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Begeren, 1054 BBY

All she saw was black.

Seated with her knees bent and her arms around her legs, her eyes were wide open, but still she couldn’t see anything, no matter how hard she tried… All she felt were the chills down her spine, that made her tremble without any control of herself, almost scratching the concrete floor with her small and fragile fingers. Although the darkness of that place left her eyes like blind, the sounds around it were loud, high, cutting-through. She knew she was not alone.

Every note outside those walls pitched a new chill. They were getting louder. Someone was coming.

Slowly, shivering, she opened her mouth to gasp, and her childish voice pronounced. “Peace is a lie, there’s only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength–”

Suddenly, a snap sounded right in front of her, and before she could notice, the door opened and light stroke right into her eyes, almost making her close them, but she didn’t, because a shadow came after that, catching her attention enough to make her bear the pain the sudden light caused.

The figure looked like a tall man, but she soon realized it wasn’t one, for his skin was translucent purple, and his eyes looked opalescent, almost hidden by a metallic machine that covered the whole lower part of his face.

He wasn’t looking at her; instead, he raised his two hands to someone aside him, maybe, she couldn’t see, and started making signs with all his twelve fingers, scaring her to death.

Desperate, she put her hand in front of her body, with all the strength she had, expecting whoever was there to be pushed away, but it didn’t happen. When she realized that, the figure looked at her.

“It won’t work here, Zarrain,” a robotic and mechanical voice came from the machine in his face, and if she was scared before, when he started walking to her, her fear reached the edge.

There was nowhere to run, only walls all around, and that creature was getting closer. All she could do was scream.

“Father!”

ONE MONTH EARLIER

The lights in that hallway were dim, whitish, not bright enough to harm one’s eyes, but clear enough to reveal every detail of what happened in the wide room behind the slightly reflective glass wall.

She was lying on a metallic litter, wearing a white nightdress that looked almost transparent by now, because of all the sweat that watered it. The lower part of her body was hidden behind a retractable metal dome, opened on the lower edge, where two droids were standing.

She was screaming… Loud and painful, her voice echoed down the room, crossing the boundaries of the glass and reaching the hallway, where the sound of it spread through the walls and the floor, swaying even the smallest particle present in there.

Every new scream was a shiver down the spine of the little one standing outside the room, with her right hand on the glass, feeling the sound waves coming and going again and again.

Why’s she screaming?

On the glass wall, she saw her translucent reflection, the hazel eyes staring at herself, and through it she could still see the woman lying down, and she tried to find her eyes, but the woman apparently couldn’t look back at her.

She’s in pain.

She looked at the woman again, noticing now that it was true. She contracted her muscles the hardest she could, the screams sounding high and almost disappearing after leaving her mouth, like she couldn’t let them out anymore. Sweat dripped down her straight blonde hair. She’d never seen it so messy…

Why?

Another scream, the woman stretched her neck back, but her head couldn’t go any further, for the litter prevented it. There was something wrong there… She could feel it…

It’s a painful process, believe it… But there’s not much to do now. She’s already dead, Zora.

Those words echoed deeper. The sound of the small amount of syllables kept on repeating again and again in her mind, for how true she knew they were…

“She’s dead…”

“What are you saying, Rain?!”

In a small second, she blinked a little bit slower, and when she opened her eyes again, turning to the right she saw the same scene from minutes ago: her identical brothers standing some yards away, the oldest brother right at her side, and between the three of them, fully concentrated if not for what he’d just heard, was her father.

The four of them were much taller than her. She saw them from down below, it was hard to reach them even if she stretched her little arms up. The voice had come from the farthest right, where one of the twins was staring hardly at her with his light-brown eyes. “How can you say that?!” he inquired again.

“Stop it, Hammyn, you know she has no idea what she’s saying,” the oldest brother murmured. He was older than the twins, about three years or a little more, and taller, of course.

“She’s always saying nonsenses, haven’t you gotten used to it yet?” the other twin asked.

She was confused at that point.

Don’t listen to them. You’re right, Zora, and you know you are.

“I’m not saying nonsenses,” she rebuked.

Hammyn mocked her with his eyes, like he wasn’t going to bother to talk to her decently. “It’s like Garron said: you have no idea what you’re saying, Zarrain,” he repeated the oldest brother’s line, but adding that last word that made all the difference for Zarrain.

She hated her name. For some reason, it gave her young mind the sensation that it didn’t refer to her, not at all. There was something about that strange combination of letters that didn’t feel like her. She didn’t recognize herself on it… But she did whenever those thoughts came to her mind, that strange presence that was always with her, that, ever since she could remember, called her Zora.

That name, she liked. More than that, she felt embraced by it. She didn’t know why… And, of course, she hadn’t told anyone about that name.

Luckily, her family rarely called her Zarrain. They preferred the nickname, Rain, only using Zarrain when they wanted to scold her, or piss her off, like Hammyn was doing now. In fact, like he seemed to enjoy doing very often.

He’s jealous of you… He doesn’t have your abilities, and he knows that.

