"So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of nature draw me to my own"

- John Milton, Paradise Lost


CHAPTER 51

"Who is Rey?"

Kira clutches the poker like a sword. Not that she's ever held a sword (or has the faintest idea what to do with one if she did), but she refuses to let that show. She will kill him if he tries to attack; she is so tired of living in fear.

But the monster does not attack. He only stares at her, his large form outlined against the sofa. She can see his shoulders hunch ever so slightly, see the hood of his cowl tip down.

"Someone I lost," he says quietly.

She raises the makeshift sword; she will not lose her nerve. "And is that why you hunt me?"

The hood lifts. "I hunt you?"

"Every moment," she confesses. "Every shadow, I hear your footsteps. Wake to the sound of my own screams."

The monster shakes his head. "I have only seen you in one dream. The jungle. You fell and I caught you—"

"You called me Rey."

"My mistake," he says. "You are clearly not her."

"I'm—" for some reason Kira is annoyed. "What makes you say that?"

"She would know me."

"You," Kira makes a face. "Her lover is a corpse?"

"A monster," he says.

"You remind me of someone too."

"Who?"

"The one who took everything from me. Who stole my memories and nearly killed my Beloved. Who tried to destroy me."

"Why?" the monster asks.

Kira lowers her sword. "I don't know," she tells him. "My Beloved would say for my power. I am the last of my kind."

"What kind?"

"I… don't know."

This time, his words are the ones that drip sarcasm. "Is your Beloved not one for explanations?"

"He—" Kira stumbles for the truth, her hesitancy betraying doubt. The doubt itself feels like a betrayal, and she must settle for, "He desires only to protect me."

"By lying?"

"Not lying."

"A sin of omission then."

"I—"

"Who are you?" the monster says.

I am Kira, she thinks. I am a princess locked in a tower. My husband is a prince with a metal face and he rules a universe I am never allowed to see. "I am no one," she says.

"That is not true. To someone, you are everything."

"How would you know?"

"I loved once," the monster says. "I love still."

"You are a hologram stuck in my brain."

"Perhaps."

"What is wrong with your voice?"

"Nothing. It is a voice."

"It echoes," she tells him. "It sounds different than before."

"I thought an alternative form might be helpful."

"Let me see."

He leans into the firelight, and Kira's breath catches. Whatever she saw before, he is truly a creature of darkness now. He is covered in black, from the toes of his boots to the fingers of his gloves. His face is covered too. No longer can she see the skeletal form, exposed teeth and jaw, missing hair and missing eye, that wholly ravaged countenance. A smooth black mask now conceals his features. Even his eyes are a fathomless pit, a visor outlined in rings of faint chrome armor.

"Less terrifying," he says.

"You have exchanged one horror for another."

"Why do you fear the dark?" he says.

"Why do you not?"

"The Dark is not at fault for its nature, no more than the Light."

"So the monster is a philosopher?"

"No. Just a creature in a mask."

They fall into silence, the only sound the crackling of the fire. Its embers burn low, and Kira grows weary; she is cold. She sits on the floor with her back to the hearth, drinking in the warmth of the flames. She places her sword to the side.

"Tell me of her," she says.

The monster's head tilts. Strange how a mask can be so expressive. "Of whom?" he says.

"This Rey."

"Why would you wish to know?"

"I have no memory of myself. I am a blank slate."

"And you would hear of someone else?"

"It is better than nothing." She draws her knees up, rests her chin on one hand. "Tell me why I am not her."

The monster does not speak for a long time. "She was a warrior," he says finally. "The last of her kind too."

She sounds powerful, Kira thinks, and is jealous of this lost woman. "And I suppose her beauty was greater than a thousand stars—"

"A thousand suns," the monster corrects.

"And her hair was a river of silk—"

"Sable, actually."

"—and she loved you with all the force of time itself."

"Truth be told, she rather hated me."

Kira's brows raise.

"At first," the monster says, and if a forbidding metal visage could smirk, it would.

"You toy with me."

"A terrible habit, I assure you."

She finds herself smiling back. "I am beginning to sympathize with this Rey."

"You don't want to hear about how her voice was the sound of crystalline bells? How honey dripped from her every word?"

