"Past sins cast long shadows."—Master Yoda

/The worlds are teeming, swelling

orbs. Rising, skimming heaven

void-cold. Falling, drinking

in the Hidden. Seeking, eyes

mingling with distant

shores./

As Kenobi and I trudge into the throbbing, bleeding soul of the rebel base, I feel eyes piercing through my nape. Sense it eating through me, all green brilliance and fire. So I crane my neck, shoot my own flames back—and realize it's not who I first suspected. This is the women who's smoldering at the center of our new crisis, is in smack-dab in the middle of Kenobi's tale. Is blazing star to the solar system of what I'm about to tell Lux, his silver iris-windows taking me in with a grim smile.

She is Bo-Katan, and right away her part in this story—her contribution to the fabric of time, to this temporary realm of light and space and matter—is rolling off my tongue. I tell him about her tailing that Inquisitor, how she ended up in Hutt Space; how she found herself on a planet Kenobi's forbidden me to name, to give face to. Weave in Kenobi's role in this story, share the bit about the drinks. Watch Lux's eyes grow round as they land on the bearded Jedi, recognition slowly blossoming.

"You're a Jedi, aren't you?" he asks, brightening. "All those months back on Onderon—you and Master Skywalker were there, helping us."

Kenobi dips his head. "We were only doing our duty, I assure you, Senator Bonteri. It was the courage of your people—" he tosses warm glance my way "—and the ingenuity of a few brave beings who won that world back."

I wince a little, though I'm pretty sure I do an artful job at hiding it. Truth is, Lux hasn't been a Senator for a while, and I doubt he'll ever return to that position. Unless the Empire suddenly dissolves, acquiesces to liberty's muffled cries.

Lux somehow hides his reaction altogether, just nods stiffly. "If what you're telling me about this other Inquisitor is true, Master Jedi, I'm afraid we have a bit of a dilemma on our hands. With someone like this on your trail, you put risk on the rest of us, and I as much as I'm indebted to you for the past, I can't have you endangering our cause. I'm…I'm afraid you can't stay with us long, Master."

The older Jedi frowns. "You'll still take care of Korkie, right? He's in no condition to be moved, and he's not associated with me in any way."

His brow crinkling, Lux blows out a long, tight breath. This entire operation, this whole cause in its sweeping, panoramic glory, is his brain-child. He imagined it, gave it life, stroked its embers till a flame emerged; so I get why he's so afraid of losing it. Heck, just allowing me in was a huge stretch for him, considering that I was ex-Jedi and stank of risk. Of the perils I could douse the infant rebel alliance in.

But I want him to allow Kenobi in, whatever the risks may be. Because he's not only valuable to us, bringing along skills far-surpassing my own, but I feel as though I owe him. Feel like I need to thank him in some way for training the man who trained me, of letting me walk the skies with Anakin before things got dark, so brutally, sickeningly black. "Lux…"

He ignores me, nods instead to Kenobi. "Korkie can stay as long he likes—he is, as I understand, the nephew of Bo-Katan. But you…since you seem to be the one the Inquisitor wants, I have proposition to make to you."

"I'm listening."

Lux's expression drowns in gravity. "You've been used to bait a trap before, haven't you?"

Klaxons ring through my mind, raising goose-bumps across my arms and back. I can sense where this heading. Can feel it slipping down a path twisting, falling to depths unplumbed. "Obi-Wan, you shouldn't—"

Kenobi squeezes my shoulder gently, silencing me. "You want me to lure in the Inquistor."

It's not a question. Isn't an inquiry, a blind man groping in the unknown. This thing is sure—deathly so.

And it makes me want to retch.

"Putting it bluntly, yes: I want you to act as bait. But that would be a bit of an understatement, I'm afraid." He rubs at his naked jaw. "If the Inquisitor's dead-set on you, it's because she's been personally commissioned by Vader to make sure you're eliminated. And that means Vader probably knows that you're not only alive, but is willing to take some risks in making sure you don't stay that way for long." His iris-windows drown once more in gravity, in that dim, silvery light which excludes all else. "Master Kenobi, be honest with me: have you ever met this Lord Vader before, or given him some reason to fixate on you like this?"

Kenobi's face is artfully neutral. "Let's just say that past sins really do cast long shadows."

