Private Death & Beyond

[Vulcan Zambrano]

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

Korriban, Valley of Golg, Gate of Graush...

It felt like home.

For one born in a laboratory aboard Malsheem a place scarcely left until recently, just approaching this world held a familiarity that resonated to the deepest fibers of his being. The planet below wasn''t merely dead. Death was too simple a word for what Korriban had become over the ages. Death suggested conclusion. Korriban endured beyond conclusion, embalmed in dust, blood, tomb-stone, and memory. Its valleys didn't sleep. They waited. Its ruins didn't decay into peace. Instead, they silently listened. The black shape of the infiltrator descended through the red haze of the ancient world. The Nycthemeron was unlike anything ever seen before in the vastness of space, the very first in the newest line of the Koshûshuk-class Infiltrator, to shatter the limitations of what the galaxy considered a stealth ship to be. The result was something that defied comprehension by all known shipwrights, its creation wasn't announced to the world, it was silently unveiled by Hypernautics Staryards its models delivered to where the Kainate required them. But one such model was never destined for such a fate, it was created in secrecy, alone from its peers. The Shadow Mind staffed a separate team wholly dedicated to its creation, and upon its completion it was silently delivered as a gift to the Shadow Hand himself, it was christened Nycthemeron.

A vessel fit for his father. But one that was assigned to him at the request of his mother, if he was to be departing the safety net of Malsheem. They were nothing more than a ghost as the vessel departed hyperspace and sliced downward. It slipped through sensor shadows and thermal ghosts with ease, harsh defense networks wouldn't even register the vessels presence as the Valley of Golg opened beneath it like a wound carved into the world. The canyon stretched for miles, lined in ancient tombs and restored monuments, its depths starved of sunlight and filled with the long pressure of things once worshipped, feared, and buried with insufficient care. Vulcan Zambrano watched it all in complete silence, he stood in the cockpit with his hands clasped behind his back, the crimson glow of the Bloodpane interface panting his features in a faint arterial light. The glyphic overlays marked terrain, wind, mass, temperature, residual energy, and ritual geometries half-buried beneath the sand. Yet the machine's readings were the least honest thing before him. The Force told him more. It pressed against his skin with the intimate hostility of an old house recognizing an intruder who shared the family name.

Korriban knew Sith blood. It was undeniable in the feeling that flowed through him at seeing the ancestral homeworld of the Sith. They said he was carved in the vein of the Ancient Sith, his cells tethered to bloodlines connected with the very fabric of history itself. A part of him was thrilled at the prospect of the world, at feeling the sand beneath his feet, reaching out through the force to touch what it meant to be home. "Set us down beyond the southern ridge." Vulcan ordered. The pilot obeyed without question. The infiltrator settled among stone teeth and wind-cut black rock, lowering itself with such careful grace that no plume of dust betrayed it until the landing struts had already touched the ancient ground. The engines swiftly died and the ship became another shadow in the land of the dead. Only then did he move at last, stepping back into the vessel to halt the Imperial Crownguard. A full complement of twelve had been assigned as his protective retinue, it was excessive truly. He didn't need to be coddled but the orders had come directly from his father, and when the Shadow Hand spoke that was the end of any argument. But here? Here they were bound to follow his orders. A swift word halted any attempt to follow their Prince. But the Umbral Guard were another matter entirely. They were the shadows of his father and their orders were different; they weren't merely here as protection but also oversight. They were the only ones here who could refuse his commands, and when he'd demanded they remain? Their refusal came in the form of barely perceptible motion as they followed him down the ramp.

Besides, there was more to why he'd kept them at the ship. Vulcan understood what this place was. There were thresholds before which soldiers only became offerings, and the Gate of Graush was one such place. It wasn't a fortress to be carved open but a question. It would only answer to those who understood the language in which it had been asked. The wind struck him as he stepped onto Korriban's surface, dry and cold despite the ruddy light overhead. His black robes shifted around the plated structure beneath, the crimson lining flashing once before settling again into shadow. He knelt down into the crimson sand and slid off one of his gauntlets. He reached into the coarse sand and pulled up a handful. It was colder than he expected it to be, so cold in fact it almost felt like what he expected snow to feel like. He inhaled its scent drawing in thousands of generations of blood, war, and death. There was a familiarity to it, as he allowed the rest of the world to meet him, allow its grit to scrape against his boots. He allowed the Force to coil around the old Sith blood in his veins and test its flavor. There was recognition there but also contempt, for Korriban would suffer not the weak to live almost as if it had yet to test its newest child to see which column it belonged into. Vulcan almost smiled, the faintest gesture tugged at the corners of his face.

"Good."

The path into the Valley of Golg narrowed as it descended, forcing all who entered to surrender the comfort of distance. The walls rose higher with each step, their stone flanks marked by ancient scars, weathered runes, and the broken remains of reliefs that had once proclaimed victories so old that only the dark side remembered them clearly. He passed shattered statues of Sith Lords whose faces had been ruined by time or desecration, their crowns split, their eyes carved out, their hands raised in commands no living empire obeyed. Vulcan didn't pity them. After all, power that couldn't preserve itself deserved to become a warning. Behind him roughly ten paces walked the Shadowsworn. They were his shadows as he took in the beauty of a world belonging to the dead, moving under its dying star drawn ever forwards.

✦ Witnessed By the Throne ✦

Revna Marr

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

 

[Revna Marr]

Tag: Vulcan Zambrano ​

Revna was restless.

She paced the corridors of the Palace, an aura of agitation rolling around her, enough to keep the servants and other staff at a distance. Not all that long ago, she had joined her Father and the Lord Seer of Korriban in an effort to claim Seswenna for him, for the Wonosans. That effort ended in failure, with the arrival of the Dark Councilor, Taeli Raaf - and the subsequent fight that ensued between her and Darth Strosius.

Revna…had attacked her own Father, and the Neti who Revna was so close to. It hadn’t been on purpose, the attack triggered by a memory that still filled the little Marr with dread.

But it was precisely the fact that it hadn’t been on purpose, that made her so agitated and restless. She had lost control of herself, and had harmed people she cared deeply for. That - was unacceptable. Not that she had harmed someone - but that she had lost control.

She knew why she had. But what troubled her was how to fix it so if she found herself in a similar scenario, then what happened wouldn’t repeat again.

Or, if it did - she found a way to harness it for her own purposes. Turn her memories into power.

Korriban was a planet steeped in the energies of the Dark Side. She felt close to Bogan here, but her restlessness was present now because something told her that she needed to go deeper if she wanted to find an answer to her current problem.

And there was only one place she could think of on Korriban that would allow her to tap into her further potential - an ancient Dark Side Nexus discovered by her King, Darth Caedes.

The Gates of Graush.

Revna didn’t need to enter the Nexus in order to tap into the potent Dark energies; to enter it would require more than just herself, for there was a ritual needed in order to access the inner depths of Gates themselves. She had never attempted it, though she knew Caedes had. It was how he had gained access and knowledge to the ancient Sith King’s necromantic abilities.

After some back and forth considerations, Revna decided she would make a pilgrimage to the Valley of Golg. She would push deeper and commune with the Dark Side, and perhaps there she would find a way to master this troublesome part of herself.

Taking her own personal ship, Revna departed from Vardin’s spaceport and guided the interceptor towards the Valley of Golg, flying just below the cloud cover to give herself ample view of the surrounding desert. Far to one side, she could see the infamous Valley of the Dark Lords, a great canyon that cut into the skin of the red planet. Beneath her, dunes of red sand flashed by, their shapes distorted by the chilly winds that swept over the surface of Korriban’s desert.

