It didn't take long for word of what I was doing to the troops to reach the commanders, and they launched into a full retreat.

We stayed in the streets of my city until the darkest hours of the morning, patching what we could, tending to the wounded, and counting the dead.

My city was secure, but my palace had been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble. The shelter, thankfully, had proven itself, and all of its occupants were unharmed, though I could no longer guarantee their safety.

I stood on the balcony of the townhouse and stared at the devastation and destruction of the lightless city around me, the blatant evidence of my failure.

The door slid open behind me, then closed, and Beau came to stand next to me. I stole a glance over to her, and saw that she was still in her bloodied and filthy pajamas.

"Thank you." I said, my voice grating against my throat.

From the moment we'd opened the door to the shelter, she'd done what was needed to aid my people, without complaint. She helped pick through the rubble, reunited children with their parents, and fetched linens and water to clean and dress wounds. I owed her more than my gratitude.

Her warm brown eyes came up to meet mine. "Will they attack again?"

I shook my head. "I dont know."

A long, silent moment passed between us before she took a breath. "If they do?"

"If they do…" I echoed, and swallowed. "I want you to go home to Cyrilla."

Her eyebrows pulled together.

"This isn't your fight, Beau." I told her. "This has nothing to do with you, and if something happened to you because of me, I-" Words failed me. I was already barely alive, sick with guilt, and drinking myself beyond recognition to cope with what had happened to Rey because of me. I wasn't sure I had the capacity to feel anything else.

She leaned against the railing, and stared into the glass door behind me. "Cyrilla isn't my home." She said, bitterness adding venom to her voice.

"At least it's a safe place to stay-" I tried to reason.

"It's a cage." She spat, and cut her eyes up to mine. "I was locked up for nearly a decade, did you know that?"

I shook my head. I didn't know anything about her because I hadn't cared enough to learn.

"I know you don't want me here because you have your reasons." She said, "And, I swear that this will be the only thing I'll ever ask of you." Her eyes began to glisten with the desperation of her words. "Please don't send me back." She shook her head. "My father will put me back in that room until you call for my return, and I can't-" She choked on the words.

If she were back in Cyrilla, I'd never call for her return. Her horrible father wouldn't give her a second thought, except to sell her again.

I opened my mouth to tell her that I wasn't going to force her to go back, but I stopped, sensing someone nearby.

The Bond went taut as my brother's attention shifted. They sensed them, too.

"Beau, get inside." I told her, vacantly. She didn't hesitate to obey.

I jumped over the railing, using The Force to slow myself enough to land without injury. Ap'lek burst through the front door, the others close behind. They ran to my side, looking down the empty streets.

Ushar vanished, and when he returned a second later, he held an Arkanian General by his collar.

The man paled, his skin looking a bit green as he looked at Vicrul, then to Ap'lek, and finally to me.

He raised his chin, clear defiance written in his ice blue eyes.

"How many more are coming?" I asked.

He drew his head back, his lip curled in disgust. "Fuck you."

I lunged, gripping a fistful of his hair and smashed his head into the brick of the townhouse's exterior.

There was a crunch of cartilage, the snap of bone, and he fell, bright red blood now pouring from his broken nose.

I knelt down next to him so that we were eye to eye. "How many more are coming?"

He glared at me, not answering, and I set my jaw, my power tightening around his throat.

"Wait!" He yelled, and my power retreated.

He looked at my Knights behind me, his gaze lingering on Ushar, considering. "If I tell you, will you release me?"

"Depends on what you tell me." I growled.

He sighed. "Brendol has nothing. He knew attacking you would be suicide, but he's old, and when he dies, which won't be too much longer, his kingdom will fall into civil war because he doesn't have an heir, so he has nothing to lose." He grunted as he adjusted his nose back into place with a sickening crunch. "He can't even find supporters because half of the galaxy is allied with you, and the other half is allied to your father in law, and those who would leave those alliances now know about Hux's involvement in the trafficking ring and believe that your crusade is justified."

He leveled a look that told me he'd said all he was going to say.

I stood, and looked over my shoulder to Ushar. "Break his legs, and dump him on the palace grounds of Arkanis."

"Wait! Wait!" The general pleaded, holding up a blood soaked hand. "I know about your woman!"

I froze.

"Your wife!" He said. "The little brunette Hux bought."

He grunted when I grabbed him and roughly pulled him up, balancing on the toes of his shoes as I held him by his throat.

