Chapter Text
59 ABY
The Esstran sector
The problem with the Solo men, Rey decided, was that they were entirely too much alike. That often left her caught in the middle, pushing her woefully inadequate diplomatic capabilities to the limit.
"You should have waited for my signal." White-faced with fury, Kylo paced up and down the grimy lounge area of the Millennium Falcon like a panther trapped in a cage. "Now the Sith Eternal know that we've infiltrated Dromund Kaas and your sister is still out there."
"Allana will be fine." Tristan spoke in a bored drawl that was completely at odds with his present circumstances, lying on the couch while Rey channeled healing energy into the massive laceration in his side. "You coddle her too much."
"I coddle you too much," Kylo snapped. "Evidently I've been remiss in my duties to teach you basic life skills, such as following simple instructions—"
"How was I supposed to know that there were more darksiders crawling around?" Tristan interrupted with a spark of his father's temper.
"That was precisely why we were reconnoitering," Kylo replied through gritted teeth. "So we could assess how many enemy combatants there were and account for each and every variable."
"It was taking too long," Tristan muttered.
Kylo stopped pacing and narrowed his eyes at his son and heir. "We have traveled from one end of the galaxy to the other on this rust-addled pile of garbage—"
"I mean, I personally think she's in fine shape for her age," Rey said under her breath, offended on the Falcon' s behalf as another inch of Tristan's wound was sewn shut by the Force.
"— this rust-addled pile of garbage that your mother inexplicably loves," Kylo corrected without missing a beat, "and we have spent days planning this mission to stop a cult of fanatic darksiders from freeing one of the most powerful Sith lords to ever exist from her eternal prison— and you complain that it was taking too long to scout the area?"
"All right, that's enough," Rey said before Tristan could formulate another one of his trademark snide retorts. "Ben, your son wanted to impress you with the new lightsaber maneuvers I've been teaching him. Tristan, your father's had a nasty scare because he loves you more than life itself and he nearly failed to get you out of there in one piece."
"I did fail to get him out of there in one piece," Kylo said with a pointed look at Tristan's side that had been carved up by a double-bladed war sword.
"And that's why he's so mad," Rey told Tristan serenely. With a final burst of healing energy pouring from her fingertips, the last of his wound disappeared. "Now, apologize to each other."
Kylo glowered down at the floor. Tristan scowled up at the ceiling.
"Sorry," they both grunted at the same time.
Rey bit back a smile. It was a very good thing that the Solo men were also alike in that she could always get them to do as she commanded. She rose to her feet and, after telling her son to get some rest, made her way out of the Falcon. Kylo trailed after her. For several long moments they stood in silence at the base of the ramp, studying their surroundings.
They had borrowed Han's old ship from Chewbacca because an Empire or Consortium vessel spotted sailing along the Kamat Krote would have raised too many questions. In keeping with this protocol of subterfuge, they had docked in the middle of a swamp, far away from the Sith Eternal's fortress. Massive black trees formed leafy, vine-infested canyons over the murky water, raising gnarled branches to a perpetually clouded sky that sparked with lightning every few seconds.
There was no sign of Allana.
Rey fiddled with her comlink, resisting the urge to try and make contact. Dromund Kaas' charged air interfered with the frequencies; some messages got through, but it was a luck-based endeavor more often than not. There was also no way to ascertain where her daughter was now; an overheard communique might give away her position and endanger her life. Her last message had stated that she'd found what she believed was the Lair of the Ghost and she was going in to investigate.
Rey glanced over at Kylo. In the silvery gloom, his face was paler than usual. He looked, in short, like a man who'd watched his son almost get killed and whose daughter's fate was currently a question mark on a planet teeming with so much dark energy that its very atmosphere vomited static. Rey would have been lying if she said she wasn't anxious, too, but over two decades of being the Queen Mother of a court as fraught as the Hapes Consortium had taught her how to keep a tight lid on her composure even in the most stressful of situations.
Over two decades of being the Emperor of the known galaxy had not done the same for Kylo, however, which made it all the more imperative for her to remain calm.
"Let's give it another thirty minutes," Rey quietly suggested. "If Allana's not back by then, we'll head to the coordinates she sent."
Kylo's brow wrinkled. "Why can't we go now?"
"It's almost impossible to comm with the frequencies on the blink like this. I don't want her to successfully retrieve the Heart of Akure only to return to this spot and find us gone."
"She should have waited for you to get to her location instead of going in alone."
"She should have," Rey agreed. "You can scold her for that later."
"Maybe I will," Kylo huffed.
