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Zi’am is three years old the first time his father sees him summon his only toy to his hand rather than getting up to reach it. It earns him a light slap on the fingers and a stern, “Don’t do that again.” It isn’t until he’s older that he realises how afraid Father must have been that day.
Father is often afraid. Whenever Mekks at the spaceport spots anyone affiliated with the Sith Empire arriving, he coms Father, and Father locks himself and Zi’am in the house and refuses to see anyone. Zi’am likes those days, because it means he doesn’t have to worry about Father getting hurt in the swamps, and Father has time to do lessons and play games all day. Mother doesn’t approve, but Mother rarely approves of anything, especially where Father is concerned.
Zi’am is four years old when his father sits him down on one of those days and tells him that his strange abilities stem from the Force, and that no one must ever know, or they’ll take him away forever. From then on, Zi’am is afraid too.
Zi’am is seven years old when he starts sneaking behind the house at night to levitate pebbles and consciously listen to the hum of life around him. His father has told him very little, but Zi’am has already figured out that the Force makes people strange and strong, and if he is strong enough, then it won’t matter if they come to take him away, because he won’t let them.
He keeps this a secret even from Father, because he is old enough to know that Father would only worry more.
Zi’am is eight years old, nearly nine, when his mother finds out. Gianna is furious, and shouts at Father, and Father shouts back while Zi’am runs outside, behind the house, and makes the pebbles dance around him until he feels better.
Zi’am is nine years old when his father wakes him in the small hours of the night and tells him to pack his belongings, because they’re taking the first shuttle out. It’s too dangerous to stay in Jiguuna now that Mother knows he has the Force, because Mother wants the Sith to take Zi’am and make him strong, even if that means he’ll never see his parents again. Zi’am likes the idea of being strong, but he loves Father more than the Force. And he heard Father telling Mother that most people at the Sith Academy die, and they’re adults. Zi’am is just a child.
He thinks of lifting a dozen rocks to dance, of walking right past Nem’ro’s security because he doesn’t want to be seen, of knowing exactly when the other kids are afraid, or angry, or lying, and thinks that he is not just a child.
But Father is afraid, and so Zi’am packs his few belongings and hurries after him into the dawn.
Zi’am is nine years old and his father is dead. Mekks called them over to meet a stranger, and the stranger said Mother had sent him, said Zi’am had to go to Korriban. Father refused, of course. And now he is dead, and it happened to fast that Zi’am had no time react. All his practice hadn’t made him strong at all. It had just gotten his father killed.
The killer crouches down and tells Zi’am he’s sorry, but it’s for the best. He has blood-red eyes, contrasting sharply against blue skin, and Zi’am has never seen his species before. He memorizes that face through his tears. He will never forget it.
At home, Gianna hugs her son and tells him everything will be alright, and he tells her he hates her, because she hired the alien who killed Father. Mother doesn’t even look angry. She just looks proud of him. She tells him he’ll be grateful, one day. To her, and to the Red Blade, who saved him from Father’s cowardice. He doesn’t hate her, not really. She’s still his mother, and he knows she wants what’s best for him. He does hate the Red Blade though, who would kill a man for money and claim he’s sorry.
Mother contacts the Sith Academy about him, and he hides in the marketplace and watches the Red Blade go to and fro from Nem’ro’s palace, often blood-splattered, though it doesn’t make him stand out amongst the many other mercenaries vying for the Hutt’s favour. Zi’am wonders how many other fathers Nem’ro is paying him to kill.
Zi’am is still only nine when Imperials come to take him to Korriban, and Mother hugs him farewell and tells him to be strong. As if being strong has ever helped him. He’s still only nine when he arrives on the harsh planet with its heavier gravity and cold, dry air, so very different from anything he knows. The Sith Academy is massive and awe-inspiring, and he’s brought before a scowling man called Harkun, who takes one look at him and declares him to be far too young for the trials.
There’s no one who wants to look after a child, and they laugh when Zi’am tries to tell them that he can take care of himself. Harkun says he won’t send him back to Jiguuna either, lest they never find him again. So he’ll stay and make himself useful by running errands, and he can share a dormitory with older acolytes and watch their lessons, maybe even join in, so that he’ll be ready to be a proper acolyte in a few years.
Zi’am doesn’t like Harkun. The overseer takes the credits his mother sent with him and has them sent to the Red Blade as a reward over Zi’am’s protests. Although he never hits Zi’am for anything, he does tell him off every time something isn’t done to his standards, which is every time Zi’am does anything. He criticizes Zi’am’s stubbornness and his lack of gratitude as if Zi’am should be falling over himself to heap praises upon murderers. Zi’am soon learns to hide his grief and his tears unless he wants to be ridiculed for them. He can’t even mention his father without Harkun rolling his eyes.
