Faith That Blinds Us
Written by Lord Zeuss
They all wore grim faces, they all averted their eyes when he passed them, and they spoke not so much as a single word to him when he asked what was wrong. In fact, the question appeared to frighten them. Jilon Harbek frowned at the thought of the Republic soldiers under his command being afraid of him. Fear was the path to the Dark Side. Having others fear you brought you one step closer to greed, lust, and the loss of control.
Jilon swallowed back such thoughts. He had a duty to these people. He was a Jedi, assigned to be the eyes of the Council on this ship, the Republic cruiser Calvary. He forced himself to disregard the soldiers' agitation and apprehension at his presence as he made his way to the bridge.
The captain had sent for him, saying it was urgent; something he did not say lightly. He resisted the urge to run, trying instead to calm himself and feel nothing, willing the serenity forth.
As he expected, all eyes turned away from him when he stepped onto the bridge, the crew studiously keeping to their assigned tasks without sparing so much as a glance at him. Jilon could feel the tension; it was draped over the whole bridge like a suffocating blanket.
His tan robes and brown cloak swished behind him as he moved across the command deck to the captain.
"Yes, captain? You sent for me?"
The captain turned to him, and Jilon found he was unprepared for the look of sadness and regret in his eyes.
"We had to pass through the Korriban system. And we weren't able to elude their defenses entirely." The captain put a hand to his temples and rubbed his eyes once before continuing. Jilon held his breath, knowing he was not going to like whatever it was the captain said next.
"They tagged us, Harbek. Instead of sending out pursuit, they sent us a message. Some of the officers didn't want me to show it to you, but I think you have a right to see it."
"Show me," Jilon ordered stoically.
With a resigned sigh, the captain nodded to the communications officer.
A full-color image appeared on a screen in front of them.
Jilon found himself staring into a dimly lit stone chamber. A sunbeam solid with dust illuminated a battered woman hanging from chains on the ceiling in the center of the room. Her face was horribly bruised and bloodied, rendering it nearly unrecognizable, her hair was disheveled and dirty, but Jilon could see the long, thin braid of a Jedi Padawan resting over her shoulder. Her clothes, too, might have identified her as a Jedi, but like the rest of her they were torn and covered with grime and blood. She looked to be dead, but Jilon could her chest rising and falling slowly as she took small breaths.
He saw another figure enter the picture. Dark-robed, tall, and blond; it was another woman. She held a short white instrument in her hand that crackled with blueish-purple lightning. She faced the prisoner with her back to the camera that watched them both.
The dark-robed woman paced around the bound prisoner once, and when she came back into the light Jilon could see her face; a face he remembered, the face of a former friend now twisted by evil.
She looked squarely into the camera--at him, and savagely grabbed the prisoner's head by the hair. A wicked smile was on her face. "I am Norryl, servant of Dark Lord Malak. This message is for any Republic ships who may be in the area, we give it to you so you may know what is the price of your arrogant intrusions into our realm."
Norryl thrust the white instrument, which Jilon recognized as a vibrorod, into the woman's side. She screamed in agony. Jilon felt his insides twist; he knew the pain. The Mandalorians had used that same weapon on him more than enough times during their war.
When Norryl removed the vibrorod, tears of pain had mingled with the blood on the woman's face. Norryl jerked her head up by the hair for the camera to see.
"Behold, Jedi Padawan Jaena Harbek!" she shrieked.
Jilon reeled in shock and unexpected anger. None of the Masters had told him his sister had been captured by the Sith, but there she was; the bruised and lacerated face unmistakably Jaena's. He felt the unfamiliar touch of hatred, hatred of Norryl for brutalizing his sister as she had. It was too much for him to choke down.
Norryl's voice continued in a hiss. "Every time you Republic scum send a ship into our systems we will execute one of your valued Jedi we hold prisoner. You have violated our territory, and now Jaena dies!"
Helplessly, Jilon watched as Norryl drove the vibrorod into the base of Jaena's skull. A shredding scream tore from her throat and burned into Jilon's mind like a brand. She twisted with agony and shook with spasms as the Norryl mercilessly pressed the rod harder to her head. Lightning seeped into her brain, raising Jaena's screams to a new level. When her breath ran out, only wretched strangled sounds escaped her throat and smoke began trickling from her mouth, nose, and ears. With one final shudder, she fell limp in the chains.
Jaena was dead.
