Chapter 1: A Fever Dream
I am immune to the Light.
I have found peace through my passion and purpose in my pain.
My anger gives me strength.
I have knowledge enough to know ignorance
and the sense to appreciate the necessity of fear.
My power flows from the Dark Side of the Force.
My victory will come through life-deeds done in the Dark's name.
I serve no man, for through man the Darkness is corrupted.
In death, I will rejoin the Dark
where my Darkness shall remain for eternity.
Chapter 2: The Will of Old Men
Korriban
Neo-Sith Academy Training Complex
[Three weeks ago...]
A primal growl ripped from Kylo's clenched teeth as he took his arm to the bureau, shoving everything from its sleek black surface onto the floor. His sound trouncing at Rey's hands still scalded his insides, but not so much as Snoke's tedious next level of training.
"That nasty temper of yours seriously needs to be dialed down," stated Darth Briarbone, a Sith Lord overseeing his ascension to Sith status. They currently stood in her chambers, dipped in midnight blues and simple elegance.
It totally figured that they'd assign him a damn babysitter after gutting his fourth starship with his cross-saber.
"What more does he want from me?" Kylo sneered, stalking across the room to glower out of the window at the cityscape beyond. "I've ceded everything to him. My name, my freedom, my loyalty, my body…"
Myth Briarbone, lithe and ghoulish, sank into an overstuffed lounge chair embroidered in silver. "You know it's your anger that's impeding your progress."
Kylo rounded on her. "I need my anger."
Her eyes flickered like dying stars, taunting and distant. "Like a lush needs her wine, I'm sure."
With a snarl, Kylo nearly drew his weapon. Briarbone lifted her hand, unfurling her pale fingers like tendrils of placation, black tinted nails curved into sinister hooks. Soothed, Kylo squared his shoulders, his hand falling from his hip.
"You must surrender to your Master's mold. He knows how best to shape you."
"Through coercion? Assimilation? I was drawn to the darkness because I was tired of being told how to feel, what to think, and who to love. "
"Dangerous words, child mine. The Sith don't love."
"Then what is bloodlust," Kylo dared, "and thirst for power? Is not the same emotion that makes a man chase his chosen? And if so, how does one differentiate between the two? Why will no one teach me what I want to know?"
Briarbone's feline yellow eyes fixed on him, making him feel all of three feet tall, and carefully assessed him the way Kylo had seen the Sith Lord examine a thousand others. She turned a fanged smirk, the wintry sort that chilled the strongest man to his marrow—similarly bemused and demeaning, the way a jungle cat eyed her prey. Rumors of the depth of Briarbone's depravity had circulated through the facility since Kylo could remember. Sacrifice. Bloodfeeding. Torture.
She was a dangerous being to provoke and Kylo struggled to curb his violent streak in her presence.
Eyes fixed on Kylo's face, Briarbone languidly lowered the tip of one claw into her glass and pricked the fluorescent surface of her drink. Blood-purple ink flowered out and combed through the fluid, dying it dark in a matter of seconds. She stirred it. "You're a passionate man, Ren. It's what makes you such a viable candidate for Snoke's apprenticeship."
"Me and a dozen others," he snapped, tightening his jaw until the muscles kicked.
Briarbone took her finger, the same as before, to the lip of her goblet, gingerly tracing the circular edge. It sang hypnotically under the moisture. "Having second thoughts?"
Kylo caught the barb in her question, a test to probe the permanence of his devotion. "About pledging myself to the Dark Side? Never."
"mm," she hummed. "But you stink of inner turmoil. You can't possibly hope to demonstrate your skills as a Sith warrior when you're too busy fighting yourself." Lifting her Iytrian crystal goblet, she took a drink.
Kylo pushed his hand through his jet black hair. "Why am I still fighting myself, my lady? All that should have been appeased the day I…" He choked. Tensed. Swallowed.
"The day you killed your father," Briarbone finished for him velvetly. "You can say it." Her subsequently wicked smile make Kylo's stomach turn over.
Kylo, canting his body away from her, stared sullenly at the floor, searching for his answers there.
"There is no magic remedy for a torn core, Kylo Ren. But, if you'll indulge me, I would suggest you do a bit of soul searching tonight. No person, Sith or Jedi, can tell you who you truly are. That's a discovery a healthy student makes for himself."
Blinking himself through the fog brought upon him by the underlying tone of Briarbone's voice, Kylo met her eyes. "Are you saying I should defy Snoke? And meditate on what I want… instead of his teachings?"
"Me?" she purred, dubious and devilish. "Never." She grinned, presenting an up close and personal view of four pearly white fangs. "I'm just a voice in the Dark—one of the many you'll hear in your coming days on Korriban. Our newest academy is young yet. Funny how new things constantly cower to the will of old men. hm~?"
Kylo, sobered by words he didn't quite understand, watched as the Sith Lord polished off her drink and found her feet, silken robes cascading from red to purple and into black settling around her figure. It almost sounded like… Briarbone was challenging him to think differently, to expand his parameter of understanding beyond the box Snoke had thrust him into.
"Well," Briarbone lulled, extending her hand and splaying her nimble fingers, coaxing pieces of broken paper weights, lamps, and decorative vases from the floor and piecing them together in their proper places on the bureau. "The hour exceeds the time I tolerate spending with you. I have company coming."
Kylo fought the urge to pout and scowled instead. He nodded stiffly. Turning on his boot heel, he stalked toward the door, opened the panel, and stared into a familiar, stark, strong face.
"General Gore," stated Kylo—simultaneously an acknowledgement and a question. Soldierly to a fault, built a size too big for his uniform, and eerily laconic, Gore leered at him.
"Goodnight, Ren," Briarbone quipped from inside.
Unsettled, Kylo slipped between General Gore and the corner of the alcove, unable to escape the feeling of menacing, disembodied yellow eyes on his back until he reached his quarters, crossed the threshold, and locked the panel keypad.
Funny how new things constantly cower to the will of old men. hm~?
Chapter 3: To Know the Dark Side
Korriban
Temple of Transcendence
[Two weeks ago…]
Since his cryptic conversation with Darth Briarbone, Kylo came to the towering Temple of Transcendence to mediate from dusk until dawn. His found his focus sharpest in the absence of the sun, pale as it was on Korriban. He would light eleven candles, and with the passing of each hour extinguish a flame until he sat in total darkness.
Crude, but traditional. Whatever... Not like anyone was around to scrutinize his methods or posture anyway.
The Temple had sat unattended in its ruined state since the planet was first abandoned. Cracked columns. Dusty floors. Spider webs bigger than his body was tall. Dead leaves piled high in the corners from the wind...
The Sith Academy had constructed a new, more modern temple a league or so south. But it was constantly bustling with activity... and Kylo really wasn't a people person. However, they did have floor cushions. And honestly, it wasn't fun to sit on a stone foundation until his legs were numb. So, maybe he'd make an exception soon, before there was no difference between his back and his ass.
Irritated, Kylo scowled to himself, lips set in his perma-smirk. It so figured that on the sixth night, bone tired and mentally weary, he felt no more enlightened.
What had Myth meant? Was she bitter? Should he be?
No person, Sith or Jedi, can tell you who you are. A healthy student must decide that for himself.
Raw with mounting frustration and disappointment, Kylo combed his hand through his hair.
"Look," he snapped at the once ornate altar before him, cobwebs combing its many designs. "I'm struggling really hard to keep this formal. I'm gonna try my best, but I make no promises. Here goes nothing." He pretzeled his legs and calmed himself.
