Xavier moved through the forest as though he belonged to it.
His steps carried him between the pale trees without disturbing the roots beneath them. When thick branches blocked his path, he did not push them aside. He turned his shoulders and passed between them, allowing the branches to return to their original position without so much as a tremble.
Khan followed several steps behind him.
At first, he struggled to keep pace.
The ground was uneven. Roots twisted through the soil, hidden beneath fallen leaves and patches of dark moss. The smallest mistake caused something to snap beneath Khan's boots.
Each sound felt louder than it should have.
Xavier never looked back.
Still, Khan knew the boy heard every one of them.
Khan lowered his gaze and began to study him.
Xavier rarely stepped directly onto the soil. He placed his feet along the thickest roots, exposed stones, and patches of moss that could support his weight without shifting. Before passing through dense vegetation, he slowed just enough to see where the branches would move.
There was no wasted motion.
Khan began copying him.
His next step landed upon an exposed root.
The one after that settled against a flat stone.
When a low branch appeared before him, Khan turned sideways rather than reaching for it.
Slowly, the noises behind Xavier began to disappear.
Khan could not rely on the Force as he normally would. Its presence remained distant on this world, buried beneath the darkness that saturated everything around him.
But he could still observe.
He could still learn.
Several minutes passed before Xavier glanced over his shoulder.
His eyes dropped briefly toward Khan's feet.
Then he faced forward again.
It was the closest thing to approval Khan had received from him.
They continued deeper into the forest.
The trees grew closer together, their branches forming a thick canopy overhead. Little light reached the ground. What remained carried a faint violet tint from the sky above.
Khan had attempted to keep track of their direction, but that had quickly become difficult.
The forest seemed to turn around them.
Landmarks repeated themselves. Trees with the same pale bark appeared in places where Khan was certain they had already passed. Even the slope of the ground changed so gradually that it was difficult to tell whether they were climbing or descending.
Xavier never hesitated.
Khan watched him for a while longer before speaking.
"How long have you been here?"
Xavier continued walking.
"I don't know."
Khan waited for him to say more.
He did not.
"You don't remember when you arrived?"
"No."
"Do you remember how many days have passed?"
Xavier stepped over a twisted root.
"A long time, maybe."
There was no certainty in his voice.
Khan looked through the trees.
The violet light remained unchanged. He could not remember seeing the sky brighten or darken since waking on this world.
Perhaps there were no days here.
Or perhaps the difference between them was so slight that Xavier had stopped noticing.
"How did you survive?"
Xavier slowed.
For a moment, Khan thought he would refuse to answer.
"I learned."
The boy continued forward.
Khan understood that no further explanation would come.
Xavier had learned where to find water.
He had learned which creatures could be hunted and which ones hunted him.
He had learned where the people in red traveled.
More importantly, he had learned how to remain unseen.
Survival had become his measure of time.
Nothing else mattered.
The trees eventually began to thin. Xavier lowered himself as he approached the edge of the forest, then motioned for Khan to do the same.
Khan crouched beside him.
A cliff stretched across the land ahead of them. Its dark stone descended into a deep ravine, where narrow paths wound between jagged formations.
Xavier pointed toward the base of the opposite cliff.
"There."
Khan followed his finger.
A large cave entrance had been carved into the stone. Two figures stood outside it, both concealed beneath dark red robes. The distance obscured their faces, but Khan could see the weapons hanging from their sides.
Others occasionally appeared inside the entrance before disappearing into the darkness beyond.
"Those with red reside there," Xavier said.
Khan studied the ravine.
The main path curved downward from the forest and led directly toward the cave. There was little cover near the entrance. Anyone attempting to approach it would be seen long before reaching the guards.
"We need a closer look."
Khan began to rise.
Xavier immediately caught his sleeve.
"Not that way."
Khan looked at the hand gripping him, then toward Xavier.
The boy released him.
"Follow."
Xavier moved along the edge of the cliff, keeping his body low. Khan followed until they reached a section covered by thick vines.
Xavier pulled several of them aside.
A narrow opening waited behind them.
The tunnel beyond it descended into darkness.
"This path," Xavier said. "Safer."
Khan examined the opening. It was small, barely large enough for either of them to crawl through. Scratches covered the stone near its entrance, suggesting Xavier had used it many times before.
Khan glanced once more toward the guarded cave.
Then he nodded.
"I understand."
