Private A Temple of Ghosts

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve climbed the steep walls of the Pardaith, the glacial mountains that cut across the planet’s landscape like a knife, as the cold bit into her skin.

She had never seen a storm come down so fast, so rough. The wind lashed her back, and snow blurred her entire world white. It was like the closer she came to their destination, the more hostile the conditions, as if the weather itself was demanding they turn back. But Maeve was no weakling. She and her companion had already traversed six miles of ice and barren permafrost in search of this mystery temple, and she wouldn’t turn back around at the first taste of a snow storm.

She was a Jedi Knight. They’d trained for scenarios far worse than frostbite—she could only hope the Knight accompanying her agreed.

No, what was she saying? This was Amani Serys, the Jedi Order’s chief healer, a knight of incredible renown, a Shield of Ilum. It would take more than harsh winds to beat them.

Maeve glanced down to the young woman, who was little more than a dark silhouette through the blinding snow. The two had been paired up on order of the Council, tasked with finding and exploring what had once been an ancient shrine to the Force, in hopes that one day, it might be reclaimed and transformed into a sanctuary for the Jedi. Before, on the comfortable and carpeted floors of the temple on Coruscant, it had seemed like a relatively simple mission.

Now, not so much.

Maeve struck her ice pick into the wall again, leaving a spider-web of cracks with each stab. Inch by inch, meter by meter, she made her way to the glacier’s peak. It was a miracle she hadn’t collapsed out of exhaustion in the last hour, but her master had taught her more than just how to wield a lightsaber or meditate on a rock. He’d taught her how to survive. Learning to climb a mountain had just been one of many lessons on her path to becoming a Knight.

She heaved again, and at last, Maeve felt her pick strike at the glacier’s ledge. Her breath hitched. They had reached the top, and she hadn’t even realized it. “Amani,” she called over her comlink, though the wind seemed to drown out her voice as she cast a second glance to where she’d last seen the healer. “Are you still with me?”

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

For all the worlds Amani had seen, none had tested her quite like this. Not the rains of Jabiim, the twin suns of Tatooine, nor the primeval Shadowlands of Kashyyyk. They had their struggles, but here, it was as if the planet itself were actively fighting against her presence. The path of the Jedi had trained her for many things, but how often each of those things was applied, was a different matter.

She could safely say scaling a mountain was a first in the field. Maeve took to it more naturally than Amani, but the mirialan's tenacity was a self-sustaining font of power. She would reach the top through sheer obstinance if need be.

The pick struck the glacier edifice for what felt like the thousandth time. Progress was indiscernible; Whipping wind and biting cold clouded her vision, dulled her senses. Then, a voice crackled to life in her ear, snapping Amani out of her glazy-eyed tedium. The sound was muted and disrupted by their environment, but the question could be parsed all the same, "Most of me, I think," She grinned at her own comment, letting her spirits counterbalance the physical burden.

Almost as soon as she said it, Amani felt her pick swing over and into the ledge. With a final surge she hauled herself over and onto her back, finally finding a moment of respite at the summit, "Let's hope this shrine is worth it," The healer lamented through a loud sigh. She lifted an arm in a silent request for help back to her feet.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Most should be enough," said Maeve, feeling a smile on the corner of her lip. She was just grateful the other Knight hadn't slipped and fallen a quarter mile down into the ice.

Now, they did not have much longer to go.

"Let's hope this shrine is worth it."

"We can only pray it is," Maeve added, raising a gloved hand to her eyes. She squinted into the flurry of white, searching for any sign of the temple. She had half the mind to take her lightsaber and cling to it for warmth and light, but in the open, the last thing she needed was to attract some wild creature prowling in the snow. No, she needed to trust her instinct.

Maeve closed her eyes. The Force moved through all things, and even on a planet this desolate, it endured. Already as she focused, she could feel it in the distance, a kind of gravity, pulling her closer and closer to their objective. Even as the wind resisted her every step, she moved towards it.

Then she saw it. The silhouette of an immense structure, shaped out of ice and pale stone. There was no visible path, no banners or engravings to signify what it was, but Maeve knew.

"This is it," she whispered under her breath.

The Temple of a Thousand Stars.

The inside foyer was in complete disrepair when she entered. The ceiling had been torn open, snow drifting into the temple's hollow belly, rendered perhaps by some winter storm many years ago. One of the corner pillars had collapsed, leaving crystal shards scattered across the chamber floor. It was a miracle the rest were still standing, holding up the roof as if they knew one day, another visitor would come to grace the temple's halls. But what was even left of the shrine? Maeve felt like she and Amani had been the only visitors in the last three centuries. Four, at least.