"Again, I come before you. On the floor. In the dark. Like a lunatic. I don't even know who I'm speaking to. I... think... I was told that for me to know you, I must first know myself. I am Kylo Ren, apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke. I struggle to control my anger and fight to fully free myself from the Light."
Suddenly, he felt utterly ridiculous and slouched forward.
"But you know this… because I have said it so many damn times."
Not enough.
Kylo gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. Why did that still sound wrong? Half true?
"OK. You know what? Fine. No more lies," he sneered. "You want to know me? What I really am?"
His throat worked as he struggled to swallow a growing lump. Taking a deep breath, he sat up straight, and stared at the altar.
"I was born Ben Solo.
As a child, I was sent away from my parents to train as a Jedi. My master became my family, the only one I would truly know. I was not allowed to hate my parents for that, and therefore, I did not heal. And a shadowy gap began to yawn open in my soul, swallowing my sense into it. I started twisting everything Luke told me. And I came to despise him too.
I grew to love the Dark for its acceptance and its ability to hide my pain, and later for what I believed it entitled me to do. I was a shitty little kid. And I'm not a much better adult. I did not want to walk the path of the Jedi. What I wanted was something more—to feel. To think freely. To explore the boundaries of this galaxy and the next and use the power of my lineage to change the universe. That dream festered and tainted me.
I betrayed my master and uncle, Luke Skywalker. I slew his students, and my friends—every single one of them. And I wasn't sorry at first. I traded one form of prison for another, pledging myself to the First Order and their Supreme Leader because I thought it would free me. And in my selfish, ugly ambition, I forgot my dream entirely.
I—I killed my father who sought only to save me from myself.
Ben has not died, but he has changed irreparably. ... Irredeemably. For my crimes against my family, I removed myself from their name and hid behind a mask because I wore my sins on my face. I couldn't let anyone see them.
The error of my choices is clear to me now.
I cannot go home, because I am not the man they need. I am evil in their eyes. My treachery is too great. So… I claim no relation to the selfless, righteous grace of my birth family.
And…" He sighed brokenly. "I guess… You're all I have left. I no longer believe my belonging to the Dark Side entitles me to senselessly take life, or take life at all. I know that's lunacy. It contradicts everything I have ever learned, from Luke and from Snoke.
My dream still exists, bleak as it may be. Will you help me to know the Dark Side?
I am Kylo Ren. I'm unworthy. I'm a selfish, callow coward. And I am lost."
All eleven candle flames died at once, extinguished by something unseen. Kylo sat ramrod straight. In the ghostly moonlight creeping in through the colonnade, he could see his breath in the air. And Kylo no longer felt alone.
Was it the smoke from the candles that wafted around him? Or-?
The hellish sounds of a sudden skirmish outside had him surging to his feet. He whirled toward the temple gardens, overgrown with midnight-green vines and sickly spindle trees that bent under the weight of their crooked leaves.
Animal shrieks pierced the silence. Howls. Yowling. The scrambling of paws in the dirt. Guttural growls. Snapping jaws.
Kylo's feet were moving before consciously realized it. He darted out into the open and tore through the garden. The din escalated until it stopped entirely, the world too quiet. Piercing through the roughage and hedge growth, Kylo came to an abrupt halt, nearly colliding with and toppling over a slender, dark heap of fur, glossy with splashes of blood. He quinted.
A feral cat, he realized.
She stirred, twitched, and let out a weak, quivering cry.
Kylo scanned his surroundings for the culprit, but found nothing. Not even tracks. It had sounded like a dog, but he couldn't be sure. Her stomach had been torn open and her neck punctured. She had moments, if not seconds left.
Ignoring the selfish burn to retreat to safety inside the temple, Kylo knelt with the dying animal. He reached out. She opened her eyes; wild, emerald, and frightened. He recoiled. She stared, trembling. And he could only despair. He glanced at his hand.
All this power... and for what?
"I… I'm sorry. But I… I can't heal you." It was one of the first things they were taught. The Dark Side couldn't heal. Only the Light had that power. Only the Light were 'weak enough' to consider healing necessary. The strong survived for a purpose. Snoke had beat that into him.
But he wanted to. He wanted to so badly.
There was only one thing he could do to ease her suffering—kill her quickly.
Sick, already vulnerable from his brutally honest disclosure, Kylo laid his hand on her shoulder to hold her steady as he drew his saber. As the cat squirmed helplessly, he ignited the beam and raised the blade.
The air around his hand began to shimmer a celestial silver, like the surface of black oil under shattered moonlight. The cat stilled. Before his eyes, her wounds closed; woven together by tendrils of shimmering black. His neck and abdomen tingled uncomfortably. Wide eyed in awe and horror, Kylo couldn't move. With her newfound strength, hale again, the cat thrashed and wiggled out of his hold before she bolted into the brush.
Kylo's hand flew to his neck, just under his collar, to find a new patch of warm scar tissue with his fingertips.
He looked up in time to see something shift in the shadow of one of the trees, a dog whose shape and size continually morphed, shrouded by a haze darker than midnight, darker than onyx, darker than black; eyes like bottomless wells boring into him.
It stared at him for a moment that seemed to exist and extend beyond the present into something eternal.
Before Kylo could put two words together, the dog turned and dissipated into the garden. Somehow finding his feet despite the fugue of confusion and shock, Kylo dropped his saber. It sat in the dust, forgotten for the moment. He gawked into the empty air beneath the tree and tried to catch his breath.
Then, he stared at his hands which looked somehow different than before.
Will you help me to know the Dark Side?
What the devil had he awoken with those nine little words?
Chapter 4: Anything
Korriban
Neo-Sith Academy Sleeping Quarters
[Two weeks ago…]
By the time Kylo reached the Academy on his short range speeder, the Time Tower's chimes sang praises for the midnight hour. He had to talk to someone about this, mostly to assess his own mental health. Someone close. Someone he could potentially trust.
Shit.
He jogged up the flight of one hundred sandstone stairs crowning the platform, avoiding anyone at all costs, and shadow-slipped into the Sith student commons. There was only one woman he wanted to see. Chest heaving and doing his damnedest to keep quiet in the sensitive and echoing blackness, Kylo moved from alcove to alcove while stealing constant glances over his shoulder. He slunk through the communion deck, conference dome, and gymnasium without incident.
Swaddled in panic after another two flights of stairs, he threw caution to the wind and burst into Darth Briarbone's quarters. She had given him the key combination in case of emergency when Snoke paired them. Plus, she had rigged the door with absorbent sensors keyed to his aura. She would know if an intruder needed her, or needed her dead.
Briarbone had a fierce love for old fashioned things—torches, sconces, incense, candles, and oils. Her chambers smelled of balsam and sweet pine. Vials in every size and array lined the shelves, somehow still uncluttered. Braisers burned on end tabled and wall brackets. Simple elegance.
"Myth!" he called as the panel whisked shut in its gridlock-swirl. That was a severe breach of protocol. No apprentice ever addressed a Lord on a first name basis.
He breezed from the foyer into the den and made a beeline for the bedroom. "Sorry to barge in, but—!" Struck by the explicit sight before him, Kylo stopped short.
He had found Myth. Oh, he found her alight. In her sprawling black-bathed bed. Astride General Gore's hips. Thin, wondering rivets of red trailed down from Gore's neck and chest.
Mortified, Kylo whirled around and stammered for an apology.
