Rey assumed that one of two things was about to happen: either she would be brought aboard the star destroyer and immediately led to Snoke, or – and this was far less likely – Ben was going to talk to her. Perhaps try to share what he had been so eager to tell her about that prophecy when they found him on Tryrti.

Perhaps that was foolish to imagine. (To hope for?) But when meditating with her kyber crystal, Rey had felt certain that the dark side's hold on Ben was tenuous. She'd assumed, when she came out of it, that it was simply wishful thinking, but knowing that in some sense it had been him there, with her… Well. It brought her the closest she had ever been to sharing Leia's hope that Ben even could return to the light.

He did not talk to her, but he didn't take her to Snoke, either.

Instead, after they landed in the hangar, he led her down several hallways, past troopers and First Order commanders who looked on with curiosity. Kylo didn't speak, and flanked by stormtroopers as they still were, Rey didn't feel like she could say anything, either.

She and Luke had felt discomfited by the sanitized feeling of the base on Ilith, but it was nothing compared to this star destroyer; at least the Resistance base was full of life, people laughing together as they walked down halls, chatting idly in corners while they took breaks from their work. But save for the steady hum of machinery that came from being in a ship, Rey's surroundings felt unpleasantly subdued. Every body looked to be carrying an oppressive weight on their shoulders.

They reached the detention center, and the guard at the door jolted at the sight of Kylo. "W- welcome back, sir," he stammered. "Is she going in with the other one, or would you like her in her own cell?"

Kylo hesitated for a brief moment, but when he spoke, he sounded decisive. Authoritative. "Put her with Skywalker."

After receiving a nod of assent from the guard, Kylo turned on his heel, and he was gone.

Luke jumped to his feet when the door slid open, his expression shifting from hesitation to open concern as soon as his eyes met Rey's. "Rey—" he began softly.

"Stay back, Jedi," the guard snarled as he ushered Rey inside.

"I'm not moving, I'm not moving," Luke rushed to reassure him—and the troopers crowding the doorway with their guns pointed into the cell.

"Wait, what about these?" Rey held her hands aloft when she realized that the guard seemed to have no plans of removing her restraints.

"Oh no. I've seen what you people can do. I think we'll all feel a bit safer if those cuffs stay on."

And then, in an instant, Rey and Luke were shut in and alone.

He rushed to her at once, reaching out at the same time that she took a long breath and sunk down onto the hard bench. Luke followed suit, fumbling to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze despite the fact that his hands were bound together. "Gods, Rey, are you alright?"

She nodded blankly. Now that she'd slowed down, it suddenly sank in that she had no idea how long it had been since she slept—between the flight from Ilith, her trek through the caves, and her meditation, though, it had to have been more than a day. The fatigue of it all hit her in one fell swoop.

Luke took this in for a moment, but her exhaustion seemed to register, because he continued without waiting for her to speak. "I was in the middle of my check-in when the destroyer came out of hyperspace, and I didn't stand a chance—they had me in their tractor beam almost immediately. I don't understand how this could have happened; it was like they knew we were here."

"They did," Rey murmured.

"What do you mean?"

Rey turned her head so that she could meet Luke's eye. She almost expected him to look mad, but there was nothing even close to anger in his gaze. He just looked confused. Even so, she couldn't shake the shame she felt as she told him, "When I was meditating with my crystal, I saw some things. Flashes of conversations, things that only made a little bit of sense. And Ben… Ben was there. For a while. I was fretting over the dark side, and I had a conversation with him, and when I came out of it, I thought it was like the Force visions I had of my mother, but I- I don't know, Luke." She shook her head, her frown deepening. "Since I was trying to share myself with the crystal, my guard was down, and I must have opened up to our Force bond. With everything that I was seeing and thinking and feeling… it was enough. I led him straight to us."

