{"product_id":"rule-of-two-star-wars-legends-darth-bane-isbn-9780593358818","title":"Rule of Two: Star Wars Legends (Darth Bane)","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this essential \u003ci\u003eStar Wars\u003c\/i\u003e Legends novel, the second in the Darth Bane trilogy, the fearsome Sith lord takes on a deadly new apprentice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDarth Bane’s twisted genius made him a natural leader among the Sith–until his radical embrace of an all-but-forgotten wisdom drove him to destroy his own order . . . and create it anew from the ashes. As the last surviving Sith, Darth Bane promulgated a harsh new directive: the Rule of Two.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTwo there should be; no more, no less.\u003cbr\u003eOne to embody the power, the other to crave it.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow Darth Bane is ready to put his policy into action and thinks he has found the key element that will make his triumph complete: a student to train in the ways of the dark side. Though she is young, Zannah possesses an instinctive link to the dark side that rivals his own. With his guidance, she will become essential in his quest to destroy the Jedi and dominate the galaxy.Drew Karpyshyn is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction and Mass Effect: Revelation, as well as several other fantasy and science fiction novels. He is also an award-winning writer\/designer for the computer game company BioWare, where he was lead writer on Mass Effect and the blockbuster Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video game. He lives in Canada’s hinterlands with his wife, Jen, and their cat.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ePeace is a lie. There is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through  strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains  are broken. The Code of the Sith\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Darth Bane, the only Sith Lord to escape the devastation  of Kaan’s thought bomb, marched quickly under a pale yellow Ruusan sun, moving steadily  across the bleak, war-torn landscape. He was two meters tall, and his black boots  covered the ground in long, sweeping strides, propelling his large, powerfully muscled  frame with a sense of urgent purpose. There was an air of menace about him, accentuated  by his shaved head, his heavy brow, and the dark intensity of his eyes. This, even  more than his forbidding black armor or the sinister hook-handled lightsaber dangling  from his belt, marked him as a man of fearsome power: a true champion of the dark  side of the Force.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His thick jaw was set in grim determination against the pain  that flared up every few minutes at the back of his bare skull. He had been many  kilometers away from the thought bomb when it detonated, but even at that range he  had felt its power reverberating through the Force. The aftereffects lingered, sporadic  bursts shooting through his brain like a million tiny knives stabbing at the dark  recesses of his mind. He had expected these attacks to fade over time, but in the  hours since the blast, their frequency and intensity had steadily increased.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He  could have called on the Force to keep the pain at bay, cloaking himself in an aura  of healing energy. But that was the way of the Jedi, and Bane was a Dark Lord of  the Sith. He walked a different path, one that embraced suffering, drawing strength  from the ordeal. He transformed the pain into anger and hate, feeding the flames  of the dark side until his physical aspect seemed almost to glow with the fury of  a storm it could barely contain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The terrifying image Bane projected contrasted  sharply with the small figure that followed in his wake, struggling to keep up. Zannah  was only ten, a waif of a girl with short, curly blond hair. Her clothing was simple  and plain to the point of being rustic: a loose-fitting white shirt and faded blue  coveralls, both torn and stained from weeks of continuous wear. Anyone who saw her  scampering along after Bane’s massive, black-clad form would have been hard-pressed  to imagine she was the Sith Master’s chosen apprentice. But looks could be deceiving.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was power in the child. He’d seen ample proof of that at their first meeting,  less than an hour earlier. Two nameless Jedi were dead by her hand. Bane didn’t know  all the details surrounding their deaths; he had arrived after the fact to find Zannah  crying over the body of a bouncer, one of the telepathic, green-furred species native  to Ruusan. The still-warm corpses of the Jedi had been sprawled beside her, their  heads lolling at grotesque angles atop broken necks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Clearly the bouncer had been  the child’s friend and companion. Bane surmised that the Jedi must have inadvertently  killed the bouncer, only to meet a similar fate when Zannah exacted her revenge.  Unaware of her power, they’d been caught off guard when the child—driven by mind-numbing  grief and pure, abject hatred—had unleashed the full fury of the dark side on the  men who’d slain her friend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They were victims of cruel misfortune: in the wrong  place at the wrong time. Yet it would have been inaccurate to call their deaths pointless.  In Bane’s eyes, at least, their sacrifice had allowed him to recognize the young  girl’s potential. To some the series of events would have seemed preordained, as  if the hapless Jedi had been inexorably drawn to their grim end with the sole purpose  of uniting Bane and Zannah. No doubt there were even those who would profess that  fate and the dark side of the Force had conspired to present the Master with a suitable  apprentice. Bane, however, was not one of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He believed in the power of the  Force, but he also believed in himself: He was more than just a servant of prophecy  or a pawn of the dark side, subject to the whims of an inevitable, inescapable future.  The Force was a tool he had used to forge his own destiny through strength and cunning.  