Private Prepare for the Embrace

[Darth Virelia]

"It's time to take you to the next level"

Tag - Kali'ka



Serina waited.

Not impatiently.

No, Serina Calis did not wait in the conventional sense—she curated anticipation. She designed stillness like a blade drawn slowly, edge-first, across the skin of time. The chamber around her was utterly silent, save for the soft thrumming of calibrated harmonic fields pulsing through the crystalline ceiling above her—veins of black kyberite tracing their way like buried truths through a spiderweb of cut rock. The vibrations were almost imperceptible. Almost.

The air was heavy with intentional atmosphere—lightly ionized, faintly spiced with pheromone-reactive compounds designed to stimulate mild focus and mild arousal. She had tailored the environment as she always did: perfectly. Deliberately. For her.

Kali'Ka would enter soon. And when she did, every nerve in her body would know that this space had been waiting for her. That it had been crafted around her silhouette.

Serina sat with one leg crossed over the other, spine straight, gaze focused on the invisible lattice of the Force around her. Not meditating—surveying. Not with reverence, but with clinical hunger. The Force was not a thing to be worshipped, but a system to be decoded. And Kali… Kali was about to learn how to rewrite the syntax.

A single red crystal pulsed above her, illuminating the scene with blooded shadows and deep, carnal warmth. Her cloak was gone. She wore no armor. Only a high-slit robe of layered black and plum, open at the collar, form-fitting where it mattered, loose where it pleased her. The glow of runes traced down her neck, subtle and pulsing beneath the skin like living circuitry—alchemical foci she had etched there herself in months of unspoken agony, though they would fade away after this session.

At her side, resting against the plinth she leaned upon, was a small durasteel tablet. On it, arranged in perfect black lettering, were the tenets of the Serinite Doctrine. They were not for her to read.

They were for Kali to recite.

And across from her—opposite the soft curve of the room's center—waited something else. A man, perhaps thirty-five standard years of age, shackled at the wrists and ankles, kneeling atop a pressure-sensitive ritual plate. His head hung low, breath shallow. He was gagged, like the last. And like the last, he had not been told why he had been spared. Not until Serina would let Kali discover it for herself.

The room was more intimate than the one before. No observation slits. No sentries. No doors save one: a single arched passage behind a veil of liquid light, into which Serina had keyed only one signature.

Kali's.

She had ordered the girl to bathe before coming. Not as a formality—but to wash away the filth of morality, the debris of identity. She was not entering this sanctum as a former Jedi. Nor as an apprentice. Not even as a killer.

Tonight, Kali'Ka was entering as a vessel.

Serina uncrossed her legs. Slowly. The movement was indulgent. Silent. Perfectly symmetrical.

She pressed a hand to her own collarbone, feeling the low burn of the rune etched there—Will Made Flesh—and exhaled slowly through her nose, relishing the way it resonated against the Force. She didn't close her eyes.

Serina never blinked in moments like this.

She wanted to be watching when Kali stepped through.

She could feel her now, through the stone and steel—like a tide of ash swirling toward the nexus she had become. The girl's presence in the Force was no longer a ripple. It was a slow bloom of shadow, deliberate and sensuous. Not yet disciplined, but hungering.

Serina allowed herself a small, knowing smirk.

There would be no blade tonight. No sparring. No sweating, panting physicality. This lesson would be deeper. Slower. It would reach into the parts of Kali that still thought her mind was her own.

And when she left this chamber… it wouldn't be.

A soft chime sounded as the field at the far end of the sanctum flickered.

Kali had arrived.

Serina did not rise to greet her.

She didn't need to.

She only tilted her head slightly—just enough to let her hair fall like coiled silk over her shoulder—and spoke, voice low and coated in syrupy expectation.

"Come to me, little shadow."

A pause.

"I've written new truths for you."

She smiled again.

"Tonight, you prove to me if your worthy of a challange."

And in the stillness of the chamber, the air trembled in anticipation.

 

[Kali'ka]

​

Tag: Darth Virelia

​

Another summons. Cryptic as always, but now such bidding was laced with a familiarity that instantly set Kali'ka's nerves alight in anticipation. There were instructions given, commands that would be fulfilled to the letter.

