Chapter 14: The Fallen
Aletheia stalked down the corridor. After she'd been thrown out of Kuno's quarters by a none too gentle force push, the bruises of which slowly began to show on her skin, she'd gone back to her quarters, only to find that her padawan had disregarded her rules and gone to meet her friends. The healers had laughed at her so called imagined complaints of internal wounds. And she knew, that the only ones at fault were Kuno and that upstart Mace. Things would not have gone so badly if they'd not meddled. Yoda she would deal with later. But for now, she would begin with Mace.
She could feel him walking towards the meditation gardens; his aura unguarded. How easy it was to find him, amongst all the Jedi of the Temple. How easy it was to track him. As if he wanted to be found by her. If such was his wish, then she wouldn't deny it. After all, she was far more powerful than he.
Taking the next turn, she headed towards where she knew Mace to be. No one else seemed to be heading towards the gardens. If she hadn't known better, she would have said that they were all fleeing. Had that Knight finally gone mad? Was he wreaking havoc on some innocent Jedi initiates? If so, then he would pay. She could feel pain coming from the garden. He truly was hurting someone. She just hoped that she wouldn't come too late. It would be her fault otherwise, to have allowed one such as him to be knighted, even though she knew about that dark part of his mind. Too often had she eavesdropped on him and Kalé. It must be his fault that her old padawan was a broken minded simpleton now. Too far gone to be helped.
Finally, she reached the garden. Mace was near Yoda's Tree, on his knees. The crimson stain of his own blood slowly spreading across his shoulder where he'd been hit. Aletheia stopped dead in her tracks. He wasn't the cause but the source of the pain? Why? Frozen as she was in her movement, she failed to see the two Jedi Masters laying on the ground where they'd fallen. And far too late did she see the Renegade approach her. Only as the faint blue blade cut through her midrift, and the saber she herself had be holding listlessly in her hand clattered to the ground and came to rest near Kuno's still form, did she finally realize that she herself might have been wrong all along.
The eyes which watched her from beneath the hood of the robe, so much like Kalé's, chilled her to the core. Kalé hadn't failed. She never had a chance.
"oooo how nice. Another slave for me." At the sound of his voice, Aletheia slowly crumbled to her knees. She had met him before. She had listened to his advice. She had sent Kalé to the desert upon his recommendation. She had been blind. Could it all have been her fault?
Aletheia ceased breathing before her body fully connected to the ground.