Writer's note: warning for assault/non-consensual themes.
The Fury landed in the valley where the ground was flat and wide enough, minutes away on foot from the house. It all looked quiet, the same as the last time he had visited.
Essan jogged, then ran as he failed to see the reflection of light where windows should have been. Drapings flowed out with the wind and the furniture was toppled. Sections of walls were blasted into dust. He stormed in and called out, even though he sensed nothing through the Force.
He'd dreaded seeing a corpse by then. He knew he was too late, arriving ten days after the last contact.
His vision blurred with tears as he rummaged through the small home, looking for clues, a sign as to where she had gone. He found dead droids dismantled and destroyed, designed with heavily armored machinery with blaster rifles. In her bedroom the window was vaporized as well and he found the closet open. Her blaster was on the floor, along with nine of her ten thermal detonators.
The explosion.
He pieced the puzzle together until he noticed the absence of her emergency bag. There was a glimmer of hope. He raised his left gauntlet and took a few deep breaths while the link connected to Marr.
"They took her," he grunted, resting a knee to the ground, as if he could feel depressions in the carpet to find foot prints. "Her bag is missing."
"The twins," Darth Marr replied. "That's what saved her. We must assume they plan on using them for their dark purpose."
"We can't let that happen," Essan almost shouted, running out of breath. "I will turn myself in..."
"Lord Wrath," calmly spoke Marr. "Take a moment to think. These Knights have no interest in negotiating with us. Giving your life away would amount to nothing, and Tayleen and your children will still be lost."
He stepped out of the house and balanced himself against a beam that hadn't fallen after the attack. Screaming out with rage, he pulled off his mask and tossed it to the ground. And he ran a trembling hand over his face with the final thought: she was gone. He could never see her again. His children would be born and grow among strangers, enemies of the galaxy.
"Wrath," called Marr. "Your silence concerns me."
"I'm trying to think," he replied, aware that his voice was now unfiltered through the comms.
"Your personal involvement is preventing you from being objective."
"We don't have time for this!"
"We were out of time from the start!"
Essan froze at the distorted sound of Marr's voice as he had shouted. Even in the outdoors, hundreds of light years away, he felt the Sith's power put him in place.
"Now if you will listen carefully," Marr continued, back to his even, quiet tone, "I have a plan. But it heavily relies on Tayleen's ability to navigate the Eternal Fleet."
"In her condition?" he protested, seething and blowing air through his nostrils.
"Others can be fooled as well."
"How do you know she is able to do anything?" He dreaded to imagine her being caged, or forced into a coma until her babies could be delivered.
Marr paused. "She has established contact, I believe she was allowed to keep a comlink device. We must assume it is no longer secure."
His heart jumped. "Could she make it secure again?"
"That depends on her skills and means to achieve it." Another pause, and Essan sighed with relief. Marr continued. "Wrath, you may have hope that Cipher Nine is back in active duty."
"Pardon me if I don't share your enthusiasm." He cynically said and listened to Marr with grief.
"Your approval is unnecessary. She may well be our only chance to know more about an enemy that destroys all life in its wake."
It was hard to imagine the vulnerable and sensitive Tayleen become a covert spy among an enemy so powerful none had lived to bear witness. It felt like yesterday when he'd carried her to Doctor Lokin, so fragile and almost unconscious. Leaving her to live on Berith was not his decision. Rare were the times when she had looked him in the eye afterwords. They had barely spoken in months, but they had agreed on names for the twins. Until ten days ago, he had stopped thinking of her as Tayleen, but as the mother of his children.
On his way back to the Fury, he kicked and nudged the head piece of a droid. Blaster holes dented its surface and optics. He needed to have faith in her.
The ink ran dry in one of her first markers and she growled, tossing it over her shoulder before uncapping the next stylus of red paint to finish drawing the line leading to the last star cluster. The triangle finished somewhere three meters above the floor, and she'd piled up a coffee table upon the lounge sofa to access that point. Despite the extra weight, this was good exercise for her, making that large map of the stars on the bay viewport. Stepping down barefooted on scattered sheets of hand-drawn star constellations and looking at her work, Tayleen shook her lekku and shut her eyes, bringing two fingers to her temples to soothe her headache. She missed three-dimensional displays.
The fleet had jumped six times in ten days. One time, the flagship had taken a rear position to the ascend of daytime on the planet they orbited and she had been able to witness the attack. Defense ships had vaporized in seconds before the invasion started. Many capsules and transporters shot out of the Eternal Fleet's capital ships to hit the planet in several concentrated zones. She had felt intensely sad and shocked, as thousands of lives were taken and, she had read, their absence in the Force affected her children. When it was over, hours later, a part of the transports would return and the Eternal Fleet jumped to a different system. Each hyperspace transit lasted seconds.
