Ochi closed the gap between himself and her husband in a single fast movement—and plunged the dagger into Dathan’s stomach, right to the hilt.

Dathan gasped, his body sagging against Ochi.

“No!” Miramir backed away as Dathan’s body slid to the decking.

This is how it ends.

Miramir thought of Rey. She wished her daughter to have a good life, that one day someone would take her from Jakku, even if Miramir knew now it would not be her. Because

this is how it ends, and it ends now, but at least Rey you are safe, and maybe one day you will remember me and you will remember your father, and feel our love for you forever, but now you are safe and you must be patient but you are safe, my love, you are safe, you are safe, you are safe, you are

She didn’t feel the dagger, but she did feel the pain, and she felt something else, too.

Hunger.

Thirst.

She looked into the eyes of Ochi of Bestoon and as the light went out in her own, she smiled at him, one final act of defiance, one final gesture of non-compliance. Ochi of Bestoon had killed her, but he hadn’t won.

He would never win.

—
The blade drank the spilled blood. Ochi held the woman upright, her face close to his, her mouth twisted into a cruel smile.

The rage inside him was a supernova and in his cybernetic ears was nothing but a wall of endless white noise, so loud he wanted to rip his implant out right there and then.

No one makes a fool of Ochi of Bestoon. No one.

He pushed the blade, pushed again, and then he slowly, almost gently, let the woman’s body down onto the deck. He kept his hand on the dagger’s hilt, the blade still buried inside her. She lay on the decking, her eyes still open, the smile frozen on her cooling lips.


Star Wars Shadow of The Sith Chapter 61