"I hope she hit you over the head. Often."

"She did."

Kira laughs, something she has not done in the short time she can remember, and the noise is so startling, she jumps. She chides herself, feeling ashamed. Such weakness, she thinks. What a worthless little coward you are.

Her next words are aimed at her feet. "I suppose she wasn't afraid of anything."

"Everyone is afraid of something."

"Even the perfect Rey?"

"She was not perfect." The revelation is made fondly. "No one is without flaw. But she endured, despite her fear."

"What did she fear?"

"Being left behind," the monster says. And then, softly: "A fate from which I should have spared her." There is a sadness that hangs heavy in his words.

"I am sorry," Kira says.

"Me too." Silence settles between them once more. "But as for the rest," he says, ages later it seems, "she feared very little. Not even Death itself." Here his voice hums with pride.

"I envy her," Kira says.

"You are not so different."

Kira's laugh is bitter. "In this you should not jest."

"I do not. You are both kind."

Warmth suffuses her, not from the dying fire but from the monster's simple statement. It is not weakness to be kind. She is good. She is worthy. She has something deemed commendable in common with the formidable Rey.

Kira hears something in the distance. A tinkling of wind-chimes she realizes are birds. It is time to go.

"Will I see you again?" she asks, getting to her feet. The monster rises as well. Even with the space that separates them, he towers over her.

"If I am merely a part of your brain, then I would think so."

"But if you are not," Kira bites her lip, "would you return?"

"You'd wish that of a monster?"

She cannot meet his gaze. "I have few friends," she confesses.

"Then I shall return."

She smiles again. A real one this time that stretches her mouth and scrunches her eyes. "Thank you. But I must go now. My husband will be expecting me."

She hears the creaking of leather. "Then I shall not keep you."

"Until next time."

"Until next time," the monster says.


The corpse has been meditating for hours. He sits, long legs folded beneath the tattered rags of his cloak. Bony hands rest on his knees. Sand and scattered debris hover around him, swirling in a secret current that Malaak cannot see.

But he senses something. Tired and bored. Dehydrated. The sun has moved high overhead and the cadaverous hull of this ship a cadaver calls home is now flooded with daylight. Malaak sweats beneath his restraints, skin damp and mouth dry. The strange creature remains unaltered. Until the sand settles and the debris drops.

Finally, the corpse stirs.

A hand reaches out and the fearsome black cross of his saber flies into his hand. He ignites it and stalks over to a pile of scrap metal. And then he screams. Like an animal in pain. He strikes and he strikes and he strikes again, wailing in inconsolable anger, until only a molten heap is left.

Malaak watches, unmoved.

"I take it that went well?" he says.

The corpse only screams louder. He drives his fist into a wall, making a dent even as his bones shatter.

"Ben?" Malaak tries.

"I will kill him!"

"Who?"

"HER HUSBAND!"

"Oh." Now Malaak sees. "So this is about a woman?" It always is. That seems familiar, a universal truth that he carries even if no particular experience can be recalled. "Women are trouble," he says wisely. This Malaak knows as sure as he draws breath.

He does draw breath, then: "Can we go to Moraband now?"

"I am not going anywhere. Neither are you. Think!" The saber points as an accusing finger. "Why can't you remember? What has happened to you?"

"You expect a lot from a man on the brink of death. I need water."

The saber lowers. "I am…" The corpse looks around, his one eye squinting in the light. "How long was I gone for?"

"Hours. I don't know."

"Forgive me." He goes to a part of the ship still cast in shadow. Malaak can hear clanking and muttered curses. The monster returns. "I am sorry, my friend," he says. Ben, Malaak reminds himself.

Ben kneels and holds a tin cup to his lips. "Drink." Malaak does. The liquid is tepid and has an unpleasant taste.

"You call that water?" Malaak says. "It tastes like my boot sweat."

"It is all there is." Ben sits down beside him. "I caught what moisture I could in the night and stored it. I do not seem to thirst like I once did."

"And what of food?"

"I do not eat."

"Sleep?"

"Only when I'm meditating."

"You are a monster."

"It has been said before."

"Abomination!"

The word echoes in Malaak's head, rattles and bounces around the dome of his skull. It has been said before. It has been said.

