“That is not your concern.”
“It makes it hard to work together. Perhaps if I knew more about him …”
He saw Palpatine pause. He’d interested him. “So, you are becoming curious about Lord Vader.”
“Everyone is curious about Lord Vader.”
“He prefers mystery. It is helpful. You have something else. Uniqueness. You were trained in the Force, and you rejected it. All the Jedi have been eliminated, but the Force remains. You could use it again.”
“I’m a little rusty,” Ferus said. Palpatine thought he was corruptible.
“You managed to find a lightsaber.”
“Lots of weapons around for sale after the Clone Wars. I managed to get my hands on one. It’s a dangerous galaxy out there.”
“You could have more power than any officer. More power,” Palpatine rasped, “than even Lord Vader himself.”
Here it was. The beginning.
“I’m not interested in power,” Ferus said.
“Everyone is interested in power,” Palpatine said. “But not everyone has the vision to see what real power can accomplish.”
Ferus rested his hand on the hilt of his lightsaber. The Jedi hadn’t been about power. They’d used the Force to bring justice to the galaxy. But in truth the Force gave them great power, and many Padawans wrestled with the concept of it. When to use it, when to retreat, when to advance, when to demolish an enemy, and when to let them go. It was a constant struggle. And what every Padawan could not admit, even to each other, at night on their sleep couches, for even a whisper might bring the dark side too close power felt good.
Ferus had fought against that feeling, had denied it existed, had thought he’d conquered it … but had he really?
He had brought up the topic with Siri because Siri was the kind of Master you could talk to about anything. One of the countless things he missed about her was how nothing he could ask could possibly shock or disappoint her.
They were together on one of the terraces of the Temple. Siri had her booted feet propped up on a bench and was lying on the ground, her eyes closed. Ferus sat cross-legged (stiff as always, he thought now) by her side. It had been raining on Coruscant for weeks, and as soon as the sun appeared, she’d dragged him outside.
“For a lesson?” he had asked.
“For fun,” she’d answered.
He had waited, gathering his courage. Only when he was sure she was completely relaxed did he bring up the subject. Maybe he was hoping she was asleep, and he wouldn’t have to bring it up at all.
“Master, I’ve been thinking about something,” he said. “I feel myself growing stronger in the Force. On this last mission … when we fought … I was … happy.”
She opened one eye and looked at him. “Do you mean, when we fought side by side on Meldazar together, you felt pleasure in how you could move, could bring down your enemy with one stroke?”
“Yes.” Ferus felt ashamed. “Is that wrong?”
“Well.” She raised herself on her elbows. Sunlight picked out bright individual strands in her blond hair, which she’d recently cropped even shorter than usual.
“Yes,” she said. “It is wrong to attach emotion in a battle. It’s wrong to feel pleasure when an enemy falls. A Jedi should feel regret regret that a life has been taken, regret that a physical battle had to be fought at all. But the Force gives us great gifts, Ferus. It isn’t wrong to take pleasure in your own gifts. To take pleasure in your mastery of skill. It’s a struggle for every Jedi to attain balance, sometimes even for Jedi Masters. Look at Mace Windu. His style is Form VII. What do you know about Form VII?”
“That only the best fighters can control it.”
“Exactly. It can bring you close to the dark side, to what the Sith focus on. But Mace Windu can control it. My point is that even Mace Windu must acknowledge this danger, of the pleasure in power. That’s the only way he can dismiss it. In other words, my perpetually worried Padawan” Ferus remembered her smile, the rare smile that was gentle, not mischievous or mocking “the fact that you ask the question guards you against the dangers of it.”
It had been a typical Jedi response. If you are aware of a problem, you take the first step toward eliminating it. Helpful at the time, but that was when he had a Temple to go to, Jedi Masters around him. All that careful study, all those simple and profound rules of the order they had answered his every doubt.
Was leaving the Jedi a relief in a way because he never had to think about that again?
Why was he thinking about it now?
The memory and the questions had taken place in a mere flash of a moment, but Ferus was suddenly afraid. Afraid that too much time had passed between Palpatine’s statement and his own response. Afraid that Palpatine had known, somehow, unerringly, exactly what he’d been thinking.