Jilon felt the anger slip its tenuous bounds and wash over him, inundating him with raging fury and hatred of the Sith. It poured into every fiber of his being until he felt he was a creature of nothing more than pure, unadulterated loathing.
And then there was nothing.
The screen went black and Jilon took hold on his surroundings once again. He looked at the captain, feeling empty, a shell of a man. The captain looked back at him in heartfelt sympathy, holding back tears.
Jilon's eyes were dry.
He had no room left in himself for grief. All that remained was the burning desire to kill Norryl, at any cost.
Norryl liked to meditate, she liked to immerse herself in the depths of her power and revel in her mastery over it. The dark energies to which she had pledged herself had long ago had driven away the fog of doubts and disparity brought on by the teachings of the Jedi. The Jedi Code, like a poison, had been purged from her, removing all the restraints it had placed on the power that was rightfully hers. Under the teachings of the Sith, she had tasted true freedom for the first time in her life. She was no longer a slave to the needs of the galaxy, no longer a prisoner inside her own mind; forbidden from having thoughts and feelings of her own.
As these thoughts entered her relaxed mind, Norryl smiled.
Her life was hers alone. Not the Jedi's, not the galaxy's, but hers. Being born sensitive to the Force did not give the Jedi the right to decide her own life for her; she was her own person. The teachings of the Sith had given her that light in the darkness, and allowed her to shake off the Jedi's forced obligations of suicidal self-sacrifice for only some vague greater good and never herself.
Regretfully, Norryl felt the world snapping back into place around her, breaking the trance of her meditation. She opened her blue eyes to the sight of her quarters at the Sith Academy on Korriban. She was on the floor facing her bed, still ruffled from an earlier engagement with a man from Dreshdae.
Many men were attracted to her, or more accurately, her power, and she had taken many to her bed. But more often than not they would die there, having made the fatal realization that she was not like most women. Some, like the most recent endeavor, expected her to be submissive. For this, they earned excruciating deaths. Idly, Norryl wondered where the corpse was by now.
She picked herself up from the floor and retrieved the white vibrorod from the bedsheets where it had fallen hours earlier. She could still smell burnt hair from it. Over her black tunic she drew a hooded black cloak and made to leave.
A burst of static from her communications pad, signaling an incoming message, stopped her. She wasn't expecting a communication from anyone; Uthar was keeping her busy interrogating Republic and Jedi captives, she had nothing else going on.
She stowed the vibrorod at her belt beside her lightsabre and crossed her arms critically as the blue image shimmered to life. It was the figure of a man in robes much like hers, but she could tell even in the saturated blue light of the hologram that they were the traditional tan and brown of the Jedi. Her lip curled in disgust.
His face was blank. His voice when he spoke was devoid of emotion.
"Hello, Norryl."
"Do I know you?" she asked impatiently.
"No," he answered, "I don't think we ever knew each other, despite being close friends for many years. On Coruscant, back before the war. I was Master Vrook's padawan learner at the time, I do not remember the name of your master."
A sneer came to Norryl's face. "Of course. Jilon. How could I not remember you?" she taunted derisively. "There was nothing remarkable whatsoever about you."
Jilon's lips cracked in an empty smile. He spoke one word. "Jaena."
Norryl was thrown slightly off-balance by his abrupt change of subject. "What?"
"Jaena," he repeated, "Jaena Harbek. Have you forgotten already?"
"The name means nothing to me," she returned.
Now Jilon's face grew threatening. "Well it should. Two weeks ago you executed her as punishment for a Republic incursion into the Korriban system."
The countless torture sessions and executions had all run together in a blur in Norryl's head, she couldn't remember more than a few vague details from the execution two weeks ago. Jaena Harbek might have been the name, but she couldn't remember for sure, there were too many for her to count.
"I'm afraid I will have to check our records to verify your claim. I do not remember any Jaena Harbek," she answered coolly.
"She was my sister." There was such menace in Jilon's voice that Norryl snapped out of her preoccupation. She was suddenly paying very close attention to the hologram before her.
Jilon went on. "Do you know what it's like to watch your sister suffer and die? No? Well, I promise you: you will." His voice took on an even harder edge. "I happen to know you have a sister." Norryl's throat constricted with sudden fear. "You've doted on her and her mother ever since you betrayed your duty to the Order and joined the Sith. Actually, even before then. She's Force sensitive, don't you know? The Jedi Masters want her taken in, as much for her own protection as ours. They worry you'll turn her into a little copy of yourself; of which I have no doubt you will if you're allowed to continue." His icy mask of a face became triumphant. "I have her, Norryl."