"What do you remember, Malaak?"

"Not a lot," he admits.

"Can I see?"

A bony hand reaches towards him; Malaak pulls away as best he can in his restraints. "What are you doing?"

"I can read your mind, if you will let me. I might be able to unlock something that will help."

"Why should I trust you? It is a trick!"

"I was your friend. I am still your friend. And I need your help more than perhaps you need mine. Something is wrong in the Force, don't you see?"

"I see. It is you!"

"Maybe. But there are other parts too. The living parts. The Light."

"Why should I help you?"

"The Malaak I know would not question the need, only act with an awesome selflessness. I am not selfless. I beg you."

This version of the being called Malaak appeals to him. He is guided by something more ancient and powerful that his dead Sith Lord master. "Alright," he says.

Ben moves to sit before him. The bony fingers return and come to rest atop his head.

"Quiet, Malaak. There is only the Force. The Force is with me and it flows through you and it will lead us to where we are going. Close your eyes."

Malaak does. There is a prodding in his skull, like the cracking of an egg. And the rest of him blows wide open.


Pular hears screaming.

He hears it through the Force.

The girl is unstable. Her power is too great. Whatever spell Alec had the Sith Lords cast, it will not endure in its current state. You cannot contain the raging heart of a star. Like an armed bomb with a hidden timer, no pretty dress or pleasant words can stop the explosion that is sure to come.

Alec plays with fire. He always has. He is drawn to heat, all those bright and brilliant flames. How he looked up to Kylo, so seemingly dark and so intense, full of words that came to echo hollow, the same as his uncle's. They sounded beautiful once; Pular listened for a time.

(He always heard screaming.)

He might have fallen in love not with words but a face. Drawn not to heat but to perfect cold. The Force glowed white around Alec, pure in its essence, yearning. It blinded Pular in an instant. This is how you hide, he thought; you are too hard to look at. Yet even as it hurt his eyes, all Pular could do was stare.

His eyes have grown accustomed. And his ears. He perceives through the Force. Always his gift, a polysensory type of synesthesia (Kylo's words, they did not echo back then). It grew into something that he could use, not to give but to take. Six months lying in a coma, the Force drew thick around him like a second skin, like plates of armor. When he woke, there was nothing left of his flesh, but all it took was one touch of that vile Jedi's arm.

Her power poured into him and he sensed its vastness, terrifying as space, wild and unknown. Boundless like the rage that bubbled inside Kylo. Bombs. They are two bombs and Kylo exploded. Something resounds in the Force where he once stood, haunting, mournful sounds. And the girl. They changed the outer shell, wiped clean and relaid the surface of her mind, but the insides, oh the insides. Don't they know?

Alec, you have created this problem. You are playing with stars.

Ersn and Vadanav enter the room where Pular sits, in an overly adorned parlor at odds with their plain white robes. Incongruous garb. All is incongruous now at Alec's bidding, like his fake face and artificial eye, like the mechanical arm and leg with hissing hydraulics that score Vadanav's movements, like the strange silence of Ersn, his throat crushed and voice forever altered (he speaks now mostly in his head). She has marked them all. Scarred by shrapnel. And such a small detonation. She will obliterate them into dust one of these days.

"Morning," Vadanav says (the loss of limbs means words now speak louder for him). He slouches on a couch, eyes trailing his lover; Pular does not hear what is said. Then:

We cannot go on like this.

Ersn is studying a bowl of fruit, tossing a piece up and down in one hand. He looks at his brothers.

"No," Pular agrees. "She is too unstable. He cannot control her."

Vadanav lifts one already high arched brow. "Do you tell him this?"

"He does not wish to listen."

But— Ersn begins.

"Even me. Especially me," Pular says. "The truth disturbs him. He is deaf to it, blind to what we see. He believes the fantasy as much as her." Here he spits the word.

"What would you do?" Vadanav says. Ersn bites into the fruit, chewing slowly. They both wait for an answer.