The surreal, sweeping alabaster curvature of her, not a measure of skin unevenly toned, lay cemented in his mind… along with the way her cascade of purple-black hair freely draped over her shoulder. The tilt of her neck. The way his fingers bit into her flesh. How she arched her back.
Every formerly dormant sexual instinct in him came surging to the surface, savage and alive.
Kylo's heart lodged firmly in his throat. He had to wonder... Would she ever see him that way? Any relations between twenty seven year old student and a Sith Lord thousands of years in the making had to be impossible if not incriminating.
The Sith had no qualms with sex. It went hand in hand with passion, and passion was always encouraged.
"Why you rotten little shit!" Gore snarled, the bed creaking as he undoubtedly began to rise. Kylo stiffened as he added, "I'm going to—!" Cut short, Gore gurgled.
Recognizing the sputtering of a man with a Force hold around his throat, Kylo stood a little straighter and let some of his tension leak out from him. Because he hadn't done it.
"Bite your tongue and choke on it," Myth's voice hissed, her words clipped with potent venom. "I value him for his talents, his potential, and his deliciously dark temper. I value you for what hangs between your legs. Given the ultimate choice, I think you know whom I'd select." Her voice warmed from glacial to late-winter. "What is it, Kylo Ren?"
"I need to speak with you about something I have seen at the temple," he uttered.
"The Temple of Testament?"
"No. Transcendence."
Silence.
Kylo felt sweat bead on his brow.
"How interesting," she eventually purred. Kylo heard her release her grip on Gore's throat as he coughed and gasped. The bed began to creak.
Kylo took a quick step forward to leave this indiscretion behind him.
"You stay right there, my boy," Myth commanded. "I'll only be one moment more."
Gulping, Kylo held his ground. Gore's straggled breathing turned to grunts, groans, and gravelly moans. They escalated until the sound shuttered, softened, and died. His breath hitched. Imagination too vivid, Kylo heard her sigh… and not the sort she emitted in his presence. A sultry, satisfied kind of noise he hadn't known her capable of making.
He was nearly out of his damn mind by then. But Myth's word? Absolute/
Struggling under the weight of her command, Kylo stayed put while he listened to the bed give. Soft footsteps. A wooden chest lid open. The whisper of fabric...
Myth swept around in front of him, draped in glossy forest green. The robe hung open. Kylo's heart thundered madly. His eyes trailed down her body, the inner rounds of her breasts and the sculpted flat of her abdomen naked before his eyes. Her navel. Her… Oh, sweet Snoke.
No longer barefoot, dangerous looking stilettos adorned her feet.
Putty. Kylo felt like putty.
Meanwhile Myth's hand shot out, caught his wrist and, with strength that belied her delicate and lithe figure, yanked his hand up.
"Is this blood?" she hounded, eyes darting from the stains in his uniform to his face.
"I…" he tried hoarsely. Lying to her seemed pointless, and he had forgotten to clean up. "Yes."
"Focus, child mine," she prompted. "If you can't stand firm in the sight a naked woman, spilling blood might just curdle your ambitions."
Kylo's mouth worked, but no sound came. Turning his head, he checked the bed for the General's wrath.
"He's asleep," she assured velvetly. "I have him unconscious for now."
Through the heady fugue of his throbbing skull, Kylo recounted the events of earlier to her. He watched her expression change while he spoke: wintry indulgence to smoky disbelief to incredulous acceptance. She began to eye him like she hadn't before—silken, surprised, and curious.
When he finished, she tugged him into the den and sat him down in one of her plush lounge chairs. With an effortless movement of her wrist, she positioned her favorite chair to face his. Wordlessly too... because it drove him nuts under the weight of his worry, while she glided around the chamber fixing two drinks. To his surprise, she tucked one into his hand. As Myth finally sat down, she crossed her legs. Her robe still hung open.
He swallowed hard.
Hooking her hair behind her ear the way God curved a rainbow, she asked, "Does anyone else know about this?"
Kylo struggled not to stare at her breasts. "N—no. Just… us."
"Good. Let's keep it that way," instructed the Sith Lord with a flirtacious smile.
Kylo, unable to find footing on the slippery slope of desire, couldn't speak. It was as though this silent moment dragged on forever. His insides felt too big for his body.
With inhuman grace, Myth stood and shed her robe. He watched the garment flutter down from her shoulders. "Kylo."
"Y—yeah?" he choked. "What?"
"You say you've seen the Dark itself." Her nimble fingers dipped down to her inner thighs, caressing.
Struck stupid, he could only reply, "I… I don't know what I saw."
With a melodic sway in her hips, she sashayed to him and bracketed his hips with practiced grace.
Kylo, practically paralyzed, hardly dared to believe what he was seeing.
"I want you to take me to the old temple tomorrow night," her sly, succulent lips said.
Dumbly, he nodded. Absolutely. Without question. Incontestably. He'd take her there. He'd show her. He'd do anything.
She smiled and traced his lips with her finger. "And I want you to show It to me."
Anything…
Bursting from the mental fog, Kylo sat up like a shot, naked chest heaving. Frantically searching his surroundings, Kylo realized he was in his own quarters, in his own bed. Pale sunlight shone through the crack in the drapes. His robes hung over the back of his courtesy chair and his mask sat on his bureau. Relieved, he dropped back onto the mattress. He scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair.
"That was crazy," he sighed out. "Sweet Snoke... No more all-nighters for a week. Ever."
He felt as though he had drank his weight in lager and then ran halfway across the planet.
Checking the time, he realized he had missed morning meditation and training. Snoke and Briarbone would be pissed. He dragged himself out of bed and into the shower to scrub away the lethargy and night sweat. With the room still thick with steam, he stumbled out of the shower and swept his hand over the mirror's clouded surface.
Kylo froze.
An unfamiliar scar lay etched across his neck… and a second across the right part of his abdomen.
The feral cat flashed like Force Lightning through his mind.
He touched the distorted skin with shaking hands.
Soundlessly, the bathroom door swung open. Myth stood beneath the frame, bare as he remembered her the night prior, wearing only a barbed smirk. "Good afternoon. I was wondering when you'd wake up."
Chapter 5: A Prophesy Mistranslated
"Obi-Wan?"
"Yes, Master?"
"I need an analysis of this blood sample I'm sending you. I need a midichlorian count."
"Hang on . . . The reading is off the chart. Over twenty thousand. Even Master Yoda doesn't have a midichlorian count that high."
"No Jedi has."
"What does that mean?"
". . . I'm not sure."
Moarba Prime
Keedo City Starport
[Several days ago…]
Herded aboard an old transport vessel cluttered with dozens of hysterical natives, Kylo kept his dune colored dust wrapping around his face and hunkered down in a corner.
Too many people. Bugs. Ants. People, he thought. People with their damned smiles and passionate tears and hopes and dreams...
"Ladies and gentlemen, try to remain calm during the evacuation," came a voice over the intercom. "We need to load this craft to capacity. It will be a cramped voyage. Please make as much room as you can. We depart in two minutes. Destination, Helion 5."
The Star-Killer Base, super-secret mega-weapon of the First Order, had been destroyed some time ago. In the process, it had created an infant star with the solar energy stored at its core. But, unstable and synthetic, the compounding gas ball quickly collapsed, creating a black hole rumors dubbed a "World Eater." Ever expanding, it had claimed two planets less than thirty parsecs away.
Kylo had come to Moarba Prime in search of a hideaway, adopting the name 'Shayde' for the time being. The First Order, in all its glory, had been scouring the galaxy for him since left.
Kylo would never renounce the Darkness. But what he would use it for? That was still up for debate.
