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The distinct spires of Coruscant's former Jedi Temple once meant almost home. While the Emperor turning the temple into his own personal residence hadn’t earned a mention on any of the news stations—the dwindling few still allowed to report galactic happenings, that was—Ahsoka had managed to learn of it years ago as she grabbed whatever information relevant to the Jedi she could get her hands on. Now, with that horrible reality in mind, those spires looming in the distance looked altogether sinister—jagged shadows clawing across the cloud floor, reaching for her. Only for her. Ahsoka couldn’t look away. They closed the distance and then—
The dense clouds swallowed her shuttle and Ahsoka could breathe again.
How often, when she was alone and fighting to survive, had she wanted to see that familiar silhouette again? An ache of homesickness for a past she could never return to throbbed in her stomach, capsizing into nausea just as a whisper snaked through her fractured thoughts: “Come back to the present.”
Ahsoka blinked and found Maul staring intently from the seat next to her in their public transit shuttle. Worry was absent from his eyes; there was only annoyance.
Leaning into her space, he intoned, “This is neither the time nor the place to become distracted.”
The both of them wearing dingy ponchos had helped them blend in with everyone else on this crammed shuttle ferrying people from Foerost to Coruscant, but while the strangers around them wore blank or resigned faces, Ahsoka felt every emotion playing out across her own features.
“You try going home and see how well-adjusted you are,” Ahsoka muttered.
“A home where there’s nothing left because my way of life and my people were destroyed? I have. There will be time to mourn later; the present requires your full focus.”
Maul pulled away and resumed an indifferent slouch in his seat, leaving Ahsoka to wrap her cloak tighter around herself in the sudden chill. The last time she had been on Coruscant, the Republic had still existed—back before she was a felon wanted by the government… again. There was no one to intervene on her behalf this time; as long as the Empire considered her a Jedi, she would live on their bounty boards until captured or killed.
And now here she was, sneaking back into the heart of Imperial power. Maul assured her it was the perfect time to return; a Crimson Dawn informant heard from a dock worker who heard from a loading droid that heard from a cargo captain who heard from a trooper who heard from an officer who heard that the Emperor had extended business away from Coruscant. And so the two of them had blindly grabbed this window of opportunity, to achieve their goal of finding the Sith Temple lurking beneath the Jedi Temple’s foundation.
One connection later and they sat in an air taxi, among the millions of speeders that made up the vibrant sky grid. The former Jedi Temple shrank in the distance and an unfamiliar sector rose up ahead to be obscured in cloud cover. Garish, flashing lights, stubbornly bright despite the competition of daylight, strobed all along the landing balcony where they touched down. Above the enormous doorway leading into the building, a sign proclaimed Spiikeazy Casino in strobing lights. Ahsoka glanced at Maul—because this couldn’t be right—but he was already halfway out of the speeder.
“Uh… what’re we doing here?” asked Ahsoka, following. She grabbed Maul’s sleeve and pulled him back as the speeder lifting off sent her cloak billowing and snapping. “The sooner we get to the Temple, the less likely we are to get spotted.” The two security droids guarding this balcony alone made her lekku itch, but at least they weren’t stormtroopers.
“Didn’t I mention we needed to find someone to point us in the right direction?” asked Maul.
“No—but we know we need to go under the… old Jedi Temple.” Ahsoka couldn’t bring herself to call it the Emperor’s palace after seeing it again in so long.
“Do you know all the new security features Sidious has emplaced in his residence to warn him of intruders?”
Ahsoka’s shoulders dropped. “No.”
“Then let’s find someone who knows a way to avoid all that.”
“So we’re looking for Imperials in… a casino?”
“We’re looking for someone hired by the Empire as cheap labor. No fortress is completely impregnable, and we’ll learn the weak points from people not paid enough to care about them. My syndicate connections have already reached out to a handful of possibilities.” Maul pulled his sleeve out of her grasp. “Follow my lead. I will do the talking.”
“When don’t you?” Ahsoka’s mutter failed to reach her own montrals as they passed under the doorway of pulsing lights. Inside, the cacophony of noise that hit her from countless slot machines was like walking straight into a wall. The obnoxious sound physically rattled her montrals, though the machines were crowded on a level below the walkway she and Maul explored. The only things up here were shops and restaurants, but nothing was safe from the gambling siren calls meant to lure in players.
Maul led her to a plain door guarded by a Nikto. Something changed hands between them before they were allowed inside, and at that point, Ahsoka didn’t even care what it was. The door closing behind them, separating them from the sights and sounds of a casino, was an instant relief for Ahsoka’s blossoming headache.
Inside was dark by comparison. A private bar and surrounding booths were lit with steady lights on their dimmest setting. For the door being guarded, an alarming number of people mingled inside, and Ahsoka reached out in the Force to sense for any threats. A weight landed in her arms, startling her back to herself. Maul’s cloak. As Ahsoka’s mouth dropped, he strutted forward, capturing the room’s attention before he claimed an empty booth. A moment later, the booth was full of people acting like they were Maul’s longtime friends. A particularly bold Pantoran more or less draped herself over Maul’s shoulder.
Ahsoka’s brain only clicked back into functioning when Maul beckoned to her. She shuffled forward in her poncho, looking perfectly fine for sneaking through planetary customs and thoroughly out of place here. The very point of wearing a poncho was to be discreet, but here it earned her extra attention. And judgment.
The only reason she was here on this mission with Maul was because he needed a second Force user to bypass the Sith Temple’s obstacles, and Ahsoka knew better than anyone how barely a handful of them survived the purge. And of those remaining, Ahsoka knew none of their whereabouts. Her role was necessary; she just wished it was necessary to include her here.
She stopped next to Maul’s semicircular booth—already full of people—feeling completely out of place and miffed because Maul had failed to warn her about this. And now he sat leisurely flanked by a Pantoran and a Theelin, as if this was a normal occurrence. Ahsoka’s gaze slanted into a glare of its own accord.
Maul’s smile flirted with a taunt. “Make room for my… special… companion,” he told the table. A purple Twi’lek from the opposite end of the booth left, frowning, and Ahsoka now had the edge of a seat under constant threat of being forced out again by the sheer mass of people squeezed into the single long, curved booth.
The moment Ahsoka joined the table, she earned a pointed look from Maul as if to say blend in before his attention shifted to his sudden friends. Their distance made conversation impossible, so Ahsoka just sat there, most of her concentration spread across the rest of the private cantina for threats while Maul slipped from conversation to conversation. New people entering the room especially caught Ahsoka’s attention, but inevitably they all ended up at their booth conversing with Maul. If these were all former employees of the Empire, Maul’s syndicate had a long and thorough reach on a planet currently inaccessible to the rebellion. What a fantastic advantage to have—and it was squandered on a criminal organization.
