Chapter Thirty-Two
AITHNE
Aithne had decided to begin her third full day in the Korriban academy with a sparring session. It had been a couple of days since she'd had a workout where she wasn't legitimately trying to kill somebody, and she thought it was time for a change. She'd also decided that maybe instead of avoiding Jolee's doubtful glances, it might be wiser to embrace them into her life and use them as a check. So Carth was standing off to the side of the sands by a weapon rack in the academy dueling room, looking servile and unoccupied but actually keeping himself safe from Aithne's rivals or distrustful allies in the academy while Aithne went a few rounds with Jolee. She'd put away the lightsaber for now, so as not to give away Jolee's ability to use one in the event some Sith came by.
They'd both worked up a sweat. Funny, Aithne thought, how much better you felt about yourself when you started doing something. She'd had too much time to think about the day before during the night. She bore down on Jolee with her double-bladed sword, forcing him back. In the field, Bindo frequently augmented his combat with Force attacks; his skills with a lightsaber were basic. He had practiced mostly against beasts for twenty years. But he was a master of the rudimentary forms, and his defense was solid if not brilliant or original when he was fighting with just a sword. If neither of them resorted to Force attacks, Aithne thought she could probably take Jolee using her preferred Form VI, perhaps with a few Form II variations, but she knew it would take a while.
Jolee, however, did have a weakness. He was easily distracted by conversation. Aithne wanted him to work on it; to start paying more attention to what was called for in the moment and whether or not it was a good idea to talk in the first place. So, as she sparred against Jolee now, she opened up a conversation. "You mentioned something about your adventuring days?"
"Did I?" Jolee grunted, blocking her overhead strike. "Strange the tricks memory plays on you when you get older."
Aithne stepped left and back, whirling her weapon underhand to swing like a pendulum, underneath where his sword was positioned. Jolee had to jump back to avoid the slice that would have gone right up underneath his rib cage. Aithne grinned. "Well? Were you an adventurer, or weren't you?
Jolee scowled. He made the signal to cease, and Aithne lowered her weapon. "Didn't I say my past was my affair?" he demanded. "You don't see me poking and prodding you with questions, do you?"
Aithne shrugged. "I seem to recall plenty of questions yesterday, actually. Call this my revenge."
Jolee's eyebrows could be rather intimidating when he chose. He used them to excellent effect now. "You don't really want to hear about me. We're talking ancient history, probably before you were born. History bores kids. Proven fact."
Aithne swung her sword into its casing on her back and gestured to her canteen, strapped to her pack by Carth. He stooped, scooped it up, and tossed it at her. She caught it and took a long drink, nodding her thanks. "Yeah?" she said to Jolee when she was done. "Well, old people love to talk about history. Proven fact."
"She won't give up, you know," Carth put in.
"I know that," Jolee snapped. "Oh, fine, fine, have it your way. Just don't cry about it later. Yes, yes, I was an adventurer. Happy now? I wasn't even done with my—" he looked around.
Aithne mocked him, exaggerating the motions as she looked around as if for an eavesdropping enemy. "Don't worry: I'm monitoring the perimeter. We'll treat it like a training exercise," she told him. "Not that it isn't hilarious that you care what people overhear now." Jolee had been far too quick to speak ever since their arrival on Korriban.
"Oh, ha-ha," Jolee said sourly. "Mouthy, arrogant little—Maybe I have been a bit chatty since we landed, but they need taking down a peg or two around here, in case you hadn't noticed. Fine. I hadn't even finished my training. I had a full head of hair and an eagerness to see absolutely everything. Sound familiar? The powers that be were never very happy with me, you see. Too brash! Too willful. They liked it even less when I began my smuggling career."
Carth checked. "Wait. You were a smuggler?" he repeated.
Jolee sniffed. "Don't look at me like that, sonny, dammit! I wasn't always the wrinkled old coot I am now, you know."
"I could buy it," Aithne offered. "You've got the right mix of boredom with the status quo and irreverence for authority."
"Oh, think you've got me figured out, do you?" Jolee growled, but he seemed appeased. "At the time, the Ukatis system was interdicted by its own king. He preferred to keep his people starving and poor, the better to oppress them. The Republic Senate was trying to negotiate peace, but they were getting nowhere as usual. I decided I wasn't going to wait. I found myself a ship and a partner, and we began smuggling food and supplies to the Ukatis citizenry through the blockade."
Aithne made a small noise of approval. "And you got the credits for the supplies from?" she prompted.
Jolee grinned at her then. "Well, we didn't buy all the equipment, per se. Some were happy to donate goods. Some we just, ah, knew had more than they could use."
Carth snorted. "So, you stole it."
"'Stole' is such a harsh word," Jolee complained. "They would have donated those goods readily enough if they were compassionate. I considered it a tax on the greedy. We only got caught once. A lone Ukatish freighter shot us down and forced a crash landing. I thought the Force had abandoned me, as I remember."
"So, what happened then?" Aithne asked.
Jolee looked off into the distance, his face oddly torn between happiness; sadness; and bitter, bitter regret. "Well, as it happens," he said softly, "getting shot down turned out to be very fortunate. That day was the day I . . ." he trailed off.
"That was the day you what?" Aithne murmured.
"Well, that was the day I met my wife."
"You were married?" Carth demanded. "Isn't that against regulations for a Jedi?"
Aithne had to admit she was surprised herself, but she let Jolee answer. Two other Sith were headed toward the dueling room now with some intention, but it would be a minute or so before they arrived. "So is smuggling and independently owning a starship," Jolee said. "I wasn't big on rules in those days. Or these days, for that matter. I'm not the only one of the Jedi to ever break that particular rule, either, though it usually doesn't end too well." He had sensed the Sith heading their way too now. He had gone tense, and he picked up his own things. "But that's a conversation for another time. My mouth is starting to draw flies."
Aithne wanted to return to the conversation another time; she was interested in Jolee's past now—in the smuggling Jedi trainee who had married. But with appearances to keep up, it was time they moved on. "And we've got work to do," she said, just as the Sith came into earshot. "All warmed up? Good. I would like to accomplish a great deal in the valley before the evening meal."
Jolee and Carth fell into place behind her and at her flank like dutiful servants. "Master, there was something about one of the tombs," Carth said. "One of the instructors mentioned the former headmaster of the academy has been hiding there, and that some of the academy students have had some trouble."
Aithne saw both of the Sith prick up their ears as they passed. She swept them a contemptuous look over her shoulder as they exited the dueling room and moved toward the academy exit to the valley.
"Which tomb?" Aithne murmured in a lower tone.
"Uh—Tulak Hord, I think," Carth told her.
"We'll be careful," Aithne assured him. "You think it's something Master Uthar might want handled, though?"
"Yeah, the instructor yesterday told the student asking that Master Uthar would be interested in any of the old headmaster's research," Carth confirmed. "But I think it was another one of those things where they had some issue, and the master was letting one of the students resolve it instead of handling it himself."
Aithne's sneer was genuine this time. As they left the academy, she fell into a more natural walk and expression. "He's lazy," she told the others. "He's letting the students here handle every single problem his incompetence gives rise to. Amazing nobody's noticed yet and challenged him. I'm fighting Yuthura at the trial because he can't even be bothered killing her himself. I haven't seen Uthar bother doing his own work even once since we arrived, and his attitude is affecting the whole culture here."