She was to bathe. It was a ritual bath, a purging not to cleanse Kali'ka for purity, but from everything that was pure. The Kiffar acolyte savored the rite, performing it as if Serina were there watching her. The pool of black stone was not fill with heated, soothing water, but cold, as cold as the blood in Serina's veins. In a crate nearby, rested the source of the only other substance that would effuse the waters.

Kali shed her garments, her nude coppery frame stalking to the crate and from it drawing a large fanged serpent. It was stupefied by the sorceress' dark magic. Dragging it by the neck to the edge of the large black water filled depression, she held its over the water. First, the fangs were massaged to milk dark venom, the inky drops dripping into the water. Then, with one swift motion, the acolyte slit the beast's throat with a black dagger.

The serpent's deep-hued blood ran into the water, mingling with the vemon and dispersing like a black cloud into the frigid water, effusing it with corruption. Leaving the limp head to hang over the edge, Kali'ka kissed the dead thing's mouth, then the naked acolyte stepped into the pool, breasts rising and falling as she breathed deeply, the cold water rising higher and higher until it reached her navel.

Bronze skin tightened in the icy water, pores closing, nerves straining. In a ritualistic fashion, Kali closed her eyes, tilted her back slightly and held her hands out, palms up. Then she lowered herself into the water until fully submerged, baptizing herself in corruption. Rising, she stood defiled for her mistress, body dedicated to Serina, her mind emptied of anything but the desire for the will of the Mistress.

Kali'ka did not don her typical leathers, not after such a ritual. She slid on a leather dress with high slits, high boots and nothing more. Then, to yet another secretive chamber her steps carried her, down another corridor leading to another encounter with the wicked one, the desired one.

The sorceress' stride was no longer eager, anticipating or wary. Kali'ka strode down the carved hallway unhurried, boots striking the hard floor boldy. She timed her arrival to be neither too early or too late. As she drew closer, the sorceress' hips swayed, arms swung, chin held just above level. Kali'ka would enter the chamber the trained acolyte, submissive but not tamed, knowing that day she had been chosen to be the cistern of Serina's will, the vessel into which could be poured darkness and poison and decadence.

When the acolyte drew close to the curious portal at the end of the hall, a proximity alert chimed. She was beckoned to enter, knowing that if the liquid barrier was not designed for her bio-signature, Kali'ka could not penetrate the doorway, or worse. Unfazed, Kali'ka stepped through.

Entering the chamber, her gaze swept across the room. Kali'ka paused, allowing her senses to open to the sanquine-lit room. A low resonance lingered at the edge of her awareness, its nature indiscernable. But it made the room seem darkly alive. The quality of the air was curious. She breathe deeply, sensing the pleasing spice. Another deep breath left her with the faintest dichotemy of clarity and stimulation. It all resonated with her deep darkness, as if designed to connect with her.

And then her eyes laid upon Serina. Of course, Kali'ka sensed her mistress the moment she entered. It set a scintillation through the acolyte's nerves. That presence was at once like a pentrating ooze, possessive tentacles and a smothering black veil drawn across her soul.

The sight earned a soft, inaudible gasp and the straightenting of her spine. The mistress too was garbed not in her usual armors, but in a robe, regal, mysterious, delicious. Its cut allowed Kali'ka to the see not only her fit, shapely figure, but the mystical, intricate gleaming runes trace down the pale column of her neck. She was remarkable, as always. Beside the reclining teacher were the tenets.

A sidelong glance revealed a scene across from the young mistress. The acolyte saw the subject. Like the others before him, Kali'ka felt no tug of sympathy, not even a fleeting wonder at who he might be. It was irrelevant his identity. He was most likely a simple training tool, an expendable subject for dark learning. His gaze lifted to look into the eyes of the new arrival. All he found in the dark-clad girl was a cold, inhuman eye, and one that offered no more sentiment than one would give a passing lizard.

That flat, unfeeling gaze shifted back to Serina as she spoke. The acolyte's gaze sharpened with attention, heart rate quickened, saliva pooling on her tongue like a trained beast eager to please it's master. But Kali'ka knew she was no mere dog, hireling or plaything. She was a weapon, a protege, a child not in darkness, but of it, fully knowing that she had been systematically unmade, to be reforged into something horrible and glorious.

"I am yours, Mistress." The apprentice spoke in a silky tone that betrayed an almost mischievous quality. Use, abuse, torment, delight, reward, punishment, they were the instruments of her mistress, all proven to successfully craft a tool of wicked darkness and thirsty obedience in the Kiffar sorceress.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"It's time to take you to the next level"

Tag - Kali'ka



The scent hit her first. Serina's eyes flared with subtle pleasure the moment Kali'Ka passed through the veil.