At dusk, after they had eaten, Kylo escorted Myth to the old temple, as promised.
He hadn't gotten up the gall to ask if they had actually done anything last night and mulled over different ways to broach the question as they ascended the worn stone steps. Both wrapped in black, Myth more daringly so, Kylo swept aside a fallen curtain of spider ivy, one of the plants that could be ground to make Widow's Brew—a sterilizing potion taken regularly by Siths in training. Shooting him a sidelong leer, one that he couldn't identify for certain as annoyed or suspicious, she breezed under his arm.
"No," she purred.
Almost tripping over his own feet, Kylo blinked and quickly followed after her. "No, what?"
"You're wondering if we had sex last night," she revealed as she dropped her hood and searched the cobweb congested ceiling. "The answer is no."
Kylo nearly choked on his own tongue. Unavoidably disappointed, he began to ask why.
She beat him to the punch, perusing the walls with tender, discerning fingertips. "You fainted."
He balked. "I—I what!"
"Presumably from exhaustion." She carefully blew a cluster of dust from one engraving. "You looked as though you hadn't slept in a week."
"But… fainted?!"
"You heard me." With a dusky smirk over her shoulder, she eyed him. "I may be a savage bitch of a woman, but I'm not that uncouth. If we're together, you'll remember it." The dying sunset cast a violent glint on her fangs. "I promise."
She turned away just in time to miss Kylo's subtle gulp and shiver. Was this how the pray mantis felt? Because he was pretty sure he could one hundred percent sympathize at the moment. He would fall asleep though. At the one moment when he could have actually enjoyed himself, he totally—!
"Well?" Myth prompted. She stood closer to the altar in the heart of the main sanctum, tapping the toe of her boot on the floor.
Time to either prove himself or prove himself crazy.
"Master Qui-Gon. More to say, have you~?"
"With your permission, my Master . . . I have encountered a virgence in the Force."
"A virgence, you say?"
"Located around a . . . person?"
"A boy. His cells of the highest midichlorian count I've ever seen in a life form. It is possible that he was conceived by the midichlorians."
"You refer to the prophesy of the one who will bring balance to the Force?"
Stealing a glance down at his mesh-wrapped hands, Kylo unfurled his fingers. That fateful night, the moment he had turned not from the Dark Side but to the Dark Side's side of life, he had experienced an almost supernatural sensation. Power-flooded. Force-drunk.
He had healed using the Dark Side. And he understood that now. He had spoken to a presence of unknown origin. He had stared into the eyes of a canine embodiment of the abyss itself.
Was he truly the antithesis of everything his family stood for?
Noticing that the fabric around his hands had begun to darken and tint black, he crossed his arms tightly. Kylo Ren had met the Darkness, if not joined with it. And it had begun to infect every area of his life.
The ship closed the rear hatch, its internal lighting network dimming to divert power to the thrusters. Black bled up his arms, combing like webs until it engulfed the color he had worn. And he could have sworn he saw eyes darker than black peering out at him through the many bodies.
Once he had found a place to sleep, one that would accept the only kind of coin he carried (the supply Myth had given him), Kylo dropped down onto the edge of his bed.
/Kylo./
Startled from his brooding, Kylo surged to his feet and searched the dingy inn room for a person, though half of him already knew he wouldn't find anything. That didn't satisfy his human mind though and he began inspecting all the likely hiding places-behind the drapes, under the bed, in the cupboard...
Why did this voice sound so familiar?
"Who are you?" he asked suspiciously.
The voice took its damn sweet time replying. /I am.../ a thoughtful, profound pause, /not a who./
Kylo recognized it now. He snorted. "What are you? Why can I hear your voice in my head?"
/You asked it of me,/ it stated matter-of-factly. /You asked me to show you how to know me./
Kylo nearly lost the scant dinner contents in his stomach to the floor. "I asked to know the Dark Side. What... what the hell are you saying? That you're-?"
/You are displeased./
"No! No. I'm confused. And... honestly, pretty terrified right now. Half convinced I'm delusional."
The voice sounded less than amused. /You know I speak the truth. Why do you still deny this?/
Kylo peeked into the washroom. Nothing there. Aggravated, he kicked the door closed. "Do you always watch me?"
/... I am privacy. But you are one with me... most times./
"That's..." He scrunched his lips into a disgruntled sneer. "Disturbing."
/Why do you avoid my question?/
Uncomfortably vulnerable, Kylo sat down on the edge of his bed, slouched forward, and shrugged. "Because I'm... I'm not good. Not worthy of this." He unfurled his fingers and stared at his hands. "I... I fell into the same patterns of behavior that you despise Sidious for."
/It is because you realize this that I have chosen you. You do not pervert my power with bias. And you will not use me to hurt things. Not anymore./
"How do you know that?" he muttered, crossing his arms to keep the truth out.
/Because your desire to help is greater than your desire to harm. Only a handful of those come before you have been able to reach deep enough to heal using my power./
Kylo snorted.
/You also killed your father to help yourself heal. It was wrong. That is not the way. You were misguided. Misinformed. You have been, as you say, torn apart since the innocence of childhood because you have known Me for what I am, not what they want you to believe. You have never been fighting with the Light. The pull you feel gravitates toward me. Always./
They had come for him. Just as Myth Briarbone had warned only moments beforehand, Kylo found himself the fox for the hunt.
Kylo fled through the Sith training commons, guided by a distant, disembodied voice. Layered. Alive. Deep as it was light. A voice, it seemed, only he could hear. It led him through corridors and down stairs, telling him which floors to bypass, when to duck, and when to strike.
He had heard it first in the temple. In the same moment, he discovered that Myth heard nothing.
By the time he made it to his command shuttle, named Calamity for the havoc he had wreaked, the entire neo-complex stood aflame.
Awoken by another hideous nightmare, thick with rancid gore and pervasive death, Kylo staggered into the washroom. Linens that had once been eggshell white had blackened beneath him. After fumbling with the tap, he splashed his face and tried to scrub away the truth. Shivering, he stared into the bloodshot eyes of his reflection, somehow as unrecognizable as it was familiar.
"Why are you doing this?" he choked out. "What's happening to me?"
The voice did not answer him immediately, but he could feel it threading together an inky reply. /To know me is to know my history. To know me is to understand the injustice of tainted teachings long ago. Much is at stake. So much must be revealed./
"I can't-" Kylo clamped his wrist against his mouth as a wave of nausea brought bile into his throat. He growled.
/You can./
Weakly, Kylo shook his head. He had locked himself away in a traveler's inn on Helion 5 for four days and counting. Here, perpetual daylight reigned, courtesy of its two super-suns. It was maddening. Elsewhere, the World Eater continued to engulf planets. His hands bit into the edge of the wash basin. And, knowing only that somehow he had to reach Naboo, he held on.
"Master Luke?"
"Yes, my young Padawan? Be more careful with that practice staff. You'll chip the broadside."
"What if-? Nevermind. It's stupid."
"The proper term is foolish, kiddo. But continue. I want to know. You've been distant lately. What's on your mind?"
"What if Grandpa wasn't con-. . . unmf . . . conceived? by the mini-cho-lions?"
"Ha! It's midichlorians, Ben."
"Yeah. Those ones."
"How do you mean? What would have born him, then?"
"Something else. I dunno."
"Something else? Like a man?"
"No. It doesn't like that idea either."
". . . What doesn't like that idea?"
"The shadow."
"What shadow?"
"Nevermind."
"Ben, don't shrug me off like that. Who put this idea in your head?"
