Chapter 3

Rey hurried to keep up with Shmi, biting her tongue to keep from asking more questions. She had a thousand of them and only half of them had to do with what was going on and where they were.

"You're a curious one, Rey Skywalker. Always seeking and growing," Shmi said. "My son was the same, as a little boy at least. I never knew him as a man."

"I—do you mind that I call myself Skywalker?" Rey couldn't stop the question, even though she wanted to. "I mean, I know that Master Luke approves—at least he seems to. But I suppose in a way it was your name first."

"You're right that it was mine. Slaves on my home world didn't have family names of their own. I chose it for myself and my son. In fact, it was today that I made that choice, hoping that one day a daughter of my family such as you would carry it in proud freedom in a way I couldn't imagine at the time."

"Today?" Poe asked, his hand still in Rey's. "What is today?"

Shmi came to a stop beside a fenced in area.

Rey's jaw tightened and Poe stiffened beside her. She instinctively knew what this was. Even on Jakku, traditional slavery was rare, but she'd seen Unkar Plott facilitating a few auctions during her time working for him as a scavenger.

Beings stood, slouched, or sat, crammed into smaller pens. Humans, Rodians,, Twi'leks, Wookies; the number of species represented was staggering. Rough looking guards paced the edges of the enclosures, whips or zappers in hand.

"Wasn't slavery illegal in the Old Republic." Poe squeezed Rey's hand, as if he was reassuring himself that she was still there.

A sad smile crossed Shmi's face, so similar to the General's that Rey's heart ached with longing to see her master again. "It was. But in the Outer Rim territories, the Republic and old Jedi couldn't stop the lowest of society from preying on weaker beings. The Zygerrians were the worst of the lot, along with the Hutts.

"This is the day I was sold to the Hutts." She gestured to a young woman sitting on the ground nearby. Her face was darkened with dirt and the sun, but her hazel eyes were the same as they were now—sad, stoic, but not broken.

"Who are those men?" Poe jerked his chin at a well-dressed group approaching young Shmi's holding pen. As the group drew closer, Rey felt echoes of recognition through the Force. She traced the echoes, but couldn't quite find the source.

"This one is quite charming." A human male came to a stop beside Shmi. His Nemoidian companion sniffed in response.

"She's not very valuable, Senator." The Nemoidian gestured further along the enclosure. "You'd find a nice selection of Twi'leks further down that would serve you better."

The man—an Old Republic senator—turned and Rey suddenly recognized him. The high cheek bones and the shape of his jaw were more human, the face of a handsome, prosperous man in his prime, rather than the animated corpse, riddled by years of using the Dark side for unspeakable things. That face had haunted her nightmares every night since Exegol.

Panic gripped her. She wanted to run. To hide from those eyes that bore through her as he tortured her, as he killed her, and as she ultimately killed him.

The only thing that kept her from giving way to a panic attack was Poe's arm coming around her shoulder. Even if they were only impressions in the force, his presence comforted her, his goodness and warmth a stronghold against the bad memories.

"Rey. Breathe, sunshine. Just take a deep breath." Poe pulled her closer, glaring at the Senator. "Shmi, who is he?"

Shmi's eyes went as glazed over as Rey's must have looked, as if she too was revisiting a traumatic memory.

When she finally spoke, her voice was almost droid-like in its flatness. "I didn't know it at the time, but he's the man who used me as one of his earliest experiments in the Force. To show his power to himself and his master. He's the man who would manipulate my son into doing barbarous things, who would subjugate the entire galaxy in the light and shadows for decades. His actions led to the deaths of my son, my grandchildren, and my great-grandson."

Rey found her voice, too numb for the other woman's words to hurt her. She'd spent the last year trying to accept that history and move past it.

"He's my grandfather."