"You realize you're complaining that he's making the Sith coming from here more incompetent?" he pointed out. He sounded amused.
Aithne smiled. "Okay, an advantage for the Republic," she conceded. "But it's bad management."
"Where to first?" Jolee asked. "And can I say, it's good to be out of that academy with you?"
Aithne rolled her eyes. "Positive reinforcement to encourage more pro-social behavior?" she drawled. More genuinely, she admitted, "It was a mistake leaving you so much yesterday. One of my dear classmates or one of the older or newer classes might have taken advantage. I think you two would probably put up more of a fight than they'd have expected, but that would've caused its own problems. Besides—" she grimaced, flicking her eyes back in a sort of apology to Jolee for her coldness yesterday— "It wasn't good for me to leave you."
"It's always easier to resist the Dark Side with the influence of others," Jolee said softly. "Folks to hold you accountable, give you perspective. Remind you how much you stand to lose by giving in. It's the reason the Jedi encourage master-padawan pairs. They are only ever abandoned in times of deep extremity, when resources have been pushed much too far. When you're alone, it is far too easy to justify any action that you take."
Aithne wondered if that was why she had left them yesterday: because she'd known that. Because she'd already known inside herself that the actions she planned or the mindset she had had was unjustifiable. She had needed to have more respect for Korriban and the power of the Sith culture from the start. More respect for the warnings she had been given since she joined the Jedi. "I want to follow up on those kids Yuthura told us about today, Dustil's friends. The ones in the shyrack caves. I want to see if we can get them out," she said. "Then a couple more of the tombs."
"Whatever you want," Jolee said.
"We're with you," Carth seconded.
It turned out that the students in the shyrack caves were in quite a bit of trouble. They had been able to handle the mynock and tuk'ata with only a few casualties, but another terentatek from the days of the Great Hunt had made its home in those caves too. Unable to return to the academy with Uthar's order of execution hanging over them, unable to defeat the terentatek alone, the runaways had lost five of their companions since their collective desertion from the academy four days ago, and a sixth was wounded. But Thalia May, their leader, was fiercely protective of the small group that remained, fiercely resistant to returning to the Sith academy and the culture of violence and murder she had found there. It took some doing for Aithne to convince Thalia that she was on their side, but with a little bit of work and some discussion of their friendship with Dustil—though Carth did not remove his helmet or explain further—the students agreed for one last try against the terentatek. With Thalia, two other able-bodied students, and a few well-placed mines, they were able to fight the terentatek, which was tired and elderly, on much more agreeable terms than Aithne and the others had fought the one in the Shadowlands.
"Can you get to Dreshdae from here?" Aithne asked them after Jolee had done what he could for their wounded companion, looking out of the caves' back exit toward the barren waste outside.
Thalia nodded. "There is another entrance to the city on the eastern side, near a road leading to the sulfur springs. We can get in that way. The gate is still run by civilians, and we should be able to trick them into thinking we're still a part of the academy there and barter for passage within the port. Thank you!"
"Good luck," Aithne answered, shaking Thalia's hand. The students left, and Aithne examined the artifacts she had found near the terentatek's lair. Once again, she'd found information the archivists on Dantooine might be interested in—the ending of yet another one of the Jedi who had gone on the Great Hunt years before. They'd also found a relic of that Jedi, robes separated from a corpse long gone, but the robes, while dirty, were still good quality, and felt good to Aithne within the Force. Protective, somehow. They hadn't helped the last guy much, but she still felt rather like she wanted to do some laundry when they returned to the academy that night.
Their excursion to the tomb of Marka Ragnos went, if anything, even more smoothly than their excursion to the shyrack caves. It was nearly infested with droids, the creations of an elite assassination droid capable of cannibalizing the materials buried with the Sith Lord to bolster its own defenses. Marka Ragnos had apparently been a droid aficionado, and the assassination droid was a hyperintelligent model that had been programmed with the knowledge. But the droids the original rogue had created were not as advanced as itself, and Aithne had a particular knack with droids—repairing and destroying them. She had also asked around and found out about the rogue droid's sound sensitivities beforehand. The droid had apparently gone rogue because its independent learning systems had advanced to the point where it took issue with its own assassination programming. It was a little funny: a droid on Korriban had developed a conscience. Nevertheless, because Aithne and her friends had taken care to dampen the sounds of her approach to the droid's location, they were able to meet the assassination droid itself without hostilities, and with some commonsensical repairs and restructuring, she was able to fix the droid's audio receptors and delete its assassination protocols without destroying the droid itself. She didn't exactly know what the droid planned to do with itself as it headed out a back exit to the tomb of Marka Ragnos, but she wished it well.
Ironically because the morning had gone so well, Aithne was apprehensive as she approached the tomb of Tulak Hord with the others, after a lunch of the ever-delicious ration bars. Good days didn't happen on Korriban. And in her experience, whenever things seemed to be going well, it was always the universe winding up to deliver a cruel cosmic sucker punch.
However, upon entering the tomb, there didn't seem to be anything to worry about. The first few rooms were dusty and crumbling, but they contained nothing more dangerous than a few tuk'ata, none as big or as mean as the three she had faced with Lashowe the night before. Aithne had actually started to relax when she arrived at the ancient console that locked passage to the burial chamber of Tulak Hord. The systems were ancient, and all too susceptible to the modern slicing tools Jolee carried in his pack. As she worked, Carth knelt to examine a corpse the tuk'ata had been at recently.
The passage to the burial chamber opened, and Aithne and Jolee walked forward, just as Carth spoke up behind them— "Wait a minute. There's something funny about this—"
Aithne's foot fell on a pressure plate hidden under the dust in the dimness of the passage. Aithne's stomach sank as she heard the hiss of a gas release and smelled the sickly-sweet scent of toxic fumes. She recognized the scent—a contact nerve toxin that would dull human senses and quickly render its victim unconscious—but she was already breathing it in. They all were. Carth wore a helmet, but it didn't have a filter or gas exchange.
She saw Jolee collapse beside her as her world went black.
Aithne's first sensation was a tingling in her arms and legs. It wasn't unlike the pins-and-needles feeling of blood returning to an area where the circulation had been cut off. Aithne forced open her eyes. Her lids were sluggish, and she felt tired and stupid. A side effect of the nerve toxin.
She tried to move, but none of her limbs responded. She swore. That came out, though the ugly word sounded slurred. Aithne didn't usually curse, but sometimes it felt appropriate, and now was one of those times. Carth had warned her about the tomb of Tulak Hord! He had warned her! Yet she had blundered into a Sith trap like a ten-year-old playing junior archaeologist!
First things first. Aithne's eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she tried to evaluate where she was. The musty, dead smell and the sarcophagus immediately in front of her suggested she was still in the Sith Lord tombs, probably still the tomb of Tulak Hord. There was a rough camp to her left with a flickering lantern, a bedroll, and a single supply crate. Behind the Sith sarcophagus, she could see Carth and Jolee, suspended by their wrists from the ceiling with some simple rope. Only the rope suspended them. Both were dead weight, slumped against the leverage of the rope. Unconscious, not dead—she could see the rise and fall of their bodies as they breathed and feel their lives pulsing through the Force.
