He was either with her—
Or against her.
Since the Jedi was obviously advocating for a "bloodless" end to this event it was clear that he had already chosen a side. Echani were creatures of warfare, of combat, and to deny that was to deny the existence of gravity, of physics, of all the things that made it possible for sentience to exist. There would be no surrender. There would be, no mercy. Not by her hand.
"…You have gone to war but you know so little…"
The words were accompanied by another brutal breech of his mental faculties. The pale woman pressed through his mind as if any walls he had raised were made of wet tissue paper. He was incapable of stopping her and she had no intent of asking permission. He was just as guilty of infringing on systems held by the Sith Order as any other member of the Alliance and was thusly denied any notion of courtesy. He would see flashes of the fateful night on Odavessa in which
Darth Empyrean
had been born. The ritual that would have killed, ended the Worm Emperor forever—Interrupted by the hallowed blade of one of his own.
He would see the butchered form of Maliphant fall into her arms.
He would sense her listless agony as he used the last his strength to love her until the end.
He would know the depths of her despair when his heart stopped.
He would endure her abject horror when his corpse was stolen before her eyes, mutated, and infused with the mummified half-life he held today. This was the moment that everything had changed. This was the moment that she understood, truly, the nature of an enemy that she had previously been content to live and let live. They cared not for the destruction they left in their wake, nor, the consequences of meddling in affairs not their own. The Light would shepherd its sheep to oblivion and they would be none the wiser.
"You created my husband and he lifted the Sith Order up from the ashes after his resurrection."
Her hand moved over the dodecahedron once more, her tone, never rising or falling.
"Cause and effect."
The relic called to him just as insistently as one lovelorn soul called to another.
She had him.
She'd had him from the moment he'd broken through her wards. The moment…He heard her voice in his head and followed the call. Thinking, it was all his own volition. That he had come to the Sith Empress by chance, and chance alone. She
had warned him of his…
Hubris.
The temptation of the Dark Side was a seductive whisper that most Jedi warded themselves against with memories of compassion, with resolve, and faith that they were doing the right thing. They wrapped up, safe and sound, in a blanket of goodness and hope that was meant to banish the shadows and inspire those around them. Some were exceedingly adept. Others…Had cracks in their holy armor. Countless wars, bloodshed, and entire systems being wiped out due to their action or inaction took a toll.
"Your life…Is not enough. It will never be, enough."
"But…You do have something I need…"
Her influence slipped inside the Jedi through the untended chinks in his defenses. Eroded by suffering, by loss, by hanging on to the memory of his dead wife. Her hand extended and eyes of midnight black drew him in. He was indeed a marionette, waiting, for someone or something to breathe existence back into him. Pale fingers wrapped around his throat while his final fear would be made reality.
That he—Would be the catalyst that tipped the pendulum toward destruction.
"…Give to me your horror. Give to me your agony, your despair. Give to me, your fear."
She pulled on the required negativity the relic craved so desperately and summoned it from within the Jedi in the same way one might draw poison from a wound. The shadows that surrounded her solidified, as if they had substance and form, rather than merely being whispers of the dark. The visage of a thorned crown on her brow winked in and out of existence while the room flared between crimson and lightless dark. The polluted zone around the manor would grow, slowly, inch by inch. Creeping outward…Bringing cold, ash-laden air, and an impending sense of wrongness. It was ready now. The
device, was ready now.
Srina had
never expected that the last mirror would be a Jedi.
The irony was almost…Too much to bear.
<<<...Thank you...>>>
The wintry woman threw
Judah Lesan
away from her with a forceful push that intended to send him as far from her as possible. She didn't care what broke, if he broke, as she was merely discarding the remains of something once useful. He had served his purpose, the proof, her bloody handprint on his throat. A mark that would wash clean, but, with a burning ache that would never fade. Her hand, an ever-present threat to his oxygen, for the rest of his days.
However numbered they may have been.
The air around the phobis device hummed, vibrating, with the malevolence of which it was created. Her voice was a dual-toned whisper when she murmured the final incantation while it dug into her mind, unlocking her own concerns. Placing new fear when it found a thread to hold on to, regardless, how small it was. The deaths of her children, Soldane and Lunaria, danced before her eyes. She saw her niece
Iuuna Talon
and her godchild
Quinn Varanin
. She saw Sith she knew and Sith she did not fall beneath the sword of the Alliance. Face after face. So many faces.
