Another alert sounded from Trugden's comm link and he looked at his screen, his dark eyebrows pulling together as he swiped a finger from left to right. The line between his brows deepened further at whatever he found.

The familiar, painful grip of panic wrapped around my chest, and I tried to breathe around it. "What?" I asked when he didn't offer any explanation.

"Did you send Kuruk somewhere?"

I thought for a second, trying to remember. "No."

The line between his brows deepened. "Then he just did an unauthorized departure," he looked up at me. "In the Buzzard."

Before I could react, or really even process what he'd said, the office door flew open with a loud bang, and Vicrul rushed in, panting. The wild look of terror in his eyes had the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

"Kylo, you have to go!" He came to me and gripped my forearms."You have to go right now!"

"Go where?" I demanded, cold dread settling in my gut.

"Arkanis! You have to take your Silencer to Arkanis-" He was panting so hard and talking so fast I could barely understand him.

"Vic, slow down." I said, trying to hear him.

"No, listen to me, you have to go!" He roughly pulled me toward the door. But Aplek and Trugden were both up, moving closer to us and asking for more information. "What's going on?" 'What's on Arkanis?" "Is that where Kuruk is going?" The questions were so close together it was hard to tell who asked what.

"It's Rey!" He screamed over them, stopping their questions dead.

My heart stopped, sending a chill coursing through me. "What's Rey?" I asked, my voice near guttural.

Vic started saying so much so quickly, his words jumbling together on the verge of hysterics. "She heard the call with Zaugustus and she used the indefinite stand down to get Kuruk to take her to Arkanis! She's on the Buzzard!"

I had the cold, sickening feeling of my stomach drop before I broke out into a sprint toward the hangar, screaming for my Silencer to be made ready by the time I made it to the port. It was, barely, and I climbed in, not even bothering with the safety harness before jumping into drive right out of the hangar. My pulse throbbed in my ears, my palms slick on the steering controls as I raced for her, my brain in too much of a fog to process the million things running through it.

The Buzzard had been set down in the trading port, I assumed to not draw attention to its presence, and when I landed, not even waiting for the engines to fully power down before I jumped out, Kuruk was there. "I'm so sorry." He said, and kept saying it, his eyes pleading.

I didn't have time for his apologies. I needed to find Rey. "Where is she?"

"She headed toward the palace." He said, and I started running before he could tell me he was sorry again.

The port bustled with merchants and crewmen, carts overflowing with textiles and goods zooming this way and that to the palace's open air market. It was a literal maze of vendors and their carts, shoppers further congesting the streets. The scream of the engines, the creaking of the carts as they rolled past, the incessant chatter of a million different people as they haggled and ordered and paid, it was all a deafening roar in my head.

I couldn't focus, I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't hear myself think. Under the uncontrolled mania of once again not knowing where she was, my blood boiled. She'd done this, she'd left. She had used my own order against me, against my pilot, and my war-chief, and put herself and our daughter at risk. But, my anger, and my weakened mental state made it all the more difficult to control my power, to keep it leashed. My mind, my body, and my soul remembered what it had been like to be without her, and every part of me was in full revolt.

I stopped, looking this way and that, trying to scan the countless faces that breezed past me, trying to look into their minds, to see if they'd seen her. But, my grip on my power wavered, and I don't trust myself enough, not now, now when I was like this, so I pulled back. I needed to get a hold of myself, if only just enough to think through this.

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the noise around me, and reached through our Bond in the Force. She was close. The same crowds and chaos that I was in, surrounded her, which was maddeningly unhelpful. 'Where are you?' I asked, fighting to keep my anger in check. Instead of answering, or even letting me see, she violently shoved me out and slammed up her mental shields, effectively blocking me.

I realized she'd also blocked me from sensing her signature in the Force and cursed so loudly that several patrons stopped to glare. I brought shaking hands up to rub my face and roughly rake them through my hair. The sinking dread that had been creeping into my head was now a bottomless, black abyss as every thing I'd been so desperate to numb these past six months came crashing into me. Rey was gone. She was gone and I didn't know where she was, I didn't know how to find her.

I couldn't control my breathing, couldn't gulp enough air down to keep up with how fast my heart was beating, and my head lightened, my vision going hazy…

There was a tiny tug on the phantom string rooted in my chest, and I gasped so sharply I almost choked on my own breath. The baby, our baby, my daughter, saved me from drowning just as I was about to go under. Her signature was a vibrant mix of mine and Rey's, and I followed it through the crowd. Rey had gone through the service entrance of the kitchen, most likely using her knowledge of how she'd escaped the palace to get back in.

When I charged in after her, the first girl to see me screamed, and the tray of drinks that was in her hands went flying. It crashed at our feet in a spray of champagne and shards of glass. I moved past her, through the kitchen, and into the hallway, down the corridor, where I saw Rey taking the last steps up a staircase to the second floor.

