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The Shrine of Healing rumbled, shook beneath the power of Vaylin’s bombardment. Ancient carvings split into away chunks of stone or dissolved into dust. Several of the shrine guards stared at the Alliance soldiers, their faceted eyes wide and bright in the darkness.
“Where’s Senya?” the Barsen’thor asked of them. His eyes seemed to glow with light from within his hood. “And if Gaden-Ko is here I could use his aid.”
He was answered by a familiar figure clad in a mystic’s robes. “We saw your return,” Gaden-Ko said.
It seemed there was to be little time for reunions.
And so the Jedi followed. Down into the depths of the shrine, areas that perhaps no outsiders had ever seen until now. Or at least until a few days before. Voss commandos rushed back and forth, their weapons held at the ready. This deep even the sounds of battle were muffled.
“Your Alliance must hold Vaylin back,” Gaden-Ko said. “The mystics have seen what aid you require to calm Zakuul.”
“An aid paid for by so many lives,” the Jedi said, as he clasped his hands in thought before him. “You will heal who you can?”
“As will you. Come, Senya awaits.”
The room they reached then was wide and lit by letters of glowing green. Arcann lay on a bed, an altar within while mystics stood over him. And before him, Senya. At the sight of the Jedi she drew her lightsaber.
“The Jedi has come to heal, not to harm,” Gaden-Ko said, softly.
Senya stepped back, her lightsaber still raised.
“Hate still burns through him. If you can save my son....”
“We will.” There was no hesitation in the Jedi’s voice. Arcann had used and trapped him, kept him alive and yet set the galaxy aflame. But Arcann was not the first one touched by Vitiate, by Valkorion, that the Jedi had aided. He’d never given up on those touched by the dark side before.
This was no time to start.
The mystics looked over to them. Their expressions were unclear, their intent opaque even through the Force. “We will need a sacrifice, to do this swiftly. And the aid of the Barsen’thor.”
“Anything to save him. Take from me what you must,” Senya said, and her voice did not waver.
The Barsen’thor already had moved to stand before the bed, his head bowed, hands pressed together as the glow of light surrounded him.
Over the years this ritual had become a familiar thing, a rite pressed into shape by habit and memory. The weight of it familiar as well, pain that bore down upon his shoulders, the way his limbs shook after it was done. Such sacrifice was worn into instinct now.
He reached into the scattered fragments of Arcann’s mind and found such wrath there as might engulf the galaxy. Something intertwined with the prince’s world near from birth, fertilized and grown by an all too familiar source. The way it had grown reeked of Valkorion’s influence, of something more than the mere hatred the Sith could muster. The Dark Side cultivated and left to grow.
It was wrapped too tight to bar completely. To pluck every strand loose would tear away all of what Arcann was, what he might become.
Burn out the wound and leave nothing behind save the cold ashes of a star.
“I cannot erase this,” the Jedi said. “Only soften it, grant him a chance to heal.” His hands were surrounded with light. Then he formed his thoughts into a lattice, his will into such a barrier drawn from the force of his own life.
One that would weigh on him until Valkorion was gone; perhaps beyond then. This was no known plague, no mortal plague master to be removed with a lightsaber’s stroke.
“And heal he will,” Gaden-Ko said, with such certainty. His voice matched the rhythm of the Jedi’s hands.
Such faith, but then such was the way of the Mystics. Perhaps Gaden-Ko had seen this already, had heard the interpreters speak of it.
The mystics became mere brilliant outlines as their power though Senya. Her voice broke on an unfamiliar lullaby.
Arcann convulsed, twitched the stump of his artificial arm. Ashes still coated one side of his clothing. His other arm reached for a lightsaber that was no longer there.
Then he stilled beneath their touch, beneath the light that spilled out to surround him. And through such light the Jedi could find the small spaces behind Arcann’s rage, seek the razor’s edge that would ease a choice of healing. A child’s bitterness, a man’s regret, a reverberation of Arcann’s hopes between them. It was easier than the Jedi had expected, as light led him to all the points of convergence, the gaps between contrition and hatred. Showed the roots of where fear had grown into anger. The children of Valkorion had seen him both as a god and as a more mundane sort of monster.
And the light shaped itself under Arcann’s will, carried with it the image of a child who’d hoped for his father’s approval, the man who’d gone back for his only sister, who’d slain—
A shadow twisted itself through the light, whispered questions of if this were worthwhile. The scar Arcann had burned through the Jedi ached. The room roiled with darkness, and for the first time the Jedi found himself truly grateful that he did not do this alone.
The light flickered around his hands, threatened to fade as a pall fell across the words which illuminated the room.
Then the shield slid into place, every tiny intersection of it held by ritual and combined intention. The shadows faded back to whence they’d came.
Senya slumped to the floor, unsteady, weakened. Arcann drew in a breath, exhaled as he jerked upward. He braced himself with his remaining hand in an attempt to sit upright.
“Mother,” he said, and looked over to Senya. Already the healers had moved to support her, though her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow.
“She will live.” Gaden-Ko stepped forward in turn. A halo of light still glimmered around his hands.
And the Jedi, the Barsen’thor, stared, stumbled. His skull reverberated with the wounds of others, the heft of all he’d done then and done before. He lifted his head again to look at Arcann. “The Alliance needs your aid...I need your aid. We cannot stop Vaylin alone.”
At that, Arcann remained silent. Tilted back his head as if to test that the pressure had lifted..
“Zakuul will listen to you, still.” The Jedi hesitated and said no more.
Arcann slid his legs to the edge of the bed and then stood, uncertain. Stepped aside when Gaden-Ko moved to aid him. “You weakened yourself for my sake,” Arcann said. His voice was a mere whisper. “I can feel...thank you. I have not earned such compassion, and yet you’ve ever been keen to grant it to me.”
He lifted his remaining hand to the Jedi’s face, and they could both feel the echo of something in the Force, a connection built near six years ago. It granted clarity enough.
Arcann’s fingers brushed across the lips of the Jedi, explored the lines of cheek and brow. Dropped down to his shoulder, a gesture to pull the both of them close. It almost seemed something from a dream, one more welcome than all the others. Suddenly, they both understood so much more. Fear intertwined with admiration, relief that gave way to quiet desire.
Then Arcann stiffened, staring at something behind all of them. There was no need for questions; Valkorion haunted his children still.
“I cannot heal in his presence,” Arcann said. “And I will not ask the carbonite of you again.”
“But we need—” the Jedi fell silent as Arcann’s hand cupped his chin..
“I will find you when the time comes,” Arcann said. And then he leaned in closer, to explore those lips his hand had felt already. The Jedi basked in the warmth of it, in the press of tongue, the hesitant pattern of Arcann’s breath. The rhythm of heart and limb, the rough texture of scars when Arcann’s cheek brushed against him.
His mouth remained open as Arcann pulled away and turned his expression to something stern. Eyes half-closed, brow set amid the scars.
“Consider that my vow,” Arcann said. He turned away and did not look back.