A shiver ran down her back. For a Jedi sanctuary, something felt off about this place.

"Do you feel that?" she asked Amani, dread curling in her gut.

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

Standing back up, Amani dusted off the coating of snow she had gathered on the ground. Her eyes shut, and her spirit called to the Force. The energy coalesced within and gave her a sense of newfound concentration, and much needed warmth. It wasn't often needed, but when it was, Amani was quite grateful that she had become adept in the use of Tapas over the course of her padawan training.

When her eyes reopened, Maeve had already taken her first steps towards an unseeable destination. Amani didn't question it, simply choosing to follow her ally into the unknown, in hopes that the temple was near.

Thankfully, it soon paid off. As they got closer, the structure's resonance within the Force became more clear, as did its silhouette through the flurry of ice. She sighed in relief when Maeve confirmed their find. As if it could be anything else.

The interior, though broken and decrepit, provided a marginal buttress against the weather. Amani was similarly impressed to find the location as intact as it was, her low whistle echoing off the warped acoustics. But it was only a moment before that train of thought was supplanted by a grim chill. Different from the cold of their surroundings. Something darker.

"I do," She drew her saber pike, the metal hilt so cold it dared to penetrate the warmth of her gloves. A divine white blade ignited, lending a faint light to her immediate surroundings. Amani's senses pulled her gaze further into the temple, warding her off from going inside. However, that was likely not an option, "What do you think it is?" Amani had her theories. But she dared not voice the worst of them aloud.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Nothing good."

The answer was frustratingly vague, but that was how she felt. The temple stank with a strangeness she was unused to, and an unexpected feeling that she'd never thought would have belonged to a former Jedi shrine. She had to wonder just what had happened here. Why it'd been abandoned, forgotten. There was a story here they were missing, and it was going to take more than just feeling to uncover what it was.

Maeve knelt against the snow-clad ground. She swept a hand across it, revealing the floor underneath, and examined what appeared to be mysterious inscriptions in a language she found both familiar, and unintelligible. "Amani," she said. "Can you read this? I know I've seen it before in the temple archives on Coruscant, but I don't remember from what." It was not ancient Jedi script. That much was certain.

As her eyes drifted over the engravings, something else tugged at her attention. Faraway, in the corner of the chamber, where the shadows were heaviest. "Wait."

They were not alone.

As her fingers came away from the imprint, as if on cue, a roar pierced the cold air. The ground beneath her feet almost seemed to shake at the noise, but Maeve understood very quickly that it wasn't the sound that made the temple shudder. It were the thunderous steps charging toward them.

Out of the dark gut of another hall, a massive creature emerged. At first glance, Maeve thought she was looking at a wild animal, with blood-red eyes and heavy fur matting. But against the light of their blades, she saw the beast for what it was. A Sith abomination. She'd seen her fair share of them in the alchemical labs of her childhood, born in bacta tanks and bred for war.

This one was the spitting image of a spider, only enlarged fifty times over.

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

Amani grimaced, and kept her guard up as they wandered the hall. The answer would only come if they searched for it. Her thoughts similarly dwelled on the unknown story behind this shrine's fate, only to be interrupted by Maeve's voice. She knelt down beside her, squinting intently at the strange scripture, "Hmmm…"

Her face sank. One thing was certain, "It shouldn't be here… I think it's-" Quakes from deep within the temple. Amani stood up, holding her blade like a light against the shadow itself that seemed to encroach on their position. An unholy beast, rampaging and bloodthirsty, sprung forth. A Sithspawn of some kind. Debased by science of the Dark Side. As perhaps the entire shrine now was. Whatever happened here was more than a gradual abandonment.

Taking a stance, Amani raised her spear to ward off the arachnid, poking and prodding the defenses, "Get at its legs!" She said, before flanking with a sudden sidestep, and slashing towards its frontmost limb herself.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

She should have run. She should have leapt aside, or dove for cover, or done something besides stand where she was. But Maeve was stubborn. Iron-willed. She refused to give ground to a creature like this, and instead she invited it to come, watching as it closed the gap between them at a startling pace. The grip on her lightsaber tightened. Both of her feet shifted slightly to the left.

Then, she dropped like a stone.