Not days, not hours. Seconds.
And the stars changed so much between each new destination that she completely lost track of where she was in the Outer Rim. She was denied access to a datapad or a computer terminal, even though no one had come to take away her comlink. After several requests, she was allowed to use sheets of paper and flimsy plastic, stylus and erasable paint markers. The only ones who tended to her quarters were droids but they weren't suspecting her to chart an entire map of the Outer Rim on her dining room window.
Berith sat at the bottom of her predicted itinerary and she worked her way upward, going with the assumption that they would progress closer and closer to the Core Worlds. Star clusters, nebulae and oddities such as white dwarves and quazars would align more and more accurately to her rudimentary knowledge of the galaxy.
She heard the door slide open and she turned to watch the lock on the wall behind her. It was supper time already and she hadn't changed from the sleeping gown she'd woke up wearing. The garment was made of the softest silk and it was opalescent white and it flowed down to her ankles. She hadn't felt like dressing up for dinner, not after ten days of isolation. The droid servant would leave her meal on a table next to the door and not make eye contact with her, immediately leaving again so as to avoid getting pinned down or attacked. Tayleen waited for the door to slide shut and stood slowly to grab the platter and set it on the dining table. She wasn't hungry but she ate whatever she could for her twins.
Her other twins hadn't shown ever since she was brought to the Eternal Fleet and she didn't need to ask what they were doing. Each hyperspace jump to a different system was a grim day. Was no one else spared like she was? If she was allowed to leave the apartment for a walk in the hallways, it was only under the surveillance of a Knight guard and she hated them. They were glorified grunts with lightsaber spears and ridiculous golden plate armor. No one dared to talk to her. The only conversation she ever had was with the medical droid who came to check on her vitals every odd day.
She slowly ate her stew of vegetables and chunks of meat, missing the spicy cooking of Essan when he would drop by on Berith. She pushed around the pieces of meat and finished the rest of the food. Her stomach was upset the first four days and she hadn't really understood why. If they were trying to drug her, she would have recognized the symptoms by now.
She placed the platter on the table near the entrance and headed for a bath. The refreshers were somptuous and the tub could hold three adults if that was even an option. It had taken her a while before indulging in this habit but her back ached too much and she had to relax for the sake of her children. Being alone was not an issue, but she was trapped and held against her will. Not only did that take away her will to enjoy herself in all of this opulence, but even if Kaliyo or Essan had been there she still wouldn't feel at ease. After her bath she inspected herself in the mirror, and applied moisterizing cream to her face. She wouldn't let these people of Zakuul get the best of her, and if her appearance was all the dignity she had left it would be pointless to give it up.
Going into her bedroom she changed to a clean set of clothes and only found more luxurious gowns in the closets. She slipped into a black dress that did not constrict her shapes and found that it suited her. Soon the cleaning droids would arrive to dust off the suite and she planned to ask for a supply of batteries. They didn't need to know why.
As expected, the entrance door hissed open and she headed to find the cleaning droid. This time it didn't make mechanical noises as it came in. She almost tripped when she saw Thexan.
Still wearing black and gold, he stood in the lobby, gazing at her work on the ceiling-high glass pane. She took careful steps to get close but not so much that he would hear her anxious pulse. He was wearing his lightsaber, but even with his back turned she didn't risk anything.
"This is... extensive."
Holding her breath, Tayleen looked at his contemplative face, still pale and clean-shaven, but his tunic had scuffs and burns from recent battles.
"I'm back to the stone ages here," she criticized. "If only you would allow me to have a datapad, or access to the Holonet..."
"I will arrange it." Blinking, he finally met her gaze. "I'm sorry you were kept in the dark. We still don't know if we can trust you."
She parted her lips to scoff at him, but thought better of it. "You can never tame a caged animal."
He raised an eyebrow and clasped his hands in his back. It almost seemed like he hadn't been ruthlessly murdering anyone just hours sooner.
"So it's in my best interest to set you free?" His focus didn't waver. "Wouldn't you rather stay with us and learn everything you can for your own benefit?"
Tayleen folded her arms over her breasts and sneered at him. "Why would I fall for your coy plan to let myself be trapped?"
"Because it's the best offer I have," he said.
His expression was dark, and he paced away from her, stopping only to study her artwork. Tayleen had to risk at least one thing.
"I have a better offer," she spoke out. "I will work with you on the condition that no more lives are taken."
She expected him to lash out at her, maybe to scowl her for that demand. However, Thexan looked up at the chart, and his gaze focused on the stars infinitely further away.
"I would accept it," he softly replied, "but I can't stop what I've started."