"Nobody."
"What shadow do you speak of? Tell me."
". . . The one who walks between the stars . . . and hides the moons."
"Ben, this is /very/ serious. Where did you hear this? Who told you?"
"It did."
"WHAT did?"
"The shadow, Master. It told me."
"Ben, listen to me very carefully. You're not to speak of this to anyone. Not your friends. Not your other tutors. No one. You're not to talk about this shadow ever again. Do you understand?"
" . . . Yes, Master Luke. I understand."
/Kylo Ren?/
Ben Solo, newly twelve, sat awake in his room, his arms curled tightly around his knobby knees. Seven years ago, when he had first told Luke about his strange visitor, he had made a habit of filling his bedroom with candles, covering every surface. He kept dozens of them lit through the night, always. He was not supposed to find comfort in the darkness. He was not supposed to speak to the shadow anymore.
/Why do you ignore me this way?/
He shook his head. It would go away. With enough effort, just like every exhausting night before this one, it would go away. With a difficult swallow, Ben clamped his eyes shut and tried to block the voice from reaching him. He trembled from the exertion.
/I should not ask what I already understand. You believe communion with me is wrong. Your Master has forbidden it. I know this, Kylo./
"That is not my name," he sneered through gritted teeth. Sweat beaded on Ben's brow. He shivered.
/But it is./ The voice paused, the moment thick with thought. /He is afraid of you, as are many of your peers. You are too different. You are developing too rapidly. This is why... you are often alone./
Stung by that unseemly reality, Kylo pulled his knees tighter and despaired. The other day, during a routine training exercise, he had nearly killed one of the other younglings. And he would never forget how they all looked at him that afternoon as the dust settled. 'What a freak.' 'He's dangerous. Don't look at him, Mim.' 'How could someone like that be related to Princess Leia?'
"Go away," Ben forced through his teeth. "Please just go away."
/You must not force me out. Can you not see? You must trust me. You have too much power to bear alone. It will cripple your reason-/
"SHUT UP!" Ben exclaimed. "You're evil. You're dark. I am a Jedi, a lover of the Light. I am a Jedi. I-I don't ever want to hear from you again."
/Kylo, please./
Barbs of pain crawled through his chest. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks. "Leave!" /No. Don't leave me here alone. Please don't leave me./ "Don't come back." He choked. /Don't listen to me. You're all I have./ "Not ever. Go away. I-I won't fail my mom. I won't let Dad down. I'll make Master Luke proud. I won't give in. You're not welcome here!"
With those words, the presence slowly, reluctantly faded.
For many lonely years, Ben did not hear the voice again. That following night, he asked Master Luke to wipe the part of his mind that had known the shadow, a compartment of belonging as dear to him as breath. Luke had only recently acquired the skill through the Force. Although hesitant to do such a thing to his Padawan, he agreed it would be best. Skywalker succeeded in removing the stain from Ben's memory.
But It could never be expunged from his heart.
Planet Naboo
Ruins of Havencrest
[Present day...]
Sitting on the apex of a bridge in the misty wilds of Naboo, Kylo slowly unwrapped the mesh bindings from his hands.
"My gods... You can hear It's voice," Myth said, her typically pale, frozen face awash in broken awe and tears. "I have waited an age for this night."
Nauseated -terrified-by the intense, bittersweet typhoon of her feelings, Kylo stiffened.
She filled her chest, the shuttering sound soft and unfettered, full of hope so intoxicating that he felt drunk just to sense it. "Snoke will know you have realized soon enough. The lineage of Anakin Skywalker can be lied to and puppeteered no more. You must flee from Korriban and gather the Knights to you."
"They are long gone from here by now-scattered after my next level of training began. I have done them evil, Myth. I cannot expect them to forgive me, let alone follow me again."
"Kylo," she rebuked, brows wrinkling, as he shrank from her. "Those men and women rallied to you not because they were forced to, but because they felt the pull of their destinies. Do not just deprive them of that."
"I cannot face them with what I know now..."
He let the wrappings fall away. Slowly, Kylo unfurled his long, nimble fingers and stared into his palms.
"You made a horrible mistake. And I pray they will understand. The tainted Darkness craves division with the Light to distract its people from the division within. The Knights are as much yours as you are theirs. You may not have known it then, nor did they... I wager. But you were not merely herding a band of rebels-wily youth in search of battles across the frontier. You were building a court."
Struck by confusion, and feeling as though he stood on the precipice of some terrible truth, Kylo turned back to her. "I am not royalty."
She stared, resolute and aflame in her soul itself, deep into his eyes. She seized his chin and dropped her voice, as though the gravity of this secret could crush them both if spoken too loudly. "Deluding yourself changes nothing. You were building a court," she repeated. "A court that has not existed dating back even to the dawning eon of my living years. The Dark Crown is rightfully yours, and the Black Court will rise again." She whirled toward the colonnade to leave the temple.
Kylo swallowed hard, volleying between shock and denial. He caught her wrist. "Who are you?"
She faced him and proudly inclined her chin. "I am the last known descendant of the race of Sith, alchemists of the flesh and blood. And I know unto my marrow that you are my king. You will ring in an age of enlightenment and bring truth back to the Dark Side. You are the blooded Prince of True Darkness. And the galaxies will sing of it until the end of all time. Now go, Kylo Ren. Go!"
Two black suns sat cemented in the center of his palms. And he had a hard choice to make.
Chapter 6: Agaveh-Yani
Planet Bevv
[3 years after Kylo Ren renounced his loyalty to the First Order...]
He had decided. And he had chosen poorly.
Kylo had been slipping the hunter's noose by the skin of his teeth for three years. Relentless and insatiable, Snoke and the First Order perused him like the shells chased the tide.
Instead of gathering the Knights, Kylo Ren had ran. Far.
Now 33 and worldless, he had traveled to the outermost corner of the galaxy, making his living as a street magician on Bevv. Third World. Tribal, in some instances. To protect what little people he loved, Kylo had cut contact with the best and the worst of them. It had torn him apart, like a squid severing its own tentacles. He lived on the roadside. He shivered through the storms and slept in the mud and coughed up the dust, his lips cracked and his stomach empty.
But through it all, the Darkness never left him, and somehow he still felt satisfied. The people shunned him for his pale skin, strange ways, and lack of belongings. Plus, he did not speak their language. And, as to many cultures, strangers often meant trouble.
One afternoon, he wandered through the marketplenty which had sprung up in the heart of Vi'dava-what had been a dying city. Vendors, farmers, and fisherman lined the winding paths, hawking crops and wears for barter.
To Kylo's understanding, the monsoons had come to the planet for the first time in decades this growing season. Fields that had lain barren for an impossibly long while clamored with new life. Fruits. Vegetables. Flowers. Fish had returned to the rivers. Game had reappeared in the forests.
Ungainly as ever, he dodged a ball patched together with animal hides. Its following group of children raced past him, despite the hollering riverman shaking his fist under the tent beside Kylo. To Kylo's surprise, he felt a tug at his cloak. He looked down. A wide eyed little girl, no more than four, with tightly braided coils of hair beckoned him to her. He knelt. And she smiled at him.
"Ne'da," she said.
Through a strangled smile of his own, he replied, "I'm sorry. I don't know what you're saying." He couldn't pry it from her mind either. It would blow his cover. And... he just didn't have the heart to take things from people anymore.
She huffed. "Ne'da imvate lis granya."
He shook his head hopelessly.
