Thousands of years before the rise of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, the Old Republic was rife with the evil Sith, who were a constant thorn in the side of the Jedi. But greed and hunger for power were eating away at the Sith Order, destroying it from within. In the midst of this rose a new Sith, Darth Bane, who recognized that the Sith Order would fall if nothing was done. Thus it was he who, learning to cultivate patience and cunning, hid from the strife until it was over, and then rose to become the most powerful Sith Lord ever. This is the story of the transformation of Des, a young miner, into the legendary Sith Lord Darth Bane. Des - like many of the disenfranchised who live on the Outer Rim - is disillusioned with the stagnancy of the Old Republic. When the Sith unite to bring the Republic down, Des is one of many to join their cause. His heroism and skill in battle - along with his remarkable connection to the Force - draw the notice of the Sith Masters, and Des eventually finds himself studying at the Sith Academy on Korriban. He takes the name of Bane and, amidst the deception and back-stabbing of the other students, he learns to unlock his latent dark-side talents. As his power grows, Bane realizes the Sith have lost their way. Under the leadership of Lord Kaan and his Brotherhood of Darkness, the Sith have turned their back on the true nature of the dark side. Through manipulation, cunning and strength, Bane destroys Kaan's Brotherhood and wipes out all the other Sith so he can found a new Order based on the rule of two: one Master, one apprentice.

In the New York Times bestseller Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Drew Karpyshyn painted a gripping portrait of a young mans journey from innocence to evil. That man was Darth Bane, a twisted genius whose iron will, fierce ambition, and strength in the dark side of the Force 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. Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. Now Darth Bane is ready to put his policy into action, and he 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. But there is one who is determined to stop Darth Bane: Johun Othone, Padawan to Jedi Master Lord Hoth, who died at Banes hands in the last great Sith War. Though the rest of the Jedi scoff at him, Joshuas belief that there are surviving Sith on the loose is unshakeable. As Johun continues his dogged pursuit of the man who killed his master, Zannah, faced unexpectedly with a figure from her past, begins to question her embrace of the dark side. And Darth Bane is led by Force-induced visions to a moon where he will acquire astonishing new knowledge and power, power that will alter him in ways he could never have imagined...

Twenty years have passed since Darth Bane, reigning Dark Lord of the Sith, demolished the ancient order devoted to the dark side and reinvented it as a circle of two: one Master to wield the power and pass on the wisdom, and one apprentice to learn, challenge, and ultimately usurp the Dark Lord in a duel to the death. But Bane’s acolyte, Zannah, has yet to engage her Master in mortal combat and prove herself a worthy successor. Determined that the Sith dream of galactic domination will not die with him, Bane vows to learn the secret of a forgotten Dark Lord that will assure the Sith’s immortality—and his own. A perfect opportunity arises when a Jedi emissary is assassinated on the troubled mining planet Doan, giving Bane an excuse to dispatch his apprentice on a fact-finding mission—while he himself sets out in secret to capture the ancient holocron of Darth Andeddu and its precious knowledge. But Zannah is no fool. She knows that her ruthless Master has begun to doubt her, and she senses that he is hiding something crucial to her future. If she is going to claim the power she craves, she must take action now. While Bane storms the remote stronghold of a fanatical Sith cult, Zannah prepares for her Master’s downfall by choosing an apprentice of her own: a rogue Jedi cunning and cold-blooded enough to embrace the Sith way and to stand beside her when she at last wrests from Bane the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith. But Zannah is not the only one with the desire and power to destroy Darth Bane. Princess Serra of the Doan royal family is haunted by memories of the monstrous Sith soldier who murdered her father and tortured her when she was a child. Bent on retribution, she hires a merciless assassin to find her tormentor—and bring him back alive to taste her wrath. Only a Sith who has taken down her own Master can become Dark Lord of the Sith. So when Bane suddenly vanishes, Zannah must find him—possibly even rescue him—before she can kill him. And so she pursues her quarry from the grim depths of a ravaged world on the brink of catastrophe to the barren reaches of a desert outpost, where the future of the dark side’s most powerful disciples will be decided, once and for all, by the final, fatal stroke of a lightsaber.