The Beast paced in her small tower room. Fifteen long steps and she reached the high window that overlooked the forest, thin wisps of smoke rising from Woolvertown chimneys barely visible in the distance. She turned and strode back the other direction, toward the rough-hewn walls that still bore deep score marks from when she missed the remote during her lightsaber training. She didn't need to see the forest. It was a reminder that, for all the power and authority conferred on her by her Master, she was just as much a prisoner in the castle as the farmer in the Ochre Bedroom.
It was also a reminder that the farmer chose to save her life – at the expense of his own freedom.
She tossed her mane of red-gold curls. It was none of her concern how the foolish man chose to spend his last remaining days. If it had been up to her, the farmer would still be rotting in the dungeons deep below. But no, Pottz had to go and let him and his companions out.
She conveniently refused to remind herself that she could have ordered K'gworth to return the prisoner back in the dank cells, but never did.
She turned around, headed back toward the window. He saved her.
She understood why he would sacrifice his liberty for his friends. But for her? She, whose only value – she tensed her back automatically, the pain her Master and his designated helpers would inflict whenever she did not measure up to standards a recent memory - lay in her ability to carry out his justice with quick, fatal precision?
His actions did not make sense. It was not how the world worked. Her Master ruled over the galaxy with a firm but gentle hand. When criminals took advantage of his benevolence, he weighed their deeds. If the deeds were terrible enough, then she or another Beast would deliver the final blow.
This boy…this farmer…committed one of the worst acts possible. He destroyed the Stellar Peace, a space station so mighty and indestructible it had been ironically nicknamed the "Death Star" by envious military personnel who grumbled that someone would have to die before a coveted assignment on board would open up.
Then they all died. Because of him. One missile in an exhaust port and blink! A million lives extinguished.
Including the mightiest life of them all. The Lord of the Beasts. The Emperor's favorite. Last seen in his starfighter, chasing the boy's decrepit vessel into the trenches of the Stellar Peace before flame and gasses and then the mighty vacuum of space turned everything in the near vicinity into so much cold, lifeless dust.
Some whispered the Lord of the Beasts might yet live. They said his starfighter spun away, escaping the burning shards and concussive winds, spiraling out of control into an uncharted sector. Lacking comms and perhaps even his memory, he was still out there.
She wasn't sure if she believed them. The Lord of the Beasts had powers that far surpassed her own. Surely he would have made his presence known by now? But even if the Emperor's favorite survived, the mass murder of the Stellar Peace's crew was more than enough to condemn the boy.
His crimes were so severe, her Master wished to face the boy personally.
She glanced at her comm unit, but it remained stubbornly silent. As did his voice in her mind. Her Master hadn't contacted her since she first informed him that she had his quarry in hand. She knew the construction of the second Stellar Peace kept his thoughts occupied, but surely he would want to deal with the boy sooner rather later?
He saved her. The Killer of the Peace – and yet he saved her.
A farmer.
A mass murderer.
A boy. Not much older than her.
And he had powers, like her. But different. Whenever she called on her powers, she sensed a hovering dark shadow, its edges wrapping tighter and tighter around her. When he used his, it was as if an invisible sun lit him from within.
The contradictions between what she had been told about him and the behavior she'd witnessed made her head hurt. She picked up a piece of fruit left over from her lunch and threw it at the wall. It hit the stone with a loud squelching noise, juice and pulp and skin spattering all over.
Its destruction should have made her feel better. She liked to tear things apart. She was a Beast. That was what she did. What she was created to do.
Instead, it made her worse.
A chime sounded, and K'gworth's voice came from the comm unit. "Mistress?"
She whirled around and located his face on the holoscreen. "What?" she spit out.
He jumped back, his eyes as wide as she had ever seen them. "Dinner is ready?" It came out as a question.
She sighed. No use taking it out on K'gworth. He made a terrible sparring partner. He was wound so tight, it took her days to get him back to functioning properly again.
"Is the farmer gracing us with his presence this time?" Her tone was as cold as she could make it. But she felt her heart beat just a little bit faster.
"Looma is bringing him, yes," K'gworth said.
Her hand came up to smooth her curls before she could realize what she was doing. She put it down rapidly and crossed her arms over her chest instead. "Fine," she said, her chin in the air as she made her way to the door. "But he better be seated at the table when I arrive."