"You lead this fleet," she insisted, stepping closer, feeling a head shorter than him without any footwear. Her heart pounded in her chest. "You can stop it."
He directed his anger at her in just one sentence. "This isn't about me."
With that contained rage she felt deep in her core, she thought she was looking at a different side of him that didn't feel quite... him.
"Arcann," she breathed.
Wincing at her reply, he took a step back and folded his arms defensively. "Leave him out of this... You don't know anything."
"Then tell me," she begged, trying to appear compassionate. "I'm not going anywhere and there's nothing for me here. At least help me understand why you do this." She took a deep breath and fought actual tears. "Why all of this destruction?"
He obviously initiated most of the operations and decided where the fleet was headed, so she couldn't blame everything on his brother, the one with the temper. Perhaps this was all Valkorion.
"I will have you given a holo station," he answered flatly, "so that you can learn the history of Zakuul. You might understand, then."
"I don't want your cheap shortcuts," she shot at his blank face. "What man calls himself a leader if he doesn't answer for his actions?"
His jaw locked tensely as he dug his stare into her. "The day will come for me to atone for everything, but not until this Empire can prevail and expand. The Eternal Fleet was designed for war."
"War? You mean a symmetrical confrontation between two parties equally aware of their conflictual state?"
Tayleen could have just knocked the sense out of his thick skull and be done for the night. This conversation was going nowhere and she grew tired of scolding this man, this grown child who still crawled in his father's shadow.
Breathing out a long sigh, Thexan looked just as weary and she didn't find the spark of rebellion she was hoping to see in him. He looked... apathetic. She felt sorry for him.
"Do not attempt to escape," he warned her, his voice raspy and bitter. "Your comlink has been tapped and my people will come after you and your loved ones." He found her pile of markers on the couch, picked one of them and walked towards the eastern side of her map. "So far, I haven't told Emperor Valkorion of your existence because unborn Force sensitive hybrids are of no interest to him."
He paused, and started writing on the glass pane beside the symbols she'd drawn of an unknown nebulae. His Aurabesh script was impeccable. The annotations he wrote were names of star systems she didn't know existed. Tayleen felt a knot form in her stomach.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked.
Thexan stopped editing her work and replaced the cap on the marker. He turned to look down at her belly, and she placed her hand over it out of protective instinct.
"I'll never be like my father, and I will never live up to his expectations," he confessed with guilt. He dropped the marker on the table and stared at his hand before closing it into a fist. "I can never stop being his executioner as long as he lives, or until he kills me."
Tayleen could see his slightly trembling lower lip. She felt distraught, but understood how the son of an emperor would suffer feelings of inadequacies all of his life.
"You think he's going to harm me," she finished his thought.
Thexan sucked air through his nostrils before looking at her. "You need to survive but I can't just release you." He ran his forearm across his eyelids and let out a sigh. "I can't become a traitor. We'll need to make it look difficult."
The genuine look of honesty on his face made her smile with unexpected joy. Tayleen let her shoulders drop and she came to sit on the couch. He took a small step aside as if to give her more air to breathe.
"I'm six months pregnant. Everything I do looks more difficult than it has to be."
It was disconcerting to watch this young man, this enemy carry himself with shame and grief when she was only beginning to imagine his distress.
"Is your brother on board with this?" she asked.
Hesitating to answer, Thexan avoided making eye contact. "He knows I'm here, that's all."
"Here with me," she said, following his implied sentence, "doing what, at this hour of the night?" Tayleen didn't even flinch at the thought.
His shy smirk lasted a mere second. "Taking advantage of your trust is the last thing on my mind. Arcann knows this... He doesn't share my opinion on-" he scratched an itch behind his left ear- "on this sort of thing."
"Please," she implored, tired of seeing him stand so rigid and uncomfortable, "take a seat. You look like you need it."
Something had happened, somewhere, sometime in the last ten days that caused him to so easily shed his pride in her presence. When he sat opposite from her in the maroon couch, his anxious shifty eyes had trouble setting on her. Tayleen patiently stood up and moved to sit beside him, keeping a hand's length distance. She smelled the stained fabric of his clothes that hadn't been laundered recently. Ignoring it, she looked up at the stars and the galaxy's bright silhouette, with her hand-drawn superimposed map. His annotations finished the predicted routed that the Eternal Fleet was going to take.
"I'm going to need supplies," she said, changing the subject. "Batteries, for starters. And some droid parts for wireless connectors... I was going to rip apart one of your cleaners but there's probably an easier way."
"That won't be a problem." He leaned back and kept his hands on his lap. "And a data terminal, I assume?"
"I need my shows," she explained, "I'm lost without the Holonet."
