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By Root 1879 0

sleep; it fed on his growing command of the dark side. An hour or two of meditation each day was enough to keep his body energized and his mind invigorated. He consumed knowledge with the appetite of a starving rancor, devouring everything he got from his secret mentors and always hungering for more. The Blademaster was amazed at his progress, and even Githany—despite her years of study with the Jedi—was hard-pressed to keep ahead of him. Everything he learned from them he supplemented with the wisdom of the ancients. On his first arrival he had sensed the value of the archives, only to turn his back on them as he had been drawn into the daily routine and intense lessons of the Academy. Now he understood that his initial instincts had been right after all: the knowledge contained in the yellowed parchments and leather-bound manuscripts was timeless. The Force was eternal, and though the Masters at the Academy now walked a different path than their Sith forebears had, they all sought answers in the dark side.

He smiled at the irony of this life. He was the outcast, the student Qordis had wanted left behind. Yet with Githany, Kas’im, and his own study of the archives, he was receiving far more education than any other apprentice on Korriban.

The truth would be revealed soon enough. When the time was right, Sirak would discover that he had underestimated Bane. They all would.

“Excellent!” Kas’im said as Bane blocked the Dark Lord’s flurry and countered with one of his own. He didn’t actually score a direct hit, but he did force the Blademaster to take a full step back under the fury of his assault.

Suddenly the Twi’lek leapt high in the air, spinning and twisting so he could lash down at Bane as he flipped over the top of him. Bane was ready, switching from offense to defense so smoothly it all seemed to be a single action. He parried both blades of Kas’im’s weapon even as he ducked out of the way and rolled clear to safety.

He spun to face his foe, only to see that Kas’im had lowered his weapon, signifying the end of the lesson.

“Very good, Bane,” the Twi’lek said, giving him a slight bow. “I thought you might be caught off guard by that move, but you were able to anticipate and defend it with near-perfect form.”

Bane basked in his Master’s praise, but he was sorry to know the session was over. He was breathing hard, his muscles glistening with sweat and twitching with adrenaline, yet he felt as if he could have continued fighting for hours. Sparring and drills had become much more than mere physical exertion for him now. Each movement, every strike and thrust, had become an extension of the Force acting through the corporeal shell of his flesh-and-bone body.

He longed to engage another opponent in the dueling ring. He hungered for the challenge of testing himself against the other apprentices. But it wasn’t time. Not yet. He still wasn’t good enough to defeat Sirak, and until he could take the Zabrak down he had to keep his rapidly developing talent hidden.

Kas’im tossed him a towel. Bane was pleased to see that the Twi’lek was sweating, too—though nowhere near as profusely as he was.

“Do you have anything you want me to work on for tomorrow?” Bane asked eagerly. “A new sequence? A new form? Anything?”

“You’ve moved far beyond sequences and forms,” the Master told him. “In that last pass you broke off your attack in the middle of one sequence and came at me from a completely different and unexpected angle.”

“I did?” Bane was surprised. “I … I didn’t really mean to.”

“That’s what made it such a potentially devastating move,” Kas’im explained. “You’re letting the Force guide your blade now. You act without thought or reason. You’re driven by passion: fury, anger … even hate. Your saber has become an extension of the dark side.”

Bane couldn’t help smiling, but then his brow furrowed in consternation. “I still couldn’t get past your defenses,” he said, trying to re-create the battle in his mind. No matter what he had tried to do, it seemed one side of the Twi’lek’s twin-bladed weapon was always there to parry his