A/N: Hey everyone! Hope you're all doing well:) I hope you all enjoy this week's chapter! It was inspired by a passage of Rae Carson's novelization of The Rise of Skywalker, and I did borrow some ideas/a few quotes from the section. Definitely wanted to give credit where credit is due.

Thanks to everybody for continuing to read/review/follow/favorite, and thanks (as always) to Leona2016 and FenrisInside for all of their assistance with this story. Happy reading, everyone, and take care until next time!:)

-Emmeth

Rey's boots raised dust that the dry wind sent eddying among the dead trees. They stretched above her; stark black against the dull red sky of Mustafar. The air was harsh against her skin, parching her lips and stinging her eyes as the air of Jakku had done. She'd wrapped a thick strip of fabric around her mouth and nose in a desperate attempt to catch some small part of the moisture she was exhaling, but it did nothing to protect her eyes, which were watering with the combined effects of the heat and the volcanic gases rising from fissures in the earth at her feet. She found herself wishing for the thick goggles she'd worn as a scavenger. But she'd left those to be buried by sand long ago.

Mela, too, was swathed in fabric from neck to nose, the folds coated in the thick gray ash that rose and shifted with every gust of wind.

"Do we know where we're supposed to be going?" came her muffled voice.

"No," Rey replied. "Everything is different from what Luke said it was going to be. He never mentioned a forest on the Gahenn Plains."

"It's hardly a forest," Patch muttered, a look of disgust on her face. "The trees are all dead."

"But who planted them?" asked Mela.

No one answered, but the question lingered between them, sticking in Rey's mind. Luke had spoken of a cult on Mustafar. Had they been the ones to plant the trees? And if so, were she and her friends now drawing closer to danger? Rey glanced over her shoulder to the small platoon of troopers that were trailing behind them, slowly scanning the empty trees with their blasters raised and ready. Even so, Rey couldn't shake the prickly feeling that crept along her spine.

They were being watched.

"Mela," she hissed. "Mela, do you feel that?"

The knight nodded, then tilted her chin toward Patch who had begun to walk in a strange, hunched fashion. The medic's head swiveled back and forth as she crept along, her eyes darting toward any movement.

"I think she feels something too," Mela said.

Rey was just about to give the command to halt when a cry of alarm sounded from behind her. She and Mela whirled as one, sabers blazing. Emerging from among the tree trunks were scores of strange creatures dressed in ragged clothes the same ashy gray of the landscape from which they'd appeared. The odd domed helmets they wore that covered all but two glowing yellow lenses where there should have been eyes made their silhouettes forbidding and strange. Many of them clutched blaster rifles, which were pointed straight at Rey and her companions.

Rey heard the click of the weapons being primed and the high whine of the charging systems and a chill ran through her. She quickly motioned her troopers to lower their blasters, afraid that one would get nervous and start a firefight.

"Why have you come to this place?"

The voice was low and grating, grinding like stones over Rey's raw nerves. She sensed evil in it; a malice that lurked just beneath the words. Her stomach twisted as Mela glanced her way, feeling at the same time the eyes of every trooper turn to find her. It was up to her to stand in the breach. To guard them against this threat as they had guarded her on so many occasions.

She stepped away from the safety of her friends, deactivating her lightsaber and clipping it to her belt as she raised her hand in a gesture of peace. It also put her in the perfect position to stop an attack, should one of the creatures get trigger happy. She prayed that none of them would be able to sense her hold on the Force as she began weaving the strands of its music into hers, ready to use at a moment's notice.

"Why have you come here?"

This time, the question was hurled at her like an accusation. She saw the speaker taking a better grip on its rifle, training it on her chest.

"I have come only to seek deeper knowledge-"

"We permit none to walk this sacred ground," interrupted the creature. "Especially liars and thieves. Why have you really come?"

"I…" Rey started, then broke off with a sharp inhalation as the muscles in her stomach cramped. It was the same strong, uncomfortable tightening in her belly that had been plaguing her all day, but it always managed to catch her off guard. It was gone again a few seconds later, fading away until all that remained was a dull ache low in her back. Rey let out a small breath of relief, though the baby squirmed against her ribs as if unhappy, pressing outward with a heel. She heard its music humming quietly, a few notes of the light side mingling there. The strength of its song gave her a margin of comfort as well. Even with the darkness of Mustafar surrounding them, her child was still wrapped in the light.

