Killing him didn't undo what he'd done to her. It didn't bring her back. Just like when I'd killed Snoke for murdering my mother, it didn't help the grief and the guilt that consumed me, it only made it worse.

I relaxed my hand, and the still quivering heart fell next to the body, splattering bright red on the white tile floor.

"We have to go." Ap'lek said, motioning toward Ushar.

"I'm not leaving without Rey." I told him, my voice shaking.

"Rey isn't here." Ushar told me, and I looked up at him.

"What do you mean she isn't here?"

"I mean she's not on this planet, Kylo." He sighed. "I went into his head right before you-" He motioned to the lifeless heap on the floor. "And all I was able to get was that she somehow got off world, and that he has sent men to find her, and bring her back."

"Where?"

"I don't know."

"We have to go." Ap'lek repeated. "If anyone sees us here-"

"I'm not leaving without Rey!" I growled, and he brought both his hands up to cover his face.

He sighed into them, then looked at Ushar. "Do the shadows know how she got off world?"

Ushar whispered something so low that I couldn't make it out, and shadows darted out from where they were hiding, twirling around him. He spoke to them, nothing but patience and respect in his low tone as he asked them several questions that I did not understand.

"She stole a maids dress, and used her wedding ring to barter passage onto an I-TS."

Son of a bitch. That was a transport vessel made by the Corellian Engineering Corporation specifically for the Corellian run. She could be anywhere between here and Coruscant.

I nodded to Ushar and darkness roared, the world falling around us, out from under us. The next second, we were back on the Buzzard.

Kuruk looked back at us, his brown eyes filling with sympathy when he noticed that we didn't have Rey with us. He felt sorry for me. I looked away. He didn't know, none of them knew what I'd seen, what she'd been though. I didn't need his pity, I needed to rally the Knights, I needed every resource available to me, I needed something halfway resembling a plan, and I needed to find her.

Once we landed, I locked myself in a boardroom, pulling up the maps of the galaxy, and the current trade routes. Depending on what day she was in the port, and what vessel she was on, she could be on Christophsis, Radnor, or Herdessa. If she'd made it to Mon Gazza, she could've jumped ship on a spice run to Llanic, if she was trying to get back to Mustafar.

A thought clouded my head. What if she didn't want to come back?

I'd sworn to protect her, to keep her safe, to make sure she was never threatened. I'd sent my best friend, my brother, with her because my meeting was too important to skip out on, exactly as the Official planned. He'd been waiting for the Trade agreement to have that message sent so that she would go, and I wouldn't. What if she blamed me?

The maps in front of me started to blur, and I closed my eyes, bringing a hand up to rub them. Of course she'd blame me. I blamed myself.

"You can't go to every planet one by one." Ap'lek tried to reason.

I was past reason, because that's exactly what I would do, if that's what it took to find her.

"Ky," he tried again. "You are exhausted. You haven't slept in three days."

I shook my head. "I can't sleep." Not when Hux's memories tormented me whenever I closed my eyes. I couldn't eat for the same reason, couldn't be alone with my thoughts, or allow myself a moment of rest. "Ushar."

He appeared next to Ap'lek.

"Have you found who he sent after her?" I asked.

"From what I've been told, it's some low level guys he calls in when he doesn't want to get his hands dirty." He sighed. "I've looked. All of them have records."

So that when they were busted, if they were busted, he could claim they were just professional criminals and deny involvement.

I looked at Ap'lek. "Has word of what happened gotten out?"

He tightly shook his head.

Good. We still had time.

"I'm taking the Buzzard." I told him. "Kuruk, are you with me?"

"Whatever you need." He promised, resolve shining in his deep brown eyes.

Aplek nodded his agreement. "I've got things here. Go."

We began in Mon Gazza, asking about any transports that had made port in the past few days. From there, we went to Herdessa, then spent the next day on Radnor, finally finding the ship that Ushar confirmed had been the ship Rey had boarded.

We teleported into the middle of the crew deck, and one man's scream alerted the rest to our presence. They scattered like roaches, and I held my left hand up, holding them all in place.

"On Arkanis, a woman used her wedding ring to barter passage onto this ship." I said, my voice echoing off of the steel hull.

