The Jedi Code

2

Cyria landed lightly on an abandoned platform several stories below her apartment and took off running. For the past five years, she had managed to remain in hiding, having shed anything that would make anyone think she was one of the Jedi: her lightsaber, her tunic, her name.

Cyria Holm had died.

But somehow, she had been found, ratted out.

This is why the Jedi Code warns against emotions, she thought as she ran, her short silver blonde hair whipping out behind her.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

Cyria skidded into an old speeder lot, scanning for an acceptable getaway vehicle. She would probably have to ditch Coruscant, freighter-hop until she wound up in the Outer Rim. Now that she had been tracked, she would never be safe here, never be able to fall into the new life she had been searching for.

So the Outer Rim it was. She could recreate herself again and start her third life so far, burying her true self beneath layers of fear and grime. She had done it before; she could do it again.

But they've found me once. Won't they just find me again?

Cyria chose a speeder, not too old but not too flashy, and hurried toward it, climbing into the pilot's seat. She hotwired the speeder, overriding the engine lock, and felt a bit of hope surge through her with the sound of the engines powering on.

How did Sev find me? How did he get here? Wasn't he supposed to be dead, when the Separatists attacked Takai? He told me he escaped – I should never have believed him.

This is my own fault. I should have avoided him or killed him instead of let him somehow enter my life again.

I never should have fallen in love with him.

Cyria directed the speeder up into the air and out into the speeder lanes. Traffic was beginning to pick up; beings were seeking to get to work for the morning shift or to get home from the night one. With the growing crowd, she should blend in perfectly well, just another part of the morning commute.

A pang struck her heart and Cyria frowned, struggling against the pained feelings inside her. Sev had been the first being she had allowed herself to grow close to since the Jedi Temple fell at the end of the Clone Wars. He had slithered his way into her heart like a snake into a hole, a worm into a piece of fruit. She had learned to accept him, to lower her guard like a drawbridge, welcoming home the valiant warrior as so many tales from her homeworld ended. He saved the day, saved the fair maiden as the elder stories told, and returned victorious, bringing peace to the kingdom and to Cyria.

Except Cyria was no fair maiden and Sev was no valiant warrior.

There was no victory, just the taste of pale defeat.

Sev had loved her. He had taken on her pain as she had taken on his. Ever since the Jedi Order fell, Cyria had had minimal contact with beings, trying to keep a low profile among the thousands of life-forms who crawled the capital planet. She had nowhere to go, no family to seek, no friends to trust, no mentor to look for.

And then Sev had come.

Sev had the Force but hadn't been a Jedi – he had never been selected to be a Padawan Learner. Cyria remembered him from her days as a youngling, remembered the day he had left his room with his pack slung dejectedly over his shoulder, the lost look in his eyes blazed vividly into her memory. It was the knowledge that the worst could happen, that after their entire lives spent living and breathing in the den of the Force, one may never achieve their lifelong goal of becoming a Jedi. It was that realization that spurred Cyria to work harder, practice until her entire body was coated in sweat, so that she would never know the abject feeling of being lost, so utterly, utterly lost, like Sev Markin's eyes had intimated when he had passed her in the corridor, his new lightsaber then strikingly absent from his belt.

Then years had passed. Sev had faded out of mind but the memory of that lost look hadn't. Cyria had worked hard to be the best, the best Padawan to her now deceased Master, the best Jedi Knight, cutting her teeth and blade in the Clone Wars, the best general to her clone troopers. She had fought a long, desperate battle against hopelessness, against that lost look.

And then the Temple had fallen.

The screams still curdled Cyria's blood in the middle of the night, searing through her nightmares to send her staggering to her feet, fighting against the suffocating blanket, reaching for the blaster that had replaced her lightsaber after she had discarded it, hopelessness descending on her like a cloak, bringing that feeling of being lost with it.

But still, she had fought. For five years, she had fought. She had met Sev and they had fought together, fought to find their own place in the new, harsh galaxy, fought for life and hope and belonging. And in the midst of fighting, Cyria had fallen in love with Sev, the one person left who knew her heart. She had handed it to him, after he had given her some measure of peace, and he had wormed his way inside it, spreading rot and despair and death instead.

Now that feeling of being lost spiraled down on her once again.

Cyria navigated the speeder lanes, chewing absently on her bottom lip. She had thought Sev could help her mend the tatters of her life and begin anew. She had thought he would bring healing, rebirth, redemption.

She had thought wrong.

Instead, Sev had proven himself to be an enemy with a lover's eyes, a Sith with a Jedi's heart. He had ignited a lightsaber Cyria hadn't known he even had, the blade the vibrant red of betrayal, of blood.

And then he had proceeded to kneel by the bed and weep.

Cyria bit her lip at that recollection. Sev hadn't moved when she had awoken, had made no attempt to strike her down and add one more Jedi corpse to the pyre of the past, to cross one more name off the list, for she was sure he was a Jedi Hunter. His basic training as a child enabled him to willingly use the Force, and perhaps the Sith had offered him his life for his loyalty to them.

And Sev had chosen. His lightsaber blade spoke all too well of that.

No matter. It's over, I'm not going back. I'll leave Coruscant and head to the Outer Rim. I'll vanish. He'll never find me again. No one will ever find me again.

I'll cut myself off to the Force this time. Never again will I open myself to it. I'll learn from my failures here. The Force belongs to the past.

Cyria closed her eyes for a moment and mentally locked herself against the rising tide of the Force within her. It had taken much meditation to figure out how to do this, how to prevent her presence from being felt. Since she had not been trained in the skill back at the Temple, she had realized it would involve not accessing the Force at all, to prevent any ripples from reaching the Sith behind the new Empire. She wasn't taking any chances. Occasionally, in moments of desperation or panic, she had reached for the Force. But other than that, she had lived like any other being, trying to remain oblivious to the vast world all around them.

But Sev had convinced her to open herself up, to touch the Force again. He had convinced her to trust, to love. Cyria felt anger and shame wash over her.

This is why the Code speaks against emotions. They destroy, they really do.

Then she heard a voice.

"Cyria!"

Cyria whipped around, her eyes widening as she caught sight of Sev, right behind her in his own speeder. His expression was anguished but determined and Cyria felt a cold fist close around her heart.

"Cyria, please listen to me!" Sev called, but Cyria jerked her controls up and sent her speeder spiraling up into the lane above and to her left. She fed more power to the engine and felt the surge as the machine, still spiraling, shot forward, soaring into the slight gap between speeders in the lane above....

The front of her speeder slammed into the underside of the speeder that a moment before had not been there. The top speeder bucked upward, the driver shouting and cursing in Huttese, and Cyria felt the shudder run through her speeder as it jerked to the side, her body slamming forward from the shock of the crash, her head knocking with a dull thud against the console.

Then her speeder was twisting again, falling, and Cyria vaguely saw spinning, blurry colors as her body slumped to the side, meeting no resistance as her vision faded.

The last thing she recalled was the feeling of falling.