The leader of the creatures fixed her in its gaze; the bright yellow of its mechanical eyes seeming to pierce her.

"You carry a child. One that will come very soon."

It was not a question, and so Rey did not answer. A low murmur of conversation rose from the cultists that crowded on either side of their leader; the voices almost shrill with excitement. Rey managed to catch snatches of what was being said, and she liked none of what she heard.

"…one as powerful as the one we await."

"It is said he will return one day…"

"The Dark Lord was never predictable. Even now he works in strange ways..."

"Why have you come here?" repeated the leader, but its voice was no longer angry. Rey could sense its curiosity and the eagerness it was trying so desperately to conceal. With only a moment's hesitation, she decided to tell the truth.

"I have come for the wayfinder that was hidden here by Darth Vader."

"And what claim do you have to it?" asked the creature, now wary and with the old anger beginning to creep back in.

"I have every claim," Rey said quietly, her hand resting against her stomach. "Not the least of which is that the child I carry is Vader's heir."

"And can you trace its lineage?"

"Its father is the Supreme Leader of this galaxy, Kylo Ren; the son of Leia Organa who in turn was daughter to your Dark Lord. I have bound myself to Kylo Ren and so I also lay that claim to the wayfinder. But I have one further claim to it. Vader's master, Darth Sidious himself, is my grandfather. The one who gave the wayfinder to Vader."

Rey heard Mela's sharp gasp from behind her and pain twisted in her heart. She hadn't told her friend, and now that the truth had finally been spoken aloud, every one of Rey's fears came rushing back in to scream in her mind. All she wanted was to turn and explain everything; to try to make the knight understand the shame and hatred she felt for everything her grandfather had done. But she forced herself to stare straight ahead at the threat before her.

The creatures were talking amongst themselves again, their leader in the midst. It seemed to be a long time before the strange being turned back to her and spoke.

"We will take you to the Oracle," it said. "It will know whether you speak the truth."

"Where is this Oracle?" Rey asked, a warning note from the Force tingling along her spine.

"You will see," said the creature. "Follow."

Rey glanced behind her to where the creatures had circled around behind the troopers, their weapons primed and buzzing with barely contained energy. She drew in a long breath, eyes traveling over the situation, looking for any way of escape. The nearest cultist brandished its blaster and Rey took an instinctive step backwards. The ring closed a little tighter, parting in one place so that she and the troopers were forced to move in that direction.

"Follow," the leader repeated, its voice taking on a harder edge.

Faced with no other alternative, Rey motioned the troopers forward. She could hear Mela striding along at her side, the shifting of the ash the only noise between them, but she didn't look at the knight. The cultists made no sound as they moved among the trees, not always visible in their gray robes, but ever present.

They traveled deeper into the forest of dead trees, the silence growing until it became oppressive. The ground began to slope under her feet, growing steeper with ever step she took. They traveled like that for many kilometers until the earth beneath her grew level again, the forest denser and darker around them. Ahead, Rey saw a strange mist hanging low over the gray earth, huddling in little hollows and obscuring the trees. It swirled in strange patterns with the breeze, shifting so that she thought she saw peculiar figures forming and then melting away in the next moment.

Their guide stopped and gestured with one hand, and Rey found her small platoon enclosed once more by the cultists. She froze as a cold hand gripped her arm and dragged her forward. Mela made a noise of protest and grabbed her from the other side, pulling her back. As she did, one of the cultists closed in, weapon leveled at the knight's chest, and shoved her backwards. Mela fell to the ground with a grunt, but was up again in a moment, her blond braid gray with ash and her hand already reaching for her saber. Before she could draw it, the leader of the cultists strode into the fray, the bright lenses of its eyes fixed on Rey.

"Your defenders may come no farther. We will lead you to the place of the Oracle. But only you."

"No," Mela said, and her warm hand closed again around Rey's arm. "She will not go alone."

As quickly as they had come, Rey's fears and doubts fell away to be replaced by a relief so deep that she nearly wept. It had been the greatest injustice she'd ever committed against her friend to assume that she would so easily abandon her. Mela was not those who had come before her. She was not Finn. She was not Poe. She was more than both, and Rey understood, for the first time, what it was to have a sister. And she would protect that as fiercely as she would protect Ben or her own child.