Thexan shot a glance around them, bent forward and picked up one of the flimsy sheets that littered the carpet. "You have talent... We could have these framed and auctioned on Zakuul. Who knows, you might become a great abstract artist."
"Ah," she reacted sarcastically. "My long lost dream." She took the sheet from him and idly folded it into a random shape. "So, if you're the kind, charming one, what does that make of Arcann?"
His brow lowered, she noticed this each time she mentioned his brother. "You seem curious about him. Why?"
"I'm expecting twins," she moved an arm on the head rest, calmly speaking. "You'll understand why I'm curious about the two of you. I've read that twins share everything, they are linked and sometimes live vicariously through one another. And if you are two sides of one coin, I need to know both of them."
"That's generalizing it..."
"But it's not false, is it?" Her stomach churned, and she tried to ignore it.
Hesitant, he scrutinized her face before staring at the void in front of him and brought a leg over his other knee.
"Arcann is more sensitive than I am," he began. "He built this armor around him so that people can't see it. And he is... impulsive. He struggles to stay in control."
"Not like you," she compared.
He shot a spiteful eye at her. "Your children will carry their father's legacy, too. They need to be prepared to deal with that kind of power."
"I'm afraid to ask how you and your brother grew up to become..." she stopped herself at loss for words to describe them.
Thexan seemed to stretch his right shoulder and ran his hand over his head, nervously raking his scalp. "We trained and learned together," he told with a hint of nostalgia, "we fought and fell but we carried each other back on our feet. We always do."
"That's your military training."
"We were four when it started," Thexan added before locking his jaw.
Feeling herself frowning with sadness, Tayleen shifted on her seat to ease the pinching in her back, and she felt a kick.
"Shh, now, now," she absent-mindedly said, stroking her side. And Thexan picked up on that and discretely looked at her belly. Tayleen chewed on her lower lip as she internally debated whether or not to trust him. "They've been grumpy these last few days. I think they're getting tired of my worrying."
He held on to the edge of the cushions and she could see the gears working through his skull.
"Have you chosen names yet?" he asked.
She nodded, smiling dearly. "Ceyran and Zherrys." Gender-neutral names. She still hadn't decided who would get which. "Essan and I came up with them, jumbling old family relatives."
"Who is Essan?"
Her lips parted but she forgot what she was going to say. She met his steel eyes and raised brow. Cursing herself mentally, Tayleen closed her eyes and decided not to make a tragedy out of her slip of the tongue.
"Their father."
"You don't like talking about him."
"Is that so?" she replied, resorting to sarcasm again. She knew she would lose if she kept pretending that she had nothing to hide. He smirked back at her but she could see a pain in his expression, something that was long buried and locked away. "He is good to me," she continued. "Becoming separated was a mutual decision but when the children will be born we'll have to become a family somehow." When the time would come for their birth, she assumed she would be somewhere safe, with her loved ones. She sighed and began to stand up. "I need to empty my bladder."
Thexan stood before her and she was halfway to her feet that he was supporting her arm and she grabbed his open hand. Their gazes met and she was too surprised to step away and re-establish a safety distance.
"Either you're trying to be chivalrous," she snarled, "or you really don't want me to stain your furniture."
"Can it be both?"
She snorted a giggle and hurried out of his grasp to get to the refreshers. Upon entering she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror to see her cheeks blushing with embarassment. When she was done she splashed water over her face, setting her mind straight.
Don't kriffing fall in love again.
She returned to the lobby and he was standing near the door to leave. She let out another sigh and tried not to look too relieved. When she came closer she saw his sad eyes again, masked by his lowered brow of stern humility.
"What is it, Thexan?"
"I realize I've overstayed my welcome. I will return tomorrow but I can promise nothing."
"You don't want to wake suspicion," she nodded. "I understand."
He bit his lips and his back straightened. "I should clear the air about that... It's not like me to spend the night and I wouldn't want Arcann to feel singled out by our-" he hesitated before wincing- "friendship. If you ever talk to him you should keep that in mind."
"No promises," she quietly said. "If Arcann wants to talk to me he will have to make that first step."
There was nothing she wanted less than having to go through a minute of Arcann trying to make conversation with her. Something about the other twin made her skin crawl. She held her arms together with discomfort.
"He's not always bad," Thexan apologetically told her. "He has his moments but he's very passionate."
"You make it sound like he'd be the perfect match for me."
Thexan twitched his face but didn't laugh at her satire. His voice became raspy as he murmured. "Good night, my Lady."
His final gaze was both suspicious and benevolent, two qualities she had seen in Jedi with their self-righteous ways. Essan had been skeptical of her intentions at first, before they had even considered starting a family, but she had always felt at home in his company. It had been too much, too soon for her to be so comfortable with someone. Now she was to become a mother and twenty-six was still young to go back on her mistakes.