Maul asked people far too pointedly for information and dismissed them so soundly once he had it that Ahsoka had to wonder if he employed a sort of mind trick. Especially at the end, after two hours of their eight-seat booth being crowded with far more than that, it just held Maul and Ahsoka, much closer to the center than they’d started. No one even attempted to approach them now. Maul had done something, and Ahsoka was glad for it.
“Are we done here?” she mumbled, one elbow planted on the table being the only thing keeping her head propped up. At least her headache had receded to a dull throb.
Maul looked at her over the rim of his drink. “Done searching for information, yes. But there’s a bottle of Alderaanian brandy on the shelf with my name on it.”
“We’ve already stayed here too long,” Ahsoka said. She put effort into sitting up and cast a furtive glance around the room. “We passed about fifteen holorecorders on the way in, and I bet the Empire monitors half of them.” Despite the pointed expression she threw at him, Maul failed to look bothered.
“This is the Justicar Gang’s casino. They made a deal with the Empire to run here free of Imperial meddling. Hence why it’s so populated.”
This was Ahsoka’s first mission after donning the title of Fulcrum where she had to follow someone else’s lead, and the loss of total control irked her. Ahsoka flung his cloak at him; it snagged on his horns. “We’re leaving.”
With minimal fuss, Maul led her to a new landing platform where the Pantoran from earlier stood leaning against a sleek speeder car.
“Could you find a more expensive ride?” muttered Ahsoka.
“Yes,” Maul said with a shrug. The two of them climbed into the back seat and soon the speeder took to the reddening sky. They easily melded into traffic, hidden right out in the open.
When Ahsoka was sure their driver wasn’t paying them attention, Ahsoka began quietly, “It would be a huge help if you could swing your syndicate connections in the rebellion’s direction.”
“I would not dream of mixing business with pleasure!” Maul responded—so quickly that Ahsoka wondered if he had a catalogue of retorts just waiting to be whipped out. Her white eye markings flattened.
“How else are you gonna repay me for helping you out like this?” Of course, she was thinking of how she risked her life to sneak past Coruscanti customs with an active and weighty bounty on her head, and suffered through meetings with Maul’s underworld connections to discover an entry point into one of the most heavily guarded residences on the planet. But when Maul’s face broke into a smile, his tongue suggestively between his teeth, Ahsoka immediately regretted her phrasing.
“Your demands are but limited by your imagination, Lady Tano,” Maul said, his voice hushed as he leaned into her space. Despite the buzz of traffic all around them, she heard him perfectly. “I am accustomed to serving.”
Ahsoka forced her gaze elsewhere, trying to funnel her reaction into one of annoyance, but she couldn’t hide the blush flaring across her lekku. She knew full well he was just trying to get a rise out of her, and she hated that it worked.
Their speeder descended, casting off the traffic grid like a glowing net left hanging in the sky, and the deep durasteel sinkholes of the lower sectors rose up to swallow them. Lights denoting countless levels lining the sheer walls blurred together to become an unenthusiastic strobe, and for a second Ahsoka felt like she was sixteen again, in these exact same surroundings.
Not even halfway down the sinkhole, the speeder leveled off next to a large sewer drain pipe, and the air froze in Ahsoka’s lungs.
“This is our stop,” Maul announced. He climbed from his seat into the pipe trickling water, leaving a credit chit with the driver. Numbly, Ahsoka followed.
The deeper they plunged into the sewer system, the more the water rose, and soon they were up to their shins splashing through a massive overflow pipe.
“Was this really the only way to get to the Temple?” griped Ahsoka.
“The fact that it’s unsavory is precisely the reason it remains our best option. I am similarly not thrilled by our avenue, but visiting a massage parlor afterwards will make up for this particular form of suffering.”
“A parlor for people or for droids?” Ahsoka threw over her shoulder.
Maul changed the subject so fast, Ahsoka didn’t know whether he hadn’t heard her or he didn’t want to give her joke the dignity of a response. “I may be inconvenienced by these surroundings, but you must be haunted.”
Ahsoka stiffened, refusing to reply. Maul didn’t need any encouragement to keep talking.
“I looked into what news of you I could find after escaping the clone ship. Turns out there’s a plethora of information when one is a felon on the run in the very capital of the former Republic. Wanted for causing the kind of damage I dreamed of, back then. Well done!”
Ahsoka balled her fists at the rush of memories she’d staved off until now. With so much happening since she left the Jedi—Order 66, the Empire, her time as Fulcrum—the sewers had failed to spike either fear or paranoia. Clones chasing her through pipes identical to these felt like a lifetime ago; or perhaps a dream. Now she couldn’t detangle the sounds of their combined splashing from her panicked escape echoing in her memories.
“What about it?” she ground out.
“Merely impressed. You would do wonders in the Crimson Dawn.”
He had it wrong. He didn’t know about the true Temple bomber; about how she was absolved in the eleventh hour, yet somehow her cleared record did not make the same news that her false accusations had. And she didn’t feel like sharing that part of her past with him now. “Something something, business and pleasure, remember?” She actually heard Maul smile.
“Ahh,” Maul said in such a breathy voice that Ahsoka’s lekku warmed again. “If the choice is between Crimson Dawn and this”—he flapped his arms at their journey into the sewers—“then either way, I am a direct contributor to your pleasure.”
Keeping her mouth shut, Ahsoka plunged ahead. There was enough in her surroundings to keep her mind occupied on things other than Maul. Mainly, how the very air around them was clogged with the dark side to feel suffocating. Ever since the death of the Republic, the unbalance in the Force had been an ever-present reality lingering in the back of her mind. But never to this degree. Never palpable.
A sharp intake from Maul had Ahsoka spinning to face him, a hand already on one lightsaber hilt. But the man only pointed to the pipe wall. “Here.”
This stretch of sewer was no different than all the other pipes they’d wandered through. But Maul’s senses were much more attuned to the dark side than hers. She ignited one lightsaber and carved a slow, generous circle in the wall.
Maul took this opportunity to come altogether too close behind her. “White blades? Now you’re just teasing me.”
The circle complete, Ahsoka shoved with all the Force she could muster, rocketing the cut wall into the darkness beyond. She spun, holding her lightsaber defensively between them, the light of her blade making Maul’s smile brilliant.