"Did I tell you the story of my overseer's pet muttamok? Ugly, mangy thing. It was trained to guide me and the other children to where the shiniest minerals were located for mining. But it stole from us too. Old Duman loved it dearly. He'd hand-feed it fruit when it brought him our treasures, worthless trinkets that he hoarded and held us to ransom with. You see the muttamok are Force-sensitive creatures. That's how I knew I was too. I could sense its dumb loyalty to the man. So I played. I tested. I made it my friend and convinced it to steal back from Duman. Then Luke showed up and I got taken away. But the Force had tied it to me. It had forgotten what the old man meant. And when it could no longer sense me, it turned on him. Mauled Duman until he destroyed it."

Lovely, says Ersn. Was there a point?

Vadanav snorts. "You make me feel better about growing up a slave."

"Don't you see?" Pular says. Can't you hear it like me? "Who would dare come between a master and his pet?"


Morning broke without any screams. Only a smile and a warm embrace. "Thank you for looking after me. All these months. You are so very dear." She slept on the balcony, had rejected the blue silk he'd selected in favor of a drab fawn thin-spun and refused the usual hour spent combing and braiding her hair.

A slice of bread for breakfast, and caf. No milk. Refused fruit, even after two offerings.

Ursa is nothing if not meticulous in her recordkeeping.

His wife sits in her garden now, the one he built for her, surrounded by her beloved plants. Alec watches as she aerates the roots of a munn-daisy, her fingers digging into fresh, rich earth. She hums. This is new. The humming.

He can feel the joy in her; joy that he did not create. She senses his presence and smiles at him and he of course smiles back.

"It is good to see her happy."

Pular stands beside him at the balustrade. The whole of Theed stretches out before them, but all Alec can see is her.

"It is," Alec agrees.

"I sensed so much distress but today she seems…" The younger man studies Alec, eventually finding something in his expression Alec didn't know was there. "Can it be true? Is our little Jedi finally turning?"

It is not my doing, Alec thinks, but he nods. "As I've said, it was only a matter of time."

They watch Kira as she hums to herself, as she gazes upon a rose so red its petals appear black. She smiles; a secret smile this time, one meant only for herself. Alec is painfully aware of her urge to conceal it.

A deceptively delicate hand lands upon his shoulder. "I should never have doubted, Brother," Pular says and his fingers squeeze like knives. "True love will always win in the end."


Kira can finally breathe.

There is so much joy in leaving that awful shadow behind, in knowing there is nothing that hunts her. The monster she sees… he is disfigured to be sure, but she remembers only his gentleness. He is frightening in form only, she thinks, and smiles at the thought. She feels happy—yes, that's it; a strange, slippery thing. The veil of being afraid has been lifted and now she sees with newborn eyes.

Her Beloved senses her happiness and sets a gentle gaze upon her. Kira smiles at him, and if he thinks that he is the cause of such delight, Kira lets him. She wiles away the afternoon, sits through an interminable dinner with one of Hux's newly dispatched deputies from the Outer Rim, and then claims fatigue when Alec invites her to take wine with him on the terrace. His good mood is not altered; he kisses her forehead as one would a child and she goes obediently to her rooms.

She waits until Ursa is snoring before going out to the balcony. Kira is better prepared this time. She brings two pillows, two blankets, and a canteen of water, and counts the stars in the sky until she falls sleep.

When she wakes, there is warmth.

A red glow permeates the space around her, seeping her down to her very bones. Kira shifts closer to it, seeking the source, still half asleep and not ready to surrender to the full reality of the dream. She runs a hand beside her head. She is lying on a warm, smooth surface. Eyes closed, she reaches out until the surface disappears, and the heat becomes far more intense.

"I don't think I'd go much further."

Kira opens her eyes.

She is laying on the edge of a great cliff—a river of lava cuts its way through rocks far below. She lets loose an unholy shriek, scampering back until she collides with a hard wall; more rock she supposes. Beside her the monster watches, amused.

"Sleep well?" he says.

"What is this place?"

The monster looks around. "A castle."

At first, Kira wants to argue. There is nothing but black rock that plunges to the lava below. Then, she looks up.

They are at the base of a tower. Black too and so vanishingly tall, it disappears to a point she cannot see, swallowed by clouds of darkness. A terrifying tower built on the edge of a volcano.

The monster inclines his head. "Would you like to come inside?"

