The sky was different, somehow. Instead of the canopy of D'Qar's forest she could see stars sparkling down at her, and there were three moons, not the single moon whose light barely touched the woodland floor.
But he was unchanged, dark and alluring and reaching for her, always reaching. Even when she was awake he always reached for her, and in her dreams his longing was unhidden.
The light from the moons threw the strange, beautiful planes of his face into relief. She couldn't see his eyes, not yet, but knew his gaze was locked on her. What was in the sky didn't matter; she was his only star. Even in this foreign place the knowledge warmed her.
As she approached him she could see his eyes glittering, and she was glad, painfully glad, that these dreams had not left her. Her visions of Ahch-To had died after her failure with Luke Skywalker, but these twisted, exquisite moments with her enemy's shadow continued to sustain her. He was every path not walked, every temptation she'd ever resisted. In her dreams she didn't have to regret what couldn't be. She could have what she wanted and never think of the consequences.
Was he really her enemy? He'd taken her, stolen his way into her mind, fought her. Surely they were enemies.
But as she accepted his hand and he drew her close, she couldn't believe that. Her dreams couldn't lie that badly, surely.
He pushed her hair back, framing her face with his hands and stroking his thumbs against her cheeks. She shivered and he bent to her, brushing kisses against her brow, her cheeks. Her eyelids drifted down and she felt his lips whisper against them. His hands sifted through her hair, drugging her, and he murmured sweet promises against her skin. She buried her head against his chest, reveling in his adoration.
Finally he wrapped an arm around her and drew her down the path, stopping every time she admired a moon-drunk blossom to break it off and press it into her hands. A hypnotic sound lured them off the path, and a tangle of bushes and trees gave way to reveal a statue, a woman whose hair was caught up with flowers, tipping a vase from which water flowed. The sound it made as it joined the pool below was nothing like the trickle of water stintingly provided in the showers at Niima Outpost. It was everything she'd ever wanted, without end. As lovely as her dreams of D'Qar had been, and as much as she'd needed them, they paled next to this.
Mist from the fountain feathered against her face, and she sighed. Behind her Kylo laughed softly, pulling the flowers from her arms and scattering them in the water. As they drifted she exclaimed in pleasure, and he pulled her close. She let her head fall back against him, humming with contentment. She never wanted this dream to end.
This time when she awoke she knew exactly where she was: a prison disguised as a paradise, held by a murderer who wanted to shape her in his image.
Staring at the ceiling the night before, she had realized, stupidly, unforgivably late, that he knew the location of the Resistance base. Had he removed her in order to facilitate its conquest … or its destruction? Finn was there, and BB-8, and General Organa. Almost the entire Resistance. If the restored Empire had attacked the base on D'Qar, everything was over. There was no way the Resistance could have won against a surprise attack.
If Kylo had overrun the base, he likely had the coordinates to Luke Skywalker. Even now troopers might be flying to Ahch-To to complete Kylo Ren's triumph by wiping out the last of the Jedi.
And she'd been here, admiring the view and wondering if she should rejoin the Resistance when she got away. Staring at his mouth and trying not to think of her dreams.
She'd spent years ignoring things she hadn't wanted to know. Ignorance was her best friend. It allowed her to continue when any reasonable person would have given up. Ignorance and stubbornness were sins, she'd heard that somewhere.
They were the only things that had kept her going.
She pushed back the bedcovers and looked down at the shift she'd found draped across the bed the night before. This one was the palest peach silk, edged with a narrow green satin ribbon, like the stem of an exotic fruit. The tissue-thin fabric was caught at the waist with a cobweb of embroidery, each point crowned with a tiny rosebud.
She resented wearing it, and hated taking it off.
On the same chair where she had found yesterday's clothes was another neat stack. Today it was a pair of loose tan trousers and a long-sleeved pullover of finely woven ivory cloth. Utilitarian, and in complete contrast to the luxurious gown.
Guiltily she stroked the gown. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, the softest thing she'd ever touched. Surely no one on D'Qar or Jakku had ever worn anything so fine. It was of this place, this splendid villa surrounded by water and woods and gardens. It was a dream as fantastical as she'd ever had, yet she was awake.
