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He had reached the threshold of Qordis’s door. He hesitated, briefly wavering between fear of what his punishment would be and anger at the impossible situation he and all the other apprentices were put in every day.

Anger, he finally decided, would serve him best.

He knocked sharply at the door, then opened it when the command to enter came from within. Qordis was kneeling in the center of the chamber, deep in meditation. Bane had been in this room before, but he couldn’t help but marvel at the extravagance. The walls were adorned with expensive tapestries and hangings. Golden braziers and censers burning heavy incense were scattered haphazardly about to provide a dim glow in the hazy air. In one corner was a large, luxuriant bed. In another was an intricately carved table of obsidian, a small chest atop it.

The lid of the chest was open, revealing the jewelry inside: necklaces and chains of precious metals, rings of gold and platinum encrusted with ostentatious gemstones. Qordis took great pains to surround himself with material goods and the trappings of wealth, and he took greater pains to make sure others noticed his opulence. On some level, Bane suspected, the Sith Lord derived pleasure—and power—from the covetous desire and greed his possessions inspired in others.

The trinkets held little interest for Bane, however. He was more impressed with the manuscripts and tomes that lined the bookshelves along the wall, each a magnificent volume clad in leather embossed with gold leaf. Many of the volumes were thousands of years old, and he knew they contained the secrets of the ancient Sith.

At last Lord Qordis rose to his feet, standing tall and straight so he could look down on his student with his gray, sunken eyes.

“Kas’im told me what happened yesterday morning,” he said. “He tells me you are responsible for Fohargh’s death.” The tone of his voice gave Bane no clues as to his emotional state.

“I am not responsible for his death,” Bane answered calmly. He was angry, but he wasn’t stupid. He chose his next words very carefully; he wanted to convince Lord Qordis, not enrage him. “Fohargh was the one who let his guard down. He left himself vulnerable in the ring. It would have shown weakness not to take advantage of it.”

His statement wasn’t entirely factual, but it was close enough to the truth. One of the first lessons Kas’im taught students was how to build a protective shield around themselves in combat to prevent an enemy from using the Force against them. A Force-talented opponent could yank away your lightsaber, knock you off balance, or even extinguish your lightsaber’s blade without the touch of a hand or weapon. A Force-shield was the most basic—and most necessary—protection there was.

It had become instinctive for all the appentices, almost second nature. As soon as the blade was drawn, the protective veil went up. Guarding against the Force powers of the enemy and obscuring your own intentions required as much concentration and energy as augmenting your physical prowess or anticipating the moves of your foe. It was that unseen part of combat, the invisible battle of wills, not the obvious interaction of bodies and blades, that more often than not decided the fate of a duel.

“Kas’im says Fohargh did not lower his guard,” Qordis countered. “He says you simply ripped through it. His defenses could not stand before your power.”

“Master, are you saying I should hold back if my opponent is weak?”

It was a loaded question, of course. One Qordis didn’t even bother to answer.

“It is one thing to defeat an opponent in the ring. But even once he was down, you continued to attack him. He was beaten long before you killed him. What you did was no different from striking with the blade against a fallen and unconscious foe … something that is not permitted in the training ring.”

The words struck too close to home, dredging up the guilt Bane had tried to bury even as he had made his way to this meeting. Qordis