“You have two weapons. Feel like sharing?”
“As much as you feel like sharing syndicate intel with the rebellion.”
“She takes things too personally!” Maul pouted playfully, leaning closer. Her blade lit the underside of his jaw. For a second, Ahsoka thought he’d be insane enough to singe his skin just for show.
“If I cannot have a weapon to defend myself with, I must entrust my safety to you. I hope it turns out better than last time.”
Ahsoka cringed as memories tainted with regret rose to the surface unbidden. By the time she blinked them away, Maul was already stepping through the sewer wall and Ahsoka stood alone with her lightsaber raised against nothing.
Everything about Coruscant was getting to her. With gritted teeth, she followed Maul through the makeshift doorway.
Dusty, stale air hit her. Holding her blade high overhead, Ahsoka illuminated the snow-like flurry of particles flying around her, disturbed by the blasted sewer piece. The piece itself had smashed against a massive rock wall. Anything beyond that was lost to the darkness. Just like Maul, Ahsoka stopped in silence to take it all in. Rubble littered the ground, some from fallen columns, some from unseen places high overhead. Her lightsaber certainly wasn’t bright enough to reach. And throughout all of it, spinning among the columns both fallen and standing like a vortex was a feeling of the dark side so prominent that Ahsoka’s skin crawled.
“How long did your informant say the Emperor was gone for?”
Next to her, Maul breathed deeply as his shoulders dropped into a predatory hunch that made Ahsoka glad she’d refrained from arming him.
“He didn’t.”
“Perfect.”
They started off in the only direction available: forward through the rubble. What Ahsoka had initially assumed was a wall of rock to her right eventually curved away—and as she raised her white blade to it, she realized it was a truly massive reinforced foundation pile. High up, barely visible in the restrictive dimness, was the emblem of the Jedi Order.
Ahsoka had imagined that perhaps a doorway inside the Temple basement led to an old set of stairs that wound down to the dilapidated ruins of the Sith Temple, but no. They were far below the lowest level of the Jedi Temple.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Maul went on, not distracted by their surroundings. “With your two lightsabers, I am sure not even the Emperor would be a match for you.”
Ahsoka shook herself out of her sudden dwarfed feeling and caught up with Maul. “Give it a rest, I’m not a charity! You found a Sith holocron of all things on the black market—how have you not gotten yourself another lightsaber?”
“With the amount of forgeries out there, I refuse to waste my time searching for the authentic ones. But if any place is to have true lightsabers, would it not be the armory of a temple?”
Ahsoka gripped her hilt tighter. Maul armed was not something she thought she would have to deal with again. Being the only one with weapons was the one speck of comfort to Ahsoka in this whole arrangement… and finally she realized how much trust that required on Maul’s part. He didn’t even have a blaster. Maybe he was long past due the benefit of the doubt, but that thought sat heavily in her mind.
They came to a crumbling staircase, stretching upward into the murky abyss. The erosion was so severe in places that they had to climb single file. Ahsoka always made Maul lead.
“You reek of fear,” Maul said once they were side by side again.
Ahsoka glowered at him. “I’m a little outside of my comfort zone, lay off.”
That predatory intensity dripped from Maul as he angled in her direction. “And what do you require to put you at ease, Lady Tano? You may demand anything of me.”
Ahsoka scoffed, edging as far away from him as the stairs would allow. Something about his phrasing appealed to her immediately and she would rather put distance between them than acknowledge that. “Stop calling me Lady Tano, for one.”
“A first name basis then?” She didn’t miss the gleam in his eyes. “I’m honored.”
The stairs finally leveled off. If Ahsoka concentrated, she could just make out the edge of the building that loomed before her, a pyramid shape unlike anything else on Coruscant. The large, triangular doorway in front of them seemed to not be a door at all but a sheer stone slab in the light of her blade. Ahsoka ignited her second lightsaber and strode forward. This would be like the sewer wall all over again.
“As entertaining as it would be to watch you waste your time,” Maul spoke up, “I suggest working smarter, not harder.” He withdrew the Sith holocron from his robes and inserted it into a perfectly triangular hole in the outer wall. In response, the stone slab shook and groaned as it lifted to lock in place above the doorway. Beyond it, three more identical slabs lifted, forming a corridor.
That would’ve taken her ages to carve through. Without a word, she returned one lightsaber to her belt. The corridor stayed intact when Maul—amazingly silent beyond his gloating expression—removed the Sith holocron from the activator, and the two of them ventured into the temple.
Compared to the dark expanse outside, the narrow corridors felt restrictive, forcing Ahsoka and Maul to walk practically shoulder to shoulder. Ahsoka held her lightsaber overhead, the light failing to illuminate the vaulted ceiling. The holocron opened, and the red-tinted map of the temple bloomed to life. A shiver shot down Ahsoka’s spine, the warning premonition she always felt when she was being watched. She spun to look behind her, but it was empty. Maul, levitating the holocron, seemed unfazed.
He reached his free hand out to her. “Need something to hold?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ahsoka scoffed before turning on her heel. She strode forward as confidently as she could feign, lightsaber high. The Force swelled around her ankles like she was wading through the sewer all over again. She felt the unspoken suggestions hanging in the air to lash out and strike Maul. Maim him. Kill him. While that wasn’t a completely foreign thought, it had never been this powerful before. It was like a disembodied voice lurked just behind her shoulder, constantly whispering to her. Ahsoka forged on, casting subtle glances around in case the whispers and whatever was watching her became one and the same.
The halls opened up into cavernous rooms, and as Ahsoka’s lightsaber illuminated less and less around them, she relied more on Maul’s direction as he assumed the lead with his projected map. They soon walked through one low doorway into a room with jagged letters carved into the floor and the walls. Identical to the text in the holocron which she couldn’t read.
She nodded her montrals toward the gashes carved into a column they passed. “What’s that say?”
“Immortalizing some ancient Darth. Holding his victories over the heads of other Sith to provoke them to rise to the level of past warmongers. The usual,” Maul said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Her blade was more helpful in this room, enough to show tall shelves and stone pedestals standing empty like a pilfered museum.
“No!” growled Maul. “He’s already been here!”
“Where is here?”
“The archives room. No holocrons, no books, no scrolls—he even removed the statues!” Maul pointed to an exposed slab of cracked floor that looked like something had once been cemented there.
It was nowhere near as large as the Jedi Archives had been, but still, with the rows of open shelves Ahsoka could see, the amount of holocrons this room might have contained at one time—the amount of knowledge—
Maul stalked down the largest aisle bisecting the room, his rage wafting off of him in what felt to Ahsoka like a beacon of dark side energy.
