Narasi had never felt so cold—as if all her blood had been replaced with ice water, flooding her veins and chilling her insides until she thought she would die from it. In that moment she might have taken death, too, rather than embrace the horror of Pavac's words or face the awful coldness in Tirien's eyes.
Had to disrupt Shaelo, and the little woman was a fighter too, so I put a couple in her chest…
On Anaxes, Antifol Wolt had committed suicide with a disruptor; there had been nothing left of his head. Narasi had seen the effects of disruptors elsewhere, too, the way the flesh seemed to evaporate off, the way the scream choked off when the lungs burned away…
Tirien caught the lapel of her robe and shook her. "I've tolerated your secrecy for years, because I didn't want to pressure you—because I wanted you to speak when you were ready, out of respect for you. Is this what my trust in you is worth?"
Shame joined the fear and anguish and rage rebounding inside her mind. It was too much; she wanted to get away, but there was nowhere to go. She was clinging to Jedi control by the tips of her fingers. Her voice came out hoarse. "I'm sorry…"
"No," Tirien said, shaking his head, his eyes as hard as topaz. "No, 'I'm sorry' is for when you slack off in training or don't read something I told you to read. 'Sorry' isn't going to cut it here, Narasi—you almost murdered this man in cold blood!"
The accusation hollowed her because it was true. Even as she thought it—I did that. I tried to cut him down.—her stomach heaved, and she feared she would be sick; she might have fallen had Tirien not held her up. But then she remembered why she had done it and helpless rage burned hotter than the acid in her stomach.
"Look at me!" Narasi focused on Tirien, trying to ground herself on him, but the anger and disappointment all over his face robbed her of any strength their bond might have given her; she thought she could feel that connection fraying by the second, and in her mind the world started to implode. "You will tell me now, or we are leaving for Coruscant."
"But…but the bomb…?"
"I don't care about the bomb! You almost murdered someone, Narasi!" Tirien reined in the heat in his voice, but when he spoke again his voice was ice that cut her deeper. "You will tell me why—the whole truth you've kept from me—or..."
He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and said, "...or you are done being my Padawan."
Narasi recoiled, her eyes wide even as a little voice inside told her, It's what you deserve. Murder instead of slaving, but you're what they all said you'd be. The only Zygerrian Jedi.
That cold, cruel voice laughed at her, and the darkness pawed at the hem of her robe, ready for her.
"Narasi, so help me, if you can't be a Jedi—"
"HE KILLED MY MOM AND DAD!"
The words brought the terrible reality of it to life, as if they were a spell that had conjured some hideous cacodemon out of myth and brought it into the room with them. She imagined the disruptor incinerating her father's body, the blaster bolts searing through her mother's rib cage and melting her heart, and the vomit she had been repressing came out. She sank to her knees, hacking on the floor, her hands shaking so badly her claws screeched on the stone. When she was done she lay there on hands and knees, shaking and weeping, Tirien looming over her. She could not even raise her head and didn't dare, afraid of the judgment in his eyes now that he knew she had succumbed to petty revenge, afraid of the words that would land her in the Service Corps or cast out from the Order for her crime. She was left with only the truth: I'm never going to see them again. They'll never see me become a Jedi. They'll never hug me again.
Then Tirien knelt down beside her and pulled her into his arms.
For a long, long time, Narasi just sobbed into his shoulder, clinging to him so hard she felt her claws cut the back of his robe. He held her with one arm, his other hand cradling her head; he said nothing, but he touched her mind, and she cried all the harder at the warmth that had melted the ice as the voice of the dark side quieted.
When she had cried herself out and subsided into hiccups, Narasi sat back. Her nose was running, and she had smeared snot and vomit both on Tirien's collar. "Your robe—"
"I don't care about the robe," he said softly. "I care about you."
Narasi sniffled, and Tirien pressed her back against the edge of the bed to stabilize her. Sitting cross-legged opposite her, he rested his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together. "Tell me the truth, Narasi."
His voice was firm, but still soft, and Narasi swallowed the lump in her throat. She could not—would not—let him down again. Taking a deep breath, fighting the fear and nausea inside, she said, "My father, Shaelo Rican, was…w-was a slaver. A good one. I mean, it's terrible, w-what he did…"
She trailed off, but Tirien nodded. "Darth Saleej is a good conqueror. Alecto is a good assassin. A being can do an evil thing well."
"Yeah," Narasi agreed; part of her hated to hear her father spoken of in that company, while another part knew it was fair. "He did slaving really well. By the time I was born he already had his own crew—I mean a big slaving ship, like the one at Carosi. He got a lot of slaves, but also high-quality ones—ones the Empire looks for, like well-educated specialists or really strong species that can do a lot of labor. He was away a lot, so I was mostly with my mom, but he'd come home and visit. My first memory is the day he took me to a processing facility. Some of the slaves were resisting, and the Zygerrians were using shock whips on them. I can still hear them screaming…"
Her voice cracked and she stopped, the memory haunting her waking hours as it preyed on her dreams. Tirien gave her a nod, and she forced herself to focus. "I hated it. I hated being there, everything about it. My dad thought I was just weak since I was little, but I remember the feeling…feeling how afraid they were…feeling the slavers hurting them…"
"Even undiscovered and untrained, you always had the Force," Tirien observed. "Apparently you always had your empathy, too."
