PROLOGUE

THE SITH collapsed on the stone floor writ with an unspoken language, muscles spasming in pain from the fresh, bleeding scars across his bare back and chest; black, bubbling streaks of burnt flesh from the red blade of the lightsaber he had taken from the dead hands of his master.
He kneeled not out of exhaustion but of needing to know what course the dark side had charted for him. Now was the time to meditate. The Sith closed his eyes and focused on the hate he felt swelling within him. This was the way it had been done for eons.
The sith released his ponderous tendrils of the force, feeling everything around him, searching the future for any possibilities…
He felt the force around him connecting the universe in red ribbons that rippled in a breeze, every tremor within these strings was a death, a birth, a war. Every vibration was a scream of one or many, a cry, a battle lost or won, a deception. These strings were played by those who could use the force, and he could feel each call to its mysterious energies. Some were dark, some were light. He plotted through the territories, the galaxies, feeling with his mind and biting against the pain that this search afforded him. He hit something hard.
A boy in the desert. Strong in the force. Darkness around him. Feelings of loss. The sith drew brief snippets of imagery; starships, a young girl, a woman, the jedi temple on Coruscant. Hate boiled over, bringing the visions to darkness.
The sith bent his head to the stone floor, smoke rising from the burning embers left from battle, searching.
My destiny. Command me, master.
Ice. Snow. Freezing winds. A planet of ice.
The sith lord felt something great here. Something urgent, threatening. A battle on the ice. Great ships anchored in the orbit. War machines advancing in crushing footsteps.
There was a boy. Strong in the force like a tensed spring. The ebb and flow of its oceans were tossed, a growing tidal wave with this one. But lost inside a storm. Dying.
The sith smiled, his lips cracked and bleeding. He is ripe. A strong apprentice.
Then, a ghost of a jedi, leading him towards a lighter purpose.
This cannot happen! He thought. His body was trembling under the weight of the force.
The sith could feel that this entire battle was focused around this one boy. There was a powerfully dark tremor searching for him. A sith perhaps?
The sith clenched his nails into his legs, drawing blood.
The sith was losing the sight. The pain was becoming immense. He shook his head uncontrollably, straining, seeking. He used it. Tears of blood flowed from his eyes.
A disfigured, half-machine man in black, his face hidden behind a mask. He wanted the boy.
The opposition won the battle but the boy escaped. What happened?
The crimson ribbons flowed further into darkness, eons ahead. Where did the boy go?
The wormy tendrils retreated, the sith spent. He collapsed to the hearth, his body spasming in exhaustion.
The sith lord got to his knees, bowing his head to the stone floor covered in his sweat and blood.
His purpose became clear.
He will go to Hoth.
He will bring war. He will find this boy.
And make him his dark apprentice.