Across the Stars (Reylo fanfiction)

Ink and Parchment

Kylo paused at the bottom of the stairs, the shaking above him ceased. Force ghosts couldn't get hurt, right? He shook his head. What should he care about this Cayel, whoever she was? True, she had saved his sorry space butt. Still he wasn't here to make friends. In the light of his sabre, he saw that the passage before him fanned out in three directions. He sat down and leaned his back against the warm stone wall. He pulled the scroll out of his pocket. Using the force, he floated his blade above the paper. The crimson light illuminated the crinkly beige parchment. He removed the metal binder and flattened the pages against his knee. Letters twisted along the topmost leaf's surface in a shivering script.

"If you are reading this," the writer began, "then the jedi have abandoned myself and my master, the jedi apprentice Lei'lira Nycothak. We are most likely both dead, and my grandfather, Lord of the Order of the Five Brothers, Darth Kraalus, has succeeded in his plot. However, force-willing there is a way to reverse some of his stain upon the galaxy. As I hide this amongst the Brothers' most sacred scrolls, my master has secreted into Grandfather's lair under the protection of my force-signature-cloaking amulet (a gift from Kraalus himself, ironically) and created a chink in the poison's structure, a backdoor if you will. With the right healing crystals, a force healer can amplify their vibrations enough to unlock this secret passage and channel light side energy into the poison. This should balance the force in the affected soul's body and nullify the effects of Grandfather's venom. However, as the Order is ruthless in their 'purification' of jedi remanets on this planet, I have hidden the seven precious appropriately attuned crystals within the ancient bowels of this very temple. They are infused with the soil of Moarghulis and, in theory, the planet itself should aid in overriding the poison's original alignment. I have included within this scroll a map to the crystals and a drawing of the capsule in which they are hid. You will need the binding band on this missive to open the capsule. Hurry, the longer the darkness is within your friend's tissues, the less likely you will succeed. May the force be with you.

Yours, Cayel Rhetora."

Kylo flipped through the pages and committed the sketch of the capsule to memory, then stuffed it and the letter back into his cloak's inner pocket. He slipped the binding ring onto his right middle finger. Holding the map in his left hand, he grasped the hilt of his sabre in his right. He stood and took two steps forward. Then his posture stiffened and he sucked in air. He spun around.

"Ben!" Rey said, standing before him. Her lips pursed, "Why is that on?"

He realised she was talking about his sabre. He shrugged, "It's dark here."

"Ever think of carrying a torch?" she quipped. Then creases formed in the skin between her eyebrows. "You were right," she mumbled.

Coming from her, those words, in that order, might as well have been astromech binary to him. "I was ri.. about what?"

"I can't heal myself ... the jedi texts ... they say how but when I try, I get cold all over and feel like I'm drowning. I mean, either I can't or I'm just really, really, terrible at it."

He closed the distance between them. "No. When I was training with my uncle, he tried to teach me. 'Calm your mind and concentrate' he would say. Calm my mind," he laughed without warmth, "one might as well try to hold back the tides. Suffice to say I was awful at it. But you," he stared into her eyes. He cleared his throat and looked away, "What you're experiencing sounds different. When I first came across Cresta's dagger, it showed me images of its past. I think the sith who created it made the poison specifically to block normal ways of force healing. But I also saw that there might be a way. Now that I've come here I know that there is. I'm going to find it, Rey. I swear on my life."

She smiled, though the top half of her face seemed sad. "Ben ..." a bleeping cut her off. She turned her head.

"Is that -- you're on the Falcon?"

"There's a comms request come through. It must be -- " she disappeared before she could finish.

He crumpled the parchment in his palm and smashed his fist into the tunnel wall, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against it. Then his eyelids snapped open. He squatted down and smoothed out the map over and over again. Breathing in and out through his nose, he thanked the force that the ink was only a little cracked. The dark knight stood and squared his shoulders before turning down the left hand passage. His thoughts were spinning like a hit tie fighter. Her aura had grown darker. He cursed himself for ever coming across that wretched dagger. Another left. As he sank deeper into the labyrinth, he saw that skulls were imbedded in the walls. Cobwebs, not the glittering orb kind, but the stringy nest sort clutched to the corners of the ceiling. Bloody sith definitely needed to fire their interior decorator. In the red glow, he saw that crypts were cut into the walls, each containing a clay vase with a lid. Force! He shuddered, looking at one of them closer. They were urns; he was running deeper and deeper into a sith graveyard. Well that would explain the dark side energy swirling around him like disembodied hands clutching at his skin. A part of him lapped up the snaking tendrils of white hot rage and fear like a camel coming to an oasis. But another part of his being recoiled like someone who had stepped on an adder's tail along a woodland trail. No wonder Cayel had thought to hide the crystals here. Barely visible wisps of steam rose from the floor.

Then the tunnel opened. He saw that he stood on a cliff overlooking ... a ruined city?? Glancing at the map, he noted that he was on the right track. However, if the information there was correct he still had a way to go on this scavenger hunt. He groaned. "If you are here, Cayel, would it be so difficult to just give me what I need and be done with it?" Silence echoed through the catacombs. He felt a shiver in the force of her presence. But she didn't appear and soon the feeling vanished. "Grandfather?" he whispered, recalling her words. The darkness surrounding him remained unchanged. He shook his head. Turning to the right, he saw a path snaking down the wall. He breathed in and out, and then began the long descent down to the crumbling metropolis.

***