Night had long since fallen across the Valley of the Dark Lords, but there was no moonlight here—only the pallid glow of ancient flames, held in braziers untouched by wind or time. The tombs loomed like petrified titans around her, crumbling mausoleums of power and arrogance, each one built to honor a conqueror who had long since rotted beneath his mask. Even now, the very stones trembled with the memories of betrayal, murder, and ambition.
Serina Calis—no, not Serina anymore—walked alone.
No guards. No advisors. No whispering acolytes. Not even Rae, who had dared to speak kindness into the pit where Serina's heart used to be. The Arch-Commandant had died aboard the Darklight, humiliated, slapped down like a disobedient child before those she had served with loyalty and strategic brilliance. The galaxy had watched, and the galaxy had turned its back.
But the fury in her heart had not abated. It had grown, taking root in the wound that Arcanix and Malum and Ivalyn Yvarro had carved into her pride. Every step she took into the tomb's depths fed it, as though the dead Sith Lords—long stripped of flesh and identity—were whispering, "Yes. Yes. This is the path. Let your agony become your birthright."
Serina's armored gauntlet dragged along the wall as she descended the steps of Tulak Hord's tomb, fingers clinking against the cold stone etched with ancient script. Her helmet hung from her side, forgotten, her long white hair drifting around her face like a specter. Her eyes burned—one still hidden behind the shattered black lenses, the other aglow with unrelenting, violet hatred. Every breath she drew came as a slow, controlled act of rebellion against the humiliation forced upon her.
She was not weak. She had never been weak.
And yet they had treated her as if she were something beneath them. A dog to be leashed. A tool to be scolded and discarded. As if she had not clawed her way to command. As if she had not spilled blood and sacrificed love, safety, everything—just to stand at their side.
When she reached the final threshold, she stopped.
A great door, carved with images of supplicants bowing before a crowned figure, blocked her path. No keyhole. No passcode. Just a stone that thrummed with the Force. And it knew her.
The door opened.
Dust poured down in thin sheets, disturbed after centuries of silence. A single chamber stretched beyond, regal and vast, the floor formed from obsidian inlaid with red quartz veins that pulsed faintly with stored energy. At the center, seated on a throne of blackstone and golden filigree, was a long-dead Sith Lord. His body long desiccated, preserved by ritual and wrath, a golden circlet still rested on his skull, untouched by time.
Serina stepped forward.
Her breath slowed. Her thoughts did not.
She saw Arcanix's strike again. Heard Malum's cruel amusement. Saw the flickering disappointment in Ivalyn's eyes, like a teacher who had watched a child fail the lesson.
They have no idea what they've done.
She dropped to one knee—not in submission, but in reverence. Not for the corpse, but for the darkness that clung to this chamber like oil.
She swore to herself she would never do this.
"I gave everything," she whispered.
Her voice cracked—not with weakness, but with despair twisted into fury.
Her hand curled into a fist against the floor.
"I gave them loyalty. I gave them brilliance. I gave them my mind. My soul. My future. And they repaid me with scorn. They spat on me in front of the very people I commanded."
Tears began to form in the corner of her violet eye. They did not fall. They boiled.
"You want me to kneel?" she hissed to the corpse. "You want me to kneel, Arcanix? Malum? Yvarro?"
The Force trembled.
"No."
She rose.
With a slow, deliberate motion, she climbed the steps toward the throne. The circlet called to her—not with words, not with visions, but with recognition. As if it knew her already. As if it had waited. Her gauntlet hovered over the long-dead skull, and with a gentle motion, she lifted the circlet from the corpse's brow.
It was not grand. It was not bejeweled or ostentatious. It was a simple band of dark electrum, carved with the sigils of the old Sith—symbols of destiny, control, dominion, and deceit. It pulsed faintly in her hand as if remembering what it meant to crown a tyrant.
Serina stared into the black mirror of the obsidian floor.
She saw herself. Hollow. Beautiful. Broken.
No, she would never break.
And then she crowned herself.
The circlet settled upon her brow, its weight cool and final. The chamber around her roared with power as centuries of forgotten rage surged through her. The shadows twisted. The air bent. Even the Force seemed to hesitate, as if taking a breath before the storm.
Her pain vanished. Not erased—weaponized.
She was no longer the Arch-Commandant. No longer Serina Calis, the knight ignored, the brilliant woman humiliated for daring to speak truth.
She was vengeance made flesh. A sovereign of fury. A goddess crowned in shadow and crowned in fire.
She stood before the throne and whispered her new name aloud for the tomb to hear:
"Darth Virelia."
The title echoed.
Not in the chamber—but across the Valley. Across Korriban.
Something ancient stirred beneath the sands, roused by the power that now boiled in her soul. It would come in time. All things would. Her revenge. Her empire. Her new order. She would rip down the old nobility, the condescending Councilors, the petty Sith. They would choke on their arrogance.
Because she was power.
And they had crowned her with their hatred.
Darth Virelia turned and walked from the tomb—not as a woman shamed, but as a sovereign risen. The shadows bowed in her wake.
"And you will kneel to me."
