[Look To The Stars] Chapter 74: The Builder’s Testament (Patreon)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all rights for character, plots and settings belong to GRRM and George Lucas/Disney. I have no ownership.

A/N: This one was a hard one to get right, but I hope you enjoy it!

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Year 299 AC/8 ABY

Winterfell, The North

Luke leaned forward as the Falcon passed over Winterfell's outer wall. Beyond the battlements, the other vessel stood in the Great Courtyard, and he was glad Mara was still there, whatever questions he meant to ask about Bran's part in getting her out of her cell. She had brought all three children home.

Chewbacca rumbled from the pilot's seat, and Luke glanced toward the cockpit door. Robb had already gone towards the entrance, in nervous anticipation. "Put us down, Chewie."

The disturbance beneath the castle was stronger now, a persistent pressure through the stone. Luke followed it while Chewbacca brought the Falcon down in the outer yard, clear of the stables. He had expected the dead. It was the small, frightened presences gathered above them that made him hurry after Robb.

He left Chewbacca to finish shutting down the ship. By the time he reached the ramp, Robb was halfway down it and the household was coming through the inner gate, cloaked against the cold. Lady Catelyn reached her son first. She caught his face between her hands, turning him a little toward the light, and Robb stood patiently while she looked him over.

"You came," she said.

"Of course we came. When Bran called—" Arya struck him around the waist before he could finish. He laughed and caught her up, taking a step back under the force of the embrace. For a moment she held him hard; then she leaned away to look past him at the ramp.

"Where's Jon? Isn't he with you?"

"He's all right. He still had prisoners to judge when we left King's Landing, but he said he'd follow as soon as he could." Robb set her down, keeping a hand on her shoulder as Bran pressed in beside her. "I'll tell you about it later. I promise."

Sansa waited for room, then put her arms around him. Robb bent to kiss her hair and held her until she drew back. When she turned to Luke, she had already begun the explanation she must have been preparing for him. "Master Luke, I went with them because I thought I could keep them out of trouble. I did try to make them listen, but—"

Luke raised both hands. "I know, Sansa. We can talk about the rest later. I'm proud of you for trying to look after them."

She took a breath as though she had more to say, then let it go. "They don't make it easy."

Before Luke could answer, she looked past him and fell quiet with a deathly expression. Chewbacca had ducked through the hatch and was straightening on the ramp, his head well above the men waiting below. Conversation stopped along the nearest part of the yard. One of the household guards moved his hand toward his sword, then hesitated when Robb went to meet the newcomer.

Lady Catelyn drew Rickon close. Sansa stepped nearer to her, staring, while Arya caught Bran's sleeve and pulled him forward. "Look at him! He's so hairy!"

Bran followed willingly enough, though he slowed a few paces from the ramp, his gaze traveling from Chewbacca's face down to the massive paws at the Wookiee's sides. At the foot of the metal Chewie halted and caught Luke's eye, giving the family a moment to take his measure.

"This is Chewbacca," Luke told them. "He's an old friend of mine."

"He's with us, Mother," Robb added. He came to stand beside Chewbacca, who rested a hand on his shoulder and rumbled a greeting. Robb looked rather small beneath it, but his ease seemed to reassure the men gathering.

"Can he understand us?" Bran asked.

"He understands you. But he has his own language."

Rickon had been craning around his mother's arm for a better look. While Lady Catelyn listened to Luke, he ducked beneath her hand and ran. She reached for him, but he was already at Chewbacca's leg, gripping two handfuls of fur and planting a boot on the broad foot below.

"Rickon, stop!" Lady Catelyn hurried after him with both arms out. Chewbacca looked down, then gave her a soft rumble. He added something more to the boy, who loosened his fists and turned toward his mother.

“He says I can.” Rickon tipped his head back to look up at Chewbacca. "I'll be careful."

Catelyn stopped with her arms outstretched, looking from Rickon to Chewbacca and then to Luke. "Is that what he said?"

"He... did." Luke found himself staring at Rickon. Chewbacca was looking at him now, plainly expecting an explanation, and Luke could only look back. Rickon had replied as readily as if Robb had spoken to him.

The boy held up his arms, and Chewbacca lifted him to one shoulder, supporting his back while Lady Catelyn stayed close enough to catch a dangling boot.

"How did you know what he said?" Bran asked, coming around to see his brother's face.

"Hmm?" Rickon was still playing with Chewie's fur. "I heard him."

Arya followed Bran for a closer look, and Sansa came more cautiously to her mother's side. Luke would have liked Chewie to try another question. He was still deciding how to ask it without turning the boy into the center of an examination when a dull blow sounded from the crypt door.