Whatever the creature was, it practically barreled over her, its many fur-covered legs twisting around her on the ice. She weaved between them, her knees shifting against the floor from side to side, her lightsaber carving into several of the abomination's legs. None of the limbs came free, but it was enough to draw out a pained howl, and leave a few smoking wounds that would put it at a severe disadvantage.

As the creature shrieked and slid over the icy floor, Maeve emerged from underneath it unscathed. She felt her confidence lift into a smile. "Already on it."

While the other Knight challenged the abomination with her saber pike, Maeve probed for another opening. The creature had an armored outer shell on its back, underside, and the front of its legs. If they'd any hope of killing it, it would require more than shallow cuts or dicing limbs. A lightsaber down its throat, perhaps, would put the thing out of its misery.

Maeve warned Amani over comlink, "I'm going in!"

One leg back, she ran up a slab of stone that had fallen from the ceiling and lunged at the creature's back. Forget going for the legs. Maeve intended to kill the beast right then and there, without risking the entire temple collapsing in on them.

And what a mistake that was.

One of the abomination's legs suddenly snapped, twisting at an unnatural angle from the floor and into the air, where it met her with a painful smack. Maeve didn't even have time to gasp. The creature swatted her away like a gnat, and sent her crashing hard into the opposite chamber wall.

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

They were quick to harry the monster, managing a number of surface level cuts while keeping it from mounting a successful counterattack. Amani used her pike's length to her advantage, effectively corralling the creature towards a wall. But as it is often said, a cornered beast is the most dangerous.

Her ally sought to make quick work of the fight, leaping up for a killing blow, only to be swiftly punished as her defenses were left open. Amani sensed it a split second before, "Maeve-!" Was all she had time to get out, before the Jedi was launched into a far wall. There was barely enough time for Amani to act herself, before the spider lunged towards her next.

The healer raised her pike horizontally, catching its mandibles just before they could find purchase in her flesh. Still, the abomination's strength was more than enough to push her across the floor, and against the opposite wall. Its fangs thrashed angrily, one of them nearly spearing Amani in the neck before she shifted aside. Thinking on her feet, she slid her saber to the right, causing the blade to impale the abomination's front leg. It screeched, losing the momentum it had and allowing Amani to swing the blade back up and in an arc, slicing off one of the mandibles and coming back around to do the same with the injured front leg.

She rolled beneath its abdomen, struggling to avoid a trampling as its remaining legs threatened to spear her against the ground. An opening to get back into a standing position never came, and she was forced to crawl and contort around the rain of attacks, "Still alive?!" Amani called out to Maeve, hoping her backup would have enough strength left to mount a coup de grace.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

She heard the voice first, warm like sun-drenched earth.

"Maeve?" they whispered. "Maeve?"

Maeve.

She startled to consciousness. For a half second, Maeve had lost herself to the pain and dizzying shock of being slammed into a marble wall with the force of a blaster bolt, and it was only thanks to her armor and training that she did not collapse uselessly against the ice on impact. Amani's voice too seemed to pull her from her reverie, like a beacon in the night, encouraging her to rise.

By the looks of it, the healer was single-handedly fighting off the abomination. She'd taken a mandible and a leg in exchange for the blow Maeve had received, which was good enough recompense for the broken rib she could feel in her side. But none of that mattered. Only killing this thing did.

As she blinked the stars from her eyes, Maeve climbed to her feet. She retrieved her lightsaber, igniting it once again, casting herself in blue light as she searched for whatever openings Amani had forced open with the creature. She could not go charging in like she had just a minute ago. The abomination was clearly intelligent, and it seemed to anticipate their moves as if reading an open book.

But even with so many eyes, the arachnid could only focus on one page at a time.

Maeve did not yet have the strength or speed to reach them in time, but she had something better. A lightsaber, and the Force. Forget charging at them again. Instead, she swept back her arm and hurled her blade in the spider's direction.

Aquamarine light spun across the chamber. Round and round, guided by some invisible hand, the lightsaber eventually crashed into the abomination's side, skewering one of its legs clean off, spraying black blood across the icy floor—and over Amani's face. It was not a very clean strike, but it was certainly the most effective. Maeve hoped the healer would understand.

Or more importantly, use the opportunity to land the killing blow.

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

Amani’s call was all the attention she could risk diverting, lest the arachnid impale her on one of its many pointed limbs. She spread her legs to avoid a downward strike, and dragged herself backwards by her hands as another flurry of attacks trailed just behind. Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before the spider had succeeded in the same trick she tried to pull on it earlier: trapping her in a corner.

