This chapter involves violence as Rey and Kylo Ren fight Emperor Palpatine. The emperor also uses emotional manipulation as he tries to convince Rey to side with him and kill Kylo Ren. If you want to avoid this content, please skip the section that starts with "his assault" and ends with "minutes pass."
The same magic that healed Rey betrays her as it allows Kylo to slip her into the Imperial Palace undetected, muffling their movements and gagging her mouth. As they ride past the gatehouse, left unguarded at this time of night, she regains a groggy consciousness. Kylo helps her from her mount and steers her deeper into the compound, keeping a close grip on her arm all the while. Although he clasps her tight, Rey knows she still stands a chance if she can wriggle free and weaponize her knowledge of the palace's winding corridors like Kylo weaponizes his magic. So she lets him lead her without protest, biding her time until she can flee through twisting tunnels which he won't be able to navigate as fast as her.
Her plan banks on the palace feeling foreign under Kylo's feet, but he barely pauses as the hallway splits, then splits again. At each fork, he chooses the most efficient path to reach her grandfather's study. The closer they draw, the more Rey's stomach churns. She can't be caught here, not when the emperor demands her fealty, body and soul. She's fought too far, ridden too many miles to be shackled to a hopeless future in the name of family.
When they reach the great hall, Rey breaks from Kylo's grip, sprinting down a servant's passage that leads to the kitchen. Footsteps ring down the hallway in distant pursuit, but she can't slow. Not when he's broken his promise and led her here to wither.
He gains on her—she hears him coming, her stride only covers so much ground—and he sends a lazy red spark whistling past her ear. It explodes in a roaring blaze that seals off the rest of the passage in flames and sends Rey flying.
It's humiliating, the hot tears that spring to her eyes as she scrambles to her feet. Far more humiliating, however, is the way Kylo slows as he approaches, tracking her frantic gaze which darts between him and the fire. Before she can make another abrupt move, he closes the gap between them and dissolves her world into darkness with one flick of his hand. As she stumbles into nothingness, sturdy gloved hands catch her and press her close to his chest.
Rey wakes to the stench of rotted plums and dusty tomes in her grandfather's study with two monsters peering over her. Sir Kylo looms over the leather chair she's draped in, his helmet at his side. Across the desk, Emperor Palpatine thanks him for hauling the princess back to the palace.
"You've done well, Ben Solo." His rasp has grown worse, but the deadly calm is still the same. "Perhaps you'll be of more use to me than your grandfather was. I see you still wear his armor."
Groggy and furious, Rey doesn't know where to focus: on her grandfather's glee, on Kylo's clenched fists and tightening scowl, on Sir Vader's armor, worn like a brand and carried like a curse. Then it hits her in full force, knocking her breath from her lungs.
"Ben Solo?" Rey blurts, stupid enough to open her mouth and stupider still to glance Kylo's way as if seeking some sort of confirmation. It gets her grandfather cackling, a phlegmy chortle which ends with him hacking up enough blood to stain his plum robe's sleeve.
"The boy didn't tell you?" Her grandfather's glee nauseates her, but she refuses to give him more satisfaction by letting it show. "His mother was hidden from me for a time on Chandrila, as if distance could break Vader's vow. She married the heir to the Chandrilan throne, a playboy prince known for dabbling in spice instead of running the empire. And this little… princeling was born."
Kylo's scowl could light the whole kriffing room on fire, but his eyes are desperate, flickering over Rey as he watches the truth reduce her to ash. Rey can't meet his gaze, can't send him reassurances while betrayal picks her bones clean and grinds her hope to sand. Her grandfather sees it all and smiles.
"Prince Solo could have made a powerful ally." Though his eyes are failing, they pick out Rey's weakness, the full range of her confusion. "Perhaps with time, we could have brokered a marriage between you two since you loathe Lord Hux so. Just think of it, the heirs to the two biggest continents in the world, the spawn of two powerful Force users, united in marriage. Think of the power that could've been yours. A pity Solo turned on his vows to me, just like his grandfather."
"My grandfather was not yours to own," Kylo says, cold and collected like he's demanding another bed at the inn. "Nor is Rey." The emperor simply sneers.
In the end, Kylo's knuckles betray him. Pallid, with taut skin and the rage of three generations powering their swing, they leap from the hilt of his sword and connect squarely with Palpatine's jaw. The emperor stumbles back, spitting blood. It disappears into the wine-colored carpet, followed by flickers of red, raw power streaming from Kylo's fingers that he directs at the spluttering shell of a man across the room.
His assault is short-lived. When Palpatine straightens, he fells Kylo with a squeeze of his empty hand. No sparking magic, no swords or shields. Rey watches in horror as Kylo sinks to his knees clutching his throat and screams as Palpatine draws on the Force to fling the knight's thrashing body atop the desk.