Zarrain stared back at her brother. “Or maybe I do, and you envy me because you don’t.”

A new loud scream of their mother wasn’t capable of distracting Hammyn from trying to rebuke to Zarrain. But something else was.

“Silence, the four of you,” the father ordered. He didn’t have to speak loud, because whatever he said was enough to make his children, and everyone else too, obey him. Sometimes, he didn’t even have to talk; the yellow irises in his eyes, harsh and cold, could cause shivers down the spine of any defiant.

This not to mention, of course, his famous abilities with a lightsaber, and with the Force.

“She made it!” the voice of the second twin brother, whose name was Horrak, sounded after the silence that took over the five of them after the father’s orders. At that same moment, Zarrain looked through the glass again, noticing that her mother had stopped screaming, finally. She seemed tired, barely breathing, but there was relief in her eyes. Zarrain was watching it when one of the medical droids entered in front of the mother to talk to her, blocking the little girl’s view.

“Seems like someone didn’t know what she was saying,” Hammyn mocked again. Zarrain could see his eyes shining like the light skin of his face with all the whitish light of the room. His hair was really short, much like Horrak’s, different from Garron and their father. The first one had a very long hair, but didn’t wear a beard, like the father always had. The two of them would look a lot alike if not for the fact that the father’s age, although didn’t appear when it came to his powers, was visible by the grey wires becoming more and more present among his dark hair. Also, Garron, Horrak and Hammyn usually walked around the palace wearing the leather their combat training uniform was made of, while the father always wore the dark metallic armor that everyone knew from the great Emperor of Begeren, including now.

Zarrain was going to reply to Hammyn, but before that she noticed that the other droid that was in the room behind the glass walked out of it. “Emperor Vorr’zell…” she approached the father to say. “Your daughter did not survive.”

At that moment, Garron ran inside the room, to where the mother was still lying, and the remaining droid gave her a baby whose eyes were closed, making tears fall all over her painful face.

Zarrain stared at her mother through the glass, suddenly feeling like crying too, for the vision of her little sister running out of life. However, she couldn’t, because Hammyn’s voice was faster.

“How did you know?” he inquired, serious. Zarrain would look back at him, but her attention was driven to her father, who was looking at her too.

“Answer your brother, Rain,” he said, his voice was calm, but firm.

The cries of her mother almost distracted Zarrain, but she tried to focus on her father. He wasn’t happy. “I just knew…” she replied.

“Is that your answer? Again?” Hammyn inquired again, scaring Zarrain with the tone of his voice.

“It’s not the first time she does that,” Horrak said, looking at the father. He didn’t reply, but his eyes were fixed on Zarrain. He knew what his son was talking about, and so did she.

She’d been through that before. In fact, a way before than they knew.

The first times had happened with simple things, such as guessing where her toys would fall when she threw them in the air, or which of her brothers would win their lightsaber duel and Force trainings. The first to notice that had been the mother, precisely while they were watching one of the trainings, a couple of years ago. She’d thought it was just a coincidence back then. But she’d changed her mind some time later.

It’d been early that year, the mother had just found out she was pregnant, when Begeren was attacked by surprise. When the guards walked into the palace to warn about the attack, Zarrain was abnormally agitated and anxious. She could still remember her father’s High Justice running into the room where the family was, all together, celebrating her mother’s pregnancy. “It’s the Sith. They’re attacking on South,” he’d said. Zarrain knew that her father trusted him very much, ever since they’d abandoned the Sith together, along with a group of fellow Assassins, as they were known. Zarrain wasn’t sure of what that meant, but she knew the High Justice would never get mistaken and put her father’s Empire in danger.

However, in the peak of her unexplainable anxiety, Zarrain heard, like someone was whispering for her, ‘East’.

She shouted that out, as if it was eagering to fly out of her mind. No one understood at first, but the explanation came later on: the Sith were attacking on East too; their forces on South were only a distraction, and it would have worked if it wasn’t for Zarrain having seen that coming.

Both her father and her older brothers asked her how she knew that, but she didn’t know how to explain. After hearing from the mother that she’d done that before, they considered that an occasional lapse of power, something that would come and go. But it wasn’t that, and Zarrain knew it.

She kept on guessing where her toys would fall, which of her brothers would win their trainings… She simply knew before it happened. Whatever told her that, was always with her. Never left, no matter what happened.

It wasn’t different now.

You’re the daughter of an Assassin, Zora. You have the power of an Assassin.

Zarrain didn’t understand that. However, when she looked at her father, she noticed: he knew she was like that, because he was like that too.

“Go to your room, Rain,” the father said. Zarrain turned her eyes to the glass again, where her mother kept on crying in Garron’s arms, still holding her stillborn sister.

“Father…”

“Do as I told you,” the father repeated.

“I wanna stay with mother–” Zarrain tried to say.