"I don't think we have a choice, Mela," Rey said, eyeing the weapons that had all been trained on the knight. "I'll be alright."

"Rey, you can't," Mela said, shaking her head. "It could be a trap. We can't trust these creatures."

"I know," Rey said. "But it's either trust them or be killed."

"We can fight our way out," Mela persisted.

"Not without casualties," Rey said. "If I can save the lives of you and Patch, and the others, I'm willing to take the risk."

Mela's face hardened with displeasure, but she made no further argument. Rey gave her a small smile of reassurance and took a step toward the cultists, her chin lifting and her expression going stern.

"I will follow," she said. "Lead me to this Oracle."

...

The Alazmec, as Rey soon learned they called themselves, led her deep into the mist. The circle of cultists had closed before and behind her as she'd left Mela and the troopers to cut off any chance she might have had to make a run for it. Her misgivings only deepened as they pressed onward, the warning from the Force ringing louder in her mind. Whatever was waiting for her ahead was dark and dangerous, though she could get no sense of what the Oracle might be.

The mist wrapped around her; hot, and thick and clinging in a way that reminded her of the suffocating embrace of the dark side. She felt droplets of water gathering on her lashes and dampening the cloth wrapped around her mouth and nose. There was the strong, sharp scent of sulfur that grew heavier with every step she took. Every breath became a struggle as her body tried to reject the foul air and her shoulders shook with the effort of trying to keep back a fit of coughing.

The sense of danger was greater here, growing with every step she took. And still the Alazmec did not stop. They hurried her along beside an oily little stream that oozed through its bed without a sound. Its waters were thick and gray, and they had the same sulfurous stink of the mist. They made Rey long for the chattering noise of the streams on Takodana, or the rush of Ahch-To's sea. She closed her eyes, trying to remember what it felt like to stand beneath the Millenium Falcon, her fingers wet with rain as she listened to the waves crash on the shore of that faraway planet. And Ben was there too, in that memory. It seemed so long ago. Another lifetime.

The Alazmec went on, following the small stream at their feet. Only when the ground grew soft and boggy, and Rey's boots sank into the earth, did they slow. There were more streams running over the ground nearby, trickling away to disappear into the mist and Rey traced them with her eyes, wondering where they were going.

She soon found out. Without warning, the Alazmec in front of her stopped and parted and Rey found herself standing on the shore of a lake. It lay before her feet, utterly flat and lifeless, steam rising from its dull surface. All around, some almost submerged in the lake, lay great black stones. Their edges glittered with a dark beauty and Rey found herself studying them. They were almost glass-like, the edges of the volcanic rock sharp enough to cut her if she had tried to touch them. But not all the edges looked worn in a natural way. They were too flat. Too well shaped.

Rey remembered what Luke had told her about Vader and the castle that he'd built on Mustafar and wondered suddenly if she was looking at the ruins of Vader's work. But her musings were interrupted by a shout from the leader of the Alazmec. His voice rose, and with it, the voices of his fellows.

"The Eye," they chanted over and over again. "The Eye. The Eye."

Rey recoiled in confusion and alarm as the water far out in the center of the lake began to froth and churn, great ripples rising and spreading wider and wider until they broke against the banks. Slowly, a great head rose from the depths, and Rey found herself staring into the face of a giant. Its eyes were closed, and she wondered how it knew where to look to find her until she saw the creature it carried. She sensed it before she saw the limp, tentacled thing that clung to the giant's head and shoulders like a spider.

The songs of the two creatures had been locked together in a twisted, perverse form of a bond. Rey could sense the control the spider-like creature wielded over the one that carried it, though there was a discordance too. The jarring dissonance of the giant's pain overwhelmed her, but she could tell from the way the songs were woven that it could not survive without the one it carried. Sadness and pity welled up in her, twining with a growing fear. There was a darkness here, more ancient than the darkness of Sidious, but still like to it in a way that made Rey uneasy.

A deep voice sounded in the quiet that had fallen over the Alazmec, and it took Rey an instant to realize that it was not the giant, but the other creature that had spoken.

"I am the Eye of Webbish Bog," it said, fixing her with its beady eyes. "I know what you seek, daughter of darkness."

The Alazmec made no move to answer, so Rey took a step forward despite her horror and disgust, speaking through lips that were so dry they cracked and bled.