"He's not going to sell her." He gasped out, his fingers clawing at my hand. "You won't find her at a drop. He's keeping her-"

My grip tightened. "What do you mean he's keeping her?" I snarled between my teeth.

His eyes bulged, and his face went from red, to purple before I let him go, watching as he fell into a heap on the floor. He coughed and gasped, heaving as he sucked in air. "Hux put in an order to find her, and bring her back." He panted. "But, he was killed before she was returned to him."

"So, it's about the money."

The general shook his head. "If he wanted money, he would've sold her already." He said. "He's keeping her for himself."

Bile rose in my throat as my stomach wrenched. My skin crawled, and my muscles trembled. Keeping her. He was keeping my wife as his.

My power roiled, but guttered in the hollow of my chest. All the power id been born with, that endless abyss the Force had bestowed upon me, didnt make a fucking bit of difference in finding her. It was useless, I was useless. And he had her.

My guts churned as the flood of memories hit me of what Hux had done to her, of what i hadn't been able to stop, the torment made worse by the knowledge that it was happening to her again. My voice shook when I asked, "How do I find him?"

"I don't know-"

"How do I find him?!" I screamed, the walls rattling around us.

"He knows you're looking for her." He said. "He knows that you're intercepting his drops, and destroying the ports. He's not stupid enough to make his whereabouts known."

I felt like I was going to explode, like the leash on my power would give way and cleve the world in two. The ground shook so violently that the general looked below us, fear stealing the color from his face.

"Take him back." I said to Ushar, rage and agony churning in my chest so that I didn't know where one ended, and the other began.

A second later, they were gone.

I sagged against the wall, unable to hold myself up, and too exhausted to keep pretending otherwise. It didn't matter, my Knights already knew exactly how shattered I was.

"He has her." I choked out, the words costing me more than I ever thought I'd be able to pay. She wasn't a girl stolen and waiting to be sold like the others I'd saved. He was keeping her.

Were the drops and the ports useless, then? Was he keeping her as vengeance for the women I'd stolen back from him?

I was more than broken; I was lost. I had no sense of direction, no idea where to go, how to proceed. Not when my actions could have been why he was keeping her.

"It's not your fault." Vicrul said. "You can't blame yourself."

All of my agony and despair and wrath, it focused onto him, and before I could stop myself, or even think better of it, the words were spewing out of my mouth of their own fruition. "I don't blame myself." I spat, and cut my gaze over to him. "I blame you."

There were shocked gasps and disapproving yells of protest behind us, which we both ignored.

Vic looked at me with eyes I didn't recognize, the Force going deathly quiet, the Bond between us nowhere to be found.

Aplek jumped in front of me and shoved me back. "Kylo, shut the fuck up." He warned.

"You blame me?" Vicrul scoffed in disgust. "I didn't start this war. I wasn't the one who ripped Hux's heart out."

"I trusted you!" I yelled, then choked on the burn in my throat. "I gave you the only thing in my life that mattered. I sent you with her because I trusted you." Angry tears blurred my vision as I bitterly shook my head. "And you failed me."

Raw, undiluted pain shone brightly in his eyes, eighteen years of brotherhood hemorrhaging out of us from the hole I'd just tore through him.

"You didn't rip his heart out." I said, and the burn in my throat made my voice raw. I rubbed my hand over my sternum, as if it would ease the hollowed ache there. "But you ripped out mine."

Ap'lek stared at me in horrified shock, his mouth hanging open, then turned panicked, pleading eyes to Vicrul. "No." He begged.

But, Vic was moving, past the other Knights, wholly ignoring their pleas as well, and went into the townhouse.

A moment later, he emerged, a military green duffle bag slung over his good shoulder.

"Vic, that wasn't him." Ap'lek tried to reason. "You know that wasn't him."

Ushar appeared next to him, shadows snaking around his legs and up his arms. He gave me, then Ap'lek a curious, confused glance.

"Will you take me to the hangar?" Vic asked, his own voice heavy and cracking.

"Me, too." Kuruk said, stepping forward.

"And me." Trugden added.

"Guys, please-" Ap'lek begged. "Please don't do this."

But, they didn't even acknowledge him as they put their hands on Ushar's arm, and vanished. Ap'lek buried his face in his hands. "Fuck." His shoulders slumped in defeat.

The war I'd caused had cost us our home, and my deflected guilt dissolved the Knights of Ren in front of me, but the absence of my brother, the silence from where he'd severed his end of the Bond was a loss that I felt down to the marrow of my bones.