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PLEASE NOTE

THIS IS THE THIRD PART OF THE SON OF SUNS TRILOGY.

Part One:- Into the Storm

Part Two:- In Shadows and Darkness

Part Three:- At the Brink of the Dawn and the Darkness

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I just thought you might like a Prologue to get the ball rolling.

This crosses over with the last chapter of In Shadows and Darkness, seeing points not covered and from different perspectives and pretty much setting everybody in place for the start of the next story.

Hope you enjoy.

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At the Brink of the Dawn and the Darkness

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PROLOGUE

Part One

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Palpatine was dead, slain by the one person with the ability to do so but not, before now, the motivation; the man who the Emperor believed he had owned, mind and soul; the man who was, in those final hours, willing to give his life to bring the Emperor down. The man who lay in still silence after six hours of surgery, the white sheet which moved against his slow breaths seeming to Mara far too much like a shroud.

All around her in the Palace, all hell was probably breaking loose as his advocates sought to hide the truth and stabilise the Empire to a carefully-planned agenda. It didn't matter any more to Mara; she existed outside of time and space in a bubble of reality defined by the shallow breathing of the man she had betrayed. The man she had saved. The man she...

She stood beside him in the darkness as he lay unconscious… and she cried. For the first time since she was a child, she cried, tears running unheeded down her cheeks, her jaw tightly clamped against the sob that welled in her throat. She cried because Palpatine was gone. Because she was grateful Luke was here. She cried with relief and release. For what she'd lost, for what she'd gained - for what she feared she'd pushed away irrevocably.

He'd walked into her life and he'd turned everything- everything she believed upside down. Every lesson, every viewpoint, every conviction. Shaken her beliefs to the core.

But not like that at all; not by force or manipulation, both of which she knew so well, but gradually and persuasively. The lightest touch, the slightest spur, the subtlest encouragement, oblivious of his power over her.

Alone in the velvet shadows of the most wrenching, gruelling, terrifying day of her life, she stood and watched the reason for all this heartache as he lay in absolute stillness, the dull light of the scanner making discrete tracks up and down the underside of the medical bed, the readouts above him updating every time it returned to the cradle.

Mara Jade shook her head slowly, still in some netherworld of shock at the events of the day. But it wasn't just her world that had been turned upside down; not just the Palace or Coruscant or the government or the military. The whole damn galaxy had changed in the space of a few short hours… it just didn't know it yet. Everything was in flux, everything was shifting… around him; his actions, his decisions.

Was that what had held him back for so long? Because now, when she really thought about it, it was a terrifying prospect. The galaxy was resting on his shoulders. The fate of every sentient being; of civilisation - it would all hang on his actions. Everyone; everyone everywhere, would turn to Coruscant and hold baited breath, expectant, afraid, hopeful.

He would define the direction of history… he already had.

Palpatine had always carried the burden lightly; a mixture of blithe indifference, deep-rooted belief in his own right to rule and absolute self-confidence had granted him the clarity of vision and unshakable certitude to exert his command with utter conviction. Right or wrong, saviour or tyrant, he had carved a path and dragged his Empire into alignment without hesitation. He had united a galaxy at war with itself under a single rule and held it there by brute force and absolute, ruthless will. His word was law… had been law.

And all that burden, command and continuity of the civilisation Palpatine had created, would now fall to Luke. To the man who had never wanted power; the man who had constantly questioned the tenets of the Empire and reviled the Emperor.

Say what you would about Palpatine's absolute rule, but it had held warring factions to peace for twenty years. Would Luke have the will and the tenacity, the confidence to do the same? To carry the Empire Palpatine had created forward? He had never wanted power; had actively avoided it for so long, Mara knew. Didn't think he deserved it- she laughed mirthlessly at that; if anybody had proved their right to rule it had been Luke in the last five years; he'd been to hell and back… but not quite back - never quite back.

He'd come here as raw potential, all blunt resistance and stubborn convictions and naïve principles, and Palpatine had carved ability from that aptitude, had created a Sith and honed him in the fires of violent trials and intense pressure and enforced change, challenging and goading and driving and punishing. Coercing and guiding and refining and perfecting.

His fine blade, Palpatine called him, and she understood why.

All that wild fire of youthful, impetuous haste and that obstinate, wilful ability to endure for his beliefs had been tempered and shaped into resilience and spirit and absolute fearless courage. Every weakness laid bare and broken, every strength enhanced, every possibility realised.
Again that smile touched the corners of her lips; perhaps he wasn't nearly as unprepared as he believed then… or she. Considering the gauntlet he now faced it was, in truth, for the best that the idealistic, indignant Rebel pilot who'd arrived here had been so completely purged by Palpatine; had been dragged kicking and screaming and resisting every step of the way into his rightful place…

His rightful place; it was the first time she'd ever thought that.

She'd known of course that he would rule one day. But in the back of her head; some distant, dreamlike fact that required no closer consideration as yet.

Then yesterday... yesterday in an escalating chain of mistakes and missteps on everybody's part, the man who had always stood with reluctant disquiet in Palpatine's shadow had reached the end of his endurance and snapped - turned on the Master who had invested so much in controlling him and given vent to years of abuse and repression; had shown his Master just how much he had learned.

And suddenly, with a single act, a dire decision borne from anger and loss and betrayal, they were here.

It was the inevitable, inexorable fate that everyone, even she, had tried so hard not to see. Torn between her master and her lover, Mara felt she at least had some excuse for her involuntary blindness. What possible excuse had her master held- what had blinded him so completely to Luke's burgeoning power and crumbling conscience?

He had invested so much in creating his perfect Sith advocate; his wolf. Abruptly Mara remembered the warning issued to her long ago by Luke, "If you put your hand out to a wolf, you shouldn't be surprised when it bites."

Because having realized his wolf, Palpatine hadn't so much reached out his hand as turned his back; dropped his guard and taken its obedience for granted.

But then, hadn't she been guilty of the same… hadn't she herself once worried that Skywalker was simply biding his time?

She stepped forward, trailing the back of her fingers lightly down his scuffed cheek, remembering the dread and despair in those desolate eyes when he'd arrived at the Palace just hours ago, knowing his father was dead, killed by Palpatine. No, this was no premeditated act - this had been grief and loss and fury and desolation, let loose at the one who had caused them without any trace of remorse… but the end result had been the same.

Palpatine was still dead, and whether he liked it or not – whether he wanted it or not – Luke had locked himself and the Empire into an irreversible course.

The man whom Palpatine had trained to rule was about to take his place as the single, most powerful man in the galaxy. And he needed to rule with an iron rod if he was to hold this Empire together in his first years; stop it from spiralling back down into decades of civil war as challengers and pretenders vied for the throne.

Did he understand that? Even if he did, would he choose to act upon it? And if so…how?

Because as she stood in the still silence, hand trembling to an unsteady stop against his bruised face, Mara realised with a terrible clarity that whispered a cold trail down her spine…

Although she had shared his life and his bed and in tiny, shattered fragments, some glimpse into his shredded soul… she had no idea, none whatsoever, of what he would do.

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