She nodded. "My mom thought I'd be fine—well, 'fine'—once I grew up a bit. My dad kept getting bigger and bigger contracts; he took me to meet the High King once. We had this huge house in the capital, and…and…"
The word stuck in her throat, horror returning. Tirien asked calmly, "Slaves?"
Not trusting herself to speak right away, Narasi nodded. She combed her claws through her hair, but then groaned. "Oh, kriff me, Master, I used to own people!"
"You were a child, Narasi," he answered. "Just a little girl. You aren't answerable for what your parents did, or the culture you were born into."
"I don't even remember their names—I never knew them, we just called them 'slave'. Or 'it', like they weren't even people." Narasi's guts twisted into knots, but she knew she had to tell him the truth. "When I was…well, it wasn't long before we left Zygerria, I must've been five. One day I broke a sculpture in our parlor. My mom asked me if I did it, but I said I didn't and…and it must've been one of the slaves. My mom used her shock collar to punish her…"
Narasi hugged herself, and her upper arms trembled in her hands.
"Narasi." Tirien's voice was sterner now, and Narasi looked up uneasily. "Children lie. Children that age can't reason morally the way adults can. Would you ever own a sentient being now?"
"Of course not!"
"Would you ever make another take the blame for your actions?"
"No."
"Then you have nothing to be guilty for." His voice softened again. "That little girl could have become just as monstrous a contributor to the slave culture as any other Zygerrian. But that's not who you grew up to be."
Narasi tried to find the words to tell him how much it meant to her—his words, his hug, the support she could feel in the Force—but everything she thought of fell painfully short.
"You left Zygerria," he prompted.
That she could give him—the one thing he had asked of her: the truth. "One night my mom pulled me out of bed and said we had to go. My dad was there too. We only took some clothes—no slaves, not many belongings. I remember going through the streets in the middle of the night. The moon was really bright."
"Neither of them explained it to me; my mom just said 'your dad got in trouble'. But they said things afterwards, and as I grew up in the Temple I figured most of it out. The High King kept giving my dad more and more responsibility, and it got harder to meet the quotas. Eventually my dad couldn't make it, so he raided a Sith world for slaves—he took Sith citizens as slaves to Zygerria, and I think the Zygerrians sold them right back to the Sith."
"And the Empire figured out what had happened?"
"They must have. That…word Pavac used…shunyanda." Narasi squirmed just saying it aloud. "It's a really disgusting slur in Zygerrian. It's kinda like traitor, but a lot more offensive. I can't even think of something comparable in Basic. Well, even the whole Slave Empire is no match for the Sith, so the High King sold him out. Zygerria itself put a bounty on him—on all of us, I guess, to try to get to him. We had to go on the run. In one year…I lost count how many planets we were on, but it was a lot. My mom was miserable all the time, and my dad drank a lot."
"Flameouts," Tirien said.
Narasi winced. "Yeah. I knew they were unhappy—I guess I could sense it, but my mom was the only one who tried to hide it. I was just scared; I was too young to remember a lot about Zygerria, but I remembered it was better than where we were. Whenever I told my dad I wanted to go back, though, he'd scream at me until my mom made him stop. I learned not to ask."
"You were six when you became a Jedi."
Narasi wondered how many of these little details he had filed away over the years, piecing together the story, waiting for the day she would fill in the gaps. "I don't remember where we were, but I don't think it was the Republic. Mid Rim, maybe. I was out shopping with my mom and a Jedi found us. She sensed what I was; when she told my mom, I got to do some of the tests. I remember trying to guess what was on a screen I couldn't see. In the end she figured out I had the Force, and she asked my mom to let me go."
"What did your father have to say about that?"
Narasi stared at the floor. "He didn't. My mom didn't tell him—she made the decision, right there on the spot. I wasn't supposed to hear what she told the Jedi, I think, but she…she was afraid the Zygerrians would catch us, or…"
They won't stop until they catch us, and it's just a matter of time. Take her now while you have the chance.
"Or?"
Blowing out a breath, Narasi shook her head. "I don't know. I don't know how much I remember, how much I sensed, and how much is just my imagination running away. I had a lot of years in the Temple to think about it. Part of me thinks she was afraid my dad would've tried to trade me to the Sith for his life—'hey, sorry about enslaving your people, but here's a Force-sensitive as a peace offering, you can make her a Sith'. And then I think I'm just making him out to be worse than he was because I was so little and scared; he was a slaver, but he was still my dad! And us getting caught by Zygerria or bounty hunters was plenty for my mom to worry about…"
The reality of her parents' murders had never left her the whole time she had told the story, but now her mind returned to San Pavac, the man who had boasted of the killings to her face, who was here in Runganna's palace…
"I'm sorry for your losses," Tirien said, and his voice caught her attention before she could follow her train of thought to its conclusion. "I'm sorry you'll never be able to see them again and make peace with your past, and that you had to find out the way you did. But I need to know that you understand that none of that excuses what you did."