With no space to move, Amani was at the abomination’s mercy, wincing preemptively for the next attack… Only for her to be struck in the face by a spatter of putrid, blackened ichor. She opened her eyes to the unpleasant stench and sight, but quickly recognized the cause, as well as the opportunity it brought.

The spider faltered, rearing up as it howled in pain, giving her the space to thrust her spear upward, through its thorax. Another spurt of sticky blood shot out, accompanied by a jarring shriek of death as the spider was finally felled. It rolled onto its back, legs reflexively curling inward before stiffening as the last breath was drawn. Amani groaned and pushed herself back onto her feet, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” She shot Maeve a smirk, though the expression deflated into disgust as she flicked off strands of gore from her frame.

“You alright?”

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"I'm fine," she answered. "Better than you, I'd say."

Maeve looked Amani up head to toe, not totally unaware of the gore and black bile the healer was drenched in. She wasn't a pretty sight. Of course, neither of them were. Maeve's own hair was a wild mess, no longer contained by the tight cowl she'd been wearing. She had a broken rib, maybe two. Worse, there was a thin slash of blood on her arm, a clean cut through her mail.

The spider's leg had clearly left its mark. She prayed it hadn't been tipped with poison, else she'd be feeling a lot worse in a few minutes.

For now, she stalked towards the abomination: a mess of fur, smoking wounds and severed limbs. As she did, Maeve extended an arm, calling her lightsaber back to her, and the hilt flew from some corner of the chamber back into her hand. She squeezed it tightly. How was it that she'd been blindsided like this? She'd trained for worse. She should have expected this to happen.

The spider twitched as she came close. Just a death spasm, but Maeve didn't think. Her hand spun and there was a flash of blue light, there and gone, and suddenly the abomination's head was rolling across the temple floor. Dark blood continued to pool around her feet.

"We can never be too safe," Maeve said, deactivating her blade, but it was obvious she was on edge. The fight had left her shaken. Bruised. She would not be caught off guard again.

Turning back to Amani, she waved a disgusted hand at the spider's corpse. "If this thing, a Sith creation, had been lurking here, in a former Jedi sanctuary, then I have to wonder just what else might be waiting for us ahead." She paused, looking to the dark passage at the end of the chamber. "At least now we know why this place was abandoned."

The Sith had been here. That much was certain.

Maeve released a cold breath of air, then searched through the travel pack slung over her shoulder. Retrieving a clean towel, she tossed it over to the other Knight. "I'd say we should press on, but this may just only be the beginning. What do you think, Amani?"

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

"Scent-wise, maybe," Amani snorted, managing to remove most of the excess goo with a final wipe of her hands. She immediately spotted the cut across Maeve's arm, and went into healer-mode, "Stay still a moment."

The mirialan inched closer, sparing her a look that seemed to be a silent ask for confirmation, before raising a palm. The sapphire hung around her neck began to glow, as pure Force energy coalesced, then bridged between them to offer Maeve a warm, blanketing sensation. It was capable of accelerating the healing process, knitting muscle sinew back together, even bone if given enough effort. Which Amani would give, unless otherwise denied.

"Indeed," She glance between her fellow Knight, and the further depths of the sanctuary, "We can't just leave it to fester. If you're able, then yes, we should press onward."

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Yes," Maeve agreed. "And thank you."

Amani's extraordinary abilities had healed her flesh wounds rather spectacularly, but her body still protested when she made to push on ahead. A soreness had seeped into the muscles that would require days of meditation to resolve, but Maeve was not deterred.

They pressed deeper into the ruins, her mind heavy with the mystery she found herself embroiled in. Nothing made sense. The inscriptions, the monster—they were of Sith design. Even with this temple abandoned, the residual presence of so many Jedi walking its halls would have driven the monster away long ago. Only, Maeve felt nothing of the former Jedi. She only felt the cold—a bitter, biting cold that did not come from the air around her, but the stain the monster had left behind. But was the monster its true origin? she wondered.

The stain on this place could be far older.

In the adjacent chamber waited more cryptic clues. The walls in this room were covered in runes. Not the practiced, purposeful kind adorning the walls of some abandoned temples. No, these runes were more like ancient graffiti, the blemish of someone attempting to tarnish this place. Maeve ran a hand across the surface of a number of glyphs. They were old, not recent.

"This language," she said, examining another line of glyphs. "I have never seen its like. The only ones who would use runes such as these would have been the—"

The word died on her tongue. Sith. These were Sith runes. She could not read them, but she had heard tell of these sorts of glyphs during her training and endless tours of the archives. What did they say? Were they gloating? A warning? Perhaps the writer had inscribed a curse here, binding the beast to this place.

