By George & Josh Bate
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: Legacy
The new Star Wars novel Legacy follows Rey and Leia in between the events of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker as they embark on a quest to repair the legendary Skywalker saber. During this quest, Rey finds herself in the middle of the assassination plot of a First Order major, learns valuable lessons from Old Republic era Jedi, and finally meets the one and only Anakin Skywalker.
Rey receives guidance from Anakin in the minutes leading up to her triumph over Emperor Palpatine on Exegol, but Star Wars: Legacy marks the first occasion in which Rey actually meets and speaks with Anakin Skywalker.
The interaction begins on page 281 of author Madeleine Roux’s novel. Disappointed by her inability to repair the Skywalker saber, Rey has gone off on her own into the snowy hills of Tython, the highly Force sensitive planet that Grogu communes with Luke on in The Mandalorian Season 2.
Freezing and disoriented, Rey is visited by a mysterious figure after throwing the splintered kyber crystal of the Skywalker saber into the ggrass. “There was something familiar about the man, as if she had been in his presence before,” Roux writes. “Not someone she had brushed by in a crowd, not exactly.”
Rey later notes that the robes remind her of Luke’s, but in warmer tones of brown and tan. “Though young and handsome, he struck her as ageless,” Roux writes. “A scar slashed through his right eyebrow.”
Anakin approaches Rey and comments that she has “got a strong arm,” given how far she was able to throw the kyber crystal. Anakin does not identify himself by name initially, although this confirmation soon comes.
Rey uses the Force to connect with the mysterious figure and learns much about his background. “Images poured into her, one after another, drowning out the wind and cold. A young boy sitting alone in a desert hovel. The embrace of a loving mother; that same woman dead and cradled in his arms. A silken kiss along a coastline, water dazzling under sunlight. The face of a lover, haloed in gold and red. The kick of tiny feet in her stomach. Pain. Fire. Betrayal and confusion that seared into flesh, seared understanding into her mind.”
At this point, Rey recognizes that the man in front of her is Anakin Skywalker. “Your lightsaber,” she says. “That’s the one I carry.” Anakin replies, “Carried.”
After Rey expresses regret over throwing the kyber crystal away, Anakin responds, “If you don’t want it, you did the right thing. But if you gave it up thinking life will be easier without it….”
Anakin tells Rey that “someone is out there looking for” her. Rey correctly assumes Anakin is referring to Leia, who Anakin describes as “a brave, bold woman, just like you.”
In a poignant shift in the discussion, Anakin encourages Rey by drawing parallels between his background and hers. “I know what it’s like to be alone,” Anakin says. “We’re hard people, Rey, raised by the desert. There were people that tried to help me, but I wouldn’t let them. I wanted to do it all on my own… That was weakness, Rey. Evil looks for the weak.”
Anakin elaborates, “The Force moves differently through all of us. I fought to tame it all my life, and in death I found the serenity I couldn’t in life.”
As Anakin vanishes after giving Rey the encouragement to carry on in her quest to repair the lightsaber, Roux writes, “She had made it down from the mountain, she could feel her feet again, and Leia was looking for her; Anakin Skywalker said it was so.”
This marks a pretty monumental meet-up between two of the Skywalker Saga’s most central figures. Anakin plays a similar role here for Rey as Luke did in The Rise of Skywalker. Rey returned to Ahch-To distraught and ready to give up, when the Force ghost of Luke appeared to offer her words of wisdom and encouragement. Anakin does the same thing in Star Wars: Legacy and shows that the Skywalker lineage has Rey’s back, even in the afterlife.
Star Wars: Legacy is available now from Random House Worlds