“So is that it? This whole trip is a bust?”
Maul’s bright yellow eyes darted to her and stared so intensely that Ahsoka’s free hand settled on her second lightsaber hilt.
“We will keep searching,” he ground out. He stalked out the door and Ahsoka had no choice but to follow. He took her down winding corridors, the red light from the holocron illuminating their narrow confines just as much as her lightsaber.
Without warning, the corridor turned a corner and dropped into a chasm so suddenly that Ahsoka and Maul were already on the ledge before they froze. What would’ve been impossible to see with her lightsaber blade was already washed out with industrial lights attached at intervals to one wall. They illuminated square columns stretching out of the depths below to form stepping stones, leading to the safety of the connecting corridor beyond the plunging void.
The first freestanding column was too far away for Ahsoka to reach on her own.
“And here is our first major obstacle,” Maul said, collapsing and stowing the holocron in his robes. “We must help each other across or we don’t make it at all. Why don’t you go first?”
“Oh, no. We’re going another way.”
“There is no other way,” said Maul. “After you.”
“So you can drop me to my death?”
“What a waste of a perfectly good apprentice.”
“I’m not—”
“On you go.”
She scanned the hazard in front of her, looking for any other way to approach it. Wall running wouldn’t work; the pillars were as far away from the walls as they were from her ledge. The ceiling stood too distant to be of help, either. There really only was the direct approach. So with a resigned sigh, Ahsoka returned her lightsaber to her belt.
“I’m trusting you,” Ahsoka told him evenly, mostly because she hoped those words would haunt him the rest of his life if anything did go wrong.
Her stomach dropped when she launched herself over the void, then again when a foreign push from Maul jolted her the rest of the way to the first stepping stone. It looked far smaller now that she had to land squarely on it. She landed further past center than she expected, and threw all her weight into falling onto her backside just to not slide right off the pillar.
Heart still hammering, Ahsoka inched back to her feet facing Maul. “All right—” But he was already jumping. Ahsoka reached out as he stretched for her and pulled with all the Force she could muster. The man tripped on the edge of the column as she tried to wrench him up. They collided. Ahsoka’s gasp ricocheted off the corridor walls. They teetered together, scrambling for balance.
“Let’s try to not let me fall next time?” grumbled Maul. Despite his casual tone, she felt his hearts hammering just as fast as hers—quite obvious as he had two of them.
“You didn’t give me any heads up!”
Ahsoka landed with better precision on the second column. Maul gave her time to get situated, but when she pulled on him, he still landed by colliding into her, their limbs a tangle as they jostled for balance.
“This can’t be how it’s supposed to be crossed,” Ahsoka muttered, her hips unkindly reminded that his lower half was all metal.
“If you were stronger in the Force, we could vault to every other column. But here we are.” Maul shrugged as Ahsoka glared at him, adding, “We’re halfway there. Let’s finish this and move on.”
Ahsoka didn’t particularly like being body slammed two more times, but mercifully, there was an Imperial-built walkway connecting the last column to the corridor ledge. She and Maul crossed it without complaint. The signs of Imperial presence remained in the form of occasional standing lights flooding the passageways. Somehow, such stark light made the halls feel harsher, along with the whispering Ahsoka swore she still heard, just faint enough to be unintelligible.
She sensed a spark of hope in Maul when he led her to another closed door where he used the holocron as a key again. There were no lights inside, but Ahsoka’s blade showed the room, much smaller than the archive with merely pedestals instead of shelves, to be perfectly empty.
A scream tore from Maul, the echoes joining him in a chorus of agony. Ahsoka didn’t know what else to do to get him to stop, so she shoved him.
“What’s wrong with you?!”
Maul flung his arm out dramatically—helplessly, even—at the empty room. “Welcome to the armory!” There was a dangerous glint in his stare that chilled her; like these compounding disappointments might turn him violent. The whispers hardened into clear words, warning her to strike out in self defense. Despite how that idea was looking increasingly sound, Ahsoka pushed the suggestion out of her mind.
“If there’s nothing here for us to find, let’s go.”
“There’s still one more place I want to investigate,” Maul said, cold focus reining in his theatrics. He stalked out of the armory and Ahsoka had to follow on his heels, taking a new direction through the corridors, away from the chasm. “It’s merely designated as ‘the door.’”
It didn’t sound like a worthwhile venture to Ahsoka, but under the circumstances she kept her thoughts to herself. Who knew she could’ve ever reached a point where she actually preferred his lecherous personality to any of his other moods.
Their corridor emptied into the largest room yet. According to the map floating in Maul’s hand, it was the central chamber near the top of the temple. And Imperial presence was obvious. Construction lights formed a path to a center staircase. Tables dotted the floor, holding carved fragments from the walls or ceiling, flanked by archeological tools. Statues, both standing and lying on the ground, cluttered the floor, possibly stolen from the archive room.
The two of them scanned the chamber but it was otherwise empty. Maul stepped out of the corridor, only for Ahsoka to grab him and drag him back.
“Wait—hear that?” She disengaged her lightsaber, not that it would hide them now.
An electronic pattern whispered from somewhere overhead.
“What is it?” Maul asked, voice just as low.
“Recon droid, by the sound of it.” Both she and Maul leaned out of the corridor to look into the heights above, where the construction light hardly filtered. A blinking light hovered stories overhead, accompanied by brief flashes that lit up patches of the wall.
“It must be documenting the temple,” Maul said. The ball of emotions Ahsoka had now grown used to feeling seeping from Maul grew more concentrated. He was tapping into the Force. Immediately she grabbed the rough fabric of his sleeve.
“Don’t. Do. Anything. We can’t let anyone know we’re here. If that droid transmits an alarm, we’ll have the entire Coruscant garrison coming for us.” Ahsoka’s gut sank when Maul responded to this with a smile.
“A clone ship wasn’t a match for me,” he growled. “Bring on the garrison.” He attempted to pull free of her but Ahsoka’s fist tightened on his sleeve. That horrific scene from two years ago flashed to mind. She couldn’t particularly remember the destruction Maul caused; she couldn’t think further back than the graves she dug herself.
“Pull yourself together,” scoffed Maul.
Whispers to retaliate thickened around her montrals. It would be so easy. He deserves it, after all. Eyes stinging, Ahsoka reached out in the Force and instinctively closed her grip around his neck. Maul only got out a gasp of surprise as he lifted off the ground by his throat.
