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The Huntress had no use for words like evil, or good, or even justice. She killed those she was hired to kill; she gave no thought of whether they deserved their fate. Still, she found the princess’s choice of labels odd. She was an assassin. She killed for profit. Was this any more evil than the man Serra spoke of? And what about the princess herself? She wanted to hire someone to take the life of another; did that make her evil?

She did not speak her thoughts aloud, however. They had no relevance to what she was doing. Instead she pushed deeper into the well of memories, submersing herself in them in search of the man Serra had described.

Hundreds of faces flashed before her. Male. Female. Human, Twi’lek, Cerean, Ithorian. Soldiers serving the Jedi, and even those serving the Sith. Caleb had healed them all. The only ones he turned away were the leaders of the armies. He saw himself a servant of the common folk. The Jedi Masters and the Sith Lords he always refused to help, with one notable exception.

The Huntress could see him now: a Sith Lord in black armor; the curved hilt of a lightsaber clipped to his belt as he towered over the healer. They were locked in a battle of wills, the big man dying from some illness she couldn’t discern. Even though they were decades removed from the encounter, the Iktotchi sensed the raw power of the dark side emanating from him. It was like nothing she had seen or felt before, both terrifying and exhilarating.

“I see him,” she told the princess. I see what he did to you.

“My father always said he would return. That was why he sent me away. Made me change my name.”

“Your father was right.”

Now that she had seen him in her visions, it was easy to skim the passing years looking for the imprint of the Sith Lord. Through the maelstrom of images, she easily picked out his next visit to the camp. Yet again, he arrived in need of the healer’s aid. This time, however, he did not come alone.

“There are others with him. A young woman. A young man.”

“What happened?” the princess asked, her voice trembling slightly.

A series of shocking and violent images assailed the Iktotchi’s senses. She saw the healer’s decapitated body, his limbs hacked from his torso and arranged in a gruesome display near the fire pit. Inside the cabin the young man crouched in a corner, a babbling idiot driven mad by the horrors that had been visited upon him. The other two—the young woman and the Sith Lord—were harder to see, though she sensed they were still there. Something concealed them; some power or spell cloaked their presence.

When she tried to pierce the veil something pushed back, snapping her out of her meditative trance and severing her connection with the past. She fell to her knees with a cry of anguish, clutching at her temples, her mind reeling.

Serra was at her side in an instant, crouching over her. “What happened? What did you see?”

The Huntress didn’t speak right away. She had heard of this happening to others, but she’d never experienced it herself. It wasn’t the images of Caleb’s gruesome death that had caused her to recoil. It had been sorcery, Sith magic. A spell of concealment had hidden the Sith Lord and the young woman from the Jedi who had discovered the healer’s body. The memories still carried the echo of the spell upon them; even after a decade it had been potent enough to momentarily overwhelm her.

How can one individual command such power?

“Tell me what you saw,” the princess demanded, rising to her feet.

“Your father’s death,” the Huntress replied, also rising to her feet.

“He was there? The man in the black armor?”

“Yes. I think so. It wasn’t clear.”

“He was there,” the princess said with certainty. “He was responsible for my father’s death.”

“There was another with him,” the Huntress said. “A young blond woman.”

“I only care about the man in black. Can you find him?”

“If he still lives, I will find him,” the Huntress assured her.

She knew she would dream about the Sith Lord tonight, and for many nights to come. Her sleep would be filled with pictures