Tyrant Queen of Darkness
"In the cover of darkness."
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Adriana Fortemps
The room was deliberately dark. Not pitch-black, but shadowed in the way that suggested choice rather than neglect. Curtains had been drawn against Fondor's skyline, and only a few dim wall sconces were left burning, their low amber glow catching on steel trim and the faint silver embroidery at the hem of her cloak. Darth Virelia sat without moving, a figure carved from patience and will, one gauntleted hand curled over the armrest of the chair.
The Senate house had given her a private backroom—discreet, barely furnished, and far removed from the echoing chambers where the rhetoric of politicians rose and fell in endless tides. A chamber meant for waiting, or perhaps for conspiracies. Fitting.
Virelia sipped once from the glass beside her, savoring the sharp mineral tang of Fondorian wine. It was not pleasure she sought in the drink, but rhythm—the measured cadence of control. Every small act was ritual, each gesture an anchor. Even here, among enemies cloaked in civility, she could remain the axis around which others turned.
Her intelligence web had brought her a name. Adriana Fortemps. Senator of the Galactic Alliance. Yet her agents whispered otherwise. The woman's habits aligned too closely with hidden movements in the Dark. Sith, they suspected.
Virelia did not know if the suspicion was truth, or merely wishful patterns stitched into shadows. But she would test it herself. If Fortemps was indeed of the Dark, then this meeting could become more than diplomacy. It could be the opening chord of an alliance—an understanding forged not in loyalty, but in recognition of strength.
The silence of the room pressed close, thick enough that Virelia could hear her own breathing, slow and steady behind the carved mask resting on the table before her. She did not wear the Tyrant's Embrace here. Fondor was no battlefield. Instead she was robed, hooded, her presence restrained but undeniable, coiled in the Force like a storm biding its time.
She leaned back, lips curving faintly as she considered the balance of risk. If Fortemps was Sith, she would already know the danger of revealing herself to one such as Virelia. If she was not, then tonight would either end in silence—or in ruin.
The latch of the door clicked, soft but distinct. Light from the corridor lanced across the floor, then died as the door shut again. A silhouette framed itself in the room, the Senator at last.
Virelia did not rise. She let the pause stretch, filled with shadow and expectation, until her voice uncoiled low and deliberate:
"Senator Fortemps. At last. Do sit. We have much to discuss… and much more to uncover."