Feelings of sudden anger, fear, doubt, and indignation raged through Norryl's mind, they fought to take control of her. With great effort, she wrestled down her inner turmoil and forced herself to face him.
"Let her go!" she demanded. "The Masters have no right to decide her own life for her! She will not be a slave to the Jedi!"
Jilon wagged a finger at her. "You're hardly the one to talk, Norryl. As a Sith you're party to galactic slavery. For all your vain talk of freedom you decide the lives of millions; servitude or death. You have no right, not to your life or to your family!" he callously retorted.
Norryl felt every word strike her as if they were blades impaling her through the heart.
"But I am better than you," Jilon pronounced. "Sister for sister, I could kill her right now, with you watching. But I won't. I am going to give you the choice of whether she lives or dies."
Norryl choked down helplessness. "Name your terms."
"You can turn yourself in, to be executed for your crimes against the Republic, and she will live. She will be trained by the Jedi Masters to remove your foul Sith influence, but she will live. If you fail to show up at the following location within the next two days, or if you try to trick me, I will kill her and make sure you see every tortured second of it, no less than you did to Jaena!"
Jilon's hologram flickered off. Her datapad beeped; most likely having received the coordinates for his exchange.
Norryl felt despair sink into her bones.
She'd joined the Sith so she would be free to live her life how she saw fit. The Jedi had repressed that life, the only life she would ever have, and had enslaved her to the needs of everyone other than herself. Endless self-sacrifice was the way of the Jedi, and Norryl had not wanted that for her sister. Against her Master's wishes, she tracked down her mother and father and begged them to promise that if they had another Force-sensitive child, to not give it up to the Jedi. She'd begged them more fervently than she'd ever begged for anything in her life, and they promised her.
Force-sensitive or not, people deserved to do what they would with their own lives, and not have their lives decided for them by those who thought they knew better.
More than almost anything in the galaxy, Norryl did not want her sister indoctrinated into the peaceful slavery of the Jedi. Now Jilon was giving her the choice of slavery or death.
The only way out for Norryl, for her sister, was for her to kill Jilon.
Uthar would not approve. She did not care. He would tell her it was not in her own interest to save her sister, that her sister was irrelevant, he might even applaud Jilon for removing such a distraction from Norryl's life.
She was going anyway. What good was it to have power and not aid the ones you loved?
There were a handful of Republic soldiers guarding the halls, blaster rifles held stiffly in their arms as they vigilantly patrolled the short corridors that led from the small hangar. They were content to ignore and be ignored by the tempestuous figure of Norryl as she swept past them. Jedi Harbek had specifically ordered them not to hinder the Sith woman when she arrived; he would deal with her himself.
Norryl could feel through the Force exactly where Jilon was within the abandoned mining facility, she needed none to direct her on her imperious march through the facility to find him. Her robes rustled behind her, static electricity dancing on their edges, summoned by her ready rage.
When she reached the last door between her and Jilon, rather than wait for it to open, Norryl blasted it away with a compressed wave of Force energy and strode into the refinery where she knew he waited.
The first thing she saw was Tayra - a red-haired youngster of no more than twelve years, her sister - hanging suspended by force cuffs above an inactive cooling shaft at the end of the long chamber, scared stiff.
Unexpected tears came to Norryl's eyes at the sight of her sister so helpless, held in thrall by forces which sought to dictate her life.
Jilon stepped out from behind the corner of a dipping pipe, hands in his robes' sleeves. At the sight of him Norryl's hot fury burned away the tears of sympathetic fear. She felt the hate blazing through her, searing through all her inhibitions, empowering her to do whatever was necessary. She seethed at the sight of his face as he pushed the brown hood back from his short hair.
"It is not enough that you would force Tayra to watch my execution and deliver her into a lifetime of mindless slavery. You must hold her helpless and at your whim as well?" Norryl spat.
"It is no less than you did to Jaena, and Force-knows how many others," Jilon responded in a monotone.
Norryl winced inwardly, feeling the sting of hearing his words and knowing they were true. "Then it seems you are no better than me. For all the vaunted moral standards you claim to uphold, you really are no better than I, a Sith. Does the Jedi Order approve of your threatening of bystanders in a personal conflict? I can't imagine they would authorize you to take these actions on behalf of your own sister. Your sister!"
