Built from the shell of an ancient foundation, the Arx Colosseum has undergone renovations to allow multiple new configurations for battle. Its spectator setup remains largely the same, with high walls, tall enough for even the most savvy Jedi to find unscalable that lead up to spectator chairs which are divided into nearly organized sections to accommodate several thousand people. At the center, an elongated platform “box” contains a central throne of stone with various seats of smaller scale lined beside it in both directions. Two large holo-projection screens are set up on each side of the Colosseum, offering different angles of the match bia holocam drones.

Today’s setup is known as The Void.

A single large circular platform floats in a sea of darkness. Its worn duracrete and durasteel show the scars of battles long gone. No rails, no cover, just a flat space in which combatants can battle. There is no running from your opponent here. No hiding to catch your breath. The Void calls only for the most capable and determined. Any less and you will find yourself out in the cold black.

Once again, Marick stood where others more deserving should have. Once again, he stood on the shoulders of those that had come before him.

Marick had never been the best at anything. Others were faster and stronger. Others were more savvy with a saber, better with a blaster, or more fastidious through the Force. Others had neatly navigated the Brotherhood's politics and intrigue and rose to the kinds of power that were often sought but rarely achieved.

Marick had simply survived where others had perished—his success predicated purely on his perseverance and not by the provocations of power or initiate talent. He certainly had not been the choicest Combat Master or most venerated Voice. He had not been the savviest Scion or Shadow Lord. He was not some kind of prodigy or a genius.

Perhaps part of this was fate, then. His Master had, from the moment of their first meeting, determined that a runty, half-starved Hapan was iron worth striking. A dagger forged to be honed with a killer instinct capable of doing whatever was necessary to protect the Shadow Clan. Timeros Caesus Entar Arconae, Arcona’s Red Right Hand, had not been a kind mentor. Yet those early lessons had pushed Marick beyond his limits and shaped him into the man he would become.

And now, just like his Master before him, Marick stood at the precipice of advancing to the finals of the very tournament that Timeros himself had championed.

What is a legacy?

Whether it was legacy or fate that had pulled him towards this particular place in time, it certainly had a sense of humor; because all that stood in his way was the reigning Champion, a woman the Exarch both respected and feared for her fiery persona and cunning wit.

On the opposite end of the plain, pallid platform, Lucine Vasano withheld her usually radiant smile to better match Marick’s stoicism. No, not stoic, she realized—tired. He also seemed to be lost in thought. She briefly considered trying to take advantage of the distracted, distant look in the Hapan’s eyes, but then quickly dismissed it as a waste of time. If she had any hopes of affecting Marick’s mind, it would need to be in more subtle ways. Anything too overt or obvious would be pierced by his preternatural awareness and iron-clad will. She had a few ideas, however.

Lucine had, once again, pulled her copper curls into an elaborate braid in anticipation of whatever twisted traps Idris had devised for them. So of course the cruel curator of the colosseum had neglected to add any for this round. Now, even if she were to free her hair from its tight weave, her ringlets, highlights, and layers would all be wrong.

This tournament had been just as much a strain on her hair as it had been on her psyche. Yet for all her frustrations at having to weather the elements, and the raw memories of everything she had lost resurfacing throughout it, Lucine Vasano stood poised with the pride and pedigree of her upbringing.

Still, she seethed, and nevertheless, she persisted.

Lucine stuck out her chin, furrowed her brow, and then paced primly towards her fellow Arconae. She stopped just short of striking distance and folded her arms across her chest. Her emerald eyes glinted with judgment and silent accusation.

“Honestly, *darling, it is even worse in person,” she suspirated. “How is it that not even a single strand of hair is out of place. What is your secret?”

The Exarch’s hand had slowly drifted towards the hilt of his lightsaber but froze mid-motion as he blinked at Lucine.

“...Sorry?” he replied slowly.