The Force reached out and pulled her further towards the back of the chamber, the cold intensifying in that direction. "I understand now," she whispered to Amani. "This is no Jedi temple. This is a shrine to the ancient Sith Order."

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

"Let me know if anything feels wrong," When Amani finished, she studied Maeve for a few moments as if to make certain that the healing had done its job. As expected, deeper wounds would take some time to return to full strength, but it was enough for them to keep trekking onward. While her partner was embroiled in thought, Amani kept a vigilant eye on their surroundings, ultimately coming to the same conclusion.

"I have never seen its like. The only ones who would use runes such as these would have been the—"

"-Sith," She said it aloud, finishing what she had tried to say just as the abomination attacked them. This shrine had a darker intent than they realized, and now they were caught in the middle of it. "Then I suppose that leaves us with only one option," Find some way to dismantle the font of evil power that haunted the temple. Purge it from the mortal plane. "Question is… what else is lurking in here?" The shadows still beckoned to some unseen nexus.

"You sense that as well?"

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"I sense it, and neither do I like it."

She raised her lightsaber to the shadows at the corridor's end. Instead of shrinking back, it was almost like they danced against the light, twisting and turning as she approached. The ice beneath her feet cracked at every step. So much for being stealthy, Maeve thought, although she supposed it didn't matter. Murdering the abomination would have long already alerted the rest of the shrine of their presence.

If something was lurking, it knew they were, too.

The temple remained eerily quiet as Maeve dove deeper into its depths. She half-wanted to fill it with conversation, maybe ask Amani what she felt about the place, or if she'd ever encountered one similar to it in the past, but she didn't. Maeve only kept walking, afraid that another abomination might round the corner and leave her with an injury that even the healer could not mend. What approached instead, however, was far worse.

Maeve lifted a hand as she sensed it coming. "Wait."

She took a step back, clutching the hilt of her lightsaber. Then she saw it. A cloud of darkness. Shadows flying towards them like a wave of water. "Get back!" she shouted to Amani, before slashing her blade into the black flood. It did nothing. The darkness parted around her lightsaber as if it was little more than candlelight before circling around her, blanketing the walls, the floor, the ceiling. It was like Maeve had been engulfed in a sand storm, only the sand was shadow.

Then, it spoke.

"Maeve," the dark whispered. "Maeve, my little hellion."

She froze. That was a nickname she had not heard in years. Not since she was a little girl, frolicking through the gardens outside her Chandrilan home, back when she had a family.

"No," she murmured. "No."

As for Amani, the voice would haunt her too, sweet and softer than silk, whispering into the healer's ear like the wind between leaves. "Oh, my Amani," it said. "Do you really think he will go through with the wedding?"

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

Amani was close in step with Maeve as they delved ever deeper into the profane shrine, their blades barely keeping the darkness at bay, as if it was just waiting to swallow them whole should the light ever go out.

The air felt eerily still, as if it too was frozen over not by temperature, but by the unnatural evil that took root here. The only sound was the hum of plasma, and the repeated crunch of ice under their boots. As soon as Maeve's voice broke the pregnant pause, Amani stopped, and peered into the shadows. Shadows that only grew closer, moving on their own. These ones did not wait for the light to go out, passing through and engulfing the pair of Jedi in blackness.

"…Maeve?" Amani asked, finding the silence far more uncomfortable than before. Then a voice, not Maeve's , called to her in sweet whispers. The sensation made her jolt upright, "Stop," She immediately said, trying to shut down the intrusion with questionable effect, "I'm not listening to this. Maeve?" The healer tried to reach out to her compatriot again.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve shook her head, fighting to ignore the voice. Somehow, its pitch was changing, turning into something that sounded less like a dark entity, and more like her father. "Don't leave me, my little hellion," he said, in a tone that transported her right back to their old home back on Chandrila. "I'm right here. Please. Look at me."

"You're not real," Maeve insisted, but it was like she was trying to convince herself more than anything. She refused to believe this was her father. It couldn't be, since she knew he was dead. She'd seen it with her own eyes. "Amani?" Maeve called instead, hoping to find the healer over the whispers. "Amani?"

Trying was pointless. As Maeve reached out into the swirling shadows, she grasped at nothing but air, the world around her now plunged into darkness. Keeping her lightsaber drawn had little to no effect on their new enemy, and while slashing into it was deeply tempting, she didn't want to risk striking Amani in its place.