"I see." Luke digested this. After months of working together so closely, it felt strange for Rey to be unable to intuit precisely where his head was at, but without having discussed it, they both seemed to think it best to keep themselves closed off to the Force even now that they were alone. She watched his face closely, waiting for him to say something—anything. "I don't want you to be angry with yourself over this."

"How could I not be?" Rey retorted. "We were so worried about a First Order scout discovering us, but I managed to call out directly to Kylo Ren. Maybe if I had anticipated it, trained myself to keep our Force bond closed instead of just trying to avoid solitude at all costs…"

"You had no way of knowing that this could happen. If there's anyone at fault, it was my decision for us to come to Ossus in the first place. You and Leia both argued against it. Perhaps I should have listened."

Rey sighed and nudged her shoulder against Luke. "Don't be ridiculous. You couldn't have known—"

"What was that?" There was amusement in his voice.

She opened and closed her mouth to speak, faltering a few times. "Point taken."

"Good."

"For the record, though, I hate you."

Luke smiled slightly. "Noted."

The fatigue of their trip still weighed heavily on Rey, and she was on the verge of telling Luke that she wanted to at least try to shut her eyes and get some sleep before… whatever was coming next. But then she frowned to herself as she began to think of a number of other questions that came with the knowledge that her Force vision of Kylo had been, in some sense, real. "Did you see anything? Of what I saw." Did Poe?

"No, I didn't." Luke hesitated. "I appeared to you while you were meditating?"

Rey nodded. Her voice was quiet as she told him, "Yes. You, and Poe."

Another pause while Luke considered this information. "Are you relieved that I didn't see it?"

"No, that's not- I don't think anything that I saw would have been a surprise to you." Rey kept her gaze on her hands, twisting in her lap. "I'm mostly wondering because…"

Say it, Rey. Just ask him whether he believes that he's going to die. After knowing him her whole life, and after building up so much honesty since he arrived on Ajan Kloss, it should have been… if not easy, then at least possible. To express her fear to him. But she wasn't certain she could say that Luke was the one she was afraid of being honest with when she altered course.

"I don't want Poe overthinking what I saw. Not while the Resistance is busy doing… whatever it is that they're doing without us."

Maybe Luke believed her, and maybe he could tell that she was initially going to say something else. But either way, he chose to take her words at face-value. "I can't promise you that Poe didn't see your Force vision, but from everything that I understand, sharing a Force vision like you did is essentially unheard of. If it weren't for your Force bond, I doubt very much that it would be possible."

"Alright."

When she didn't say anything further, Luke jumped in again. "Could I ask you to do something?"

"If I can do it before we're brought to Snoke and probably killed, then sure."

He exhaled through his nose—Rey was quite familiar with this being the closest thing to a laugh that she might sometimes get from her mentor. "I don't know how long we'll be in this cell, but would you try to get some sleep? It's been over a day and a half since we left Ilith."

Kriff, over a day and a half? No wonder she was exhausted.

Slowly, sleepily, Rey nodded.

Rey felt herself being shaken awake by Luke a questionable amount of time later, and she quickly became aware that an escort of stormtroopers stood over them in the doorway, as well as the main guard of the detention center instructing Luke to, "Get her up, come on."

She groaned as she rose to her feet, squinting at the bright lights of the cell and grimacing just slightly at the unpleasant taste of sleep, but the guard rolled his eyes, unfazed by how disoriented she was. "Come on, kid, let's get moving."

"Wait, Rey," Luke said automatically. Her stomach, which had already begun to squirm, quieted at once. Then he added, softly, "Take as long as you want."

But Rey, not wanting to see Luke get in trouble for trying to gently override an order, rose to her full height at once and shook her head to clear it. "It's fine, I'm ready. We can go."

"Smart girl."

As they were led from their cell, Rey cast Luke an irritated glance—the condescension from the guard was incredibly grating, and she wanted nothing more than to snap back. If only she and Luke had kriffing lightsabers. If only their hands weren't cuffed. She was skeptical that they could take on the whole ship, not from the depths of the detention center, but the least she could do was wipe that smirk off of the damn guard's face.