"Then you know that the claims I make to it are true," she said, hating the words that lay foul in her mouth even before she spoke them. "I have come to reclaim my birthright and the birthright of my child."

"You have been seeking this thing for many months, have you not?" asked the Eye of Webbish Bog.

"Yes," Rey said, knowing it was pointless to lie.

"I see the path of your thoughts," said the Eye. "And you should know that my lord Vader would not have been moved by your plight, nor the plight of his grandson. Neither was he so careless as to entrust this thing you seek to one with such sentiments."

"Please," Rey started, "who did he entrust it-"

"And yet, I am inclined to let you take it," continued the Eye of Webbish Bog, something cunning in the voice. "I sense the stirring of the future. Perhaps the time is upon us. You walk a path with many branchings, daughter of darkness, under a shadow through which I cannot see."

"If you think that will dissuade me, you are no oracle," Rey said.

"And if you are not strong enough to overcome?"

"I have lived long enough in this galaxy to know that it will not be my strength that will do so."

"Very well," said the Eye, with a shrieking sort of laugh that raised the hair on Rey's neck. Under its direction, the giant raised an arm and pointed to something Rey couldn't quite see over the heads of the Alazmec.

Taking a step closer to the water, she saw an island she hadn't noticed before several hundred meters from the shore on which she stood. It was small and low and was crowned with a great slab of stone that resembled one of the many Sith altars Rey had seen during her search for the wayfinder. With one last, fleeting glance at the Eye of Webbish Bog, she took a deep breath and stepped into the water.

The mud beneath her feet was slippery and thick, threatening to pull her boots from her feet with each step. The leather of her boots managed to keep her dry for a time, but the heavy robe she wore about her shoulders grew heavier and heavier with water, pulling her off balance. Rey stripped out of it, leaving it to sink beneath the surface as she slogged on, freer to move in just her tunic and breeches.

She was halfway to her goal when she heard the voices behind her.

"And what of our hopes, oh great Oracle?" she heard one of the Alazmec ask, and knew from the low, grinding tone that it was the leader. "Has the time that we have prayed for come at last?"

Dread twisted in her chest, though she didn't know why, and she froze, waiting for the answer.

"The child will certainly come soon," came the reply. "I have seen this much at least, though things beyond its arrival are not written in stone. It is already powerful, strong in much the same way as Lord Vader was strong. Given the right path…perhaps even Lord Vader reborn."

Rey fought down the cry of protest that rose in her throat as she staggered again toward the island. She hated the words of the Oracle. Hated the way they felt like a promise, not just a possibility. Water began to run into her boots, burning her skin and soaking her breeches, but Rey hardly noticed it. She scrambled out onto the bank, grief and fear driving her towards the stone at the island's center.

The closer she came to the altar, the more she felt herself being drawn. Something dark and cold called out to her, the rumble of its music catching the edge of hers and pulling at it. She recognized a tendril of the dark side, but nevertheless allowed it to lead her onward. The light side still clung to her; a thread of a bright melody to guide her back to the Rey she'd chosen to become. She had to return to that Rey or lose herself forever. But she trusted her fragile tether. There was no room for doubt here, on this dark planet where it would be so easy to stumble and fall. The light side had not failed her before. It would not fail her now.

Her fingers tingled as she pressed them against the altar, and the dark side roared up to thunder in her ears. She pushed past it, concentrating on the melody of the light side even as she braced herself against the blood-stained stone and shoved. A thick piece of the altar slid from the top to reveal a hidden chamber beneath. Nestled in a hollow carved to fit it was the little device for which she had spent so much time searching. She hesitated, though the pull of it dragged against her, urging her to pick it up. After so many months, it seemed too easy to simply reach out and take it.

The Eye of Webbish Bog had said that Vader wouldn't have been moved by her circumstances, or the danger her child was in. It had all but outright said that it shouldn't let her take it. So why had it? Did it have something to do with the path of which it had spoken? Rey's fingers hovered over the wayfinder, her doubt and desperation growing. If she did not take it, an enemy might, or even Sidious himself. If she did take it, it could put her child at risk, or set a series of events into motion that would cause it to fall into darkness.