“Zarrain…” when her father scolded her with that name, some kind of fury took over Zarrain for a second, in which she shouted:

“I wanna stay with mother!” and as soon as these words came out her mouth, sudden and fast as the blink of an eye, all the glasses aside them blew, shattering down and leaving it’s pieces all over the hallway.

The noise was enough to stop the mother’s cry for a second, and make everyone around, even the droids, look at Zarrain with a gaze of almost fear.

Except the father, of course. When Zarrain looked at him, with all his coldness, all she saw hidden underneath it was anger. “Horrak, take your sister to her room,” he ordered, not letting any feeling show, as usual. Horrak quickly held Zarrain’s hand and walked her out of the hallway full of glass shatters, but she could still see Hammyn’s face watching her leave. Different from their father, he wasn’t hiding his anger.

Horrak didn’t say anything to Zarrain, just took her to her suite, in a different area of the palace, and left her there, alone with her thoughts. Little did he know that it was good enough for Zarrain.

Through the big windows aside her bed, she could see the sun coming down in the horizon, behind the high buildings of Begeren. Farther away, she knew, there were the ship and weapon builders, and after them, the Dead Woods, with its nearly dead vegetation that she’d only seen in holos, that surrounded a place her father called ‘Sanitarium’. She had only recently discovered what it was for: traitors and enemies.

That’s what her father said, at least. Not that she understood what that meant, either… He’d never explained about the Sanitarium, but she knew some things about his enemies, even if he had no idea of that.

Holding a wooden doll in her hands, a little one that her mother had given her, Zarrain concentrated on looking at it, and in some instants, it levitated, making the little girl laugh carelessly at how it spun in the air.

Both her father and mother had told her not to use the Force for such things, but she didn’t understand why. The connection she felt with that strange power that allowed her to play like that and told her things before they happened, it didn’t scare her, nor was heavy for her to carry. For her, it felt like freedom. For it was her source of it, like those words she always heard in her head used to say.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken… The Force shall free me…

Those sentences were always there, ever since she could remember. She kept it as her dearest secret, for she knew her father despised those Force teachings, because they belonged to the Sith, his arch-enemies, even if she didn’t know the reason for such hatred.

“Be careful, your highness…”

Zarrain blinked a little harder, interrupting her trance and making her doll fall; it was night already, the sun was gone, and the only light in that room came from the buildings outside the windows.

What Zarrain had heard came from outside the room, and she recognized the voice of her mother’s droid. The way to the Imperial Suite crossed the hall in front of her room. Her mother must be returning from the medical bay.

Zarrain walked to the door, closed till that moment, waited a couple of minutes and then went out, giving quick steps down the hallways and stairs to her parents’ suite. When she got there, she found the door open, and her mother lying in the big bed.

She was already clean, with her blond hair dry and wearing new clothes. However, the tears were still falling from her eyes, while she placed her hands on her still grown belly. At least until she spotted Zarrain. “Rain?” she called, her voice sounding sad and hoarse, different from its normal sound. She tried to dry her eyes. “Come here, honey…”

Zarrain came inside the room and went up the bed, lying close to her mother, who stroked the girl’s light brown hair while they looked at each other’s same hazel eyes. “Mamma is okay. It’s true,” the mother said. “Your little sister is now resting in peace.”

Zarrain thought of what she said. “I knew she was going to die, mom…” she revealed, finally.

Her mother didn’t seem to understand. “What do you mean?”

“The Force told me,” Zarrain replied. “Like it tells me about where my toys will fall, or which of my brothers will win on their trainings…”

The mother’s eyes now seemed confused. “Did the Force tell you to break those glasses too?” she asked.

“No… They just broke,” Zarrain said, remembering other times in which she had moved and broken things without control. It had happened many times before, and caused trouble in some of them. “It’s always like that, it just happens.”

“Your father and I have told you not to use the Force for nothing, haven’t we?” said the mother, calmly.

“I’m not using it, mom… It comes to me, works through me,” Zarrain closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them again, the wires of her hair were coming up slowly, like something pulled them from above “The Force shall free me…” Looking at her mother, Zarrain could see the amusement in her eyes, and in a single instant, her hair was coming up too, and they smiled at each other, like the Force that both were using now bonded them together.

It was strong to the point of not letting them see they were no longer alone in the room.

“Where did you hear that?”

The father’s voice interrupted the mother and daughter connection, and both of them turned to the door, where he was standing indeed. The Force seemed to fade to his serious and cold eyes.

Zarrain knew the question was for her. Her father had heard her saying the end of the Sith code out loud… Should she lie? Or would he know anyway? “The Force told me,” she told the truth, then.

Her father didn’t change his harsh and powerful expression. It was visible even though he was some yards away, since the Imperial Suite was big. “Do you know where this sentence is from?”

The same doubts came to Zarrain’s mind, but this time, she didn’t feel safe to tell the truth. “No, father,” she replied, taking a quick look at her mother. She didn’t seem suspicious or anything. That’s when something came to Zarrain’s mind. “Where is it from?”

She wasn’t very sure of her own intention when she’d asked that, but looking at her father again, she realized: she wanted to know if he would tell her the truth.