If she could even leave this flagship of death and destruction. Her budding affinity with her captor was a signal that she needed to set her goals straight.
She let the drapings open that night as she lied on her side in the oversized bed. The Eternal Fleet was not in view and she sleepily enjoyed watching the sparkling stars of the new galactic sector she now knew as Wild Space, as written in the perfect handscript added to her star map. Her thoughts trailed and she couldn't shake Thexan out of her head.
She held the cup of warm tea under her chin, breathing in the sweat aroma of citrus and honey while staring at her star map. The Fleet had jumped again and it had woken her far sooner than she'd prefered. The constellations now matched the predicted route. It wasn't without a certain pride that she reflected on her accomplishment; even Thexan had been impressed. But she needed to focus on her next step: establishing communication with Darth Marr.
After her morning routine of stretches and light exercising - as much as her swollen belly allowed it - she began looking around her suite for surveillance equipment. The aim wasn't to damage or deactivate them, but to be aware of their location so as to avoid getting caught when she would build her comm relay. Thexan had better meet her halfway with the materials, she thought. If he didn't come by that day she decided she would get angry at him.
It was the better alternative than to pine after each of his visits.
She spent the morning exploring each cabinet, every decorative item and fixture, every viewport sill and each ceiling corner. She had found one optic in the kitchen clockface, another in the lobby over the waterfountain that she had deactivated - the sound of babbling water only made her bladder problems worse - and a third in the bedroom, right above the clothes cabinets. That last one made her uneasy and she tried not to think too much upon which particularly lonely night she had indulged herself in bed. She swore that, when or if she could access the surveillance terminal, certain files would have to mysteriously disappear from the databanks.
Upon lunch time she had washed and done her cosmetics after finally using the box of paints in the refresher cabinets. Applying black liner around her eyes gave her confidence and a sense of self she hadn't felt since her Cipher days. She wanted to use dark red on her lips to match her darkened eyes but thought better of it at the last minute.
The droid arrived with her lunch and she didn't hear it leave right away. When she came out of the refreshers, the tray of food was on the coffee table. Tayleen lifted the lid from the tray and was surprised to see anything but food underneath.
She found the battery pack, a flimsy pouch with wireless emitters and receptors, a handful of precision tools and soldering iron. Under the plate was a portable media pad. Her smile hadn't been this wide in very long.
The ambient light of the suite adapted its brightness to each hour, simulating daylight passing and it was dusk when she heard her stomach grumble. She had spent the day at the table, tinkering her equipment out of sight of the surveillance cameras. At dinner time the droid returned with a meal, and another box of materials: a long range antenna module that had been ripped out of a mainframe she wasn't familiar with.
Her comlink was secure again thanks to the router she built that day. The long range antenna was still unused and she was sure it could be traced by Zakuulan Intelligence. It would stay unused until she could completely trust whoever had given it to her.
Entrenched in the privacy of the refreshers, she activated her device and let the channels link before attempting to connect to Darth Marr. If the call was being monitored it would deactivate, as per her programming, and she bit her lips waiting for it to relay between virtual ports. There was an electronic crackle and finally she heard a voice.
"Agent?" It was the lowest sound setting and yet he sounded very loud in the room of stone tiles.
"Lord Marr," she said with a sigh. "I successfully secured this line."
"I am impressed. Your skills never fail to deliver."
She ignored the compliment and hurried to report. "The Eternal Fleet is moving towards the Core Worlds, my Lord. I will send you the mapped trajectory. I've also gathered code lines from their artificial intelligence technology that you could use against the Skytroopers... It's fragmental but it's something."
"Noted. What is your status? Are you safe?"
She paused, eyes wandering around the golden faussets and embroidered towels. "I'm safe and well," she answered. "I'm not-" The door hissed at the entrance, and she heard muffled steps.
"Agent?"
"I will contact you another day, my Lord. Cipher Nine out."
It had been a mechanical thing to say, but not using her own name felt safest in this situation. She stowed her comlink and secure relay under the sink before leaving the bathroom. Her heart was pounding and her twins shifted inside of her.
She met the dark glare of the man she was used to seeing but who was a stranger. She had left a pile of dismantled electronics on the dining table and he was leaning over it, arms of white stretched out to rest his hands on the table as he accusingly stared down at Tayleen.
"What's this?" muttered the brother of Thexan.
Frozen and mortified, Tayleen stood her ground and held his gaze.
"I got bored," she flatly answered. "I like to tear things apart."
For long seconds, his steel-blue eyes dug into her soul. Eventually he leaned away and walked around the table to move closer. His gait, his posture, his hands... all were identical to Thexan's. She was disconcerted and disappointed that she would be left in this situation. Traitor, she thought.