Ser Rodrik came to him with his helm under his arm. "Ser Luke. The crypt door's barred, but they've been at it for some time. I've men holding it shut now, and I don't know how much longer they'll hold."

Luke went to the inner gate. Across the courtyard, three men had their shoulders against the crypt door. He took hold of it with the Force and held it against its frame.

"You can let go," he called. "I've got it."

The men eased away from the door. The blows continued, but the wood no longer shook. Behind Luke, Catelyn held out her arms for Rickon, and Chewbacca handed him down despite the boy's reluctance.

Mara stood beneath the gate arch, her arms folded against the cold. Luke turned to her, trying to reconcile the woman he had questioned in a cell with the one who had taken three children into a raid and brought them back alive.

"How did Bran talk you into taking him?"

“He offered me my freedom. My ship, my weapons, the right to leave.” She watched Luke as she added, “Then he said he’d throw me into a wall again if I broke my word. Is that one of your lessons, Skywalker?”

Luke studied Bran, who pressed Rickon for another answer while Catelyn adjusted the youngest boy on her hip. He had taught the boy to trust his Force abilities, but he would have to find out what made Bran think he had the right to use them that way.

Luke turned and found Mara still watching him curiously, so he let out a slow breath. “I’ll speak to him.”

"It was a joke, Skywalker." Mara glanced toward Bran. "He saw something—" She broke off. "The raid. I caught a few images while he was telling me about it. Let's say they deserved what they got."

Luke had heard Bran's account over the comlink. He could tell she was keeping something back, but he chose not to press her.

"I'm glad you brought them back," he said.

Mara gave a small nod and moved away from the arch. "I'm coming down with you."

"I thought you'd want to get back to your ship."

"I would. Unfortunately, your students have a habit of going where they shouldn’t." Her attention had returned to Bran. He was looking past Rodrik's men toward the crypt, and she watched him until Robb called him back. "I’ve spent enough time dragging them out of trouble. Don't want all the effort to go to waste."

Her ship was waiting beyond the gate. If she wanted to be rid of the children, she could have been aboard it already.

“These kids can be a bit of a handful,” he said.

“You have no idea.” She looked back at him and caught the beginning of his smile. “What?”

Robb was already coming to meet them, his hand on the lightsaber at his belt. He glanced at Mara, then past Luke toward the barred entrance. "Are we ready?"

“Nothing.” Luke turned toward the crypt. "Let's go."

Mara fell in behind Robb as they crossed the yard. Luke kept the door pressed against its frame while the dead battered the other side. Small, hurried steps sounded behind them. He felt Bran's determination before he even turned, and the fear that sat just beneath it.

Mara turned so fast her cloak snapped. "No. Back to your mother. Now."

"I helped close it—"

"You did help," Luke said. "I'm glad you were there. But we can manage it now, and I want you to stay with your mother."

Bran looked toward Robb, who shook his head. Lady Catelyn reached them with Rickon on her hip and closed her free hand over Bran's shoulder. She drew him back to the girls at the inner gate. Rodrik stayed with them, well back from the crypt.

The guards waited to one side of the door. Luke stopped a few paces away. "Stand clear."

The guards fell back without needing another word. Luke lifted the bar with the Force, then released his hold on the door. It swung open and the dead spilled out, falling over one another to get to the living as more packed the stairs behind. He could hear Rickon crying now, being the only one who voiced their fears.

Luke's blade ignited as the first hands reached for him. He severed both wrists in a single stroke that continued through the chest. He caught the body in the Force before it could collapse against his legs, hurling it aside. Another rushed through the opening, its broken teeth snapping at his face.

A shot cracked past Luke's shoulder as Mara cleared his right, dropping one of the dead smoking across the sill. Beside her, Chewbacca fired into the doorway, the heavy bowcaster bolt knocking another body tumbling down the steps. Luke severed the neck of the corpse in front of him and pressed forward before it hit the floor.

When three more forced their way through together, cutting off Mara's shot at the dead following them, Luke seized them in the Force and slammed them into the doorjamb, leaving the opposite side open for her bolts. Their heels scraped the paving as they fought to turn on him, but he hewed through the nearest, hurled the severed pieces aside, and released the remainder directly into the stroke of his blade.

A severed head struck against his boot, its teeth still snapping. Luke flicked it aside toward the wall and glanced behind him. Robb sheared the arms from a torso pulling itself toward the gate, then stepped across its back to meet another. Beyond him, Rodrik had the guards arrayed arround Lady Catelyn and the children, with their swords ready for anything that went past him.