The father looked back at her, still emotionless. “Nothing you should keep in your thoughts,” Zarrain didn’t get the answer she wanted. And she couldn’t read her father’s eyes to look for it either. “Let your mother rest now. She’s tired.”

In a mix of frustration for not having a clue of what her father was thinking, and relief because he wouldn’t keep on questioning her on that subject, the little girl looked at her mother, who gave her a o comforting smile. “Go, dear, do you what your father said,” when she finished talking, she played with her daughter’s hair, making it fly to the front of her face softly.

Zarrain laughed. “Mom!” she protested playfully, taking the hair out of her eyes.

“Go,” the mother laughed along with her. “Remember: if you feel alone…”

“…sing our lullaby,” Zarrain completed, getting up from her parents’ bed and saying goodnight to her mother with a smile. She did the same with her father, but he didn’t return it the same way the mother did. Instead, he watched her leave the suite for as long as he could, and, Zarrain feared, maybe even when his physical vision couldn’t reach her anymore.

That made her feel strangely lonely, and at the same time highly observed, when she lied down in her bed to sleep, looking at her quiet bedroom, that seemed like infinite space as dark as it was not, since she’d closed the windows. For some reason, she was not afraid of the dark.

And that reminded her of her mother’s lullaby, which she sang, whispering to herself, until she fell asleep.

Through the space or through the sea
In the darkness we will meet
Rest and breathe softly
I’ll be here for all you need
Look for me

There’s a world where you can be
Everything you always dreamed
Close your eyes and then you’ll see
The deep and dark that’ll set you free
Come with me

ONE MONTH LATER

That day was sunny, like most others in Begeren, since it was rare that it rained in that planet. Zarrain liked that. She preferred sun and heat over humidity and cold. She could have woken up later that morning, since the droids that had taught her to read and to write wouldn’t give her new lessons that day. However, she’d gotten up from bed on her own, because there was something far more interesting to learn that day than what the droids could teach.

The little girl skipped her breakfast and ran the fastest she could to the back of the palace, crossing its many living rooms and large hallways, all with the luxury décor and furniture she had ceased to pay attention to at that point, until she got to the last room, which’s big door was open and led her to a large high balcony. Right below it, she could hear the sound of the blades lighted up, sliding in the air with their characteristic noise that seemed like a little explosion when they hit each other. The yellow light they emitted was visible already, like a blurred stain flying in the air, coloring the white walls of the palace.

Zarrain looked at the balcony’s fence, that was a little bit taller than her, and spotted her mother resting her hands on it while she looked down, doing exactly what Zarrain was about to do.

She saw her daughter right away, of course, and smiled at her, as usual. “Look who got up early to watch her brothers train?” with the happy laugh Zarrain gave her, she made her a sign to come closer, which the girl did right away. “You came right in time, they barely started.”

Zarrain touched the cold marble of the fence, standing on tiptoe until she had a clear vision of the circular training field below the balcony, where Garron, Horrak and Hammyn were training lightsaber combat with their father’s knights, the soldiers of the High Justice, many of which had come with them when they’d left the Sith.

Whenever she saw them running, spinning, jumping… Fighting like that, she felt like mimicking their moves, and she’d done that many times when no one was around, and even while she watched them sometimes. She could swear she knew some sequences by heart.

Her mother noticed her excitement, and Zarrain looked at her still cheering up. “I wanna train too, mother.”

“You will, darling. When you’re older,” her mother replied.

“When will I be old enough?” Zarrain asked.

“That’s up to your father. Horrak and Hammyn started at your age. Garron was about one year older than you when he first trained. You father knows the right time, he’s experienced on that… I’m sure he’ll tell you to start your trainings when you less expect it,” she caressed her daughter’s hair. Looking at her doing that made Zarrain think of the days that’d followed her birth, in which she had spoken almost nothing, barely left the Imperial Suite, and even when she was out doing regular things, something seemed to be missing on her.

Now, however, the grieving seemed to have ceased a little, and she could see her mother’s eyes shining again. It hadn’t been like that with her father, though. He didn’t show much sorrow for having lost his newborn daughter, even if he seemed to respect the mother’s pain a lot. Zarrain had noticed a change in him, however, but it wasn’t exactly related to her stillborn sister, but with herself.

Sometimes, she wondered if her father knew that she had lied to him that night in the Imperial Suite. Other times, she could swear to see in his eyes the same gaze from when she’d blown up the glasses of the medical bay. And in rarer times, she felt like both things were happening.

But now she didn’t want to think about that; she was much more interested in watching her brothers practice their lightsaber abilities, dreaming of the day in which she would be wielding one to fight as well. Her mother seemed to notice that, and they kept on paying attention to the training field together until the moment a woman approached from behind.

“Empress Arcadia,” she called, making the mother turn to her. “The cookers are waiting for you. They need you to approve the menu for this week’s celebration.”