"Sir Vader was nothing without me!" Blue lightning arcs through Kylo's limp body. "And now you dare betray me, traitor's blood flowing through your veins." The lightning pierces Kylo's skin and crimson blood oozes from the wound, a sick imitation of the life force that generates his powers. From across the room, Rey yells, but her grandfather only cackles.
"He's weak like his mother." The emperor directs the conversation at Rey, casually as if they were feasting on honey cakes and sparklemint instead of watching a man die sprawled across a kriin-wood desk. "Their screams are the same."
Howling furiously, Kylo heaves himself upright, only to fall under the emperor's hand, this time a physical blow powered by inhuman strength that cracks Kylo's head against the desk. Once he doesn't move, the emperor turns to Rey. She freezes under his gaze, but it's too late. She's halfway to Kylo's fallen sword, arm outstretched and nowhere to run.
"If you want to kill me, my child," Emperor Palpatine says, a sick smile taunting her, "you don't need a sword." His fingertips crackle the color of candle flames. "Surely you suspected." Rey says nothing, but her grandfather distills the truth from her silence. "So you knew."
"I don't want it," she cries. "The magic, the throne, any of this. Just let me go. Find someone stronger. Please, Grandfather." It's foolish to expect her pleas to sway him when his soul is so cankered by misused magic that it now corrupts his body. Yet Rey has nothing left to offer.
"Oh, but this is your birthright now. Your parents are weak where you are strong. Someday you will sit on the throne. As for him…" He breaks off into a coughing fit, pointing at Kylo splayed out on the desk. "He must die, like the traitors that birthed him." While the emperor trembles as he directs another stream of lighting through Kylo's smoking black armor, his smile never fades.
In that moment, between the sizzling and the screams, Rey discovers that she has one more bargaining chip slipped under her borrowed cloak. "Spare him!" she demands. "Spare him and I'll take your place. I'll marry Hux. I'll stop running. Just let him live and I'll be your empress."
When her grandfather cocks his head and his sickly blue eyes light up yellow, Rey knows that she's made a bargain with the devil. A muffled protest, maybe her name, slips from Kylo's smoking helmet. Although he betrayed her, she can't let him die, not after he healed her in the desert. Not after he fought off Captain Phasma and her knights to protect Rey.
So she holds out her hand like Kylo did weeks ago in her tower. "Do we have a deal?"
Emperor Palpatine grins, toothy and foul. "How could I refuse? I need you more than you know, my dear child."
Maz's endearment on his lips sends shivers coursing down Rey's spine. But she envelops his hand with hers, letting his claws dig into her knuckles and his papery skin catch in her new callouses. Molten silver threads spring from every point of contact between them. They weave a net, smooth as shimmersilk, that binds their hands and destinies together. A curse of Rey's own. He pulls away, grinning like she placed the whole world in his gnarled palms.
"The Chandrilan scum lives so long as he never attempts to harm the Palpatine line again." He turns his back on the desk, capturing Rey's free hand with his until they're holding each other, a poor caricature of a family. Suppressing a shudder, Rey clings to his declaration. Kylo is safe. And she will be empress, no matter her efforts. Had she known her escape would end like this, she never would have run, never would have knelt on the cold stone floor and chanted for a Skywalker to come save her.
"Thank you, Grandfather." Because his fingertips still spark in warning, Rey knows she must appease the monster she's embraced.
"We must tell your mother and father the joyous news." He turns toward the door, maintaining a razor-sharp grip on her hands that forces her to follow. "Coruscant's heir has returned. Your nursemaid would have been so pleased to see you've returned… if she could still see."
Rotted plums and ash. Their thumping feet on the heavy carpet. Kylo's faint groans. Rey clings to it all so that she won't fall. The idea of Maz injured on her behalf prompts her to turn around, scour the room for Kylo's sword, and envision lopping her grandfather's head off.
Suddenly her world freezes. Even if his hand wasn't wrapped tight around hers, Rey would still follow him out the study and down the hall, ready to face her parents or the court or her dear injured nursemaid because the silvery curse demands her compliance. And Rey's not strong enough to resist.
Steel flashes into view, a sword point arresting their flight.
"You can't take her," Ben croaks. His entire frame trembles as he levels his sword at Palpatine's neck. It glows gold, like the vow he swore to help Rey escape. Seeing their bond fuel his magic warms Rey from her numb insides out even as her heart stutters. He seals their bond in blood, spearing Palpatine on the sword and painting his insides golden.