Xavier entered first.
Khan followed him inside.
The passage tightened around them almost immediately. Stone pressed against Khan's shoulders as he crawled forward. The air grew colder with every movement, carrying the scent of damp earth and something faintly metallic.
Soon, the light from the forest vanished behind them.
Xavier continued without difficulty.
Khan placed one hand against the wall and followed the quiet sound of the boy's movements. His fingers passed over deep cracks in the stone. Cold air moved through them, indicating that other passages existed somewhere beyond the walls.
The tunnel gradually widened.
Xavier rose into a crouch.
Khan did the same.
Ahead of them, a dim purple light passed through a narrow opening. Xavier approached it and carefully peered outside.
He remained still for several seconds.
Then he motioned Khan forward.
The passage opened into one of the cave's inner corridors.
Dark stone walls surrounded them. Veins of violet crystal ran through the rock, producing just enough light to see without revealing every corner.
Khan reached instinctively toward his lightsaber.
Xavier shook his head.
Khan released the hilt.
The weapon's light would expose them instantly.
They entered the corridor.
Xavier moved ahead, stopping at every turn to listen. Twice, he pulled Khan into small openings before hooded figures passed nearby.
The people in red spoke quietly to one another.
Khan did not recognize the language.
The sounds were harsh and deliberate, with words that seemed to catch in the speaker's throat. Even without understanding them, Khan could feel the hostility behind each exchange.
Strangely, there were few patrols.
The corridors stretched deep beneath the mountain, yet most remained empty.
Khan could feel life farther below.
Many lives.
Some flickered faintly within the Force.
Others felt distorted.
Xavier guided him down a sloping passage until the distant sound of voices began echoing through the cave.
They stopped near a wide opening overlooking a much larger chamber.
Khan peered around the stone.
A massive hole dominated the center of the cavern.
Its edges were too smooth to be natural. Symbols had been carved into the floor around it, each one glowing with the same dark purple light that ran through the cave walls.
The pit descended farther than Khan could see.
Darkness moved inside it.
Not the simple absence of light.
Something deeper.
Something alive.
Dozens of hooded figures stood around the opening. Some held their arms outward while others remained on their knees, repeating words in the unfamiliar language.
Beyond them stood several metal cages.
Children crowded inside.
Some held onto one another. Others sat against the bars, too exhausted to move. Several had noticed Khan and Xavier above them, but fear kept them silent.
They were not the only children in the chamber.
Khan's attention shifted toward the pit.
Six children knelt around its edge.
Their knees rested inside the glowing symbols. Their arms hung loosely at their sides, and their eyes stared forward without seeing anything.
A dark purple haze surrounded their bodies.
Khan reached toward them through the Force.
Pain struck him immediately.
He drew back, nearly losing his balance.
The children's life energy was being pulled from them.
Slowly.
Relentlessly.
Every breath they took was weaker than the one before it.
The purple haze flowed from their bodies and descended into the hole.
Khan looked toward Xavier.
"We need to save them."
Xavier watched the ritual below.
"The ones in the cells can still leave."
Khan's expression tightened.
"And the others?"
Xavier did not answer.
"Xavier."
"Too late."
"They're still alive."
"Not for long."
"That means we still have time."
Xavier finally looked at him.
"No."
The certainty in his voice stopped Khan.
Xavier's hands had curled into fists.
"I tried before."
Khan glanced toward the kneeling children.
"What happened?"
"There was a boy."
Xavier's voice became quieter.
"He sat like them. I waited until those in red left. Then I pulled him away."
Khan felt something change in Xavier.
The boy's breathing remained steady, but his eyes no longer seemed to see the chamber before them.
"What happened to him?" Khan asked.
"He woke."
Xavier swallowed.
"He screamed."
The voices below continued their chant.
Khan waited.
"The dark was already inside him," Xavier said. "It tore through his skin. Through his eyes. He kept screaming when there should have been no breath left."
His gaze dropped toward the floor.
"He did not stop when he died."
Khan looked back at the children surrounding the pit.
The technique sounded disturbingly similar to what had happened to the attackers on Tatooine.
But this was slower.
More deliberate.
The cultists were not merely killing these children.
They were turning their deaths into something.
Power.
An offering.
Perhaps both.
"There must be a way to break the connection," Khan whispered.
"I don't know one."
"We cannot leave them."
"If we touch them, they die."
"They are already dying."