Taking a speeder would have taken her hours to reach the Valley of Golg, and if she’d gone on foot - days, at the very least. She was the Queen-to-be, but that did not mean she was immune to Korriban’s dangers. She did not fancy wasting valuable time fighting off packs of tuk’atas or whatever else roamed these barren wastes.

Eventually, her flight brought her to the desired location, but something else immediately caught her eye and made her bring the ship around for a passover: it was another ship, an interceptor class that was already landed - angular and dark and sleek. Her eyes narrowed as she beheld the craft; it was not anything connected to the Sith King, for she did not recognize it immediately. Which meant that someone else was trying to discover the secret of the Gates.

Revna brought her own interceptor to land some distance away and powered down the craft. She stepped from the cockpit but before leaving her vessel, she made sure she still carried her lightsaber, hidden within the folds of her Sith robes. Tucked away too was her Devaronian blood poison infused shikkar blade - the weapon of a Sith assassin. Embedded within the handle itself was a certain and special coin that had found its way into Revna’s possession when she was brought to the Temple Library on Krayiss II as a fresh acolyte. Such coins only found their way into the hands of promising young Sith who had captured the attention of the Pale Assassin.

It was the only sign that tied Revna directly to the Sith lineage of the Lady of Shadows - and even that sign was well hidden.

Lastly, the little Marr withdrew her Force presence to a place deep within herself, while outwardly manipulating the energies around her to make her go all but invisible to the naked eye - just in case these strangers were hostile.

Revna departed her vessel, stepping down the ramp and upon the shifting red sands. The cold, biting wind buffeted against her body, whipping her robes about her, but she had long since become accustomed to such a thing. Beyond her and all around her, she could feel the pulsating aura of the Dark Side, both from the planet itself and from something, or more correctly, someone else.

For a brief moment, Revna recalled the moment she found her Apprentice crashed in the unforgiving dunes of Korriban; he too had carried an aura of incredible Force presence around him.

The little Marr slipped past the other interceptor, her ember eyes scanning it as she did so. It carried a vaguely familiar presence and shape to it, but she couldn’t be too sure where it had come from - not yet.

Into the Valley of Golg she descended, drawn forward by the growing pulse of power and the faintest whispers that danced along the edge of her awareness. On either side of her, the red sandstone walls rose ever higher, and the shadows within the Valley deepened, the chill growing the further she went. Statues of ancient Sith Lords, some desecrated and broken, looked down in their silent vigil of the Valley. Who they might have been or who they depicted had long since been lost to history, and Revna did not pay them any mind. They were meant to be an intimidating presence to those who held a spirit of fear within their hearts, nothing more and nothing less.

The further the little Vahla descended, the more she began to sense that she was truly not alone in the Valley. Someone else most certainly was here, and she was drawing closer to their location. After a turning bend in the shadowed valley, Revna spied the strangers and drew to a halt some distance behind them.

It was a young man, at least from what she could tell, and ghosting his presence were armored and armed individuals who appeared to be some sort of guard for the individual. Even from the distance that separated them, Revna could tell that he was taller than the average Sith. Almost as tall as her own Apprentice.

In silence and stillness, Revna watched the intruder and his guard. She pondered what she should do, now that she was here. She hadn’t expected company for her little pilgrimage. But perhaps…she could use his help in opening the Gates. There was only one way to know, and without further ado, Revna dropped the Force concealment she’d been hiding behind, and her form shimmered back into view.

“...if you are looking for the way in, you won’t find it.” Revna said, her soft voice carrying the distance as if she had spoken right into his ear. "Not without help, anyway."

She was a darkened blot against the sandstone walls, twenty or more paces away from the stranger and his guard. The only thing of her that could be clearly seen, were the eyes of fire that burned bright in the darkness. ​

 

[Vulcan Zambrano]

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

Korriban, Valley of Golg, Gate of Graush...

The voice should have broken the valleys silence, disrupted the equilibrium of this place. It entered it instead, soft and precise, slipping between the sandstone walls as though the place was waiting to carry it. The words carried on the wind as if they were spoken next to him, from the darkened throat of the canyon where the shadows gathered thickest, and for the first time since he'd begun his descent into the Valley of Golg, Vulcan Zambrano stopped. It wasn't an abrupt end. It wasn't a startled turn, nor a surprised reach for a weapon that was normally accompanied by alarm. The young prince simply ceased moving, his black robes settling around him in the cold wind, while the last grains of crimson sand slipped from his uncovered hand. They fell one by one, quiet as ash, scattering over the stone at his feet. The Shadowsworn reacted behind him.

The motion was almost nothing. It appeared as little more than a shifting of weight, the fractional turn of a helm, the slight tensing of hands around their execution pikes. They weren't soldiers in any common sense, not men who shouted warnings or stepped in front of their charge with theatrical devotion. They were beyond such things, forged in a crucible of fire and conditioned in the flames of battle, they were stripped down and rebuilt. They were the will of his father made flesh and shadow, and they understood threats in measures too small for most eyes to notice. Vulcan lifted one hand and they stilled at once. He knew they'd have already read the situation and locked eyes with the new arrival; it was a gesture more for the voice than it was anything else. In the meantime he looked for the source of the voice, and his gaze found her at once.

A dark shape against the sandstone, small in stature, robed in shadow and set apart from the valley wall only by the twin embers burning where her eyes should've been. Twenty paces, perhaps more. Enough distance for caution, not enough for safety. Not here, not in a place where the dead listened beneath the stone and the Force moved like a buried thing turning in its sleep. The wind moved between them, drawing at the crimson lining of his robes. The cold of Korriban clung to his bare hand where the sand had touched him, but he didn't replace the gauntlet yet. He let the planet's dust remain on his skin. Let the old-world mark him while he studied the woman who had chosen to reveal herself rather than strike from concealment. That more than her words, interested him. "You hid well." He said at last. The glow of his piercing amber eyes met her burning embers, even now the darkness flowed like blood in his veins, the legacy he was born to so powerful it eroded all semblance of color beyond the power of the Dark Side of the Force. His voice was low, even, and carried without effort through the canyon. It didn't need to rise, the valley seemed eager enough to bear it to her. "Not perfectly." There was no mockery in the correction. He offered it with the same calm detachment another might use to point out a flaw in a blade's edge, or a fracture in old stone. It wasn't dismissal, purely an observation.

"The valley noticed you before I did." Vulcan's gaze shifted, briefly, towards the walls around them. The broken reliefs, eyeless statues, and the ancient chisels and older desecrations. So many dead kings and lords had once demanded the submission of all who passed beneath their carved faces. Now they had no tongues with which to command, only memory remained, and memory of such power it had teeth. "This place doesn't keep silence for the living. It endures them." He turned fully toward her then, presenting himself without haste. Tall, composed, and severe beneath the black fall of his robes, the plated structure beneath them visible only in hard suggestions where the cloth moved against armor. There was youth in his face, but not softness. The lines of him were to deliberate for that, his stillness too carefully held. There was power in his veins, standing head and shoulders above most men, hidden power in the lithe, athletic form that clearly contained agility to back up reaction and speed.