The emperor staggers, releasing Rey's hand and for a moment, her hope returns. Then he spins, one hand pressed to his gut and the other outstretched. "A fatal mistake," he snarls. With a snap of his wrist, Kylo's dragged upright by some invisible force and pinned to the window, wriggling like a sandmoth on a pin as his glowing sword clatters to the ground and sputters out. "Listen to me, Rey. You must strike him down. It is your destiny."
"I can't," she says, and it's true, for she can't imagine cutting down her only ally. Even if she could, she can't conjure up more than a few purple sparks like she did in the forest. They fizzle from her fingertips, whipping the emperor into a bloodthirsty frenzy.
"But you can! Reach within yourself and give into the darkness you find."
The command leaves Rey no choice, reducing her world to silver as she's forced to turn inward and stoke the monster he wants her to become. Some part of her balks as she roots deep within her psyche. She finds the darkness easily enough, writhing for release after years of subjugation under her grandfather's thumb. But drawing on that darkness to manipulate the Force is another matter. She claws and she tears, but the darkness only pulses deep inside.
Then she remembers Kylo's explanations, Maz's bedtime stories. The Force binds together all living creatures, a delicate web. A balance. She needs only reach out—just so—and those webs spring to life in her mind, visceral enough for her to reach out and touch. One flick of her wrist sends a cord springing in an exchange of energy. She opens her eyes to discover swirling purple sparks and a greedy expression obscuring Palpatine's anger.
"Kill him," he seethes. "Do it now."
Their silver bond constricts Rey's chest and throat, demanding that she obey. The longer she fights it, the weaker she grows, sweat dripping down her chest and muscles quivering as she tries to lock her arms to her sides. Then her world explodes, silver and gold tearing apart the study and driving Rey to her knees.
Minutes pass, or maybe hours, before Rey can yank herself to her feet and survey the room. Books and splintered pottery lay strewn across the floor, their shelves busted and the windows fractured. The desk has split down the middle. A heap of black armor lays between it.
She runs to Kylo, yanking the helmet from his head, which lolls back, dangerously limp once she frees it. His ashen face, bloodied lips, and bruised nose accuse her of not interfering soon enough. Your fault , they chant. His seizing muscles have finally stilled. Understanding the Force as a web of energy rather than a weapon allows Rey to pluck at the strands surrounding Kylo, sensing the golden curse that bound their lives together has dissolved. She notes the tangled threads under his gauntlets, gloves, and greaves. She tears off the scorched black armor piece by piece, revealing burns and bruises, shattered bones and weeping wounds, all gifts from her grandfather.
The empire, her crown, her freedom—she'd trade it all to bring Kylo back to life and she hates herself for it because she doesn't know if he'd do the same in her position. That doesn't stop her from pressing her hands to his charred chest and trying to save him anyway.
She doesn't know what to say or what to do to channel the Force into healing magic. Already her skin prickles differently than it did when she aimed to destroy. Making requires more effort than unmaking, Kylo had said, words that have felt empty until Rey faces the task of making him whole again. "Be with me," she whispers as she tugs at her life force, so stubborn and cumbersome, so fiercely hers. "Be with me," she whispers as she nudges that wisp of herself at the burns scoring Kylo's body, at the cracks in his bones and the fractures in his mind. "Be with me," she whispers as she sends purple sparks skittering down his limbs and into his skin, just like she felt him do for her atop a sand dune in Tatooine.
She sends wave after wave of her energy to mend his wounds, to bind them together in this endeavor called life, and receives in return only darkness. Silence. Stillness. No matter what she says or what she pulls from her ribs, he refuses to wake. So she stands once the fragile Force web reassures her that all of his major injuries have been healed, that she has restored him to physical health. Still he doesn't stir, not even when Rey removes her hands from his chest.
A faint citrus smell clings to her nostrils, crowding out the rotted plums and bitter malla petals until all that's left is an unfamiliar copper tang coating her mouth. Her grandfather's body lays crumpled at her feet, blood pooling onto her boots, but her feet won't move. She doesn't remember how to make them. Then it hits her, the Force exhaustion that Maz and Kylo warned her about. It mixes with the copper and citrus, and bile rises to meet it.
Rey can't choke it back.
It burns in all the wrong places, reminding her of the parricide that she committed, of the throne she may still be bound to. A distant keening rings in her ears, maybe her own voice or the voice of an empire falling into ruin without its leader. She stumbles back from her grandfather and collapses in a heap in the furthest corner from his corpse.
She hears Kylo before she sees him rise, his bones creaking as he picks himself up and approaches her unsteadily. She refuses to unspool her arms from her head, to open her eyes and face the man who brought her back to face her nightmare. She waits for him to explain, to remind her that she's free only because he orchestrated it, to thank her for saving his life. But it never comes.