"You are scheming with my brother," Arcann scowled, still walking.
"Yes," she said with all of the confidence she had. He was inches from her face. "I'm going to leave this place."
His touch felt like ice when he circled his hand around her throat. His cold fingers closed in on her wind pipe and jugular but did not squeeze. It took everything she had not to show her panic fear, the gut-wrenching sickness she felt being pinned down against a wall. Her babies were twitching and kicking.
"You will do nothing," he hissed at her, blowing a warm breath on her face. He smelled of fire, sweat and a strange cologne she did not care to identify. "You are a spy, Cipher Nine. Your friends will all die trying to save you." He smelled her, taking a deep breath. "Your children will never get to know you."
He knew her code name. Traitor, she repeated to herself, internally furious with rage at herself, and at Thexan. She gulped down her self-pity, feeling the extra pressure on her neck as she did so. Reaching up, she slowly ran her left hand over his, cautious to let him feel the heat under her palm. His pupils widened and he released her as she gently pushed his hand away.
She tried to remember what Thexan had said.
"I'm starting to understand how my brother let you fool him," he growled.
"This has nothing to do with your brother." She was stalling, trying her best not to let panic take over.
"One way or the other," he retorted, "you will do anything to get what you want. Won't you?"
Her breath was interrupted as she felt Arcann's face almost touching hers, going for her mouth. What the kriff-? She thought of her babies, and she thought of the lightsaber he carried and the unknown Force powers he could use against her.
Shutting her eyes tightly, and to her own dismay she let him kiss her. Tayleen was crying inside and she couldn't hide her repulsion and the utter shock she was going into.
But of course it didn't stop there. His hand returned to her throat while the other stroked her body. She still wore that black dress from the other day. She whimpered under his pressing touches and tears rolled down her face. It was too much. This wasn't her.
The strength came out of nowhere when she pushed him away, leaving him staggering in the middle of the dining room, almost knocking down a couple of chairs. His face was reddened from pressing so hard on her mouth, and she tried not to shout at him...
But she shouted. "You will not touch me again!"
Arcann gave her a murderous look and his left hand raised between them, and then she felt her throat lock.
"Arcann!"
The release made her gasp and fall to her knees. Bringing her own hands to her neck she turned to see a black figure at the entrance. Arcann stared at his brother with a crazed expression. He seethed as Thexan moved closer, cautious at every step.
"Betrayed," Arcann hissed, "by my own brother."
His hand came down to his belt, touching the hilt of his weapon. Thexan acknowledged it with a simple glance, now close enough to see Tayleen. His eyes looked even more sad than the night before.
"I'm here, Arcann."
"You were going to let this whore escape?"
He waited but Thexan said nothing. There was a long exchange of silence between the two of them, then Arcann blinked a few times. His shoulders dropped. Thexan tightened his jaw as he looked back at Tayleen.
"Leave her be," he said.
"She is a spy-"
"I know." He went over to her and helped her up, pulling her by the hands. "But she is my friend. She is our friend."
"You make no sense."
Thexan turned a cold, blank stare at his brother. "We needed enemy intelligence and here she is, ready to work with us... If you would only leave her be."
Arcann laid his eyes upon her again and she fought not to look away. "Fine, then. Have your little fun with her."
The air was heavy when he left the apartment and when the door hissed closed, Tayleen let out a cry of anguish, giving everything she had not to let her knees give out from under her.
"I'm sorry," Thexan murmured.
Teeth cringing, she couldn't stomach seeing his face. Even though he was imploring her with his eyes, she slapped him across the cheek. Thexan took the hit and shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. She didn't know what could have happened had he not intervened. Still, she was consumed with hatred and she could no longer focus her thoughts on the more urgent matter.
Thexan still looked away even though she was seething and ready to throw all of her scorn at him. He knew, she thought, that his face reminded her of Arcann. He was carrying his brother's mistakes.
She isolated herself in the bedroom, letting tears flow and her anger seemed to lower after a while. She wanted Marr and Essan to take her away from this wretched situation. Spending even one more day among these people felt like a nightmare.
The next morning, she woke in bed, not remembering pulling the covers over her. Her head was aching madly. She woddled out to see the dining room table completely cleaned up and there was a pot of tea on a silver tray. She could still feel the ghost pain of having her throat caught in a grasp. She could still taste the vile saliva from Arcann's mouth.
She rushed to the refreshers and knelt down over the toilet bowl to let out a painful gag, coughing and hurling. It had happened, she thought with bitter regret. Washing up, she cleaned her tear-stained face and she brushed her teeth for longer than necessary before heading back to bed.