Fortunately, there are plenty of other people at the Academy whenever he wants to avoid Harkun. There’s Overseer Rance, who lets him borrow a training blade to practice with and even shows him a few moves. There’s Inquisitor Arzanon, who puts Zi’am’s stealth to good use spying on acolytes in case any of them are potential traitors to the Academy. There’s Lord Emmoridg, who teaches Zi’am how to release his anger and grief into the Force whenever it feels like it’s choking him, though Zi’am had to promise to never tell anyone else about the technique. There’s Assistant Overseer Loun, who doesn’t think much of Zi’am but will answer any questions if she has the time, and seems to know everything there is to know about the Academy. And Lord Thrain, who invites Zi’am over whenever he’s teaching a class. Lord Thrain’s lessons are rather boring, but knowledge is power and no one bothers him with an errand or menial task when he’s clearly attending a class.
Zi’am has been at the Academy for almost two months when Harkun’s new class arrives. In that time, he’s revised the Sith Code enough to recite it in his sleep, has been taught the basics of how to fight, has finished learning to read Basic and started learning to read Kittât, has learnt the names of maybe half the major Sith Lords in the Empire and about a quarter of the really important ancient ones, and has a vague idea of the Sith’s history from the Jen’jidai’s exile to Korriban all the way until the Great Galactic War that only ended a decade ago. The new class knows none of this. With one exception, all are low-born and untrained- one of them is even an alien, a Zabrak. Harkun makes no secret of the fact that all save for the exception, the Sith pureblood Ffon, are going to die, probably pathetically. Indeed, the group hasn’t even been there a day before the first one fails a trail and is killed by the Overseer for her weakness.
Zi’am finds himself quite glad he doesn’t have to take the trials yet.
Overseer Harkun often sends him to get the group together, and that’s how he ends up meeting the Zabrak acolyte. She’s a lot more powerful than the others, but she’s hiding it the same way Zi’am hides his entire presence when spying for Inquisitor Arzanon, hides it so well he almost misses it. Harkun has certainly missed it. If only Zi’am had been so good at it back in Jiguuna, Mother might never had noticed. The Zabrak acolyte certainly doesn’t levitate objects where she can be seen doing so. He hasn’t notices her doing anything with the Force, aside from hiding it.
And she’s nice. To everyone, really, but especially to him. He cannot figure out why, so he simply asks, and she doesn’t laugh at the question like Harkun might, but tells him it’s simply because she wants to be. She’s so surprised when he reveals he knows she’s hiding her power that he wonders if she’s hidden even from herself. Maybe she’s afraid of the Force. Maybe it cost her her family like it did Zi’am. He doesn’t ask, but he does tell her what happened to him. She doesn’t judge him when he can’t stop the tears from welling up again, and he finds himself admitting just how conflicted he is.
Because the Red Blade killed Father, and everyone who knows expects Zi’am to take revenge once day. He thinks that might be exactly why Harkun let Zi’am know he was sending Mother’s money to the Blade- to stroke that anger, to ensure he had a focus that would help him draw upon the Dark Side.
But whenever Zi’am remembers the alien’s blood-red eyes he also remembers his apology, and thinks it might just have been genuine. That the Red Blade seems like the type of person who’s learnt to be ruthless, like the acolytes at the Academy. The type of person who’s killed enough that they don’t think twice about it, because if they did they’d falter, and to falter can be fatal. Zi’am isn’t sure he hates him anymore. But he knows he has to find him, to find out if his assessment of the Blade’s character is correct. To find out if he can forgive, and release his grief into the Force like Lord Emmoridg has taught him to do, and be light without the weight of it on his chest.
He doesn’t say all of this to the Zabrak, but he tells her some, and she listens, still without judgement.
He observes her in particular after that conversation, often hidden, sometimes not. She breezes through the trials but never brags about it, until the day of the last two trials when Harkun sets a trap for her, pits her against two others in the group while he sends his favoured pureblood ahead. Zi’am does not let himself be seen as he watches the Zabrak, already injured from previous challenges, enter the room where the two others have their trap, and emerge alone, with no new injuries. The others never emerge. He hears about the bodies found an hour later, while she is in the tomb for her final trial.
She completes that too, of course, and when she sits down to talk to him the next day it’s as an apprentice. She tells him all about her trials, and he tells her what she’s missed in the Academy. He thinks he might call her a friend, though one he isn’t sure he’ll ever see again, as she leaves Korriban the day after, and Zi’am remains.