She slipped on the day clothes and the buttery-soft boots from the day before and went into the fresher to attend to her needs. The night before she'd found it overly opulent, as foreign to her as a world of ice or oceans. The shower rained water from several angles; the bathtub she could likely stretch out in full length. And there was a couch. A couch in a fresher.
She eyed the bathtub nervously as she cleaned her teeth. It was decadent. She didn't require such luxury. If she used it she might become accustomed to it, and she would miss it when she was back on D'Qar or Corellia or wherever she went after this. It was easier to go without if you'd never known excess in the first place. She knew that.
But she couldn't stop looking at it. Finally she gave up and forced herself to leave the bathroom.
It was tempting, all of it. But there was nothing she needed here.
Everything he offered was designed to tempt her. He'd reached into her mind, into her soul, and teased out every worn hope and half-realized desire and shaped them until they were fresh and perfect and glistening with dew and then presented them to her, and she could no more look away than she could stop breathing.
Why, when he had her helpless, was he showing her his hand instead of a blade? What did he hope to gain?
A willing apprentice, she told herself. That was the extent of his interest and his kindness both.
She remembered struggling to her senses back in the snow on Starkiller and seeing him ignore his lightsaber to strike Finn with his fist, as if the saber could not adequately express his anger. It was shocking, somehow more so than watching him slice Finn's back open. He was a man of impulses, not restraint.
So how long until his patience with her ended?
The house again seemed deserted as she walked downstairs, the only sounds made by her. For the second time she had the sensation of being the only one there, a passerby wandering through a ghost house.
In the kitchen there was again a bowl of fruit and a plate of cheeses and rolls, with little pots of jam and marmalade untouched beside it. This time some of the rolls were iced and had little pieces of fruit embedded in them. There was a goblet again, this time full of a translucent green juice that proved pleasantly tart when she took a sip. She pulled out her favorite fruits from the night before, including the mysterious reddish-purple globe with the little seeds.
The mauve berries were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Kylo Ren had eaten them all. She thought of him devouring them, the soft flesh giving way to his strong teeth, the juices flowing over his tongue, and flushed.
"Did you sleep well?"
Rey jerked around. He was standing in the doorway, straight and tall, the corners of his mouth curling up just a little. She fought the impulse to look away, and glared instead.
He sighed. "Are you finished with your breakfast?"
She nodded. The last few minutes she'd simply been tearing bread into little pieces.
He turned to leave, obviously expecting her to follow, but her words stopped him. "Did you attack them?"
He swung around. "The Resistance?"
She nodded, fearing the answer but needing to hear it.
A scowl passed over his face so quickly it was as if she'd imagined it. "No."
"Why didn't you?"
"There was no need."
She laughed once, humorlessly. "You've declared yourself emperor of an opposing power."
His face was shuttered now. "I got what I came for."
"It's headquarters for the Resistance. Why would you leave it intact?"
"I didn't want to risk drawing fire as we left." Her skepticism must have showed in her face; this time he barked out a laugh. "You always shoot first," he noted, his tone somewhere between admiration and disbelief. "Sometimes the most effective shot is the one you don't take."
"So what are you planning to do?"
"Train you."
"I mean about the base," she corrected impatiently.
"Right now my only plan is to train you. Perhaps you can be a good influence."
This time when he turned he didn't stop. She didn't move for a long moment, absorbing his words. She found it difficult to believe that he would be open to any kind of influence from her. He'd followed a monster for years and then taken over his place.
But he'd always been gentle with her, strangely so. Finn had described how Kylo Ren had carried her cradled in his arms; Poe had told her how roughly Kylo had interrogated him. Even before he'd realized she was Force-sensitive, he'd treated her with care. She didn't trust him, she couldn't.
Yet she couldn't dismiss his words.
She followed him into a small room she'd never seen before. The furniture was pushed to the sides of the room, and at the center of the floor were two woven mats. He curled his long body low to sit on the mat, then gestured to the other. After a moment she sat down opposite him.
"Are you telling the truth?"
His expression was calm, his voice even. "I've never lied to you, Rey."
She opened her mouth to ask another question, but before she could even formulate it, he reached into his pocket and produced one of the mauve berries that had been missing from breakfast. "You didn't like these, did you?"
She shook her head.