Hunger tore her out of a bad dream. She shook her mind awake and realized she hadn't eaten in over twenty hours. Even if her children weren't yet able to complain about it, it was her primal duty to care for herself in order to care for them.
Sitting at the table, she munched on a sandwich, eyes lost in the void as she tried her hardest to forget where she was. She thought of Dromund Kaas, the Imperial Fleet, her house on Berith. She thought of the Phantom and Lokin and Kaliyo and Vector who all had begged her to be careful. She longed to see Essan again, she missed his mask and hearing his voice. He had never hurt her, not even accidentally.
Her eyes fell on the refresher door and she remembered about Darth Marr and her comlink. He was probably worried sick by now. She pushed back her doubts and insecurities and went on to send him an encrypted file that compiled everything she'd gathered about the Eternal Empire. It didn't matter if Arcann could monitor her communications. It didn't matter if she broke Thexan's trust.
They needed to be defeated by her people. She could figure out how to survive another day.
The comlink's chime tore her from the bed the next day. The encryption prevented from identifying the caller and she had trouble coming up with a reply phrase.
"Hello?" she said, her voice raspy from slumber.
The raspy voice on the other end sent her chills.
"It's Thexan. Could we meet in the gardens in an hour?"
She sighed loudly so as to express her irritability. "Do I have a choice?"
He paused before replying. "I could come to you but... not after what happened. If it's any trouble for you to leave the apartment-"
"No," she interrupted, "I could use a walk."
That day she changed into a pair of comfortable leggings and flat slippers from her duffle bag, and threw on her jacket before leaving the suite. A Knight silently walked with her towards the gardens. The northern wing was wider than the central halls, with a warmer climate control setting, brighter lighting and even simulated bird song. The plants there were tall and lush with a fountain system imbedded in the pond that ran along the bay view. Tayleen wished she had spent more time there, under different circumstances.
He was sitting on a bench looking at the artificial waterfall, and stood as she arrived. Tayleen did not acknowledge his bow of the head, and directly sat on the other end of the bench.
"I'm glad you came," started Thexan.
"Spare me," she said after a sigh and he took his place back on the seat. "What do you want?"
It had been two days and still it was hard for her to look upon his face.
"To keep you posted on our advancement." He paused, looking at the tip of his boots. "Our intelligence services provided key locations for us to attack. We're headed to the Core Worlds."
She raised a concerned eyebrow, studying his distant, emotionally stunted face. He returned her gaze.
"Korriban."
"Why are you telling me this?" she could only whisper.
Thexan seemed to take interest in her hands as she had placed them over her belly.
"You should warn your family. Keep them safe." He stopped as she gaped, baffled at the news. "I have to watch out for my brother."
"Your brother..." She couldn't believe her ears. Her hatred for Arcann only grew at every mention of him. "You could stop all of this, start the negotiations and put an end to this madness."
She could feel her hands getting cold as fear crept up in her mind. He stretched out his fingers before forming fists upon his lap.
"That isn't my purpose," he softly replied. "My betrayal would only result in more death, and my brother is in danger. I know this. I can see it."
His fists were shaking slightly.
"How do you know that?" Tayleen spoke, interrupting the growing rage inside of him.
Thexan closed his eyelids and a tear slid down his face. His back heaved and he answered even more quietly.
"It started when we were very young. Our father looked to our training and made us strong through constant challenges. We fought together to achieve his tasks. We conquered worlds and brought resources for Zakuul and the Empire. We fought Jedi Masters and Sith lords."
"We are still waiting for his approval. Decades went by and it's taking a toll on us. Arcann no longer speaks of him but I know he wants him dead. He-"
Suddenly stopping, he raised a heavily troubled stare towards the hallway. Tayleen looked but there was no one. Her twins moved and she was scared they would hurt each other if they started kicking. She rubbed her abdomen and worriedly looked back at Thexan.
"Please go on," she said, hoping he would ignore her.
"I'm causing you distress."
"I'm fine. It's the twins..." She hesitated, but she knew that her anxiety faded when she spoke about them. "They don't understand why there is so much trouble. They can't talk, you know?"
Thexan nervously nodded, looking at a loss. "I know. How-... how can I help?"
Tayleen frowned and looked at him with a confusion of pity and helplessness.
"Think positive thoughts. Remember any happy events from your past?"
Biting his lips, he nodded.
"Good," she sighed, and pushed on the bench to sit straighter. "Focus on that."
The tension on his forehead seemed to ease and his jaw muscles relaxed. Tayleen reached for his arm and brought his hand over her belly, ignoring her suspicions and her primal fear of being assaulted.