The air shifted—just slightly—carrying with it the ghost-trace of blood and venom still clinging to the Kiffar's skin. Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to stir the air like memory, like hunger. Serina inhaled through her nose, her expression unreadable but her breath deeper, controlled, indulgent.

Yes, she thought. She followed the ritual perfectly.

That alone pleased her. But it was the way Kali walked—measured, poised, her body still slick with the tension of ice and blood-magic—that made Serina uncross her legs with slow, intentional grace. She turned her face just enough to let the sharp runes down her neck catch the sanguine glow of the chamber's ceiling, every sigil pulsing with her heart. Not for spectacle.

For dominance.

Kali'Ka was not simply being welcomed. She was being claimed, again, renewed, reasserted. Possession was not a one-time brand. It was a constant rehearsal of will.

And Serina's will had not faded.

Her eyes—one pale, smoldering with Force-glow, the other sharp and human—locked on the girl as she approached. The words fell from the apprentice's mouth like velvet thread laced with barbs.

"I am yours, Mistress."

The smile that touched Serina's lips was slow. A smile not of joy, but of ownership. A smile a god might wear before a blood tide.

"You always were," Serina murmured, her voice low, intimate, sliding along the chamber's stillness like fingers on a spine.

She moved.

Effortlessly, not quickly—like water boiling without steam. Serina rose from the plinth in a single liquid motion, robe folding around her thighs like living shadows. She didn't step toward Kali. She approached her. A motion of ritual. Of intent. Of pleasure.

When they were only a breath apart, Serina didn't reach immediately. Instead, she circled her. A slow orbit. Her presence dragged behind her like gravity, brushing Kali's skin with every pass—warm breath here, the faintest scent of star-anise and iron there. Kali was coiled tight, Serina could feel it: the residual energy of her ritual bath humming in her flesh like a taut bowstring.

She admired it.

But admiration was not enough.

Serina reached.

A gloved hand came to rest on Kali's waist—not tentative, not testing. A single point of pressure, firm and possessive, pulling the girl a half-step closer. Then another hand, bare this time, rose to sweep a dark coil of wet hair from Kali's shoulder, tucking it behind her ear with surgical precision.

"You wore the dress," Serina said softly, the edge of her lip curling upward, her voice a low purr of amusement. "Good girl."

Her fingers lingered at Kali's neck, brushing the still-damp skin at the junction of neck and shoulder, where the pulse beat furiously beneath the surface. She pressed there. with absolute force. She wanted her to choke, to understand that even her breath was a luxury given to her by her Mistress.

"I can still smell the venom on you," she whispered. "Taste it, almost. You baptized yourself in death..."

Her tongue flicked across her upper lip as she leaned in, stopping mere centimeters from Kali's ear. A low, intimate exhalation slipped from her mouth to the shell of the acolyte's ear.

"You are becoming exactly what I dreamed."

Her hand moved again—downward now—dragging the fabric of the dress down the acolyte's side until her palm rested against the crest of Kali's hip, thumb tucked possessively into the slit of the leather. The warmth of her body bled through her glove. Controlled. Ready. Serina smiled.

She didn't kiss her throat.

Serina seized Kali'ka's jaw with a slow, cruel gentleness—gloved fingers coiling beneath her chin, lifting it, claiming it. Her other hand slid along the Kiffar's hip, fingers spread in full contact, pressing her back just enough to steal her breath before it left her lips.

Then Serina kissed her.

No hesitation, no teasing. It was total. A dark eclipse of breath and flesh. Her mouth crashed onto Kali'ka's with absolute ownership—no affection, no affection was required. This was declaration. This was dominion.

Then, Serina bit down.

Hard.

Fangs of perfect precision sank into her lower lip, splitting the skin. Blood welled. Not enough to wound, but enough to mark. A searing jolt of pain bloomed amid the heat—and Kali'ka's gasp was swallowed into Serina's mouth like a gift. The dark mistress drank it in, tongue sweeping the crimson slickness as if it were vintage wine, and only then did she draw back.

Not far. Just enough to whisper against the sting.

"Your obedience," Serina said, voice like molten iron poured into silk, "is delicious."

