Private The Shadow Pact: Echoes in the Dark

[Seraphia]

Unknown Planet - Destroyed Jedi Temple

Drip…

Drip… Drip…

Drip… Drip…​

Drip... Drip…​

Drip...

The dreary grey blades of ice-cold rain drummed their ancient yet reliable pattern against the pock-marked roof. Every now and then their efforts were rewarded. Every now and then, they found a hole large enough to fall through, or a crack big enough to slip through. Which rewarded them with a longer, drawn-out fall to earth culminating in a deeply disappointing splat against the cold stone floor where a large flood of rain had already begun to settle. It was insipid here. I could hardly imagine why anyone would want to work here, let alone dwell in these dilapidated halls. Another disappointment that I would have to add to my ever-growing list.

Curling my fingers one by one around themselves, my leather gloves croaked a creaking protest. The rain had soaked through them, tightening them unbearably until the entire length of my fingers tingled with the pain. It was an effort to move them, but it was rewarded with satisfaction as the tips of them brushed against the palm of my hand. As the scrape of my sharp nails beneath the leather dragged across the sensitive skin there, drawing a line of electricity and fire down to the base of my spine. It drew me from my deep reverie. Brought me back to the miserable grey surroundings of the crumbling building, and to the slow, soft sound of footfalls brushing their way down the blustery corridor to my south.

My brows knitted together in the centre of my forehead, furrowing until there was a deep valley between them. Without thinking, I turned towards the door in question. It was hanging of rusted hinges, so orange in their appearance now I could no longer tell what metal they were originally made of. I wore confusion openly on my face. Nobody had lived here for centuries. It was lifeless. So much so that I could not even feel the remnants of their souls clinging to the fractures in the old stone foundations. It was hard to assess how far away they were. The bare walls in the hallway, devoid of the usual tapestries or paintings or curtains, did not absorb the sound as one would have hoped. No.

It amplified it.

From here where I was perched against the end of a wooden table that had long since seen its last life, the footsteps almost sounded alive. They echoed back and forth across the corridor until it sounded like one hundred men and not just one were creeping down the hall. Until it sounded like some great, lumbering beast and its brood had worked their way up here from the depths of the cellar or lower to explore the main skeleton of the house. I placed my arms, one after the other, in a neat fold across my chest.

I could smell the diluted fear ebbing from the only other living thing I knew to be in the castle. The servant I had brought along with me, tucked into a corner in the darkness where I could not lay eyes on him. I glanced over once. Quickly. He stood as straight as I had left him, his face as passive as it had been since I plunged my hand into his chest to relieve him of his heart. I knew without knowing that he could not be feeling genuine fear, but still, the remnants of it remained etched into his stoic face. As if it was a faded painting bleeding out the last of its colour. As if it were an echo. Calling out to the echoes in the hallway. Like they were one and the same.

"It seems we finally have some company," I muttered to my silent companion with no expectation of a reply. He too, like me, had his eyes fixed firmly on the broken door. There was a pregnant silence. A pause in which both the echoes and the wind seemed to die down at the same time. Leaving us with nothing but an empty, hollow sensation that was dangling by a thread connected to the door. Connected to whoever was behind it and the fate their arrival had created for us.​

 

[Vikous]

The sparse foothills held the remnants of the forsaken Jedi Temple, creating a dreary mosaic of mottled greys and browns. This once-fertile land had provided fresh food for its inhabitants, but now only Vikous tread its muddy paths. The Sith had landed his ship some distance away, out of sight, relying on the rain to mask the sputtering of its engines. He regretted making the journey on foot. Soaked to the bone, Vikous had swapped out his armor for something more suitable after the view during atmospheric entry had revealed all he needed to know about the weather beneath the thick blanket of clouds.

As he crested a grassy knoll, he took a deep breath and finally spotted the dilapidated temple he had been seeking. It struck him as amusing—not because of the temple's condition, but due to how it loomed over the barren land below, rising defiantly toward the roiling clouds, in stark contrast to the principles of its former occupants. Vikous mused that the Jedi were fickle, quick to extol the value of life yet easily abandoning it in times of hardship, leaving behind valuable land and the lives of those who had once relied on it.

The smooth, durasteel-woven stonework had been battered by neglect, and the circular outlines of sacred structures seemed to lament their new fate. Vikous pressed onward, ascending through a fractured gateway and navigating past overgrown gardens to reach the grand hall. He was in search of something—an artifact hidden within the temple's depths—but something else had caught his attention instead: a new prize.

Though his experience in the sphere of Intelligence had shaped him into a man of cunning, even he was prone to mistakes. It wasn't until he was on the cusp of the threshold that he distinguished between the pulsing of his quarry and the thrum of a new presence that pierced the storm of his Force-wrought senses. There was no hesitation; motion and consideration worked in tandem, thought paired with movement. Vikous was not someone who needed time to think—fear played no role in his life anymore—as he navigated the rain-slicked corridors with purpose, heading toward the heart of his interest.

