For a long moment, Virya does nothing. Says nothing. She just looks at Ben, as if he is a difficult knot she's deliberating between trying to pull apart or cutting clean in half. Rey itches to jump between them, to draw Virya's attention. But she knows better. She has only one more chance of Virya dropping her guard. If she acts before then, both she and Ben are good as dead.
Yet Virya also seems to be waiting for something. The silence goes so long that eventually time itself seems to take notice. It lingers, watching for the outcome between the two who are unable to move and the third who is unwilling.
In that pocket of distended time, Rey finds herself beginning to wonder. To hope.
Maybe Virya will let them go. Just sigh and roll her eyes, scoff at their incompetence, give them a good verbal scouring, and turn them loose on the Inner Circle. Or she'll escape with them to the hangar, where Finn, Poe, and Rose will already be waiting. They'll all go back to base ship together to regroup.
It's possible, isn't it? After all, Virya had proven herself an immaculate actress. Who was to say that the last few minutes hadn't been her grand performance, and the months of her allegiance on base ship hadn't been real?
"I thought about what I was going to say to you."
Virya's calm tone shatters the illusion of stopped time, like stones assaulting a placid lake.
"I suppose you want some sort of speech. Snoke always loved those. All my grand plans for the future. The hows and the whys and the whens that you'll never be a part of. The thing is, Lord Ren, I'm not sure you deserve even that. I haven't been able to decide."
Virya leans in close to Ben until their faces mere inches apart. The notches of Rey's spine trill.
"Here's what I do want you to know," Virya says, soft and intense. "I am the reason this is happening. I made it possible. I am the linchpin that brought everything down. If you'd only paid attention, you could have seen that before now. That's what I want to leave you with."
Ben stares at Virya with murder in his eyes. Far from being intimidated, Virya devours the look with morbid fascination.
"And you?" she asks, almost hungrily. "What do you want to tell me?"
And then Rey feels the Force loosen around her throat, just enough to allow speech. It is as she suspected then. Virya can only juggle so many things at once. In loosening her hold on Ben, she has also, perhaps unknowingly, loosened her hold on Rey. It's not enough though. Not yet.
"Well? Any last words for me before you die, Lord Ren?"
Ben spits, narrowly missing Virya's cheek. His voice is ragged, a hot coal searing flesh. "I have nothing to say to a traitor."
Virya jerks back as if scalded. Then she scoffs, smiles, and strikes Ben so hard across the face that Rey feels the reverb in the air. The Force sinks into the blow. Ben's jaw snaps left and comes back bloody. It takes everything Rey has to stay still and silent, waiting for her chance.
"Traitor?" Virya repeats, disbelieving. "Who betrayed who when you forwent the mantle of Kylo Ren? Who abandoned an entire empire when they needed their Supreme Leader most? The darkness needs a leader. Someone strong enough to bring the rest of them in line. That doesn't just go away because you decide you don't want to be a part of it. It never will."
Virya searches Ben's face. Her voice lowers into a hissing, whispered confession. "I did leave my father for you, you know. After what he did to them... my brothers. My mother. Those fools were never anything but loyal and in return he-"
Virya cuts herself off, visibly steering away from that train of thought before it derails.
"I made him believe it was his idea. He thought he was sending me on a mission to see if you were still out there. Still a threat. But I was always coming to find you. You were the only one who could rein him in. Him and the rest of these jackals."
She gestures with disgust at table, as if the chairs were still occupied by the other families.
"For months, I searched for you. Everyone doubted but I never did. I believed in you. I chose you. And what did I find instead? A pathetic shadow of a man, self-condemned to oblivion, unwilling to return to his rightful place. You'd reduced yourself to nothing, and for what? Her?"
Virya's eyes flash over to Rey, dark and scalding.
"This girl who tried to kill you? Destroy everything you built? And when she wasn't doing that, she was running from you. Undermining you. A Jedi. A Skywalker." Virya spits. "I devoted my life to you. I walked away from my father to stand by your side. I would have made you an emperor, and you threw that away like it was nothing! Yet you call me the traitor? How dare you?" Virya's gaze anchors back on Ben. Her voice cracks when she whispers, "How could you?"