The mother looked away a little, to the training field, thoughtful, somehow. She and the handmaid that had just come to her had eyes that looked really alike, and almost the same height and age, but the lady’s hair was darker, and shorter. Also, she didn’t wear the same long light brown dress the mother was wearing, but pants and a loose shirt, all in a navy-blue color.

“Okay, let’s go meet them. Thank you, Maya,” the mother replied, turning to Zarrain. “Enjoy watching the training, sweetheart.”

Zarrain replied just by waving with her hand, because she was too busy paying attention to what her brothers were doing down there to watch her mother cross the door on her back and leave with her handmaid, Maya. She was probably there because of the celebration that would take place in a couple of days, for the Emperor’s victory on taking over another system. Zarrain didn’t know which one, but she knew her father was satisfied about it. More than he’d been in the last whole month.

Hours could have passed and the little girl would still be there, in the same position, even if her feet got tired sometimes, she didn’t move, for she was fascinated by the movements her brothers did with their yellow lightsabers. The mere idea of holding one of those filled her with happiness. She knew her father trained his children to fight alongside him against his arch-enemies, the Sith, and other enemies, the Republic and its Jedi.  Zarrain heard those names quite often in Begeren’s palace, and although she didn’t know many details about them, she knew they were those who tried to bring her father’s Empire down, and it was for that reason, to defend it, that her brothers were training right now.

She’d seen them dueling with their father’s knights many, many times, and by now she could tell the difference between their moves, recognize who was who down there only by the way they fought with their sabers and used the Force sometimes, even if she couldn’t see their faces.

Horrak and Hammyn were more defensive, didn’t take much action when they didn’t have to, which made watching them kind of annoying sometimes, to the point of Zarrain not wanting to stay there too much when they were training alone, just the two of them. They did that often. In fact, they enjoyed doing many things together. Although they were not as identical in personality as they were in their appearance, the twins had a powerful bond. Most times they attacked, they did it as a team, never against each other, like they worked better like that.

Garron was different; he was precise and agile, using a lot of jumps and spins on combat. Zarrain believed he would easily defeat Hammyn and Horrak if they were not fighting together, like they were now. It usually happened sometimes during the trainings; the knights stepped aside to let them practice against each other. Now, it was the twins against the first-born, and Garron was winning even though.

As always, Zarrain knew the result of the training. She couldn’t see how, but she knew it would happen.

And it happened quite fast that day: something like a millisecond before things actually took place, she saw the twins trying to attack Garron with the Force at the same time, a technique they used to try, and it worked pretty well most times, but not this one, because their older brother saw that coming too, and deviated from their attack, blocking it with his own powers, and then using his saber to put Horrak down, without hurting him, of course. And then, when Hammyn thought he could defeat Garron alone, the first-born used the Force to put him down too, literally making him fall with his face to the floor.

Zarrain couldn’t help but laughing at that. She tried to cover her mouth not to be noticed, but Hammyn saw her anyway. Some seconds before hitting the ground, in fact. And, when he got up again, all he looked at was her.

The little girl’s laugh vanished when she saw the gaze in her brother’s eyes. He looked at her angrily, like she had mocked at him. Not that she hadn’t… She just wasn’t expecting him to see it that clearly.

“Take a break, the three of you,” one of the knights said. “Be back in ten minutes.”

When Zarrain heard that, Hammyn was still staring at her.

He won’t accept that you laugh at him, because he knows he deserves it. Be ready.

She didn’t understand that. But the sign was so clear, just like when she’d known that her little sister wouldn’t be born alive. Zarrain was so touched by those words that she could barely notice her steps coming towards the door, and she didn’t walk much inside, because her brother’s voice interrupted everything she was feeling before it.

Zarrain turned back and saw Hammyn in front of her, and Horrak and Garron coming behind him from the stairs that connected the end of the balcony with the training field, and, farther away, the spaceport. “What was that?” Hammyn inquired. Zarrain was quiet at that, forcing him to continue. “You thought that was fun?”

“Enough of that,” Garron said while he approached, making Hammyn turn rudely to him.

“Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not our father, not yet,” he rebuked, surprising even Horrak, who came aside.

“Come on, what does it matter?” he asked his twin.

“She thinks she’s the best, always playing with her weird premonition,” said Hammyn, turning to Zarrain again. “Tell me, Zarrain, do you think you could do better than me down there?”

Zarrain said nothing. However, she could hear, deep inside, something telling her not to be quiet at that, although she tried to resist it.

“Nothing to say, huh?” Hammyn mocked. “Let’s go back, let her live in her imaginary world–”

“I could.”

Both the twins and Garron paid full attention to Zarrain after those words came out her mouth. But she was looking only at Hammyn.

“I will do better than you once father lets me begin my training–” she tried to complete her sentence.

“He’ll never do that,” said Hammyn, disgust filling his voice. “He knows how gross you are in the Force, blowing things inside our home to show how great your powers are… You’re weak.”

At that moment, something started to burn inside Zarrain. Something she’d rarely felt before. “You’re wrong,” she said.