“You should be,” she sniffed derisively, “...running around through torrential downpours, mine fields, lava pits, and sandstorms without so much as a split end.” Lucine pointed at the perfectly-parted partition of the Hapan’s hair.

From his perch on Marick's shoulder, Biddy held up one foot and snapped it from side to side. Marick kept a straight face despite translating the droid's adjoining string of binary beeps.

Oh no she didn’t.

“I see,” Marick replied carefully, narrowing his eyes faintly at the BD-unit before refocusing on the redhead. “I assure you there is no secret...this is just how my hair is. I’ve explained this to Atyiru multiple times—”

“—I don’t buy it.” Vasano did not need to raise her voice to step on Marick’s annoyingly calm monotone. “You discovered something in your research when trying to bring her back. It’s the only logical explanation.”

Marick blinked again, the only motion on the muted mask of his face. “The ritual drained my life-force, with one side effect being the loss of color to my hair. It’s always been like this, though,” he tried to explain, but it was clear that the former Shadow Lady was not listening to him.

“How about this, Tyris,” Vasano offered as she took a step back and idly ran her hands along her braid. “If I win this match, you owe me tea and an explanation to this ritual, and whatever products you’ve derived from it.”

“If that is what you wish,” the Exarch sighed. Negotiating with a toddler on a daily basis had clearly worn him down and taught him the value of conceding. “If I win, you have to let this whole thing go. There is peril waiting for whichever of us advances, and we need to remain focused.”

“Hmm. Fair enough, I suppose,” she nodded. “And since I doubt the Clan would benefit from either of us killing one another, and we both will require strength for the battle to come, we should settle this with civility. I propose: no touching of the hair or face.”

If Tyris was annoyed by the seeming shenanigans of the exchange, it did not show on his tired expression. “Agreed,” he said with a nod.

“Excellent, now be a dear and surrender,” the redhead ordered as she flashed a devilish grin. Then she leaned on her opponent's mind with the heavy weight of hamfisted command to tease his expectations.

Marick felt an intense spike of pressure as his skull was squeezed like it was in a vice-clamp. The Disciple's muscles moved to comply with the Sith’s demands, but his willpower hardened around him like a shieldwall. Gritting his teeth, he shed off the intrusion like a phalanx catching and then countering a frontal assault.

Marick instinctively reached for his lightsaber, but found that he was unable to rotate his wrists.

In that same moment, the sound of Biddy’s beeping became a clear claxon. Tyris spared a glance to his left and saw that Lucine’s probe droid was attempting to grapple and restrain Biddy with its spindly limbs. When he finally looked down to process Biddy’s warning, he saw that his hands were bound together by a pair of manacles.

Biscuits, he swore to himself.

The faint illusion shattered and snapped Marick’s vision back into crisp clarity—just as the tip of Lucine’s lightsaber speared towards his chest. He sidestepped the strike at the last possible moment.

“So close,” Lucine grumbled as she flicked her braid to her other shoulder and leveled her lightsaber in a defensive crouch.

The mental assault had been a feint, he realized as he continued to dodge out of the way of the redhead's attacks. Marick had been caught off guard by Lucine’s seemingly random tirade while she wove her subtle snare around him. On top of that, the casual act of fixing the stun cuffs around his wrists failed to trigger his danger senses through the Force.

He was reminded just how dangerous she could be, a mistake he hoped not to make a second time.

So despite having his hands literally tied, the Force Lord broke his mind into two parts and gave each the task of telekinetically guiding one of his twin lightdaggers. In response, both blades broke away from the holsters at his waist and activated their slender beams of angry azure light.

“Those are smaller than I expected, darling,” Lucine quipped. “I guess Atyiru was...”

Vasano’s taunt trailed off as she watched a third lightsaber lift away from the Exarch’s cloaked figure.

Marick’s eyes went hard as flint as he rooted himself into the slipstreams of the Force, grabbed ahold of his floating Resonance lightsaber with the Force and triggered the conversion hilt. The standard-looking hilt stretched into an elongated staff as it morphed into its saberspear configuration. A second click, and the crackling cerulean blade sprung to life and joined the aegis of his twin lightdaggers.