Giving into her rage and exasperation—her guilt—felt good. It felt freeing. And then immediately on its heels—horrific. She released him and staggered back into the shadows of the corridor, feeling like the temple itself was laughing at her. Judging her.
Maul doubled over, coughing.
Her face, her lekku, were hotter than ever before, flushed with shame. How had she just lost control like that? This had never happened before. But Ahsoka couldn’t exactly bring herself to apologize. “I… I didn’t mean to!”
“Kark! Ask me my safe word, first!” he wheezed.
“Okay… What’s your safe word?”
Maul shot her an unamused look before turning his attention back to the droid floating stories above them. He reached out his hand and Ahsoka felt the Force shift around him. The recon droid floated further upward, into the thick darkness obscuring the stretch to the ceiling.
“What did you do?” Ahsoka whispered.
“A momentary distraction. Come.” He grabbed her hand and they both ran for the center staircase. Much shorter than the steps leading to the temple entrance and much better preserved, they gained the summit in moments, to come face to face with a gigantic design. The stairs ended on a ledge bordering the entire wall, and in the center of the wall was a carved pattern of nesting triangles, the smallest of which stood taller than Ahsoka. More writing surrounded the geometric shapes.
“What does it say?” she whispered, as if her volume alone would be the determining factor of the recon droid discovering them.
“I… cannot read it. Far older than the script I learned.”
Somehow, that added to the chill snaking down Ahsoka’s spine.
“This can’t possibly be a real door.” The wall lacked any holocron slot, for one.
Maul searched it far longer in silence, dragging a gloved hand along the grooves—deep enough that his entire hand fit inside. Finally, he admitted, “I fear it could.”
“What do you mean fear?”
“Because I know neither its purpose nor Sidious’ intentions for it. But if he believes it to be a door to be opened…”
A rumbling came from elsewhere in the temple, killing anything either of them were about to say. The sounds of the recon droid drifting into earshot forced a hunch to Ahsoka’s shoulders.
“What was that? The entrance?”
“No. An elevator.”
Ahsoka’s white eye markings flattened. “We could’ve taken an elevator?”
Red blades appeared on the opposite end of the large chamber, beyond the reach of the Imperial lights. Maul grabbed Ahsoka’s wrist and yanked her along the ledge to the start of a row of identical alcoves housing massive statues carved into jet black rock. He shoved her into the first alcove, stepping in after her and being as much of a camouflage barrier as possible with his robes. They barely fit with the statue taking up so much space.
Maul hadn’t even been this close on Nar Shaddaa, but here he was, pressing into her body as much as she pressed into the dusty stone statue at her back. Ahsoka didn’t know what to do with her hands; they hovered at her sides. Their combined breathing sounded so loud in here that Ahsoka was sure they’d be found out by that alone. Whatever scent Maul had sprayed himself with took up the entire alcove, and unfortunately it was preferable than stale old temple dust. It took more restraint than she expected to not purposefully breathe him in.
Their success lay in neither of them being discovered, but Ahsoka only thought about the fact that Maul was hiding her after she attempted to strangle him. Of course, she probably would’ve done the same if their roles were reversed… but Maul wasn’t the one raised as a Jedi.
Belatedly, she forced her attention past Maul’s shoulder to the large temple chamber. Red lightsabers were held aloft until the wielders passed into the flood of construction lights. The blades disengaged and Ahsoka saw a group of three people nearing the stairs, under no compunction to keep quiet.
“If this one doesn’t work then we’re out of prospects,” one said.
“The academies are always testing for Force-sensitives,” a second responded. “We won’t be without a volunteer for long.”
Ahsoka glanced at Maul but his eyes were closed as if in concentration.
As the trio ascended the stairs, Ahsoka leaned to try to get a better view around Maul, but he pushed her back against the statue. She could make out a sliver of his yellow eyes shooting at her.
From what she had been able to see, one of the three strangers was in binders.
“Open it,” the first voice demanded. Even with Ahsoka’s exceptional hearing, she couldn’t quite tell from inside the alcove what was happening with the three in front of the wall carving. The Inquisitors occasionally repeated their orders to concentrate, to try harder.
Their pauses stretched on so long that Ahsoka found her attention wandering back to Maul. Her sudden renewed awareness of their proximity always preceded her awareness of his scent which trapped her focus inside the confines of the alcove. She tried to focus on the cold statue just to take her mind off of him; Maul’s scent somehow grew more potent. Faint voices competed for attention, but Ahsoka wasn’t sure if it was the Inquisitors or the temple. Trying to ignore that only brought Maul and his scent to the forefront of her mind again.
Just when her head started to swim, one of the voices said, “Another recruit for the Inquisitorius, then.”
Ahsoka tried to slide free of Maul’s grasp, but he leaned into her with his full weight, pinning her to the statue.
“Wait,” he hissed. His voice skated over the line where her lekku met her montrals and Ahsoka shivered at how that felt a little too good.
The foreign whispers strengthened, their cries for Ahsoka to give in and do something inescapable. Strike him down. It would be too easy… Ahsoka’s fists tangled in Maul’s robes. An intensity overcame his expression, and the two of them glared at one another.
“Are you hearing voices?” Ahsoka asked through gritted teeth. “Telling you to hurt me?”
“Since we entered. I’ve been ignoring them.”
She released him as her stomach plummeted. Maul—a former Sith lord—had more self control than she did. Leaning her head against the statue just for some distance, all she could smell was Maul’s scent as she tried to purge her mind of the Sith-induced whispers.
“However it has been difficult,” Maul continued, his words a caress, “as the voices suggested things beyond just violence.”
Ahsoka snapped back to attention, but Maul stepped out of the alcove, leaving Ahsoka to feel like the temple grew colder and larger. Her mind whirled trying to imagine what the temple could ever suggest beyond inflicting pain and suffering, but she knew she couldn’t ask Maul unless she felt like getting teased about her misplaced curiosity.
The red blades in the distance, once more ignited beyond the flood lights, steered her mind back to the matter at hand. Ahsoka hadn’t felt this powerless in years. During the war, she chased down her enemies simply because they were her enemy. But now she hung back, weighing her own safety against possible victory, and more often coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth it. Was her character stronger when she was younger, or was this an experienced mindset talking? It unsettled her that she didn’t know. She wondered if she preferred to not put effort into deciding which it was, fearing the choice would determine her character had indeed atrophied since she’d left the institution which had given her such a strong moral compass. Since that very institution had been obliterated along with the Republic.