She herself was held differently. She wasn't tied from the ceiling but held in a partial stasis on her knees, everything from her shoulders down held immobile with the Force. She could move her eyes, her head, her mouth, but nothing else. Aithne struck out with the Force, beating against the stasis with her mind, but it was like beating on the stone walls of the tomb. She felt nothing but a sudden surge of cold amusement.
A figure she had initially taken for stone rubble near the sarcophagus moved. The man's skin was as gray as the tomb itself, like slate or chalk. He was bald and wrinkled, but the two yellow eyes burning inside his shriveled face were alive with malice. "Awake already, are you?"
The man's voice was high and grating, and Aithne hated it immediately. He rose, striding between his camp and Jolee's hanging body to perch on the Sith Lord sarcophagus like a throne. He regarded her. "Good! We can get started, then. You're in the tomb of the Sith Lord, Tulak Hord, if you don't know. I've taken up residence here for now. It's dusty and full of critters, but it's home.
"You're far more toothsome than Uthar's usual drek, by the way," the man added. "His female students tend toward the dour and shapeless. It was a positive pleasure relieving you of your weapons. Interesting decision—hiding your lightsaber within your tunic like that. Something you didn't want the others to know?"
Aithne saw the weapons—in a pile in the far-right corner, a couple of meters right and behind Carth. Sure enough, both her sword and the double-bladed lightsaber were there. She'd been searched. She tried to judge her condition, to see if the old man might have done anything else. Her tunic was wrinkled but was intact, along with her trousers. Aside from the effects of the contact nerve gas, though, she appeared to be unharmed.
The man was smiling at her. It wasn't a nice smile. It was too big for his shrunken face and reminded her of a skeleton more than anything else.
"Oh, don't worry," he said, as if he'd known what she was thinking. "I don't plan to touch you, that way at least. I might have quite enjoyed it once upon a time, but I've grown away from such basic pleasures. We're going to have a little test instead."
"You're the old headmaster." Aithne's voice came out raspy, and she cleared her throat.
The old man giggled. "Correct! Very good! Mekel here hadn't done any of the appropriate background when he stumbled into my little web. He thought he would just nip into the tomb for a bit of raiding." He jerked his head to Aithne's right, and she looked over her shoulder.
Mekel hadn't been immediately obvious. He was only barely in her periphery if she looked straight ahead, but there the slime was, sure enough, held in place with a stasis just like she was. Apart from an exchange of insults on her first full day in the academy, Aithne had steered clear of Mekel. He'd been her most serious competition from the start. Now he was her only remaining competition.
He wasn't looking too well at the moment, though. His breathing was shallow. His uniform was stained with sweat. It looked like he was straining to stay conscious, actually, and his expression was that of a man who had been pushed to the very limits of his endurance. He'd hardly reacted at all to the mention of his name.
"What's with him?" Aithne asked, though she thought she knew.
The old man laughed again. "Poor lad. He's had a hard day. Say hello, Mekel."
Mekel could only groan.
"Good," the old man said with mock compassion. "Introductions are always the place to start. My name is Jorak Uln. And you are?"
Aithne hesitated. She didn't want to play this old man's game, whatever it was, but looking at Carth and Jolee hanging from the ceiling, she had a bad feeling about what could happen if she refused. "Liat Ser'rida," she answered.
The old man's eyes glittered, and he seemed to study her for a moment. "I don't think so," he said then. "You could be—I never met her, but no, on the whole, I think you're lying. Liat Ser'rida would never be so foolish as to stumble into my little trap." A chill ran down Aithne's spine. Like she had when she'd met Uthar Wynn and given Ser'rida's name, once again she felt there was something she was missing, that she'd made a bad miscalculation.
"Now why would you say that, I wonder?" Uln mused to himself. "No matter. It has little to do with our purpose here. You see, I'd like to discover if you've got the pluck of an old-fashioned Sith. Most of the students Uthar has been passing through these days are so pathetic. Take young Mekel here," he said with a contemptuous gesture. "I already tested him. Didn't I, Mekel?"
Mekel stirred more this time. His eyes tried to focus, first on Uln, and then on Aithne.
"Yes, yes, you're welcome," drawled Jorak. "You see, Melek here has the cruel disposition of a Sith, but not the gumption I'm looking for."
In the corner, Jolee was beginning to come to. He twitched, and his eyelids fluttered. Aithne reached out with her mind, trying to convey a psychic warning. Stay still. Don't let him know you can help us! She saw him tense and felt that some part of her message had gotten through.
But Jorak Uln had sensed it too. His face wrinkled in surprise, and he turned. Suddenly, Jolee was encased in a stasis too. "Oh," Jorak said. "Interesting. The woman from dear Uthar's academy is not the only Force adept in the party that just came knocking. Clever," he remarked, turning back to Aithne, a new light of respect in his eyes. "A hidden lightsaber, and you keep a follower in reserve, disguised as a simple underling. Aren't you full of surprises? But there will be no interruptions tolerated from your friends. They will be spared or destroyed along with you."
"Destroyed?" Aithne repeated. Her eyes drifted back to Carth. He wasn't conscious yet. Jedi training enabled the body to fight off toxins faster. She didn't know whether he should be waking up soon or not. What if he was hurt? "Look, I'm not interested in handling Uthar's business for him. You two can fight your little war all you want, leave us out of it. Can't we—can't we talk about this?"
Jorak followed her gaze. "Oh, and there's her weakness!" he cackled. "Foolish, child, very foolish, bringing someone you love to search out a Sith lord! But come! We'll see if your fear for him makes you strong. Perhaps you have some questions?"
Aithne thought rapidly. The situation was bad. Any protest she didn't love Carth now would seem like a denial, expose him even further to Uln's cruelty and caprice. Best to leave it alone. Besides, of the four of them in the tomb with the madman, Carth was the most vulnerable to him and the person she did want least for him to attack. "What do you want?" she spat.
"Now, now," Uln chided her, "Is that any kind of attitude to take with higher education? I'm doing you a favor, really. So then! This is how it goes: I'm going to pose a moral question to you. Get it right, and I torture Mekel. Get it wrong, and I torture you. Mekel here is a bit weak. He probably won't be able to take much more punishment. Mind you, get too many wrong, and you'll die yourself, and your allies with you. I don't know what you think of Mekel. Maybe you don't like him. Maybe you think he deserves to be murdered. Well, here's your chance. Fair enough?"
Aithne glanced over at Mekel. He was a threat, the last remaining obstacle between her and the tomb of Naga Sadow. Moreover, he was a terrible person, and she'd wanted to kill him since she'd first seen him outside the academy with those starving hopefuls. Preferably in a way just as drawn out and painful as the slow death of exhaustion, dehydration, and malnutrition he'd forced on those children. On the other hand, she'd kind of wanted to kill him herself. Doing it by proxy seemed like a cheap and unsatisfying shortcut.
But she only said, "You know, when I woke up this morning, I thought it might be nice to kill him in a sick personality test given by some demented monster in the middle of a tomb." The irony was heavy in her voice.
