Star Wars: The Soul of a Sith

Chapter 14

Ren gazed at the Jedi Master in disbelief. He could barely process what he had heard, and yet as soon as the words had left the old man's lips, Ren had sensed they were true. He could instantly see features of his own face, aged and reflected across from him. The posture, the voice, and even aspects of the Force were echoes of Ren's own attributes, or perhaps his attributes were the echoes of Donthar's.

Ren had never been told anything about whom his father was. His mother had simply told him the matter was not of concern. There had been very brutal consequences to persisting discussion on anything she did not wish to discuss, and he had let the matter drop. In Ren's countless hours of solitude on the various planets his mother inserted him into, he had invented numerous men that were his father, some of them criminals, some mercenaries, some famous diplomats or presidents, or Sith lords. Jedi Master had come up quite a few times, but this fantasy was particularly difficult to sustain, given that his mother had killed several Jedi knights in her career. Even as a young boy, Ren understood the difference between Jedi and Sith, and what those differences meant.

"We can... confirm this in a few seconds with blood samples," said Donthar.

"What's the point?" said Ren. "You can feel it, can't you?" He gazed into the eyes of his father.

"Yes, I believe I can, though perhaps not so strongly as you," said the old man.

Yesri spoke suddenly, her face contorted: "Master, how could you - with a Sith assassin? With THE Sith assassin?!"

The old man grimaced. "I am... not proud of this," he whispered. "I don't really know how to explain."

"It's not completely your fault," said Ren. "My mother chose you." He spoke the words as they fell into place in his mind. "She must have wanted a father for her child who was extremely powerful in the Force, and for many reasons you were a more pragmatic choice than one of the great Sith lords. I'm only surprised she let you live in the end. I wonder if that was for my sake or for yours."

The Jedi gazed into the glowing filaments in the wall next to him and Ren sensed that he was reliving some past moment. "Magretta - your mother - was such a fearsome soul. We came upon one another on conflicting missions, and we fought... oh what a fight... we were so perfectly matched. We dueled on an uninhabited world for hours with neither one of us able to gain the upper hand on the other - the two of us the only souls for light years in every direction - and then... when our bodies could barely move and our lungs were burning, she looked at me with the strangest smile." He swallowed dryly.

Ren looked away. He had long since let go of ever finding his father, and had certainly not expected to find him abruptly on a world at the far end of the universe. Much like the Neeka's affection for him, this reunion was not something he felt ready for, and so he withdrew from it, and slipped into cold analysis. The old man had been correct in his musings: this must be the work of the Force, and probably of Kalethian himself. It was absurd to think of both of his parents being on this world as a coincidence. This was all part of some grand design, but for what possible purpose?

Ren silently probed the Force. It offered him tiny flickers of vision of his father and mother, much younger than they were now, facing one another in on a hot, desert world as his father had described. He knew things as he saw them. His mother was the only lover his father had ever had. He was her second. They had shared something very strong and, to his surprise, his mother had let pieces of her heart open, if ever so lightly, to the man. Ren sensed these things with preternatural clarity, and yet he saw nothing of what it all meant to his destiny. As to why he had met his father on this world, the Force was utterly black and silent.