"You came armed, alone, and veiled. Yet you chose speech instead of burying that blade your hiding in my back." The Shadowsworn remained behind him, motionless again, their black forms half-swallowed by the deepening canyon shade. Vulcan didn't look back at them, they were his omnipresent shadows, and their concern over this newcomer wasn't relevant. "If you meant to frighten me away, you chose poor ground for it. Korriban has been trying since I first set foot upon it." At that, something almost like amusement touched him. A thin thing, sharp and gone almost before it existed. He cleaned his exposed hand off and slid the dark gauntlet back on. "It hadn't succeeded either." Vulcan looked beyond her then, down the narrow path where the valley continued to fall toward the place the old texts had named and hidden in the same breath. The Gate of Graush. Not simply a door. A wound beneath Korriban's crust, sealed by dead hands and guarded by the arrogance of a king who had believed mortality could be made to kneel.

He could feel it now more clearly than before. The pressure beneath the stone. The hunger of a place that had seen too many aspirants mistake desire for worthiness. "No." Vulcan said, answering her warning at last. "I wouldn't find the way in by wandering." His gaze returned to her. "I am not wandering. "I came because the dead have left behind a question. I came because there are truths buried here that lesser hands have either failed to claim or lacked the strength to survive. I came because Dathka Graush didn't fear the boundary between life and death. He shaped it. Bound it to his will. I require the answers he found." He took one measured step toward her. Not enough to threaten, but enough to acknowledge that the conversation had begun in earnest. "You say I will not find the way in without help." Another step. "Then tell me what help you believe you offer."

✦ Witnessed By the Throne ✦

Revna Marr

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

 

[Revna Marr]

Tag: Vulcan Zambrano ​

The moment Revna’s voice carried towards the stranger on the wind, was a moment of heightened awareness and perhaps even tension. The stranger came to a halt, not abruptly, but ceasing his movements in a way that told her he was fully aware of another’s presence there with them. His guard moved subtly, but their micromovements were noticed by Revna all the same. The faintest turn of their helms, the slightest tightening of their grip on their pikes. They were highly disciplined and Revna took stock of them in a moment’s notice.

With a single lifted hand from the youthful stranger, his accompaniment stilled. All parties were now aware of one another, and neither side moved immediately to hostility. Revna remained where she stood, her place of concealment given up. Even without knowing too much about this stranger or the disciplined warriors there with him, she was fairly confident of her own abilities - enough to come out of this situation alive, should it turn violent.

But violence was not her intention. Curiosity with Revna always won over her more hidden, violent side. She would rather poke and prod all angles presented to her, before resorting to bloodshed. Perhaps not the most Sith like trait within her, but that was simply who she was.

Revna’s burning eyes measured the young man when his attention fell upon her. Even from this distance, and in the shadows of the canyon, she saw the angles of his face, the robes he wore, the way his eyes burned with Darkness. He carried himself with an air of superiority, like a prince.

Something about him, however, gave the little Marr woman pause. He looked oddly…familiar. But she had never seen this youth before. And Revna remembered all the faces she had come across in her relatively short lifespan.

"You hid well." The stranger said, his voice measured and low, but carried without effort towards her. "Not perfectly. The valley noticed you before I did." His statement was given as an observation, not meant to be mocking or dismissing. Revna felt the corner of her lips draw upwards in a faint half smile as his face lifted to gaze upon the broken statues that stared down at them.

“Korriban knows all who tread her surface. One cannot hide from her.” Revna replied softly, indicating that it had never been her goal or intention to hide from the eyes of the valley itself.

"This place doesn't keep silence for the living. It endures them."

As he turned to face her more fully, Revna eased away from her place near the valley wall and took slow and measured steps towards him, closing the distance while maintaining her non-hostile intention. Her focus was on the young man, though she was peripherally aware of his attachment. Oddly enough, with her approach came a sense of lacking; there was no true aura coming off of her, and a measure of her power was still hidden - at least for now.

Revna came to a halt ten paces or so away from the stranger, and was now able to get a better look at him. He was youthful, though at this closer proximity his familiar features stood out more starkly to her. A faint frown creased her brow, her eyes narrowing a fraction, as she studied him. She would make no assumptions on who he was …but her suspicions were raised.

"You came armed, alone, and veiled. Yet you chose speech instead of burying that blade you're hiding in my back. If you meant to frighten me away, you chose poor ground for it. Korriban has been trying since I first set foot upon it. It hadn't succeeded either."

“Astute of you, young Sith. And no, I am not here to frighten you away.” the little Marr responded in the same voice as before, and her smile became a little more pronounced, briefly, before it slipped away. The young man’s eyes shifted away from her to the space around them as he seemed to contemplate that which stood before and all around him.

Somewhere, near to them, was the hidden Gate. The power of the Dark Side Nexus beyond saturated the immediate area with its dark energy, a calling card for what lay beyond. Finally, the young Sith responded to her comment about him looking for the way in, and if he was then he couldn’t do it alone. He would need help. She listened with the patience gained through teaching others, as he shared why he had come to the Gates in the first place.

The dead had left behind a question; he came because there were truths buried beyond that ‘lesser hands’ had failed to claim or lacked the strength to survive. He came because the ancient Sith King, Dathka Graush, hadn’t feared the boundary between life and death. He bound it to his will - and this young man stated that he required the answers that the ancient King once found.

Bold, perhaps a touch arrogant. She made no word or comment about this. She knew well enough how the youth could be - and youthful Sith were often imperious and thought highly of themselves, before being tempered through the crucible that was experience.

But she made no further judgments of this young Sith. She frankly didn’t know him enough to do so - even if her suspicions about him were raised.

He took a step closer to her, closing the gap between them a little further. He stood taller than her, as tall as her own Apprentice. She held her ground, clearly not phased by his stature or the rolling aura of power that radiated off of him. She had spent enough time around powerful Sith, Dark Lords, that she had long since adjusted to such sensations.

"You say I will not find the way in without help." He took another step towards her, and now they were eight or less paces away from one another. "Then tell me what help you believe you offer."

Revna smiled then, not a friendly one, but one that said she knew of things that he did not know. “Knowledge, young Sith. Others have entered the Gates before you, and learned its secrets. I just so happen to know those who did. Tell me, why do you believe yourself to be worthy enough of such knowledge?”​

 

[Vulcan Zambrano]

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

Korriban, Valley of Golg, Gate of Graush...

She smiled.

It was the smile of one who held a blade behind her back and a lesson behind her teeth. Vulcan recognized the shape of it well enough. He had seen such expressions in the halls of Malsheem, in the eyes of tutors who believed cruelty was a refinement tool, in the faces of Sih who mistook withholding knowledge for possessing wisdom. Knowledge, young Sith. The words settled between them with exactly the weight she intended them to have. But Vulcan didn't spit an arrogant retort, he didn't scramble for rebuttle. Instead he watched her. Eight paces separated them now. Less than before. Enough space for conversation, enough space for murder. The valley narrowed around them in slow, ancient pressure, sandstone walls rising like the ribs of some half buried beast. The wind moved through those ribs in a low breath, dragging crimson dust across the stone and over the edge of his robes. Somewhere above he could almost feel the eyeless gaze of an ancient lord staring down at them in anticipation of what would happen.

