"Owen, stop the cart!"

Owen didn't waste time questioning her order; he brought their little mule to a halt as quickly as possible, spurred on by the shock and urgency in her voice. He glanced to the side, where his wife was sitting, and found her already out of her seat—clambering down the side of the rocky mountain pass like a woman possessed.

"Beru?" he called after her, alarmed. "Beru!"

Beru ignored him, still wending her way down the steep side like a mountain goat. Her feet were not as deft as they used to be, but they found their places, and climbed easily enough to the soft hollow where she'd caught a glimpse of one of the strangest things she'd ever seen.

A teenage boy, naked as the day he'd been born, lying freezing and unconscious in a bed of chilly grass.

She kept her gaze high so as not to offend herself and his dignity, but she took note of the slices and scratches all down his arms and torso; some of them looking to have come from the gorse, some of them cleaner and longer, like a blade had made them. Even beyond that, his torso was puckered with starbursts of scar tissue, and—most notably—a big black handprint over his chest. Ash and soot showered around him, and he sneezed in his shivering sleep.

This stank of magic.

Not necessarily the sort of magic Shmi used to practice—though she knew well that that had been dangerous too—so certainly something to be wary of. She didn't want the war to reach her tiny corner of the mountains, and interrupt the scarce peace they'd gathered together in their grief.

But she wanted this poor boy, whether he was a necromancer or not, to freeze to death even less.

"Owen, there's a boy here!" she called up. "Come and help me take him home: he's injured and he'll die if we don't!"

Her husband replied with a good-natured grumbled, but immediately climbed down to help her. She'd married a good man.

"Oh!" she added, eyeing the boy's unclothed state with a grimace. "And make sure you bring a blanket!"

Luke stirred into consciousness feeling strangely warm, scratchy cloth shifting across his skin, sweat clinging to him, but… clean, in and around his head.

He peeled his eyes open to stare at the ceiling of a rustic log cabin, the walls warmed with furs.

For a moment he just lay there, drunk on warmth and the sensation of actually being clean, the tense, hunted core of him relaxing painfully at the kindness someone must have shown. He didn't remember how he'd got here—for one panicked moment, he wondered if he couldn't remember anything, again, but then he realised that he remembered that he didn't remember, and remembered the despair that came of not remembering, and remembered…

His head spun, but he remembered the Naberries, and the stupid letter-opener he'd stolen from them. He remembered his attacker, and the skeletons thrust from the ground to defend him. He remembered those two men, Veers and Piett, and the harsh, guttural language they'd spoken to him, that seemed to chime a chord in his soul and rake itself along the back of his mind with familiarity.

He tried to think about it—tried to remember more—but even as he tried to call the language to his tongue again, even as he focused on the swimming memory of Piett's face, and saw… something, some wry look given to him and an orange glow reflecting off his face… there was a white, piercing light.

He shot up in bed and screamed with pain.

There was the sound of a shout, a thud, and then running footsteps but he ignored them, clutching his temple, wanting the agony to cease wanting it to go away because it hurt so much it hurt so much even when his eyes flew open all he saw was red and amber light and all he heard was hauntingly familiar chuckles that scratched at his ears—

"Son? Are you alright?"

Then there were coarse hands on his, unknotting them from the bedsheets, and he sucked in several agonising breaths.

He hadn't realised that he'd stopped breathing.

He pressed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again his vision was eclipsed by a decidedly unfamiliar woman's face, lined in age, hardship and kindness, her eyes concerned. It was dim in the room, lit by soft light seeping in through thick, closed curtains, and he… let himself relax again, sinking back against the pillows.

"Where am I?" he asked her softly, his voice hoarse, and his cognizance seemed to reassure her, as she sat back in the chair beside the bed. "Who… who are you? How did I get here?"

"My name is Beru Whitesun Lars," she said gently. "And you're in the Necromountains."

The Necromountains. Jobal had mentioned those—Naboo had been in the foothills of them. They were… cursed?

Luke blinked. "W… where in the mountains?" Naboo had been in the foothills—how had he got all the way up here? Why didn't he remember it?

"The northern stretch. We're a long way from anywhere up here, but the closest significant kingdom is Alderaan."

"How…" He swallowed his tongue. "How far are we from Naboo?"