Vikous was a tall man, a lofty six-five, clad in midnight robes that clung to his muscular frame, and heavy with rain. His face, pale as moonlight, was a series of hard bluffs and set with eyes that blistered like hot coals. Before him stood the same door that Seraphia contested, but unlike her he didn't deign to wait. A listless movement grafted his machinations of the Force through the splintered door and clove it in two.

"You don't belong here."

He was yet to even set eyes on what lay beyond the plume of dust he had shaken free.

 

[Seraphia]

Unknown Planet - Destroyed Jedi Temple

I counted two heartbeats. Slow and steady as they were, what happened next seemed to happen so quickly. The footsteps fell, adding to the silence that had dominated the crumbling chambers. It hardly lasted the time it took for me to blink before I felt a sudden explosion of force that, had I not been holding it, would have taken my breath away. The fragile metal holding the door up for dear life crumbled. Shattered, more like. Bent and bowed and broke against the wave of might that battered against it. It stood no chance, and before I had a chance to summon any obvious surprise a deep, rumbling voice echoed through the blanket of dust and debris that blocked my line of sight.

It swirled so violently, in such a thick cloud, that I could make out neither shape nor form of the life that stood before me. I only had that voice to go off. The words were slow and deliberate, I could feel the vibration of them churning in the pit of my stomach. Commanding, though they made no commands.

I finally dropped the furrow in my brow, replacing it with a look of impatience as I did my best to pick out any features or details, but it was pointless, and eventually, my patience wore out. The fingers on my left hand shifted through the air gracefully, leaving a trail of their movements in the agitated detritus. It was a far less dramatic display of the force, but it did what I was hoping. The plumes of smoke and splintered metal parted down the centre. Drawn to the sides like a pair of curtains parting at the beginning of a play.

With an eager expression, I watched his form shift. From the jagged, hazy edges of a shadow into something more solid. Something tangible. Something that I could lay my eyes on with the same insatiable inquisitiveness I gave to everything that had good enough fortune to genuinely surprise me.

True, I could not place my finger on much, but of one thing I was certain. One element of this creature, for knew at least that I could call him no man, was as familiar to me as my reflection. As known to me as the inner workings of my own mind. As recognisable as the thrum of my heart against my ribcage. The weight of it on my chest and the pull it held on my soul was so thrilling and addictive that it produced the kind of excitement I had only known in the very heart, the very throes of a hunt.

Power.

It bubbled off him like some great oversized cauldron in the fits of boiling over. Hissing and spitting and fizzling with each breath I exhaled. As though my lungs were the very bellows that stoked the flame beneath him. My eyes narrowed, focusing my attention on an inch of him at a time, though they did not relent in their efforts to map every one of them. It was as intimate as a stare could be, yet bold and unshaken. I made no effort to hide the curiosity that dominated my expression. Nor did I make any effort to hide its intensity.

It was hard not to bask in it. In the ebb and flow of his connection to the force. It felt like sitting on the edge of a raging bonfire fire or slipping into a warm bath after a midnight walk in snow and frost. Long, sharp, painful shocks of heat that sunk themselves deep into my bones. Both bewitching and unbearable it forced my every muscle to tense and relax at the same time.

I inhaled the scent of it deeply. The rich, tangy taste of it in the air stood my hair on end. Mixed with the sweet yet sickly iron of his blood as it pulsed beat by beat, ever so temptingly, through his veins… I was almost rabid.

I kept my composure somehow. Shifted my position against the table to bring some feeling back into my legs, which had been locked into place since the door had splintered before my very eyes. "You say that with such certainty," I, at last, responded. In a voice the texture of velvet, and at a whisper usually only shared between lovers. "How do you know I don't belong here?" I cocked my head to the side to punctuate my question, the movement drawing my features into a defiant yet bemused expression. As though I could not imagine a world in which there were places I did not belong. ​

 

[Vikous]

Narrowed eyes kept the dust at bay as plumes rolled off his shoulders like low clouds clinging to high hills. In stepped the Darth, debris crunching underfoot, his hands hanging placidly at his sides, his weapon obscured beneath the sodden tangle of his cloak. It was his turn to absorb the scene before him.

He saw beauty—beauty that thinly veiled the predations of something beyond a simple woman. The song of her life force was skewed and unusual, and Vikous couldn't quite put his finger on it; that was a rare occurrence. The wind picked up, howling through the damaged ceilings and sweeping through the cold corridors, adding a pointed accent to the unexpected meeting. For a moment, silence became the Sith's plaything, his expression wrought with stoicism. He found the lulls in the quiet more telling than words, as words could be deceitful.

"You're neither Jedi nor fortune seeker."

Breaking away from where he had stood to prowl the outskirts of the room, Vikous shook free the hood that covered his bald head. While his demeanour may have suggested a concerning lack of worry, the tendrils of the Force surrounding him implied otherwise; they curled around the dishevelled dining hall like eager snakes, ready to lash out at a moment's notice.