The thought made her flinch slightly as she processed exactly what it was that she was itching to do. Just over one snide remark.

She was too exhausted. Too irritable. That was the place those thoughts had come from. But at least Luke didn't know what had occurred to her, even if only in passing.

It appeared that they'd been locked away so that Kylo's ship could rendezvous with Snoke's, because Rey and Luke were transferred from one destroyer to another. Led down more winding hallways, until finally, they reached a dead end. They were ushered through a door by their stormtrooper escorts, and then the door closed with a menacing clang.

They stood in a massive throne room. Most of their surroundings matched the stark black and gray look of the rest of the ship, but the hall still seemed awash with a rich, bright red from the far wall. Directly ahead of them, against that wall, was the massive throne, on which a menacing figure – that must be Snoke, Rey's brain offered – sat quite still. His gaze on the new arrivals. Several imperial guards surrounded the throne at some distance, and standing close at hand…

"Ben," Rey said softly.

Luke hummed, but he didn't bother to reply aloud. Rey hated this—she hated not knowing what was going through Luke's head.

"Welcome, Jedi." Snoke's voice rang through the hall, unnervingly calm. "How good of you to join us. But I'd rather we not talk with all of this distance between us. Come closer, both of you."

Rey stood her ground despite the immediate pull in her gut to follow his order. Luke, too, didn't move, and he turned his head toward Rey to speak—

Snoke interrupted him before he could get a word out. "I have no interest in exchanging orders with you, Skywalker. Unlike the soldiers outside, I understand what's at stake with my words. Now come closer."

Her heart raced, and as she stared ahead, unmoving, the muscles in her legs began to ache as though desperate to step forward of their own accord. The beginnings of a headache pounded behind her eyes. Luke didn't take a single step—perhaps she couldn't feel or hear him the way she had grown accustomed to, but she knew that he was waiting for her. Supporting her.

And then she thought of Poe, lounging on the side of the lake on Ajan Kloss. Laughing and fondly telling her, You can be such a pain in the ass, when he ordered her to fetch him some water from the lake, and she brought back barely enough to dribble back out of his canteen.

Inhaling deeply, she took the smallest of steps forward then halted. The tension in her body quieted at once. She heard Luke make the slightest noise of amusement.

The Supreme Leader hummed. "I thought that might happen. Very well. Rey, come and stand here." He pointed at a spot on the floor directly in front of him. "I suspect Master Skywalker will follow suit."

Frag. He must have been testing her to see whether she'd try to game the curse, but no doubt this meant that he would be intentional with his orders, now.

Rey took slow, agonizing steps forward, Luke moving at her pace. As they drew closer to the throne, and Snoke's face became more visible, a chill went down her spine; the Supreme Leader's features were grotesque, emphasized by a cruel smile on his face that seemed to saturate the energy of the entire hall. It kriffing delighted him to see her fighting him like this. To see her having to obey his instruction.

Meanwhile, Kylo stood by Snoke's side and just… stared blankly at Rey. She saw the way that his eyes fell on her, pointedly looking away from Luke. She could have sworn she saw a hint of concern on his face.

"Good," Snoke murmured, once Rey had reached the spot where he had instructed her to stand. "Doesn't that feel better, young Jedi?"

She scowled up at him. "What do you want with us?" With me, she nearly said instead, but she couldn't quite bring herself to say the words. The moment that she suggested Snoke had some plan for her, it would become too real.

"Oh." His voice was soft. He tilted his head back slightly, taking her in. "She has such spirit, Skywalker. Is that the product of a Jedi Master actually caring for his apprentice?"

