"Duty. Discipline. Serenity."
Chapter Two: A Mask of Death and Shadow
Reina Daival
The soft hum of the practice field's ambient repulsorlights echoed like a distant mantra in the training hall's high dome. It was a quiet hour—dawnlight barely kissed the edges of the Temple's grounds, and most of the Temple's inhabitants had not yet stirred from their chambers. That was precisely how she preferred it.
Ilaria stood alone in the smaller of the two dueling annexes, a room reserved for private instruction and formalized spars. Its walls were smooth stone, interrupted by elegant insets of crystalline transparisteel that allowed shafts of natural light to slip in from the eastern horizon. The chamber smelled faintly of dust and ozone—scorch marks not yet buffed from previous training sessions.
She moved with deliberate efficiency.
First, she activated the central emitter grid—a soft shimmer ran over the polished floor, the combat zone illuminating with low-frequency light. Then, the training droids: deactivated for now, but aligned and standing in their alcoves like metallic sentinels awaiting orders. The control console responded smoothly to her presence, confirming the schedule. The Padawan she was to instruct had not yet arrived.
Good. I prefer my silence honest.
Her lightsaber rested at her hip, clipped with clinical precision. Not a tool of dominance, not a symbol of identity—just a scalpel. And yet, today, it felt foreign. Her grip around the emitter when adjusting it was practiced, but there was the faintest dissonance. Familiar… and unfamiliar. Something not quite hers, yet second nature.
Makashi. Precision. Economy. Flow.
The thoughts passed like a checklist through her mind as she moved to the far end of the room and drew a simple training remote from one of the shelves. She activated it, sent it hovering lazily through the air, then deactivated it just as quickly. She wasn't testing the remote. She was testing herself. Or rather, testing the thing beneath herself. That subtle echo of instinct, the way her hand had moved without conscious direction.
You didn't used to move like that.
There was no fear in the thought. No suspicion. But there was recognition.
She knew her body. She knew her training. She knew her own evolution—and this last one, the refinement of form, the subtlety in angle, had not come from her years under the blades of Jedi instructors.
It had come from somewhere else.
The blade hidden in her robes—Tyrant's Kiss—was not lit. Not even drawn. But its presence was always known to her. A silent weight that pulsed with patient potential, hidden in the folds of her robes like a secret sin pressed close to the heart. The dagger didn't whisper. It didn't need to. It remembered for her.
And now, she remembered too.
She adjusted the drape of her outer tunic—an unnecessarily crisp thing that had drawn compliments from some of the more conservative archivists—and turned back toward the door. Still no sign of the Padawan. Likely delayed in the Temple's morning exercises or simply underestimating her punctuality.
They usually do, she thought with the faintest curl of one lip. It wasn't amusement. It was observation.
The Jedi on Tython liked to romanticize discipline, but few practiced it with any real severity. They mistook rigidity for wisdom, ceremony for reverence. Ilaria—no, she—had learned otherwise. Precision was not about posture or patience. It was about knowing the precise moment to cut. The rest was window dressing.
And yet, she played the part. She always did.
Ilaria had built a reputation here as reserved, exacting, slightly aloof. An intellectual, some said. Others murmured cold. She did not rebuke the labels. They served as armor, as camouflage. If others thought her distant, they rarely probed too deeply. They assumed her composure was pride. They didn't suspect what was underneath.
Because there was no Ilaria now. Only a memory of her, perfectly worn, expertly mimicked, deeply owned. A stolen skin animated by purpose. And in truth, what remained of Ilaria moved better now. Her blade sang with cleaner form. Her mind focused with greater clarity. Her will, once uncertain, had been repurposed—tempered like steel in ice.
Is it theft, she mused, if I wield her better than she ever did?
She moved toward the center of the floor again and drew her lightsaber, but did not ignite it. She merely held it, testing the balance. Her thumb caressed the hilt. Again, it responded with natural instinct. The Makashi grip: thumb up, wrist loose, the edge always threatening but never wasted. A duelist's style. A fencer's.
Not her original form.
No… but it is now.
There was a strange satisfaction in that. The slow bleed of another's essence into her own, not just worn but digested. Consumed. Ilaria's teachings had become something permanent. Not mimicry. Not possession.
Integration.
And still, she kept the discipline.
She would not show off. She would not force the Padawan to spar immediately. They would speak first. Observe. Discuss. And only then, test. Knowledge before confrontation. That was Ilaria's way—and she followed it perfectly.
The distant echo of footsteps approached. Finally.
She stood still in the center of the dueling floor, expression composed, posture exact. Every line of her body carefully measured to be efficient without being inviting. She had no desire to coddle. The Padawan would learn, or they would not. Her responsibility was to the art, not the student.
But still, as the doors hissed open, she adopted the faint air of mentorship.
A slight tilt of the head. A faint narrowing of the eyes. Not cold—judicious.
Let them see what they expect, she thought. Until they're ready to see the truth.
And in that truth, she would sharpen them.
Or break them.