Something caught Robb's ankle. He looked down and cut through the wrist before the hand could pull him off balance. Luke drew the loose pieces away from his feet, dragging them across the stones toward the bodies already twitching against the wall. A shot cracked past on his right. Mara had taken an arm from a wight reaching over the threshold; Luke caught the thing by its rotting clothes and hauled it out into his next cut.

Chewbacca fired into the gap, and Luke reached the doorway. Two bodies lay across the upper steps with more struggling to climb over them. He drove the whole tangle backward with the Force. Bone struck stone down the stairs, and the rush broke apart below him.

A brief lull cleared the threshold. Shifting to the side, Luke bundled the twitching wreckage against the masonry to clear the way. Mara and Chewie kept up their fire at the hands that clawed outward until the flames finally took them. Deeper below, the motion of further dead pressed against his senses.

"Chewie, hold the entrance with them," Luke said. "Keep everyone up here until we're done."

Chewbacca's rising growl signaled both compliance and a plain warning Luke knew well. Taking a lantern from a guard, Robb followed down the descent while Mara brought up the rear behind him. Luke led them by keeping his blade forward against the dark of the steps. Before they reached the bottom, one of the dead jumped into their way but a quick strike drove the body backward into a heap.

Robb placed the lantern on the stone and gripped his lightsaber with both hands. To his left, one of the dead dragged its upper body out from under a fallen tomb lid, its legs pinned fast. Robb severed the reaching arm, but the dead weight tore itself loose at the waist and lunged for his legs. Giving ground by a step, Robb drove the blade straight into the shoulder, cutting the body in half.

Luke felt four wights approaching along the passage and moved to meet them, their blue eyes coming into view between the stone kings while Mara followed with her blaster raised to watch the gaps along the tombs.

He let the four come clear of the statues, then threw his lightsaber.

The blade spun through the first pair at the waist, cutting both in half. Luke turned it upward through the chest of the wight behind them, then swept it across the last one's middle. Severed torsos struck the floor, their hands already reaching to drag them onward. He called the hilt back into his palm, lifted the writhing remains with the Force, and crushed them. Fingers still flexed among the broken bones, though the bodies could no longer drag themselves across the floor.

Mara kept her blaster raised, but her eyes followed the bodies. “Dammit, did you even need our help at all?”

"Remember Robb, always be ready for what you didn't foresee," Luke said, ignoring Mara and casting the broken remnants toward the wall.

"Yes, Master," Robb replied, hacking at any moving parts. Luke could feel Mara glaring at the back of his head, but she turned her focus back to the passage and the work waiting for them.

They worked their way deeper past the broken vaults. A fallen slab had pinned a wight against the wall. With the Force, Luke lifted the stone and drew the wight clear for Robb to cut in two. As Luke set the slab aside, light from his green blade caught a strip of metal behind the broken masonry.

Mara holstered her blaster and crouched beside the gap. She brushed mortar from the exposed edge.

“That not something you see in a backwater world.”

Luke extinguished his blade and hooked the hilt to his belt. He knelt beside Mara, and by the blue glow of Robb’s saber they pulled away the shattered stone. Beneath it was a metal coffer roughly the size of a travel pack, set into a recess in the wall. Its cover was pitted beneath the dirt, and white weirwood roots ran through the gaps between the casing and the surrounding masonry.

At that moment, the holocron grew warm against Luke’s hip. He drew it from its pouch, and Mara leaned closer to examine the cracked faces.

“Is that a holocron? Where did you get that?” She asked curiously.

“Right here on this world.”

Mara looked up at him with suspicion, then watched as he brought the cube closer to the exposed box. It grew warmer. When he drew it back, it began to cool, but no light or image appeared. “It’s reacting to this box, even when the recording matrix is still damaged. I just don’t know why.”

A weirwood had sent its roots coiling about the box, and Luke bent close to study them. The last time he and Artoo had tried to mend the holocron, it had shown them a weirwood with red leaves and a face in the pale bark, though only for a moment. He couldn't say whether the holocron was reacting because of the tree or the machinery.

While Luke tucked the holocron into its pouch and braced the metal cover, Mara pressed the latch until it gave way with a sharp click. Inside the coffer sat a smaller machine, secured on brackets that had been cut down to fit. A dark screen occupied its front, with several controls along one edge and a shallow sliding tray beneath it.

A cable ran from the machine into the coffer’s thick base. There, separate from the screen and tray, lay three pieces of polished black glass.

Mara checked the brackets, then traced a finger down the cable, stopping short of the opening where dust the cover had loosed hung still above the tray. She blew at it, but Luke’s gloved fingers tightened on the cover as the grains did not stir.