Her thumb smeared the blood from Kali's lip and dragged it slowly down her chin, then across her collarbone in a single, possessive line.

She circled again—not like a predator. Like an artist admiring her own twisted sculpture.

"You are not a Jedi anymore," Serina said, every syllable a knife dragged across the past. "You are not a warrior. You are not even a student."

She came to a stop before her again—eye to eye, blood still fresh on her mouth. Her presence pressed in, suffocating, transcendent.

"You are mine."

A pause. Just long enough to let the silence stretch like a wound.

"And so," she continued, now gesturing slowly to the bound man behind her, "you will learn what it means to be an extension of me. Not an echo. Not a copy. But a weapon. One that thinks. One that knows. One that loves only what I allow you to love."

She raised a hand and flexed two fingers slightly. The runes around the chamber flared for a brief moment, and the prisoner gave a muffled scream through the gag as an invisible force cinched around his arms, pulling him tighter to the plate beneath him.

"He's not here to die, not yet," Serina said. "He's here to teach you the next shape of power."

She turned her gaze back to Kali, stepping in again, so close now the heat of her breath mingled with her own.

"Tonight," she whispered, "you're going to learn how to reshape the Force. Not through rage. Not through hate. Not even through passion."

She brought her mouth just above Kali's, not kissing her, but threatening it—letting the promise dangle like a razor over flesh.

"You will do it through control."

She pulled back slowly, her voice hardening with steel beneath the silk.

"Force Choke," Serina said, voice curling like smoke through the charged air, "was a child's exercise. A lever. A grip."

She stepped closer to Kali'ka, robes trailing like liquid shadow, her gloved fingers drifting once more to the apprentice's shoulder—slowly, deliberately.

"But now," she purred, "I'm going to teach you how to burn."

Her touch slid down Kali'ka's arm, along the inner curve of her elbow to the wrist—where control was held, where direction lived.

"You're going to learn Force Shock."

She stepped around her, never losing contact—her voice low, intoxicating, laced with menace and promise.

"Not a blast. Not lightning. This is no storm of fury. Shock is precision. It's seduction. You whisper pain into the nervous system—one nerve at a time. You don't overwhelm the body. You map it. You become its god."

Her hand left Kali'ka's wrist and hovered over the exposed flesh of the captive's spine.

"Unlike lightning, Force Shock hunts. It clings. It slides under armor, under skin. You can throw it. Or you can let it crawl. You let the Force seek, and when it finds its target—" She flicked her fingers, and a crackle of violet energy sparked from her glove and snaked through the air to the prisoner's shoulder. He jerked violently, eyes bulging behind the gag.

The spark vanished.

"—you let it linger."

She turned toward Kali'ka again, and for a moment, the light of the sparking technique caught the glint of her smile. That smile—the one that meant Kali'ka was about to learn something that would mark her forever.

"Force Shock is short-lived. Five seconds. No more. But it hurts. Not enough to kill. Just enough to break focus. Ruin precision. Cripple resolve."

She circled Kali'ka again, this time like heat moving through a chamber, curling around her, stoking her with presence and command.

"This is for apprentices. It will not impress a master. But it will make peasants piss themselves. Soldiers hesitate. Jedi lose their lightsaber grip." Her voice dropped to a hush. "And if you place it just right… the back of the thigh. The base of the spine. Your captives…"

Her lips brushed Kali'ka's ear as she whispered:

"…they scream like lovers."

She pulled away again, a lazy turn of her body, arms extended. Then she gestured toward the prisoner—who was already breathing too fast, already beginning to sweat.

"Try it now. Small. Controlled. Let the Force search for his weakness, and when it finds it—strike. Like a whisper made of wire."

Her chin tilted.

"Begin when ready, pet. I'll be watching."

 

[Kali'ka]

​

Tag: Darth Virelia

​

Another summons. Cryptic as always, but now such bidding was laced with a familiarity that instantly set Kali'ka's nerves alight in anticipation. There were instructions given, commands that would be fulfilled to the letter.

Kali'ka presented herself, no longer the vengeful fallen jedi apprentice, impetuous and naïve. She was an Acolyte of Darkness, her swagger sensual and self-assured, but not to the point of arrogance. No, the Mistress assured that her protégé knew her, at the boots of the Mistress. And in that, Kali'ka found her path to power. Kali'ka knew what she was and reveled in the wicked process. She was a tool being refined into a weapon in the hands of corrupting power.