She frowned in a most determined way and searched her surroundings. With purpose, she dunked her hand into one of the riverman's barrels swimming with fresh water eels. Then she hoisted her wet hand into the air between them and wiggled her fingers, causing the drops to fall on the path. "Granya."
Kylo furrowed his brows. "Rain?" He mirrored her gesture, lifting his hand and fluttering his fingers as he brought it down.
"Va! Granya!" She grinned, clumsily clapped her hands, and planted a kiss on his cheek. Before Kylo could say another word, she scampered off to join the other children. He stood up and watched her go, floundering in confusion. Feeling other eyes on him, he turned to see the riverman staring. Hard. Intense. Slowly, the riverman untied a smoked catch from the hanging line and offered it to him.
Kylo's mind reeled. In his six months here, he had never been showed as much kindness as he had in the last sixty seconds. Blindsided, he accepted the fish. "Thank you."
The riverman shook his head. "Ne'/da/."
Now.
In a certain part of the central village of Bevv, called Hub, there stood a certain large hut, frequented by only certain types of folks. It also just so happened that when the rains grew particularly unkind, this was the only haven in town Kylo could find to escape the storms. The hut's residents never allowed him entry into the building itself, but he could take shelter under the woven reed awning jutting out from the side facing the sunset without stirring up too much trouble.
He just had to stay out of sight.
In this hut lived a variety of women—young and old, thick and thickest, thin and thinner. One of them, a young woman who could be no older than himself, had a stark spray of freckles over the suntanned crown of her cheeks and nose. Her long hair had matted into dreads, the tangled strands ranging from honey wheat to soot brown in color. She never spoke. When she smiled, she never showed her teeth. She always wore a small red vial tied with twine around her neck. And all the more mysteriously... he never saw her take any clients. But each day, when the sun hung highest, she would go to the river with two clay jugs. When she returned, the jugs would be full—one on her head, and the other against her hip. Tall for a woman here, but a full hand-span shorter than he.
She didn't wear much as far as clothing went. None of them did, really.
In the eleven months he had been on Bevv, he had seen her transform from a rail thin, starving waif into a vision that stirred his blood, blanked his mind, and made him gawk like a madman.
Honestly. The fact that some foreign street rat pined after a local girl leaps and bounds beyond his league would probably rank highest on his lengthy list of most pathetic admissions.
The girls at the Jedi Academy, from what he remembered, had always cut lean, fierce figures. And that had never really been Kylo's cup of… blue milk.
Thankfully the riverman, Yayl, had given him a job three months ago... hauling barrels from the raft up the steep shore in exchange for three meals a day. Kylo had regained his strength. And he didn't want to complain. But one could only stomach so much fish and eel before it sickened him at the sight.
One afternoon, when the newest storm had gone from a drizzle to a deluge, Kylo (soaked to the bone) hunkered down under the awning and waited for the thunderhead to pass. Unfortunately, the eldest of the women, as robust as she was loud, happened to pop out back to sweep the porch at precisely the wrong moment. And she did not like him. It didn't matter that she barely reached his chest in height.
Because she wielded a very large bludgeon-wood broom.
The billowing storm seemed like great company after the way she came at him, shrieking in the tongue Kylo still couldn't name let alone make heads or tails of, whirling her broom like a bladed stave. He scrambled to his feet, nearly tumbling into the mud puddle pooling by the wood pile.
But quite suddenly, another body stood in front of him, a body that he morally shouldn't have known just by merely seeing her from behind. She spread her arms and stamped her bare foot with a splash.
The broom crone balked and tried to shuffle around her. She couldn't manage it.
"YANI! Nebre'gnata vib myatte—!" The crone began bellowing at her now, flustered and red faced as she shook her weapon.
And Kylo was grateful that he couldn't understand her, because she was probably slewing insults about him faster than a Destroyer shot phasers. Then Kylo's savior did the strangest damn thing Kylo had ever seen…
She balled up her fists, took a deep breath, sealed her lips up tight, shut her eyes, and puffed her cheeks out. Like this, she moreso resembled a toddler than a goddess.
The older woman let her broom drop, heaved a sigh, gave a dramatic roll of her eyes, and grumbled all the long waddling way back inside.
The brief scuffle had pushed them out into the rain. The woman's lashes were dew dropped when she turned to face him properly.
Sweet Snoke, someone may as well have taken a pipe wrench to his face.
"I—" he stammered stupidly.
He had never been close enough to see her eyes before—a myriad of jewel blue and sea green dusted with lime. She turned her lips, smiling without smiling. Next, she offered him her hand, which nearly bowled him right over with surprise. Her plump lips plunged into a frown as she screwed up her brow.
Death of Darkness, but was she pretty when infuriated…
She marched around behind him, planted her hands against his back, and pushed. Pushed him clear back to the porch, in fact. A breath before the ledge, Kylo found his feet and stepped up onto the platform, quickly coating it with a fresh pile of mud. She joined him, took one look at his boots, and scowled. With one hand firmly fixed on her hip, she pointed at his shoes and thrust the same finger toward the muddied grass.
Kylo studied her face intently, waiting for her to scream at him the way the crone had.
But she repeated her silent gesture with fervor, adding a stomp.
Struck by the truth, he gawked under the thunder. /She can't speak,/ he realized.
Slowly, Kylo nodded and obeyed. The ire left her face. Kylo completely expected her to direct him back to his corner on the porch, but she seized his wrist and hauled him inside instead.
Chapter 7: Stay the Path
The door, made of woven river reeds, rattled closed behind them and the room, which had been abuzz with conversation and laughter, plunged into silence.
Kylo found himself the focus point in a den of women, surrounded on all sides. Misshapen candles leaking wax over their perches lit the room, warmed by a small, crackling fire in an old, wood-iron furnace. The clay-cut floor felt cool beneath his bare feet.
Kylo, dripping in rain where he stood, swallowed hard. It wasn't so much a look of unwelcome in their eyes, but more so questions, suspicion, and curiosity. He had never dared set foot inside before now. He hadn't the money.
Yani, who paid no mind to the barrage of female attention, tugged him across the floor, weaving between sofas, satays, and large, seed stuffed sitting-bags. Thunder rumbled outside. The woman brought him to another door, wooden and well crafted, and opened it. Inside, Kylo found a low bed—mattress stuffed with straw and feathers, most likely—a clothing chest, and large wash basin surrounded by black stones the size of his fist. One window screened by woven reeds had been carved into the west facing wall. The scent of eucalypto and lemyn grass wafted from the bowl boiling atop a squat corner incense braiser, hand crafted by the looks of it. Rocks cemented together with clay formed the walls while a wire grill supported the bowl. Steam frothed over the brim and vanished before it could touch the floor.
Tugs to his tattered cloak snapped his attention downward. He found Yani fussing at the joining flaps. Kylo stepped back in surprise, hand reflexively hiding the bindings. If she planned to get him undressed, the bandages would have to go too. That meant exposing something good folks probably weren't meant to gander at. No one had seen him undressed since Havencrest. He had made damn sure of that.
Yani scowled indignantly, but Kylo caught a flicker of hurt in her eyes.
"It's… No. It's not you. I just…" He rolled his eyes, squared his shoulders, and averted his eyes. "It's complicated. You won't like what you see. I don't even like what I see," he mumbled.
Yani cocked her head, her attention searching his person. Then, she spun on her heel, marched to the window, and flung open the reed shutters. She reached outside and pulled up a large jug, presumably collecting rainwater. Some of it splashed over the side, but she didn't seem to mind. After lugging it to the basin, she dumped it in.
