Chapter 2
"Revenge is a fire that burns the hand that feeds it."
—The Book of Chances

Imperial Star DestroyerChimaera, Outer Rim
The void between stars was not empty. Thrawn knew this. It hummed with the residue of old wars, the whispers of civilizations that had risen and fallen long before the first Sith carved their spite into the galaxy. He stood motionless on the bridge, his reflection fractured in the obsidian surface of the artifact beside him—a relic older than the Jedi, older than language. Its runes pulsed like a slow-beating heart, and Thrawn wondered, not for the first time, if it was studying him in turn.

"Grand Admiral," said Captain Pellaeon, his voice taut as a wire. "The New Republic's sensors are blind to us here. We may advance."

Thrawn did not turn. "Patience, Captain. To rush is to misunderstand the enemy. Coruscant is not a city. It is an idea. And ideas…" His gloved hand hovered over the relic. "…are brittle things."

The crew shifted uneasily. They feared the artifact, as they feared all things they could not name. Thrawn found their fear… useful.

"Set course for the Core," he said. "Let us test what they believe they know."

Manu's Apartment, Coruscant Lower Districts
Rain fell in sheets, blurring the neon-lit towers into smears of light. Manu pressed his forehead to the window, watching the droplets slide like tears down the transparisteel. His reflection stared back—a boy soft at the edges, his body betraying him in ways the other youths mocked with casual cruelty.Snorglak, they called him. A joke. A punchline.

He flexed his bandaged hand, the cut from the broken mirror still throbbing.Weak, he thought.Weak, weak, weak.

"Manu!" Kazak's voice cut through the tinny laughter of the holoscreen. "You're missing the best part!"

Manu did not move. Beyond the glass, the city sprawled like a living thing—a beast of metal and greed, its heart thrumming with the pulse of a billion souls. But tonight, the pulse felt… wrong. A discordant rhythm, like a song out of key.

The holoscreen fizzed. Kazak cursed, slapping the side of the projector. "Piece of junk—"

Static erupted. A woman's voice, sharp with panic:
"—emergency broadcast. Multiple Imperial-class signatures detected in the Coruscant system. All citizens are advised to—"

The lights died.

Darkness swallowed the room.

Kazak's laugh was too loud, too bright. "Imperial remnants? They're probably just smugglers. The Empire'sdust, man."

But Manu was not listening. His cut palm burned. He looked down.

The blood on the bandage was levitating.

A droplet trembled in the air, suspended, as though the universe itself had paused to consider it.

You want to be more than this, whispered a voice that was not a voice. It came from nowhere. From the dark between stars.You want them to see.

The window exploded.

Jedi Temple, Ossus
Luke Skywalker walked the labyrinth.

The temple's stones, warm with the memory of a thousand Jedi, guided his steps through the predawn dark. But the stones were restless tonight. They murmured of a shadow slipping through the cracks of the world, cold and patient.

Ben found him at the heart of the maze, breathless. "Master Luke—the archives. The texts are…bleeding."

Luke did not hurry. Hurry was a kind of fear, and fear was a teacher he had long learned to distrust.

In the archive vault, ancient pages swam in black ichor. The air tasted of rust and rot. Ben gagged, but Luke knelt, fingertips brushing the fluid. It recoiled.

A cold wind swept through the vault. The ichor pooled, twisted, resolved into words:
SKYWALKER WILL PAY.

Ben paled. "What do we do?"

Luke closed his eyes and said nothing. Somewhere, a boy with a bleeding hand stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back.

Coruscant
The Star Destroyer hung in the sky.

Manu stood in the rain, Kazak's grip tight on his arm. TIE fighters screamed through the streets, their cannons painting the night with fire. But Manu could not look away from his hand.

The blood danced now. It spiraled in the air, a tiny crimson galaxy orbiting his fingers.

Yes, hissed the voice.You see. You have always seen.

"Manu,run!" Kazak screamed.

But Manu was not there. Not entirely. Some part of him had slipped into the spaces between moments, into the dark where the voice lived.

A stormtrooper stepped through the smoke, blaster raised.

Manu's blood froze midair.

Then it moved.