze Malbus tell it one blind Guardian and his long suffering friend Silvanie Phest no longer sang and Chirrut Îmwe missed that Chirrut tilted his head slightly as much to hear
her better as to let Silvanie know he was listening He turned the smooth alms bowl in his hands felt the shift of money sliding along its bottom heard the music of different currencies colliding Imperial credits and Old Jedha knots and who knew what else He rarely collected much but this didn't bother him Collecting charity was the by product not the intent It was the excuse and it placed him below the stormtroopers notice He sat most days to listen and to learn and to try as he had for so long now to feel the living Force moving around him At the Temple of the Kyber Silvanie said Along the Old Shadows There is a man He will not leave He is frightening the devoted all The Force is all Chirrut said The Force accepts This man does not come to worship Guardian Chirrut Îmwe Silvanie's voice shifted a melodic halftone halftone descent that filled her words with unspoken concern unspoken sorrow He brings danger We fear he will bring violence We fear he will bring stormtroopers stormtroopers There are still many who make the pilgrimage and those of us who are left wish to aid them as best we can We fear this man will bring death 5