"I have no interest in defending my mistakes to you, Snoke," Luke said, echoing Snoke's words from moments before. He stared at the Supreme Leader as he spoke, and Rey watched Kylo carefully—saw the way that his head just barely turned toward his uncle before he refocused his eyes on Rey. "And I have made mistakes, plenty of them. I've been able to make amends with Rey, but with Ben…" He faltered. "I led him to believe that I saw no hope for him, and that's my greatest regret. But only a Sith would suggest that those errors in judgement meant that I don't care for my nephew. Only a Sith would willfully distort the truth that way." Quietly, he said, "Because I do love you, Ben. I hope that someday you believe that. I still see the good in you, just as I did in my father."

"Don't talk about him," Kylo snapped at once. He took a step forward, but he stilled when Snoke held up a hand.

"Patience, my boy," Snoke told him. Rey trembled, despite the fact that she had been issued no orders. It was unnerving, how much the condescension in his tone reminded her of how Kylo had spoken to her on Tryrti, and through their Force bond.

From Kylo, it was ill-fitting, but Snoke… his words were intentional. Practiced. And they gave Kylo pause immediately, so she supposed they did their job.

Snoke was still going, but he'd raised his voice; he was talking to Luke now. "I was concerned at first, when I lost track of the girl. I will admit that your decision to exclude her from the temple was… not something that I had anticipated. Not that anything in the prophecy explicitly suggests that the child needs to be raised within a Jedi temple, but that's traditionally been interpreted to be one of the metaphorical elements of the child's 'freedom from limits.'"

Glancing at Kylo, Snoke ushered him toward Rey and Luke. Kylo hesitated for a beat, but then he nodded and began to walk. Snoke continued: "But then, at last, young Kylo was wracked with guilt over the death of his father. I was convinced that their Force bond could not be triggered when they'd been separated so long, until I realized that he was reaching out to the only person he thought would understand. And that she was reaching back. Just the girl's restraints," he added, almost as an afterthought. Kylo had reached Rey and Luke, and he tentatively triggered the release on her cuffs. She noticed that he could no longer look her in the eye.

Was that true? Had Ben thought that Rey would understand his conflict over killing Han?

"Finally, I began to discern for myself that, even outside of the confines of your temple and the structure of the Jedi Order, you manufactured a life of misery for this girl beyond anything that I could have foreseen. You gave her everything she needed to claim what is destined to her. Now, she need only muster the strength to take it."

Rey inhaled—rapid, shallow breaths. What in hell was he talking about? And gods, what was going through Luke's head?

"Take the saber."

It hit her that Snoke, now, was speaking to her. Kylo was holding Leia's lightsaber out with an indiscernible expression on his face.

Something was coming. It had to be, for them to turn over the saber again like it was nothing. But Snoke wasn't speaking, and Rey was terrified to look at Luke; all she could sense from him was his breathing, so measured compared to hers. This was the version of her mentor that she remembered from her childhood: guarded and appraising. And she knew that he wasn't guarding himself against her, not really, but that didn't mean that it didn't make her ache.

Well. It did make her ache, although that feeling was quickly being overridden by discomfort, and then pain, as she tried to resist Snoke's instruction. Because if he was ordering her to take that saber, she knew that she didn't want it.

Kylo, then, issued the order. His voice was unnervingly gentle. "Take the saber, Rey."

Her head spun. Her fingers trembled from the effort of keeping them clenched in fists at her sides. As her body felt smaller and smaller, Rey could sense nothing but her heart racing and her stomach twisting. Her vision blurred, her limbs were contracting in on themselves. She needed to claim the lightsaber. She felt with increasing certainty that if she didn't just reach out and accept the gleaming object before her – the only thing that still registered in her vision – she was going to wither into nothing and die.

"Good," Snoke said again.

Oh gods. Only then did she realize that she'd wrapped her fingers around the cold metal, that her vision was returning and her heart rate beginning to slow. A few stray tears clung to her face. Rey stared down at her own hand and was horrified at the fact that she now held the saber. Horrified at the fact that she didn't know what was coming next.

"I'm going to give you two options, Rey." Snoke's voice rattled through the throne room even though it felt like he was whispering directly beside Rey's ear. "As soon as you follow one order, I will rescind the other. Do you understand?"