Narasi bowed her head, but Tirien said, "Look at me."
When she did, he said, "No averting your eyes, no trying to cover shame. No more hiding. San Pavac killed your mother and father, and if it weren't for me you would have killed him without threat or warning, in cold blood. Tell me you understand how serious this is."
Narasi swallowed, but she forced herself to hold his gaze. "I-I understand. I gave in to my anger, and I could've messed up everything with Runganna. I know it's not enough, but I'm sorry, Master. I'm so sorry I let you down."
Tirien nodded. "This is a test for you, Narasi. I knew there had to be something in your past, but I never would have anticipated this trial coming for you. But now that it's here, you have to face it."
"Trial?"
"We're going to participate in this auction, and Force willing win. And then we're going to leave here with the weapon. No stage of that process involves killing San Pavac."
Narasi felt the conflict between her natural drive for retribution and her Jedi training would tear her in half. All she could do was whisper, "He killed my mom and dad."
"Yes, he did," Tirien said. "But take yourself out of the equation, Narasi—see the same circumstances without passion. He collected a bounty on a slaver and a traitor; even the Republic wouldn't condemn him for that. I won't defend his killing your mother; I don't believe someone with his skill couldn't have brought her in alive if he really wanted to. But nothing you do to him will bring them back, and vengeance will not give you peace."
She wanted to spit that he had no idea what he was talking about, but his eyes tightened, anticipating her, and after a second she reflected he might have some idea. A Sith had killed his master in front of him, and Tirien had been the one to strike the Sith down. Had there been no comfort in that? Narasi clamped her hands onto her head, eyes squeezed shut as she grappled with it, until something occurred to her and she looked at him. "'Someone with his skill'? So you have heard of him?"
"I don't recall the details—I'm not certain I ever knew them—but that mention of Saleucami…" Narasi watched her master's eyes grow troubled. "I only saw a blurb from Intelligence, and I didn't read it carefully. But there was some sort of rebellion on Saleucami—it's an Imperial world—and the Empire put it down brutally—so brutally that the intelligence was coming from Sith soldiers who defected to the Republic. I think Pavac was involved."
"Well, that's definitely a reason…"
Her voice died out as Tirien's gaze sharpened. "Do not pretend this has anything to do with Pavac's crimes. Whatever he may have done, you want to hurt him because he hurt your family. You can't expel that emotion until you accept what it is."
Narasi drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. She knew he was right, and she hated herself for her desire to cut Pavac down…but she couldn't deny feeling it.
"Self-loathing is no better," Tirien said sharply, and Narasi started. "It's a path to the dark side—the less you think of yourself, the easier it is to think you're beyond salvation, and once you're evil, why not be evil completely? You came perilously close to true evil today, Narasi, but you didn't get there, and now you have the chance to reflect, to think through this calmly and make sure it never comes to pass. The choice is still before you, Narasi. Be a Jedi."
Narasi tasted acid when she swallowed, but she nodded. "Yes, Master."
Tirien stood, stripping off his soiled robe and rolling it up into a ball before he tossed it in the corner. "I'm going out to the Second Chance to get us new robes. Can I trust you here alone until I get back?"
Narasi was humiliated that he had to ask, and all the more because she couldn't pretend it was an unnecessary precaution. Wiping her nose and her eyes with her sleeve, she nodded. "Yes, Master."
"Meditate while I'm gone. Purge yourself of emotions; use the Code as a mantra if it helps you focus."
"Yes Master." But as he turned to go, Narasi couldn't hold her fears in anymore. "Master?"
He stopped at the door and turned around.
"If…" She stopped and shook her head. Be a Jedi. "When I don't hurt Pavac, once we get out of here, are you going to tell anybody about…any of this?"
She wasn't sure which would be worse for every Jedi to know—everything that had happened in her past, or what she had come within centimeters of doing here in the present.
Tirien shook his head. "No."
She swallowed; hope kindled a little fire in her chest, but it could still be snuffed out by a breeze. "You…still trust me?"
"That's part of it. When we get out of here without incident, you'll have proven to me that I should."
"And the other part?"
She hadn't expected his smile, much less the way it reached even his eyes. "'Good and bad, thick and thin, Core or Rim. We're a team.'"
Narasi couldn't get any words past the lump in her throat, but Tirien didn't seem to need any; giving her a nod, he stepped out the door. She held herself together until he was gone; then, once she had cried herself out again, she pulled off her own robe, dried her eyes with the hem, and settled in to meditate.