She follows him across a kind of moat, passing underneath the metallic teeth of a huge sliding door until they stand in the center of a black circle, a soaring space surrounded by black all above and the red of lava below.

"Is this your home?" Kira says.

"I haven't lived here in a long time. Do you like it?" he asks, the last almost an afterthought.

"It's very imposing. And…" She struggles for something polite to say. "Warm," she decides.

The monster laughs. "You hate it."

"No, I—" she can't think of how to phrase it. "It frightens me." She is truthful this time.

"There is nothing to fear."

She runs her fingers along the jagged walls. "Does anything grow in this place?"

"Do you like that which grows?"

Kira looks into the depths of his mask, her heart in her eyes. "More than anything."

"Follow me," he says.

They step onto an elevator and he presses the lever to go down. For a moment Kira is transported somewhere else, to another elevator and a faceless man and the whisper of her voice. She blinks, and the vision is gone.

They reach the lowest level, and the doors slide open. They are in a cave now, and she follows the monster as he leads. They pass by a small stream of lava, an offshoot of the raging river she saw earlier, and the monster continues to guide her up a short distance and through a small passage until—

Kira is without words. Here in the gloom of this barren planet, hidden in shadow and trapped in sulfur air, a garden grows. Leaves and vines shoot from the ground, their leaves seemingly rendered black like everything else in the faint glow of lava. Flowers grow nestled among them, strange colors that shimmer like jewels. She stoops to greet them; it's like coming home to lost friends. She sinks to her knees. She wants to hug every one of them.

"It's beautiful," she breathes, playing with delicate stems like the fingers of a baby. "Did you make this?"

There is a peacefulness in how the monster observes her. "It is not a power I possess. It is old magic, and very strong."

"I love it," she says.

"Truly?"

Kira nods emphatically. "You're going to laugh but, sometimes, the plants—I feel like they speak to me."

The monster does not laugh. He settles on his haunches beside her. "What do they say?"

Her fingers learn all the verdant textures. "These are lonely," she says. "They miss the company of the one who made them."

"What else?"

She holds an amber-colored flower-jewel in her hands. "There was a woman," she says. "Long ago. She searches. Her heart is filled with sadness."

"Did she ever find what she was looking for?"

Kira doesn't think, she just asks the flowers in her own way. "They say her cries are softer now, but she still waits for him. She will always wait."

"And the one she waits for?"

Kira pauses. "I do not know. The plants don't tell me all their stories; only the ones they feel they can share."

"It is a rare gift," he tells her. "To be so closely connected to the living."

A thousand doubts whirl inside her and she is taken by desire that she should finally voice them. "Sometimes I feel as if they want me to help them."

"Help them how?"

"I don't know. It's as if… there's this energy crying out, but I don't know how to find it."

"It calls to you?"

"Yes!" she says, her whole body responding, as if she has been lit from within. "Can you hear it? Does it call to you too?"

The monster settles onto his knees beside her. "In a way." He holds out a gloved hand. "If I remove this, will you be frightened?"

Yes, she thinks. "No," she says. She's got to stop being afraid. "Go ahead."

He removes the glove, and she takes great pains to control her breathing upon seeing the ruined flesh of his hand. She focuses on only watching as the hand stretches out and hovers over a thick tangle of vines.

"Living things," he tells her, "they do not call to me quite like they call to you." His voice is a whisper. With the gentlest brush he caresses the nearest plant and causes it to shrivel and die.

"You…" she cannot think. The horror of it, the needless waste. But then, another thought: "This is your gift?"

The monster nods.

"The energy," she says, "this is how it speaks to you?"

"All my life," he says.

"Your gift is different than mine."

"But they come from the same place."

Yes, she thinks. They do. Kira presses her lips together. It is a question that's been screaming to get out. "Is it possible… do you think I could learn to control it? Like you did?"

Without shackles, she thinks. Without being strapped to a chair and made to perform.

The monster turns towards her. His body leans forward as he studies her, and she feels herself leaning back.

"You need a teacher," he says at last.

Kira's heart beats wildly. The birds sing their song in the distance, and she knows it will be morning soon. She plucks the shriveled vine from the earth and offers it to him like a gift.

"When can we start?"