"Too sweet for you?" His eyes were avid, and she felt like he was talking about something else.
Rey nodded suspiciously.
"After years of bitterness it can be hard to accept sweetness."
She couldn't pull her gaze from his. She felt caught. "Do you like them?"
His mouth quirked. "No. They're squishy and sickening."
"So you don't like sweetness either."
His eyes gleamed. "I crave sweetness. But tahani berries are for children. My tastes are more complex."
"Then what are you doing with that?"
He reached out and placed the berry on the floor between them. "Move that."
She lifted her hand and felt it pushed back to the floor. Kylo hadn't budged.
"With the Force."
Rey bit her lip. Her first attempts at using the Force had been under tremendous strain. She'd heard of impossible things accomplished under great pressure, had done some of them herself—dragging herself through vast wrecks when she hadn't eaten in days, made drops of water last far longer than they should have when waiting out endless sandstorms—but this wasn't a life or death situation. She was sitting on the floor of a palace; the draperies looked to be spun gold. At breakfast she'd eaten until she could swallow no more, and her clothes were softer than anything that had ever passed through the bazaar at Niima, even on the back of the richest visitor.
She was being held by a man who'd once strapped her into an interrogation chair, yet her pulse was calm.
She'd tried to use the Force on D'Qar; it had been as if those times she'd channeled it on Starkiller had been someone else's memory. And right now it felt no closer than that, and this cruelly seductive island didn't feel like a threat, no matter what might be lurking.
Even the man sitting opposite her.
"Concentrate on it," Kylo said softly, his gaze on the berry. "Think about what you want it to do. There's nothing holding it where it is. The Force is more powerful than inertia. Your will is more powerful. Let your will reach out … touch it … nudge it forward…"
She concentrated, her mind stretching out, attempting to feel the berry in a way her hand couldn't. She tried to remember the way she'd called Luke Skywalker's lightsaber to it, how she had drawn it past Kylo Ren, despite his years of training and immersion in the Force. She had known that she was supposed to have it, and she hadn't hesitated. The only hesitation had come once it was in her hand and she had to nudge herself to ignite the sword.
But calling it to her, that had been easy. She wanted it and it happened.
That experience taught her nothing useful, only that she could do things beyond her imagination. The knowledge, bare of application, taunted her.
She dug back further, to the interrogation chamber. She recalled the feel of Kylo's mind brushing against hers, then pushing inside, making a place for itself among her thoughts and memories. He had no right; shoving him out had been instinctive, just like calling the saber to her. Even pushing into his mind had been easy, an extension of forcing him out of hers. Push-pull, their wills abutting, entwining, then deflecting, just like when they fought in the snow.
There: The stormtrooper who'd released her. She'd had to fight for that, her talent lying dormant without Kylo's spark igniting it. She remembered the false starts, the fumbling attempts to gather the threads of the Force, the chilly, remote certainty when she channeled it. She felt, now, for those traces, felt them slip over her, past her. She could sense them swirling around Kylo Ren, like he was a magnet and she had nothing to offer. She reached out, tried to draw them close, but they slipped from her grasp.
She needed that emotion, the nudge that allowed access to the Force. Fear, panic, anger, she couldn't access the Force without them. And here, in paradise, she was strangely complacent. Where was her rage? Her disdain, her disgust? She dredged inside herself and found nothing to motivate the Force.
She reached again, harrowing down inside her and striking out with her will, but the berry didn't even wobble. Everything she had, and it didn't move.
She ground her teeth. "Maybe Snoke wasn't a good teacher," she protested very reasonably.
"I studied for years under Luke Skywalker, Rey. And whatever else his faults, his methods work. Seeing me grow powerful under his tutelage only led Snoke to intensify his attempts to win me over."
She recoiled. "You knew him when you were training with Luke Skywalker?"
He laughed softly, the faintest trace of bitterness coloring its edges. "I've always known him. He was there my entire life, telling me things I didn't want to hear, things I didn't want to believe. Some of them were plausible, but I refused to believe them. Some of them were preposterous, and I mocked their ridiculousness. They were all true, of course. It's clear to me now, but he must have wanted me very badly to have tolerated such insolence."
