The silence of the office was a different kind of loud.
Not the stillness of peace, but the quiet that comes after—after the shouting stops, after the ships fall from the sky, after the screams echo and fade. It wasn't the hush of serenity, but the echo of everything just outside the frame—the unfinished war reports, the cleanup notices, the reassignment of mercenary battalions who'd grown too comfortable calling her "Governor" like it was affection and not transaction.
The console beside Serina's desk blinked with fifteen pending memos. One of them contained a suggested proposal to nominate her as Interim Prefect of the Saijo region under Sith Order authority.
She hadn't opened it. She wouldn't open it.
Instead, Serina sat in the center of the room, curled in the crook of her throne-like chair—not slouched, but folded inward, arms wrapped around one leg drawn up onto the cushion. Her armor had been removed hours ago, replaced with a simple, silky shift of deep black and muted violet, clinging to her form in lazy folds. One bare shoulder showed, faintly bruised from where she'd slammed into the stone floor of the Crimson Citadel. The glow from her private datapad illuminated her face in cold, blue light.
She hadn't moved in nearly an hour.
Not since she watched the last satellite feed of Saijo's orbital bombardment. The final dust cloud blooming up like a flower. The same color as her blood had been on the stones of Fury's altar.
She had won. Utterly. Clinically. Perfectly.
And she had never felt more hollow.
Her hand rose, absently, fingertips brushing against the edge of her lips—once carefully painted, always precise. Now, faintly chapped.
They used to call her girl. Child. Unproven. The Sith Assembly had whispered about her in closed chambers—mocked her ambition, her hunger, her penchant for soft power and slow knives. And now?
They didn't whisper anymore.
They looked. They listened. They calculated around her instead of over her.
But they still didn't see her.
Because there was nothing to see anymore. Only masks. Endless masks.
Serina turned her head slowly, gaze falling to the polished obsidian case resting on the far edge of the desk—sealed now, clasps locked tight. Inside it lay what was left of Ebon Requiem, the once-flawless halberd that had been broken under Fury's blade. She would have it reforged, eventually. But not now.
Not yet.
Even that would feel like a lie.
Her eyes stung. She blinked—once, twice—and drew in a quiet breath. Her throat burned.
"Does it ever stop?" she asked aloud, though no one was present to hear it. Not the guards outside. Not her advisors. Not her contact or agents or mercenaries. No.
She was talking to herself.
To the version of her that had once dreamed of something different.
You will never be loved.
The thought came unbidden. It did not come with tears. It did not sting like a wound.
It sat in her chest like fact.
There was no place for love in the life she had built. There was no space for trust in the house made of lies and leverage. She had become too skilled at weaving strings around people's throats. Too precise in the way she used affection like a knife. The moment she let someone close—truly close—they would either own her, or shatter her.
And then the whole web would come undone.
Serina pressed her forehead against her knee and exhaled. A slow, shuddering breath. She tried to remember the last time someone had touched her without an agenda.
She couldn't.
She never had lovers. Not truly.
Not the kind that left warmth in the bed when they rose early, or carved out space in their day just to hear her voice. Not the kind who held her in silence because they could feel the weight she refused to speak.
In truth, she had only kissed twice.
Once when she was too young to know what it meant. To a woman who she had lost thanks to her own actions, the name nigh-forgotten not because she wanted to, but because she had to. The second out of obligation, part of a game she barely understood at the time. One lingered. One was wanted. Neither lead to anything further beneath the skin.
She had flirted, of course. Seduction came easily when one had power and poise, and Serina possessed both in sharp, dangerous measures. She knew how to pull people toward her like gravity—how to fill a room with tension and silence until someone begged to break it. But it had always been a performance. Every stolen glance, every whispered breath, every teasing smirk was calculated, executed, and forgotten.
She had never let herself want.
She had never let herself be wanted.
Because there was never time.
Every moment of her life had been filled with building. With surviving. With reaching higher, clawing her way through political courts and hierarchies and bureaucracies that chewed up the weak and forgot the rest. She had no time for idle affection, no space for private softness. Not when every second demanded attention. Not when one misstep could unravel everything she'd fought to construct.
She hadn't even given time to attend herself.
Not the woman beneath it.
Not Serina Calis.
Who sometimes still dreamed—quietly, shamefully—of sitting in a sun-warmed room with someone who wasn't afraid of her.
Not a throne room where devotion was demanded.
Not a negotiation table where obedience was purchased with fear.
Just a simple room.
The light spilling golden across stone. The kind of silence that doesn't weigh or watch, but rests. No agenda. No game. Just presence. Hers, and someone else's.
Someone kneeling—not because they were broken.
Not because they had nothing left.
But because they had everything—strength, freedom, choice—and still chose her.
Chose to submit not out of weakness, but devotion.
To surrender not because they were conquered, but because they wanted to be.
Wanted to lay down all their sharp edges and armor, only for her.
To be seen. To be held. To be owned—only by her.
Serina didn't want equals. She didn't want someone to fix her.
She wanted someone to belong to her so fully, so irrevocably, that even the galaxy breaking wouldn't unmake that bond.
But not out of desperation.
Out of love.
That was the impossible thing.
Not the power. Not the conquest.
But the idea that someone could look at her—Serina Calis, the Widowmaker of Saijo, the creature built of knives and strategy and iron will—and still say: I want you. I trust you. I choose this.
And mean it.
No fear. No manipulation.
No leash but the one they begged for.
But there was no room in her life for that kind of wanting.
Because to want that was to acknowledge a part of her that could still be hurt.
To reach for it was to show that she wasn't untouchable after all.
And if someone did crawl into that quiet, unarmored part of her, and then left—
or worse, tried to stay but couldn't bear the truth of her—
she wouldn't just lose them.
She'd lose herself.
So she kept the dream in chains, locked deep inside, wrapped in silk and shadow.
She only visited it when no one could see her.
Not even her own reflection.
There once was a dream.
That dream was dead.
It had died on Saijo, with every body that fell beneath her orders.
It had died in the hollow place left by Fury's blade.
It had never lived to begin with.
Her datapad chimed again. Another message. Another meeting. Another mask to wear.
She didn't move to check it.
Instead, Serina curled tighter in her chair, burying her face into the crook of her arm, eyes wide open in the dark.
Not crying.
Not broken.
Just… waiting.
For the next moment when she'd have to be a monster again.
Because that was all the galaxy had left room for.
And Serina had long since learned—
If you couldn't be loved in the Sith Order…
You'd better make damn sure you were feared.
