The Legend of the Jedi Queen

51. Home Again

The dreams were more frequent now, Nellith realized as she sat up in her bed. She hadn't realized how she had come to love her room in the Imperial Palace, how she had come to see it as her home, not until she had returned to it from the Rainbow Palace.

She'd shoved her sketches of Tallis in the crown of blood in a drawer. She couldn't stand to look at them now, now that she was sure the blood was because he had fallen. Or he would soon. His mother was wrong, after all this time.

In the light of the pink moon that cast its glow over Uphatu's snows at night, Nellith felt a little less cold. She knew where she wanted to go. She threw on her boots and pinned her blanket around her shoulders, only taking her lightsaber for protection and her multitool for practicality.

The hallways of the Imperial Palace were no longer cold and foreboding to her. They were simply home— especially when she pried a white panel off and slipped into its inner bowels. The climb to the location she loved allowed her to occupy her mind without thinking of what she wanted to avoid thinking about.

Not until she arrived in the alcove.

When she was there, she cleared out any snow that had fallen in, and stared out at the snowy landscape. Once, she had fought with Tallis here, but had also shared a moment. She wondered if the next time she saw him, his hair would be completely silver and white from the stress of what the Second Order was doing to him.

She stretched out her hand, but it was no use. She couldn't seem to feel him anywhere.

The closest thing was Galen Palpatine, who slept in the castle.

Much to Kiernan's dismay, Galen had been accepted into the Jedi Order when Rey and Ben had learned of his story. He was to be involved with their attempts to rescue Tallis.

Kiernan, in fact, had become more secretive lately, staying with certain clusters within the Jedi Order at odd hours. Rey seemed to think nothing of it, but Nellith agreed with her father's suspicion. They were up to something. But it wasn't Nellith's job to find out.

In fact, for all intents and purposes, Nellith was essentially banned from Jedi duties.

"You need to rest," Rey had told her.

"You went through too much," Ben had said. "The last thing you need is to be more in touch with the Force."

Of course she still was, to a degree. No one could cut off her connection to the Force, to her knowledge at least. And she wouldn't want them to. Even after everything, she still wanted to be a Jedi Knight. It was the noblest thing she could be.

And now she knew that was who she was born to be.

Her thoughts turned to the vision. It was spreading amongst other Jedi. Everyone knew about it now, and about Nellith's fate, partially due to Kiernan. Now the other Jedi were giving her even stranger looks when she passed them in the hall.

It was like everyone believed she was Luke Skywalker's daughter again. She was their last hope now, like it or not. She couldn't let any of them down.

Ben was focusing on teaching her politics now. How to follow in the footsteps of all the women in her family. It wasn't anything too difficult, because of the sentence of rest, but nonetheless kept her occupied.

It kept her occupied so she wouldn't think about him.

In the last version of her dream, there was a part before all else. She wasn't sitting on the throne yet. She was younger than her latest version, seventeen instead of eighteen now. Tallis, wearing his spiky, bloody crown, had a crown in his own hands. It looked to be made of stars, not diamonds, and was completely clean despite his bloody hands.

He set it in her hair, and kissed her hand.

"They will love you," he said. "And if they don't, they will learn to."

He ignited only the red side of his lightsaber, and dragged before her were her parents, bound and gagged, clearly trying to say something.

"Nothing will stand in our way," Tallis promised. Then with a single stroke of his lightsaber, he decapitated them both, and their bodies crumpled to the ground. Nellith was horrified as he took her face into her hands. "They were holding us back."

He let go, and the turned to the audience of Force-users.

"LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!" he shouted.

"LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!" the people shouted back.

Even now, Nellith could hear echoes of her dream in the Force.

She shivered, and it wasn't due to the cold.

Even despite everything, she would still accept the crown of stars— and nothing that came with it.

She checked the time on her commlink. Midnight had passed, meaning of that moment, Nellith was finally fifteen.