She was careful, precise. She'd come closer, but not carelessly. She measured the distance between them, evaluated him and the Shadowsworn behind him. He gave her that much. There was discipline in her restraint, and discipline in any Sith was always more dangerous than eagerness. Eagerness wanted to prove itself, but restraint already had. Still, she had called him young. Again. The faintest shift passed through Vulcan's expression. Not anger, nor insult but something colder than either. "You ask that as though worth is a thing one believes in." His voice remained low, controlled, and clean. It carried through the valley with the same effortless precision as before, neither raised nor softened for her benefit. "It is not." Behind him, the Shadowsworn remaind statues of black iron and patient violence. The points of their execution pikes angled skyward, but nothing about them suggested rest. They were listening, watching, analyzing her in turn for the slightest fracture in tone or movement. The Prince had seen them in action before, he didn't need to see them to know their actions here.

"Worth is not declared. It is not inherited by blood alone, nor granted by age, nor protected by the opinions of those who survived what others did not." His amber eyes held on Revna's burning gaze. "It is demonstrated." A pause. "And if it is insufficient, places like this are efficient in their correction." His gaze shifted briefly past her, toward the deeper wound of the valley. The hidden Gate wasn't visible, but its presence pressed against the senses now with far greater insistence. A buried hunger, silence with a pulse. The stone around them seemed to remember every footstep that had ever passed this way, every fool, every scholar, every lordling, ever supplicant who came seeking power and left only blood enough to stain the dust. Vulcan could feel the legacy of the dead beneath the soles of his boots, the old world never slept, it was listening, always. "You speak of others who entered before me." He continued. "Good. Then you possess something useful." His eyes returned to her. "But do not mistake proximity to knowledge for mastery over it." There was no sneer in the words, no boyish need to wound and that somehow made them worse. Vulcan spoke as if he were simply placing a fact upon the ground, like a line between them and daring her to step around it.

"If you learned from those who crossed the threshold, then you carry the shape of their passage. That has value. But you are not the Gate, you are not Graush himself, nor are you the dead beneath the stone." The wind hissed between them. "So i will not offer you a performance of humility for the privilege of being judged by someone standing outside the same door." For the first time since she had revealed herself, Vulcan moved without closing the distance. He turned slightly, enough that his profile caught the valley's dim and bloody light. The amber in his eyes seemed brighter against the shadow of his face, unnaturally vivid, the color almost devoured by the darkness that lived behind it. His youth remained visible, but there was something in it that didn't belong to youth. Something older that had been carved into him before ever even drew his first breath in the open air. "I came here because Dathka Graush understood that death was not an end, nor an enemy to be fled. He treated it as material. As law. As a boundary that could be studied, cut, broken, and bound." His gloved hand flexed once at his side. "That interests me." The admission was quiet. Too quiet, perhaps, for the weight behind it.

"I came because there are powers in this galaxy that clothe ignorance in reverence. They kneel before mysteries and name their fear wisdom. I have no use for that." He looked back at her fully. "If a thing can be understood, it can be shaped. If it can be shaped, it can be mastered. If it cannot be mastered, then one should at least have the courage to learn why." The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile. "That is why I am here." It wasn't the entire truth, the entire truth was colder. He didn't tell her about the silence before awakening. He didn't tell her about the shadow of a sister whose existence had become part inheritance, part wound. He didn't tell her that death had not been an abstraction in his life, but a presence folded into his very becoming. He didn't tell her that something dead had already passed through him, fed him, marked him, and left behind a hunger for answers no living tutor had managed to satisfy. He didn't tell him of the memories of a life lived that wasn't his own, flashing like a flood in dreams that left more questions than answers, of someone he was supposed to experience life with. Someone he killed. Those truths weren't offerings to be laid at the feet of a stranger.

But Korriban felt them all the same. The valley always noticed. Vulcan let the silence hold for a moment longer before he spoke again. "You ask why I believe myself worthy enough of such knowledge." His head tilted slightly. "I do not." Those words were smple, almost gentle. "I do not believe. I test." A thin current of darkness moved through the air around him then, subtle but unmistakable. Not a flare. Not a threat. More like pressure changing before a storm, the atmosphere bending around something dense and controlled. Sand shifted at his feet in a slow circle before settling again. "If the gate denies me, then it will do so by firce, by rite, by spirit, by whatever law the dead king left chained to it. If I lack the strength to endure that answer, then I was never worthy, and my blood will join the rest beneath this valley." His eyes didn't waver not once. "But if it opens..." He let the implication stand. Even for the Shadowsworn, the silence had changed. Vulcan could feel their attention sharpen, not out of fear for him, but in recognition of something sacred and dangerous being spoken aloud. The young prince wasn't merely posturing before a stranger. He was naming the terms by which he would measure himself against the dead, and he was willing to be measured.

"That is the difference between us, perhaps." Vulcan said. "You ask whether I am worthy before the trial. I came to let the trial answer." His gaze lowered briefly, not in submission, but toward the ground between them. Crimson dust. Broken stone. The old road beneath both of their feet. "Now I will ask you something." He looked back up at her.

"Do you ask because you are guarding the path?" A beat.

"Or because you are deciding the price of what you know?" There it was. The blade beneath all courtesy. He took no step closer this time, the question he posed crossed the distance cleanly enough. "If you are a guardian, then stand as one. Name the law of this place and test me by it." His voice hardened by the smallest measure. "If you are a teacher, then teach. If you are a seeker, admit it. But if you are only another Sith lingering at the edge of old power, asking others to prove worthiness while hiding your own need behind riddles..." The faint almost smile returned. "Then you should choose better riddles."

✦ Witnessed By the Throne ✦

Revna Marr

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

 

[Revna Marr]

Tag: Vulcan Zambrano
​

She maintained her silence, allowing the young man to respond and speak his mind. Listening was often a skill that Sith lacked; too many were quick to spout words, to act instead of bide their time. Revna had learned that lesson well by her Master’s example. A lesson of what not to do.

There was a time and place for words and actions. And here, here she would listen. Here, this man would speak and he would reveal a little more about himself to her in doing so. She soaked it all in; the way he moved, the way his eyes shifted, the way his words carried to her, their tone.

"Worth is not declared. It is not inherited by blood alone, nor granted by age, nor protected by the opinions of those who survived what others did not. It is demonstrated. And if it is insufficient, places like this are efficient in their correction.”

Revna’s smile returned once more - an acknowledgement. Her words had been a test, a small one - and this stranger had stepped up to it and answered in a way that was like a breath of fresh air. “Finally, someone who gets it.” Her eyes drift past him for a moment and towards the sandy canyon wall opposite to them. “So many declare they are worthy, without ever allowing themselves to be tested for it.”

There was silence between them for the space of several heartbeats, before the young man declared that because of her knowledge that others had passed through the Gates before him, that made her useful. That was a language she understood well enough, as a Sith. Usefulness to others was often the only thing that allowed alliances to preserve themselves for as long as they did. And once that usefulness evaporated or shifted? That was it.

"But do not mistake proximity to knowledge for mastery over it."

Those words brought a more genuine smile to Revna’s face, one that actually flickered in her eyes as well. Once again, he revealed more of himself, his mind and how it worked and what he believed, to her. “Wise words indeed. Many in our Order could stand to hear such wisdom.” She inhaled a breath, feeling the icy air fill her lungs, before releasing it slowly. “Fear not, I am not so arrogant as to believe that I possess all the knowledge one can gain. And any Sith who does, is only fooling themselves.”

Revna fully believed that gaining knowledge and all that came with that, was a journey a Sith needed to make. And it was not something that would be completed in a single Sith’s lifetime. It was a journey they would take, until the moment they died.

She listened as the newcomer stated how what she knew had value, but correctly pointed out that she, indeed, was not the Gate, the ancient dead Sith King himself, nor the dead beneath its stone. She did not take offense to his plain declaration, merely accepted it for what it was.