Without knowing she'd made up her mind, Rey reached into the altar and drew out the wayfinder. She studied it closely, marveling at the intricacies of it. Its sides were a glossy green, transparent so that Rey could see lights moving somewhere deep inside it. There were etchings on the surface of the wayfinder, more crudely cut than those of the holocron, but still discernible as star charts. The longer Rey looked at it, the more she understood. The wayfinder could indeed guide her to Exegol.

Rey closed her fingers around the device, holding it up to catch the dim light of Mustafar's sun. A new determination coursed in her veins as she felt her child stirring again. She had come this far, and though there was still a long way to go, hope crept in. Sidious was within reach. Together, she and Ben would strike him down and save their child, freeing themselves and the galaxy of a tyrant.

She would not let the Oracle's words come to pass.

Rey tucked the wayfinder into her pack and slung it over her shoulders, turning to go back the way she'd come. To her surprise, the far shore was empty. The Eye of Webbish Bog had vanished, along with the Alazmec. There was no sign of them; not even a ripple in the lake to show where the Eye had passed.

She paused on the edge of the lake, glancing about her for threats before plunging in again, wincing at the pain in her feet and legs where the water burnt her. The second crossing was as difficult as the first, but at last, Rey found herself on solid ground.

She took only a moment to rest, then set off through the trees, following the sound of Mela's faraway music like a guiding beacon. The light of day was fading, though the low hanging clouds still glowed with an eerie red reflection of the distant lava flows, casting faint shadows over the ground. The dark unsettled Rey, and she began to walk faster, drawing her saber from her belt. The ground began to rise under her feet and Rey recognized a long hill she had descended with the Alazmec. She struggled onward, her sodden boots and breeches now coated in so much ash that they were the same color as those worn by the Alazmec. Her throat was so dry that she could hardly swallow, but she refused to stop to fish the canteen out of her pack; her desperation to get back to her friends greater than her thirst.

Rey had just scrambled over a fallen tree when she sensed it. The dull pain in her back was growing worse, curling around her torso to knot her stomach in the same uncomfortable tightness she had been feeling for the last few months. She stopped in her tracks, one hand darting out to catch hold of the charred trunk of one of the trees. Her fingernails dug into the surface as the sensation grew stronger, until it was no longer just discomfort, but pain that locked the muscles of her back and stomach. Rey closed her eyes and leaned hard against the tree, waiting for it to go away. After several long seconds, it did, and she managed to straighten, her thoughts whirling.

She had to get back to her friends.

The mist grew gradually thinner, and the heat of it on her skin lessened as Rey crossed the ground she'd already traveled, following the trail of footsteps she and the Alazmec had made in their passing. She stumbled out of the vapor and into the middle of the group of troopers, causing several to start to their feet with cries of alarm. Mela caught her by the shoulders, forcing her to stand straight as she peered into her face.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "Were you hurt?"

"I'm fine," Rey said, glancing over her shoulder toward the mist. "I found it. I've got the wayfinder."

"Then let's get out of here," Mela said, signaling to the trooper commander.

They were on their feet and marching back along their trail towards the transport in minutes, blasters held at the ready. Rey struggled along behind, her back and legs aching and her mind spinning with her anxiety. The memory of the pain frightened her, threatening to unbalance something deep in the core of her being. Something was wrong, she knew that much for certain, but she didn't know how to fix it. Time was ticking on, and she could no more control it than she could control the rotation of the planet on which she stood. The words of the Eye of Webbish Bog whispered again in her ears to taunt her.

Paths. Too many paths to see. How could she know which one she walked?

Rey shivered, dread turning her cold even in the sweltering heat of Mustafar. Her fingers went a little tighter around her saber and she settled her pack higher on her shoulders, fixing her eyes on the ground before her, and trying to ignore the pain knotted in the muscles of her belly. Her jaw clenched tighter and tighter as she forced herself onward; her thoughts bent on reaching the ship. If she could just get back to the ship and rest, everything would be alright.

The baby stirred again, and Rey heard its music rising and falling in the familiar sweet melody she'd grown to know as well as her own. But the sound of it didn't bring the same comfort that it always had before. This time, it brought terror.

Rey felt herself beginning to shiver uncontrollably; the icy hands of her fear plucking at the darkness inside her, trying to draw it to the surface. She needed to get off this wretched planet. She needed to go home. She needed Ben. Her back spasmed and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out as she staggered forward, her thoughts screaming at her to accept what she refused to acknowledge.

She was nearly out of time.