Rey smirked, knowing that her husband would rather take on all the combined forces of the Sith Eternal by himself than scold his firstborn. She sidled closer, wrapping an arm around his waist; in response, he draped his own arm over her shoulders, nuzzling at her hair.
"It was a mistake to bring Tristan with us," he muttered. "He is too hotheaded, too eager to follow his own whims—"
"Reminds you of someone, doesn't it?" she quipped, burying her face in his chest.
Kylo's hand slid downwards and pinched her backside in admonishment. Rey giggled against the front of his black tunic.
"Atta," said a haughty voice from the top of the ship's ramp, "if you're quite finished groping my mom, there's a communique from the Hapes Cluster waiting on the dashboard."
"Why are you on your feet?" Kylo demanded, untangling himself from Rey. "You're still recovering from your injury. You should be lying down."
Tristan rolled his hazel eyes and disappeared back into the Falcon' s interior.
"That kid, I swear..." Kylo grumbled under his breath, looking for a moment like such a harried and put-upon old man that Rey had to snort. At fifty-three years of age, her husband had diligently maintained his broad, athletic frame, and his lush hair was still mostly black— with a few streaks of silver that were rather fetching, if she did say so herself— but there were times when his crankiness gave Luke's a run for its money, and it always amused Rey to no end.
The imperial couple entered the cockpit and Rey pulled up the transmission that was causing a light on the communications panel to blink. Prince Isolder's holo materialized, looking even more harried and put-upon than Kylo.
"Rey, dearest," he said gravely, "it is with a heavy heart that I must announce I am hereby tendering my resignation as grandfather to your offspring."
Rey blinked. "What's wrong, Atta?"
"There are eight of them!" Isolder hissed. "One is tearing up the flowers in the garden, the second is running around with a power drill, the third is prank-calling the Galactic Senate, the fourth is painting mustaches on the portraits in the Hall of Masters—"
Rey winced. "I'm sorry that Cade and Maia are being a handful. Could you put them on?"
Isolder turned his head towards a point off-screen, calling out the aforementioned names. It wasn't long before a pair of freckled, wavy-haired, eerily identical faces appeared above the communications panel, tinted in bluish light, and all the way from the other side of the galaxy the five-year-old Solo-Djo twins burst into glad cries at the sight of their parents' holos.
Kylo leaned over Rey's shoulder, raising an eyebrow at his youngest children. "What's this I hear about the two of you misbehaving?"
"We're not," the twins chorused.
"Grandfather is a liar," said Cade.
"A lying liar who lies," Maia added fervently.
Rey could hear Isolder sputtering in the background.
Kylo sighed. "Look, your mother and I will be back soon. If you refrain from terrorizing the household until then, we'll take you to K'Farri, to see the crystals. They're currently in bloom. Would you like that?"
The twins nodded.
"Does this mean you're going to be good?"
Two heads bobbed again in unison.
"Perfect," said Kylo. "I'll let you continue with your day, then. Kiss your mother goodbye."
Cade and Maia obediently blew kisses at Rey, who returned them with a wide smile. Isolder signed off, the last image from the Fountain Palace that of the twins earnestly trying to climb up his shoulders like a pair of eager beek-monkeys.
"Stars, I miss them," Rey said wistfully. Her last pregnancy had been a shock— and not without its risks, considering that there were two of them and she'd already been in her late thirties— but if she had to do it all over again, it would be without the slightest trace of hesitation.
Kylo bent down to press his soft lips to her forehead, a wordless comfort that she was glad to accept.
By the thirty-minute mark, however, Rey was feeling a lot less comforted and a lot more worried.
"We have to go," Kylo said in a tone that brooked no argument, sliding into the pilot seat of the Millennium Falcon.
Rey nodded, dropping down into the chair beside his. As they hurried through the preflight checks, Tristan poked his head into the cockpit.
"We're going to Allana?" he asked.
"Yes," Kylo confirmed. "She might need backup."
"I mean, she has backup," Tristan pointed out. "She's not entirely alone. Her boyfriend is with her."
Kylo's right eye twitched dangerously.
*
The cave system was winding and ancient, its black walls flecked with Corusca gems that blazed in the light of a torch wielded by a tall, slim figure in a white cloak, her dark hair flowing down her back in a rich, glossy curtain. She moved slowly and carefully, inching her way deeper and deeper into the bowels of the labyrinth without a sound, cataloging every twist and turn that she made. If this wasn't the Lair of the Ghost that the Hapan spy legions had talked about and she ended up getting lost in it, the embarrassment would haunt her until the end of her days.
Allana had had enough of hauntings, thank you very much.