She let loose, hurling precepts from Jedi law at him hatefully, spitefully. "As Jedi you should have no ties to your family, you should feel no loss from the death of your sister! 'There is no emotion, there is peace', remember that? Or have you forgotten everything the Masters pounded into your mind to make you their slave? If so then you are no better than me, Jilon! Now let her go!"
Jilon raised a hand and Tayra floated a few feet towards them and landed, still cuffed and immobile, on the floor at the edge of the shaft. Again, he crossed his arms and peered back at Norryl.
"Yes," he said, "I have broken the rules. This wasn't authorized by the Council. After this is over I will likely be put on trial and harshly disciplined, if not imprisoned. But I have only you to thank, and to blame. I will not care as long as justice is served and I know that you are dead and have paid for your sins, not the least of which was murdering Jaena." The ghost of a satisfied smile crossed his face. "I imagine you must have broken a few rules of your own. A Sith coming to her little sister's rescue, sacrificing herself for her family? I doubt your Master approves. After all, Sith are self-serving, with no moral values or regard for anyone, selfishly believing you are wise enough to make choices for yourselves. You are despicable tyrants who aspire only to utterly dominate all things."
"Such a statement proves how little you know of the Sith, my foolish friend," Norryl clucked condescendingly. "The words you spout are the lies you have heard repeated over and over so many times that you accept them as truth. You believe it because you want to believe it. But you have not one lick of understanding of the true nature of the Sith."
"The goal of the Sith is clear-cut and obvious; total subjugation of every people, race, and civilization in the galaxy. Unquestioned rule for eternity future. Unlimited power. It shows through in every action you take, every breath you draw, and every beat of your loathsome hearts," Jilon retorted.
"Much the way the Jedi wish to reign over the whole galaxy in their alleged wisdom, enforcing lifelong slavery to the needs of everyone else on all who feel the Force? I think you may be describing your own Order, Jilon," Norryl shot back. "According to the Jedi, those born sensitive to the Force are to be enslaved and bound against their will to endless self-sacrifice for everyone but themselves. There is no freedom in the Jedi Order, it is simply a more insidious evil."
"Self-sacrifice to those less fortunate is the moral duty of everyone gifted by the Force! How dare you speak such blasphemy!" Jilon roared, his voice shaking with rage. "The Jedi keep the peace, our wisdom guides rulers and politicians, we cherish life!"
Norryl crossed her arms and kept her voice cool. "No, you smother life. You deny one's right to their own feelings, their own wants and desires, even their own family. The Sith is freedom. Freedom to feel as you wish, to do as you wish, to live your own life. The Jedi forbid life, teaching only mindless servitude to others."
"Disciples of the Force are meant only to serve, not to rule." Jilon's voice was dangerously low.
"Being born with the Force does not void our right to live as we choose. If there is ever a death of freedom in this galaxy, it will be from a Jedi victory!" Norryl hissed.
Suddenly, Jilon hurled his cloak to the floor. "Enough! I will listen to this sacrilege no longer!" he shouted in outrage, igniting his blue lightsabre.
Norryl dropped her own black cloak to the floor and answered Jilon's aggression by drawing her red Sith blade. Her anger and fury burned white hot through her, setting loose her commitment to kill. She soaked in it, felt it saturate her entire being, and with almost no effort she cast it from her fingers as searing bolts of Force lightning.
Jilon's hand came up quickly, deflecting her strike towards the ceiling as he came running for her.
Norryl leaped forward to meet his attack.
The noise of their two sabres clashing rolled like a thunderclap through the large chamber as a mild shock wave radiated outward from the point of impact. Both combatants struggled to gain the upper hand in the sabre-lock. Jilon's teeth gritted and Norryl's neck muscles flexed in exertion as they pushed against each other, the locked lightsabres dipping first toward one, then the other in a deadly stalemate.
His eyes glaring with hate, Jilon dislodged a heavy piece of machinery from the wall with the Force and hurled it at Norryl. Instantly, she pulled away from the sabre-lock and deflected the flying obstacle with her lightsabre while simultaneously throwing another bolt of lightning at Jilon. As shrapnel fell to the floor around them, Jilon stabbed low with his blue blade. Norryl easily blocked and the duel began in earnest.
Jilon attacked aggressively, searing power behind every stroke of his sabre. Norryl struck back with equal intensity, countering his every blistering strike or swing with one of her own. He tossed random objects at her, attempting to catch her off-guard, and she simply struck them down while holding him off with her Force lightning. They traversed the room in their battle, skirting the perimeter of thick pipes as they both tried to back the other against the wall. Lightsabre strikes caromed off the walls and blasts of lightning shot everywhere, scorching the floor in snaking patterns.