“Well, then show us that you can control the Force. Teach me a lesson if you’re so powerful,” Hammyn teased, and when the sound of those words reached Zarrain’s ears, all became silent, except for one force telling her:

Teach him the lesson he asked for.

And Zarrain recognized the force of anger.

Slowly, she raised her arm until it was in front of her body, pointing her hand to Hammyn, and before any of the four siblings could do anything, he was off the ground.

The movements happened without any kind of velocity, and Zarrain saw her brothers’ mouths pronouncing things, but it was like she couldn’t hear them; all she heard was that sentence in her head, like it was an order, but she knew it wasn’t. It was her own order, for the powers she carried since her birth, that accompanied her through all these years, and now she saw Hammyn spinning in the air, just like the wooden doll she used to play with.

She couldn’t see how long it all took. He seemed to be screaming, but she wouldn’t hear it. She just looked in his eyes that tried to hide how scared he was, and humiliated too, she had to admit… He’d think twice before trying to humiliate her again. The vision lasted until a high female voice, somehow, tried to break into it.

“Zarrain!” the scream was loud enough for her to hear, but she didn’t stop what she did. Instead, still looking at Hammyn directly, she replied:

“That’s not my name.”

The words echoed in her head, she felt their strength, their power. They tasted like victory… Like breaking chains… Like her true self: Zora.

“Zarrain!”

It wasn’t the same voice, and this time, the harsh and furious tone interrupted Zarrain’s trance completely, and she turned her head aside in time to see both her father and mother coming up the stairs at the end of the balcony, with Horrak, while Garron seemed to try to bring Hammyn down with all the strength he had, but Zarrain noticed that her other hand was pointed in his direction, stopping his efforts. Hammyn was high in the air, but it wasn’t just him: every piece of furniture in the balcony, the training field and even behind the door was lifted up, higher and higher at every instant.

Zarrain noticed that in less than a second after hearing her father screaming, and she was looking at him when a hard and fast noise broke the silence in her head, loud and afflictive, followed by the most painful scream she’d ever heard in her life.

A scream of her brother Hammyn.

Like waking up from a deep sleep all of a sudden, Zarrain saw pretty much everything she was lifting being blown away or thrown to random directions, and Hammyn fell down hardly, in a weird angle, passing by the balcony and reaching the ground of the training field, screaming in a desperate pain from the start of his fall till the end, and more.

“Hammyn!” her mother screamed, turning back on the stairs to run to her son, and Horrak did the same, while the father and Garron stood where they were, staring at Zarrain. And Hammyn was still screaming.

“What have you done?!” Garron inquired, in a mix of shock and despair, and the only thing Zarrain could remember was the look in her father’s eyes when she’d broken the glasses of the medical bay a month ago, before she could notice it was the same now… But with some shock added too.

And she remembered something else, while she heard Hammyn screaming: the angle in which his body was when he fell, and the sound she’d heard right before everything came down. Like something that shouldn’t be breaking down was being partitioned in two pieces.

She couldn’t stand the thought. Or Hammyn’s – and her mother’s – screams. Or her father’s eyes.

The fastest she could, Zarrain came back inside the palace, running with all the air she got in her lungs back to her bedroom, to then close its door and windows, seating in her bed and staring at the dark while the infinite doubts haunted her mind.

How had she done that? Garron had tried to stop her, hadn’t him? How did he not do it if he was so well trained for years now?

Don’t look for these answers…

She didn’t hear it. She had to know. Had she broken Hammyn’s back in half? Crippled him? She didn’t want to do it… Or did she? Was that what the anger she felt was telling her to do? The power she felt? No, she didn’t want to cripple her own brother… Not even the brother who humiliated her and treated her like nothing… Right?

…you’re not ready for them yet.

Zarrain blinked hard, and all the questions disappeared from her head, because she heard footsteps coming towards her bedroom’s door. The only thing that remained was an echo, getting farther away at every second.

Be strong, Zora. Remember the words…

Suddenly, the door opened from the outside, and she saw, along with the light, her mother entering and running towards her, followed by her father and Garron, who stood close to the door.

“Rain…” the mother called while she ran. Zarrain’s heart raced.

“Mom, I didn’t… I didn’t–” she tried to say, but her mother sat close to her before she could continue, and the red that took over her eyes and nose, almost her whole face, scared the little girl enough to silence her.

The mother took a shivering breath. “Your father is going to take you to a place, okay?” she said, and her voice trembled even more. Zarrain could see that her eyes were wet, but she was trying not to cry.

“What?”

“Just… Just…” the mother stuttered, and a bunch of tears came out of her eyes at that moment.

“Enough, Arcadia,” Zarrain heard her father saying, impatient, and her mother looked at him right away, seeming terrified.

“Don’t do that, Vorr’zell…” she begged.

“Mother, please…” said Garron, and that dialogue made Zarrain’s heart beat even faster.

What the hell where they talking about?