There's more to it, I know. I just do. But the tightness in the Jedi's shoulders, the sheer rigidity spreading through them, tells me he isn't going to open up about this. Not yet, anyway.

Lux nods, grim. "That's what I was afraid of. Master Jedi, this leaves me with only one option: I'll have to ask you to leave. Tomorrow."

It hurts me, watching the boy I love have to make swallow such difficult decisions, wolf them down as if they're fresh sweet-sand cookies. But it stings, bite even worse to see Kenobi evicted like this. To see him practically sentenced to death, left alone to face someone who's set on seeing him ripped from the physical realm.

And Kenobi just dips his head, gaze muddled with unreadable emotion. "Very well. I'll begin making my preparations, then."

Lux observes Kenobi disappear down a hall, emotionless. I watch a Jedi's back—so alone, so frozen—retreat into shadow, where he might forever stay. Might be lost to, after tomorrow, and I have to follow him. Catch up to him as Bo-Katan's eyes track a man—a person, fallible and worn and still-burning—close himself to the world.

"You don't have to do this" I whisper, sidling up to him. We're far down the darkened hall now, so engulfed in its shadow that even the sun is out of ear-shot. "I can reason with Lux, make him see—"

He stops abruptly, nailing me with a look as solemn as the grave itself. "Can I trust you to keep a secret, Ahsoka?"

I pause, face him reluctantly. I don't have a good feeling about this. Really, I don't. But something in his eyes, in his voice persuades me to listen, to take the time and absorb the word of another. "You know I can't make any promises, master. I—"

"You have to give me your word, padawan," he cuts in, steel creeping into his tone. "If this were to reach the wrong ears, people could get hurt—even Lux."

Lux. Lux: the very name sends trills shooting up my spine, blossoming warmth from my belly-button to the pit of my chest. Unfurls everything dead within, makes me alive in ways no one else can…and Kenobi knows it. "Alright: I promise."

Kenobi sighs, eyes drifting from mine. There's no going back from this now, I guess. And I bet knows this too, seeing it like the ties that bind me to Lux, meld me to his silver iris-window-shrouds. "I lied to Lux about Korkie."

"About what, exactly?"

"About not having connections with him. Because he's…well, I'm related to him, Ahsoka. I'm-" His eyes go distant, separating themselves from the gnawing reality of time, of the here and now. "I'm his father."

Shock jolts my body, working its frenetic dance along my nerves. This isn't true, is it? Can't possibly be. Kenobi's the consummate Jedi, the good one, staying within all the marked lines and never venturing too close to the fire. Never giving it a second-glance.

Right?

I replay his words in my head, letting my thoughts reach into them like as if the air waves themselves still hung, tangible and visible and unreachable. Not right, then, if what he's told me is true. It would mean all the years I viewed him as spotless, as the brand of light that never swam with dust, were lies. Was all a ruse, a masking of the true self. A carefully-sculpted veneer. A façade with nothing out of place, nothing showing through. No inner darkness leaking out…and no light to stream, flood in.

It's just so blasted hard to except, though. To grasp. Swallow. Beings like Anakin I expected to see fall, his not-so-hidden shadows just barely visible to my fractured, shattered eyes; Jedi like Kenobi, so staunch and blaring bright and good, I hadn't. Hadn't had reason to believe bones lurked behind closed doors, sun-bleached cages forever-empty, forever-full. Hadn't thought he could slip, tumbling down the same road I know Anakin must be taking—or has taken.

But I see it's true, catch glimpses of reality in Kenobi's fraying outline. It's just that…I never heard anything from Anakin about this, right? Never got caught snatches of insight into the older Jedi's past, never gazed through portals obscured by their own blinding cleanness, their own striving, devouring perfection.

Because with Anakin, I've always known, always had the creeping suspicion that he'd not only inched close to the fire, but was being consumed by it. That he was being lapped up by ravenous flame. Was losing himself to it, so much so that he'd even confessed his desire to leave the Order; after all, the important things in life are always tenuous, insubstantial. Will slip through your fingers much more easily than the golden, rotting ingots of attachment.

Of forbidden love.

Finally, I meet his gaze, finding in my weakened voice enough strength to breathe, "Are you sure?"

"Definitely," he replies, pinching the bridge of his nose. He sends me a look, gaze hemorrhaging regret. "You've met the Duchess Satine, correct?"