He alone among the Sith had truly earned the mantle of Dark Lord, which was why he  alone among them still lived. And if Zannah was worthy of being his apprentice, she  would eventually have to prove herself, as well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He heard a grunt behind him and  turned back to see that the girl had tumbled to the ground, falling in her haste  to try to keep up with the relentless pace he’d set. She glared at him, anger etched  across her features.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Slow down!” she snapped. “You’re going too fast!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Bane clenched  his teeth as a fresh bolt of pain ripped through his skull. “I am not going too fast,”  he replied, keeping his voice even but stern. “You are going too slow. You must find  a way to keep up.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She scrambled to her feet, swatting at the scuffed knees of her  overalls to wipe away the most obvious traces of dirt. “My legs aren’t as long as  yours,” she replied crossly, refusing to back down. “How am I supposed to keep up?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The girl had spirit. That had been clear from the moment of their first meeting.  She had recognized Bane instantly for what he was: one of the Sith, sworn enemy of  the Jedi, a servant of the dark side. Yet she had shown no fear. In Zannah, Bane  had seen the potential for the successor he needed, but she had obviously seen something  she wanted in him, too. And when he had offered her the chance to be his apprentice,  to study and learn the ways of the dark side, she hadn’t hesitated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He wasn’t yet  certain why Zanah had been so eager to ally herself with a Lord of the Sith. It could  have been a simple act of desperation: She was alone, with nowhere else to turn for  her survival. Or maybe she saw the dark side as a path to vengeance against the Jedi,  a way to make them all suffer for the death of her bouncer friend. It was even possible  she had simply sensed Bane’s power and lusted to claim it as her own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Whatever her  true motivations, Zannah had been more than willing to swear fealty to the Sith and  her new Master. However, it was neither her spirit nor her willingness that made  her worthy of being his apprentice. The Dark Lord had chosen her for one reason,  and one reason only.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You are strong in the Force,” he explained, his voice still  betraying no hint of emotion or the agony he endured. “You must learn to use it.  To call on its power. To bend it to your purpose. As you did when you killed the  Jedi.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He saw a flicker of doubt cross her face. “I don’t know how I did that,”  she muttered. “I didn’t even mean to do it,” she continued, suddenly uncertain. “It  just sort of . . . happened.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Bane detected a hint of guilt in her voice. He was  disappointed, but hardly surprised. She was young. Confused. She couldn’t truly understand  what she had done. Not yet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Nothing just happens,” he insisted. “You called upon  the power of the Force. Think back to how you did it. Think back to what happened.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t want to,” she whispered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The girl  had already endured immeasurable pain and suffering since her arrival on Ruusan.  She had no wish to revisit those awful experiences. Bane understood; he even sympathized  with her. He, too, had suffered during his childhood, a victim of countless savage  beatings at the hands of Hurst, his cruel and abusive father. But he had learned  to use those memories to his advantage. If Zannah was to become the heir to the dark  side’s legacy, she had to confront her past. She had to learn how to draw upon her  most painful memories. She had to transform and channel them to allow her to wield  the power of the dark side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You feel sorry for those Jedi now,” Bane said, his  voice casual. “You feel regret. Remorse. Maybe even pity.” The easy tone fell away  quickly as his voice began to rise in both volume and intensity. “But these are worthless  emotions. They mean nothing. What you need to feel is anger!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He took a sudden step  toward her, his right fist clenched before him to punctuate his words. Zannah flinched  at the unexpected movement, but didn’t retreat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Their deaths were not an accident!”  he shouted as he took another step forward. “What happened was not some mistake!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A third step brought him so close that the shadow of his massive frame enveloped  the girl like an eclipse. She cowered slightly but held her ground. Bane froze, blocking  out the pain in the back of his skull and reining in his fury. He crouched down beside  her and relaxed his clenched fist. Then he reached out slowly with his hand and placed  it gently on her shoulder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Think back to what you felt when you unleashed your  power against them,” he said, his voice now a soft, seductive whisper. “Think back  to what you felt when the Jedi murdered your friend.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Zannah dropped her head, her  eyes closed. For several seconds she was still and silent, forcing her mind to relive  the moment. Bane saw the emotions crossing her face: grief, sorrow, loss. Beneath  his massive hand on her frail shoulder, she trembled slightly. Then, slowly, he felt  her anger begin to rise. And with it, the power of the dark side.Book 2 of the Darth Bane series The Essential Legends Collection","brand":"Random House Worlds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303943033061,"sku":"NP9780593358818","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593358818.jpg?v=1767735958","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/rule-of-two-star-wars-legends-darth-bane-isbn-9780593358818","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}