"And the others are not."
Xavier pointed toward the cages.
"We can take them."
Khan's hands tightened.
Everything within him rejected the choice.
A Jedi protected the innocent.
A Jedi did not decide which children were worthy of being saved.
Yet charging into the ritual without understanding it would accomplish nothing. Khan was injured. His connection to the Force remained weak. He did not know how many cultists occupied the caves.
If they were discovered before reaching the cages, no one would escape.
Khan forced himself to look away from the children beside the pit.
"How do we reach the cells?"
Xavier studied the chamber.
Then he pointed toward a narrow ledge running along the outer wall.
"That way."
They withdrew from the opening.
Xavier guided Khan through another passage that curved around the central cavern. The chanting grew louder as they descended.
At the end of the passage, they reached a ledge several meters above the cages.
Only one hooded figure guarded the prisoners.
Xavier looked at Khan.
Khan nodded.
The boy lowered himself over the edge and dropped.
His feet touched the ground without a sound.
Several children recoiled when they saw him.
Xavier immediately placed a finger against his lips.
Their fear turned to recognition.
Some of them had seen him before.
Perhaps Xavier had watched the cultists for far longer than Khan realized.
Perhaps he had been waiting for an opportunity he could never create alone.
Khan lowered himself from the ledge.
The hooded guard began to turn.
Khan landed behind him.
One hand covered the guard's mouth.
The edge of Khan's other hand struck the back of his neck.
The man went limp.
Khan caught him before he hit the ground and carefully lowered him onto the stone.
He searched the cultist's robes and found a small metallic device attached to his belt. A pale light moved across its surface when Khan passed it near the cage lock.
The lock released with a quiet click.
Khan slowly opened the door.
"Stay quiet," he whispered. "We're getting you out."
The children began moving.
Xavier took the hand of the youngest among them and guided her from the cage. The others followed, keeping close to one another.
Khan watched the nearby corridors.
No movement.
Not yet.
He closed the cage door behind them. From a distance, it might take the cultists several moments to realize the prisoners were gone.
Xavier pointed toward the passage they had used.
Khan nodded.
They had nearly reached the ledge when a child stumbled.
Another caught him before he fell.
But the loose chain around his ankle struck the floor.
The sound echoed through the chamber.
The chanting stopped.
Silence filled the cavern.
A hooded figure turned toward them.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then the cultist shouted.
The words were foreign to Khan.
Their meaning was not.
Every figure surrounding the pit rose at once.
"Go," Khan said.
Xavier looked toward the ledge.
Three cultists were already moving to block it.
Khan pulled the communicator from his belt and pressed it into Xavier's hand.
"Take this."
Xavier stared at the unfamiliar device.
"Press here."
Khan guided Xavier's thumb toward the control.
"Hold it near your mouth and speak. Master Coleman will hear you, the other Jedi you met.
Xavier looked from the communicator to Khan.
"He'll help?"
"If the signal reaches him, yes."
More voices echoed through the corridors.
Xavier looked toward the approaching cultists.
"And you?"
Khan removed his lightsaber from his belt.
"I'll lead them away."
"You are hurt."
"I can still fight."
Xavier did not move.
Khan placed a hand on his shoulder.
"These children know you. They'll follow you."
The first cultist appeared at the end of the corridor.
Khan pressed the activation switch.
His blue blade ignited with a sharp hiss.
Light washed across the stone walls.
"Get them out of here."
Xavier stared at him for one final moment.
Then he turned.
"This way."
He led the children into a narrow passage branching away from the cavern.
Khan stepped into the open.
The cultist charged.
Khan brought his lightsaber across his body and settled into his stance.
His legs felt heavier than they should have.
The injuries beneath his robes burned with every breath. The wound along his side had begun bleeding again sometime during their journey through the forest.
The Force remained distant.
He could sense movement, but only faintly.
There would be no effortless anticipation.
No sudden burst of speed.
His training would have to be enough.
The cultist swung a short blade toward Khan's head.
Khan stepped aside.
The weapon passed his face.
One controlled thrust ended the fight.
The cultist collapsed.
Two more appeared behind him.
Khan retreated into the corridor.
He could not allow them to surround him.
The first cultist pursued too quickly, leaving the second several steps behind. Khan waited until the passage narrowed, then stopped without warning.
The cultist raised his weapon.
Khan's lightsaber cut through it.
A second strike crossed the man's chest.