The Hapan’s visage had hardened into its usual stoic mask, but he did somehow manage to quirk an eyebrow at the redhead.

“I retract my previous statement.”

The three weapons hung suspended in the air, humming quietly as the tips of their blades turned slowly to fix on Lucine. Marick stood beneath them, his still-manacled hands hanging in front of him in a relaxed posture as he studied his opponent from behind an impassive expression.

Lucine had not moved from her defensive posture. She stood with her weight evenly distributed, her lightsaber held in a one-handed grip. Her other arm was positioned out and away from her body in a dancer’s pose, causing her cloak to flare. If she was intimidated by Marick’s show of power, she did not show it. She was smiling, the expression of a debutante about to enjoy the first gala of the season.

But that smile did not touch her eyes. They were emerald chips: cold, hard and brilliant. While her smile was an alien expression to him, he did recognize the look in her eyes. She was scrutinizing him, noting and cataloging every detail about him

He had seen that expression before in his reflection. He wore it even now.

Off to the side, the two droids continued to wrestle with one another. Biddy’s binary screeches were offset by the clang of metal against metal as he tried to skirt around Lucine’s droid to rejoin his master. Marick noted the struggle but did not interfere. It appeared that POR-7 was not trying to harm the BD unit. It was merely trying to keep him from interfering. It left him free to focus entirely on Lucine.

Time seemed to stand still as the two combatants stood facing off against one another in a silent duel of wills.

Seconds passed as hours. Each combatant remained fixed. Unflinching.

Then Marick’s weapons struck.

The lightsaber shot downward, its tip aimed toward the ground. Its cerulean blade sheared through the brace that held his manacles together, freeing him. His hand closed around its hilt even as the twin lightdaggers arrowed toward the redhead. One toward her neck, the other toward her heart. Lucine jumped backward, flicking her blade to the side to block both attacks.

Marick’s hand closed around the hilt of his lightsaber. He stepped forward in a single fluid motion, the tip of his blade aimed toward her heart even as the daggers sailed around to strike at the same time.

Lucine spun, her cloak flaring outward as she brought her lightsaber up to deflect his blade. Her plasma shield flared to life a millisecond later, causing the daggers to clatter against it.

Emerald clashed against cerulean as Marick attacked again and again, aggressively exploiting his superior skill and stature to hammer away at her defenses. The lightdaggers whirled and spun around them, sweeping in at irregular intervals to strike when her guard slipped.

In this tournament, he had intentionally gone easy on his Arconan opponents. He had viewed each of his previous matches as an opportunity to train and teach. But Lucine was an Arconae. A veteran of multiple combat tournaments and wars. So he would show her neither leniency nor favor.

But he did not intend to kill her. This fight, like all the others, was an opportunity to teach. To prepare the next generation for what was to come.

Step by step, Lucine was driven backward by Marick’s relentless assault. Little by little her smile faded as she had to devote all her attention toward her defense, not even given enough room to counterattack. Though her eyes lost none of their edge, he could see that she was beginning to tire. Her breath was coming more heavily now, even with her physical abilities being augmented by the Force. It was only a matter of time before she missed a step in their dance.

Perhaps unknowingly, she was falling into a pattern, leaving her right side unguarded for the briefest of moments after deflecting his attacks. A flaw in her defense. Something that would have gone unnoticed by most.

But Marick was not like most others.

He set his foot, launching himself in a slash aimed toward her left side, much as he had done on a couple of occasions before. As he did, one of his daggers arced around from behind, ready to exploit the opening she would inadvertently leave.

She batted his thrust aside, the opening presented itself.

The lightdagger shot forward.

Lucine spun, bringing her blade around to cut the hilt of the dagger in two. It exploded in a shower of sparks as the two pieces clattered uselessly to the ground.