Rey didn't answer, didn't even look at him, but Snoke was unbothered. If anything, it seemed that he took her absolute unwillingness to respond as an indication that she understood exactly what he was asking of her.

"Tell me the location of the Resistance base," he began. "Or… kill Luke Skywalker."

Rey's jaw dropped in protest, but it struck her at once that, instead, it was Ilith bubbling up in her throat, and she snapped her mouth shut to keep it in.

It didn't matter that the Resistance was undoubtedly clearing out of the base already. She had no idea how long the evacuation would take, no idea who or what might still be there when the First Order arrived. For anyone who was left, she knew from the stories of the Battle of Crait that Snoke's ship would be able to track them anywhere. That single word would likely be a death sentence—who knew for how many.

But then there was Luke.

Luke, who… raised her. Disappointed her. Guided her. Loved her.

The saber felt heavy in her hand. It would be so easy to ignite it. Her arm longed to do it, to raise the saber from her side and strike—

She could barely see, but it wasn't because she felt that she was going to black out yet; instead, her eyes were tearing up again… from anxiety or from the orders overtaking her or both. She pulled her hands closer to herself, clutching the saber tight against her stomach and squeezing her eyes shut.

No no no. Rey felt like she was going to throw up, and she couldn't tell whether it was vomit or the location of the Resistance threatening to burst from her lips. Her heart pounded against her chest, in her ears, all over her skin.

This was… a far crueler weaponization of her curse than anything she could have imagined. Because Snoke had given her a kriffing choice. Or rather, the cruelest, most horrible illusion of choice. Words pounded against her mouth, begging to be set free; her finger itched against the trigger mechanism of the lightsaber.

Rey wanted nothing more than to die, because then at least Luke and the Resistance might both be safe. Safer than what she could bring upon them.

To think that her entire adolescence had been a product of Luke's attempt to protect himself and everyone else from her curse. But it hadn't been enough.

It hadn't been enough.

She was on the floor, suddenly. Curling in on herself, free hand clasped against her mouth while she hugged Leia's lightsaber to her chest. Tears streamed down her face. She could see, feel nothing save for the urgency of Snoke's mandate, the urgency of passing out or dying so that she need not complete it.

Distantly, she heard the voice of her mother from her Force vision on Yavin: That thing… I think it has horrible plans for you. Ben, on Tryrti, insisting that Luke was protecting everyone from what he was frightened you would become after saving yourself. Luke's voice, telling her, Trying to protect you from your curse didn't work. And after our visits to the Force tree, I feel more certain than ever that I need to do the most I can to prepare you.

And louder and clearer than all the rest of them combined, Poe. Kneeling before her as he said, The Sith can't imagine a way for you to save yourself through the light side, but you are very imaginative and very stubborn. If the power is in you to break this curse, I think you'll find it, without the dark side.

Just reveal the location of the base. That was all she needed to do. Or ignite the lightsaber and swing. Maybe if she didn't look up, didn't look Luke in the eye, she could stomach it.

That was all she needed to do to obey. Obey. Obey.

Her mouth opened and in a moment of sheer terror, Rey thought she was about to blurt out the location of the base, but instead… "No!" She shrieked it, the word coming out of nowhere, and she clutched herself tighter. Blinked up through blurry, tear-filled eyes at Snoke as she shouted, "I can't do it! I won't!"

Rey scrambled to her feet in a frenzy, turning to look at Luke for the first time since they'd reached Snoke's throne. He was blinking down at her with such love and affection and the strangest expression on top of that, but she couldn't parse through it in her desperation to tell him, "I'm not going to hurt you, Luke. I can't do that, I won't ever do that."

"I know, Rey," he whispered. His words were far away in her ears—she'd already turned on Snoke, anger boiling in her blood. "And I'm not telling you a thing about the Resistance. I'm going to keep them safe from me if it's the last thing I do. It doesn't matter what you think you have planned for me; I'm not doing it."