Harkun’s in a difficult mood for a while- it takes Zi’am far too long to realise the man who had so little sympathy for Zi’am’s loss is mourning his own student. But no matter. It’s not like Zi’am’s powerful enough to get away with pointing out the hypocrisy.
More acolytes come and go, but none of them are quite as interesting because none of them take an interest in him. Zi’am has an eye for power, and after he finds out about betting pool Assistant Overseer Loun, Thrain’s apprentice Veshta, and Assistant Overseer Markan (who also works for Harkun, albeit in a more official capacity than Zi’am does) have set up, on which acolyte from each new group will become an apprentice, he joins in, and he’s right more often than not.
Zi’am keeps training. Overseer Rance finally lets him spar, and he can hold his own against the barely trained adults he’s put up against, though anyone with actual combat experience easily thrashes him. He can now read Basic as fast as he can read Huttese, and though he still has trouble with Kittât he often finds himself translating it for the acolytes who haven’t had any sort of Sith education. He learns to make himself appear angry in the Force even when he isn’t, and faces far less ridicule and scorn than he used to. He leaves the Academy often to find a secluded place to continue his levitation exercises, until he can lift himself as well as the stones, which orbit him like little planets.
Zi’am becomes ten years old without realising it, and thinks he could take the trials in a year or so, no need to wait until he’s a teenager. Of course, Harkun won’t hear a word of it. So he keeps learning, and keeps training. He remembers how his father thought he wouldn’t stand a chance as a child, and realised he had it backward- Zi’am’s chance is because he is a child, and therefore he has time to train and learn rather than being thrown straight into the competition like all the acolytes with similarly humble backgrounds.
Zi’am is eleven years old and more powerful than Overseer Harkun realises. Overseer Rance lets him train with the acolytes in earnest, Inquisitor Arzanon trusts him to gather information on active threats to the Academy’s security, even down in the tombs, and Inquisitor Jarobi lets him help with the restoration of damaged relics, as Zi’am’s small, nimble hands and sharp eyes let him to do detailed work that gives the aging inquisitor trouble. It helps that Zi’am is expendable, and the relics often dangerous.
Zi’am may be only eleven but he’s not the only student of his age on Korriban. There are three others, two low-born and one a privileged orphan, and like him they act as assistants to Overseers. Overseer Rance decides to organize all of them into a class, and he tentatively befriends the shy human girl, the boisterous Rattataki and the aloof Sith Pureblood. The last one is easily the best fighter, has been training since before Zi’am knew the Force was a thing, but the other two are complete beginners, so Zi’am gets to spar with him. Those lessons leave him badly bruised as often as not, but he’s glad to finally have a challenge, even if it’s far from a real fight.
The four study together as well, and Zi’am gets into long conversations about Sith philosophy and justice with the Rattataki, tries to teach the already multilingual human Huttese as he coaxes her out of her shell- being timid is seen as a weakness here, and will do her no good -and invites the Pureblood to the betting pool. It’s nice to be around people his own age, even if they’re all wary of getting too attached to each other, because the chances are high they’ll end up competing one day.
Zi’am is twelve and his Rattataki classmate is dead because he stood up to a Sith Apprentice in a bad mood. Inquisitor Arzanon says it’s good riddance, because he didn’t trust the boy’s loyalty. The human girl cries herself to sleep that night. Zi’am comforts her, but he himself feels no need to grieve. The girl runs away the next day, and Arzanon suggests sending the remaining children after her as a test of loyalty, but fortunately Lord Solence steps in and says that’s nonsense, sending his own apprentice instead. Said apprentice catches up to the girl within a day, and shows no mercy.
So then it’s just him and the Pureblood, who is as quiet and cold as ever. Zi’am cannot blame him. They still spar, still place their bets, but any progress towards friendship it gone.
Zi’am is thirteen years old and Assistant Overseer Loun thinks he’ll be taking his trials next year, when he gets an odd message in the mail.
It’s some sort of dossier, giving him an unnamed individual’s designation (Cipher Nine), species (Chiss), affiliation (Imperial Intelligence), current location (Belsavis), and former alias (The Red Blade). Zi’am stares. Reads it again in case he’s imagining things. There are two attachments- the first is credits, more than he’s ever earned from the betting pool, probably as many as his father made in a year. Zi’am has a feeling it’s exactly the amount he needs to get from Korriban to wherever Belsavis is. And the second is an image, which he opens after a moment’s hesitation.
The holo-image doesn’t show colour, but he knows the eyes staring blankly out of it are blood-red.
He closes it.
Stares back at the mail.
Sees there’s more, and scrolls down.
It’s just one line.
Go get your vengeance, kid. And when you do, tell him Hunter sent you.