Beru frowned. "Naboo?" Luke nodded. "A good few days—or weeks—by cart, son. Maybe faster if you're on one of them military horses, but—"

"I was there. Just now. The last thing I remember… I was in Theed." Getting cornered by some creeps who refused to explain themselves.

"My husband and I found you on the side of the ridge when we were on our way back from market. You were unconscious, shivering, covered in ash, and…" The corners of her lips turned up, even as she turned away to allow him some dignity as she said, "Buck naked."

He flushed crimson. "I—"

"Don't worry, Owen lent you some clothes. Those pyjamas you're wearing are probably a tad too big, but they're warm."

Luke tried not to think about the idea of these kind strangers dressing him, as much as he appreciated their generosity.

It didn't matter: he was swiftly distracted by a far more disturbing thought. "You… you probably saw, then…" He rubbed his chest.

She got his meaning. "I did. I don't know what the brand means—do you?"

He shook his head. "I— I swear I don't mean any harm, or anything, I don't know what's going on, but if you want me to leave—"

"You don't have to leave." He let out a sigh. "Plenty of magical folk in these parts—these are the parts magic originated from. Strange occurrences are what we're used to, in life and in death."

He wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean.

She noticed his continued hesitancy and softened. "My stepmother was a sorceress," she said. "Specialised in the school of healing magic. Well—Owen's stepmother, but she made sure I knew I could call her that as well. Whatever that mark means, don't you worry about standing out."

He bowed his head. He didn't realise how relieved he was until he noticed he was shaking.

"Thank you," he whispered. "You… didn't have to do this. You could have left me."

"I don't know who you are, or where you came from, son," she told him sternly, "but under no circumstances could I have left you to freeze to death out there."

He let out a breath. "I don't know either," he admitted.

"Hm?"

"I don't know who I am. I… can't remember anything. Other than that brief stint in Naboo." He laughed bitterly. "I woke up covered in ashes there, too."

"Well, it sounds like you've had a traumatic time," Beru said. "I've left some clothes on the chair for you"—she pointed—"so would you like to get yourself dressed, if you can, then come and tell us all about it, and warm yourself up with some food? My husband's making his famous mutton stew."

"Famous?"

"At least in our family." Her eyes twinkled. "And now with you."

He laughed. "That sounds…" He swallowed, his throat dry as parchment. "Wonderful."

The clothes they'd left him were heavy, warm and scratchy. He was glad that the numerous cuts and scrapes on his arms seemed to have been cleaned and treated, and were now largely healed, or it could have aggravated them quite a bit; as it was, he just felt like an overloaded hatstand as he staggered out of the room with the heavy woollen jacket, and the leather slippers he slipped onto his feet, catching himself against the doorframe.

Beru hadn't been joking when she called the stew famous—he could smell it before he even entered the kitchen, and it made his stomach growl.

Beru's husband—Owen—was a middle-aged man with the same lines in his face as her, with hands browned and weathered by work and motions that betrayed that he'd done this a thousand times before, and would do it a thousand times again. He gave Luke a gruff nod as he entered, gesturing to the rickety kitchen table, and Luke sidled into the designated seat, suddenly feeling very much like a burden.

Owen plopped a pot of stew on the table and Beru scooped it into a bowl immediately, setting it down in front of him.

"I hope you enjoy," she said warmly. Owen tried to smile reassuringly; it came off as more awkward than natural, but the attempt warmed Luke even more than the stew did when he ate it.

"Thank you," he said shyly. "It's… really nice." He could feel their eyes on him, and was suddenly terrified—he didn't want them to reject him, or ignore him, but he didn't want them to look at him so closely.

"You're welcome, son," Owen said.

"I'm Luke, by the way," he offered, absently stirring the stew in his bowl. His eyes couldn't quite meet Owen or Beru's so he shifted them along the shelves of their kitchen, instead. Most of them were laden with ingredients and utensils, but his eyes alighted on some black and white family photos. He bit his tongue: those were expensive, and rare; he wondered how two modest farmers had got them.

He continued, "I… don't remember anything else, from before. But I remember my mother's face, and she was calling me Lu—"

His eyes alighted on one of the photos in detail and he dropped the spoon.

"S— Luke?" Owen asked. "Are you—"

Luke was on his feet in a moment, staring at the row of photos. "Where… where did you get these?"