She offered him a sweet smile that was tinged with triumph and weariness.

Lucine felt a surge of triumph as the first lightdagger was destroyed. First Marick’s BD unit, and now one of his weapons. She knew that he was more skilled, and this particular venue offered little that would aid her in the fight against him.

So her plan was simple: rob him of his advantages one by one, and hope that she had enough fortitude to outlast him. At the very least, she would not make the fight easy on him.

She drew upon the Force, drawing some energy away from the effort to maintain her speed and focusing instead on weaving an illusion. A second Lucine darted forward, weapon poised to strike, and she followed quickly behind. She saw Marick step back, his blade moving to deflect first the illusory blow, then the actual one.

The illusion blinked out of existence even as she created another one, a perfect double that moved to stand next to her, both falling into a more aggressive stance.

Both Lucine’s gave a quiet laugh. “You know, darling, I do believe this is the first time we have actually dueled. How interesting that it should be here, of all places.”

“I suppose.” Marick’s eyes darted between the two redheads, doubtlessly trying to differentiate between the doubles. The lightdagger whipped around, darting toward the one on the left even as he slashed at the one on the right.

The two women moved as one. One spun, her cloak flaring outward as she dodged to the side. The plasma blade missed by inches, tearing a hole in the fabric even as her double deflected his attack. The illusion vanished, but two more fictional redheads stepped away from the original.

“You’ve struggled and you’ve fought and you’ve killed for the chance at a life you now get to build,” the three women said, each glancing toward the stands where his family sat. “And yet here you are, risking your life for glory. I suppose some people simply are not made for a peaceful life.”

“It’s not that,” Marick replied as he fell back into a defensive stance, even as the dagger continued to whirl in a deadly circle around them.

The three women tensed, preparing to attack. “Then what is it? Why are you here?”

“I’m here to build a legacy.”

A slow smile curved across three sets of lips as the women nodded in understanding. And then they struck.

I suppose some people simply are not made for a peaceful life.

There was no malicious manipulation lurking behind the words that had been spoken, no Force-laden lilt to the simple statement of suggestion. It struck Marick harder than any mind trick or physical weapon could have. He suddenly felt the restrained weight of his past begin to claw around the iron-clad edges of his painfully sharp memory.

He had been given a way out when Telaris had dismissed him as Voice,a chance at a life away from the allure of politics and power. He had abandoned the anonymity of an assassin. He had defied the will of the Force itself to bring back that which he had lost in Atyiru. He had earned forgiveness for his past folly. He had created a family, a future—but Lucine was right.

He was still here, fighting when he was not needed. Fighting for what, someone else’s dream or desire? Another title to tack onto the ones he’d collected? The Force Lord had nothing left to prove to anyone. Kirra would run into his arms and give him a big hug no matter if he won or lost this fight, or the ones that came after it. All that mattered to her was that he was here. With her.

So who was he doing this for? Himself?

He was shaken from his reverie by three concurrent slashes of Lucine’s lightsabers—one from each direction. There was no more time left to think. Just react. Preternatural reflex took control as Marick pirouetted on the balls of his feet while tightly twirling Resonance around him in a sinuous spiral.

The saberspear’s crackling, cerulean blade phased through the first illusionary lightsaber that it tried to meet before continuing its rotation in an attempt to catch the second. Once again, the saberspear seared through a hologram-like ripple that struck empty air. The third blade, gripped by the real Lucine Vasano, slashed across his midsection.

Marick managed to interpose the shaft of his saberspear with a deft, final twist. Plasma hissed angrily against an alchemically-treated hilt that halted and held the strike at bay. The Exarch snapped his heels down to anchor himself in place on the platform and steadily met the redhead's devilish gaze. Lucine’s face was a perfect mixture of her boundless beauty and ruthlessness.

Focus, he reminded himself. He might have had the advantage in a duel with no obstacles, but Lucine was clever and concise and would never concede willingly until she stood victorious. She leapt backwards with a feline grace, extended her free hand, and funneled her anger and frustration from it all. The lack of arena she had to work with. Marick for not rolling over. But most of all at herself for her distaste for what she knew she was about to do.