"What did he say?" she asked thoughtlessly, then cursed her mouth its freedom. She didn't want to know.
He didn't answer, his eyes gazing off, unfocused. "I almost envy you, not feeling the Force until you were an adult. The dark side has been there my entire life, pressing against me. When I did things that made my mother unhappy, she told me to ignore those impulses. That everyone had them and it was part of growing up to learn to disregard them. And when they were so strong that they threatened to strangle me, she sent me away. Instead of having the comfort of my mother I was consigned to a temple filled with strangers, where I was just one among many."
"What was the training like?"
A smile ghosted over his face. "It was exactly like what you're doing. Except I tried harder. I thought if I applied myself, my mother would see how hard I was trying and take me back. She'd see I really wanted to make her happy. I didn't care about growing strong in the Force. I wanted my family."
For a moment tears stung her eyes, so sharp she bit back a cry. His childhood was a perverse reflection of her own, gilded with power and renown but marked by abandonment and longing.
You're so lonely.
I feel it too.
"But she didn't."
"No. That's something we have in common. Our families never intended to bring us home."
Her shoulders tensed. "You don't know that." She couldn't believe it. Something had to have happened to them. She hadn't waited all those years over a lie.
He bowed his head and let the point pass. "My parents didn't, at least. I only saw them a couple more times in person, short visits when they were passing by. They could rest assured that Luke Skywalker was maintaining the fiction they'd told me. It was the worst place I could be, really. The dark side will always be a part of me … and Luke told me I was wrong for feeling it, and tried to excise it. It wasn't something I chose, and it's not something I can live without. And when the truth came out, I realized that they knew, and had lied anyway. They lied, knowing it was tearing me apart to deny a part of myself."
"What truth?"
"About my grandfather."
She frowned, not understanding.
"You've heard of Darth Vader?"
Of course she'd heard of Darth Vader, the most notorious Sith lord in history. A man whose power and cruelty was the stuff of legends.
"He's my grandfather."
The world seemed to shift. How was that possible? She knew he had to mean through General Organa, but she couldn't imagine Leia being the daughter of Darth Vader. And Luke Skywalker, the great hero of the Rebellion? Hadn't he killed Darth Vader?
Now Luke Skywalker was a hermit, mortifying himself at the end of the galaxy, as if in repentance. She turned it over in her mind again and again, and it came into focus, unbearably ugly. "They never told you."
"No. I found out shortly after most of the galaxy did. A political opponent of my mother's released the information. I was at the temple on Gallus, meditating, when a group of older padawans entered. Their families had been contacting them in a panic, horrified at them being trained by the spawn of Darth Vader. But Luke was off-world, so they came to me. And they were out for blood. If Luke had been there, things probably would have been different. He's always had a gift for calming people. That's not something I share."
She felt queasy. She didn't want to ask, but she had to know. "What did—what did you do?"
"I didn't even realize it was real, what was happening. I thought I must be dreaming it. Then this padawan, one who'd been there even longer than me, threw a rock at me, screaming about how I had tried to draw him to the dark side. Accusing me of hitting him harder than necessary in practice, of trying to kill him if I couldn't convert him. It was like he'd gone insane."
"What about the others?"
"They were confused. Enraged. Then one of them…."
"What?"
"One of them turned on his lightsaber. Then another, and another."
"What did you do?"
He was silent for a long time, and when he spoke his voice shook. "I've never seen virtue in sacrifice."
"You mean you…?"
His eyes were unapologetic. "I did what they made me do. And then I left."
"And went to Snoke."
"No, not at first. I tried to get away from everything and everyone. I put all my effort in hiding my Force signature, because I didn't want him or Luke inside my head, talking at me. I just wanted quiet. To not exist. But one night I started drinking and didn't stop, and there he was, inside my brain. Reassuring me. Telling me I was wanted and respected. That I didn't deserve how I'd been treated."
"But Snoke would be good to you?"
