Private Collection

[Darth Virelia]

"An elegant poison."

Tags - Iskera Valest

The cavernous throne hall of Malachor was still, except for the soft crackle of the braziers that ringed the dais. Their violet firelight cast long shadows across the obsidian floor, every flame bent and elongated by the dark geometry of the chamber. Silence here was not absence but weight, a silence that pressed down on stone and soul alike.

Upon the throne at the chamber's heart, Darth Virelia reclined like a predator at rest. The high, curved seat of carved basalt rose about her shoulders like the wings of some vast, petrified beast. She was not armored now—armor was for war, for the spectacle of destruction. Tonight she wore midnight silk that clung where it pleased and revealed where it was meant to, its folds spilling over the throne's arms like liquid shadow. In her hand was a crystalline chalice, wine swirling within it, rich as blood and glimmering faintly with the faintest suggestion of starlight.

Her lips touched the rim with languid grace, a sip that was less necessity than ritual. Each motion carried deliberate elegance, every small indulgence transformed into a statement of dominion. To drink here, in this hall carved from the bones of a dead world, was to remind all who entered that she had survived what no one should. That she was inevitable.

The throne room's vastness only emphasized her stillness. She did not fidget. She did not pace. She did not need to. Waiting was another form of command, a ritual she had perfected. Whoever came through those doors would already belong to her the moment their eyes lifted and found her silhouette in the flame-lit dark.

Virelia's violet gaze lingered on the floor before her, though she did not truly see it. She felt. The planet's wounds breathed into her, whispering of hunger, betrayal, and endless endurance. Malachor had been shattered, consumed, defiled, and yet it remained. So did she. The parallel pleased her. It lent a certain resonance to her dominion. This place was not backdrop but mirror.

Another sip of wine. She let the liquid linger on her tongue before swallowing, savoring the sharpness, the subtle burn. Pleasure was a tool, no different than the Force or a blade. She knew how to wield it.

Her expression betrayed nothing but calm amusement, the faintest curve of lips that promised indulgence and punishment in equal measure. The apprentice would learn quickly: here beauty and terror were the same language. Here, desire was not refuge but leash.

She shifted, slow and deliberate, crossing one leg over the other. Silk whispered against stone. Shadows clung to her like courtiers. The sound of her movement seemed louder than it had any right to be, echoing faintly across the chamber.

The apprentice was late by a margin, but that was of no consequence. Time was hers to command. She enjoyed anticipation, enjoyed the tension that grew in an empty hall before a meeting. It was the savoring before the first taste, the drawn breath before a kiss or a strike.

Virelia raised her chalice again, lips brushing glass, eyes fixed on the doors. The moment of arrival was near.

 

[Iskera Valest]

The echo of her steps reached the throne long before she did. Each one found the rhythm of the chamber's silence, neither breaking nor disturbing it, but weaving into it like a counterpoint. Iskera had learned long ago that sound was a kind of language.

She stopped at the edge of the dais and lowered herself into a bow so precise it bordered on ritual. The air here was thick, warm with violet firelight and the faint iron sweetness that clung to Malachor's breath. It was reminder of where she was, of who she owed.

"Lady Virelia." Her voice was low, reverent, but never trembling. Reverence, she had discovered, carried more weight when it was spoken by one in control of herself. The title lingered like perfume on the air.

Rising, she let her eyes lift only as far as the hem of the silks that pooled about the throne. There were no wasted motions, no nervous gestures. She knew the gaze above her would find all it needed in restraint. Virelia had shown her that. Mercy once, when she had not deserved it; a lesson in elegance when she had only known precision.

The chalice caught her attention—a small star trembling in her Lady's hand. She wondered what it would be to be that wine: drawn close, consumed slowly, transformed into part of something greater.

"The archives have yielded what you sought," Iskera said finally, voice soft as ash. "The texts survived the corrosion, though the seals fought me." A faint curve touched her mouth, the ghost of satisfaction. "They did not win."

Tag: Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"An elegant poison."

