Lethe tried not to let the anxiety show. Usually she was very good about maintaining an outward semblance of peace. But as Lethe slumped on the table, morosely not-reading the update letter from Tai—President Cordon, she corrected herself without conviction—she knew she wasn't succeeding.
And there sat Praven, calmly sipping his caf while reading the morning news like nothing was wrong. He looked so calm and peaceful that she immediately, in her current frame of mind, suspected he knew something more than she did, something that would make sense of the anxiety perched on her shoulder like a friendly bird.
Rhiabe had shut her out once again, rolled that heavy dark stone door shut across the tenuous connection between them, remnant of a once-strong bond between twins.
It left Lethe feeling cold, afraid. It was bad enough she couldn't seem to help her twin, but it was worse to think Rhiabe contended alone with Vitiate's ravages because she feared they might be contagious (or something similar).
It would almost be easier if Rhiabe hated her for not having come to save her during any one of those nine months. But Rhiabe didn't. Lethe knew this as certainly as she knew her own name; she always felt it when darkness crept into Rhiabe during conversations, a savage kind of relief, an angry defiance toward an enemy Lethe couldn't understand without facing herself: 'He didn't hurt you too. It's enough.'
Lethe shuddered at the memory of that attack, of those few desperate moments that seemed like eons as Rhiabe tried to claw free of the darkness sucking her into it, before severing the connection she'd hoped would save her before it could be used to win two prizes instead of one.
It was a taste of bitter failure Lethe wasn't sure she would ever truly get over: she'd failed to be strong enough to anchor Rhiabe.
Of course, when she found out what the Council had done, what they'd sanctioned, she'd very nearly lost her temper right then and there. So stupid! And Rhiabe's account made it sound so much worse—so much pride and arrogance, so much stupidity—
And, Lethe realized with a cold chill, the thoughts, while similar to her own, weren't actually hers. Rhiabe still held their connection closed, but she was seeping around the edges, tar-like anxiety, fear like swamp fumes wet and heavy in her lungs.
But cold—
"Good morning!" Nadia chirruped as she bounced into the room.
"Morning," Lethe answered, trying not to sound abstracted even as she tried to glean information from the suddenly loose-around-the-edges connection. "Did you sleep well?"
"Oh, yes." She heard Nadia's grin—Nadia was an incurable romantic—in the answer, but ignored it.
The cold fear sublimated into something like anger, but more like desperate determination, something to burn away the shrinking terror echoing around in Rhiabe's head. She was… fighting…
An unnatural stillness suddenly grasped Lethe as she mechanically answered something Nadia said.
No… they wouldn't… they couldn't…
And then the connection closed properly, the angry drumbeat of a great hunt or a gathering of warriors suddenly silent… but Lethe could feel the beat of it tapping against her consciousness, even if she couldn't actually hear it.
She wanted to scream, to jump up from the table and get the rest of the Council on the line, demand what they'd done because, damn it all, she was a member of the Council too, and ought to have been consulted had there been a vote! And if there wasn't a vote, there damn well should have been one! To send Rhiabe after him again? And her not yet fully recovered? Ridiculous!
Lethe counted backwards from ten. It was possible—but highly unlikely—Rhiabe elected to go back, to try again, to make one more attempt at a mission so obviously beyond even her abilities.
Who was she trying to fool? Lethe sneered to herself. She was simply trying not to go down the morose road that stated if the Council wanted the Sith Emperor dead—or imprisoned or converted or whatever lunacy they might actually advocate—they ought to be the ones doing it, not sending little girls to do it for them!
She had to laugh at herself. 'Little girl' indeed. Rhiabe hadn't been a little girl since coming back from the Sith. She, herself, hadn't been a 'little girl' since… since she'd had to shoulder a grown woman's burdens and preserve the lives of others at great cost to herself.
She looked at her thin hands, fingers so 'delicate' she would simply call them 'bony,' and a green skin no longer rich and glowing with health, but pale and blanched with effort long past and a vitality never to be recovered.
She fisted her hands, watched the knuckles whiten.
Why couldn't Rhiabe ask for help? Lethe might be less adept with a sword, but the Force was her ally, greater and stronger than ever, as if to make up for her diminished physical presence.
[I love you.]
Lethe's eyes stung at the faint whisper before Rhiabe shut the door between them again, heart aching in sympathetic pain. She knew she was the only reason Rhiabe hadn't turned her back on the Jedi as a whole, evidenced her disgust by quitting them altogether. If Rhiabe ever left, Lethe promised herself, she would go, too. Rhiabe faced too many battles alone. She wouldn't have to face the galaxy like that.
The edges of their bond remained plugged this time, as airtight as anything could be. Lethe's stomach twisted and churned as she waited…
Lethe had a moment's warning. The bond between her and Rhiabe flew open, a rush of fear and shock surging in tumultuous fury, before snapping closed again, Rhiabe's whole psychic weight against it to block the shockwave that ripped through the Force moments later, to protect the sister on the other side.
The scream Lethe let out was less fear and more fury on Rhiabe's behalf.