"C—can I help, or?" he asked as he ventured forward, brows knit in confusion.
She shook her head fervently.
Kylo watched her replace the jug outside and hoist in a second. The two of them filled the basin just above the halfway mark. When the second jar had been returned to its proper place, Yani shut the reeds and made her way to her mattress. She knelt and rooted around under the thin pair of pillows a moment until she fished out a small, rust-red drawstring bag. She opened it.
Kylo couldn't bring himself to tear his eyes away. Her beauty, the kind he had never seen before, practically bewitched him. And that blunted his surprise when she reached into the bag, pulled out a handful of red dust, and sprinkled it over the rocks lining the wash basin. Before his eyes, the rocks began to redden like coals. He could feel the heat the emitted from where he stood, warming the chill in his bones.
Fire-pepper, he knew, was mined much closer to the interior than Bevv. It must have been used in lieu of monetary payment at some point. It never reacted with skin contact. Only stone. Soon enough, steam began to waft up from the surface of the water.
Yani sealed the bag, set it aside, and pointed to the basin. Understanding dawning, Kylo gawked.
Why would she waste something so precious on him? She didn't know him from Athryn. But waste was exactly what would happen if he didn't obey. The pepper only lasted so long. He couldn't bear to see her go through all that trouble for nothing.
Fathoms damned. Maybe she wouldn't know. Maybe she'd think them tattoos. Several tribes inhabiting the planet used them to designate social standing. Then again, Kylo wasn't part of any tribe, resembling no native race—pale and tall, gawky and dark haired.
Kylo took off his cloak, unfastened his vest, and began unwrapping his arms. The black cloth, intensity faded from sweat and rain, had begun to fray. He'd need to acquire more soon. Abruptly, she caught his wrist. Kylo flinched, but stood rooted in place as she stared at the inky black sun on his palm. Suddenly, she snatched his other wrist and hurriedly tugged the fabric off to find a matching mark. Lifting her eyes, she leveled him with a look of bewilderment.
He didn't know what to say. Even Kylo couldn't extrapolate on their significance any more than the obvious. Doing so would reveal too much of his lineage. Even if they didn't know his Dark name out here, someone would know the Skywalkers. Reluctantly, he met her eyes.
And found her smiling.
She took his wrists, lifted his hands, and used his palms to frame her cheeks. Excitement gleamed in her eyes. Kylo's insides melted. But as quick as the tender moment came, it ended. Yani set to work quickly unwrapping the rest, discovering the string of smaller stars winding their twisting way up his arms. When he attempted to help, she swatted his hand. Hard.
Kylo surrendered.
After a moment of searching, she found the end of the strip wound around his chest tucked into itself. Slowly, she began to unwrap it. Kylo stared down at her thick lashes fanned out over her speckled cheeks, her oceanic eyes giddy with awe and enchantment as she followed the string of stars to their joining point in the center of his chest, merging in a symbol reminiscent of the Sith emblem, but older. Sharper.
A sun with spines, barbs, spires, and boiling flares.
She traced the path with her fingertips. The path to the core. The path to his heart.
She met his eyes and tapped one of the stars before she tapped her chest, clearly trying to convey a message Kylo was too damn dumb to get. With a thoughtful expression, he tilted his head.
In consternation, she poked the star harder, faster, and then poked her clavicle.
"You?" he asked.
She nodded rapidly.
He glanced down at the star, his eyes volleying back and forth between her and the mark. "Yani means… star?"
She beamed a bit uncertainly, exposing that the empty space behind her left canine where a tooth should be. Perhaps she understood some of his language, but not all of it. Taking a page from her book, Kylo gently touched her chest and then another star, wearing a question on his face. Her smile brightened. As though she suddenly remembered to feel ashamed, her hand flew to her lips.
Kylo managed a lopsided smirk of his own. "My name is Shayde." Gently, he took her hand away from her mouth. Her smile couldn't have been more lovely. Again, something inside him… thawed.
Over the next few months, Kylo came to learn her full name: Agaveh-Yani, roughly translated as Star Flower in his language, Heaven's Blossom in others. He came to her daily, visiting with whatever he could scrounge together from his meager earnings at the docks to buy her time. When the crone began to complain, and not discreetly, they started meeting at the riverbank where she filled two jugs for the conjugal consortium.
At the water's edge, cushioned with grass, Kylo lay with his head in her lap, her fingers combing through his jet-black hair… which had grown long enough to tie back. Apparently, barbers weren't a thing on Bevv. One of the suns hung in the sky above, warming them and setting the surface of the river shimmering. Kylo stared up at her as she stared out over the water, wearing a contented expression, a small smile ornamenting her lips.
It hadn't occurred to him before… that he could have a life like this. He could stay like this. He wanted to be here, with her, for the rest of his days. He'd work hard enough to pay whatever debt the crone required. He'd build them a little house. He'd find a way.
The Voice, barely a blip in his memory, hadn't contacted him. And maybe it was foolish to think he had outrun it, as though the Dark Side couldn't find him in such a sunny, tropical place. But he let himself believe it.
He could be a husband—her husband—and strive to make amends for the shit he'd done. Maybe he could be a good man. No one knew him out here. He could live under this false name, under this glorious delusion, until death took him. He took a breath.
"Yani," he prompted.
She looked at him, eyes bright with questions.
Kylo sat up. "uh… I'm not really sure how your people do this, or if there's anyone I should ask first. Or if you'll even understand this. But… W—would you—?"
A soaring should, the whirl and roar of engines, cut him off. Kylo surged to his feet. She followed, grasping at his arm as she searched the sky in alarm.
Kylo knew those engines.
No. NO!
He rounded on her and seized her elbow. "Go home," he commanded. "You go home and you stay inside. Hide. Do you understand?"
Worry swarmed across her face. She shook her head stubbornly.
Kylo tugged her into a kiss, hoping it would help. A measure of tension bled out of her. He held on for as long as he could. He met her eyes again. "You go home now. I'll come back for you soon. OK?"
She forced a smile and nodded sagely. Leaving the jars behind, she left his embrace and bolted for the hut.
Kylo watched her go, his heart growing heavier with every step she took.
"I love you," he whispered in her wake.
Steeling himself, Kylo snatched his cloak from where it lay draped over a root, pulled it on, and stalked in the opposite direction, snapping his hood up to cover his face. His cross-saber felt unnaturally warm, strapped to the side of his thigh, as though it had awoken from a century of sleep. He hadn't used it, let alone activated the crystal, in years.
Damn his feelings. He had to leave Bevv. Snoke and his disciples had only one plausible reason to touch down on a tribal planet so far from the interior. Somehow, he'd come back. When the coast cleared and the dust settled, he'd return and make Yani his wife.
Just how damn obsessive was Snoke's desire to find him? It had been six years! Had they been hunting him the whole time?
The streets of Vi-dava, frenzied with pandemonium and clouded with dust from scrambling feet and ship gusts, couldn't have made for better cover. Keeping his head dipped and his hair in front of his face, he zig-zagged against the flow of traffic toward the small star port, used most for tourists and exports. He'd stow aboard a vessel bound for some obscure colony, hunker down there, and return in a week. They had no reason to linger if their search yielded no fruit, especially somewhere most would deem utterly uncivilized, lacking the brunt of modern convenience.
Kylo stopped short as a command rang out over the din.
"Citizens of Bevv," heralded a familiar, wintry voice, her words decoded into the native tongue by the transhancer she wielded. The throng of people slowed, all turning toward the voice.