“Rain,” her mother looked at her again, now with her eyes filled with tears, and before Zarrain could even move, she held her tight and desperately. “You got something in you, something to give your purpose… Don’t let it go–”

The mother couldn’t complete her sentence, because Garron held her from behind, pulling her back, distancing her from her daughter.

That scared Zarrain even more. “Mother, what’s happening?!” she screamed, and as soon as she did, things started being thrown from one side of the room to the other, she didn’t even know why. Her mother fell on her knees, sobbing. “Mother!”

Zarrain was ready to jump from her bed and run to her, however, when she made the first move, she saw her father raising his arm in her direction.

Suddenly, she felt calm. Her heart, that beat faster than a pod in a race, slowed down. She just closed her eyes and breathed, all the sounds becoming blurred in her ears, like they weren’t even there…

“Come with me, Zarrain.”

Her father’s voice was like an echo in her mind. When she opened her eyes, everything was blurred as well, except for him. He was there, close, reaching out for her.

Feeling slow and floaty, like she was walking inside a dream, Zarrain held his hand, unable to tell exactly where he was guiding her to, but her heart didn’t race again, or any noise came in the way. Everything was silent, a mix of blurred distant lines and a soft sound of lull.

She didn’t see much, but she recognized the light of the sun on the balcony upon the training field. Perhaps her father was taking her to her first training… Or to see the ships in the spaceport, like he’d done a couple of times before, when she was with her brothers… Where were they, by the way? And where was her mother? She couldn’t tell. Maybe her father wanted to take her on a ride alone… Just the two of them, father and daughter…

Zarrain blinked once more, and noticed it was getting darker. She felt like she was walking, then like something trembled on her feet, with a poor light upon her, and now… Now she was walking again, and whatever was in front of her, was dark, but had a light breaking through, a flash that became bigger and bigger… Like a door opening…

Then, as the flash of light grew, she started feeling something: cold. A wet kind of cold, spreading through her skin, making her bristle… And then, she felt her steps on the ground, like they were always there and she couldn’t feel them before, and her vision started getting clear, until she saw, in front of her, an enormous place with yellow lights, a high concrete roof and dark walls, and the floor on her feet, also made of concrete, was somehow stained… In dark red.

Finally, Zarrain noticed: her father was holding her hand until a moment ago, and his knights were with him, all wearing their complete uniforms, the dark armors to match their Emperor’s, and the tunics on their backs, with hoods covering their masked faces.

What was that place? Why was she there?

“You know the orders.”

When Zarrain heard that, she turned back and saw her father talking to one of the knights, who came towards her in a single moment, and held her tight, starting to take her away.

That’s when it came to her: the Sanitarium.

Desperate, Zarrain looked over his shoulder. “Father?” she called, and her father looked at her one last time, with his same cold yellow eyes scratched in red, before a big door opened behind him and he turned his back to her and crossed it, disappearing in the dark.

Begeren, 1039 BBY;

Zarrain opened her eyes suddenly.

The first thing she noticed was the dim yellow light, coming from a little hole in the door, crossing the dark small space of her cell, reaching the left side of her face upon her bed, right in her eye. No wonder why she’d woken up.

She moved slowly upon the hard metallic bed covered by a bunch of gray fabric, making it creak loudly, but she’d gotten used to it. Other noises were echoing around. Chains, machines, screams.

The morning was starting in Begeren’s Sanitarium.

She sat in the bed, relying in her legs, that were almost skin and bones. Much like her arms… And the whole rest of her body. Looking down she could see the dirt in her pale skin. It’d been a couple of weeks now since the last time they’d let her get herself cleaned up. The dirt had become an old friend of hers, and so had the black and blue stains in her body, that accompanied her ever since… She didn’t know when. She didn’t know how long she’d been there.

She hadn’t seen the sunlight in years. She didn’t know if it was day or night beyond the walls of that enormous dirty and humid building protected by the biggest concrete walls she’d ever seen. She hadn’t seen her own face in years… And yet, she realized the changes in her figure. She was reminded of that whenever she touched her hair, and passing her fingers through it, saw the hot-red locks falling down her shoulders, now reaching past her hips, all dirty and scraggly.

But she still remembered how it used to be before.

Whenever she closed her eyes, the images of her six-year-old self haunted her mind. The windows in her room, the palace, the furniture, the training field, the wooden doll she used to play with… The light brown hair. She had more memories of it, because it was the only one of those things that she’d carried with her inside that horrendous place of torture.

And it had lasted almost nothing… After the first torture experiments, the pain, the injections, whatever the disgusting creatures that took care of that hellhole – Anomids, she’d come to know later on that this was how that species was called – were doing to her, her hair started to fall, little by little. And when it did, she noticed the hot-red in the roots. At first, young as she was, she thought it was blood.

It wasn’t. It was her new hair color. When it grew again, like it was doing ever since, it grew hot-red, like it’d been dyed in blood. Like it was dyed in pain.

And wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what she was now?

All of a sudden, Zarrain heard a liquid noise and saw a turve reflection of the poor light in the wall in front of her, signing that water was leaking from the upper floor, which made her run to where it fell, opening her mouth until some drops reached it, wetting her face even enough for her to feel a little bit more clean.

