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“You,” growled a voice that should have been her love’s. “You brought him here …”

She turned back, and now he was looking at her.

His eyes were full of flame.

“Anakin?”

“Padmé, move away.” There was an urgency in Obi-Wan’s voice that sounded closer to fear than Padmé had ever heard from him. “He’s not who you think he is. He will harm you.”

Anakin’s lips peeled off his teeth. “I would thank you for this, if it were a gift of love.”

Trembling, shaking her head, she began to back away. “No, Anakin—no …”

“Palpatine was right. Sometimes it is the closest who cannot see. I loved you too much, Padmé.”

He made a fist, and she couldn’t breathe.

“I loved you too much to see you! To see what you are!”

A veil of red descended on the world. She clawed at her throat, but there was nothing there her hands could touch.

“Let her go, Anakin.”

His answer was a predator’s snarl, over the body of its prey. “You will not take her from me!”

She wanted to scream, to beg, to howl, No, Anakin, I’m sorry! I’m sorry … I love you …, but her locked throat strangled the truth inside her head, and the world-veil of red smoked toward black.

“Let her go!”

“Never!”

The ground fell away beneath her, and then a white flash of impact blasted her into night.

In the Senate Arena, lightning forked from the hands of a Sith, and bent away from the gesture of a Jedi to shock Redrobes into unconsciousness.

Then there were only the two of them.

Their clash transcended the personal; when new lightning blazed, it was not Palpatine burning Yoda with his hate, it was the Lord of all Sith scorching the Master of all Jedi into a smoldering huddle of clothing and green flesh.

A thousand years of hidden Sith exulted in their victory.

“Your time is over! The Sith rule the galaxy! Now and forever!”

And it was the whole of the Jedi Order that rocketed from its huddle, making of its own body a weapon to blast the Sith to the ground.

“At an end your rule is, and not short enough it was, I must say.”

There appeared a blade the color of life.

From the shadow of a black wing, a small weapon—a holdout, an easily concealed backup, a tiny bit of treachery expressing the core of Sith mastery—slid into a withered hand and spat a flame-colored blade of its own.

When those blades met, it was more than Yoda against Palpatine, more the millennia of Sith against the legions of Jedi; this was the expression of the fundamental conflict of the universe itself.

Light against dark.

Winner take all.

Obi-Wan knelt beside Padmé’s unconscious body, where she lay limp and broken in the smoky dusk. He felt for a pulse. It was thin, and erratic. “Anakin—Anakin, what have you done?”

In the Force, Anakin burned like a fusion torch. “You turned her against me.”

Obi-Wan looked at the best friend he had ever had. “You did that yourself,” he said sadly.

“I’ll give you a chance, Obi-Wan. For old times’ sake. Walk away.”

“If only I could.”

“Go some place out of the way. Retire. Meditate. That’s what you like, isn’t it? You don’t have to fight for peace anymore. Peace is here. My Empire is peace.”

“Your Empire? It will never have peace. It was founded on treachery and innocent blood.”

“Don’t make me kill you, Obi-Wan. If you are not with me, you are against me.”

“Only Sith deal in absolutes, Anakin. The truth is never black and white.” He rose, spreading empty hands. “Let me take Padmé to a medcenter. She’s hurt, Anakin. She needs medical attention.”

“She stays.”

“Anakin—”

“You don’t get to take her anywhere. You don’t get to touch her. She’s mine, do you understand? It’s your fault, all of it—you made her betray me!”

“Anakin—”

Anakin’s hand sprouted a bar of blue plasma.

Obi-Wan sighed.

He brought out his own lighstaber and angled it before him. “Then I will do what I must.”

“You’ll try,” Anakin said, and leapt.

Obi-Wan met him in the air.

Blue blades crossed, and the volcano above echoed their lightning with a shout of fire.

C-3PO cautiously poked his head around the rim of the skiff’s