“Stasis.” She looked along the edge of the compartment. “The field’s still running.”

Luke leaned in. The housing carried scratches from past handling, yet even the bare contacts remained free of grime. Whoever had placed it here had planned for it to endure.

Robb's murmur carried his disbelief. "This was down here all this time? Jon and I used to play down here when we were young, and neither of us ever found anything like this."

Turning his attention to the black glass, Luke felt the Force held within it, a steady flow passing through the machinery and around the compartment as he followed the current to find the part of the binding that held the contents still.

“Wait a moment.” He loosened the part of the binding that held the compartment still, and the dust spilled onto the tray. Mara reached past him and pushed a stud on the device. A flicker of light ran over the screen, then steadied into a pale glow.

The small display filled with rising lines of Aurebesh. Luke tapped the first entry, bringing a familiar voice out of the unit. On the screen, the image settled into a dark-haired man in Jedi robes, who stated his name and rank in the antique dialect of Basic Luke had previously strained to follow. Luke halted the recording.

“Meet Brandon Stark,” Luke said. “The Jedi whose account I found.”

“Bran the Builder? A Jedi?” Robb watched the man on the screen for a few moments. “How could that have been forgotten?”

“It was a long time ago, Robb. Eight thousand years, by your histories. He came here following a disturbance in the Force.”

“Eight thousand years.” Mara leaned closer to the display. “There wasn’t a word about a Jedi in the records I was given.” She looked at Luke. “Why is it that this planet and its inhabitants keep getting stranger?”

“The Force works in mysterious ways,” Luke replied. He could almost feel the eyeroll but she settled beside Luke to listen.

Resuming the recording, Luke recognized the warning he and Jon had heard in the Citadel, translating aloud for Robb as the speaker recounted the war with the fallen, the alliance with the Children, and the decision to raise the Wall.

“But to power such a construction and to make it last...” Brandon’s face grew grave. “I will not survive it.”

Luke leaned closer. Brandon went on to describe how dragonglass could destroy the dead. He remembered what came next but the holocron had failed before Brandon could finish that sentence.

“But time is what we lack. To stop the Night King himself, you must destroy the apparatus that preserves his mind.”

The view shifted to an icy river near the end of the thirteen-year war. Fire and light swept in from both banks toward the commander of the dead, who stood taller than any man until Brandon slew him. Even with the creature gone, the dead beyond pressed on, though the unified front broke into isolated packs guided by lesser handlers. Over the shifting images, Brandon continued his account, detailing the events after the commander's destruction that had bought his allies time to move people south, gather food, and repair their defenses. The separate groups remained dangerous, but they were no longer advancing as one army.

The next view came from a height. The bodies on the slope were hard to make out, though their movement was clear enough. They were advancing together again.

“I believed him dead,” Brandon said. “But an apparatus in the far north had preserved his mind. When he returned, it was in another body.”

“The Children traced the connection north,” Brandon continued. “They believed they could guide us to the apparatus. We would have to reach it and destroy its core.”

“The other signal!” Mara leaned closer to the screen, then glanced at Luke. “That could be what I picked up,” she added, more evenly.

Luke paused the recording and looked at her. He smiled at the eagerness she’d been so quick to conceal, then turned back to the screen. He had felt that will battering the Wall. How much of the power behind it belonged to the creature, and how much to whatever was keeping it alive?

“I want to see those readings,” Luke said.

“So do I,” Mara replied. “I didn’t know what I was looking at before.”

Robb looked between them. “Then why did they build the Wall? If they knew where the enemy was?”

That answer eluded Luke as well. Brandon had possessed greater knowledge than any of them, yet he'd died during the Wall's raising.

“Let’s hear him out.”

Luke resumed the recording, and the display shifted to a sketch. A camp sat to the south, with a guarded path leading north toward a mass of roots. The hidden core lay somewhere beyond.

“The Children went ahead of my men to open a passage. But the roots closed behind them as they worked their way inward. They learned from each attempt, yet they could not keep a path open long enough for us to reach the core and return,” Brandon continued.

The sketch marked the approach south of the roots.

"While the Children worked, my guards held the path back to camp. We were losing men as the dead pressed us hard. Then a messenger came reporting that the dead were gathering around the shelter. Its defenders would not last the days our guides might still need. I could not tell them how long it would take us to reach the core."

As Brandon spoke, more wights made their presence known, shambling from a deeper passage in the crypt. Luke glanced at them and closed one hand. Their bodies collapsed inward with a crunch of bone, and he turned back to the display.

“I brought the guides home, and those of my guard who lived.”