Somewhere in there, amidst her shouting and her labored breaths and her slowing tears, it hit her.

All at once, her body stilled. Oh, her heart was still pounding, but no longer was she trembling. Slowly, Rey processed the measured expression on Snoke's face; Ben's slack jaw; and finally, Luke, who looked… so proud. But not just proud, and that was the peculiar thing about his expression. He was surprised and proud of her but a little sad, too.

"Isn't this good?" she whispered, frowning.

"Yes," Luke replied softly. "Of course it is."

The hall rang with the sound of the throne creaking. Rey spun around, watching the Supreme Leader rise to his feet and slowly – agonizingly slowly – stride closer to her. When he was near, he began to pace around her and Kylo and Luke; his figure towered over all of them.

He hummed. "I'm impressed, child. I was not certain that even those instructions would stir your anger enough to break the curse. Of course, I would have been satisfied if they had not; you'd have had your uses to us, like the others before you. But no—you've proven yourself to be precisely what the Sith need you to be. I daresay you've learned enough."

And then, before Rey, Kylo, and Luke knew quite what was happening, Snoke stretched out his hand, summoning Leia's saber from Rey's loosened grip. He ignited the blade and drove it directly into Luke's gut.

Kylo inhaled sharply, taking a step back in surprise while Rey let out an agonizing scream.

Luke's eyes widened and his jaw dropped, and the noise he let out… gods, he was in pain, but he could barely gasp out a sound of distress as Snoke's lip curled. He twisted the blade deeper, drawing out a heavy groan from the older Jedi.

Snoke shut off the lightsaber. Rey watched Luke crumble as if in slow motion. Save for the sound of his body striking the floor, all she could hear was the sound of her own heart pounding.

It felt as though Snoke had wrenched her heart from her chest and crushed it in his bare hand. And still, in slow motion, she watched him gazing down at her mentor's body, watched him reveling in a murder that could have served no purpose save to upset her. Luke had been defenseless, unguarded.

What came next happened without forethought, without calculation.

Rey grabbed the saber that hung at Kylo's waist. Her gaze met his for a flash, and his eyes narrowed… almost imperceptibly.

She swung around in one fluid motion.

The saber crackled in the air, then sizzled as it sliced through robes and skin. There was the sound of Leia's saber clattering to the floor, followed shortly by Snoke, whose torso toppled to one side while the bottom half of his body fell in place.

"I didn't…" Ben began. Rey's head snapped up to look at him, and she saw that his eyes were wide, as though pleading with her to understand.

Distantly, they each saw that the Imperial Guard had finally reacted to Rey's attack, surging forward from their posts. After staring at Rey for another beat, Ben stretched out his hand, drawing Leia's saber to him from where it had fallen beside Snoke. Igniting the blade, he turned away from Rey, and the two began to rebuff the guards' attacks as one.

They stood surrounded by bodies, yet after the battle was over, Rey's first instinct was to run to Luke. She knelt down on the floor, and a few fresh tears trickled down her face as she took in the sight of him.

Her mentor's eyes were still open in shock. His pupils were surprisingly large, but in no way did Rey mistake that for life; his energy and spirit had faded, somehow. It was strange, now, to realize just how much she had still felt him even when he was closed off to the Force. Comparatively, he, the space around him, was now… empty. There was nothing left. Her lips trembled as she reached out a hand and slowly smoothed her fingers over his hair and down his cheek, which was cool to the touch.

Once, after much prompting from Rey, Luke had described the funeral that he gave to his father—a Jedi funeral. Would she be able to do that for him? Get him off of this kriffing star destroyer and back to… somewhere, where she could stop and breathe and burn his remains? Or – if she got off this ship at all – would she have to deliver the news to Leia without even being able to say that she'd put him to rest properly?

