What did Luke Skywalker do after Return of the Jedi? It’s a question fans had been thinking about for decades and, over the past few years, we’ve learned bits and pieces: a baby apprentice here, villainous nephew there, self-imposed exile, etc. A new book, however, promises to be the deepest dive into this story yet and the first excerpt features an reunion that might just bring a tear to your eye.
The official Star Wars website recently posted an excerpt from Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith by Adam Christopher, which will be out this summer. It’s based on a few lines of dialogue in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker where Lando Calrissian mentions to Rey and the team that he and Luke spent some time searching for the lost Sith planet of Exegol. This novel will tell that story, which is exciting on its own, but this excerpt is just… so much more.
Here’s a short piece of a longer excerpt from Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith by Adam Christopher. We’ll reveal the spoilery reunion below.
Luke took another breath, the taste getting stronger in his mouth. Already his eyes were drying out, the atmosphere, the ground, the whole place so old, so desiccated.
He knew immediately where he was. He had been here many times recently, this nightmare landscape of his visions.
Only now he knew its name.
This was Exegol, the hidden world of Sith only whispered about in ancient texts. A place reachable only with a wayfinder.
And… by meditation? Luke took a step forward, finding the ground solid and most definitely real under his feet. He walked a small and slow circle, eyes at the horizon. Lightning flashed, lighting the farther reaches of the plain, revealing it to be featureless and dead.
The same place as his visions, yes, but this felt… different.
This felt real.
Could he have been transported? Luke frowned, his mind racing along with his heart. True enough, he didn’t know the full extent of the powers of the seeing stone. He had researched the place for years, but he had never actually used the stone for its ancient purpose, to commune directly with the Force. He knew himself what a powerful Jedi he had become, what untapped potential he still had within himself despite — or perhaps because of — his years of self-directed, Masterless training.
Had he done it? He had the holocron, or what was left of it, and the kyber crystals. Was there enough of the holocron data core left for the seeing stone to have been able to read it, somehow, taking him to where the original owner had failed to reach, all those centuries ago? And what about the kyber crystals? They resonated with the Force, their very structures in a natural, sympathetic vibration with it. Were they the catalyst, making the journey possible? Was that what the original pilot had tried — combining two very different forms of Sith power to overcome their lack of a true wayfinder?
It was then that a far more important question entered Luke’s head.
Could he get back to Tython?
Luke doesn’t get back to Tython in the excerpt but he does show down with nine mysterious Sith creatures that have no presence in the Force. Are they real? Are they actual Force users or just projections of Palpatine? It’s not revealed. What is revealed is that Luke can’t defeat them… until, well, now’s the time to make good on our headline.
The excerpt ends with a mysterious Force Ghost coming to Luke’s aid. They’re wearing brown robes, have a blue lightsaber, and are able to hold back the mysterious Sith beings. Luke, like you and I, believes it’s Obi-Wan. But no. Here’s the final piece of the excerpt:
Then the blue figure turned around, his lightsaber extinguished.
Luke pushed himself up onto his elbows. He blinked.
It couldn’t be.
It couldn’t be.
The blue figure lifted his hood back to reveal the strong, sharp face of a young man, his gaze intense beneath a furrowed brow that was bisected by straight, vertical scar. His thick hair was shoulder-length and had a slight wave to it.
Anakin Skywalker reached out his hand.
Luke took it, and everything went white.
It’s Luke’s good old dad Anakin, who he freed from the Dark Side’s clutches on the Death Star a few years prior. Will the two get to talk? If so, what will be said and how will that change Luke? You, like, us will be waiting patiently for the release of Star Wars: Shadows of the Sith to find out. Head to the official Star Wars site to read the full excerpt.
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