"So I will not offer you a performance of humility for the privilege of being judged by someone standing outside the same door."

Revna’s eyes glimmered for a moment, though with what emotion, it was hard to tell. “Good. I do not want such a thing anyway. The weak perform humility…and you, young man…do not strike me as someone who is weak.”

She watched as he shifted, partially turned away from her. Something in him shifted, almost imperceptively. He was framed by the light of Horuset above their heads, the shadows that surrounded them, and something else…something…deeper. Older. She noticed it, and filed it away within the annals of her mind. It made him…interesting.

"I came because there are powers in this galaxy that clothe ignorance in reverence. They kneel before mysteries and name their fear wisdom. I have no use for that." He said, before finally turning back to regard her once more. "If a thing can be understood, it can be shaped. If it can be shaped, it can be mastered. If it cannot be mastered, then one should at least have the courage to learn why. That is why I am here."

Silence returned between them; Revna did not comment on his reasoning for coming - and truthfully, she did not really care about his reasons. They were his own, she did not need to be privy to them. If he wished to share, that was on him. She absorbed what he said like a sponge anyway, for the more he spoke, the more she learned. And that was to her benefit. He was still a stranger, but less of a stranger now than he had been minutes prior.

"You ask why I believe myself worthy enough of such knowledge. I do not. I do not believe. I test."

As he spoke, a thin strand of darkness seemed to move through the air around him, stirring even the sand around his feet. Revna felt the pressure, as subtle as it was, around them. He spoke again, his gaze steady, unflinching. He made it plain and clear what he believed - if the gate denied him, then it would be by whatever the dead King left behind to guard the way. That this young stranger would have lacked the strength necessary to endure whatever was asked of him. And by that, he was never worthy, and his blood would join the myriad of others that had succumbed to Korriban’s red sands. But if it opened…well, he never finished that statement, and he didn’t need to.

He mentioned a difference between them - she asked if he was worthy before the trial and he had come to let the trial answer that question. His gaze lowered then, not submissively, but more perhaps in thought. Then he looked back up at her to ask her something in return.

He asked if she was guarding the path.

Or if she was deciding what price her knowledge carried?

"If you are a guardian, then stand as one. Name the law of this place and test me by it. If you are a teacher, then teach. If you are a seeker, admit it. But if you are only another Sith lingering at the edge of old power, asking others to prove worthiness while hiding your own need behind riddles..." The faintest of smiles drifted across his face as he finished speaking the last of what he wished to say: "Then you should choose better riddles."

Revna allowed silence to sit between them for several heartbeats, before she returned that faint smile. “I like you. You have fire, and more wisdom than most of the acolytes within the Sith Academy, and even some Sith who parade around and call themselves 'Lord'. It is refreshing.”

She then stepped towards him, closing the gap - though she shifted ever so slightly so as to come side by side with him, facing the wall. There was still a respectful amount of space between them, but if he wished to lash out at her, he was capable of doing so, and vice versa.

“I prefer to let others speak in riddles, as I much prefer plainness. To answer you - I am a teacher, and a seeker. I teach, because I enjoy sharing what I do know with others, and I am a seeker because I am always looking for ways to grow myself, and expand upon what I already know.” Revna fell into silence again, before speaking plainly once more. “Truthfully, I did not come here to open the Gate, because I expected to be alone. I came here to tap into the Darkness that radiates from the Nexus within, to commune with the Dark, to empower myself.”

She cast him a brief glance, her eyes narrowing in thought.

“But perhaps Fate brought us both here for a reason. If you believe in such a thing. You see…there is a ritual that must be done in order to open the Gate. The clues to that ritual are written on the walls.” There was a brief pause, then she continued. “I know how to do the ritual. It will take our combined power in the Force to open the Gate. That is why I said you would not be able to do this alone. Neither of us could have. But together?”

The glimmer returned to her eyes, and with it came a faint uplifting of her kohl dabbed lips. “Together, we can pay the price of the ritual, and see what has been left behind to discover within the Temple beyond.”

Revna partially turned to face the stranger, tilting her head as she regarded him. “It is your choice. I would not demand you pay a price to me - for if we both do this, then we both will be paying a price in order to gain the knowledge that lies beyond. Nothing that the Dark Side offers is free. If you are willing to make the necessary sacrifice, then so am I.” ​

 

[Vulcan Zambrano]

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

Korriban, Valley of Golg, Gate of Graush...

I like you.

The words should have meant very little. Praise was common enough among Sith when it served a purpose. It could be a hook, a leash, a weapon slipped beneath the ribs with a smile, manipulation of the highest level. Vulcan had heard compliments delivered like poison and condemnation delivered like mercy. In the halls of Malsheem, approval had never been a thing offered freely. It was measured, withheld until it could shape the one who desired it. Yet her words did not carry the same oily weight. There was assessment in them. Interest. Perhaps even approval. But not flattery. Not exactly.

Vulcan accepted it for what it was and nothing more, his expression didn't change when she stepped closer. But the Shadowsworn's did. One pike shifted by the width of a breath. One helm turned a fraction too sharply. The movement was nearly invisible, but the intent behind it wasn't. The woman had moved from facing him to standing beside him, and that meant she had crossed from the territory of stranger into the territory of proximity. To the Shadowsworn, proximity was never neutral. It was either permitted or punished, and at this distance she was close enough that response time would've been slower than that of a single strike. Vulcan hid his displeasure at their alertness, his fingers moved once at his side. It was the smallest gesture, but to them it would carry weight. Enough. The black-armored sentinels stilled again, though the silence around them had hardened. They would not interfere unless commanded. They would not forget. They would not forgive carelessness should it follow. His attention returned to the woman who had chosen to stand at his side rather than in his path. For several moments, he said nothing. He looked toward the canyon wall she now faced, following the lines of cracked sandstone, the broken marks beneath centuries of dust, the places where old hands had carved instructions for those arrogant or desperate enough to search for them. The Gate's presence pressed through the stone like something buried alive.

Teacher. Seeker. The distinction mattered to the Prince, the first claimed enough knowledge to pass it on while the second admitted that knowledge remained incomplete. Together, they were less offensive than either would have been alone. "You answer plainly." Vulcan said at last. His voice was quieter now, though no less clear. "That is preferable." He turned his head slightly, enough to regard her from the corner of his amber eyes. "Do not mistake that for trust." There was no threat in the words. He didn't need to bare his teeth around them. Sith didn't survive by trusting strangers in dead valleys beside sealed tombs. Trust was a luxury for safer worlds. "But plainness has value, and you have given more of it than most would." His gaze moved back to the wall.

"You say you came to draw from the darkness here." The faintest breath of amusement passed through him. "Then either Korriban has poor timing, or it has a sense of humor." Still, he didn't smile. "I do not believe in fate. Not as most speak of it." The wind moved between them, pulling at the crimson lining of his robes. Sand brushed against his boots and whispered over the stone. High above, Horuset burned like a dying eye over the canyon's broken crown. "Fate is too often the name the weak give to consequence when they lack the courage to claim their part in it. They stumble, bleed, triumph, fail, and call the pattern divine because responsibility is heavier than superstition." His gloved hand lifted slightly, not toward her, but toward the valley itself. "But convergence is real." The word settled with quiet force. "Power draws power. Hunger recognizes hunger. Places like this do not gather the living by accident, they pull upon what is already there." His eyes shifted back to her fully now. "So no. I do not believe some gentle hand placed us here for a purpose." A pause. "But I believe the Dark Side wastes very little. On that, we agree." His voice lowered further. "Nothing worth claiming is given freely. Not knowledge, power, and especially not passage. Certainly not anything left behind by Dathka Graush."