While Marick was still recovering, she shot a single, careful streak of seafoam lightning from her fingertips. It darted not towards her opponent, but the remaining satellite saber hovering off to the side. Lightning struck, and the lightdagger trembled and shuddered in place before its crystal was overloaded. It shut down in a spray of sparks before falling to the arena floor with a small clank.

“Fascinating!” Vasnao exclaimed. “It worked!” Whether she was referring to the color of the lightning that she had created matching her wardrobe, or the removal of another part of Marick’s arsenal, the Arcanist was unsure. He had little time to ponder, as the Sith calmly summoned a new trio of hallucinatory doppelgangers. All four of them sheathed their lightsaber and drew out a Westar-34 instead.

Marick thumbed the switch on Resonance’s base and the saberspear retracted into its standard hilt configuration just as the storm of screeching blaster fire enveloped him from all sides. His blade coiled into concentric circles as he spun and deflected the flurry of real and imaginary bolts. Lucine had figured out the weakness to the Force Lord’s danger-sense.

But that was not the only thing that helped the Hapan survive for as long as he had. Between the flashes of light, Marick glanced up towards Arx’s sun hanging high overhead. When his eyes flicked back down to the platform itself, he noted that only one of the Lucine’s was casting a shadow.

Marick took a single, calculated step and redirected one of the corporeal blaster bolts back to its point of origin. Lucine swore as her Westar was thrown from her grip, but countered by hurling a bag of blinding dust in the Hapan’s direction.

Marick made a dismissive gesture with his off-hand and the bag sprayed its contents harmlessly off to the side.

The Sith’s stun grenade followed right behind it.

Marick made another motion with his hand to cast the spherical projectile aside with the Force, but Lucine triggered it while he was still at the edge of its blast radius. The stun grenade detonated, and the Exarch felt his equilibrium shift as his senses became a blanket of discomfort and disconnect.

Vasano capitalized on her opponent's moment of weakness, closed in, and with a quick blur of her hands pried Marick’s lightsaber from his grip. Before he could recover, she chucked Resonance over the edge of the platform and into the void.

The Elder Arcanist regained control of his body over the course of the martial exchange. The Force bent to his will and helped mend the disconnect between his motor functions and awareness. He freed himself of the stun effects, but not in time to catch Lucine before she tactically repositioned out of his reach.

Marick blinked, now down to just a Sith Dagger and some throwing knives. He had been in worse situations. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Biddy, still trying desperately to free himself from POR-7. She would not give him time to reach for the backup saber he kept in his pack. Perhaps...

Vasano readied her lightsaber and this time only summoned two illusionary clones that formed a wedge. This time, none cast shadow.

Impressive.

Marick shrugged, the gesture a stark contrast to his otherwise stoic demeanor.

“Biddy!” he called out.

The little droid managed to scramble free, enough to open his hidden compartment and shoot it out towards his master’s request.

The molded hilt of Marick’s Radiant lightsaber flew through the air, cutting through one illusionary double, but then made a meaty thunk as it collided with the back of the real Lucine’s head.

Vasano grabbed at the spot that had been struck and growled at the flash of pain that flickered across her vision.

Marick actually winced, feeling faint remorse as he resumed recalling his lightsaber to his hand. He ignited the black-cored blade with its ghostly glow and held it in a relaxed grip in front of him.

“At least it’s not painting rocks?” Marick asked carefully, his voice barely touching on a hint of dry humor to try and diffuse the situation. He had not been present for Lucine’s training, but had heard the stories from his wife repeatedly. He was told not to laugh, as soon it would be his turn to teach Kirra the sacred art.

The Force worked in mysterious ways in how it connected all living things within its weave. Marick had trained Atyiru. Atyiru had trained Lucine. While this connected the two fighters through an odd strand of fate, their paths could not have been anymore disparate. They had each forged their own ways.