So many dark candles extinguished.
Her hands tightened on the dodecahedron and she pushed past the images of her husband being destroyed. Of
Darth Malum of House Marr
being crushed somewhere in some force-forsaken mines. Of every, single, Sith in Echnos City. From
Kaila Irons
to
Velda Nar-Donna
and
Kasir Dorran
and countless others. Large and small. Young and old. This was their time to show the Alliance that there would be no forgiveness for this incursion. That they would not back down no matter how many storms raged. No matter, how much firepower pressed the airlocks.
They were not cowards, nor, would they be broken by the drum of war.
The Sith Order deserved
better and the nation would have it.
"Ri muiuri tuti dari... Sas ki kraujas, sas ki shukûâ, Nu ridasizi j'us.."
Nothing happened at first, but Srina was the starting point. She was also the last. It began and ended with her call as the mistress of the ritual. It was by her will alone that the ancient device was revived and full to the brim with the energy it needed to thrive. She could feel strength leaving her, swiftly, and her eyes suddenly felt heavy with the draw. Dizziness and a sense of displacement made her waver on her feet. This was the requirement. The cost to the invoker. Her hands slid away from the artifact and the Dread Queen dropped to the floor like a stone. Her eyes were open…But her body lay on its side. Cheek, pressed to the hardwood. Hand trying to push herself up.
"I command you to rise…I command you to wake…For me."
Her voice was weak and the ring on her finger pulsed harder in silent warning as she repeated herself over and over. Then, from nothing, a faint shimmering wave began to pulse outward from the device. It moved slowly, expanding in a perfect sphere that warped the air as it spread and distorted everything in its path. Light bent around it, creating shadows, where none had existed before—Plunging the chamber into surreal twilight.
The shimmer continued outward from the epicenter of Echnos City. It didn't change everything, but, initially offered a sense of uncanny valley while it stole warmth and hope. It passed over inanimate objects—Metal pillars, walls, and floors—and an eerie quiet followed. The air would grow denser with the ground it covered, heavy, and with that density would follow a feeling of overwhelming dread. It was not simply fear that the phobis device emitted. It was an intelligent design that honed in on primal terror, that which seeped into the mind and soul unbidden, feeding on the deepest, darkest fears of anyone in the area.
The expansion was slow.
Deliberate.
It would reach for the weakest first, those, without any mental defenses. From there…It would spread like a plague. Time seemed to slow for the Echani while she felt it latch on and find purchase. The battle meditation that
Darth Carnifex
was producing with his occultists would help the Sith Order withstand the deluge—But that was all. The rest would suffer in varying degrees. It might start with hearts racing faster, breathing, in short and shallow gasps while paranoia set in. It would tap into their vulnerabilities, whispering in unseen voices, bringing their worst nightmares to life in hallucinations so vivid they wouldn't be able to tell right from wrong, friend from foe, or this reality from the next.
It would take time for the power of the phobis device to hit the city walls…But it would. Every infected individual was an amplifier. Each Sith that had participated was a transmitter. There was no wall to keep it out. No door, no shelter. It would engulf everything in its path, hungry, and would increase in potency the longer she left it active. Even she occasionally saw shadows on the edges of her vision, but, it didn't need her anymore. Now—It was a self-sustaining loop.
Fed and powered by Echnos City itself.
Srina had done her part.
"It is up to them now…the others…", she mused, her voice barely a whisper, as if speaking to the device that howled on the Moon of Echnos with abandon.
"The Order must prove their worth…Or fail in the attempt. We do what we must."
Her presence had provided an advantage, but now, it was in the hands of her people to decide the future. Srina would remain to protect the relic, aware, that many would die…But that was the price. It was war. The reasons and motives didn't change what would transpire. Sith were forged in blood, tempered by suffering. They stood tall not by luck, not by favor, but because they survived where others did not. It was not for glory, for honor, but for power.
It was here that the Sith would show them all…True—
Fear.
To the likes of which they had never known.