It was the thought of Leia that shook Rey from her laser focus on Luke. She looked up from his body, and she saw Ben, standing a short distance away and looking on as though reluctant to disrupt the moment. "I'm sorry, Rey," he told her. "I didn't know that he was going to do that to you."

Do that to Luke, Rey thought to herself, but she didn't say as much. Instead she shook her head and told him, "It's- I don't know how I'm going to tell Leia. Not with all that she's already lost." Her gaze softening on Ben, though, she offered, "It will mean something to her, that you betrayed Snoke for Luke."

Ben's brow furrowed, and he opened and closed his mouth once, then twice, before speaking. "This wasn't for Luke Skywalker." He gestured to the bodies strewn around. "I don't believe that Snoke should have killed my uncle, not like that, but that's not why I allowed you to kill Snoke. I did this for you."

"For me?"

"Yes." Ben took a few cautious steps forward, but it seemed that he realized Rey was receiving his words with great reluctance, because he stopped moving. "Snoke was proud. He believed that he could guide and shape us and emerge unscathed, but he was a fool. If he thought there was a place for him beside us, he was willfully misunderstanding the prophecy."

Rey felt anger rising in her gut again, and she rose to her feet abruptly. "Luke is dead and you're still trying to talk to me about some kriffing prophecy? I don't want to hear about it, Ben. You're truly not sorry that he's gone?"

"Snoke killed my uncle because of the prophecy, Rey. I should have seen it coming. Now that you've broken your curse, he saw Luke as nothing more than an obstacle to you achieving your true purpose."

"Which is what? What do you think my purpose is?"

He barely spoke above a whisper. "The Sith have a legend of a savior called the Sith'ari: the perfect being, who will destroy the Sith only to bring the Order back to life and rebuild it stronger and better than ever before.[1] Countless Sith Lords tried to claim the title out of… pride. Vanity. But the prophecy was passed on through oral tradition for millennia before being recorded, and its truth was lost to all but a select few. When you discovered me at the base on Tryrti, that's what I was looking for—I was still reluctant to believe Snoke, at least entirely, so he sent me to find the last remaining text of the full, unaltered prophecy. The Separatists discovered a book of Sith legend while looking for ways to defeat the Jedi, and it had been concealed in that base ever since."

Something about the word "Sith'ari" resonated with Rey, and she realized with a jolt that it was likely the peculiar form of "Sith" that she and Luke had discovered months before while scouring the Jedi texts for other references to children cursed with obedience. Which meant that… yet again, it seemed as though there was at least some truth to what Kylo was saying.

And it was with this knowledge that Rey's voice trembled as she said, "Tell me the prophecy, Ben."

"'The Sith'ari will be free of limits.'" He began to walk again, but not towards Rey anymore; instead, he strode around her—circled her. "'The Sith'ari will lead the Sith and destroy them. The Sith'ari will raise the Sith from death and make them stronger than before.' For millennia, that was how Sith understood the prophecy. But it's less important that the Sith'ari is 'free of limits' than it is that they've broken free of limits. Of all limits. Limits of the Jedi, and of legacy… and of the ancient Sith curse of limitation, which warps the mind of a person to compel them to obey any instruction they receive. Cursed Force-sensitive children were placed into the hands of the Jedi a number of times over the millennia, attempting to satisfy the conditions of the prophecy, but none of them have broken free of their limits before. None but you."

Rey turned in place, following Kylo with her eyes. Even as she was discomfited by the possibility that her entire life had been shaped by Snoke's attempt to fashion her into a tool to match the description from a Sith prophecy, she found herself morbidly fascinated. After so many unanswered questions, she was finally learning the truth.

Part of the truth? came to the back of her mind, but the question was distant and quickly left her focus.

"I'm nobody. I have no legacy. Why did he think there was even a possibility that I could be the one to fulfill this prophecy?"