The recording ended. They could use the ships to get a closer look at the north, but first Luke needed to see what else Brandon had recorded. He returned to the list and selected an entry about the preservation field.

The recording shifted to a close view of the inscription inside the lid. Beside it appeared a drawing of another inscription, with several matching characters. Luke glanced down at the marks in front of him. They were still clear in the metal, though he couldn’t read them.

“The coffer I recovered on this world is Rakatan. Its markings agree with the examples in my ship’s records of the Infinite Empire.”

Looking at the casing, he remembered his father’s recording sending him beyond Rakata Prime in search of the relic Palpatine wanted, never expecting to hear the name again under Winterfell. His father had spoken of a relic that offered immortality. Luke looked back at the screen, wondering whether the apparatus that preserved the Night King was what he had come here to find.

“The black glass in the lower housing is what the Children call dragonglass. It stores the Force, and the machinery draws on it to sustain a preservation field. The field draws very little so I hope they will preserve these records long after I am gone.”

Brandon’s hand entered the image, indicating the fittings around the glass. “I can keep the ancient assembly working, but I have yet to reproduce its power cells. That being said, I believe the dragonglass is the key.”

Luke gave Robb the practical sense of what Brandon had said. When the voice faded out, he worked back to a previous log on the Children. Brandon formed on the screen inside a cramped workspace set round with gear. As the man went on speaking, faces of the Children wavered into the light.

The first face reminded him of Master Yoda—the same broad brow and set of the eyes, though the face was narrower and the ears shorter. Luke leaned closer, watching for the next.

In a vision, Master Yoda had shown him figures moving through cities of living wood, speaking of a home he'd never mentioned in life. Luke had wondered about the connection ever since. Now he studied each face, trying to pull more from those brief glimpses.

Mara caught the shift in him and asked, “You’ve seen them before?”

Luke paused the recording. “No. They just... remind me of my teacher.” But Mara's next question caught even him off guard.

"Your teacher? My information says Obi-Wan Kenobi was a human male."

“What? No, not Obi-Wan.” He took a moment before adding, “Grandmaster Yoda. He trained Jedi for centuries but he died just before Endor.”

Robb studied the images. “How did the Children reach the stars?”

“I don’t know if they’re related. I never knew where his people came from.” Luke looked at the first face again. Master Yoda came to mind, leaning on his stick in those old logs. Luke had been so focused on learning that he'd never thought to ask about his teacher's life before. He felt the ache of wanting to show Yoda these faces, to ask about his home, and let himself feel it for a moment. “I wouldn’t have become the Jedi I am now without him.”

Luke resumed the recording, watching the images shift in silence while Robb settled against the broken facing and Mara remained quiet.

When it finished, Luke selected another entry. Brandon spoke of trying to store a recording in dragonglass, work he'd taken up after failing to reach the Jedi Council. His voice came in tired bursts over diagrams, each one marking another failed trial.

The diagrams showed a narrow frame for holding dragonglass. Mara spread a cloth from her pocket across her knees, then retrieved the matching frame and two loose specimens from the tray under the recorder's screen. One piece bore a polished groove, while the other was cloudy from a previous trial. The fitted glass in the coffer’s base stayed where it was.

“The glass still holds its charge when the message has become unreadable,” Brandon said. “The Children’s bindings endure in it, but I have yet to preserve words without damaging them each time they are read.”

Artoo had found how readily the glass took in energy, but his reader had drawn almost nothing back out. Luke looked again at the three fitted pieces. If the histories were right, the charge Brandon had left in them had kept the preservation field running for eight thousand years. Now it was powering the recorder, too. He returned to the list, looking through titles that traced Brandon’s attempts to make his own power cells, bind messages into the glass, and communicate through glass candles.

He was reaching for the next recording when he heard footsteps deeper in the passage they had yet to clear. Something stumbled against a tomb and fell, then began dragging itself along the floor. He drew his hand back from the screen and looked towards the entrance as more footsteps followed. He had followed one entry into the next, but the readings that might lead them to the apparatus were aboard Mara’s ship.

“We’re taking this with us,” he said. “Put the glass back in the tray.”

Mara folded the cloth around the frame and specimens and slid them back into the tray. She switched off the recorder, closed the cover and secured its latch. By the light of Robb’s blade, Luke worked the coffer free of the roots and eased it out of its recess.

He got to his feet, stiff from kneeling, with the coffer in his arms and offered Mara his free hand. She took it and pulled herself up, brushing stone dust from her trousers before drawing her blaster.

Mara had helped them, but she was still Thrawn’s agent. Luke turned to Robb. “Keep this safe. We’ll go through the rest when we have time.”