Zarrain breathed, gasping, feeling the water slowly stopping to drip and drying completely. That was probably the only thing she’d be able to drink that day. They’d fed her two days ago, so they probably would wait till tomorrow to do it again. They knew the water dripped inside that cell, so she wouldn’t die of dehydration.

Every little piece of her uncountable years inside the Sanitarium was planned to be the worst ever. It was all planned… He had planned all of that.

Suddenly, then, Zarrain heard the heavy door opening from the outside, and the light that came with it revealed a group of Anomids walking in her direction, among who she recognized only one: the main responsible for the Sanatarium’s experiments, or, as she’d learned to call, Ylbov.

Whenever they came in, she knew torture awaited. But she wasn’t expecting the one to come now.

“Take her to the main chamber, The Cloistered are ready,” the mechanical voice came from Ylbov’s vocalizer mask, while the other tall Anomids, who looked a lot like him, and a lot like they looked when she’d gotten there, came to hold Zarrain’s arms. When she heard Ylbov’s words, however, despair stroke into her.

“No,” she begged. “It’s not time yet, it hasn’t been long since last time–”

“I’m experimenting new techniques. Take her,” it was all Ylbov said, and Zarrain screamed, loud and desperate, while they dragged her out of the cell, making the way she knew to be the one to where the worst pain came. She knew what would happen now, and she was sure when they got her to a big circular chamber, where a group of men sat in a circle.

They called them The Cloistered. Hearing through the walls of the Sanitarium, Zarrain had come to know what they were: former Assassins who had betrayed the Emperor one day, and for that, had been sentenced to spend the rest of their days enslaved inside that place, with one different bitterness to live with. They could use the Force inside the Sanitarium, but their power and their mere existence were attached to those walls for as long as they might live, for one purpose only: inflicting pain.

They’d done that to Zarrain ever since day one. Exactly like they were doing now, as soon as she was placed in the middle of the circle, looking at the full-black empty eyes of that barely living beings, and started feeling her nerves squirming inside her body… But she knew it wouldn’t be just that today. When they brought her to that specific chamber, there was always more.

She tried not to scream, tried not to show her pain, but it was pointless. Unbearable. She was already static on the cold floor when the first of The Cloistered came to her, pulling her legs to himself. She had her back for him this time, so the only thing she could see when he started were the shredded red wires of her hair falling down her face.

Zarrain… Zarrain…

She heard the name all along, in the voice of the Anomids supervising that torture ritual, and her mind focused on trying to reach her own Force, the one that’d been born with her.

The Force of Zora.

But it wasn’t there. All she could do was remembering the last thing she’d known from the Force, the last sentences that made sense to her, which she’d been repeating every single day through all this time, while the inside of her body burned in humiliation and pain.

…Through strength, I gain power… Through power, I gain victory… Through victory, my chains… My chains…

She couldn’t take it anymore; through the wires of her hair, she looked beyond, to any metallic surface she could spot, to see her blurred reflection.

Scared little girl subdued by fear. Furious woman crafted in pain.

Just he waited. Just he waited.

She let out the most furious scream, hoarse and guttural, wishing it would reach the one who’d doomed her to that hell.

“Father!”

Horuset system;

The ship had been stationed for about an hour, with no noise or any other moving thing around. She was seated on a big chair, alone, while the pilot and copilot controlled the ship in another room. They knew they should not disturb her, not now. Because she was concentrated, her mind almost flew to another world, another dimension, while she kept her eyes closed. But she saw much like that. Through someone else’s eyes, sharing her fellow’s mind.

At least until it got completely blank.

She opened her eyes suddenly, spotting her thin hands resting upon her black clothes first, then the rest of the room of the ship, white and grey, luminous, much different from the place she’d been to in her shared meditation.

She got up the fastest she could, turning on her comm and putting her hair, black as deep space, behind her back. It was even a little sweaty for the effort she’d made… And it’d been for nothing.

“What do you have for me?”

The holo was projected out of the comm as soon as she heard the voice, showing a big old man dressed in black, with his long hair in raveled dreadlocks.

“They lost,” she replied, hardened. “Darth Uhann is gone.”

“Are you sure?” the old man asked.

“Yes. I saw his death through his eyes,” she said. The old man breathed heavily, but she didn’t wait for him to talk. “I’ll try to lead a new attack.”

“They’re waiting for us now,” the old man disagreed. “With the defeat in the battle lead by Darth Uhann, they must have already armed the whole Begeren system–”

“Well, then give me a week,” she insisted. “I feel like we will gain something by attacking them again… Even if it’s not Begeren.”

The old man took his time to reply. “One week, then,” he finally said. “But we cannot have great losses again. We still have the Republic and the Jedi to defeat. The future of the Sith may lie in your hands. Don’t fail.”

She looked straight at him, like they were talking face-to-face, both with their yellow-bloody eyes.

“Have I ever?”