"My, aren't you fun," Jorak observed. "Any last comments before we begin, Mekel?"
Sometime in the last two minutes, Mekel's eyes had begun to track. Now he flopped his head to the shoulder facing Aithne and looked at her, desperate. "We can both survive," he grunted. His voice was a rattling rasp. "Attack him together!"
Jorak's eyebrows met in a childish pout. "Now, now, dear lad," he said. "Do you really think your friend here will answer questions wrong just to spare little you, risking her own life and those of her companions? Apparently, you're her competition! And how many correctly answered questions before you die, hmm? No, don't be silly . . . you had your chance, remember? On that note," he said, turning to Aithne, "let's begin. Now then, your immediate superior amongst the Sith is an effective commander and a fine leader. He trusts you, and you like him. You see an opportunity to kill him. What do you do?"
Aithne looked back at Mekel. In between his worthless life and Carth's and Jolee's, she'd choose Carth and Jolee every time. She stared down Mekel's hopeful expression, answering Uln without looking at him. "I take the opportunity. Kill him and take his position in the Sith."
"Very good," Uln purred. He turned on Mekel with a malevolent gleam in his eyes. "It looks like your friend is more of a Sith than you, Mekel. Time for your punishment." The air crackled and Aithne's hair stood on end as Uln released lightning from his fingers. It danced over Mekel's body, and he strained against the stasis, unable to even cringe away from the impact. His hoarse scream resounded in the confined burial chamber. He'd been screaming that scream for hours. On the other side of the sarcophagus, Carth regained consciousness with a start, thrashing against his tether.
"Still, Natthias!" Aithne snapped. "You'll hurt yourself! You're safe, for now."
Carth reacted to the sound of her voice. His helmet turned toward her. His body remained tense, but stopped lashing at the end of his rope. She felt him take in the situation.
"That's right, Natthias," Uln crooned. "You're safe enough, so long as your pretty master here stays on her toes. Keep quiet now, and leave your betters to their business." He turned back to Aithne. "And so, we come to Round Two. You come across a group of humans who are threatened by dangerous animals. They plead for help, offering you a reward. What do you do?"
Aithne glanced at Carth, then looked back at Jorak. "I take the money and leave the weak fools to their fate," she answered.
Once again, Uln's fingers flashed lightning. Once again, Mekel's scream tore through the stillness of the tomb. She could feel his pain, his terror. It didn't give her the pleasure she had thought it would. Aithne watched Uln's unnatural electricity crackle and arc over Mekel's already singed skin. She could smell the scorching on his uniform. A thin trickle of blood ran from his nose.
On the other side of the tomb, Jolee was watching her. His mouth was hard. He knew what she was doing. He knew why she was doing it. But that stare didn't offer her any consolation. She was still letting Uln murder a man in cold blood. She was encouraging it, to save her skin and that of her friends, and telling Uln lies so Mekel would suffer. Jolee's eyes left her with no excuse.
And Carth, to her right—he hadn't heard any of Uln's proposition. He had no idea it was them or Mekel. But he'd understood well enough that she'd said something terrible, pleased Uln, and Mekel's pain was the result. His body strained against the ropes again, trying to get away from the horrible scene, and through their bond, Aithne could feel his horror, his disbelief. His betrayal. It hurt worse than Jolee's stare.
Jorak though—he kept rambling on about her brilliance. Finally, though, he got around to the next question. "You discover an aspect of the Force that gives you great power," he said, eyes glinting. "Do you share it and strengthen the Sith as a whole or keep it to yourself?"
Aithne looked from Mekel—her competition, the horrible little murderous insect she'd wanted to squash for days—to her friends. She closed her eyes, bracing herself. "I share it," she whispered. Even as she said the words, she felt a weight lift from her chest and off her spirit. "Let all learn who care to," she added, suddenly smiling.
Jorak sputtered, incoherent. "Share it?!" he demanded. "You gain an advantage, and you share it freely? I mean, share it?! Are you mad?"
Aithne opened her eyes and widened her smile. She winked at Uln provokingly. To her left, she felt Jolee's approval, like a warm blanket settling over her. He was willing to take the risk. He was okay with this, so long as she didn't force Mekel's murder.
Jorak was angry. His eyes narrowed at her. He knew she had answered wrong on purpose. "Ah, well, you did ask for this. It's for your own good."
Pain tore through every nerve of Aithne's body. It was her first experience with Force Lightning, and it felt like she was being fried from the inside out. A furious, anguished scream sounded, and it wasn't until Aithne realized her chest ached from holding back her own cry that she understood it was Carth. She didn't have the energy to reassure him. Her every fiber pulled against the Force stasis. Every nerve leaped; every muscle seized. The torture wasn't just the Lightning; it was the damage she did to her own body, trying to resist. Abruptly, the Lightning ceased. Aithne's skin sizzled. She could smell her own hair, but she also felt the last of the sluggishness had left her body. Uln had burned out the last effects of the nerve toxin.
"Let her go, you bastard!" Carth was shouting. The rope above him creaked and trembled with his efforts to escape. "Let me go, and I'll—"
Abruptly, he too was frozen in a stasis. Unlike the fields encasing Mekel, Aithne, and Jolee, Carth's encased his entire body. His rage and sudden terror flooded across to her mind, though.
"I thought I told you no interruptions," Jorak snarled at Carth. "If your master knew her lessons, she would be fine, but no, she had to be stupid and stubborn." Aithne felt Carth's understanding dawn, and she felt his sudden turmoil. Unlike Jolee, he didn't know what he wanted her to do. She closed her stinging eyes and didn't know if she wept for him or for herself.
"Not that his pain isn't delicious," Uln remarked to Aithne. "I want you to imagine what it will be like for your friend to watch you die, to know he's about to go himself because of your failure. Maybe that will give you the proper motivation. But what if it was he who had failed? Tell me that? What if this man made a major mistake and made you look bad? Let's assume he is normally very competent and skilled, though given his level of control, I highly doubt it. Nevertheless, you clearly have some level of attachment to one another. If he did make a mistake, would you kill him? Or give him another chance?"
It was a particularly cruel question. If Aithne answered it the way Uln wanted, she'd be telling Carth she would kill him for a mistake, along with possibly actually killing Mekel. If she told the truth, he'd have to watch her tortured once again. Men like him—the worst thing for them was to feel helpless, forced to watch as evil reigned uncontested, particularly when it came after people close to them. She'd be taking him right back to the heart of the ugliest battles he'd ever fought in, right back to Telos, in a way. But—
"That one deserves another chance," Aithne answered. "Let him learn from the mistake and do better next time. I forgive him."
She spoke the words for Carth—forgiveness for every time he'd ever suspected her of anything, because as it turned out, she hadn't been that trustworthy. The first taste of a little anger, the first decent-sized temptation to do what was expedient, she had folded, right into a perfect little sculpture of a Sith. Silently, she pled with Carth that he would forgive her this, for trying to be good because he'd want her to.
Jorak's eyes blazed with fury. "You're soft," he hissed. "Weak. Fine. Time for your medicine."