"Those?" Beru laughed lightly and pushed herself to her feet, coming over to join them. "That dark-haired older woman was my stepmother, the healer sorceress I was telling you about. The other photo, with the blond man and the brown-haired woman, are of her son and his partner. Padmé only came to visit once, when Shmi was dying from the necroplague and Anakin needed someone to accompany him, but she brought one of those new-fangled cameras so we could remember her by."

Now that Luke looked at it, the older woman—Shmi—did look sickly, though she smiled radiantly for the camera, in her grey nightgown. But he shifted his gaze back to the couple, back to— to Padmé—

"I said that all I can remember is my mother's face," he said quietly. He jabbed his finger at it. "That's her."

Beru's mouth dropped open. "Padmé?"

"I… yes." Luke shifted. He— he didn't want to barge into their lives, upset everything, and he didn't want to presume any of this was of any importance to them but… "That's definitely her."

And…

So…

That could' mean…

He turned his gaze to the rest of the image. To… the blond man standing beside her. His face seemed far too strong to bear any resemblance to Luke's, but the hair… the eyes… the cleft chin… they fit.

"Is that…" He didn't dare to ask.

Owen said, his voice a little thick, "You're Anakin's kid?"

"I… guess?" He stared at them. "I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't mean to spring this on you—"

"Luke, this is getting sprung on you just as much." Beru put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure that's your mother, right there?"

Luke looked at her again.

That was definitely the woman who'd called to him—she hadn't aged a day.

And even if that didn't necessarily mean he was related to her, he did look quite a bit like her husband…

"Yes," he said quietly. "I'm positive."

"Then at least we know why you're connected to magic!" She patted him on the shoulder. "Come sit down. You look like one more bombshell is going to blow you over."

Luke, totally out of the blue, flinched so hard he did fall over.

"Oh, dear." She helped him up and guided him to his seat. "Eat."

He ate dutifully.

"What do you mean," he asked between bites, "about the magic?" He tried to scoop stew into his mouth again, failed to scoop any up three times, rubbed his right wrist, then tried again.

"Well, your grandmother was a sorceress," she said easily. "Shmi Skywalker—she specialised in healing, as I told you, and had a tidy business treating travellers. Your father…"

Owen grunted.

Beru grimaced. "He became a necromancer after she died. Tried to bring her back… it never worked. Death is strange here… Enough magic in the mountain soil that no one moves on, no one finds peace, but sometimes it's hard to bring people back, too." She took another spoonful of stew. "In this case, it was probably because she died of the necroplague—that's a disease caused and spread by necromancy itself, something about too much dead flesh going around, and there's an epidemic of it whenever the war spikes." She shook her head. "But he was a skilled necromancer by the time he was done, nonetheless."

How is it that you understand Death Speech?

Luke rubbed his chest. "I think I might have been a sorcerer," he said. "Before."

They exchanged a look and nodded. "It makes sense; it's in your blood. Do you think you had specialised before you died?"

"I… don't know." If he had, surely everything would be easier? Or was this terrifying instinct easy? "But if I did choose, I… think I was a necromancer. Or I was working to be a necromancer. I think."

Beru didn't look surprised. "What makes you say that?"

He hesitated. "I…"

"You're safe here, son," Owen said. "You're our nephew."

Nephew.

Nephew… meant… family.

Something inside him eased painfully.

So he set down his spoon, and described what had happened to him—from waking up in Naboo to the Naberries to the soldier to Piett and Veers. They listened closely the whole time, and did not interrupt him when he faltered.

"Do you have any ideas about what happened to you?" Owen asked shrewdly.

"I… I do." Luke looked at his hands.

They waited patiently.

He said, "My mother. Padmé. She's dead, isn't she?"

"Yes. As is your father. We thought they'd died childless, but there were never any clear details—it makes sense that someone may have taken you and raised you themselves. Especially with the talent your father had; you were probably a very talented sorcerer."

Luke didn't respond to that. He didn't know how.

So he just said, "I remember my mother."

They nodded, waiting for him to continue.

And eventually, he found the breath and life to whisper, "I think I was dead."

Beru reached out to put a hand on his right, clenched fist. "I… I think that is what the deathmark on your chest means. Yes."

He bowed his head.

How—

He closed his eyes, and a tear trailed down his cheek, his nose. It dripped down into his soup.

How was he supposed to deal with this?

"Why?" he croaked. "I'm… I don't know how old I am, but I'm not old! Why did I die?"

