Prologue

A part of her didn't miss the killing.

Not of the act, naturally. It was a rare person who was left completely unmoved or untouched by the moment of death itself; the instant of flesh and body slackening, of eyes deadening, life dimming. Blood held no pleasure for her.

But the moments following, in the shadows of darkness as Mara slipped away from her kill, the euphoria crept in. The knowledge of completing her Emperor's will, of his pleasure at her clean, concise success. It became irresistible after a while…the rush of elation, the ecstasy that rushed through her blood, her mind. It blocked out everything – any remorse, any thought of the victim's family, any hate. Any feeling at all other than complete rapture.

After the Emperor's death, the pain was too much to bear. She was not only deprived of her station in the Emperor's court, hunted by the Imperials or haunted by the dreams of the Emperor. She was chased by the emptiness in a galaxy where there was nothing to fulfil her. Although that had not stopped her searching for substitutes.

It began with alcohol. Innocuous enough, really. She was no different to the myriads of others seeking solace in the drink. The pure numbness of it satisfied her at first. It dulled her senses, but that only increased her desire. The liquid imbibed her with new life, although it only lasted until the morning.

The men had come next. Mara had been no innocent in the Emperor's service – too often she had played mistress to men, more habitually for information and on reconnaissance missions. It had been no more to her than a part of her job, a quick and effective way to earn a man's trust, or at least access to his secrets. But in those days after Endor, it became no more to her than an augmentation to the alcohol…a glimpse of ecstasy wrapped in the glorious feeling of forgetfulness.

She used men as she had always used them – they were tools for her own purposes. They bought her drinks and took her back to their rooms – never hers – and she was fulfilled for a time. She was always gone by morning, anyway, their faces nothing but a blur on her memory.

The first time she'd tried spice had been like her first kill. It had roused such dormant emotions within her – a rush of pleasure and pain so divine Mara swore she had touched the stars themselves.

Soon the ryll and glitterstim became the only thing that fulfilled her properly – even if she had to steal or bargain for it in ways she would never have dreamed of doing before. But there was no respect for herself while in its euphoric embrace, no standards of decency for her body or mind. There was only the spice – what she had to do to get it was immaterial.

The days that followed had been a haze of alcohol, sex and spice, the glorious feeling of apathy, of her very soul being numbed while her mind soured with the self-indulgent, physical highs. There was no aching in that place, no regret or thoughts of pity, of depression at what her life had become.

She had not kept an occupation – she no longer had the lucidity for it. She lived in slums, in hovels with people like herself – she did unimaginable things, not for food, or shelter – but for the dealers who could provide her with a lifeline. With the quality instead of the watered-down substances they provided the lowly deviants with.

She was more a slave to her own weak desires than she had ever been to the Emperor, although at the time she had not seen it that way. All she knew of the rush, the hit – she chased it with every breath.

One night she had collapsed, bleeding and in an unimaginable pain. The med-droid had apologised, unfortunately, she'd lost the baby. Eight weeks, it had said, a common occurrence around those of her kind. It was better off that it had not lived, she'd been told – those born with the addiction never survived more than a few years. And those that did wished they hadn't. Mara had listened to the cold, mechanical, clinical analysis, pain for the first time in months penetrating her closed heart. She hadn't even known she'd been pregnant.

She'd quelled her spree of non-stop abuse, although she could not crush it completely. By the time she met Karrde, her habit was, as she thought, only recreational. She was cautious – only needing a small line every few days to keep her straight, and out of withdrawal. She couldn't give it up completely – not when a dreamless sleep called to her – the glory of nothingness.

But on the Wild Karrde, nothing remained a secret for long.

"Jade? Mara, can you hear me?"

It had been after a particularly rough trade, and a skirmish with the rebels – or the "New Republic" – as she'd so often heard to them referred to as on the sludge news. Mara had taken refuge once again in the drugs. It had been a lucky escape – or so Karrde had told her, once he'd had his medic pump her stomach.

"How long?" He had sat there, in the darkness of her cabin, reeking with her shame and the threat of death. His voice had held no accusation, nor sympathy. Just understanding. "I suppose it doesn't matter," he had said when she didn't answer, just fiddled with the tubes in her arms. "I'm sure it feels like forever to you."

It was polemic, really. If she told him about it, trusted him, how could she ever hope to retain her other, darker secrets? But if didn't, Mara wasn't sure what would happen the next time, or the time after that. It was a burden she could not carry alone.

"I'll leave as soon as we get to the next stop." Her voice had sounded dull, defeated in the small cabin. She'd never admitted defeat before.

"Mara…" His warm, calloused hands had taken hers. Mara wondered if that's what her father might have done, if she'd known him. "I've seen far too much in this life, probably more than you think." Through the darkness, she made out his soft smile, his twinkling eyes, mixed with pain and affection. For her?

"I've seen this before," he had continued poignantly. "I've beaten this before."

Never since, had he let go of her hand, that lifeline pulling her out of the abyss. Karrde had seen the very best and worst of her, months and years filled with support and confidence.

He stuck with her through the pain and rage of her withdrawal, through her worst moods and violent outbursts. Reasoned with his patented, calm diplomacy, through her arguments and pleading...please, just one more hit.

Through the crucible, she emerged a new woman. She was Mara Jade, untouched by the trappings and physical entities of the galaxy. She had risen above mere human pleasure and pain, to a new tower of indifference that coated her soul in a protective sheath. Never again would she be victim to earthly desires, never again would she lose her vaulted self-control.

But there still lived uncertainty beneath that tough, repellent veneer. Mara kept her vulnerability there, her dark past, the knowledge that she was broken, damaged.

The truth that she could keep from the crew and Karrde, but never from the probing beat of her own heart. The truth that kept her one step away from insanity, from leaping off the cliff of her precarious calm, away from that rush of elation, of euphoria…of anaesthesia.

Because the truth was, she still craved it.

Every second.

Every minute.

Every day.