Aithne's vision was lost to the crackling aureole that enveloped her. The burning smell in her nostrils sharpened as her every sense screamed. She screamed; she couldn't hold it back this time, though she buttoned her lips over it so it sounded out as more of a groan, though it tore her throat with its intensity. Her limbs trembled within the stasis. She felt fevered and sick by the time Jorak stopped. Tears streamed down her face, and the salt in them burned her tortured skin. She was thirsty.
She felt Carth's echoed anguish ringing and resounding through her brain; Jolee's pity and sorrow, from farther away.
"Last question," barked Jorak, "You're about to die: do you pass on your knowledge to your apprentice to make him stronger, or do you use your last breath to strike at your enemies?" He sneered, waiting like a predator in the dark for her response.
Some sense deep inside herself told her this last question was a trick; she'd displeased him, and Uln would torture her whatever she said. Aithne looked over her shoulder at Mekel one more time and found that somehow, she still thought he was a terrible person who probably deserved to die, but she didn't hate him anymore. She smiled at Jolee, then looked at Carth one more time. She didn't look back at Jorak. "I won't give you the satisfaction," she whispered.
The Sith huffed. "Such insolent students I get these days. You deserve this, and then some! I'll enjoy this. Time for your medicine!"
And then he released such a volley of Force Lightning. This time, the scream got past her lips. It tore the air with her throat. Her eyes seemed to fog over. She felt like she was burning alive. It seemed her skin would split and her bones would melt, and then, right when she was sure she'd die, the Lightning finally, finally stopped.
Aithne took a deep, shuddering breath. She looked at Uln through eyes turned red with the burst blood vessels. She'd won.
He was regarding her, nonplussed. "This is odd," he said. "The test is over, and you're both still alive. Well, that's never happened before." He got up off the sarcophagus and started pacing. "What to do, what to do?" Finally, he turned to Mekel. The stasis field holding her competition released. "I suppose this means you can go, Mekel. I'll just have to figure out some nastier way to kill our friend and her companions here. Run along, now."
But Mekel remained, panting. "Or," he said, "I could use the Force to free her! And we could kill you! Seems you didn't think of that, old man!"
As Mekel struck out with his mind, Aithne and Jolee struck with him. Aithne felt the Force stasis fields on her and her companions stretch then shatter into oblivion. Mekel clenched his hand into a fist, and she felt him cannibalizing Uln's life force, using it to strengthen himself. Jolee spread his own hands, and Aithne felt her skin soothed. Her vision cleared, and her heart rate steadied. And she reached out with the Force and called. Several objects went flying—her and Jolee's lightsabers, Carth's blasters, spinning around the room to their respective owners.
It was brief, brutal justice for the old headmaster of the academy. Aithne stood panting over the body at the end, staring down at the corpse riddled with lightsaber burns and blaster bolts. She let her pain and anger and despair dissipate into the air. The tomb itself felt cleaner as she did so.
Mekel stood beside her. He turned to her. "I can't believe that I'm alive," he murmured. "You saved me. You could—you could have answered all those questions, couldn't you? You deliberately started choosing wrong answers to spare my life."
"I did," Aithne agreed. She stood quietly for a moment. "It almost went the other way," she told him then. "For my friends. For those hopefuls at the gate, and all the ones you must have killed like them."
"I understand," Mekel said. He looked back at the corpse of Jorak Uln. "I've never . . . I mean, I've never been on that side of the fence before. It makes you think. I think I understand why you might have—I'd be dead if you weren't . . ." he eyed Aithne's lightsaber. "I mean, if you were a proper Sith. But you're not, are you?"
Aithne activated the saber, twisting it to admire the violet color of the double blade. Mekel tensed but did not reach for his weapon. "I took this crystal from a kinrath corpse a couple of weeks ago," she told him. "It wasn't necessarily attuned to me—just . . . neutral. But I thought it might be useful if I needed to go incognito at some point. I have another hidden in my bag back at the academy. It doesn't go to this lightsaber; it's from my actual blade. But I'll put it in this one before I head to the final trial, and when I do, this lightsaber will shine a bright green."
Mekel swallowed. "That old man—did he say your name wasn't Liat Ser'rida? Or was I imagining that? It was . . . kind of fuzzy at the beginning."
"He said he thought I was lying about my name," Aithne said levelly.
"And . . . are you?"
Aithne looked at him and didn't answer. "Right," Mekel said. "I think I want to leave here. I think—I think the Sith aren't for me. At any rate, I don't want to compete with you anymore. You . . . you saved my life."
Aithne deactivated her lightsaber. "You saved mine," It was just basic fact.
Mekel shook his head. "I owe you," he insisted. "Thank you. And, whatever you're here for—good luck." He looked hard at her one more time, then turned and practically ran out of the tomb.
Jolee had been rummaging in Jorak's supplies. He came up beside her now and handed her a datapad. Aithne looked over it. It had all Jorak Uln's research, documentation of his observations and meditations in Tulak Hord's tomb as well as the results of his experimentation on several academy students and archaeologists. Aithne's fingers felt dirty, touching the datapad. Such a little thing, with such a long record of violence and evil. But once she turned it in to Uthar and told him what had happened here, he'd have no choice but to make her a Sith. Aithne stashed the datapad inside her pack.
"Lass?" Jolee said.
Aithne glanced at him.
"Well done."
"Aithne—" Carth's voice inside the helmet was dry and rasping. Aithne closed her eyes. She could feel the pain emanating from him—Uln was dead, but Carth was far from done with his reaction to watching Aithne's torture. The helplessness, rage, and self-recrimination he felt now was nearly overwhelming him, and he broadcast it over their bond at every instant. He couldn't help it, Aithne knew he couldn't help it, had no idea what he was doing. But it was too much. Jolee had healed much of her body moments ago. Her mind and spirit would take longer to heal. She couldn't deal with Carth's pain on top of her own.
She heard his armor shifting, knew without opening her eyes that he had removed his helmet to see her better, so she could see him better. Desperate for a way to stop the influx of Carth's emotions, to manage her own, Aithne acted on pure instinct. As if she had always known the way, she imagined a door inside her mind, and suddenly, it appeared—a door within a wall meters high and thick. She slammed it hard and slid home the bolt, and outside of her mind and body, she heard Carth make a startled noise.
Aithne opened her eyes to find him with his helmet off, looking at her in sudden surprise. "You did something. Just now. I—I felt it."
"Yeah," Aithne agreed. Suddenly, it was as though a weight had lifted off of her. She breathed in deep and smiled. She imagined her walls extending and made a second door across the path leading to still another mind. She slammed it too, and suddenly, for the first time in a long, long time, she was alone in her own head. She could feel Carth and Bastila there, on the other side of the doors. She had not learned to sever the bonds between them. But she had learned to block off their influence. It was like dropping two of the heaviest arms and armor packs they could make up on Ebon Hawk. Despite the fact she had been tortured just a few minutes ago, Aithne felt like she could fly.
Carth was worried, though. "Aithne—it's like . . . what did you do? Suddenly, it's like you aren't there anymore. I can see you, but—"
Jolee looked between them. "Ahh, I see," he murmured. "You have some Sensitivity to the Force then, don't you, lad? Well. Sometimes these things do run in families."