They stabbed and swung, parried and blocked in frenzied bursts. The floor shook as they released incredible power into their strikes, only to be met by equal force from the other's aggressive block. It was total battle, with no energy wasted or motion spared for parries that couldn't be turned into attacks of their own. Every swipe of a blue or red lightsabre was potentially a killing blow, no quarter being given by either combatant. Around the edge of the cooling shaft they circled, the thousand-foot drop never more a few feet away, and they fought on.
Tayra was too afraid to make a sound as she lay motionless on the floor, lightsabres clashing around her.
Fending off a burst of fierce strikes from Jilon's lightsabre, Norryl nearly stumbled over Tayra's prone form. In sudden panic that she might accidentally push Tayra over the edge, she lashed out with a powerful Force push that knocked Jilon back several feet and she back-flipped over the yawning mouth of the cooling shaft. Jilon made a leap of his own and forced her to bring her lightsabre up to block his arcing swing as gravity lent its own power to the strike. Sparks flew from the floor as she turned aside his blow and sent the blue blade skittering across the metal scaffold.
Twirling her lightsabre, Norryl pressed the attack, forcing him to give ground. Lightning crackled around her, casting itself with increasing energy from her body to anything close by as she harried Jilon relentlessly with her searching blows and cutting swipes. Her burning hatred of Jilon, the Jedi, and herself for proving him right about her, exacted its price from her as she let it power her attack with mounting brutality. Behind her raging glare, her deep blue eyes became stained with an unnatural orange glow. Her skin paled as she gave herself over completely to her lust for Jilon's blood.
The Jedi could not counter her more vastly powerful attacks with forces of his own. Despite his need for vengeance, his loathing of her for murdering his sister, and his intolerance of her freedom, he had no semblance of control over the power it should have given him. He had been taught all his life not to feel, and newfound emotions - strange and confusing - were more of a hindrance to the Force than they were an asset.
But Norryl had been schooled in hate; she knew all of its pains and pleasures, the powers it offered and the drawbacks that accompanied it.
He had no chance. He was hers.
A storm of blue lightning erupted from her body, overwhelming Jilon's desperate attempts to deflect it. The powerful electric discharges hurled him to the floor in their fury, scorching clothes and flesh.
Moaning in pain, smoke rising from burn marks all over his body, the Jedi feebly tried to stab his lightsabre Norryl as she stood over him. Spitefully, she leaned forward and flicked her red blade, deftly severing Jilon's lightsabre hand. He screamed as his hand flew over the edge of the cooling shaft to vanish into its dark depths, the lightsabre going with it.
Her face took on a look of ruthless calculation and cold determination. Her arm began glowing red and she clapped her hand to his chest, slowly draining his life force. Norryl's care for this man had long ago been withdrawn, and it was not in a rush to return as she sucked the life out of him bit by bit, savoring every sweet second of it.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, a different sound riveted her ears and broke through the iron walls of her bloodlust and hatred. It was a sound she was so used to disregarding that she was surprised beyond comprehension that it still held any meaning for her; bringing home the magnitude of everything she'd lost to become a Sith.
Norryl heard Tayra crying. Crying in fear. Of her.
An unwanted tear of shame sprang into Norryl's eye. Her perfect peace through passion dissolved into a mass of jumbled thoughts and feelings. Once again she was confronted with proof that Jilon was right about her; she was despicable. Though she didn't hold one shred of care for the countless Republic soldiers and Jedi she'd killed, to have come to the point where her own sister feared her sent shock waves of anguish through her.
With a sob of her own, Norryl pulled her hand away from Jilon, who stopped thrashing to take a shallow breath of relief. Helplessly angry, she hit him with a Force pulse that sent him flying across the floor to the other side of the chamber, where he lodged in between two pipes and lost consciousness.
Norryl raised a hand towards Tayra, who tried to back away from her, and the force cuffs around her wrists and ankles shattered.
"Wh-who are you?" Tayra asked in fright.
A racking sob threatened to escape from Norryl's throat as she answered. "I'm the sister you've never met."
Tayra's eyes, if it were possible, widened even more.
"I never wanted this for you," Norryl went on, wiping the tears from her face and helping Tayra to her feet. "I begged Mother and Father not to give you to the Jedi, so you would never have to face the horror of what I have become. I wanted you to live your own life, without the Force, free from the servitude that the Jedi enforce. I could only escape their slavery by turning into the monster I am now."