"Don't you remember what I said on Tryrti? This isn't just about you, this is about both of us." Ben's eyes shone as he stepped closer again. "From the moment you were born, Snoke sensed our Force bond. He realized the strength that we could have when united as one through that bond. It was through us combined that it was possible to break free of all limits: not only the limits of the Jedi Order, but the limits of my family and your obscurity. He saw your curse as the final piece of the puzzle."

She didn't miss the intentional phrasing of that last sentence; Kylo had shifted from recounting the prophecy as truth to describing what Snoke understood the truth to be. "You disagree."

"Yes. Not at first, not after I'd read the prophecy for myself, but…" He nodded his head toward Rey's feet—toward Luke's body. "Snoke killed Luke, and I realized what else we needed to grow beyond. What Snoke refused to see."

"What was that?"

He hesitated. "Snoke thought that my uncle's death would sever your attachment to him, but I don't believe that's true. That alone could never have solidified your connection to the dark side, not in the way that I solidified mine through the death of my father."

"Killing Han nearly broke your spirit, Ben. I felt it."

"But it didn't!" he retorted. This whole time, his tone had been relatively calm and even. Now his anger rose sharply, and he glowered at Rey for a few moments before composing himself. "You, though… You just needed to lean into your anger. You needed to feel the strength of that impulse. That darkness."

Rey looked down at Luke, taking in his vacant features. When she looked up at Kylo, he was closer again; they were only a few feet apart now. "What do you mean?"

"Please. You can't honestly tell me that Luke would have wanted this." He gestured to Snoke, and to the guards around them. "You did this because you needed to. Because you wanted to. The first decision you've truly been able to make of your own accord, and you chose to slaughter everyone in this room."

Oh.

Oh gods.

Kylo's lightsaber clattered to the floor; Rey had barely even been aware that it was still clasped in her hand. She fell to her knees again and looked down at Luke. He had stared at her with such pride and such love when she successfully refused Snoke's order, and Snoke had cut that moment short. But Kylo was right: Luke wouldn't have wanted her to kill Snoke. He wouldn't have wanted her to kill anyone.

"In killing Snoke, you destroyed the Sith, Rey. And together we'll rebuild them. Through our shared power, we can shape the galaxy and make it better. Better than what the old Jedi Order wanted, or the Sith."

Her heart pounded in her chest.

For the first time since she left the cave on Ossus, she felt hyper-aware of her kyber crystal against her skin, warm and inviting.

"No," she blurted. Yet again, the word bubbled up and out of her mouth before she knew quite what she was saying.

"What?"

"I said no." Rey turned her gaze upward, meeting Ben's eye and seeing the sincere confusion and disappointment there. "I don't care about a Sith prophecy. I don't care what Snoke intended for me to be. I don't want it. The dark side can't fix me."

She pulled the words from her vague memory of her Force vision on Ossus. It was a small attempt to gauge how much of her dream conversation with Kylo had actually happened. Based on the way his nostrils flared and his expression darkened, it struck a chord.

Rey continued to speak before Kylo had time to reply. "You say that killing Snoke was the first decision I made myself, but that's not true. I choose the light every day. I've chosen it every day since I first dreamt of myself as a Sith. That's not going to change just because I was angry and hurt over losing my- my father," she said, her voice faltering slightly over the words. She'd never been able to say it aloud, not without a qualifier or a joke. The closest thing I've ever had to a father, maybe. Or, It's almost like he thinks he's my father, as an aside to Finn and Poe, after Luke asked her to do something in training that was particularly unpleasant or complicated.

But he was her father, and that was the depth of pain that Rey was aching with over his loss.

"And it's not going to change just because you've explained to me that I spent a majority of my life feeling isolated and broken for the sake of what you and Snoke have decided is my destiny. If you don't like that, then you'll have to kill me, too. Try to become the Sith'ari yourself and ignore the fact that you don't want that future, either. Not really."

She looked Ben in the eye. Her oldest friend, practically a brother to her. There was a shade of unhappiness spreading across his features, but he said nothing.

Patiently, silently, she waited.