He looked again to the carved wall, and this time his attention sharpened. Beneath the erosion, beneath the dust and weather-scarring, pieces of meaning began to emerge. There were marks here that weren't just decoration. Repetition chosen with careful purpose, angles that caught the eye only when viewed from the proper distance. Old Sith geometry buried beneath ruin. He stepped closer to the stone. The sandstone face loomed over him, vast and time-eaten. Vulcan lifted one hand and brushed two fingers across a shallow carved line. Dust broke away beneath the black metal of his gauntlet, spilling down in a thin red veil. The wall beneath was darker, older. "Blood." he said quietly. His eyes traced another mark. "Fire." A third. "Shadow." Then his gaze moved to an incomplete ring of symbols half-buried beneath the sand at the base of the wall. "And something withheld." He didn't pretend to know more than he did. That was another kind of weakness. A Sith who lied to himself was already defeated. Vulcan could read fragments, infer shape, feel the pressure of intention behind the carved language, but the fullness of the rite remained beyond what the wall had yet revealed to him.

That irritated him, but it also interested him in equal measure. He looked back to the woman. "You know the ritual." It wasn't a question this time. "Then name the sacrifice plainly." The amber in his eyes burned against the canyon gloom. "Blood is simple. Pain is simpler. Power can be offered and recovered in time if the vessel survives the expenditure. But the old Sith were rarely satisfied by simple things." His hand dropped from the stone. "What does the Gate demand?" The question was calm, but there was iron beneath it. "Strength? Memory? Fear? A truth spoken aloud? A wound reopened? A life taken? A piece of the self left behind in exchange for passage?" He let the possibilities hang there, each one heavier than the last. "Every price teaches something about the one who designed it." Vulcan turned from the wall to face her more directly, though he did not step away from the markings. He stood now with the Gate's unseen pressure at his back and Revna at his side, the Shadowsworn farther behind, reduced to patient silhouettes at the edge of the narrowing path. "If Graush sought only blood, then he wanted obedience. If he sought pain, then endurance. If he demanded fear, then he wanted honesty from those who mistook courage for emptiness. If he demanded power, then he measured strength against hunger." A pause. "If he demanded sacrifice of the self…" His voice softened with interest.

"Then he understood more than most." For a moment, the valley seemed to fold inward.

Vulcan felt the old cold move through him. The silence before awakening, the memory that was not his own. The shadow of a sister who had not merely died, but had been consumed into the architecture of his existence. A life that should have stood beside his own, devoured before it ever became a true rivalry, a true bond, a true anything at all. A presence reduced to inheritance. He didn't flinch from it it remained there like an open wound he'd been forced to endure. But Korriban, treacherous old Korriban noticed. The wind shifted sharply, dust coiled around his boots, then scattered toward the wall as if drawn by the buried pulse beyond it. The carved lines seemed deeper now than they had moments before. Or perhaps they had always been that deep, and only now had the valley decided to show its teeth.

"You said it will take our combined power in the Force." His tone shifted slightly, becoming more practical now, more focused. That, too, revealed something about him. Pride had its place, but so did discipline. One had to know which deserved command. "Then we do this cleanly." He glanced once over his shoulder. The Shadowsworn understood before he spoke. Still, he gave the command aloud for her benefit as much as theirs. "You remain here." The two sentinels didn't answer he knew they wouldn't, it wasn't their way. "No one descends behind us. No one interferes with our work, you hold position unless I command otherwise." A moment of silence passed. Then, from behind their helms, both Shadowsworn inclined their heads in perfect unison. Inwardly, he was relieved they seemed to concur with his choices. The valley was far from secure and if there was one albeit friendly stranger, there could be more than one. Vulcan looked back to her. "If we are to work together then, I require your name. My name is Vulcan." He allowed the first name to settle between them. Then, because she had studied him too closely from the beginning, because suspicion had already flickered behind those burning eyes he could tell, because blood was a shadow no Sith could truly hide beneath Korriban's sun, he finished it.

"Vulcan Zambrano."

✦ Witnessed By the Throne ✦

Revna Marr

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

 

[Revna Marr]

Tag: Vulcan Zambrano ​

The stranger’s accompaniment reacted to her moving closer and stepping alongside the young man in a manner that told her she had breached an invisible wall. Whoever this young Sith was, carried enough importance that her nearness to him was looked upon as something perhaps…unwanted. Not exactly dangerous - but they didn’t know that. They were doing what they had been designed to do, but Revna held her ground in silence, showing no fear or sudden tension at the shifting, the sharp tilt of their helms. She could feel the weight of their focus upon her, and she did not bend nor budge underneath it.

With some unseen gesture, the sentinels in their blackened armor went still, though still watching her very closely.

For several moments, the stranger regarded her in silence - the fact that she had chosen to step alongside him instead of blocking or hindering him. Revna knew well enough that gestures and action said more to a Sith, than words ever could. She let her actions speak for themselves: she was not a threat - not unless he chose to make her one. She was willing to work alongside him for a common purpose, a shared goal. What happened beyond that was up to them both, when all was said and done.

His gaze eventually returned back to the canyon walls, his eyes searching. Revna had already found glimpses and pieces of the puzzle, and her eyes had already spied what would be necessary for the coming ritual. But she did not reveal this to the young Sith; she wanted to see if he could figure it out for himself, or as close to it as possible.

How patient was he? Would the riddles and the broken puzzle of this place confuse or irritate him?

She drew her hands behind her back, pulling herself unconsciously into a more militant stance, one that had been drilled into her from her first day as a Sith Acolyte underneath her Master’s watchful eye. Her robes suggested that she leant more towards the sorcerous side of the various Sith pathways, but truthfully Revna was a blend of it all - sorceress, warrior, and assassin. She could step into each role required of her without hesitation, if the situation called for it.

The stranger absorbed what she had shared with him, and she waited for his response. He affirmed that she did answer plainly, and that it was preferable. But she was not to mistake that for trust. That brought another small smirk to her lips, and amusement flickered briefly in her ember eyes.

There were only a couple of individuals Revna would claim she trusted - and even then, as a Sith, she did not give anyone the fullness of it. They were too fickle of creatures to earn full, complete trust. Not even the likes of the Sith Empress, Srina herself. Revna would put herself directly into harm’s way on behalf of her Dread Mother. But it was just plain foolishness to trust completely.

She listened as he seemed to, almost in an amused way, say that Korriban either had poor timing or a sense of humor, in regards to her comment about drawing from the Darkness that was present. He did not believe in fate - most Sith did not, but she did. Too many things had happened in her life to say otherwise, though she found herself having gone with the flow of fate, as well as resisting it. Fate had brought her to the very edge of death, numerous times - and she had defied it. Death was not to be her fate…not yet.

Maybe, not ever.

But she kept that to herself, even as the stranger said his piece about fate, what he believed anyway. What he did agree with, or say was real, was convergence. That power drew power, hunger recognized hunger (that made her glance his way for the briefest of moments, finding his words to be ironic considering what resided within her very soul). He stated how places like this did not gather the living by accident, and to that she could agree.