Robb settled the box beneath his left arm, keeping his blade clear of it. Luke unhooked his own saber and ignited it as they moved towards the sound.

Luke met the first two dead at the turn. He cut the first through the middle, then swept his blade back through the second as with the Force, he crushed their severed remains. Mara fired past his shoulder at a third farther along the passage.

Mara watched the darkness beyond the fire for a few breaths before lowering her blaster. “How much farther do these passages go?” she asked Robb. “If there’s another way out—”

Her words cut short. The alarm hit Luke through the Force as her right arm rose, turning the blaster toward him. She caught her own wrist with her left hand and tried to drag it down, shoulders tight with the effort.

“Skywalker—” He caught the weapon in the Force before it finished turning, directing the muzzle towards the wall while Mara struggled to lower her arm.

“Drop it!” Robb set the coffer behind his feet and started towards her, his blade coming up. His eyes were on the blaster, and Luke could see that he meant to get between them.

“Robb, stay back. She’s fighting it.” Luke kept the muzzle turned towards the stone as the boy halted. Mara was bent over her arm now, trying to force it down with the weight of her body.

Robb looked from her to Luke with his blade still raised. “What’s making her do that?” Before Luke could answer, a voice he knew reached him through her struggle.

Kill Luke Skywalker.

A sick chill tightened in Luke's stomach, dragging him straight back to the deck of the second Death Star, paralyzed while the Emperor stood watching him suffer. The smoky crypt vanished until Mara caught her breath in a ragged gasp, her fingers losing their hold on her wrist. He brought himself back to the stones at once. As her left hand came across to seize the blaster, Luke bore down harder on the weapon to keep it pinned.

“The Emperor,” he said.

Mara looked up sharply. “You can hear him too?”

His nod broke her expression open, her fingers slipping from the metal as the weapon fought his binding and she fixed him with a look of raw fury. “Get out of my head!”

“I haven’t touched your mind.” He stepped forward, and her recoil was strong enough to halt him before her warning was half spoken. He held the weapon safely turned away while she twisted free; she feared him, and she feared whatever was waking inside her, and he could hardly blame her for either.

“He’s dead.” She dragged her wrist across her body, trying to brace it against her chest, but her elbow began to rise again. “He’s dead!” The words came through clenched teeth, almost lost beneath the command Luke could still hear.

“Mara, I can feel you holding him back. Let me try to help.” He waited while she struggled, resisting the urge to move closer but he kept his distance as she fought to bring her arm down.

She kept her face turned away, like someone who thought she could hide the rest of the struggle from him. Instead, her arm broke violently upward, and she turned her gaze straight into his.

“Then do it!”

Luke reached towards the command and he heard the same vicious voice he remembered, his own name driven through Mara’s resistance. The Emperor had been dead when Luke left that station so hearing him now brought back an anger that made it difficult to attend to anything beyond the voice. He wanted to tear it out of her. He pressed against it, searching for something he could take hold of, and Mara jerked under the effort.

“Stop. You’re pulling at me.” She said with her breathing harsh. Luke eased away at once, though he kept the blaster fixed as it began to turn. He could feel the order, but his attempt to seize it had caught her resistance too.

Beneath the command, Mara fought for breath, repeatedly gaining ground and losing it. For an instant he was looking up at the Emperor, aware of small hands clasped tightly behind his back and the effort of standing perfectly still. Palpatine was studying him, and with the image came an eagerness for his approval that Luke had never felt. Mara’s cry broke through it, and he drew back. Luke anchored where she held, lending strength.

She stiffened, sensed his steady presence and after a moment, lowered her arm a little. Mara looked at him, surprise briefly breaking through the strain in her face. “There. Keep doing that.”

Keeping the muzzle turned aside, Luke anchored her as she fought. The words surged once more before falling silent. Bent over her arm now, Mara stared at the floor and waited for them to return.

As he withdrew his help, he could still feel the pressure beneath the silence. Mara stiffened when she stood again. She tried to holster it and missed the opening. Again, she steadied her hand against her hip and pushed the blaster home trying to hide the tremor in her fingers.

“How much did you... see?” She was glaring at him now, but there was no heat behind it.

“His voice, the order. And a glimpse of you with him, when you were very young.” Luke watched her expression change, wishing he could have answered without confirming what she feared.

“Can it happen again?” Robb finally lowered his blade though his confusion didn't dissapate. Luke could hardly blame him for it after what he had just seen.

“Yes. It’s quiet for now, but I don’t know how long that will last.” Luke wished he had something better to offer them. Mara glanced at Robb, then looked down at the marks her fingers had left around her wrist.