Khan stepped over him and continued backward.
The next attacker approached more carefully.
Khan watched his feet.
The cultist shifted his weight.
Khan recognized the attack before it began.
He turned sideways, allowing the blade to strike the wall. Sparks erupted from the stone.
Khan caught the man's wrist, pulled him forward, and drove his lightsaber through his body.
Footsteps approached from another passage.
Khan moved before the next group could reach him.
He passed through a narrow opening and entered a smaller chamber filled with broken pillars. The ceiling had partially collapsed, leaving little room to maneuver.
Two cultists entered from opposite sides.
Khan positioned himself behind one of the pillars.
The first attacker tried to circle left.
The second moved right.
Khan waited.
The moment the first cultist stepped around the stone, Khan struck.
Their weapons met.
Khan turned his wrist and redirected the cultist's blade into the pillar. Before the man could recover, blue light passed across his neck.
The body fell.
The second attacker lunged.
Khan stepped over the first body and forced the cultist to adjust his footing. Their blades collided once.
Twice.
Pain tore through Khan's side.
His guard dropped for only an instant.
The cultist saw it and attacked.
Khan allowed him to commit.
Then he pivoted.
The weapon missed.
Khan's blade entered beneath the man's ribs.
More voices came from the corridor behind him.
Too many.
Khan continued moving.
He did not know whether Xavier had reached the hidden tunnel. He could only trust that the boy remembered the way.
The cultists followed Khan deeper into the caves.
At first, they repeated the same mistakes. They chased him through narrow passages, each desperate to be the one who struck him down.
Khan punished them for it.
But they began to learn.
Their calls changed.
The groups stopped rushing forward.
Instead, they spread through the connecting corridors.
Khan sensed them closing around him.
One group blocked the passage ahead. Another advanced from behind.
He turned into the only path left open.
Too late, he realized where it led.
The corridor opened into the central chamber.
The ritual had been abandoned.
The kneeling children remained around the pit, the purple haze still flowing from their bodies. None reacted as Khan entered.
Cultists emerged from the surrounding passages.
Six stood between Khan and the cages.
Others approached from behind.
Khan stepped away from the pit.
His breathing had become uneven.
Blood ran beneath his robes.
He tightened both hands around his lightsaber.
The cultists came together.
The first attacked high.
Khan blocked.
A second aimed for his injured side.
Khan twisted away, but the edge of the weapon tore through his robe.
He countered with a slash across the attacker's chest.
Another cultist came from his left.
Khan turned and caught the weapon against his lightsaber. He drove his shoulder into the man, forcing him backward toward the pit.
The cultist lost his footing.
Khan's blade passed through him before he fell into the darkness below.
The others hesitated.
Khan stood between them and the hole, his blue blade raised.
For a few seconds, no one moved.
Then the cultists attacked together.
Khan blocked the first weapon.
Turned aside the second.
The third struck his shoulder.
Pain exploded through his arm.
His fingers weakened.
A cultist slammed into him from the side.
Khan stumbled.
Another weapon caught his lightsaber near the hilt and tore it from his grasp.
The blue blade spun across the chamber.
Khan reached for it through the Force.
Nothing answered.
His lightsaber struck the edge of the pit.
Then it disappeared.
The blue light descended into the darkness until even its glow vanished.
Khan stared after it.
His weapon.
The lightsaber he had constructed as a Padawan.
The weapon he had carried through every mission beside his master.
Gone.
The cultists surrounded him.
Khan stepped backward.
His heel stopped at the edge of the pit.
There was nowhere left to go.
So this was where it ended.
Not on Naboo.
Not against the Sith Lord who had killed Yoda and taken Dooku from him.
Here.
On a world without a name.
Khan thought of the Jedi waiting for him.
Kit would continue making terrible jokes whenever silence became too heavy.
Aayla would pretend they did not amuse her.
He thought of the children following Xavier through the tunnels.
He thought of the Council.
Of Plo Koon.
Of the darkness spreading through the Republic while the Jedi searched blindly for its source.
He had not found the Sith.
He had not uncovered the truth behind Naboo.
He had not become the Jedi Dooku believed he could be.
Dooku.
Khan felt the second hilt beneath his robes.
He had carried it since Naboo.
He had cleaned it.
Protected it.
Hidden it.
But he had never ignited it.
It did not belong to him.
It belonged in the hand of the man who had trained him.