And just like that, Rey understands what she is watching. Perceives it fully for the first time. Virya had lied about almost everything, but her feelings for Kylo Ren had been real. They still were. That was the source of her hatred. Her bitterness, calcified into armor. Beneath it, there was a wound that wasn't healing, plain as the crack in her voice. The wound of abandonment by the one she'd trusted. The one she'd loved.
Rey knows that wound. She knows it all too well.
Almost unbidden, her lips part. Speaking is a risk but she can't stay silent. Not when she recognizes the same pain she'd carried nearly all her life. "Virya-"
The other woman whirls, slapping the rest of Rey's sentence from her mouth, along with a splatter of blood across the stone floor.
"Silence," Virya says coldly. "This is a private conversation."
Ben surges up from the table, enraged. His whole body bulges as he strains to rip free of the Force. "Touch her again," he snarls, "and I'll-"
"What? Kill me?" Virya curls her fingers. Ben, half risen, falls back to his knees with a choked gasp. "You aren't Kylo Ren anymore. You can't threaten me. You can't hurt me!"
But he can, Rey thinks, tonguing blood from her teeth. More than you want to admit.
Ben strains against the Force. His sheer strength seems to stun Virya. She raises both hands to try and contain him. Ben's face reddens. His body begins shaking. Yet still he does not yield.
Virya gapes. "Stop it, you fool! You can't defeat me. Not until you go back to the way you were!"
As Virya fights to subdue him, Rey flexes against her own restrains. They're loose, and getting looser by the second.
"You're right," Rey croaks, forcing the words through her bloodied mouth. If she can't distract Virya physically, she'll go after her mentally. "He isn't Kylo Ren anymore."
"You, shut up," Virya snaps, sweat running down her temple. "I told you to stay out of this."
Virya flexes her hand and Rey's noose tightens. But Ben finds the slack to rise to one knee.
"The man you dedicated your life to isn't the same man you're punishing," Rey wheezes. Her head feel like a grape ready to explode. Black specs swarm her eyes. "He never was."
"I said silence!"
"I know that you're hurting. I know what it feels like."
"You know nothing about me!"
"I know what it's like to have no one. To be alone."
Rey looks at Ben. Ben looks to her. In their shared glance is the memory of their fingers spanning entire galaxies to reach each other, a connection so profound that once made it had never really broken, despite both of them trying. Understanding flickers in Ben's eyes, a star shining through a black sky of disbelief.
Rey swallows and redoubles her efforts to speak. "You don't have to do this, Virya. You wanted to marry him. You love him. So don't."
Virya's dark eyes flash. She is trembling. When she grates out her reply, it is through pearly, gritted teeth. "You naive, plebeian fool. You don't even understand our concept of marriage. It's about an alliance. A stability of power. Love? Love isn't for our class."
"Then," Rey asks softly, "why do you still feel it?"
Virya's control shatters. Crying out, she goes to her knees on the floor. The Force recoils like a whip, freeing Rey and Ben both. Rey crashes from the wall to the ground, her joints singing numb.
She scrambles up to hands and knees.
Ben leaps from the table, surging for Virya.
Virya sees him. Her wrist flashes. There's the gleam of a blaster, aimed at his gut.
"No!" Rey flings out her hand and the Force to knock the blaster away.
It does so, slamming the blaster, then table, then the two other occupants across the room. Rey clamps down, trying to contain the power.
But as she does, Virya's presence splinters into her mind, wrapping around the Force within Rey and attempting to draw it out.
"Stop!" Rey chokes. "You don't know what you're-"
But she is too late. The tide of the Force and Virya's tug overwhelm Rey's defenses. The Force springs forward like a cosmic demon. Roaring. Triumphant. Free.
#
The Force tries to tear Rey inside out, the same as it had in Rosshel's auction box. A storm rages around her. Within her. And Rey stands helpless in the eye of it, drowning.
It's not the same as the auction. It's worse.
Someone screams.
It's Virya. Or Rey. Or Ben.
Maybe it's the Force itself.
How can Rey tell when her every pore is gaping wide to shriek?
Blunt pain tells her she's fallen to her knees. Fingernails cutting into her shoulders tell her she's clutching at herself, willing the box of her being to shut. She wills her eyes to open and take in the exterior world, in case it is the last time.