“It’s happened before. I’ve always stopped it.” She flexed her hand as she spoke, testing it.

“Robb, watch the passage.” The boy hesitated before turning towards the darkness beyond the fallen dead. Luke waited until his attention had moved away from Mara, then asked more quietly, “How long has this been happening?”

She followed Robb with her eyes. For several breaths Luke thought she would refuse to answer, and he was preparing to leave it when she looked back at him.

“Since he died.”

Luke tried to imagine living with that voice, having to fight it back whenever it rose. His sympathy must have shown, because Mara’s expression hardened as she watched him. “Don’t look at me like that, Skywalker.”

He had almost told her he was sorry, but caught himself as her defenses were already set against his pity. Instead, he said, “Let’s go.”

Robb retrieved the coffer while Luke checked the remaining open tombs. He then led them back through the passage, sensing for movement beyond the reach of their light. Where the passage widened, he slowed until she came alongside him, and they walked together for a while without speaking, Robb a few paces ahead with the coffer held against his side.

“You could do that again?” Mara asked after a time. She kept her attention fixed ahead until Luke turned toward her. He nodded, and she searched his face for another second before looking ahead again. “Hmm,” was her only reply.

Coming out of the crypts, the courtyard now seemed louder then before. Rodrik met them just at the entrance. Robb set the lantern down and drew him aside to talk. Luke thanked Chewbacca and told him he could leave the entrance to the guards. With the immediate business settled, they started toward Lady Catelyn.

Robb caught Luke by the sleeve and let Mara walk a few paces ahead. “What happens if it takes her again?” His voice was low, but his grip on Luke’s sleeve had tightened. "Can we trust her?"

“She's an Imperial agent so no we cannot trust her,” Luke said. “But her order is against me, not the people here. And we need all the help we can get right now.”

Robb glanced towards Mara, then back at Luke. “Bran and the girls are not going to stand aside if they think she’s trying to kill you.”

“I won’t let it get to that,” Luke assured him.

Robb finally released his sleeve, and Luke went to where Mara had stopped a few paces ahead. “If you want to stay and finish your mission, you’ll be coming with me from now on.”

Mara turned to face him, her expression hardening. “You want me where you can see me.”

He hadn’t forgotten whom she worked for. Whatever readings she hoped to collect concerned him less than what Thrawn intended to do with them, and she remained his best chance of learning that before the Grand Admiral acted.

“Did you think I was going to let you wander freely?” Luke replied with a brow raised. "We want to get to the same artifact, so would it not be better if we work together."

"And what happens when we do get to it."

"Let's figure out how to get there first."

She held his eyes, testing where his line was drawn before giving a grudging nod. Luke left it there and joined Lady Catelyn in time to catch the end of Robb’s reassurance.

“—fine, Mother,” Robb was saying. “None of us are hurt. The passages we could reach are clear.” He shifted the coffer beneath his arm, and Catelyn looked down at it.

“What have you brought out of there?” She asked curiously.

“A record of the Long Night.” Robb glanced at Luke as Bran came closer to examine the box. Arya crowded beside him, trying to see whether it had a lid. “I’ll need to lock this in my chamber. There’s too much to say right now.”

Catelyn let him pass, though her attention followed the box as he started toward the keep. Then she turned to Luke. Luwin had drawn nearer too, and his first question was how they could be certain of the recording’s age.

Luke answered what he could. He told them what the man had said about the Long Night and the raising of the Wall. He had to explain the device before he could make much progress with its contents, and Arya kept interrupting to ask how a voice could remain inside it for so long. Behind them, Rodrik’s men set the bar back across the crypt door, and some of the household began moving away now that there was nothing more to watch.

A boy from the rookery drew Luwin aside while Luke was still answering Arya’s questions, and the maester went up the stair with him. Robb had just started toward the keep again when Luwin came out at a pace that had none of his usual shuffle in it. He reached Robb two strides short of the door with a rolled message held out in both hands.

"My lord. A raven from Castle Cerwyn."

Robb still had the coffer under his arm. Luwin broke the seal himself the moment Robb hesitated. Stepping close, the old man unrolled the parchment into the torchlight at Robb's shoulder so the boy could read with both arms full.

Robb read the first few lines to himself, then outloud. “It’s happened at Cerwyn too. It was a few only so they tried to fight the dead with swords, but had to burn them in the end.” He read on, more slowly now. “They’re asking when Lord Cerwyn will bring their men home.”

The others had fallen silent. So it's speading.

Before anyone could respond, a runner came through the gate from the winter town screaming hystrically, "The dead are walking in the town!"

At that Robb turned to look at Luke, who nodded his head.