Stepping out of hiding herself, Ahsoka found Maul studying the triangular design in the wall.
“So,” she sighed, stopping next to him. “What now?” The impatience he radiated was as potent as his scent had been in hiding.
“I refuse to leave empty-handed.”
His growl sparked a warning premonition just as much as the Force surging around him. Ahsoka preemptively unlatched both her lightsaber hilts in response. The focus of Maul’s attack, however, was… up. A shriek came from the recon droid as it staggered through the air towards them. Halfway through a string of frantic beeps, its head caved in with a deep crunch that sent out an unfortunately loud echo.
It flew towards Maul easier now that he was the only one in control. A lens popped off, followed by other circuitry, all dropping to the floor below.
“What are you doing?!” hissed Ahsoka.
“Finding its data bank.”
Her gaze shifted to the opposite side of the cavernous room, standing guard. At first, she thought the Inquisitors were too far away and hadn’t heard all the noise. Just as a metal scraping sound of the continued disembowelment of the droid elicited a triumphant cry from Maul, red blades sprang to life in the distance. In the air.
“We need to get out of here, now!” cried Ahsoka. The rest of the droid crashed to the ground at their feet, and Maul and Ahsoka took off down the long, light-flooded staircase.
The Inquisitors, their double-bladed lightsabers spinning above their heads, literally flew towards them, landing on the floor just as Maul and Ahsoka hit the bottom step.
Ahsoka sank into a stiff fighting stance, her white blades flaring to life.
“A wanted Jedi and the escaped Sith?” one trilled. “Our master will be most pleased.” One choked sound later and both Inquisitors dangled off the floor, clawing at their own necks.
“Hurry—strike them down!” Maul urged from behind her. Ahsoka whirled around, jaw hanging open.
“What? No!” She couldn’t tell if the expression on his face was aggravation at her or the strain of keeping two Inquisitors at bay.
“Then we’ll do this the hard way.” Maul slammed them into the ground but released them.
Coughing and sputtering, the Inquisitors staggered to their feet. Ahsoka held one lightsaber in front of Maul and he took it without a word.
Two double-bladed lightsabers flared back to life. A beat later, the Inquisitors charged as one. They wedged between Ahsoka and Maul, pushing them apart. It was a good move, Ahsoka begrudgingly conceded, as she parried the flurry of strikes which only a double blade could send. These Inquisitors had the advantage of practicing together; Ahsoka and Maul could only rely on their combined years of training.
Despite being against two blades, parrying them wasn’t hard. Then the other Inquisitor came crashing into Ahsoka’s enemy—thrown by Maul. They hopped to their feet and both pushed back, sending the Zabrak flying. Metal rang against stone as he landed. Then both of them turned on Ahsoka.
They worked terrifyingly well together—one charged her then fell back as the second one advanced. Working like this they overwhelmed Ahsoka with a constant barrage of attacks. If she'd had both her lightsabers, she could’ve held her own. But down to one blade, they easily forced her to give ground.
A scream tore through the room. Maul lunged back into the fight, forcing one Inquisitor to face him. His strikes with a single blade rained down so powerfully that Ahsoka couldn’t believe the Inquisitor withstood them all.
And then a hum much too close to her face wrenched a gasp from somewhere deeper than her lungs. Her parries were pure autopilot, because her focus only saw Maul’s yellow eyes meeting hers. Then she heard the sick hiss of a blade slicing through metal.
Maul screamed.
Ahsoka parried the next two strikes from her assailant and used him as her personal springboard, knocking him to the ground. She landed behind Maul’s Inquisitor, pulling him away from Maul now on the floor. Her deflections were pure muscle memory; halfway through the training form long drilled into her, she disarmed her opponent. Noise from behind made her spin. Her prior Inquisitor ran up, lightsaber swinging, only to catapult head-first into the nearest stone statue and fall limp to the floor. She hadn’t thought about doing that, and if she had she certainly wouldn’t have used that much force.
Ahsoka spun to face Maul. His Inquisitor was also out cold—if alive at all. Ahsoka gasped for breath, taking her time returning her lightsaber to her belt, just in case. The vicious whispers to finish the job only grew more incessant.
Maul kneeling oddly on the ground gave Ahsoka something else to focus on, and she hurried to his side. The man attempted to push himself to his feet only to crash to his good knee again.
The scraping noise of the distant elevator once more echoed across the cavernous room. Maul’s expression hardened into the resignation of a trapped animal belatedly realizing its fate.
“I will get out of here,” he growled, tones reminiscent of predatory threats flavoring his words. “Mark my words—”
“Yeah, okay, get up,” huffed Ahsoka. She reclaimed her lightsaber whether he was offering it to her or not and belted it before grabbing Maul and pulling him up. Slipping under his arm on his injured side took a little coordination from the Force when his leg was completely useless. As Ahsoka pivoted the both of them towards the nearest doorway, she found one of the Inquisitor’s lightsabers in Maul’s hand, the one not clutching the droid’s memory bank.
The whispers grew into a frantic frenzy, but Ahsoka forced them out of her mind once more as she helped him limp along at a pace that frustrated him more than her. He was growling by the time they left the reach of the flood lights. With both of her hands holding onto him, Maul was free to light his stolen red blade and lift it overhead in the dark corridor. Swallowing, Ahsoka had to tell herself to trust that Maul wanted out of here as badly as she did.
The only sound keeping them company in their confined space, aside from the lightsaber hum, was their own labored breathing. For Ahsoka’s part, Maul was heavy.
She didn’t remember their trip into the temple taking this long, and before the narrowing corridors began to look familiar, Ahsoka called for a break. They both took a moment to catch their breath leaning against the nearest wall. The emotions Ahsoka knew ran powerfully through him now buzzed in the air between them, electrifying in their proximity.
“Calm down!” she muttered.
“Forgive me for forming countermeasures now that things have gone south.”
“I’m forming countermeasures. You’re freaking out.”
“You would, too,” Maul whispered. For so few words, they felt weighed down with terrible life experiences.
“We’re getting out of here,” Ahsoka promised.
“Until you’re tired of me slowing you down and you leave to save yourself.” The strain in his voice struck a nerve Ahsoka didn’t realize was so raw. She thought of how the Jedi turned their back on her when she needed them most, throwing her to the courts despite her persistence of her own innocence. If Anakin hadn’t tried so hard to help her—against the Council’s wishes—she certainly wouldn’t have survived the war. Eyes stinging, she looked at Maul with newfound empathy, as he had more years to live through worse betrayals.