"Hux's wife." One man said, and I turned, spotting a deep olive skinned man with brown eyes and a thick black beard. He eyed me when I approached him, sweat beading at his temples.

"Don't be foolish enough to lie to me." I warned, releasing him.

He quickly reached into the pocket of his pants. "I thought she was a palace maid." He pulled out a white gold ring, the massive emerald cut stone glinting in the overhead light. "She asked to be taken to Mustafar, but our course is set by the transport company, it can't be altered."

She was trying to get home, to get back to me.

"She was desperate to get off of Arkanis, and since we were leaving within the hour, she agreed." He explained.

"Where is she, now?" I asked, not moving to take the ring from him, and he put it back into his pocket.

When he didn't immediately answer me, I went into his mind, a bit more forcefully than necessary, and I saw her. Her hair was covered by a thin white bonnet, a requirement of a kitchen maid, as was the long, white apron pinned to the front of her gray dress. When she looked up at him, he noticed that the entire left side of her face was bruised, even the white of her left eye red from broken blood vessels, and her bottom lip was cut. He had no idea who she was, and had thought that she'd stolen the ring as he plucked it from her fingers and let her pass him, onto the ship.

It wasn't until the next day, when a band of pirates hijacked their ship that he'd learned that she was Hux's runaway wife. He'd just been grateful that the only thing they wanted was her, and had promptly left after they took her.

I pulled out of his mind, and immediately launched myself at the nearest object, a wooden crate, and ignited my saber, beating it until it was nothing but splinters. We'd been too late. Hux's men had her. With a frustrated yell, I extinguished my blade, and turned to leave, releasing all of the men around us.

"We have to go back to Arkanis." I growled as I stalked past Ushar.

Back on the Buzzard, Kuruk had no arguments as he flew us back, but that didn't stop Ushsr from trying to talk some sense into me.

"We don't know that she's even here." He said. He was seated, with his elbows on his thighs, his right hand cupping the back of his neck.

"Hux wanted her back badly enough that he sent thugs after her." I reminded him. "He would've ordered them to return her to him."

"And, since you obviously don't remember, he has a slight case of death."

"They'd want to be paid." I tried to explain. "They'd bring her back, maybe to Brendol." I'd start there.

"You're just going to waltz in there, and nicely ask the man whose son we killed to hand her over?" He demanded. "That's your plan?"

"It won't be nicely." I admitted, hitting the button to disengage the landing bay. The hydraulics hissed as it lowered, and I walked down the ramp.

I didn't ask to be announced, nor waste time with protocol as I used the Force to open every door in my way. Brendol looked up from his throne when I walked in, his face darkening.

"You have some nerve coming back here." He motioned a hand toward me, and guards rushed forward, to be thrown back with half a thought.

"Where is Rey?" I asked, not in the mood to play any of these games.

To my amazement, and frustration, his gray eyebrows pulled together in genuine confusion. "Who?"

"Rey!" I repeated. "The bride Armitage bought."

His eyes widened. "You killed my son, and now you come back to take his bride?"

"She's my wife!" I screamed, losing my razor thin patience. "Armitage knew she was my wife, and he bought her just to get to me." Tears that I'd been holding back for days sprang to my eyes, and I fought to hold myself together, every suppressed emotion crashing down on me. "My official shot my best friend. He abducted my wife, he drugged her, and he married her to your son." I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. "Armitage beat her." My stomach rolled. "He raped her."

"How do you know this?" Brendol asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Because he showed me."

His face hardened. "Kylo, you ripped his heart out. He was my only heir, and you killed him. This war, and the innocent blood spilled from it is on your hands." He scoffed, shaking his head. "For a woman."

I stepped closer, putting my hands on the arm rests of his throne, and leaned in. He shrank back, fear widening his eyes.

"I will wade through the blood of every King in this galaxy to find her." I promised, my eyes locked on his. "I don't care who I have to go through to get her back."

Brendol paled, knowing that included him. "I don't know where she is." He admitted.

"Who would?" I asked, enough threat in my voice to let him know that my tolerance had run out.

"There's a runner that Armitage has do his...less favorable actions."

"A spice runner?" I asked, standing upright.

He shook his head. "A slave runner."