"I mean, that's what she told me. I don't—she said I don't realize it, but that—was it a Force thing that just happened? Aithne?" Carth turned back to her. His expression was torn between fear and the lingering torment of the past several minutes. Aithne could imagine what it was like. She knew if she opened the door between their minds, she would feel it. But she no longer had to.
She reached across to him anyway. Took his wrist. "I took care of something that's been bothering me for a while, that's all. Probably you too, though you couldn't have known. We can talk about it later." She wouldn't be able to put him off, she knew. It was time and past to tell Carth a lot of things, and even as he opened his mouth to argue, she squeezed his wrist. "You have my word," she promised. "But right now, I just want to get out of here."
She was playing on what had just happened, she knew, but it was also true, and Carth knew it was. "Okay," he agreed. "Yeah. Let's get out of here. But Aithne—what you did. With Jorak. Never do that again. Never make me watch that again." His voice cracked as he asked her. Force, his eyes—they looked like a kicked akk pup's.
Aithne regarded him. "I can't promise that. Would you want me to?" she asked.
Something passed between them, and Carth's jaw set. "Yes," he said finally, but the answer was absolute. Aithne felt as though he had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart inside his hand. She let go of her grip on his wrist.
"Let's go. I want to report to Master Uthar."
Uthar couldn't honestly keep her from passing to Sith. She'd revealed his apprentice's plot against him and was working with him—to the best of his knowledge—to end the threat Yuthura posed. She had retrieved information his master torturer had been unable to obtain. She had deceived not one but two of her competitors to death and brought him valuable Sith relics that each in turn had failed to secure. The other two competitors, as Uthar saw it, she had merely convinced of her superiority and persuaded to drop out. She had eliminated threats to the academy in the form of renegade students (she was able to persuade him that the bodies in the shyrack caves represented the entire remainder of the students he wanted executed) and a rogue assassin droid. She had even eliminated the old headmaster, Uthar's own former master, and brought back his knowledge to Uthar. In three days, she had proven herself far and away the most diligent, capable, and intelligent student in the entire Sith academy. At this point, Aithne felt she could be running the place. The very least Uthar could do was allow her to take her final trial the next day. Aithne left him feeling contemptuous of the entire competition.
She and her companions ate their evening meal. After they had returned to her room, Aithne took out the robes she had retrieved from the shyrack caves. "I'm going to mend and wash these," she said. "Bindo, stay here. Keep the door locked. Carth, you're coming with me."
It was her offer to explain what had happened earlier, and both men understood what she was saying. Jolee nodded his approval. He followed them to the door, and when they left, Aithne heard the lock engage as she had asked. Satisfied, she led Carth to the room the Sith had designated for their laundry.
The room was empty. For whatever reason, Sith preferred to have servants and slaves launder their clothing, or just went with dirty clothes. There was rather a superfluity of unhygienic Sith, Aithne had noticed. Still. Aithne closed this door as well. It was not equipped with a lock like the bedrooms, but it would be a barrier between her and Carth and any intruders. She expanded her awareness, splitting her attention so even as part of her remained focused on Carth and the conversation they needed to have now, another part of her remained on guard against any coming threats or potential eavesdroppers.
She pulled her new Force robes through her hands, feeling the fabric, the work she had to do. She moved to the laundry worktable, sprinkled stain remover upon the robes, and took up a separate rag to begin to rub the weave and work the filth out. "I told you you're Force Sensitive. Like your family. Like Dustil, though not to the same extent. Just the other side of untrainable, but it has an effect. On how you see the world, the things you're able to do. How you interact with people."
"Yeah, I remember," Carth said. He reached up and removed his helmet, setting it on the worktable beside Aithne's station, standing across the table from her.
"Force Sensitives sometimes form bonds to others, particularly other people who use or can feel the Force," Aithne explained. "Most of the time, bonds like this are deliberate. Jedi masters create them with their apprentices, a way for the masters to train the apprentices better and the apprentices to better learn from their masters. These bonds are then severed when the apprentice becomes a Jedi knight, like Juhani's was with Quatra. But sometimes, the bonding is accidental. Forged in a moment of distress when one or both parties need the connection."
"Like you and Bastila," Carth said, following.
Aithne hesitated. She had been dreading this conversation since Dantooine. But it was time and past they'd had it. "And me and you," she told him, keeping her eyes down on the fabric of the Jedi robes.
"You and me." Carth's repetition was monotone, like he didn't quite understand. Aithne's eyes flicked up to his face. He was watching her, intent.
Aithne shifted. "I first became aware of it the first time we were on Dantooine, when I began exploring my connection to Bastila and how it felt, and realized I had a similar 'easy access' to your thoughts and feelings. Not as fine-tuned or powerful; you aren't as powerful, and most of the time, you aren't aware of what you feel or experience through the Force. But I believe that on some level, you are also more aware of me than you are of others, with some heightened insight into what I am thinking and feeling.
"If I had to guess, I would say this connection between us probably first formed when you pulled me from the crash on Taris and cared for me right after. It might have strengthened with everything we faced together there, particularly during Taris's destruction. Things were harder for you in that moment than for anyone but Mission, and more so for you because it was the second time you'd seen something like it. You probably reached out with your mind for any connection you could find, and I—I was there. I can't say whether you or me or both of us together are responsible for the bond, whether I felt I needed you or vice versa, by the end, but something happened. And we are bonded. Just like me and Bastila."
Carth didn't answer. Aithne felt awkward. Putting aside her rag, she picked up her robes and turned around. She filled the tub there with warm water and put the robes in to soak for a while before she sent them through a proper cycle in one of the Sith machines. She turned back to Carth. She wished he would say something. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to worry or upset you. You can't help it, and I didn't know how to fix it. Still don't, really. I managed to figure out a way to shut you out back there, but it's not a permanent fix. The bond is still there, just masked. Shielded. I know you feel this kind of bond is invasive. I'm sorry. I just—"
"It's all right."
Aithne froze. She peered at him. He seemed as surprised as she was that he had said it. Cautiously, warily, Aithne opened the door she had built in her mind, allowing Carth's feelings to become clear to her once more. As she did, his gaze intensified. She felt a new awareness from him.
"You can feel that," she realized.
"I—yes," Carth said, frowning in sudden concentration. "I can't . . . I can't explain it. I can—I can feel you. Huh. I think you're right. I think I've been feeling you for a while. Your presence. It's like . . . like a sound right at the edge of what I can hear. Or something I can only see in my periphery. You've just been . . . there. I never even noticed, but when you . . . when you shut me out, like in the tomb earlier, it's like . . . it's like I suddenly lose this extra dimension I have on you. Can you—do you think you could try it again?"
Fascinated, Aithne blocked off the connection once again. Carth actually flinched. "Wow. Yeah. That's . . . that's disorienting. I didn't . . . I didn't think it would feel like this. Is this what it's like for you? With Bastila?"
Aithne leaned back against the rim of the sink. After she had begun training on Dantooine, she had identified several of Carth's more heightened abilities as being actually symptomatic of slight Force Sensitivity, probably inherited from the larger-than-normal gene pool of Force Sensitives upon Telos from the Jedi Support Corps stationed there. His profound skills as a pilot; his reflexes in a fight; the feelings he sometimes had about people and situations. She'd observed after a while that he did make some passive use of the Force on a day-to-day basis without realizing it, mostly to aid him in connecting to and getting a feel for other people. But everything she'd observed from him had been passive and unconscious—a natural extension of the way Carth lived his life and understood his environment rather than any focused observation of his environment through the Force or manipulative skill.