-----​

Of course, the healer fared no better. Despite Amani's attempts to reach Maeve and block out the voice, it didn't listen. The voice only twisted, melded into something else, something more familiar. The voice of a young man. A man she knew well.

"Your friend cannot hear you, my love. Only I can."

Alicio's silhouette stepped out from the dark. It might not have been him, but it was the very picture of the young Senator: handsome, hair swept to one side, with a jaw that could cut glass. He smiled, and it was like watching the sun break over the horizon. "Do you miss me, Amani?" he asked. "Do you love me?"

He approached her, closing the space between them at a slow and careful pace. He reached out to her, wanting to take her hand, the same hand where she wore their engagement ring, blue and silver and cut like a triangle. "You still wear it. I'm glad. You have no idea how happy I am to see you again, Amani. Even now I could just kiss you." His smile widened, and if she were to touch him, he would feel no different than before.

"Remember that night on Alderaan? The ball? You were wearing the most beautiful purple dress I'd ever seen." He laughed. "And boy, I was nervous. So nervous I think I was shaking. But you? Seeing you made everything right." Alicio took a step back and extended his hand again, as if in preparation for a waltz. "Don't you want to dance like that again, Amani?"

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

Nothing from Maeve. Amani remained tense, seemingly unable to counter the swirling darkness in any meaningful way. Just when she opened her mouth to speak again, a voice replied. Once again not Maeve's, but not the same voice as before either. This was, to her, the most beautiful sound in the galaxy. But hearing it in this place made her shiver. An uncanny valley-like experience, familiar yet unnatural. A bastardization of the real thing. "Shut up," Amani snapped, "Keep his voice out of your mouth."

But it wasn't just his voice now. It was his face. His body. She swallowed anxiously, "This isn't not y— This isn't him. You're not him." This specter of the Count reached toward her, and his hand grazed her. It felt the same. Now it had his touch, too. Amani jerked her hand away as if afraid to becoming attached to it. When he reached out again, she took a step back, "Stop," She looked around as if hoping to catch sight of anything else. Anything other than this ghost before her, "Maeve! Where are you?!" Amani kept telling herself it wasn't real. It wasn't him. It couldn't be. It could never be, "Where is she?"

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Don't leave us, Maeve. Don't leave us the way you left us in that cage. Rotting. Decaying. Did you ever think to come back to bury us? To avenge us?"

Maeve flinched. The words came out of nowhere and hit her like a punch in the gut. She didn't know what to say then, or what to do, besides turn and stare at what she knew was her father, thin and pale, sandy hair loose around his shoulders. "I have avenged you," she stated, almost angrily. "I killed those disgusting cultists in their sleep."

Her father shook his head. "You didn't kill them all. You ran. You fled into the wilderness and you left our bones in that monstrous place where not even sunlight can reach us."

"Stop it!" she said. "That's isn't true."

But it was, and Maeve hated it.

-----​

While Maeve fell deeper into the illusion, Amani would find herself faced with a softer approach. Alicio, looking at her the way he always did, lovingly and with eyes like stars.

"Maeve? Why does she matter?" he asked, as if hurt by her demand. "I'm right here, Amani. I've been here, and always have been here—for you, for us." He ran a hand through his hair, dark locks twisting between his fingers. A lifelike imitation of the young Senator, he paced around the small clearing of light Amani had left. "What about the time we first met? The refugee camp?"

Alicio folded both arms over his chest and watched her. "Or that night in our apartment? The blue ramen you had in your lap? The blankets piled over you as if you were some human burrito?" He smiled, like he was remembering the memory even now.

"Please, Your Excellency," he said, hand extended. "You know it's me."

Amani Serys​

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[Amani Serys]

There was a part of Amani buried within that liked the idea of believing in this mirage. To just stop and fall into the comforting arms of her beloved. It was an impressive mimicry of the real deal. But she knew it wasn't really him. It couldn't be. Alicio was waiting for her back home. Nothing in this place would stop her from seeing him again. The real him.

The Count reached out again, and she stepped back defensively. Amani shook her head, "If it really is you, then this won't hurt a bit," the healer then raised her palm towards him, and a surge of radiant energy expelled out. Pure Force Light, capable of repelling and purging darkness wherever it took root. She would see it gone from her mind, from their surroundings, "Maeve!" Amani called out again, latching on to some hope that the Light would disrupt the illusion enough for her voice to break through.

Maeve Linahan​