I nod faintly. "Near the beginning of the Clone War, yeah. That's about the time when I met Korkie…he's her nephew or something, right?"

Kenobi shakes his head. "No, he's not her nephew. He's her son."

And that's when it all becomes clear for me, when the fog of masks and veneers and perfect faces drifts away, leaving nothing but naked truth. We all have a bit of the fire in us, simmering just at the corners of our souls. We can't avoid it, can't veer away from the stifling heat; we can only choose how close we'll get, and whether or not we'll let it have its way. Whether we'll only embrace the tiny, starving flames…or if we'll leap into an inferno raging, stretching.

Funny thing is, ogling the smaller fires always seem to beg for more. More ogling. More leering. More scooping, pouring the scalding pleasure down unfeeling throats. More burning. Burning, burning, burning.

And when it's all said and done, you're only ashes, forever wafting through hell.

Quelling a shiver, I consider Obi-Wan. "You were in love with her, once."

"I might still be, actually—but that's another matter. The facts are that I met her when I was Anakin's age, back during the Mandalorian Clan Wars; I was assigned to protect her, to make sure insurgents like Death Watch or the True Mandalorians didn't snuff out the chance of bringing peace to the world. Always being so close to her, always having her presence nearby…it led to friendship. And something more."

"Did you know that she was…was…" I clamp my jaw shut tight, grappling for a better, more palatable way to put this. "Did you know about Korkie when you had to leave?"

Obi-Wan lifts an eyebrow. "Did I know if she was pregnant when I returned to Coruscant? No, I didn't; in fact, I wasn't aware of Korkie's existence until you included him in your report concerning The Academy. And even then, I bought the 'nephew' story."

"How'd you find out?"

"From Bo-Katan," he answers, dead-pan. "She mentioned something about him, how he wasn't really the child of anyone within the Kryze family. So I put two and two together and wound up here. With Korkie. With you. And a rather monumental mess."

It's my turn to cock a brow. "But you don't know for sure, then."

He looks away, iris-oceans once more returning to the ever-stretching shore. Maybe he belongs there. Is more at home with frigid waters and mounting waves than he is with everyday life, with the passion and loathing and loving and love-making ordinary beings cocoon themselves in. "There's a reason they say blood runs thicker than water, Ahsoka. It connects beings, binds them in inescapable ways. If you're kin to kings, you're destined to reign; if you're the spawn of diablos, then you'll be condemned to the same hellish fate. You can't get away from it, padawan, and when I met Korkie today, I sensed our blood joining. Running deep together."

"Is that why Vader knew you'd end up here someday, sometime?"

"No, but he's aware of my history with Satine. Anakin let him in on that secret."

Something electric feels like it punches through my chest, sending my heart into a wild, breathless dance. "Anakin and Vader—they knew each other?"

"I'm afraid he always knew Vader, my young friend. He wasn't always visible, of course—but I believe Vader was always there. Watching. Waiting. And when Anakin wasn't looking, Vader betrayed him…and us all."

"Vader…killed…Anakin?"

He shakes his head, expressionless. Empty. Black, even, devoid of the spattering of a few, burning stars. "Recently, I've discovered that truth is forever black and white. It's an either-or policy, really: either something happened, happened all the way-or it didn't happen at all. And in this case, Vader didn't kill Anakin—not in the way you're thinking, at least." He lowers his eyes, pupils swelling, devouring the fragile iris-oceans. "Ahsoka…Vader is Anakin."

In this life, there are moments when reality seems to bend. Appears to warp, spiraling in seemingly fantastic ways. Shattering. So when you finally see that reality hasn't changed one nanofiber, is still enduring and pushing forward and falling like it has since light first bloomed, it makes you bend. Makes you shatter, fracture, break into an infinite sea of delicate shards. Grinds you to the dust from which you were sculpted.

It kills you.

Because I saw Anakin sliding off the precipice, hands groping for a hold. I saw the inner darkness, the splinters filled with night, bloated with shadow. With pretending. With his mask cracked and falling, falling, falling, revealing glimpses of the other man who loomed near—but I didn't see it. Or chose not to, eyes smeared with all his good attributes, with all the light and overweening perfection.

Because I knew that the fire was always there, the ever-patient ember. I watched him drink it, forcing it down his innocent, boyish throat till he retched. Till it seared him deep, fraying nerves, killing all the feeling pathways and roads.