Regardless of the outcome, Lucine had demonstrated today why she had earned her place among the Arconae by her own perseverance and prowess. Why she had survived when so many around her had died. She had waited for it. She had sacrificed and proven herself worthy in both the eyes of the Brotherhood as its champion and the Shadow Clan as its leader.

Which meant that this fight, this tournament, meant just as much to Marick as it did to anyone else. It was part of his history, his story. While there may have been countless others who deserved to stand where he now stood, Marick was the one that was here. He had earned his place, his part of history, and he was allowed to pursue something for the sake of pride. To push himself to his limits and to see just how far he could go.

His legacy was still to be written. And that would be enough.

The two Arconae circled one another like a pair of apex predators poised to strike at the slightest twitch of motion. Lucine was cross, but she burned her inner fury like fuel as she refused to let this slight go unanswered.

“A final amendment to the original deal,” Marick offered.

“Do tell, darling,” the redhead replied through controlled breathing. Her copper curls had started to fray from sweat and the humidity that her armor couldn’t wick away.

“If you win, I will paint rocks in the Citadel garden in front of all the Journeymen,” he started. “But if I win, you will help Kirra with her rock painting,” he offered her a small smile that was hidden beneath the matted veil of his ashen hair so that only she could see it.

Though the pleasant smile never left her face, Lucine’s eyes narrowed slightly at his words. It did not surprise her that he was aware of the hours spent painting rocks as part of her training. She had spent those hours in mind-numbing boredom as she applied layer after layer of paint, even as her former master applied layer after layer of heavy-handed lessons.

She had learned a lot from Atyiru, but she viewed the time spent painting rocks as a lesson in patience and managing tedium. And now, here Marick was, wanting her to repeat the same experience, only from the opposite side. To teach his daughter, of all people.

What’s more, the offer was accompanied by one of his rare smiles. The former Voice was not the sort to wield a smile like a weapon, indicating to her that his words had no malicious intent.

“Why?” she asked at last. “I would think either you or Atyiru would be better people to teach Kirra such a thing.”

Marick’s shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. “There are worse ways to build a legacy.”

The redhead pressed her lips together at his words. He hadn’t answered her question, but she suspected that was all the response she would get. “Oh, very well,” she said at last, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “I am going to enjoy watching you paint rocks for the Journeymen.”

And it would be a nice bonus, even if it was not the goal. No, Lucine’s ambitions were much higher, and this tournament was only a small step in achieving them.

The two combatants continued to circle one another, their lightsabers humming quietly. Each time Marick shifted the tip of his blade a fraction of an inch, Lucine would adjust her defense accordingly. Each time Lucine shifted to the left or the right, Marick’s eyes followed her, missing nothing.

Off to the side, the two droids continued in their private conflict. Biddy screeched as POR-7 clung to his head with his spindly legs, wildly tapping at the backpack droid’s photoreceptors. Biddy raced around the platform, juking from side to side in an attempt to shake the Seeker droid free.

Biddy scuttled between the two combatants, causing Lucine to break eye contact long enough to glance down at him, a distraction that lasted only a moment.

That was when Marick struck.

His movement was fluid as he stepped forward in a textbook overhead strike. Lucine confidently moved to defect the blow, but at the last moment, he thumbed the ignition switch even as he continued with the downward movement. The ghostly blade flickered off just long enough to get inside her guard before flaring to life once more.

Sparks flew as Lucine brought her arm up, pushing the plasma blade aside even as she responded with a riposte of her own. Marick twisted to the side, avoiding the blow even as he shoved his free hand toward her.

An invisible wall of Force drove Lucine back, even as her senses screamed of impending danger. Not from Marick, but from something behind her. She shifted her focus, adjusting the current of energy in her legs to grant her added strength instead of added speed.

Her foot landed on the stone and she pushed off of it into a backflip. Down became up briefly, and a glance upward showed her where part of the platform had dissolved away, providing her with an excellent view of the void below.

