Star Wars - Lost Tribe of the Sith 03 - Paragon

vanished. “What job?
Genocide?
”
    “You care about the Keshiri
now
?”
    “You know what I mean!” Ravilan strained at his bonds. “My people!”
    Seelah rolled her eyes. “Nothing’s going on here that wouldn’t have happened in the Empire eventually. You know how things were going. Whose movement were you in, anyway?”
    “Naga Sadow didn’t want this,” Ravilan rasped. “Sadow valued power where he saw it. He valued the old and the new. He valued
us
—”
    She nodded to the guard—and another crushing barrage of water slammed Ravilan.
    It took longer for him to recover this time.
    “It could have worked,” he choked. “
We
could have worked … together, like the Sith and the fallen Jedi of old. If only our children—
my
children—had lived …”
    Ravilan looked up, water streaming from his sagging face. “You.”
    Seelah fixed her silent gaze on the chutes, still dripping, near the ceiling high above.
    “You,”
he repeated, louder. “You ran the crèche. You and your people.” His face twisted into an agonized scream. The future of his people had already been smothered, long before. “What did you do?
What did you do to us?
”
    “Nothing you wouldn’t eventually have done to us.” She stepped toward the shadows, near the guard. “We are not your Sith. We are something new, a chance to do it right.
A new tribe
.”
    “Younglings—infants!” Wilted, Ravilan moaned. “What … what kind of mother
are
you?”
    “The mother of a people,” she said, looking toward the guard in the shadows. “Now, my son.”
    The guard stepped forward—and Ravilan saw the animal form of Jariad Korsin coming at him, blade drawn, the wild-eyed face of his father under jet-black hair. The teenager leapt at the prisoner, wielding a jagged vibroblade without remorse. At the last, he drew his lightsaber and cut Ravilan down in a violent flash of crimson.
    “You’ve changed the world today,” Seelah said, stepping close to her son and confederate. He’d been key to coordinating the previous night’s gambit, getting her accomplices where they needed to go. It was right that he should have part of this moment.
    The boy panted, looking down at his victim. “He’s not who I want to kill.”
    “Be patient,” Seelah said, stroking his hair.
“I have been.”
    Tilden Kaah walked quietly along the darkened pathways of Tahv, only recently paved with stones. The Sith had dismissed the other Keshiri attendants earlier in the morning, when the excitement began; he had been one of the last to leave. The streets, usually peopled with merrymakers even at this hour, were alarmingly still.He only saw one middle-aged member of the Neshtovar standing station at a crossing; stripped of his uvak years before, the figure looked bored.
    Tilden nodded to the watchman and passed into a plaza near one of the many village aqueducts. Sheets of fresh mountain water tumbled in long crescents from flumes, a cooling presence in what had become a hot night. Arriving before a wall of water, Tilden donned the robe he was carrying, raised the hood, and stepped into the downpour.
    Or, rather, through it.
    Tilden walked, dripping, down the dark passage leading deep into the stone structure. He followed hushed voices to the end of a passage. There was no light—but there was life. Tilden heard agonized chatter as he approached: the horrible news from the south had begun to arrive. The superstitious Keshiri would probably be expected to absorb the horror quietly, a voice said from the shadows. The Destructors would probably be blamed.
    “It is done,” Tilden spoke to the darkness. “Seelah has rid the Skyborn of the Fifty-seven. Of the people not like them, only the bumpy man, Gloyd, remains.”
    “Seelah doesn’t suspect you?” returned a husky female voice from the blackness. “She doesn’t
read your mind
?”
    “She doesn’t think I’m worth it. And I speak of nothing but the old legends. She thinks me a fool.”
    “She can’t tell our great scholars from our fools,” said a male voice.
    “None of them can,” said another. “Good. Let’s keep it that way. Seelah has done us a favor, reducing their numbers. She may do more.” A blinding flash appeared as an old Keshiri man lit a lantern. There were several Keshiri there, huddled in the cramped space—their attentions not on Tilden, but on the figure steppingfrom the shadows behind him. Tilden turned to recognize the woman who had first addressed him.
    “Stay