Jacen was trapped. Stuck in a place between dream and waking, reality and death. Snoke fabricated increasingly elaborate and painful tortures and scenarios, all leaving Jacen begging for the darkness to overtake him entirely, for all of this to end.
But Snoke would no longer be patient.
And one memory kept playing in his memory in the few moments of gray, when Snoke was too busy dreaming up the pain he could cause, that haunted him. Princess Maia's death. Even though he knew it was Snoke he should be blaming, he felt such intense guilt he thought he'd die right then and there.
He kept reaching out to Jaina but couldn't feel her. She was blocked off.
Jaina's eyes flew open. Shortly after her conversation with her father, she passed out. She hadn't noticed the stinging pain, but did now. Still, she could sense where Jacen was.
Vjun.
But there was something else. Jaina struggled to remember. Then, as a pretty red-haired Hapan attendant entered the medcenter, it came to her. Jacen had seen Maia die. The Princess of Hapes was dead, thanks to Snoke.
"Are you feeling alright?" the attendant asked.
"Where is the Supreme Leader?" Jaina asked. "Or Mum, I don't care, either of them'll do— where are they?"
"Sit down, calm yourself," the attendant said, smiling cheerily. "Everything will be alright."
Jaina swung her bandaged legs off of the medical bed, and tried to get up to her feet. "I need to see them now."
The woman approached, and clenched her hands firmly around Jaina's shoulders, pushing her back down flat onto the bed.
"Don't worry about it. They're going to get your brother," the attendant said.
"I know where he is! I know what happened to the princess!" Jaina cried. "The Queen needs to know!"
Something crystallized in the attendant's eyes as she pinned Jaina to the medical bed. Her fingernails dug into Jaina's shoulders, cutting through her standard-issue shirt, which was as thin as flimsi.
"You're right," she said. "The Queen does need to know."
She yanked Jaina to her feet, and Jaina just barely was able to summon her lightsaber into her hand.
"You won't need that," the attendant assured her. "The guards are very strong, and very brave."
"And they failed us," Jaina snarled. "They're the reason Princess Maia is dead!"
Her free hand went up to her mouth as soon as she said it. Even the hum of machines within the medcenter went silent. The attendant's hands only tightened so hard, Jaina cried out.
"The situation is graver than I believed," she snarled. "Come on."
Jaina was thrown into an ornate room. She cried out as she hit the ground, and sensed that Jacen, on Vjun, was being thrown to the ground himself. She forced herself onto her hands and knees, and saw her lightsaber a few feet away. She reached for it just as Queen-Mother Jocasta stepped forward in shimmering emerald skirts. She leaned down and picked up the metal cylinder.
"Give it back," Jaina ordered, wriggling her fingers towards her weapon.
"I do not think I will," Queen-Mother Jocasta said, as coolly as she pleased. She ignited the blade and stared at it for a moment. "Blue-violet. How quaint. Do you know the reputation purple lightsabers carry?"
"What?" Jaina felt as if her head were spinning.
"They say that those who carry purple are far closer to the dark than any other Jedi," Queen-Mother Jocasta said. "I've never cared for Jedi. Far too obsessed with their corrupt sense of justice and nobility to turn their attentions to the true problems in this galaxy."
"I don't understand, you called us here," Jaina said. "And what's this got to do with my lightsaber?"
"I suspected the boy would be too soft-hearted," Jocasta said, ignoring Jaina as she lightly crossed the room to an old-fashioned fireplace. "He would have to be, to love my fool of a granddaughter. Maia lacked any conviction, any strength. Hapes will be better off without her as an heir."
"You knew?"
Jocasta laughed. Jaina hated how lovely her laugh sounded. "Snoke informed me of such things. I did not care. Being the boy's consort would have given her some purpose beyond her childish studies of her Jedi Knights. You, on the other hand, you have ruthlessness in you. You may be impulsive, and still cling to romantic notions of everything, and there is your sappy views of love. But you have conviction, courage, and are practical."
"I don't understand," Jaina admitted.
"Oh, dear, I did believe you to be brighter than this," Jocasta drawled. "No matter. That makes things easier for me. Jacen, Snoke has decided, will not be the face of our dark Order. No, you will. And we already have a consort picked out for you."
"Consort?" Jaina could only hope, pray that she was wrong, even though she knew he was in their hands—
"Kyp Durron is of a suitably powerful line," Jocasta said. "He will make pretty, powerful heirs to the Skywalker dynasty. We attempted to retrieve him, to groom him for our purposes a long time ago. But the betrayers, the Knights of Ren, interfered."
"Kyp won't go along with your plans, and neither will I," Jaina said.
"Kyp was easy to manipulate, like all young pretty boys," Jocasta said. "And I'm sure he will be able to convince you where Maia failed to convince Jacen."
Jaina shook her head. "You underestimate me."
Jocasta appeared amused. "Do you look like you have anywhere to go, dear? You're trapped? Now be a good girl, so we can take you to your Kyp."
Jocasta reached to touch Jaina's face, and instantly, Jaina passed out.