“I told you I’d help you,” she reminded him. He refused to look at her, even when she resituated him to not lean so heavily on her lek. “And I know all we have binding us is a shared goal, but I…” The Force stirred around them, and somehow Ahsoka felt like they had passed a veil and were closer than ever. If she pressed forward now, she could achieve more; she could be as close to him as if she’d accepted his proposition two years ago on Mandalore as the Republic teetered on the brink. Throat tightening, she waited in silence until the feeling passed, and she was safely distant again. “I can’t have the Inquisitors picking you up,” she said at last.
Ahsoka shouldered Maul’s full weight once more—and paused. Echoes of voices drifted after them. Not the Inquisitors, but the familiar kind of scrubbed voices filtered through helmets. Stormtroopers.
“Time to go!”
Two corridors later—all identical in the light of a red saber—Ahsoka grunted, “We’re going the right way, right?” Heavy footsteps sounded from the direction they’d come.
“This way,” Maul said, nodding toward the nearest closed door. They fumbled—Maul handing off his saber to her while pulling the holocron from his robes and sticking it in the wall slot. The door slid up with a deafening rumble. The moment they had enough clearance, she all but shoved Maul inside. Behind them, the door came crashing back down under its own weight, rocking the stone floor beneath them and stirring long-dormant temple dust into flurries.
Ahsoka sneezed.
The room they discovered, stone like everything else in this temple, had no other exit, and nothing of note inside. Ahsoka helped ease Maul to the floor, her shoulders finally free of his weight.
“As long as they don’t break out the thermal scanners, it shouldn’t be too hard waiting them out,” Ahsoka said. She forced her voice into optimistic tones, more for her own benefit than for Maul’s.
He let her continue to hold his red lightsaber as he discarded the memory bank on the floor in favor of opening the holocron. The map once more fanned out between them.
“We veered too far left; we’re closer to the corner than the front door,” Maul said. Ahsoka hushed him, and a moment later the footsteps of stormtroopers ran by outside.
Maul’s horns scratched the stone wall as his head fell back. “We might be here for awhile.” The air between them thrummed with possibility, Ahsoka thought, and her focus dropped to Maul’s injured leg just to think about anything else. She handed his lightsaber back to him. Surprisingly, he powered off the weapon, leaving them in the light of the holocron.
“Let’s see the damage.” Ahsoka rolled up his slashed pant leg to investigate.
“You just wanted a good long look under there, didn’t you?”
She frowned. “Do you want my help or not?”
His teasing expression gave way to genuine curiosity. “What does a former Jedi know of mechanics?”
“A whole lot, actually.” She could tell from just glancing at it that the joint was beyond repair, and barely holding together as it was. “Pins are melted in place. You might be able to salvage the upper frame, but honestly, if we find a good body shop, they might be able to swap your whole knee out. But… this isn’t a standard sized joint, so it might be hard finding compatible equipment. Where’d you get these legs?”
And just like that, Maul’s expression grew closed off. “Nowhere I can return to.”
Another empathetic ache tugged at Ahsoka for him. Maul’s gaze, already unfocused, lingered somewhere in the distance between them, and Ahsoka knew some past memory kept him company. Despite her fewer life experiences, she zoned out like that, too, to tread in the hazardous depths of unalterable history and guilt—to surface only when her memories decided to let her go.
Her hand found his—the one levitating the holocron—and the device immediately fell. It bludgeoned their joined hands before clattering to the floor, and Maul’s gazed snapped back to the present.
“If you needed something to hold so badly, just say so. I’ll introduce you to a much more convenient appendage,” he said, as if conveying a secret. Rolling her eyes, Ahsoka released him. The holocron lifted off the ground to hover once more above Maul’s hand. His free hand retrieved the droid memory bank and he studied it in the light of the holocron.
“We need something to read this, to break its Imperial encryption. I don’t know what Sidious is looking for, but any data collected from this temple will be of use.”
“Rebel intelligence is getting pretty good at that. They’ve got a program that can crack codes up to a secret classification level 5,” Ahsoka said. Maul’s gaze jumped to her with such triumph in his eyes that she couldn’t rein in a smile when she added, “But that would be mixing business and pleasure.” That hit the mark exactly as she intended and Maul’s expression soured. He shoved the memory bank into his robes with his characteristic petulance.
“Name your price.”
Her immediate response was to blush. But without pausing to parse through why his words caused that exact reaction, she counted on her fingers as she said, “Transparent cooperation from your syndicate on Imperial information. The use of your ships or strongholds if we need them. Getting your leg fixed.”
“Careful; you might come across as sounding concerned.”
“I look out for my allies.”
The way Maul’s yellow eyes slid over her, slowly, felt like he was seeing her in a new light. Then his gaze landed and lingered on her lips and all at once, Ahsoka realized how close she had leaned in.
She sat up straight, regaining her own space away from his slumped posture and his scent that she hardly noticed as obvious anymore. And then he propped his free arm on his good knee and took on a completely different kind of attitude.
“Allies, dare I say partners, on this combined mission of ours. Perhaps one day even master and apprentice?”
“Master is my safe word,” Ahsoka retorted. The expression that crossed Maul’s face was absolutely the look of playful surprise and… appreciation? Or something else?
“Not to worry. I can work around your limitations and still cater to your specific needs.”
Ahsoka’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t going to admit that she didn’t know what he was referring to, and she had no clever direction to divert the conversation, so she just sat there with lekku darkening in self-conscious confusion. Luckily the red light of the holocron wouldn’t show that.
More footsteps passed by outside, along with muffled orders to change search patterns and bring in more recon droids. Ahsoka waited for the noise to fade into the distance.
“So now that we’ve been to the Coruscant temple, where’s there to go?”
“You wish to continue working together?” Maul asked, his tone anything but a quip.
“It’s just… practical. I’m already worried what secrets the Emperor already knows—what that door does. We need answers and we’ll have more success together.”
“So you’re saying I alleviate your worry?” Maul said, a red smile growing in the holocron’s light.
“I’m saying we stand the best chance of getting ahead of the Emperor by working together,” grumbled Ahsoka. “Can you be serious for two seconds?”
“She is demanding,” Maul lamented with the overdramatic flair she thought she missed. Now that it was back, Ahsoka regretted preferring it. Thankfully, Maul sobered. “The homeworlds of the ancient Sith Empire are an obvious choice. Meaning they may also have been on Sidious’ list, and he has the means of sending people there. If this doorway is purely Sith, we may never uncover knowledge to the extent Sidious can. But, if this is an old Force thing instead… perhaps our next move should be to locate a Jedi Temple in search of artifacts and knowledge not yet stolen. Aside from the one here on Coruscant, the only way Sidious can access Jedi temples is by blowing a hole in the side of one. But we—” This time, Maul was the one to take Ahsoka’s hand. “—have a key.”
