Tyrant Queen of Darkness
"A Confident Spar."
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Diarch Reign
The day after All Souls' Day was always quieter than it should have been — the city hung between reverence and exhaustion, its white-gray architecture damp with rain and ash. Statues of long-dead emperors watched over avenues still strewn with the remnants of votive candles and spent incense. The Diarchy's banners, black and yellow, dripped in the morning drizzle like wounded standards, their fabric clinging to marble spires.
From the balcony of her guest chamber in the Citadel, Darth Virelia watched the city breathe. The faint curl of her reflection in the glass caught her eye — the violet shimmer in her gaze, the perfect stillness of her armor's obsidian plates, the slow exhale of someone who could wait for hours without a flicker of impatience. Beneath her feet, the vast city hummed with subdued power: military processions marching toward memorial plazas, men reciting litanies to the fallen, the quiet murmur of a people who both feared and adored their rulers.
She did not pray for the dead. She had made too many of them.
Instead, she studied the skyline, watching the faint plumes of smoke rise from temple pyres and shattered factories alike. Bastion was the heart of the Diarchy — a world of iron discipline and ritual strength, a place that believed its order could outlast eternity. It was, in many ways, what she admired most and trusted least.
Her meeting was scheduled for noon. A courtesy, supposedly. The Diarchs did not often grant private audiences to foreign powers, least of all one whose empire grew in the shadows of Malachor's storms. Yet curiosity was a potent lure — and she had given them reason enough to be curious.
Virelia's gauntlets flexed as she clasped her hands behind her back. The weight of her armor was not a burden but a promise. Each plate hummed faintly with restrained alchemy, dark energy pulsing through the veins of the Tyrant's Embrace. She had left her weapons in the adjoining antechamber — a sign of respect.
The summons would come soon. A messenger would bow, stammer, and lead her to the training hall beneath the Citadel. There, among the relics of the old Imperial Knights, she would meet her host — one of the Diarchs themselves. The invitation had called it a test of philosophy and form. She knew better. It would be an assessment. A duel disguised as diplomacy.
A faint smile traced her lips. The Diarchs wished to measure her — to weigh her strength, her conviction, perhaps her restraint. She would give them all three, in precisely the quantities she wished them to see.
A chime echoed through the corridor outside — the signal.
Virelia turned from the balcony, her cape whispering against the marble floor. "At last," she murmured, her voice low, deliberate.
The door hissed open, and a silver-armored knight bowed low. "The Diarch awaits you, my Lady."
Virelia's violet eyes gleamed. "Then let us see how gods are made on Bastion."