"These mountains are wracked by war. Most people die young." Owen wore a deep scowl as he said that, and Luke wondered who he was angry at; he didn't think it was him.

"And judging by those scars I saw." Beru grimaced. "I used to help Shmi with her healer's work. Those looked like shrapnel scars."

It took a moment for that to sink in.

Shrapnel scars. He had been killed by a bomb.

Why?

Where?

He had been the target?

Or had he been an innocent bystander?

And… if he was the target…

"Then…" He took a shuddering breath. "Why did someone bring me back?"

"Perhaps they cared about you," Beru offered. "They didn't want to see you dead, and since they had the power—"

"Or they knew you had the power, and wanted to resurrect you for their own gain, knowing that you'd be vulnerable and amnesiac when you were brought back," Owen countered.

Luke flinched. Beru glared. Owen met her look levelly. "There's a whole war out there. If Luke can summon skeletons to kill a man without even remembering what he was doing, then clearly he's been trained for it, and trained well. Whoever he was fighting for—and both the Undying Empire and that damn warlord use necromancy—he would have been a good asset. Probably not one they wanted to lose."

Luke swallowed, and looked down at his table.

"And not one that the enemy was going to pass up the chance to gain."

"But if I was that valuable," Luke said. "Why did I wake up alone? Why has no one come forward to— to, I don't know, claim me?"

"I don't know magic," Owen said, at the same time that Beru said, "I don't know."

After several minutes of painfully awkward silence, Owen said, "Ma left some of her books behind. About healing magic, mainly, but there was the one she used to teach her son the basics of a bunch of disciplines… Those might help you learn something."

He jerked his head up. "Really?" He still remembered the feeling—of holding life in one hand and death in the other—he'd had, and… it had been powerful.

Heady.

Addictive, even.

If he'd been a necromancer before, he wanted to find his way back to that. If he'd been any sort of sorcerer, no matter his specialty, he wanted to find his way back to that.

So he nodded, slowly, then smiled. After a moment, Owen smiled back.

"You… can stay here as long as you want, son," he said, as gruffly as he had before, "or, nephew. You can stay. This can be home, until you find your true home."

He exchanged a glance with Beru, who was slightly misty-eyed, then reached out and intertwined their hands, looking at him tenderly.

"We'll be happy to have you—and your grandmother, may Death guard her soul, will be happy to know you're safe."

A fanfare of trumpets heralded the warlord's arrival before Piett was even out of his tent. He threw on his leather jerkin and buckled his rapier at his side, hurrying out to meet him at the entrance, standing neatly to attention. Vader brought his massive warhorse to a halt right in front of him.

There was a moment of awed silence as he reached up, removed his intricate battle helmet, then looked down impatiently.

"Report, General," he ordered. "Why did you summon me here so urgently?"

Vader's eyes were acidic gold; Piett winced. That was never a good sign. His face was ashen, even under his great patchy burn scar, his mouth warped into a permanent sort of hardness.

Vader usually only looked like that when… well, when dealing with the unpleasantries of war. They'd won Naboo, been defending it well for weeks now.

He wondered what had happened since they last saw each other.

"I… apologise for the cryptic summons, my lord," he said. He couldn't meet his eyes; he focused on his armour instead, following the bronze embellishments against the black with his gaze. "But this was a matter of some import."

"My current task was a matter of some import," Vader bit back, but dismounted from his warhorse. "Do not waste my time. Is there an issue with the security of Naboo? Palpatine withdrew his forces after the battle—"

"It is not about the security of Naboo." Piett glanced around. "I believe we should discuss this in the tent, my lord."

Lord Vader frowned—but he understood Piett's implication. Whether or not he trusted the army—most of them soldiers fighting against the Empire which had killed them—some things were better left said in private.

Piett tilted his head up to meet Vader's eye as Vader said, "Very well, General. Lead the way."

The war tent was empty, of course, with all of his men having aligned themselves to great Lord Vader, so they strode in with ease, and stood around the map laid out on the table. There were two: a larger one, depicting the whole Necromountain range where they were conducting war, and a smaller one atop it, showing just the foothills of Naboo and the areas where they were setting up their patrols and defences.

Vader ran a gaze over the markings on the map. "Everything seems to be in order."

"It is not that, my lord."

Vader snapped his gaze back up to Piett, surprised at the use of Death Speech. "Then what is it?"