The balcony door is smashed open. Jagged glass is everywhere. The massive table sprawls on it's side, half out in the night. Thick tapestries twist and jerk on their rods as if trying to flee, tearing themselves on the shattered windows.
Virya is there, her face white as a sheet. Her presence still gripping at a toehold in the torrent of Rey's power. No longer trying to draw it and into herself, she is now just trying to survive it.
And Ben. Ben is crawling toward her on his elbows, ducking furniture and dragging a bleeding leg behind him. Her name is on his lips. His hand reaches for her.
Don't! Rey panics as he draws nearer. It'll kill you. Stay back! Get away!
She thinks it and Force lightening forks out, flaying the tile and inch from his elbow. Coming that close to killing him. He keeps coming for her anyway, glaring at her as if she'd struck out at him on purpose.
She supposes a part of her had. Some irrational, animal part that was trying to keep him safe by making him get away. It's useless, she knows. There's no more getting away now. It's too late for that.
Rey pitches forward and Ben jerks up to catch her, cradling her in his lap like a child. His hair and clothes whip wildly in the storm. A chair leg glances off his temple, leaving deep splinters and blood. He's too focused on her to care.
She knows that he is speaking. But he is too far away. She feels she is falling backward, away from that beautiful face. Away from everything.
"…do this, sweetheart… know you can…"
But he's wrong. She can't. She is already undone. The Force will make her an instrument of destruction. Of her friends. Herself. Her love. Knowing this, Rey's final defense, her will, finally fails. She feels it buckle, a storm wall collapsing. She free-falls into the Force. Her body and mind will frisson apart. And then, everything else.
I'm not strong enough for this, she thinks. Not without you. I'm sorry. I love you.
Something catches her. Someone in the Force. A net as thin as spider silk, barely strong enough to hold together her mind. But it does hold. It is the first time Rey has ever felt it, yet it's familiar somehow.
Virya.
With shock, Rey opens her eyes, turning her head on Ben's knee to see Virya, pale as death, gritting her teeth with the effort. Every muscle and tendon in her lithe body strains. She is holding Rey together.
How? Why? Was she trying to help or just saving her own skin? Was there even a difference anymore?
Ben is shouting. "Give her over to me, Virya!"
"I can't! If I let go for a second, we die!"
"Don't and we die anyway! You're not strong enough to hold her! She and I are a dyad! I'm the only one who can-!"
And because he is so focused on convincing Virya, on holding Rey in his arms, Ben doesn't see the door fly open behind him. Doesn't see Doran in the doorway, taking in the scene. Pulling a blaster from his waist and aiming it at the back of Ben's head.
"No!"
Rey screams. But Virya is the one who acts.
She flings the last of her Force at Doran, knocking the blaster from her father's hands and sending him hurtling down the stairs like a rag doll.
As Virya expends the last of her power, the thin net she'd spun falls out.
Rey plummets into the Force.
#
"How the hell did this happen?!"
Poe shoots his blaster straight into the eye of a Lannlas berserker. The charging behemoth hits the ground hard. But an object in motion stays in motion, especially an object that large. The corpse skids the entire length of the ballroom and takes out a table of drinks. Mulled wine sloshes down shallow steps already darkened with blood.
That makes the fifth man to die in as many minutes since the fighting broke out. It had happened quickly. One minute Rey and Ben left for the tower. The next, the Inner Circle had come back out in an opulent parade, following some new guy with blond hair and blue eyes who called himself the next Supreme Leader. When the whole room gasped in shock and started murmuring 'Doran Vorian', Poe had known they were in trouble.
Moreover, Rey and Ben had been nowhere to be seen.
So Poe had done what anyone would in his position. He started a small diversion so they could go look for their friends.
Only he hadn't counted on his small diversion devolving into a full scale brawl. Doran had ordered his followers to kill the enemy spies before mysteriously disappearing. The Drakuns and the Tannias had immediately angled for Finn and Poe. The big redheads however, Poe thought they were called the Lannlas, seemed unclear on who was or wasn't considered a spy. They started going after any guest who wasn't wearing clan clothes.
Chaos had ensued.
"This was supposed to be a covert spy mission!" Poe shouts in frustration at his next opponent, who has time to quirk a confused eyebrow at Poe's exclamation before noticing the sizzling hole in his gut. "So how did it suddenly turn into a shoot out?"