But he was more aware of the bond between them than she would have thought. Had been so on a higher cognitive level than she had known even before she'd pointed it out. Now that she'd told him, he was showing he also had the ability to isolate it within his mind, recognize it. The terms he was using hinted that he might have been using their bond to form his opinion and impressions of her more than either of them had suspected.
But his experience would be different than hers. Even if he'd been on a level with a Jedi and in practice using his abilities, the way they felt to him might not be the same as the way the very same abilities felt to her. Aithne spread her hands. "I don't know," she told him. "I'm not in your head, Carth. Not completely. I can't fully experience what things are like from your perspective."
Carth wasn't quite looking at her physically. His eyes focused on the laundry table, the wall. But amazingly, even with the direct connection between them shielded for the moment, Aithne could feel him fumbling for her through the Force, reaching out with the senses he had only just discovered he had to see her that way. She wondered, were Force Sensitives below a certain threshold actually untrainable, as the Jedi said? Or was it just that no one wanted to take the time to train abilities which might not be so impressive? Could people like Carth, if they were made aware of what talents they did possess through the Force, still learn to be sharper, clearer, more powerful, and more at peace? Elitism is right up the Jedi alley.
Or was it just that Carth's bond to her gave him greater access in this one respect? Aithne waited while Carth puzzled her out, stabbed at the edges of her, and scrambled for her center. It was different than when Bastila tried. Bastila knew what she was doing, and when Bastila did it, she was deliberately trying to force an intimacy. Carth—Carth was exploring a new facet of himself, a whole new way of experiencing others. It was just as intimate, but not nearly as personal, and somehow, Aithne felt no urge to psychically slap him away.
"I think—when you're not doing . . . whatever it is you're doing, it's like you're more there for me," Carth mused. "More real, somehow. Like I said, I had no idea. I didn't even notice until just now. It didn't—it didn't ever bother me." His eyes moved up to focus on her again, his explorations done. "It's bothered you? It must've, if you had to shut it down earlier."
He watched her. Aithne tried to figure out how to say it, how to be truthful without blaming him, gentle without hiding anything. "You remember back on Taris? How Bastila's stress over her time with the Vulkars gave me a headache?"
"Yeah, I remember."
Aithne sighed. "When I told her, she was able to deal with her emotions and shield them from me so what she was feeling didn't hurt me anymore. But you don't have the Jedi training that lets Bastila do that.
"I want to be clear," she said, meeting his eyes. "I don't read Bas's mind. I don't read yours. I don't think I could without a much more conscious effort and a lot more training in specific dimensions of certain Jedi skills, and I wouldn't want to even if I could. But with Bastila, for me, her mind is a more or less constant background noise that tells me where she is and how she's doing. I know when she's calm and when she's excited. I sense her anger, frustration, fear, and indignation—a whole lot easier than I can sense anybody else's, ever, and all the time. That doesn't mean I know how to interpret it. I don't necessarily know why Bastila feels what she feels, nor can I always even say what she's focused on."
Carth had folded his arms. "And with me?" he asked. His face had set, braced for what she had to tell him. He knew it was worse.
"It's louder," Aithne admitted. "Military discipline ain't like Jedi discipline, Republic. You people are trained to be professional, not to show your feelings in work settings. You aren't trained to filter through and release all your emotions to begin with or to psychically shield them from people sensitive to that kind of thing."
"And it hurts you?"
He was relentless. Aithne winced. "If it hurts you. It's worse if I'm dealing with my own stuff relating to whatever's gone and upset you."
"An echo chamber," Carth recalled. He nodded slowly. "I—I'm sorry. I haven't meant to . . . share more than I've said. I certainly wouldn't've wanted to hurt you."
"No, I know," Aithne told him. "Like I said, it's not your fault. It's why I didn't tell you. I didn't want you feeling bad over something you can't help—or freaking out over all the deep, dark secrets I might be picking up on."
Carth's mouth turned up at one corner. "Hah. No—I told you right from the beginning, the days I had secrets worth extracting are past. Anything I didn't talk about—it was because I didn't want to think about it, not because it was dangerous. I—I really don't have much to hide."
Aithne searched his face. "So it really doesn't bother you, being bonded to me like this?"
Carth smiled, a little self-consciously. "You know, if anything, it's a little flattering to know I can feel even a fraction of what a Jedi can, can create or have a Force bond like you or Bastila. I'm sorry to hear you've been uncomfortable sometimes since Taris. And I appreciate that you haven't wanted to intrude. You—you should do what's safest and most comfortable for you. But honestly? Now I know, it's a bit weirder having it shut off like this." He winced again and tilted his head, peering at her like he was trying to see her better, and she felt him trying to sense her in the Force again—sense her the way he was used to sensing her.
Something in his expression tugged at her. Made her want to open the door. Aithne remembered how she had felt the first night they had left Dantooine, when she realized that in all her powerful and conflicting feelings about Carth, she had never once considered what he might want from her. Now, in his own way, he was telling her again what he preferred, without going so far as to make any demands. And suddenly, she wanted to give. Suddenly, she wanted to connect to him. She wanted to share.
With the Force, a thought could be an intention in the same instant. She brushed Carth's mind once again, for the first time doing so deliberately, letting him feel her, letting him in.
His expression focused once again; his body relaxed. Something in him seemed to calm and unwind, and something else seemed to come awake. "Yeah. There you are," he murmured. "I got it." His smile widened and suddenly was nearly blinding, and she felt a pulse of pure delight within the Force.
It was gone just as quickly, and he stepped closer. "Aithne, earlier, when it was too much for you. I watched that psychopath torture you. I . . . I watched you scream. I thought you would die right in front of me, and I couldn't even move."
Aithne closed her eyes, wondering if she could just sit with it. She heard him step closer. A hand skimmed down her arm. She let him untangle her arms and take her hands in both of his.
"Forget that," he said. His voice had dropped low. "Aithne, are you alright?"
Aithne exhaled and leaned forward. Carth's arms enveloped her, and she rested her cheek against his shoulder, feeling the rough fabric of his dark combat suit against her cheek. "I wasn't sure I wasn't going to die," she admitted, feeling her vocal chords grow thick. "I wasn't sure we all weren't. Carth, it hurt."
She couldn't cry. She knew she couldn't. She couldn't completely relax into him. Every minute, she had to keep her senses attuned to the room's exterior, to anyone listening or otherwise paying attention. Every moment here was stolen time. "I didn't know what to do," she whispered. "I thought—kill him. Let him die. For all the people he's killed. Children. Because if Uln killed me, he'd kill you and Jolee too. But then I thought, I've killed children too." She swallowed, remembering Lashowe and Shaardan. "Just because they were in the way, or because I thought they were. Then I thought, you wouldn't like it. But then I thought, having you stand there, it had to have been like Telos, even just in a small way—"
Carth's arms tightened around her, and a wave of emotion flooded over their connection. "Not in a small way," he corrected her, his voice as choked as hers. "Aithne, if I had had to watch him kill you, if we'd somehow got out anyway, I would've never been able to forget it."