Serina, now Dark Lord Darth Virelia would drink in her apprentice. The Dark Mistress keen senses discerned the residue that clung to the Kiffar's skin, anointed with blood and venom, a sacred baptism.

In response to her shadow's arrival, moved. Ever graceful, Darth Virelia always moved in one of two ways. The movement of a smooth, viscous liquid, or the sharp strike of a serpent. The acolyte was greeted by a show of command, the glowing runes etched upon delicious flesh exposed to the Kiffar. With such a display, and a few rote words, the intimacy of their relation, owner and owned, was declared and received.

Serina approached. Yes…her Serina. To the world, she was a Darth, clad in her fitted armor and menacing mask. But to Kali, she was the Mistress Serina. She (and a few hated peers) alone were privileged to see the glorious corruption of Serina Calis in the flesh. In the ivory, flawless, statuesque, beautiful flesh.

Bold, hungry eyes followed Serina as she began her ritual seduction of her acolyte. Heartrate elevated, breathing quickening, heat rising, the symptoms were the same. There was always a strong visceral response to Serina's proximity. At one time, it would undo Kali, render her a puddle of greedy want, a fire of unfocused desire.

But now, with training and indoctrination, Serina created an addict. Her attention fed a sybarite craving the Mistress herself created within her apprentice. That corrupting presence sharpened resolve, honed devotion and fed dark desires that kept the Kiffar sorceress not only willingly on the end of a leash, but emboldened to serve with savage commitment.

The touches sent their electric jolts lacing through Kali's senses, igniting nerves. The kiss of warm breath tinted with coppery spice eliciting a sharp inhale to capture it's unique aroma. Kali was alive, taut, readied again to learn and obey.

Bu the touches, usually ghosts against Kali's flesh, became firm. A strong, possessive hand on her hip drew her close. The mockingly tender brush of a damp lock of midnight hair. Kali's heart thudded harder, her breath a soft pant between parted lips. This was different than before.

The dress Kali knew her mistress favored was noted, garnering the most stunning praise.

Good girl.

Kali purred at the acknowledgement, her eyes sliding half-shut euphorically as those possessive fingers rested at her throat. Another soft inhale betrayed the sensual pleasure of such a commanding gesture.

Squeeze…choke me… my life is yours…

Kali knew her life was always in Serina's hands, but the literal demonstration of that power pressed lightly against her thrumming arteries only made the fact more exhilarating. More praise breathed hotly in her ear, as intimate as a lover, sent a fresh wave of scintillation coursing through Kali's alert body.

The touch became more intimate, more possessive. So close, the taste of her breath, the firm press of splayed fingers into her flesh… Kali panted softly, her eyes trying to focus on the flaxen haired angel of torment and promise before her. She wanted…she needed…

And then it came. A kiss.

A rush of blood suffused her bronze, inked flesh as soft tiers crashed against hers. Hard, commanding, ruling, claiming. There was no hint of affection or love, nor were they desired. The taste of Serina's mouth was ambrosia, Kali let slip a low groan at the unexpected blessing. Her whine was interrupted by a sharp "Uhhh.." As teeth sunk painfullyinto the pillowy flesh of her bottom lip.

Fuck…

The metallic taste of her own blood mingled with taste of Serina on her tongue. Kali nearly swooned as she tasted the fruition of months of teasing torment and taunts. That kiss was a declaration, a brand upon Kali's being, a demand sealed in the intimacy of a kiss. Kali belonged to Serina. No, belonged was to weak a word. Serina possessed Kali in all she was.

The smear of her own blood on her skin by a coveted digit, the continued circuit of the master around the object she had carved from raw material. The acolyte had no identity apart from what Serina allowed her to retain.

Now, ignited, tuned, Serina's creation would learn the finer art of shaping the Force to suit the Mistress' will. A sensual hand remained sliding over Kali's skin, even as the lesson began.

Force Choke, yes, she had been taught the practice. But a greater power was promised, one that better suited the Mistress and apprentice's methods. Torment and misery.

Kali studied as Serina skillfully plied the bound man with dark energy, with a surgeon's precision. The acolyte watched, listened, felt it as the man suffered with exquisite pain. A smirk touched the dark sorceress' lips.