"Gee, I wonder!" Finn snaps, decking a Tannias swordsman in the jaw and then using the Force to hurl him into a Drakun spearman. "Maybe because you started screaming Long Live the Rebellion and firing off your stupid blaster!?"
"Hey, I don't appreciate the blamey tone! That's not attitude we need right now. What I don't get is why didn't Rey warn us on the radio?"
"I don't know," Finn answers grimly, coming back to back with his friend and measuring the distance from their current position to the archway leading to the tower. "Why don't you shut up and help me clear a path through this shit show so we can find out?"
Poe downs another man, not a member of the Inner Circle families, but who had lunged at him with a knife anyway. "Easier said than done. Have you seen Rose yet?"
Finn grimaces. "Not yet."
Poe swears, and fires several rounds into the air. "Alright, listen up, assholes! We're not leaving this party without everyone we came with! And believe me, you want us to leave! So if any of you think you've got a prisoner or a hostage, don't even think about -"
Finn freezes. Poe feels the sudden tension at his back. He throws an eye over his shoulder. "Finn? You alright there, buddy?"
"No."
"What is it? Are you hit?"
"No, it's the Force. I can feel Rey. She…" Finn trails. "Oh no."
"I don't like the sound of that. Don't suppose you could clarify or… Finn! Wait!"
But Finn is already off. No longer fighting his way through or trying to clear a path, he is running full tilt at the archway as if his life depends on it. Or Rey's does.
Poe swears, taking off after his friend while trying to provide cover with his blaster. He downs at least three enemies who would have cut Finn down, so it takes a while to catch up with him. They sprint under the archway. A faint crackle in Poe's ear alerts him to the presence of an electric field.
He would stop to examine it, but Finn is still tearing down the hall. He'd bet the Falcon that radio field was the reason they'd heard nothing from Rey since she walked through it.
Finn is straight as an arrow, following something he feels in the Fore, leading them to a small, spiral staircase. Before they can start up it, something comes crashing down, nearly crushing them before they leap out of the way. Something large, heavy, with a shock of blond hair.
Doran Vorian stares up at them, his bright blue eyes unseeing, neck hanging from his body at an impossible angle.
Poe pants, staring into the dead man's eyes. "These Supreme Leaders., man Not much of a shelf life on 'em."
"Down!" Finn tackles Poe an instant before the explosion tears down the stairwell, knocking them both across the corridor and into the far wall.
Poe's ribs crack. He gasps against the pain. For a dazed moment, there is only broken bones and the world singing in his ears. He is vaguely aware of stone dust raining all around him, filtering into his lungs.
Then Finn is in motion, heaving heavy masonry off them both. He frees Poe's legs from a solid slab of granite. Poe hadn't even realized they were trapped. Once freed, they hurt like a bitch.
"Are you alright?" Finn is asking. "Can you walk?"
"Ugh."
"Stand?"
"Doubt it," Poe groans, tasting copper.
Finn jerks, glancing over his shoulder at the stairs. Someone is coming down them. Fast. And judging by the state of one deceased Doran Vorian, someone is probably dangerous.
Finn's expression steels. "How 'bout shoot?"
Poe's grimaces, tugging his blaster from under a brick. "Always."
Finn stands, braced for combat. Poe props himself on an elbow, sucking down pain. He angles his blaster at the landing, waiting for a clear shot. When he gets one, he jerks his finger off the trigger and nearly drops the weapon.
It is Ben Solo, bleeding from his right leg and his left temple, black hair disheveled, eyes a storm of madness. When he sees them, awareness barely registers. Finn has to grab Solo before he stops moving, recognition belatedly flickering in his face.
"What happened?" Finn demands. "This place is collapsing. Where's-"
Poe is clicking the safety on his blaster and trying to swallow the ringing in his ears. Judging by the state of his own legs, standing isn't an option.
"-have to get her out of here," Solo is saying. "She needs the lunar pool. Now."
And then Poe sees the reason for the madness in Solo's eyes.
It's Rey, cradled in Solo's arms. Her body is limp, face blank. Her eyes are like Doran's, wide open yet unseeing. And, more alarming, they are streaming with the bright, raw energy of the Force.