Lost Tribe of the Sith 05 - Star Wars Purgatory

the bed of straw he used himself. She had no idea where he’d slept that night, if he’d slept at all.
    The second evening, after an untouched dinner, she’d let it all spill out: everything she’d learned in her trip to Tahv. The leaders of the two factions that could never agree on a Grand Lord had indeed fallen to their elderly compromise candidate. The event had given her minions cause to decapitate—literally—the leaderships of the Red and Gold factions.
    Ori’s mother still lived, her sources assured her, though in the clutches of the vengeful Venn. It was too late for Candra to save her career, but she might yet save her life, if she said the right things about the right people. Like Donellan, Candra had waited too long to choose a side and to put herself forward as a successor. A year had seemed like so little time to be a High Lord. But for Venn, whose every breath was a miracle, the need to outlive her rivals was paramount.
    On learning that she’d been condemned to slavery, Ori had dashed to her hidden uvak and flown immediately to the only safe place she knew. After a long moment’s hesitation, Jelph had welcomed her—although he’d been less sure of what to do with Shyn. As slaves, neither of them could own an uvak. Remembering the composting barn that had once served as a stable, Ori had urged him to hide the creature there, behind the stalls storing manure. Initially uncertain, Jelph had relented under her pressure. Already feeling sick, she’d heaved as soon as the door to the vile place was opened. She did it again the second night, after relating the full tale of her tiny but important family’s downfall.
    Jelph had been caring and helpful those times, with his cool river water and washrags handy. Now, in the twilight of the third evening, she was
really
testing the limits of his hospitality. Feeling better, she’d spent the entire day stamping around the farm, going over the events in her mind and plotting her family’s return to power,even if the family now was just her. At supper, she’d tested both his knowledge and his patience.
    “I don’t understand,” Jelph said, scraping the bottom of the orojo-shell bowl. “I thought the Tribe expected people to want each other’s jobs.”
    “Yes, yes,” Ori said, cross-legged on the floor. “But we don’t kill to take them. We kill to keep them.”
    “There’s a distinction?”
    Ori dropped her empty bowl to the floor of the hut.
Some dining table
, she thought. “You really
don’t
know anything about your people, do you? The Tribe is a meritocracy. Whoever’s best at a job can have it—provided that a public challenge is made. Dernas never made a public challenge to the Grand Lord. Neither did Pallima.”
    “Nor did your mother,” he offered, kneeling to retrieve her bowl. He looked slightly startled when she used the Force to levitate it into his hand. “Thanks.”
    “Look, it’s really simple,” she said, standing and making a futile effort to brush the dirt from her uniform. “If you get to your rivals before they’re ready, you can do anything you want—including assassination.”
    His brow furrowed as he looked up at her. “It sounds like a bloodbath.”
    “Normally we keep it low-key, for order’s sake. Poisonings. A
shikkar
blade in the gut.”
    “For order’s sake.”
    She stood in the doorway and glared. “Are you going to criticize, or are you going to help me?”
    “I’m sorry,” Jelph said, rising. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” He shook his head. “It’s just that the thought of having rules for this sort of thing seems, well, odd. There are rules for breaking the rules.”
    Ori walked to the bank and looked west. The sun appeared to be sinking into the river itself, setting thewater ablaze with orange. It
was
a beautiful place, and she’d fantasized about stolen nights here before. But this wasn’t what she had imagined at all. She wasn’t going to be able to plot her return from this place. And she’d need more help than a strapping farmhand.
    “I have to go back,” she said. “My mother was framed. Whoever did this to us will pay—and I’ll have my name back.” She looked back at him, gnawing on a stalk of something he’d pulled from the ground. “I have to go back!”
    “I wouldn’t do that,” he said, joining her at the riverside. “I suspect your Grand Lord did all of this herself.”
    Ori looked at him, amazed. “What would you know about it?”
    “Not much,