"I saw the Prince while patrolling Theed."

That shocked Vader even more than the Death Speech. He lifted his hand from where it had been trailing the map, clenched his fist… leaned on it, against the table. The sleeve of his smart black jacket rode up to bare his wrist, and the long bracelet of bones wrapped once, twice, thrice around it.

"What."

"I saw the Prince. He was fresh from a fight—the former captain of Palpatine's guard had snuck into the town dressed as one of our soldiers and attacked him—and seemed terrified. He did not recognise either of us."

"Vassic has been disgraced since he lost him, I have no interest in his movements. But the Prince," Vader insisted, and Piett ignored the way his voice seemed to break, even as his fingers went to play with the bone bracelet, "is dead."

"I saw him here with my own two eyes. Veers did too."

"And I saw him dead with my own two eyes," Vader snarled right back. "The resurrection failed."

Piett tried not to lose his nerve. "I was under the impression, sir, that resurrections are… tricky. Are… dusting… and amnesia not known side effects?"

"They are extremely rare side effects. The resurrection of the Prince failed in the way fifty percent of all necromantic efforts fail, and I tried checking if it was simply a matter of dusting when it first failed. If you mean to imply that both amnesia and dusting occurred, the odds of that would be… astronomical. Unbelievable."

"But still possible."

"I did not take you for a cruel man, Piett," Vader accused, and Piett found himself unexpectedly emotional about this whole situation.

"I am not intending to be, sir," he replied gently, "but I am sure in what I saw. It was the Prince, and he had a deathmark."

Vader's hand dropped from the bone bracelet at his wrist, then, and reached up to pass over his face. For an instant, there was devastating hope in his eyes, then it was gone.

"If what you say is true, and I will be confirming it," he warned, "then this changes everything. We must retrieve him before Palpatine gets his hands on him again—I will not have him claim my son for a second time. The first lasted far, far too long as it was."

"The Emperor would sooner see him dead than returned to you."

"He has made that abundantly clear." The hatred in Vader's voice could not be described. "Where has the Prince gone? Where did he flee? If you do not have him secured here, I assume he evaded you." The hatred shifted to fondness, now, and Piett relaxed.

"He… dusted, again," he admitted.

Vader glared. "You frightened him."

"We were trying to calm him down, but he was too worked up already."

"If he dusted," Vader spat, "then he may already be dead again."

Piett took a deep breath, though it wasn't needed. It rattled through his undead ribcage and lungs; his own deathmark seemed to burn on his chest for a moment.

"There is nothing certain in any of this, my lord. But there is only one way to find out." The same way he'd contacted Vader so quickly and easily. "And there is only one way to find him."

Vader glared for a moment, tightened his fists… then turned away, closed his eyes, and focused.

It had been a peaceful few days in the mountain peaks. Owen took him to help with the sheep and goats in the mornings and afternoons, and in the evening he perused Shmi Skywalker's old books, struggling through the difficult script, getting up to help either Beru or Owen with the cooking if needed.

Some of the familiarities of magic were leaping back to mind. Sparks tingled under his fingers as he started a fire—occasionally singeing the kitchen table, but he apologised profusely—and he could cobble together water from a blade of grass, a gust of wind and a wave of his hand. It was useful for cooking, he found; he stood in the kitchen with Aunt Beru or Uncle Owen, whoever's turn it was, and helped light the stove or summon water for cleaning.

The history and theory were denser. Magic was native to the mountains, and spread to the rest of the world through travellers and their descendants, but the knot of scholarship about where it came from or why it came up was dizzying. And he didn't particularly care if it either rose because local kingdoms were tearing each other apart, or if local kingdoms tore each other apart because it rose.

Either way, Jobal Naberrie hadn't been wrong when she said the Necromountains were cursed. Blood, bones and other remnants of bodies littered the topsoil of every land, apparently, and souls always lingered long after death.

But he didn't dwell on that. Not for a few days. After those few days reacquainting himself with the basics, he opened the chapter on necromancy.

Its illustrations would have perhaps been unnerving to anyone else—Aunt Beru had certainly shooed him out of her kitchen the moment he sat down at the lunch table with it open to an image of half a dead body bleeding out—but he didn't find them that bad. They were just images, and if he'd apparently literally worked with what they depicted before, it checked out that he'd have a stronger stomach.