But she knew that she was on the right track. The dark side of the Force was concentrated in these tunnels, washing over her like waves of ink. Through their haze was the jagged glow of a strange, brilliant power, beckoning her onwards like siren song. After making planetfall, the imperial family had split up— Tristan and their father to get the lay of the cult's fortress, Allana and their mother to look for an artifact called the Heart of Akure that was the only thing that could stop Nyriss' awakening, according to an Old Republic report on Dromound Kaas that had been authored by a Jedi from that era.
Said Jedi had neglected to go into detail about what the Heart of Akure actually was, or where exactly it was located. In the Lair of the Ghost, they'd written.
As if Allana needed any more ghosts in her life.
She stepped into a new branch of the cave system— and froze when the stone dipped slightly beneath her right foot. A swarm of wickedly sharp metal darts came hurtling at her from out of the darkness. Allana spun on her heel, Force energy swirling around her from head to toe, a crackling barrier that disintegrated the darts as soon as they touched it, tiny shards of metal drifting to the floor of the tunnel in a fine silver dust. But more kept coming, and she couldn't maintain this type of shield for long—
A voice as cold and as sharp as ice whispered in her ear. "Na-hah ur su ka-haat, su ku haru aat."
The realization of what she had to do slipped into her mind like a dagger slipping in between the ribs.
She repeated the words out loud, the guttural language of the Sith rolling off of her tongue far more smoothly than she was prepared for. The darts stopped coming, the last of them crashing against her Force barrier and into nothingness.
The Hapan Chume'da exhaled in relief, and continued on her way.
But she was no longer alone. Someone was behind her, moving even more silently than she was. Maybe if she ignored him, he'd leave again...
"What, not even a 'thank you'?" The deep, silvery tones were tinged with amusement.
Allana rolled her eyes. "You didn't help me out of the goodness of your heart," she stiffly told the air in front of her. "If I die, our connection is severed and you won't have anyone left to annoy."
"Couldn't it be that I've grown fond of you, Your Grace?"
"Pull the other one, it's got bells on."
"You wound me."
Allana whirled around, only to find her nose mere inches away from a black-robed chest. She took a step back, lifting her chin to glare at the tall, lean figure smirking down at her. For someone who'd died thousands of years ago, Sansin Koriss was exceedingly handsome and, what was worse, he acted like he knew it. His perennially arrogant demeanor never failed to set her teeth on edge.
"Look here," Allana hissed, "I'm on a very important mission and I can't have you distracting me, so just— just go float away, or something—"
"Darling, you know I don't float," Sansin murmured, a teasing glint in his gray eyes.
Her fists clenched at her sides from how much she wanted to strangle him. She turned away and resumed walking, albeit a little more stompily than before. "I should never have opened that holocron."
"But then we would never have met."
"My point exactly."
He fell silent. She wondered, with a stab of guilt, if she'd hurt his feelings— if a ghost even had feelings in the first place. A year had passed since she explored the Tascollan Nebula and found the Sith Empire holocron, communing with it out of sheer curiosity. Something had happened that had bound one of the three gatekeepers to her, and she'd been saddled with him ever since.
Before Allana could make up her mind on whether or not to extend an olive branch, Sansin spoke again, changing the topic. "Do you even have any idea what the Heart of Akure is?"
"No." She glanced at him over her shoulder. The torchlight flickered over his pale, chiseled features. "Do you?"
"No. Nyriss was before my time."
"And yet you knew how to deactivate the trap."
"Most temples use that phrase as a password. My order loved staying true to formula— in that respect, they were almost as bad as the Jedi."
"Speaking of that phrase— what did it mean?"
Sansin hesitated for a couple of beats. ""Lead us to the Sith,'" he finally translated, "'if there are any here.'"
Allana shivered.
"You should have waited for your mother," he opined in a tone of mild reproach.
"It'll be fine," she snapped.
They walked on, deeper and deeper into the dark labyrinth that had been carved out by those ancient and long-lost.
*
The Falcon was cruising low over the treetops, slowed down by a torrential downpour. At this pace, it would take them almost twenty standard minutes to reach the coordinates that Allana had transmitted.
"Can you take over?" Kylo asked Rey.
"Sure."
He stood up and she took his place in the pilot seat. Despite the tense urgency of the situation they'd found themselves in, there was a faint smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
"Shall I send you off with my kerchief in case you start crying?" Rey quipped, reaching out to run a soothing hand down his arm.
"You don't have any kerchiefs, my lady," Kylo pointed out. "You're always losing them."
He grabbed his wife's hand and pressed a quick kiss to the back of it, then he left the cockpit.