Ahsoka swallowed, one faint part of her hesitant to lead a Sith into the temples of the order which no longer existed. But the rest of her reasoned this was a sound plan. “Which temple?” She could’ve sworn she felt a tug on their joined hands, pulling her towards Maul.
“I’m sure we’ll have our choice of unexplored depths to penetrate.”
The air between them felt warm as Ahsoka’s eyes dropped to Maul’s mouth involuntarily, studying the lines of his tattoos more intently than ever before. The distance between them had shrunk once more. The whispers from the temple, when she could hear them over the sound of her own breathing, now only wanted her to give in to her feelings… which weren’t even clear to her.
“Are we still talking about temples?” she asked, her voice quiet to her own montrals.
“I will talk about whatever you desire, you need but ask.”
Maul’s consistent willingness for Ahsoka to take charge was… different. She’d long been accustomed to others calling the shots—her former master, the rebellion—that someone who easily could pull rank on her but didn’t… thrilled her. The only dampener was the inescapable truth that all of Maul’s subservient behavior was drenched in innuendo, and Ahsoka never knew if he meant any of it. But she couldn’t imagine asking him to stop.
Give in…
Just like when they were alone together on Nar Shaddaa in the presence of Sith influence from the holocron, their proximity invited a pleasant fog to settle in Ahsoka’s mind. It made it easier for her to stay like this, enjoying not only sensing Maul’s body heat, but also the intensity of his Force signature.
“Looks like I am your pleasure,” he practically purred. Some of the fog thinned as Ahsoka blinked back to functional thought. Maul sat smirking at her.
“Why do you keep saying things like that?” she asked, lekku burning with heat. “Are you making fun of me?” Because what else could it be except one prolonged joke at her expense?
Maul tilted his head and the holocron illuminated the curve of his dark neck in a way that was borderline distracting. There was nothing teasing in his demeanor now. “What’s more enjoyable: the fleeting reward or the yearning; the longing, the expectation?”
“I… I wouldn’t know,” Ahsoka stammered. There was something important she needed to be paying attention to—outside perhaps? But in that moment, all that existed for her was the two of them bathed in scant red light.
The Force, hanging so palpably in the air this whole time, hardened into a grip around Ahsoka, holding her in place as Maul sat up straight. His change in position highlighted how close they actually were—their faces only centimeters apart now. Everything stalled in that moment.
“You must feel it, that tension. Coiled in your core so tightly that you think the frustration could snap you in half. And until it does, it just builds, while all you can think of is what blissful release must feel like.” Even with his breath warming her mouth, Maul didn’t close the distance. Even with part of Ahsoka wishing he would. His thumb brushed over her hand.
He went on. “When building up the suspense—the expectation—what consummation could possibly satisfy?”
Ahsoka blinked, trying to parse his meaning divorced from the seductive inflection and the look in his half-lidded eyes. She hated the turn this conversation was taking—she hated that she wanted to be desired by Maul of all people. Her heartbeat thrummed in her lekku.
“Then why even do this at all?” She wasn’t used to being teased; she could only take it personally.
“Because experiencing this, this yearning, reminds me I’m still alive.” And after all that, he had the gall to drag his gaze down to her lips like he was going to make up for toying with her emotions. But he stayed where he was, temptingly close.
Ahsoka leaned back just to break free of his entrancing gaze—and discovered she wasn’t held in place by the Force anymore. How long had she been free? Free and hovering over Maul’s lips because she wanted to? And where was this feeling of disappointment stemming from? Her face burned with heat.
Ahsoka pushed herself to her feet and plunged into the darkness outside the holocron’s reach. At least in the shadows she might feel less exposed, where she could hug her own arms and berate herself for even thinking— for ever wanting—
“You were hoping for a logical conclusion to all this tension, weren’t you?” Maul’s words snaked across the room, hardly sounding like a question.
Ahsoka’s eyes stung. “I wasn’t hoping!”
“Expecting, then.”
Ahsoka wiped one eye. These emotions had to be the temple’s doing. The whispers telling her to eviscerate Maul for embarrassing her certainly were.
“Ahsoka…”
“Don’t.”
Silence smothered the room, making it all the easier to hear Ahsoka attempting to get her breathing under control. How did Maul continuously get to her like this? Maybe, when they were safely off of Coruscant, Ahsoka would take some time to search her feelings as to why exactly Maul appealed to her. In the meantime…
Ahsoka took a breath before pushing her discomfort away—along with all the Temple whispers. She edged back into the light of the holocron. “I haven’t heard troopers in awhile. We should get out of here.”
Maul didn’t complain. She helped him up, he put his arm around her shoulder just as before, and as she took the brunt of his weight, all she could think of was her own mortification.
Maul opened the door with the holocron before pocketing it. Their only light source was once again his stolen lightsaber, but even still they could tell the corridor was clear.
They set off with renewed motivation, Ahsoka bearing his weight as Maul hobbled.
“The voices I heard here,” Maul said after awhile, “seemed convinced you wanted your lekku played with. Suggested the alcove we hid in was the perfect time to investigate, as I already had you up against a wall.”
If most of her concentration hadn’t been diverted toward searching for possible threats in their path, she would’ve had the brain capacity to be embarrassed. Instead, she huffed, “I don’t need to know how the temple tried to manipulate you, thanks.”
“Not even when it almost worked?”
That single question served as a swift kick to the gut. Her first thought was to ask how but immediately recognized all the ways that would open her up to Maul teasing her. Instead, she threw her energy into walking faster through the narrow corridors. She could feel Maul’s smugness in the very air around her.
“You’re slacking,” Ahsoka grumbled. “Pick up the pace.” She didn’t know why that sent him into a spurt of chuckles. Hobbling together, they finally made it out the front entrance, and Ahsoka had never been so relieved to watch the stone slabs fall back into place, separating them from the Empire. As her head felt a little clearer, Ahsoka noticed it separated her from the temple’s incessant whispers, as well.
Then she realized how much distance still remained between them and locating a vehicle. It was going to be just the two of them, holding onto each other. For hours.
“So,” Ahsoka sighed as they started down the dangerous stairs, “you know my safe word. What’s yours?”
“Kenobi.”
Ahsoka choked on the stale air.