Tags - Iskera Valest

The glass tilted, just slightly. A thread of deep red traced the lip before Virelia's tongue caught it—slow, deliberate, unhurried. The gesture was neither indulgence nor accident. It was punctuation.

"Did they not?" Her voice carried through the chamber like silk pulled across the edge of a blade—smooth, low, and edged with promise. The sound did not echo; the room simply absorbed it, as though Malachor itself were listening.

Her gaze descended upon Iskera, violet eyes alive with that quiet, devastating curiosity that felt less like scrutiny and more like seduction. Every inch of her stillness was predatory. She set the chalice aside on the basalt arm of her throne, and the faint ring of crystal on stone seemed to mark the boundary between worlds—the one Iskera had stepped from, and the one she was now inside.

"Then perhaps you have begun to understand," Virelia murmured. "Resistance is not something to overcome. It is the proof that there is something worth claiming."

She rose.

It was not sudden, but the slow, liquid movement of inevitability. The silks spilled from her lap in quiet waves, dark as oil and twice as reflective. The air itself seemed to lean toward her, drawn by gravity that was not physical. She stepped down from the throne, each motion measured to remind the world that she commanded its tempo.

"Show me."

The command was soft, but there was no mistaking it for a request. It was a word that demanded obedience not out of fear—but out of a desire to please her, to be seen by her.

Virelia came to stand just before the dais' edge, close enough that the heat from the braziers shimmered against the outline of her form. Her hand extended—not out, but down, palm open. It was both invitation and challenge.

"You have always been precise, Iskera," she continued, voice a whisper near her ear though she hadn't moved. "You carve meaning as though it were a surgical art. But tell me…" The faintest trace of a smile curved her lips, slow as sunrise over a battlefield. "When the seals fought you, did you break them—or persuade them?"

Her eyes caught the light and deepened, twin stars drowning in amethyst flame.

"There is a difference," she said. "Destruction yields obedience only once. Persuasion lasts."

She began to circle, slow and deliberate, each word carried on the measured rhythm of her steps.

"I have little use for creatures that break what they touch. The galaxy is full of them. Loud, graceless things that mistake violence for will. You are not that." Her voice softened, almost a caress. "You see structure. Weakness. The seams between truths. That is why you are here, why I let you breathe Malachor's air, why I have not yet replaced you with another more desperate to please me."

She stopped behind her, close enough that the air between them trembled.

"Bring me the texts when you are ready," Virelia said at last, her tone languid, final. "And next time, when resistance greets you…" A breath, warm as sin, brushed against Iskera's neck. "Don't fight it. Make it kneel."

Virelia's smile lingered as she reclaimed her throne, the chalice waiting—its contents trembling, as though even the wine understood what it was to be near her.

 

[Iskera Valest]

"I remember," she said, voice low, steady. The word carried memory—of another time the Dark Lady had taught her to listen rather than crush, to draw confession from locked minds the way heat draws breath from glass.

When she moved, it was slow, deliberate—each step forward a sentence in the language Virelia had written into her. She drew the satchel from her shoulder, its leather faintly scoured by ash, and unwrapped a thin slab of alloyed obsidian. Seals still glimmered faintly across its surface—broken not by force but by coaxing. She had whispered into the fractures until they softened. Persuasion, not destruction.

"They resisted until they desired release," Iskera murmured, fingers brushing the runes that now lay dormant. "The bindings were made to respond to fear. I offered them curiosity instead."

The faintest pause followed, almost a hesitation, though it was calculation—the pause between presenting an offering and seeing whether it pleased. She was shaping her language to reflect Virelia's own, to please her even in the most subtle of ways. Her gaze never rose beyond Virelia's collarbone, yet there was something almost hungry in its restraint, as if reverence itself had learned appetite.

"This chamber will find them obedient," she continued, placing the recovered texts upon the lowest step of the dais. "They remember power, and they will recognize it here."

Then she stepped back, hands folding neatly before her, composure unbroken. The firelight caught the faint sheen of sweat along her temple, not from fear but from proximity.

"If you wish, my Lady," Iskera said softly, "I can teach the seals to kneel in your name alone."

Tag - Darth Virelia