Power

13.

I sit, staring with the empty eyes the First Order left me with at the wall in front of me. The girl, who I've come to know as Rey, comes up beside me.

"Hey, we're here." She tells me as I feel the ship land. The ache and constant pain had returned to my body as the rush of adrenaline faded away through the flight to the rebel base, I struggle to stand. Rey offers me her arm and I take it, limping out of the Falcon. Princess Leia stands at the bottom of the ramp, I look at her with an unchanging face.

"Someone here is waiting for you." She tells me, I look up to see Maro rejoicing with his friends. He suddenly spots me and a look of longing crosses his face. He breaks into a sprint and for the first time in a year, a smile crosses my face. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me against him, seeming as if he's never going to let go.

"Hello sunshine." He says, his voice is full of relief. "Can you walk?" I shake my head as tears begin to fill my eyes. He lifts me up and takes me to his room, shutting the door and setting me down on his bed. I look at him for only a moment before a tear slips down my cheek. He takes my face in his hands and studies my face, pain filling his eyes. His finger traces the scar running through my eye. "Can you see out of this?" I shake my head. "Why is this one red again? Lyra, what did they do to you?"

"General Hux came to me when I first arrived, he said I would have to help Kylo Ren finish his training because I was the most powerful Sith to ever live. They told me, because I had given up my power in the darkness, that they would be able to break me. And he was right, the amount of darkness that consumes that battle station was too much, even for me. So against everything in me, every voice to guide me, I had to let myself fall back into the darkness in order to survive.

They tortured me every single day for a year, one day when I was especially unwilling to cooperate, they blinded me in one eye. They told me they would take the other if I didn't begin to listen. I would have been able to escape or contact you or anything but they had this awful collar locked on my neck constantly," I motion to the deep bruises on my neck. "It cut off my connection to the force. Never in my life have I ever felt so empty. I was forced to train Ren, and that is my biggest regret. I am fearful that I've helped birth a new evil." Maro gently places a hand on my face as more tears flow down it. "Hux told me the day I arrived that they would break me. And they have." My voice is shaky now, tears build in Maro's own eyes. He leans forward from his spot kneeling in front of me to place his forehead against mine. This contact allows me to feel our bond, unbreakable in the force. I let out a breath and succumb myself to it.

"I promise you Lyra, for as long as I am beside you, they will never take you from me again. You will never face pain like that ever again." He says, leaning back to meet my eyes.

"I just want to be back in our home, back on Coruscant living the life we made for ourselves after the Empire. I never wanted to be apart of all of this again." He nods.

"I know love, and we never should have been. But if we leave, we're leaving this Resistance and this whole galaxy at the hands of the First Order. Hux was right about one thing, you were the most powerful Sith Lord, and now, you are even more powerful as a Jedi Master. The First Order took you because they knew of how much of a threat to them you are. But Lyra, they don't have you in a cage anymore." I study his eyes, a strange surge of power coursing through me. The power of the Light, of the Jedi and the ones who came after them. I see Maro suddenly smile at me. "Now come on, let's get you cleaned up."