Instead he bends at her side, his bare hands clasping her hands, then her shoulders, then her waist. "I know you're exhausted. Believe me, I know. But guards will knock down this study door looking for the emperor. They find us here, there's no escape." He tugs her upright, letting her lean on him for support. On her feet Rey wobbles, but she ignores the impulses to collapse again. There's only one way out if she wants to leave this life behind.
So she lets Kylo—Ben—steady her until she can hold the forgotten sword, until she can tiptoe after him over her grandfather's corpse and into the hall. Drafty and empty, it promises a clean escape until marching feet echo down its length. "The Order of the Storm," he growls, pulling Rey into an alcove that allows for no room between them. Pressed together, their hearts thump a two-time prayer, begging the guards to pass by the open study door and leave their alcove undiscovered. But Rey's prayers often go unanswered. Today is no exception.
They hear a knight call, "Your Majesty?" They hear the shuffle of armored boots as the call goes unanswered and worry ripples through the squad. They hear the guards march into the study, the bloodstained carpet muffling their feet. They hear shouts as the knights sworn to protect the emperor's life with their own discover his corpse.
Order abandoned, the knights clamber from the study down the hall, their captain shouting orders to split up and look for the killers. "They can't get far."
Kylo tenses at the declaration. "We need your magic," he murmurs to Rey as the footsteps clatter in their direction. Their alcove is too shallow to tuck both of them into darkness. Discovery is inevitable should the knights continue in this direction.
"I can't," she says, too drained from the healing. Instead of pushing her like her grandfather would, Kylo hands her his sword instead.
"Strike up," he reminds her, and then he leaps from their corridor, tugging at the Force that weaves around them, converting life to death in a blaze of red glitter and singed metal.
Back to back, side by side, Rey and Kylo hack through the Order of the Storm until the corridor is littered with polished steel and groaning guards. As the last assailant falls, so does Rey, her legs giving out after what seem to be hours of standing. As her world goes dark again, Kylo's there to catch her, the last of his red sparks guiding her into a dreamless sleep.
Atop a hill beyond the Imperial City's walls Rey and Kylo pause, dismounting and looping their horses' reins around a tree so they can better drink in the chaos unfolding in the distance. Their horses stamp impatiently as the temple bells peel a mournful wail. Even from here, Rey fancies she can make out shouts ringing through the city streets.
Sneaking out of the palace and city was easy enough as it crumbled into chaos with news of the emperor's death and no heir to be found. No one paid any mind to the two cloaked travelers trotting toward the city gates, even if one of them was swaying in the saddle. Now without the Order of the Storm trailing them, they can afford to stop. To breathe. To rest, if only momentarily, as fat raindrops begin to fall. They speckle the parched dirt underfoot, wash away the blood spattering Rey's cheeks, and disguise her prickling tears despite her best efforts to hold them in.
Finally she is free.
As the funeral bells toll, Rey wonders how her mother will respond now that her father's dead and her only child's missing. Will she ascend the throne, Rey's father at her side? Will her neck bear the weight of the crown without anyone to hold up her chin?
Then Kylo's face flickers into view by her side as he takes off his helmet, the only piece of his grandfather's armor that he salvaged from the study. He watches the city devolve into mayhem with a grim smile on his face, and Rey loses all thoughts of her mother. Perhaps it's best to let the past die, as Kylo urged. There's nothing left for them in Coruscant anyway.
Them.
With Vader's curse dissolved and Kylo's vow fulfilled, there's no golden thread binding them together. No reason for them to stick together. The thought should sting, but after Kylo's betrayal, it just leaves Rey empty. He dragged her back to the palace, not to enact vengeance on behalf of Vader as Rey feared, but to free her from the emperor as best he knew how. Now she doesn't have to run. But now their kisses have soured; their bodies have drifted apart. There's nothing left for Rey in Coruscant, and she's not sure there's much left for her with Kylo.
Ben.
His true name slips awkwardly off her tongue, falling flat when she tries it out for the first time. He takes pity on her flustered delivery, telling her that Kylo's just fine, except Rey wants no more masks between them. "Only the truth," she demands and he bows his head in agreement.
"Now what?" she asks. "Where do we go from here?" The questions knife through the rain, which has begun to fall in earnest now, and the silence that has sprung up between them.
"I don't know," he admits, setting his helmet in the dust that's rapidly becoming mud and letting his hands fall awkwardly at his side. Then he holds out his arms to Rey, stiffly as though he expects rejection. She folds herself into his body like they've had a lifetime to practice, rather than a few weeks on the road, and then it hits her. At present they may not have answers, but together they have time to figure them out. So they stand like that for a long time, finding freedom in the rain that washes them clean.
Next week, the final chapter brings renewal, healing, and hope for Rey from an unexpected source.