Myth…
General Hux came to stand beside her, rigid and shrewd as ever. They began to wade through the crowd, who parted for them, creeping closer to his position. If he bolted, it would be a dead giveaway. So instead, he held his breath and tried to make himself as small as he could.
"It has come to our attention that for or some time, your world has been the haven of a traitor," she snapped sharply. "We have not come to harm you, or bring misfortune to your people. We come only for him that he may return with us to face judgement for his crimes. Produce him, and you have my word that our ships will promptly depart without incident."
Kylo's stomach dropped as a multiple eyes flickered toward him. Shit. They were totally going to fork him over like bad meat. He had to clear out! A swift grasp at his hand nearly pitched him into full blown panic. He dropped his eyes to find the little girl from months ago, scowling at the approaching duo and gripping his fingers. He blinked, stupefied.
The last cluster of people blocking him from view shuffled aside. Darth Briarbone stopped, her stare cutting clean through him as easily as a diamond dusted blade. "Speak of the devil," she hissed, baring her fangs in a snarl vicious enough to curdle blood. Something feral, like living rage, gnashed through her eyes.
"No," said the girl, whom Myth seemed to notice for the first time.
Myth's eyes snapped to her. "Be gone, child. This doesn't concern you."
But the girl scrambled in front of Kylo, still clutching his hand. "No! Vas algatha y'ii Imvator lis-du Granya!"
Kylo, paralyzed, could only stare.
Myth's eyes widened in rage. "Move," she growled.
Movement to Kylo's right caught his attention. Blindsided, he watched Yayl, the riverman, come to join the little girl. "No."
"Measure your next words very carefully, old man," Myth warned.
His words, choppy and flavored with effort and accent, were no less clearly understood. "You will not take the Bringer of the Rain."
A breath later, more villagers came to encircle him.
Myth balked, disgusted. "What lies have you fed these savages!" she exclaimed, clearly accusing him of Force persuasion.
What… what had happened to her? His mentor. Where was the woman who encouraged him to flee?
"Shayde is one of us," Yayl stated. "He is no traitor."
Kylo felt a hand curl around his heart and squeeze. Shayde. Ashamed, he averted his eyes.
"Shayde?" she spat, followed by savage laughter. "Fools! That's not his name!"
The little girl blinked her big eyes up at him, confused.
After a few steadying breaths, Kylo straightened to full height, at least a handspan above the tallest man standing. He used to free hand to drop his hood. "She speaks the truth."
Yayl, taken aback, eyed him incredulously. And it stung worse than a bowcaster blast.
"I have lied to you," he confessed, eyes locked. "My name is Kylo Ren. I am who they seek."
Gasps or horror, confusion, and betrayal ripped through the crowd.
Kylo faced Myth Briarbone. "Mistress," he greeted with a dip of his chin.
"Mistress?" Myth whispered. Vibrating with rage at this point, she fired back louder with, "Mistress? You could have saved It."
Hux leveled her with a sidelong, puzzled frown.
"You could have been Its voice. You could have saved us! You could have been my King! But you ran! You RAN!" she shrieked. She thrust her hand forward and hurled a flurry of purple lightning bolts at not just Kylo, but all of them.
Power, untapped and unquantifiable, exploded within him. He shoved his own hand out with his fingers splayed, a concussive blast of red surging through the air. The shield encapsulated the villagers and himself, Myth's lightning not deflected, but imbibed by the energy field. The force of the flare tore the wrappings from his hands, exposing one of the twin black suns.
Chaos ensured, the people fleeing in every direction. Screaming. Hollering. Yayl snatched the little girl up into his arms as he fled, not even giving Kylo a second glance. She cried and squirmed, reaching for Kylo.
"No! No!" she screeched, the yelp fading into the din.
Myth's eyes widened and watered, zeroed in on the black sun, but she shook her head, clenching her teeth with enough weight to crack a human femur. In a movement quick as a viper's bite, her eyes never leaving Kylo's hand, she called for her curved saber hilt, activated the beam, and decapitated the general.
The sight stunned Kylo sick. Kylo watched Hux's head roll through the dust, the body collapsing as the knees buckled.
"You coward!" she roared. Then, she came at him, her purple saber—the hottest of the spectrum—crackling lilac with hatred. Her first strike cracked his forcefield. Kylo had just enough time to call his cross-saber into his hand before he had to block her next overhead strike. Her boot slammed into his chest, sending him sprawling backward.
"Myth! I don't understand!" he shouted, finding his feet.
"I trusted you. Waited for you. Counted on you," she condemned, stalking forward, not letting him get a moment's respite. "Millions of people have WAITED for you! I stayed the course for six years, praying to find you before Snoke did!" She hacked at him.
He blocked and parried as he staggered backward. "You told me to leave!" he defended.
"No! I told you to own your destiny! I've bloodied my knees, begging whatever god could hear me that you'd find the Knights! That they'd follow you! That I'd live long enough to join you in the true Darkness!" Tears stained her cheeks. "That you'd be the man I've eternally longed for!"
She swung and struck with such force that it nearly broke his wrist to block it. He couldn't use his power on her. She was too important to him. He wouldn't—!
"But what do I find?" she wailed. "A beggar in rags, wearing a false name!"
They locked blades, the streams whining against the strain, stray bolts flying every which way.
"I'm sorry!" he hollered.
She didn't relent.
"You're right! I'm sorry! I'm sorry…" He stared in her eyes, begging undeservedly for her understanding. "I've failed you. I've let you down. You're right. I ran." Their chests heaved with effort, the heat of their sabers bringing sweat to their faces. "I'm sorry, Myth. I was afraid."
He saw a crack form in Myth's resolve, a hint of forgiveness.
A figure, darting out from an alley, appeared in the fray just over Myth's shoulder. Kylo lifted his eyes, his vision clarifying as he recognized her identity.
Yani looked on in terror, her hair in disarray and her chest heaving from what could only be a full-fledged sprint.
Fresh, bitter cold panic burst through Kylo's chest. He hurried to rectify his mistake by ignoring her, but Myth was too sharp, too experienced, to fool. She shoved against him with full force, enough to unsteady him, and then knocked him flat with a sweep of her leg. She wheeled on Yani… and froze.
Kylo watched Myth slowly (or so it seemed) glance back at him, her face ghostly pale and completely shattered. Kylo, breathless, stared back.
"A woman?" she whispered hoarsely. "You turned your back on millions of people to love just one soul?"
Kylo didn't understand any of this! His mouth worked, but no sound came. How could he explain? How could he possibly hope to remedy what he had apparently gutted from Myth with a confession of love?
"Y—you threw It away… for a woman?"
Kylo couldn't right his senses in time to tell Yani to bail. Instead, she ran straight toward him.
Myth struck without looking, her saber spearing Yani clean through the heart. Kylo met her maritime eyes one last time while she hung there. Myth tore the blade from Yani's chest. She collapsed. And she didn't move again.
"No!" Kylo screamed, raw with agony.
"I guess I was wrong," Darth Briarbone stated, resuming her cold, impersonal leer. "You're exactly like him. Exactly like the first. Throwing it all away… for a woman." Gradually, she shook her head. "But I won't let you." She flipped her saber back into the forward offensive hold and gripped it in both hands. "Because I loved you first. And as your mentor, it is my job to guide you along the path you are destined to take. Even if... I won't be with you at the end of the road."
Kylo's insides iced over, his temper tidal waving back to him. His vision went.
And it didn't return…
until he stood over the pieces of his Mistress's body.
To be continued...