The Subjugator and its lessers held formation under the light of a bloated red star, on the edge of the Tion Sector. The way that the ruby light played across the grey hulls of his ships was pleasing to Ren. Somehow it seemed like a favourable omen, though he was too hardened to imagine it was any such thing.

The twenty ships that remained to him, after leaving the others to occupy his new conquests, were all he would put his faith in here. He didn't trust omens or prophecies any more. Not after his vision of Rey turning to the Dark had been proved false.

She occupied his thoughts more and more, as their confrontation drew near. His words to Yimur a few days ago had been firm, but they had merely disguised his uncertainty. Breaking her and binding her to the Ren and killing her were two very different propositions, even if he had spoken of them in the same breath. Which was it to be? In truth, he hadn't yet decided.

When I face her again, I will know, he told himself. Circumstances may also dictate the outcome.

Certainly Rey had earned either fate when she refused him. Had she only accepted, there would be no Resistance today. He'd have had the Galaxy under his boot, and he'd have had her.

Anger flared in his chest. You had your chance, Rey, and forfeited any right to choose again.

Footsteps behind him. The prim, measured movements of Pryde.

Ren turned to regard him. "Allegiant General." Beside him, Yimur briefly inclined his head. That was the closest any of the Knights got to bowing to anyone except their master.

"Supreme Leader, the fleet is ready to begin our sweep of the sector. The analysts have begun to identify potential boltholes for the deserters."

"Unnecessary," Ren said. "I have a means to locate them. Just prepare for the jump to hyperspace, and have the legion ready for immediate deployment."

Pryde inclined his head. "I will defer to your arts, Supreme Leader."

If only, Ren thought, all his officers had such faith. The doubters kept their faces blank, but Ren could feel the mix of scepticism and fear which hung over them. That new lieutenant, whose freshly stitched cuts were still an angry red, briefly drew his gaze again. The youth's eyes flicked briefly to his and then back to his console.

No fondness for him there, but Ren didn't care to make an issue of it. He had the obedience of his subordinates, and had no need of their admiration. Soon they'd have no reason to doubt his abilities.

Ren strode to the exit with Yimur at his side. The other Knights detached themselves from the shadows and joined them.

/¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\

Back to his chambers, where the darkness seemed to hang more heavily than it did anywhere else on the ship. The black marble floor was graven with astrological patterns, a web of lines and spheres that glinted, ominously. The light that they caught was thrown back colder.

Those who knew where to look would discern a certain pattern, and perceive its resonance. The Knights recognised it. They had made some use of it before, directed by Ren. All of them had learned a great deal during their pilgrimage.

Ren paused for a moment, before Yimur broke the silence. "Is it time, Master?"

"Yes." The Knights took up their positions, each moving to a ring carved on the floor. Two lay empty, but the six living Knights should suffice for this. Yimur drew his sword and sank to his knees, laying the weapon on the floor in front of him. The others followed. Ren stepped away, knowing that Verix would be the last.

Instead his eyes were on a stone plinth, and the dagger he had brought from Gorothad. He crossed the room, glancing at the other plinth where Vader's mask sat, and stretched out his hand for the knife - only for his uncle's voice to intrude again.

"Your arts." Looking up, Ren found Luke's ghost emerging from the wall opposite. None of the Knights paid him any heed, as Ren had instructed them. Luke continued, casting a disdainful look over them. "You know how to disappoint your old teacher, Ben. Playing at blood magic with your sordid little coven."

Amusement tugged at Ren's mouth. "So it's not angry, just disappointed today, Master?" He picked up the knife, feeling the baleful energies caged in the metal. It thirsted. He didn't spare Luke a glance. "I shouldn't be surprised. You never cared for anything that actually got a job done."

Behind him, the Knights began to chant, a droning cadence in an ancient, alien tongue. The air seemed to thin, the heat draining from the room, and Ren tasted ash on his tongue. The shadows pulsed in time to the chant, running alongside the geometric inscriptions.

Luke bared his teeth in a disgusted grimace. "The Force around all of you is curdled. Your presence is a stain on it."

Where Ren's footsteps had echoed loudly before, now the growing pressure in the chamber seemed to steal the sound as he moved to its heart, where the patterns converged. "You really shouldn't speak of your old pupils like that." His voice, he found, still carried clearly.

Luke shook his head. He kept back, at the edge of the chamber. "It shames me to see what you've all become, what you've done to them. If Rey had seen them before, she'd never have hesitated to refuse you."

Ren answered him with an expression halfway between a smirk and a snarl. "The girl won't be a concern for much longer – she's given us the means to trace her." Gwaelyn's last words echoed in his head. "The Ren marks her, and as it is mine to command, it will give me my prey." He pulled off a glove. The dagger seemed to glint more brightly, its vicious thirst so close to being sated.

He felt a chill in his blood, as if his body sensed the ravenous blade and recoiled from it reflexively. Weakness. He cast it out; it had no place in him.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, reaching out with the Force. The Dark Side coiled around him, a current ready for him to follow it. This was the mastery he had earned.

"You really do think it obeys you?" Luke interjected. "You really think that, what, throwing a few more bodies on the pile will fix things for you?"

Ren turned back to Luke. "I wonder what you'll find to mock, old man," he said, putting the knife to his bare palm, "when I butcher your last pupil." He cut.

/¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\

The afternoon had been a jubilant bustle. Resistance personnel had come down from orbit and set about packing up and carting off supplies, working alongside the escapees. They halted after sunset, however, leaving the defence turrets among the last things to be packed up. Just a few hours in the morning, and they should be ready to depart with their new friends.

Rey and Kaydel, like most of the people on the surface, had set up for the night in a vacant apartment in the city. With more loading to do the next day, it made sense for them to stay put and Jannah had turned up a spare couple of bedrolls.