The twins froze for a moment, alerted by the new contact they sensed. Thexan's face was that of an amazed child as he appeared to become aware of the two lives inside of her. His fingers spread and he slid his hand around slightly, as if scanning for each of them. He smiled happily and met her eyes. Tayleen felt at peace again, even if it was a fleeting moment.
"They're strong with the Force," he murmured.
"They also want to be left alone," she corrected, and pressed her hand over his to catch his attention. "Like you and Arcann should have been left alone when you were children."
She expected him to remove his hand but he intently stared at her belly before closing his eyes for a few seconds. Serenity came over him and he finally pulled away, taking a deep breath.
"Arcann is in danger," he resumed telling, "because I think father wants him dead, too."
It did not surprise her one bit. Arcann had tried to force himself upon her. He had control issues, anger issues, and a whole lot of personality defects she wasn't curious to discover. He was unreliable as a ruler.
"I'm not eager to meet your father," she said, trying to relieve the tension.
Thexan's eyes had taken a shine and he smiled to conceal his sadness.
"I wouldn't dare to have you in his presence only for a second," he whispered, his voice too raspy to speak on an even tone.
Her heart broke at the thought of growing up with a tyrant for a father. He and his brother had known nothing but abuse and, apparently, constant withdrawal.
"What about your mother?" she asked, deviating the subject.
"My mother," he repeated with a mix of longing and bitterness. "She abandonned us a long time ago."
"How so?" she kept asking, swallowing the cold knot in her throat. Things just didn't get any better.
"She... was angry at Valkorion. The way he treated our sister. Yes, we have a younger sister, Vaylin. Her powers threatened him so he put mental restrains on her." Resting on his knees he slowly wiped both sides of his face. "She's even more unstable than Arcann. They both believe mother abandonned us because she felt ashamed... I believe she was cast away."
Tayleen looked at the grown man silently sobbing for a while, hiding his grief as best as he could but she couldn't bring herself to forgive him for her own position in this setting. Yes, she felt bad for him, having to carry the weight of his family's shortcomings. Yes, she believed he was doing the best he could, all things considered. But was it her punishment to see him walk the same destructive path? Did she really need to pay by becoming Arcann's plaything?
"You should leave," she suggested tentatively. "Take a shuttle and just leave it all behind."
Hands joined in front of his mouth, he looked at her with that melancholic smirk that melted her heart.
"I couldn't run for the rest of my life. My place is here, with my brother. He needs me."
"I wish things didn't go the way they did," she said to him, not without regret. "When he came to visit me. If you hadn't intervened..."
He leaned back and took a nervous breath, folding his arms tightly against his chest.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
No one had attempted to assault her that way before in her life. She was still shaken every time she remembered it. "It will be hard to forget. I was hoping he would be more like you, but... You are two different people. I know that, now."
"I couldn't forgive myself for letting him near you," Thexan said with scorn in his voice. "It's my fault, I was careless."
"It was his action and his decision, Thexan. You weren't supposed to know what he was up to."
He shook his head. "That night," he added, eyes lowered on a point near the ground, "I had been pondering to invite you over for dinner. After all, that day I had searched for the items you needed, and thought you would enjoy my company." He interrupted himself and scratched the back of his head. "When I finally built up the courage to ask you, I felt something was different. Then I noticed Arcann was not in his room."
Becoming teary-eyed, Tayleen reached for him again and he flinched, shifting away from her.
"I'm-" she stammered. What could she say anyway? This wasn't her fault. He wasn't the one who was nearly raped. "Thexan..."
He only had one friend in his life, and she had put a wedge between them. Tayleen kept her hands to herself and looked down in what she hoped would appear as humility.
"Would you like me to walk you back to your quarters?"
She nodded, and he held out his half-gloved hand. She accepted his help and heaved herself up to her feet. Her legs had grown numb. She tried to hold on to his hand for as long as possible.
And it felt warm and rough to the touch from decades of combat training. They began walking slowly back into the dark and silent hallways. To the Knights guarding the floor, it appeared as if he was simply helping steady her when her back was aching from the pregnancy.
When taking the last turn across towards her suite, she released her fingers at the sight of the Knight near her door. Thexan sucked in a breath as they both realized they had held hands the entire way.
It doesn't mean anything, she told herself vehemently. She fought with every fiber of her being to prevent her impulses, and she grieved for him. She felt from the bottom of her heart that he didn't belong there any more than she did. The quiet, dark stare of the guard made it impossible for her to express how much she needed Thexan to wake up from this nightmare. She needed him to act, and fast.
Tayleen walked the last paces to her apartment and gave one last look over her shoulder to meet the gaze of the man who had her life in his hands. His face looked tired, so close to giving up.
She trusted Thexan, she had no other choice.