The Legend of the Jedi Queen

32. Abeloth

Nellith was dragged kicking and fighting into a circular room with a skylight illuminating the center pavilion. From one of the levels within the spirals, there were hooks from which Jaina and Tallis were cuffed, their cuffs dangling from the hooks. Tallis, being the tallest of them, dangled three above the ground.

One of the troopers then forced Nellith's hands in front of her, cuffed her, and used the Force to levitated her onto a third hook. Nellith looked down to see Andromeda smirking up at them.

"I'll be back in one hour for the ceremony," Andromeda said, looking all-too cheerful. "Guards will be posted at the door. I wouldn't try to leave. The results would be unpleasant."

"You're not getting away with this," Jaina growled. When Nellith glanced at her face, she saw that Jaina had several new bruises there, as well as others Nellith was sure were concealed from sight by her clothes.

"You don't even know what we're getting away with," Andromeda said gleefully. "Well, except for the dear Solo brat, now."

Nellith could feel the eyes of Jaina and Tallis upon her, and the spirits of the holocrons raging inside her.

Andromeda then smirked, turned on her heel, and exited the room, leaving the three Jedi in solitude.

"What happened?" Jaina asked.

"I tried to destroy the artifacts,"'Nellith said. "But it turns out, Sith holocrons possess you if you try to destroy them."

"That means whatever vessel Snoke was in," Tallis realized.

"It's now me," Nellith finished.

"You have to fight it, listen to me," Tallis said. "I know you can do it. But you have to be on your guard. Snoke, Abeloth, they make promises they can't keep, and will do anything to make you do what they want."

"Abeloth. . . Maz Kanata wouldn't even talk about that," Nellith said. "How do you know about it?"

"More family history," Tallis said bitterly. "Abeloth and Snoke weren't always the same, but now they are. And that makes them incredibly dangerous."

"I never thought I'd want to hear your family history, but now's the time," Jaina said. "Tallis, what do you know?"

"Abeloth is part of a story that is the base of all religions of the galaxy," Tallis said. "The Ones. The Father, the Son, the Daughter. The Light, the Dark, the Balance. The deities of the Force, or so they say. I personally think they're just really powerful Force-wielders who deluded themselves into being gods."

"The mural on Artorias," Nellith murmured. "It showed a Mother as well."

"Abeloth was the Mother," Tallis agreed. "The story goes that she bathed in the Pool of Knowledge and drank from the Font of Immortality, both of which were supposed to have given the Son and the Daughter their powers. It was too much power, and she wanted to expand beyond their homeworld of Mortis. So they locked her spirit away in Centerpoint Station."

"I've heard of that," Jaina said. "Visited it, even. Ancient space station. I helped reprogram it when I was eleven years old."

"Well, Centerpoint Station got built onto later, after the Tragedy of Centerpoint Station," Tallis added. "About three-thousand years ago, there was a Jedi Knight by the name of Snoke. He got frustrated by his master restricting him access to the information about the dark side, and began to tap into it. He was powerful enough to make contact with Abeloth without ever setting foot on Centerpoint. He made an agreement with Abeloth— he'd take her power, her knowledge— in return for helping her find her 'family.'"

"The Light Son and the Dark Daughter," Nellith remembered. "They weren't her children, were they?"

"No," Tallis said. "They were two of the strongest Force-wielders of their era, lovers, in fact. Abeloth kidnapped them and forced them to drink and bathe from the respective pools and fonts in order to be like the children Abeloth had before. But unlike the previous two, the Son was Light and Daughter was Dark. And they ruled the Throne of Balance for about a thousand years before Revan came along. But that's another story."

"So what is Andromeda going to do?" Jaina asked.

"She's going to make the same deal Snoke did with Abeloth, except that she thinks she's summoning Snoke," Nellith answered. The details of it pounded in her brain, and she forced them to the back of her mind. "We can't let her do that. It'll bring back a darkness my mother nearly died to rid the world of. We can't let this happen."

"No bantha poodoo here," Jaina muttered. "Ben's going to kill me for letting this happen."

"You didn't know that's what destroying the holocrons would do," Nellith said. She winced, feeling something trying to push her aside. "And Mum wanted us on this mission."

"I still should've done something to protect you," Jaina said. "I could've done better, but I didn't."

"There's some things we all could've done better," Tallis said. "Well, except for Nellith, who almost actually accomplished the mission."

"I could've actually gotten away," Nellith said. Then she gasped, her body contorting beyond her control.

No, this is my body. She tried to force the muscles to move the way she wanted, but it wouldn't— not without a fight.

"You can fight it," Tallis assured her. "Don't give in."

Nellith gritted her teeth, one of the few actions she still felt control over. "I'm not sure I can."

"I know you can," Tallis said. "You're stubborn when you want something. And if you want to stop them, now's the time to be stubborn."

Nellith nodded.

She didn't know how long it had been since, but relatively soon after, Andromeda and all of the Force-wielders of the Second Order walked in.

Andromeda smiled. "Ready to begin?"

Without hesitating, the dark spirit within Nellith began to overtake her like a tidal wave, and it was all she could do to stay afloat. A trooper reached out a hand, and she could feel the trooper prying the dark spirit forward. Then, all went black for Nellith.