She shifted then, and turned her eyes towards the ruddy sky above their heads, the thin clouds that raced by thousands of feet or higher beyond them. Horuset was nearing its zenith, and Korriban’s moons were seen in the sky, aligned. Another faint smile touched her lips.

Everything was perfectly in line for the ritual to be completed, and entry to be made possible. Convergence, or Fate - either way, the means to move forward was laid before them - if they only had the courage to take that step.

"But I believe the Dark Side wastes very little. On that, we agree. Nothing worth claiming is given freely. Not knowledge, power, and especially not passage. Certainly not anything left behind by Dathka Graush."

Revna watched as the young man studied the walls, the various lines and glyphs not worn away by the ravages of time. The little Vahla had spent an untold amount of hours researching the tomes, holocrons, and datatexts held within King Caedes’ library. She had learned directly from him the secrets that the holocron of Dathka Graush had delivered to Caedes. The ability to raise the dead and control the dead.

But, she did not reveal this to the young man there with her. That revelation would come in time. He needed her more than he realized, but she would not flaunt that in his face.

The young man touched the crumbling sandstone walls with a gauntleted hand, sand falling away at the touch. He murmured words - blood, fire, shadow, something withheld. All things others had done to try and gain entry past the Gates - to no avail.

After a while, he turned to glance over his shoulder at her, and spoke bluntly, perhaps with the faintest hint of irritation upon his voice: "You know the ritual. Then name the sacrifice plainly. Blood is simple. Pain is simpler. Power can be offered and recovered in time if the vessel survives the expenditure. But the old Sith were rarely satisfied by simple things."

“No, they were not. It was folly to hide such secrets with simple wardings.”

"What does the Gate demand? Strength? Memory? Fear? A truth spoken aloud? A wound reopened? A life taken? A piece of the self left behind in exchange for passage?"

His hand fell away from the stone, his questions left to hang in the chilly air between them. He spoke again as he turned to face her once more, speaking his thoughts on the matter, trying to piece the puzzle together.

"If Graush sought only blood, then he wanted obedience. If he sought pain, then endurance. If he demanded fear, then he wanted honesty from those who mistook courage for emptiness. If he demanded power, then he measured strength against hunger. If he demanded sacrifice of the self…Then he understood more than most."

For a long moment, silence returned. Revna did not speak to what he had said, not immediately; he seemed contemplative, and she left him to think or ponder. She noticed how the wind seemed to shift around them, more sharply, coldly - as if responding to something unseen or unknown to her.

Meanwhile, her eyes shifted from him to the walls around them once more, her gaze drifting over them - until she found what she was looking for. Embedded into the farthest point of the canyon floor, seeming to be a part of it, was a massive sphere, almost completely concealed by the red sand around it. It was the biggest piece of the puzzle, the very thing they would need in order to do the ritual properly.

Her eyes shifted again to the angle in which Horuset hung in the sky above them. It was very nearly in the right position. She took all these things into consideration, but waited with the patience of a hunter for the young man’s next move.

It came, not too long after. "You said it will take our combined power in the Force." His voice was more focused now. "Then we do this cleanly."

At that, he commanded his attachment to remain where they were; that no one was to descend behind them, and no one was to interfere with their work. For a moment, it seemed as though they would ignore his command - but the dark armored sentinels bowed their heads in unison. With that accomplished, the young Sith turned to look upon her once more.

"If we are to work together then, I require your name. My name is Vulcan." The first name was allowed to settle between them, but before Revna could share her name in return, he shared with her his full name.

Vulcan…Zambrano.

“I fething knew it.” Revna almost blurted, her stoic mask slipping ever so slightly, even as she allowed the more vulgar word slip past her lips. Not in disgust, or hate, but as if her suspicions had been confirmed…for they had been.

She turned to face Vulcan fully, and gave him a more careful up and down look, truly studying him. Her eyes settled on his face for perhaps a heartbeat too long, her eyes narrowing slightly as one might when studying something they thought they knew the answer to.

“Let me guess…you are somehow related to the Dark Lord, Darth Prazutis. You have the same jawline he has. A similar brow as well, and a similar set to your eyes.”

How she knew what the face of Darth Prazutis looked like, at least those details, was not something she revealed to Vulcan, not unless he asked for that knowledge she bore. Revna had seen the Shadow Hand’s face more than she would like to admit, or cared for, really. Memories of her time spent under his tutelage flickered past her eyes, and a darkness came with them. “...Are you progeny of the Shadow Hand then? A son, perhaps?”

Revna wasn’t entirely sure if she could believe that that monster had created children. Or had it within him to even be a father. And if this was indeed a son of Prazutis, then how much like his father was he?

“I am Revna Marr, by the way.” She said after her moment of study, almost as an afterthought. She could have given him her Kainite name and the title that came with it - but she did not. Revna was one of a handful of Sith who still chose to go by their first name over their title, only reserving such for special situations and circumstances.

“As for how to do the ritual…we must move to the farthest point of the valley.” She gestured with her eyes towards the space where the large sphere lay half buried. “I will share more once we are there. Luckily for us both…Korriban’s moons are in alignment, and Horuset nears its zenith. All are needed to be in perfect order, for the Gate to be opened.” She gave him yet another little smile, one of knowing, of awareness. It wasn’t arrogant, or prideful. More in joy of the challenge that awaited them.

And then she moved past him without another word, and didn’t wait to see if he would follow her as she headed towards the part of the Valley she had pointed out. As she moved, she gathered the energy of the Force around her and invisible currents swept sand away from the walls, revealing more and more of the complex carvings that were etched into the walls and the floor of the valley itself, as well as the great sphere that awaited them, its surface carved with runes in Sith magic. The lines and glyphs on the wall that they both had been staring at, had been only a small piece of the puzzle. ​

 

[Vulcan Zambrano]

✦ ☩ ✦ ☩ ✦

Korriban, Valley of Golg, Gate of Graush...

There it was.

Vulcan watched the mask slip, only for a moment. Only enough for the vulgarity to escape her before discipline closed around it like a durasteel trap. But the moment existed, and because it existed he kept it close. Sith were rarely more honest than when surprise cut through the armor they wore over themselves. I fething knew it. The words didn't offend him or draw any particular emotion beyond interest. In the utterance of his name it swept through the valley differently than it first had. Vulcan had been a person all his own. Zambrano was a consequence. It carried too much weight to be spoken lightly and too much history to leave the world unchanged by its passage. Even here, beneath Korriban's ancient and murderous sky, in the wake of past wars, death, and untold ambitions of great conquerors, the very name had teeth alone to change the world by its speech. Empire. Slaughter. The endless shadow of those who had carved their supremacy in blood across the stars, who communed with the spirits of the Dark Lords of the Past on Exegol, absorbing their power and with it inheriting the legacy as the one true Sith'ari, the reigning monarchs of the Sith. Two figures who single handedly shaped Sith throughout modern galactic history.

Revna turned to study him more fully, and Vulcan allowed it. Let me guess…you are somehow related to the Dark Lord, Darth Prazutis. You have the same jawline he has. A similar brow as well, and a similar set to your eyes. The valley wind moved between them and Vulcan's expression remained still, but his attention sharpened. There it was. Not recognition of the name alone. Not fear of a title. Not the distant knowledge common to those who had heard of his father through rumor, battlefield report, courtly whisper, or the grieving histories of worlds that still remembered the passage of the Shadow Hand. She spoke of his face, jawline, brows, and eyes. His jawline. That wasn't the language of reputation, but proximity. One who'd entered the orbit of Ruin-Made-Flesh and survived its coming. For a moment he merely looked at her while the old stones listened, while Horuset climbed toward its zenith, while the hidden Gate pressed its hunger through sand and carved rock. "You have seen him." The words were quiet, but they sliced cleanly through the space between them. "Not an image, statue, or anything else of the sort." Vulcan's amber eyes held hers. "You have stood close enough to remember the very shape of his face."