"Ser Rodrik." Robb shouted. "Calm him and ready the men with torches. We need to protect the people!"

"Yes, my Lord." Rodrik drew the runner off toward the gatehouse and started screaming at his men to bring order.

"Maester Luwin, send ravens to every keep that from this hour, every body in Winterfell's lands is burned before it goes into the ground. Every crypt and barrow barred and guarded. Tell them why, and tell them fire is the only thing that's stopped these things." Robb handed the coffer to Luwin. "And secure this in the solar."

As Luwin ran off, Chewbacca rumbled from beside the Falcon's ramp. "He says he can help the surrounding areas," Luke translated, "and he wants two northmen aboard to tell him what he's looking at."

"He shall have them." Robb raised a hand to Ser Rodrik. "I need two guards who have been to other keeps. Send them to Chewbacca."

Rodrik called two of the men away from the gate. They approached the Falcon slowly, looking up at it until Chewbacca came down the ramp and beckoned them aboard.

Luke watched Robb reach for a torch. The boy had held his ground against the dead in the crypt, and Rodrik knew how to bring order to frightened men. With Chewbacca helping from the air, Luke could leave the rescue in their hands while he went north to learn what had failed at the Wall.

"I need to see the Wall," Luke said. "Keep your people safe and may the Force be with you."

"I will."

Catelyn caught Robb's sleeve before he could go. "Stay with Ser Rodrik."

"Worry not Mother, I can deal with this." He squeezed her hand, then took his torch and went to join the men.

Robb and Rodrik had reached the gate by the time Luke turned to follow Mara. He watched the torchbearers pass beneath the arch after them. Across the open ground, the Falcon's ramp was closing with Chewbacca and his two guides inside.

Luke settled into the copilot’s seat of the Jade Fire and buckled in while Mara brought the engines up. Through the viewport, he watched the Falcon rise clear of Winterfell’s walls and bank toward the farms.

Mara waited until Chewbacca was clear, then lifted Jade’s Fire and turned north.

Winterfell's lights fell behind them and shrank to a scatter of orange on black. Past the last holdfarm the land went dark, and they ran north through clear cold air until the stars ahead of them began to die. Below and east, a line of torches crawled along a road, a column moving south ahead of the weather.

"Someone's ahead of the storm," Mara said. "Moving south."

"That's the Freefolks and the Nights Watch from Shadow Tower. We'll find them after."

Then the Wall rose out of the dark, and beyond it the stars stopped altogether. Luke felt the cold before the ship's lights ever touched the ice. He sensed the hunger and, beneath it, a patient presence. He reached through the Force and found that the binding he had examined on his earlier visit was gone.

He searched farther along the ice, following it down toward its foundations. On his last visit the binding had strained against the will pressing down from the north. Now that same presence was reaching unhindered into the country behind him. Snow swept over the crown of the Wall and streamed south past the ship. Luke watched it go, thinking of the slow column on the road below and how little distance it could have covered since they passed.

"I feel it," Mara said. Her hands stayed easy on the controls, but her voice had gone flat. "Don't ask me how. Like standing next to an open hull seam in deep space. I hate it."

Mara brought up the readings from her earlier flight. “The northern signal’s much stronger now.”

“Can you tell where it’s coming from?”

“Somewhere northwest, beyond the Wall. I can’t narrow it down any further.”

Luke watched the storm, contemplating what they need to do now. He picked up his comms and turned it on. "Jon."

"Master Luke." Relief came flat across the distance.

"Winterfell stands. Your family is safe, all of them and cypts are not a threat for now. Is Lord Stark near?" Luke asked.

"Yes," Jon said. "So is Lord Tarly, the Smalljon and Han."

"Where's Robb?" Ned asked.

"He's gone into the winter town with Ser Rodrik and the men. The dead are slowly rising everywhere. Chewie's taking the Falcon over the surrounding areas."

"Has there been word from Last Hearth?" Smalljon asked.

"I haven't heard any. Luwin is sending warnings to every keep." Luke looked out at the ice. "I am looking at the Wall right now. It's still standing, but whatever held the storm back is gone. I need you to warn everyone else, there is not stopping it now."

After a brief silence, Jon responded. "Understood. I'll start sending the armies back to their lands. See you soon, Master."

The channel closed and left the cockpit to the storm's static against the hull. Luke lowered the comlink, still watching the storm. “The apparatus is somewhere north. We need to—”

“The ship sent a signal.”

He turned toward her. "What?"

“The long-range comms came alive before we left for the coast.” She looked at him. “The ship was set to send my location.”

Luke leaned back and looked up into the sky. "Thrawn."