The man whose body Khan would never recover.
The man whose legacy now rested upon his shoulders.
One of the cultists raised his weapon.
Khan closed his hand around the curved hilt.
He could not die here.
Grief tightened around his heart.
He remembered Dooku falling.
He remembered Yoda's dead body.
He remembered waking after the battle and learning that both of them were gone.
Fear followed.
Not fear of pain.
Not even fear of death.
Fear that everything they had given him would amount to nothing.
That the Sith would remain hidden.
That Dooku's name would be remembered only through failure.
That Khan would disappear before he could prove his master had been right about him.
Then came anger.
At the cultists.
At the Sith.
At the Jedi who had been too slow to see the darkness gathering around them.
At himself.
For surviving when greater Jedi had not.
For being weak.
For nearly failing again.
The emotions he had restrained since Naboo broke free.
Khan pulled Dooku's lightsaber from beneath his robes.
The curved hilt settled into his hand.
Unfamiliar.
Yet known.
His thumb touched the activation switch.
A blue blade erupted between him and the cultists.
For an instant, Khan saw his master standing in the training hall.
Feet positioned perfectly.
Shoulders relaxed.
One hand held behind his back.
Again, Dooku's voice whispered from Khan's memories.
Control the distance.
The darkness surrounding the chamber moved.
The Force struck Khan like a violent wave.
His breath caught.
Everything returned at once.
The cultists' movements.
Their fear.
The life fading from the children.
The endless hunger within the pit.
Khan felt all of it.
His pain remained.
His injuries remained.
But neither mattered.
The nearest cultist attacked.
Khan moved.
His body became a blur.
Dooku's blade turned aside the cultist's weapon and continued forward without pause. The attacker fell before the others understood Khan had moved.
A second came from behind.
Khan turned.
The curved hilt shifted naturally within his grip. His blade found the opening beneath the cultist's guard.
Another fell.
Then another.
Khan advanced.
The precision Dooku had taught him remained, but the restraint behind it was gone.
Each movement carried his grief.
Each strike carried his anger.
Each fallen cultist fed the certainty growing inside him.
He would survive.
He had to survive.
One cultist attempted to retreat.
Khan crossed the distance before the man could turn.
Blue light cut through red cloth.
Another raised both hands and shouted something Khan could not understand.
Khan did not stop.
The blade passed through him.
The Force flowed through Khan with a strength he had not felt since before Naboo.
No.
It was greater than that.
For the first time since losing his master, Khan did not feel empty.
His grief filled the emptiness.
His anger gave it shape.
His ambition gave it purpose.
The darkness of the planet answered every emotion he had denied.
And for several terrible seconds…
It felt right.
The last cultist near him collapsed.
Silence returned to the chamber.
Khan stood among the bodies.
Dooku's lightsaber remained extended in his hand.
Its blue glow reflected across his face.
The surge began to fade.
Pain returned first.
Then exhaustion.
The Force had given him strength, but it had not restored what his body had lost.
His wounded leg buckled.
Khan dropped to one knee.
He tried to rise.
His arm trembled beneath him.
The lightsaber slipped from his fingers and deactivated when it struck the floor.
A voice spoke behind him.
Khan turned his head.
One cultist remained.
The figure approached slowly, one hand pressed against a wound in his side. He spoke in the same harsh language as the others.
Khan did not understand the words.
He did not need to.
The cultist raised his weapon over Khan's head.
Khan reached toward Dooku's lightsaber.
His fingers scraped against the stone.
The hilt remained beyond his reach.
The weapon began to fall.
A blade passed through the cultist's chest.
The man froze.
His weapon slipped from his hands.
The blade withdrew, and his body collapsed beside Khan.
Someone stood behind him.
Tall.
Broad.
Covered in ancient armor.
Khan's vision blurred, but he recognized the damaged mask and the heavy figure beneath it.
The warrior from the ruins.
More cultists entered the chamber.
The Warrior turned toward them.
They attacked together.
It did not matter.
The ancient Sith moved through them with overwhelming force.
Weapons shattered.
Bodies struck the walls.
The cultists who had nearly killed Khan were swept aside as though they had never been a threat.
Khan tried to reach for Dooku's lightsaber again.
His arm refused to move.
Through his fading vision, he saw him standing among the fallen cultists.
Then the ancient warrior turned toward him.
But darkness had taken his vision, and his fate unknown.