"You know," Kaydel said, undoing the braid in her hair. "When this is all done, and we start this adventure of ours, I think we ought to find somewhere nice and cultured." She tapped her knuckles against the stone wall. "A city that's actually intact, where we can find something good to eat and drink."

"Kaydel, I think we're getting ahead of ourselves," Rey cautioned as she rifled through her pack for nightclothes.

"C'mon, can't a girl dream a little?" Kaydel approached her, putting her arms around Rey's neck. "Especially when we've nearly completed our mission and got ourselves a whole bunch of new friends. Plus," she added, as she pulled Rey close and kissed her gently, "a little bit of hope to go with them. Poe's right – we might look back on Finn's speech as the moment when the tide started turning."

Rey finally mustered a smile of her own and returned the kiss, stroking Kaydel's cheek and grinning as her girlfriend's – and she still felt a little rush at that thought – fingers went spidering down her spine. But as Kaydel gently, teasingly bit her lower lip, a familiar and unwelcome chill stole up on her. Suddenly the touch seemed distant. And someone else, who had not come in, was in the cabin with them.

She pulled away a little, seeing the confusion in Kaydel's eyes as she looked past her. And there he was, suddenly as close as he'd seemed on Ach-To.

"Hello Rey." He was unarmoured this time, with only one glove on. The corpse-pale skin was even more apparent now, in the low light.

Rey swallowed. "Ben," she said, as calmly as she could.

"I see my sister left a mark." He drew close, and she saw the blood trickling through the fingers of his bare hand. "Which is only right. The Ren is old and deep, and my Knights don't fall easily." His eyes bored into hers. "You're still raw, Rey."

"Murderer!" Kaydel hissed. The sound came to Rey as if she was underwater, but Ren seemed to hear it all the same.

His eyes alighted on her, and his face twitched in the merest hint of a smile. "So this is the girl. She seems nice." He took a step forward. "Is she good to you?" Rey tried to decide if it was scorn or envy in his tone.

Instinctively, she pulled Kaydel behind her, forcing some steel into her voice. "Well, she's never put a blade to my throat."

Amusement flickered in the yellow eyes. "Have you tried it?"

"How are you doing this?" Rey demanded, ignoring the goad. Just looking at his wounded hand brought a painful throb to her eyes, and told her that something about this meeting was different to the others.

"The Ren. The link which binds me to my Knights. You killing Gwaelyn brought you into it, just a little. Enough for me to briefly open up our old bond." That was still more worrying, when she realised the power it must take to do this.

Rey felt her shoulders hunch and her hands balling into fists, but she couldn't shake her unease at how her staff was sat outside the door. Keep him talking. Wait it out. "And you just wanted to talk?"

He was within reach of her now. "I like to know my quarry." Too late, she saw his eyes move to Kaydel.

Ren pounced. He grabbed Rey's shoulder and hurled her aside before lunging at Kaydel, who went tottering back on her heels.

Rey thudded hard into the wall. Seeing stars, she rolled over just in time to see him stretch out his hand. Kaydel's limbs went rigid and she was plucked into the air, hauled off her feet with the Force. Ren's teeth were bared, a hideous rictus which Rey recognised immediately. It was the same one Snoke had worn on the Supremacy. Kaydel's face was a mask of uncomprehending terror. Then his hand clamped over her forehead.

In a heartbeat, her expression went from dread to excruciation. Kaydel's back arched and she shrieked, the sound seeming to rip its way out of her lungs.

"Kaydel!" Rey leapt. Ren turned fractionally toward her, and her knuckles hammered into his face. Blood exploded from his nose. He fell back and suddenly out of sight.

Rey was still for a moment, chest heaving as she stared at the place where Ren had just been. Then the sound of Kaydel's sobbing broke through to her.

"Kaydel!" She rushed to her partner and fell to her knees, cradling her. Kaydel was shaking violently, her face awash with tears.

"Talk to me," Rey whispered, putting her arms around her. "I'm here with you. It's going to be alright, I'm not letting him hurt you again."

There was only more sobbing. Kaydel buried her face in Rey's chest, just as the door opened. Finn stood on the threshold with a concerned look on his face and his lightsaber in hand, Chewbacca and Rose behind him. Rey held up her free hand.

"Ren?" Finn asked.

She nodded. "He was here, he attacked Kaydel."

"How?"

"The old link," she replied. "It's over though, I kicked him back." She put both arms about Kaydel and rocked her gently. "Gave him a good bloody nose, eh? He's not going to try that again."

Kaydel managed a muffled little laugh, but then she looked up at Rey and her face fell a little. "You're bleeding again."

Rey felt her cheek and her fingertips came away red. The cut must have reopened when she hit the wall. "Doesn't matter," she replied. "Doesn't matter. You're safe."

BB-8 nudged past Finn and trundled over to the two women, cooing. Kaydel leaned over, managing a smile as the little droid bumped up against her chin. "All the better for seeing you, BB-8." But then, horrified realisation set in on her face. "Rey," she whispered. "He was… he was in my head…"

"What?" Finn asked.

But Rey already knew, and shards of ice stabbed at her heart. "He's seen where we are. They're coming."

/¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\

Kylo Ren picked himself up from the cold stone floor, contorting his face and wincing at the broken nose Rey had left him with. He wiped his lip with the back of his gloved hand. The blood gleamed dully on the leather.

The few seconds he'd spent delving into the woman's mind had yielded limited results, but he'd got enough from her. The name Omunak reverberated in his head. He saw the city. He saw the deserters.

The Knights regarded him in expectant silence, slowly getting back to their feet. He lifted his eyes to theirs, and a ragged grin broke out on his face.

"Ready yourselves. We have their scent."