To talk to his eldest son.
Tristan was sulking on the couch, arms crossed, staring off into space. Kylo's heart ached— it was like seeing his younger self through the span of years, as if time had warped, somehow, past colliding with present and bringing him full circle. All four of his children looked like him— except for their eyes, which were their mother's— but Tristan was the spitting image.
Kylo sat beside the boy, who offered no acknowledgement of his presence. A few minutes ticked by as he pondered what to say. What had he needed to hear when he'd been fifteen? The memories were painful to dredge up, but he examined them, anyway. He owed it to his son— and, in some way, to his father. In this new world that he and his family had fought for— had sacrificed so much to create— the destructive cycles needed to be broken.
He cleared his throat. "You fought well today."
"Did not," Tristan muttered. "You had to carry me out of there on your back after I was injured. I almost got you killed."
Ah. There it was.
Kylo couldn't deny that his heart melted a little. He opened his mouth to reassure his precious son, but the latter continued in a grumpy tone of voice, "I mean, you're already so old..."
"I believe I can still manage," Kylo replied stiffly. "I am not completely decrepit yet."
The little punk shrugged, lifting his chin in that stubborn, defiant manner that he couldn't have gotten from anyone other than Rey. Another wave of fondness swept through Kylo and he sighed, ruffling Tristan's hair.
"Your old man's got a lot of fight in him left," he told the boy gently. "I will always protect you. I get my strength from wanting to do that."
Tristan shifted away from his touch, the tips of his ears turning pink. He was at that age when parental gestures of affection were embarrassing, and Kylo suddenly felt a rush of gratitude that they were sitting here together. As someone who had grown up away from his parents, he looked forward to spending many more years embarrassing his children at every opportunity.
"I am at fault as well," he admitted. "We need to learn how to fight more seamlessly together— to tighten our formations, to always keep each other covered, things like that. I will make more time to train with you when we get back to Hapes."
Tristan didn't say anything for a while but, finally, he nodded. "Okay." Arms still crossed, he very gingerly bumped his shoulder into Kylo's, leaning against him for the most fleeting of seconds. "Thanks, Dad."
Kylo was not as fluent in the Hapan language as he would have liked, and his children all spoke to him in Basic. But they reserved Dad for special occasions such as these. He smiled, telling himself to shut up and to not ruin the moment, but...
"Assuming you can fit me into your busy schedule, that is," he said. "I hear you and Saehrys Yliri are studying together a lot these days."
"Dad!"
"She's an exceptionally intelligent young woman. More intelligent than her father, at any rate. I am happy that she is helping you with your academic pursuits."
Tristan scowled, his normally pale face as red as a tomato. "I hate it here."
Before either of them could say anything else, the Falcon began its descent. They'd reached Allana's last known location.
*
The purported Lair of the Ghost began at the mouth of a huge cave embedded into the rocky mountainside. Allana's speeder bike was docked nearby, but there was no sign of the Chume'da herself. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, light silvery droplets spattering on Rey's cheek as she approached the cave flanked by Kylo and Tristan, their lightsabers sheathed at their sides. They stopped at the yawning entrance and she closed her eyes, trawling the currents of the Force for any sign of her daughter or of danger.
But the dark side was too strong here. It obscured everything in a thorny mass that threatened to suffocate, and Rey had to withdraw her perception before she could be engulfed entirely.
They would have to go in blind, then.
All of a sudden there was a rumbling that seemed to emanate from within the cave. Kylo, Rey, and Tristan fell back several paces, steadying themselves on the shaking ground. Through the shadows, Rey caught sight of the telltale sapphire blaze of the Skywalker lightsaber heading towards them, moving wildly as if its wielder were running. And then the cave spat out Allana, who quickly extinguished her blade before stumbling into her mother's arms.
"So— good news first," Allana panted. "I know where the Heart of Akure is."
"What's the bad news?" Rey asked.
The rumbling increased. A hulking creature as big as worlds slowly emerged from the cave mouth, splitting the air with a guttural roar. It resembled a rancor with its bulbous head, its squat, frog-like body, and its long and sinewy limbs, but it sported four savage tusks that wreathed its immense, leathery jaws, and its gray-black skin was riddled with cracks through which glowed a substance like magma, like blood. There was something glowing through the flesh of its chest as well, a pulsing red orb that lit up the stormy night.
"The bad news," said Allana, jerking her head back at the beast, "is that it's inside that."
Tristan groaned as his parents ignited their lightsabers and stepped in front of him and his sister while the monstrous Sithspawn began to charge. "Why can't we ever have normal family vacations?"