Aithne's chest ached and her stomach seemed either to tie itself in knots or come undone. She had known in the tomb when Carth had come to that Jorak's little test would be just as much a trial for Onasi. She had felt deep inside herself that somewhere along the way and despite all their disciplined intentions, Carth's attraction and friendship for her had begun to deepen and grow into something that could seriously damage him. She couldn't qualify exactly what it was that Carth felt for her, but it was powerful, and it had changed him. It had changed her, knowing that he felt it. Her guard, always weaker than she'd wanted it when it came to him, had been reduced to so many splintered fragments sometime when her back was turned. Or when he'd decided to start trusting her with his story. Or when she'd decided to risk everything for Dustil. And there he was, terrifyingly immediate and much too close, and she without a single quippy warning or flirty "back off" to hand—just . . . wanting him. All of him.
"I was so stupid," he was saying. "I knew Jorak Uln was hiding out around there somewhere—I should have been ready. I should have been more careful—"
Aithne pushed him out to arm's length, looking up into his face. "I should have been more careful," she disagreed. "You did your part. You warned me, twice. I didn't go slowly enough. I got overconfident. Everything that happened in there today was on me."
One of Carth's hands came up. He brushed her cheek with the thumb of his glove. "You did what you did, because of me?" he asked her.
"A little because of Bindo's sad, judgy eyes," she admitted. "Mostly because of you."
Carth wasn't holding either of her hands anymore. One of his hands had found its way to her hip, and the other was perched on the nape of her neck, playing with the irritating baby curls back there under the main fall of her hair. Somehow, her hands had climbed up his chest to find purchase on the outer layer of the breast plating of his combat suit. "I don't mind you wanting to do the right thing because of me," Carth told her. "I . . . I'm proud. But Aithne, don't put yourself in danger for me. Don't."
Aithne shook her head. "I won't promise that," she told him. She swallowed, and pushed him away again, extricating herself and stepping away from the worktable. She went back to the washbasin, pulled her new robes up dripping, examined them, and threw them into a machine. She took a guess on the settings and selected a cleansing program.
Carth was a better person than she was. He just was. If bouncing around the galaxy together had taught her anything, it was that. The Sith might want her more. The Jedi might think she was the key to saving the Republic. But if you considered the pair of them in the light of which of them was likelier to be a net force for good and have a positive impact on more people, she'd put her bet on Onasi every time. She'd rather save that than save herself. And honestly, after everything that'd gone down here, she'd rather act in a way she knew Carth Onasi could approve of than trust in her own chancy moral navigational systems. Even if it was dangerous. Even if it hurt her. The galaxy would probably be a lot better off.
She felt Carth at the edges of her mind, felt him watching her. She could feel his consideration. "You know, since we got here, I've been thinking," he said. "I used to . . . I used to think the Dark Side was a fancy name for something that I see every day. Corruption is everywhere. People are greedy and stupid and do horrible things. But I don't know. I'm starting to think it's different for the Jedi. Like there's this evil watching them, waiting for its chance. You have so much courage and strength in you, yet, somehow, it cuts both ways, doesn't it?"
He was coming at it sideways, but his little speech made it clear he knew how she'd struggled since coming to Korriban. Aithne wrapped her arms around herself. She felt small and dirty. "It's harder here. I don't like the person I've been here. I don't like what I've found out about myself."
"Yeah, I've . . . I've noticed you've been having some difficulties. Thank you—for trusting me enough to tell me. Has it . . . has it been too hard to manage?"
His voice was almost too kind, considering his horror outside the Czerka offices. Aithne squirmed. "It hasn't—it hasn't just been the Sith in Dreshdae. I've done . . . I've done some bad things while we've been here, Carth. A lot of bad things. And I didn't always even realize or regret it right away. I don't always realize or regret it when I'm doing bad things. It's been . . . kind of awful, realizing the Jedi are right about me."
She heard his steps behind her and turned to see him close to her again. "Aithne—you know it's not just you, right? That's not what I'm saying here. The Dark Side's a danger for all the Jedi. I mean, how many of Revan's followers turned into Sith, in the end? It was . . . it was most of them. Juhani nearly killed her master one day when she got angry, and Bastila—I know she struggles too."
Aithne scoffed. "Bastila? Seriously? Goody-two-saber, there-is-no-emotion Bastila? That kid looked down at Revan, the Sith Lord who'd just killed her master, and she felt compassion for her." She wondered if it had been Revan somehow, here on Korriban. If the visions of Darth Revan were starting to get to her, corrupt her. But even as it crossed her mind, she knew it was self-delusive wishful thinking, just her trying to comfort herself by blaming everything she'd done on someone else. Everything she'd done here had been her, not Revan.
Carth shook his head. "This isn't like you," he said. "Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has weaknesses. The thing is to keep moving forward, not to give up. You—you're stronger than you feel right now. I know it. And once upon a time, you knew Bastila had her own problems. Don't . . . don't put her up on a pedestal just because you feel down right now. Don't discount what you can do because you had a few rough days. Neither of those things will help either one of you. I mean, neither one of you are fully trained. And maybe . . . maybe you can help Bastila with what you've learned here. Just . . . give yourself a little grace, beautiful."
Aithne stared up at him. Would he say the same if he knew all she needed grace for, she wondered? And did he know that to the Jedi, he was just one more temptation to resist, and rapidly becoming both the sweetest and the sharpest one she faced? Would he tell her to give herself the grace for him? On impulse, she hooked her hand over his shoulder, bobbed up on her toes, and kissed his cheek. But before she could step back and away, he caught her hand.
"Aithne. I don't like the idea of you going into that tomb alone tomorrow." His eyes were dead serious as he looked into hers, and this time, when she felt his concern over their bond, she felt his awareness that she felt it—and that he didn't care. She couldn't brush him off with a joke this time like she'd done on Taris. And while she knew Carth was a protective person, she also knew he wasn't only speaking out of a protective instinct.
So she nodded. "Alright," she said. "So worry about me. But worry about yourself and Jolee too. I wouldn't put it past one of them to try something while we're gone in hopes of making me easier to manage when we get back."
"No, we'll go low-profile," Carth agreed. "Take a comm and hide out until you need us. But Aithne, will you be okay? Not just with the politics. Not just with whatever trial they have in store for you. But with the Dark Side? I mean, you heard what Jolee said. Who are you going to have in there?"
Aithne didn't need to stretch out her senses to feel Korriban waiting for her. The air licking against her skin, the ground pulling at her feet. This planet was saturated with the evil of millennia, and it was still dying of thirst for more. And she had lakes of anger and arrogance within her just waiting to be tapped.
She tried a smile. "Maybe I'll radio Hawk and get Bas to meditate for me," she suggested. "Maybe knowing you're gonna check my eyes for yellow when I get back will keep me honest."
"I will," Carth told her, completely straight. "And I will worry. But—for what it's worth, I do believe in you. I do think you can resist. You can do this, Aithne."
"Eh, going on a galactic domination kick tomorrow wouldn't be as fun," Aithne said. "I wouldn't get to do that with you."