The sobs overtook her.
"I'm a murderer! Force help me, I am as bad as Jilon says I am!" Norryl wailed in sorrow. "Tayra, you don't know what I've done! How much of it I did for you, so you would never have to make the same decision I did!"
In a whisper, she added, "Everything I am, exists to protect you, Tayra, sister."
It was then that Tayra did the last thing she expected. She threw her arms around her waist and hugged her.
"Thank you for saving me," she said in a voice barely more than a whisper. Norryl almost choked with relief.
"I was so afraid," Tayra said, "I thought I was going to die, but you saved me. I don't want to be afraid of you too."
Gratefully, Norryl held her younger sister close. "I think we should leave."
The thought suddenly occurred to her that they would both have to disappear. She couldn't go back to the Sith, Tayra would be in as much danger from them as she was from the Jedi. Neither Uthar nor anyone on Korriban would take lightly her caring for her sister. And she would die before letting the Jedi take Tayra and deny her the right to live as she wished.
Also, Norryl knew, the Jedi would never allow her back.
After they had both dried their tears, Norryl stepped back out into the hallway. She cautioned Tayra to remain behind the door for a moment. She didn't want her to see anything more of her terrible commitment.
The Republic guards were startled to see her. They had expected her to leave the room as a lifeless corpse, not fully alive and holding an air of deadly calm. Unsure of what to do, they leveled their weapons at her, waiting for an order from Jilon that they didn't know wasn't coming.
Norryl showed them no mercy.
Lifting her arms, she cast red bolts from her hands. It screamed through the halls and struck every single Republic soldier it found, pinning them to the ground as lethal energy poured into their bodies. In moments Norryl's dark power tore them apart, disintegrating them.
As she wrought their doom, the power took another toll from her. The orange in her eyes became more dominant, choking off the blue almost completely, the veins on her pale face became more pronounced. She was a vision of death.
When she withdrew her power, the remains of the Republic soldiers were little more than ashes on the floor.
She turned back inside the refinery chamber and beckoned for Tayra to come. Her sister shuddered at the sight of her face. Taking one last thing, Norryl picked her cloak up from the floor and drew it around herself, pulling the hood around her head. She let her hair fall over her face as she led the way toward the hanger, and freedom.
When Jilon awoke, every muscle and nerve in his body was screaming with pain. The stump of his wrist throbbed and his torso ached from being wedged between two large pipes. His body also felt weak from Norryl attempting to tear away his life-force. He had absolutely no idea why she'd stopped, why she hadn't finished the job and killed him as she'd killed Jaena.
His rage flared back to life at the memory of that callous execution.
With an aching arm, Jilon levered himself out of the crack and rolled gratefully back onto the floor, gulping deep breaths of the chill air. With great effort, he sat himself up and looked around at the empty chamber. The girl was gone, he could see the crumbled remains of her force cuffs lying on the floor next to the cooling shaft.
A thought he'd ignored from the outset abruptly forced its way to the surface: Norryl cared for her sister.
From the beginning, Jilon had barely even considered the actual possibility. He supposed that on some level he'd always known, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered trying to bait her by threatening her sister. But he hadn't truly realized it was possible for a Sith as far gone as she to still care for someone other than herself. The concept amazed him as much as it sickened him.
Jilon felt sick to be stooping down to her level, but he could never simply forgive and forget. Whenever he doubted his need for vengeance, the image of Jaena screaming while a vibrorod was pressed to the back of her skull played out in his mind. He saw the smoke trickling from Jaena's mouth each time he attempted to empathize with Norryl.
Eventually, the hate won out.
Jilon knew he could never go back to the Jedi. They would strip him of the Force, imprison him, perhaps even execute him. And he knew he would deserve it all. But then there would be no retribution for Jaena's death, or for the uncounted others who were murdered by Norryl's bloodstained hands.
He would hunt Norryl, to the end of his days if need be, and would see her suffer for her sins. But he would not join the Sith. He hated the Sith and everything they represented - everything Norryl represented. It was a terrible course of action for him, a Jedi, to be taking. Everything in the Jedi Code screamed out at him in judgment, but he found himself disregarding it.
Uncalled for, his mind drew a comparison with Norryl; she'd been willing to risk everything she had to save her sister, in direct contradiction to many Sith teachings.
"So much," he thought, "for both our faiths."