"Rey!" I screamed, taking the stairs two at a time as I climbed. She didn't slow, her ponytail bobbing as she marched on and I caught her forearm, stopping her as I pulled her to me. "What the hell are you doing?" I roared. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Without the worry and panic at the forefront of my mind, all that was left was how angry I was at her, any relief I should have felt had been swallowed by it.

She looked down at my hand wrapped tightly around her forearm, then back up at me, her hazel eyes burning with rage and resentment. "What the hell are you doing?" She demanded, snatching away from me, breaking my hold. "You weren't even going to tell me anything that happened in your office this morning, just like you didn't tell me about the meeting with the Officials!"

There was no point in trying to deny it, I not only had no intention of telling her, I'd also ordered my Knights not to say anything. "I will deal with him." I growled through my teeth. I would not say his name, not when I knew what hearing it did to her. "And I will deal with the Officials."

"I deserved to know!" She screamed in my face. "And you-" Her lips pulled away from her teeth in a furious snarl. "You don't respect me enough to even tell me that the man who held me captive for months now has a decree to have me returned to him."

"I didn't tell you because I knew you'd go after him!" I yelled back. "I can't risk-"

"Can't risk me costing you your allies?" She shrieked, cutting me off, her face inches from mine. "You care so much about your alliance and your plotting and your politics!"

I straightened, her words freezing the rage in me so completely that a chill ran up my arms. She thought that I came after her for politics? That I cared at all about keeping my allies? "No, I don't." I said, nearly choking on the burn in my throat. "It's not about my allies." I shook my head. "I can't risk losing you again."

She stilled, her eyes widening a bit.

My chest cracked, the truth spilling out before I could stop it. "Because I wouldn't survive it, Rey." My eyes stung, my throat tightening to the point of pain. "If anything happened to you, if you were taken from me again-" I was not prepared for how much it hurt to just say those words out loud.

She frowned, the flames in her eyes cooling. For a moment, I thought that I'd been able to reason with her, that she'd realized she was not only endangering herself, but our daughter as well, and she'd come to her senses about confronting him. My heart sank as she turned without a word and continued toward the throne room.

I lunged, catching her arm and again pulling her back. "Rey, I cannot-"

"This is not about you!" She yelled, using both of her hands to shove away from me.

I recoiled, my brow creasing. How could she even say that, when she was the center axis of my entire existence? Then, I realized, it wasn't about me because I hadn't been who he'd held captive, it wasn't me he thought should be returned to him. It was her. She'd endured it. She'd survived it. And, she had to live with it. "I'm going." She said, the look on her face telling me that she would not be swayed. Unless I was planning on physically dragging her out of this place, I wasn't stopping her.

She turned a third time, and when I reached for her again, she spun, holding her hand up, and white light erupted from her palm. The full force of her power hit me, knocking the air out of me and sent me flying back. I landed hard, the back of my skull bashing against the marble tile. I lay there looking up at the ceiling, and coughed, struggling to take a breath around the pain in my ribs. I pushed myself up on my elbows, then to a sitting position, to my knees, and finally to my feet, bringing a hand up to rub the back of my head. I looked at my fingers, checking to make sure they hadn't come back red.

They hadn't, but my hand began to wobble, then blur and I blinked, trying to focus. I swayed, unsteady on my feet, stumbling as I tried to right myself but I failed. The knowledge that I was going to pass out was the last clear thought that I had as I limply fell. Darkness enveloped me, cradled me, and the pain that I'd been anticipating from the fall never came. I felt several tiny smacks to my face followed by one, swift, hard slap and gasped as I jerked awake.

"Sorry." Ushar murmured as his face came into focus. His shadows clung to me, and I could only assume they'd been what kept me from hitting the marble when I fell the second time.

"Thanks." I said to them as I pushed myself up, and they whirled, twirling away to coil around Ushar. I brought a shaking hand up to my aching head.

"What happened?" He asked, concern clearly written across his features, and in his honey eyes.

I thought back, not sure where to start, then just decided that it was too much to rehash. "I need to find Rey."

His eyes went vacant for a moment, then he blinked, looking back at me. "I can't sense her."

So, I wasn't the only one she'd blocked. I got to my feet, coming vertical with a grunt, my head pounding. "Do the shadows know where she is?"

He murmured something too low for me to understand, and I watched a shadow slither up his arm to whisper into his ear. His brow furrowed, and he turned his head, speaking to it in an urgent, hushed whisper. He sighed, bringing a hand up to rub his eyes.

"What is it?" I demanded.

"She asked them not to tell me."

Heat rose in my chest, and I shook my head, laughing once. She'd outsmarted me so thoroughly, I would've been impressed if I wasn't so fucking angry. "Of course she did."