That was worth knowing.

He didn't ask her how, not yet. Certainly not for lack of interest, but the moment deserved its own order. The Gate waited for them, and the alignment overhead wouldn't last forever. Korriban had poor patience for those who mistook curiosity for priority. Still, the knowledge settled into him like a blade being slid into a sheath. Revna Marr. She gave the name almost as an afterthought, but Vulcan received it with the same attention he had given everything else. Names mattered. Some were inherited burdens. Some were chosen weapons. Some were doors disguised as sounds. "Marr." He repeated, low enough that it was almost spoken to the valley instead of to her letting the name roll off the tongue. For now he didn't attach any judgement to it, instead he returned his gaze to her entirely. "Yes. I am his son." Vulcan had no need to wrap the truth in ceremony when the truth was heavy enough to stand on its own. "Progeny, if you prefer the colder word." A faint movement touched the corner of his mouth, too slight to become a smile. "Though I have noticed Sith often choose colder words when warmer ones trouble them." His eyes didn't leave her face. "You know something of my father. Enough to recognize him in me. Enough for the thought to have been waiting behind your eyes before I gave it a name." The air seemed to tighten. "That means you are not merely useful because you know the ritual, Revna Marr."

A pause. "It means you are useful because you have history." He let that stand between them. If there was old pain there, old tutelage, old hatred, old reverence, or some more complicated scar, she would reveal it when the pressure became sufficient. Sith always did. Secrets were not impenetrable things. They were locked doors, and every locked door had a shape. His gaze shifted past her, toward the farthest point of the valley where she had indicated the half-buried sphere. He stepped past the edge of the wall, leaving the place where his gauntlet had brushed the old carved line. The dust he had disturbed still fell in slow, red threads behind him. The marks there had only been part of the puzzle. Revna's movement, the direction of her eyes, and the subtle anticipation in her posture made that clear. He had been looking at a fragment and she had known it.

That irritated him. It also pleased him. A puzzle that revealed itself too easily was not worthy of the tomb it guarded. When Revna moved past him without waiting, Vulcan did not follow immediately. Instead he let her take three steps, four, five. There was a difference between being led and choosing to walk behind someone who knew where the next mark lay. Vulcan understood that difference. Only then did he follow. The Shadowsworn remained where they had been ordered. He could feel their attention on his back, sharper now than before. Revna had named him aloud. Named his father. Named the bloodline they served by guarding him. That changed the air around the sentinels even if they made no visible sign of it. Vulcan's boots pressed into the crimson sand as he moved after Revna toward the farthest point of the valley. With each step, the pressure of the nexus grew more defined, less like a distant storm and more like a hand closing around the bones of the world. Invisible currents swept outward from Revna as she gathered the Force around herself, and sand peeled away from the walls in red veils. Ancient carvings emerged beneath it. Lines that had slept beneath centuries of grit awakened to the light of Horuset. Glyphs. Channels. Spirals. Old Sith geometry written not merely to be read, but to conduct.

Then the sphere revealed itself, and Vulcan stopped at the edge of it. For the first time since their meeting began, silence took him fully. It was massive, half-sunk into the canyon floor as if Korriban had tried to swallow it and failed. Red sand slid from its curved surface in sheets, uncovering runes carved in deliberate violence. Each line had been cut with purpose. The sphere looked less like a key and more like a heart dragged from some buried god and turned to stone. Vulcan's eyes traced the exposed runes as more of them appeared beneath the moving sand. His earlier fragments returned to him now in sharper alignment. Not separate demands, perhaps, but components. Stages. Instruments in a rite that required more than force thrown blindly against a sealed door. His jaw tightened once, then eased.

"You allowed me to study the wall first." He didn't look at Revna when he said it.

"You wanted to see whether I would mistake a fragment for the whole. You were testing me." There was no anger in his voice, as he continued. "Good." He stepped closer to the sphere, careful not to cross any line he didn't yet understand, hattention was absolute now. The pride remained, but it had been disciplined into focus. There was no room for petty irritation here, no room for wounded ego. The old Sith had designed a mechanism of blood, shadow, alignment, and power. To stand before it and sulk because another had seen more would be childish. He may have been young, but he certainly wasn't a child. Above them, Horuset neared its zenith. The moons hung in alignment, cold witnesses in the ruddy sky. The timing was too precise to ignore. Yet even he couldn't deny that the pieces had moved into place with a cruelty that felt almost intelligent.

Convergence. Vulcan looked up once, taking in the arrangement of sun and moons, then lowered his gaze back to the sphere. "Convergence, then." His voice was almost too quiet to carry. "Or fate, if you insist on giving the pattern a softer name." The faintest trace of dry amusement moved through the words before vanishing. He turned to Revna then, and for the first time since she had revealed herself, there was something in his expression that wasn't challenge. Recognition, perhaps, of capability, preparation. Born of the fact that whatever else she was, she was not wasting his time. "You knew the sky was nearly correct before you spoke to me." His eyes narrowed slightly. "You knew the sphere was here. You knew the wall was incomplete. You knew the rite required two." A pause.

"Yet you came expecting to be alone, yet requiring another to gain any progress." That contradiction sat there, deliberate and sharp. He didn't press it further. Not yet. "Perhaps Korriban did have a sense of humor." His attention returned to the sphere. "You said the ritual requires our combined power. The sphere must be instrument." He moved around its edge slowly, studying the channels revealed beneath the clearing sand. The runes seemed to drink the light as Horuset rose higher. The shadows cast by the canyon walls thinned and sharpened, stretching across the stone in long black lines. Some of those shadows touched the carved channels. Others did not. The old Sith had built obedience into architecture and patience into stone. Vulcan respected that. He hated that he respected it. His right hand lifted to the fastening of his gauntlet. The Force gathered around him in a slow inward pull, not yet released, not yet shaped, but drawn close enough that the air near his hand darkened by degrees. It was not an eruption, but preparation for what was to come. A blade being drawn only halfway from its sheath. A storm choosing where it would break. A storm foretelling of deep power, and greater potential.

"I will answer one more thing before we begin." His eyes returned to Revna's. "You asked whether I was the Shadow Hand's son." A pause. "I am." The valley seemed to listen harder. "But if this Gate opens, it will not be because Darth Prazutis sired me. It will not be because of the Zambrano name. It will not be because the dead fear my house." His fingers curled once. "It will open because I had the strength to stand before it, the will to pay what it demanded, and the sense to accept the aid of one who knew the rite." The admission was clean. Controlled. Harder than arrogance, because it didn't weaken him to speak it. He looked from Revna to the sphere. "So teach, Revna Marr. If there are any sacrifices to make I will make them. If power is to be utilized it shall be mine first." The dark current around his hand tightened then, as the gathering power of the Dark Side within him surged. "Show me the first step. We will follow the rite at your pace." His eyes cut back to her, sharp as a drawn blade. "But I will not stumble through it." Then Vulcan turned fully toward the sphere, the cold, dead weight of Korriban pressing against his shoulders, the hidden Gate waiting. "Begin."

✦ Witnessed By the Throne ✦

Revna Marr

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