Kylo's lip curled. "So he said. And I was still so hurt and stunned that I couldn't see the truth. In reality he was offering his own kind of lie. My mother and Luke had hoped to destroy the dark in me. Snoke hoped to extinguish the light. He told me my agony would end if I killed Han Solo. That cutting that tie with my old life would finally heal me, like cutting out a tumor. Family who didn't want me, teachers who didn't trust me. But it didn't. I put my lightsaber through my father, and afterwards things did become clear. Snoke wanted to cripple me as surely as my mother and Luke had. He wanted to dig all remnants of the light from me and didn't care if he rendered me half a man in its absence. That's when I knew the only way I could be whole was to embrace both halves. I'm light and dark, Rey. They're both in me. And they're both in you. They're beautiful. Embrace them both and you'll be whole."
"And if I don't want to embrace the dark?"
"Then you're rejecting a part of you, something that's deep inside. The dark side is only a source of your power. It doesn't make you evil any more than the light side makes you good. The Jedi did too many cruel things to still believe that lie."
She dipped her head, hiding her expression from him. It sounded wrong to her.
But Luke Skywalker, radiant with light and content to do nothing to help the galaxy, returned to her mind.
"How quickly did you learn to move a berry? Or a rock, or whatever you used?"
He shook his head. "I was too young to remember."
"But you remember going to train with Luke?"
"I could do little things before that."
"Just on your own?"
"I taught myself, or Snoke taught me. I don't really remember."
She recoiled. "You can't remember? You can't tell the difference between what you did and what he did?"
His shoulders hunched, a return to an old habit. "It was a long time ago. It's something I've been doing all my life. I don't remember the first time I used the Force any more than I remember my first step. They're the same thing to me. It's as much a part of me as breathing."
"He's inside you," she whispered. She was repelled, but also … outraged? A monster had preyed on him when he was too young to fight or even be aware of what was happening. It had seemed normal to him. What had Han Solo and General Organa been doing while an evil creature had been insinuating itself into their child's mind?
"He's nothing anymore," Kylo returned sharply. "I've exorcised his influence. Only his knowledge remains."
"He can't have been inside you for that long without leaving a mark."
He laughed shortly. "Everything leaves a mark. You live long enough, you're covered in them. You grow strong enough, the marks stop hurting."
"How do you grow strong?"
He nodded at the object between them and closed his eyes. "Move the berry."
Was that his answer? She tried again, and this time she barely even felt the Force around her. She opened her eyes, frustrated. "Stop that."
His eyes remained shut. "What?"
"You're stopping me. You're controlling the Force."
Now he opened his eyes. "That's like saying I'm breathing your air. I'malways controlling the Force. That has nothing to do with whatyou do with it. It doesn't respond to only one person at a time, it's endless. Do you think the Jedi used to take turns using it, back when there were thousands of them? Focus. Feel your power. It will bend to your desires. It will reach beyond your body, beyond the physical, and shape the galaxy. This berry is nothing. It's insignificant next to you. You, who escaped her chains in the First Order's greatest stronghold. You, who defeated the master of the Knights of Ren the first time you held a lightsaber. Don't allow your senses to lie to you. This is easy."
Another failed attempt. "I can't."
"You pushed me out of your mind. You commanded a stormtrooper to release you. You called a lightsaber—my lightsaber—to you when I couldn't. You pulled the knowledge of how to defeat me straight out of my head. I assure you, Rey, you can do this. You were born to do this. Before the Force awoke in you, you were incubating. Now you're alive. Move it."
Before she even shut her eyes she could feel the Force rushing over her, thick now, almost tangible, and tried to grasp it. It slipped away from her, past her, and she reached out to him instead and pushed forward, just like she had on Starkiller. Then she had seen light and dark pulsing inside him, ambition and grief, anger and self-loathing.
Now she was batted back before an image could form.
"No, Rey. This time you'll have to earn your knowledge."
She leapt up, her fists clenched. "That's enough. This is pointless."
Kylo rose gracefully, his warrior's body well trained. "This is how you learn. Growth can be slow and it can be painful, Rey, but it is growth."
She shook her head. He was lying, he had to be. He was blocking her, or blocking the Force, or tricking her somehow. Or else what she did on Starkiller had been an anomaly, something she somehow stole from him and that died when the planet had. And so he had given her a goal she couldn't reach, no matter what she did. "There's got to be another way off the island," she insisted.
He looked disappointed. "You want to leave that badly?"
She nodded. Of course.
He stared at her a long moment, then shrugged.
"Fine. Take off your clothes."