Then, the Mistress turned the panting, sweating subject over to the acolyte. Pet? Yes, she liked the sound of that…

"Yes...Mistress." Kali purred in reply, her smile stretching to a lewd grin.

Kali'ka flashed a wicked grin to her mistress, the stalked towards the cowering man with the languid motion of a lithe predator. She paused over the man, studying his body. The acolyte felt no pity, no hate, the man was no more than a learning tool. No, that wasn't quite true. One didn't gain pleasure from tormenting a thing. She saw enough humanity in him to savor his suffering.

Her hand hovered over his neck, fingers parted but relaxed. She drew in the Force, licking with darkness, and followed its tendrils along the anatomy of the man's spine, from base of the skull to where the scapula met. She focused, testing the power. Energy sparked from the tips of spidery fingers, dancing along the man's grimy flesh. It was brief, only a few seconds, to get a feel for the intricacy of the art.

The man grunted against his gag, neck arching, body growing taut. Kali chuckled lowly. She had tasted of the shocking power, gained a sense of it's nature from the testing prod. Now, more intentional, she shifted. The Mistress had suggested some place elicited varying responses.

Hand arched over the man's hips, where his spine met his pelvis, Kali once again drew her concentration to a bead, and summoned the Dark Side. It was not so much a channeling, but a reflecting. Refracting what was within Kali and focusing it. Again, the power was released from splayed fingers. The arcing energy penetrated the man, lingering for the proscribe five count, then was halted.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"It's time to take you to the next level"

Tag - Kali'ka



Serina's silence stretched like a filament of charged wire—taut, deliberate, alive with anticipation. She watched her acolyte with a cool, appraising gaze, her arms folding slowly across her chest, fingers tapping thoughtfully against her opposite arm. The air in the chamber was thick with ozone and incense, the scent of smoldered myrrh and scorched copper drifting through the red-lit haze.

"Again," she said quietly, but with unmistakable command.

Kali'ka had performed well. That much was evident. But Serina did not reward adequacy. What she sought—what she demanded—was mastery. Not repetition. Not mimicry. Understanding. Control.

She stepped forward, her bare feet silent against the black stone floor, and came to stand beside the cowering subject. The man whimpered beneath the gag, spasming slightly from residual muscle contractions. He was broken, trembling—but alive. For now.

Serina extended her hand and flexed her fingers lazily. The air around her palm crackled faintly. A brilliant filament of electricity leapt from her fingertips—not to strike the man, but to hang, suspended in the air like a whip of lightning tamed by thought alone.

"Observe."

Her voice was smooth, low, rich with authority and that ever-present undercurrent of something more—more than power, more than lust, more than cruelty. Purpose.

"The Jedi teach projection. Focus. Emotion filtered through discipline. Useless."

She flicked her hand forward. The spark twisted, whipped through the air—and gently kissed the back of the prisoner's thigh. He spasmed, screamed into the gag.

"The Sith teach power through rage. Force through fury. Crude."

Another flick. The spark darted up his spine, striking at a precise nerve cluster. The man choked, his legs buckling involuntarily.

"But we..." Serina turned toward Kali'ka now, her glowing eyes narrowing as she stepped into the Kiffar's space once more, "...we learn control. Precision. We do not let the storm control us. We are the storm."

She circled Kali now like a stalking thought—her presence in the Force cold and coiling, yet not devoid of heat. A heat that came from belief, not emotion. Her hand reached out, guiding Kali's wrist back into position.

"Force Shock is not a blast. It is not rage. It is contact. It is the whisper of pain that finds the exact nerve... the precise fear... and coils into it until the mind fractures. The body will lie. The face will deceive. But nerves?" Her voice lowered. "Nerves do not lie."

She stepped behind Kali now, her fingers guiding the acolyte's hand once more, brushing skin-to-skin as the lesson turned tactile. "Extend your will," she whispered into Kali's ear, the breath behind her words curling into heat. "Not like a hammer. Like a needle. You do not throw power. You place it."

The prisoner cried softly, instinctively trying to crawl backward—only to be halted by the weight of the chains and his own terror.

Serina's other hand pressed lightly to Kali'ka's sternum. "Anchor here. Your center of self. Then reach."

"Feel for the locus," Serina murmured, lips close, voice low. "Not his mind. His body. The junctions where muscle contracts, where the breath tightens, where heat pools. Find one. Do not strike. Touch."