He glanced at the great, embellished motto on the first page. A warning, or a guide; he wasn't sure.

No Solution to Death is permanent. Nothing lasts forever; Nothing lives without decay. Death is the Necromancer's old Friend. To spurn Death too many times is to make them your Enemy.

He didn't know what that meant, besides vague veracities that he didn't understand, and just kept reading.

He was tracing the basic rules of necromancy, written in a curling script and annotated with various messages about don't you dare try this, Ani in Shmi's cramped handwriting, when the voice speared through his head.

Luke.

Luke?

Luke!

He screamed and slammed the book shut, like that was the thing speaking to him.

Beru dropped the bowl she was stirring onto the counter and ran over. "Luke!?"

The voice came back, more eager now. Luke!? Are you—

Who—?

What—?

How—?

The thoughts blasted in his head, blasted back at the voice, and he thought he heard more contriteness in the next, You need to listen to me—

WHAT IS THIS!?

His shout seemed to have deafened the voice momentarily, but then there came a new voice—one slower than the other, gentle but inquisitive, Luke?

He turned to that one. Who is this? Who are you?

You don't remember me?

Evidently not!

A pause. The other voice was still trying to talk to him, but locking himself in this conversation seemed to make him unreachable, so Luke did. I am the Queen Leia Organa of Alderaan.

Luke blinked.

Blinked again.

Stared down at the book in his hands—the book that had belonged to his grandmother, a simple farmer and sorceress.

While he…

He…

I'm friends with a queen? he asked. How— what!?

You remember nothing?

No! I— I'm dead, apparently!

Leia seemed to realise something was wrong, then, because she said, You were resurrected too? You're undead, now?

Apparently!

She scoffed. That explains what I felt… Never mind. To answer your question: we know each other because before you died, you— you helped me. A lot, and I'm forever grateful. That's why our minds are bridged like this.

That… was a lot to take in.

The implications of that was a lot to take in—not to mention the question of who, therefore, was the other person contacting him like this.

I don't understand this, he said. I don't remember you. I don't remember anything.

I know, Leia said. Amnesia is a side effect of resurrection, sometimes. But come meet me in Alderaan. I promise I will help you however I can. I will tell you everything I know.

He wanted to cry from relief.

Someone knew him, before! Someone wanted to help him!

I'll be there, he promised, then the connection was cut, and he was finally left in the silence of his own head.

Lord Vader's eyes flew open, and this time they were blue.

"He lives," he said—half to himself. He repeated it in Common, awed and agonising on his tongue: "He lives."

Then he snapped his gaze to Piett and smacked his hand down on the table. "He is near the peak of the mountain Anchor, in the north. Likely…" He faltered. "Likely near a place I used to know."

Piett already knew exactly which command to expect next.

"Find him."

"Luke, you heard a voice in your head?"

"I heard two!"

Owen and Beru stopped what they were doing, in the door to the kitchen and at the sink, and exchanged a look. "Son, that's not better."

"She introduced herself," Luke insisted. "She's Queen Leia Organa—"

"Of Alderaan!?"

"Yes! And she said we knew each other beforehand—"

"You were fraternising with queens?"

"—and she's offered to help me remember." He stopped his ramble and took a deep breath.

He suddenly felt very awkward.

"You've already done so much for me," he said, picking at the warm, woollen jacket he was wearing even at that moment. "I don't want to ask more. But I really need to get to Alderaan to talk to her, and—"

"I can take you, Luke."

He blinked.

So did Owen. He shifted where he stood, folding his arms, and said, "Queens promising help to poor undead farm boys after talking to them for a few moments sounds pretty sketchy to me. Especially that queen."

Beru shushed him with a look and a wave of her hand. "Alderaan isn't too far from the village we go to for market anyway; I can easily take you farther, to the city gates. It will be no trouble."

Owen's eyes went wider; he clenched his jaw. "But…" he urged.

Beru sighed. "But. Alderaan…"

Luke frowned, leaning forwards a little to rest his elbows on the kitchen table. "What's wrong with Alderaan?"

"It's one of the most beautiful kingdoms in the Necromountains," Beru said. "A beautiful city-state, surrounded by beautiful lands. But, a few years ago… the war reached its gates."

Silence fell, so Luke prompted, "And?"

It was Owen who said, "And there's a reason it's now nicknamed the Kingdom of the Dead."