Because I knew Vader was feeding from that fire, gorging on it night and day. He didn't come at once, didn't appear in an explosion of mortal sins and rankling greed—he was just there. Waiting.

Because a plunge so great, so astronomically deep, doesn't happen in a single instance. It isn't born in a moment of sheer, mounting passion, doesn't spring from a sudden tide of lusting blood and flesh. It isn't taught, forced on you in a moment of weakness. Isn't manufacture in a lightning-flash. It's there from birth, residing in the abyss of all minds, pleading to be fed. To be nourished, nurtured. Unleashed.

Because we can choose to starve the Vader looming in us all. We can refuse to fan the flame, to give in to the stagnant, oozing flow. To feed instead the light, the gentle pulse that keeps night at bay, keeps us from forever plummeting into the inner-Vader's maw.

Because I didn't extend my hand, let him know that he didn't have to stroke Vader's flames.

Because I let him fall.

Because I didn't see.

Because I refused to.

"That's why I have to do this," Obi-Wan says quietly, snapping silence's tender neck as if he's read my thoughts. "Vader happened because of me, because I chose to ignore the warning signs and let him fall. Because if this Inquisitor somehow leads me to Vader, I have a chance to make things right. To change things for the better."

I shake my head adamantly. "It wasn't just your fault, master. We all should've seen what he was becoming, but we didn't. We fooled ourselves, focused on only the good when we should've seen the entire picture, the real Anakin." Shoulder squared, I take a step toward him, offer a thin, long-fingered hand. "I coming with you to face that Inquisitor, like it or not."

"Ahsoka, it's not your—"

"It is my fight," I cut in, suddenly feeling every bit the feral predator. "And yours. It's ours, and if we're to make things right, we'll need to stick together. Deal?"

And he agrees. Grasps my hand in his, gives it a firm shake. Lets it go.

Because I have to help to him recognize that the ghosts of the past won't forever linger. Have to open his eyes, make him see that he's not the man who once played with fire, let it char his oh-so-pristine robes. That he can move on, releasing his white-knuckle grip on the memories, the tallies of the failures. The falling.

Because I have to extend a hand, let him see that he can carve a path anew.

We either rise, soar above the brewing storms, or we fall. Drop from the skies, plummeting to earth. Slip below the black, icy waves and sink, sink, sink to places unsearchable.

And we all fall. Have fallen. Continue to fall, crashing skulls against unforgiving stone. Will fall in the not-distant-future-shore, time stretching in tattered, mortal ribbons. For "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)."

And "the wages of sin", the earnings richly-deserved, are death. What you get for doing wrong—what I get, the mewling, wretched hypocrite, grave-mouth crying, "give, give!"—is death. And not only death of the body, but of the soul. We sinners, me with the putrid, blackened heart and you a matching set, will be "thrown into the lake of burning fire (Revelation 20:14 a)"—which "is the second death (Revelation 20:14 b)."

Even our good deeds, our oh-so-pristine works and masks and veneers, won't be enough to evade Hell. We can try, try so hard our bone-cages grind to dust. We can work, work ourselves early into our ravenous coffins—but we will ultimately fail. Fall again, plummet into the fire unquenchable (Ephesians 2:8-10).

But Christ, the Son of God, indwelled a human body—a nasty, wretched, sordid tent of skin and bones—to die for you. And not only that: He killed your sin on the cross, bearing the punishment you deserved fully, completely (2 Corinthians 5: 21). Died on that cross, languished in a borrowed tomb for three days, and was brought back to life by His Father (1 Corinthians 15:3-4; Romans 6:9).

Killed death by coming back to life (1Corinthians 15:21-22).

Most of us will still die, of course. We will all taste earth as it rises to swallow us up, gulp us down, shroud our bone-cages. But if we believe that Jesus has died on the cross for our sins, has endured the brunt of our punishment and been raised from the dead, this is the only grave that will await us (1 Corinthians 15:55). Hell, that infernal second-death, will have no hold on us (Revelation 2:11; 1 John 5: 4-5). And on the last day The Father, who raised Christ from the ever-begging grave, will raise us up to life eternal (Romans 8: 11; Revelation 21:1-5; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

2 Corinthians 5: 17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come!

(This story is to be continued in "Ghosts.")