Cover Artist: John Jude Palencar

Jedi Knight Medd Tandar is meeting with rebels on Doan who accidentally killed the Doan crown prince, but his real purpose is to retrieve some recently discovered Sith Artifacts for the Jedi Council to hide. Before anything can come of his meeting though, they are attacked and killed by an assassin. Serra, the young wife of the prince, is suspected by her father in law of hiring the assassin, though she denies it and promises to go to Coruscant to smooth things over with the Jedi. She learns that her bodyguard Lucia, who was once a member of the Gloom walkers in the Sith army, was responsible for the assassin, and she thanks her before they set off. On Coruscant, she learns about the death of her father, the healer Caleb of Ambria, but realizes that the Jedi are mistaken about the Sith being destroyed. In her anger, she asks Lucia to hire the assassin again, this time to capture Darth Bane and bring him to her. On Ciutric IV, Bane's body is starting to fail and he worries that Darth Zannah is just going to wait for him to die in order to take control of the Sith. He learns of Darth Andeddu and how he supposedly learned to transfer his essence to a new body when his old one failed. Deciding that this may be the way to ensure the Sith follow the plan he established, he sends Zannah to Doan to investigate the death of the Jedi while he goes to Prakith to find Andeddu's holocron. Zannah arrives on Doan and learns that a Dark Jedi named Set Harth has already recovered the artifacts and returned to Nal Hutta. Realizing that he may be the apprentice she has been looking for, she hunts him down and defeats him using her Sith powers. Persuading him to join her, she decides it's time to return to Ciutric and face Bane one last time. After retrieving the holocron, Bane wrestles its secrets free and returns to Ciutric, where the Iktotchi assassin called the Huntress uses her latent Force skills and a team of mercenaries to capture him and take him to Doan to meet Serra. On arriving at the Sith mansion, Zannah discovers that Bane has been taken, and it doesn't take her long to discover his explorations into Darth Andeddu. Feeling that he has betrayed the Order of Two, she takes Set to Doan to find and kill Bane. In the hidden prison where Serra is holding Bane, she finally confronts him and tortures him, but is confused with his response and lack of remorse. Lucia, recognizing Bane as her one-time friend in the Gloom Walkers, Des, sets him free while she chases after Serra. Zannah and Set arrive at the prison and Zannah goes to find Bane, leaving Set at the ship. After a short time, he feels the presence of Darth Andeddu's holocron and makes his way to where it is hidden. Stealing it, he goes to a closer hangar bay to steal a ship, where he encounters the Huntress. The two fight, and eventually Set destroys two of the four ships and convinces her that they should each go their separate ways. Lucia finds Bane as he rages through the facility and tries to convince him that he isn't who he became. She is killed in the attempt by Zannah, who confronts him about abandoning his ideals. The two fight, with Bane barely evading her as Serra takes Lucia's body and sets off the self-destruct. She takes Lucia to Ambria and buries her, finding inner peace along the way. Bane makes his way to the hangar, where he encounters the Huntress, who asks him to teach her the ways of the Sith. He accepts when she tells him where to find Serra, and she takes the name Darth Cognus. They arrive on Ambria, and when Serra refuses to help him if he needs it, he allows Cognus to kill her, and they send a message to Zannah, telling her where they are. Zannah shows up and they duel, with Cognus promising to be the apprentice of whoever is victorious. As they duel, it first appears that Bane is going to win, until Zannah uses her Sith sorcery, which swings the battle in her favor. Bane overcomes her powers and attempts to attack her and she uses her sorcery to make the dark side tangible, which attacks him, severing his sword arm. In a last ditch effort, Bane attempts to use his new knowledge of essence transfer to take over her body, destroying his own. When Cognus addresses the survivor as Bane, she is told that Darth Zannah was triumphant, and they leave to continue their work.