She landed on the opposite side of the newly created hole much less gracelessly than she would have liked, the heel of her boot skidding on fine particles of sand and nearly sending her tumbling into the darkness.

Lucine regained her balance even as a threatening hum met her ears. Moving by instinct, she swung her lightsaber up to narrowly deflect the pale blade that hurtled toward her chest, wielded by invisible hands.

Marick’s lightsaber was a spectral blur as it slashed and jabbed at her, forcing her to fall into a defensive stance right at the edge of the hole he had created. Lucine felt a fine sheen of sweat forming on her forehead as she deflected and parried each attack.

She knew that this was untenable. It appeared that Marick could keep up his telekinetic lightsaber combat for an extended period even as he wore away at her defenses. Gritting her teeth, she took one step back, and then another, begrudgingly ceding ground to him.

The picture of calm, Marick advanced one step for every step she took backward. She waited until he was even with the newly minted opening. Her plasma shield flared to life, causing the ghostly blade to slam against it even as she lashed her free hand toward Biddy. POR-7 only had a scant moment to leap off before the backpack droid was hurtling in the air toward his owner.

Marick’s eyebrows lifted in surprise as he turned toward the droid projectile. It slammed into him with enough force to drive the breath from his lungs and knock him back a step. But not enough. The heel of his back foot rested inches from the hole.

The black-core blade extinguished as his attention momentarily shifted from it, granting her the opening she needed. She grabbed the weapon as it started to fall and threw it through the opening and into the void below.

She felt a surge of triumph as she leveled her lightsaber on him. “Yield, darling.”

Marick narrowed his eyes at her, even as Biddy quorked something in Binary that sounded less than complimentary.

The redhead could not bring herself to care. Like Marick, she was here to write her legacy. Those who were unwilling to seize on any advantage were often doomed to be bit-players in other peoples’ stories. Lucine was determined to avoid that fate.

Marick remained silent, his face impassive even as he took a step back and turned his body to the side. He was shielding Biddy from threat. “I will not yield.”

Lucine sighed inwardly even as she moved to close the distance between them, skirting the hole in the platform and putting it behind her. She was careful to advance close enough to him that he could not simply shove her in. “Be reasonable. I do not wish to harm you in front of your family, but I will if I have to. You have no weapons left. Yield.”

Marick took a couple more steps backward. “No.”

Lucine heard the granite in his voice and knew that he had never and would never admit defeat. Hells, he had defied Death itself to bring back the love of his life. Sheer tenacity, even in the face of losing everything. It was a trait she recognized in him; one they both shared.

“Very well,” she said at last, inclining her head slightly in a gesture of respect. She held her weapon aloft, ready to deal the deciding blow. “It has been an honor.”

The sound of a lightsaber flaring to life behind her caught her attention, combined with a warning from the Force. She ducked to the side even as the ghostly blade shot past her to land in Marick’s hand.

Apparently, he had not lost his telekinetic grip on it after all.

He lunged, sending her darting back before another wall of invisible force slammed into her. Stars exploded in front of her eyes as she stumbled back, only for her foot to find nothing but air.

Lucine cried out in surprise even as she tumbled backward, but managed to grab the edge at the last moment. She clung to it, her body hanging over the abyss even as her emerald blade vanished into it.

Marick moved to stand over her, holding Biddy in one hand and his ghostly blade in the other. “Yield.”

The redhead stared up at him, even as she felt her fingers sliding over the sand-covered stone. She gave him a sweet smile that did not touch her eyes. “You know I will not do that, darling.”

He shrugged in response and twisted his blade to angle it downward, intending to shear through the stone that she held on to. He lifted his lightsaber to make the final cut—

Lucine let go.

The redhead did not make a sound as she fell, leaving Marick standing alone on the platform. But her smile never left her face as her body vanished into the abyss.

This was her story. She would choose how it ended.