"You're not hiding." He began, speaking more to himself than to Seraphia, whose silhouette he kept in his peripheral vision. "Work? Maybe. But what kind?"

He circled his intended target: the woman's companion—or, as he suspected, her pet. Peering down at the heartless man, the Darth had already determined what was missing and was trying to deduce how the husk was still standing. The galaxy was vast, and countless rituals mocked life, but this was different, perhaps even more macabre. Fitting, then, that this woman and her consort lingered on a planet where the day trembled to begin.

"Is this respite? A hovel to pick yourself back up, to convalesce?"

The questions seemed rhetorical, mere musings from a man who didn't truly expect a straightforward answer from the moonlit beauty dominating the room nearby. Forsaking her companion, Seraphia finally came under the full scrutiny of the Dark Lord as he moved to the opposite end of the table, planting his arms atop it like pillars supporting his leaning body. He appeared as though he were conducting a board meeting or standing at the head of a war council. The first genuine question rolled off his tongue.

"Who are you?"

 

[Seraphia]

Unknown Planet - Destroyed Jedi Temple

I lowered my head a fraction or two, an acknowledgement that his assumptions about my nature were thus far correct. I was not a Jedi, nor was I seeking any kind of fortune. Seeking something, yes, but neither credits nor gold or riches of any kind could hold my interest. They were common things that common people chased. The dreams of peasants and lesser men with nothing better to do than sit and brood over their misfortune. I could have never debased myself with such tedium and fragility.

His sudden movement worked the thick blanket of dust coating the floor into a flurry again, though it was quick to settle down again. My gaze remained pointedly fixed upon his moonlit face. Now that he had relieved himself of his hood I was free to pick apart his expression. Free to read every twitch and tug of the intricate muscles in his face, but so far it gave nothing obvious away.

He made another assumption. Followed by a guess. This time, I shook my head. Left to right in one quick, cutthroat motion. It caused a tumbling wave of pearl-white hair to fall like a curtain over one side of my face. I moved to tuck it behind my ear, unperturbed by the fact that he did not look back. He was edging a little closer to the truth with his last guess, but I was enjoying myself far too much to let anything slip.

As his steps circled him toward Daphnis, who had moved not a muscle since this whole ordeal began, my interest waned in favour of something far more intriguing.

Slithers of his power brushed against the exposed flesh on my wrists, my waist, and my neck. As if seeking the places where the barrier between themselves and what lay beneath my skin was at its thinnest. I shuffled against the table again, though not uncomfortably. The movement was filled with a restless excitement, spurred on by the tantalising touch of his power as it explored me. It left me feeling exposed and raw, but rather than that being a negative thing, it thrilled me. I could feel the pace of my heart quicken. Hear the rapturous sighs and flutters it had made of my breathing.

I wanted him to poke and prod and discover the secrets lingering in my shadows.

My tongue made a luxurious pass over my top lip, followed by a set of too-perfect and rather sharp-looking teeth chewing thoughtfully upon the lower one. "You know," I began, lowering myself into the seat at the opposite end of the table. It could not have been comfortable, but I sat upon it like a Queen on her throne. "I don't think I'll tell you."

I crossed one leg over the other making one long, elegant line of my silhouette from head to toe. "I rather like this game," I admitted, cocking my lips into a Cheshire grin. "I like hearing you guess…" I elongated the final letter, the sound like a cold splash of water on a searing hot surface. I waved a hand at him, somehow both a dismissal and encouragement. "Try again."​

V Vikous​

​

​

 

[Vikous]

Her movements and expressions did not go unnoticed; Vikous's eyes captured every nuance, from her swiping tongue to the toothy smile that revealed her makeup. A challenge? This was new. While he was no stranger to similar dynamics in his dealings with other Sith, it was rare to encounter such defiance in those who dwelled outside of that political realm. Yet, this was a welcome defiance.

The barrages of wind continued their onslaught, crashing against the carapace of the temple and accentuating every lull in their conversation. Then, Vikous made another aimless gesture with his hand, a sort of listless dismissal aimed at an underling, almost impatiently. The sounds outside ceased, replaced by a momentary hollow thrum, as if the torrent beyond had struck taut leather stretched over some rudimentary instrument. The reverberations settled like dust, and the Darth's voice erupted, cutting cleanly through any quiet that dared creep in.

"You like games?"

The same lofty hand that had silenced the world outside beckoned Seraphia's companion with a come-hither motion. There was no question or suggestion behind it, only the Will of the Force. The tendrils that caressed the flaxen-haired beauty peeled away like hungry eels, swarming the heartless man who coveted the shadows. They carried him toward the Darth in a violent, jerking motion, stopping him abruptly. A foot off the ground, he floated, entirely alone; no speck of dust nor pebble danced with him as he was puppeteered—a testament to the discipline of the Sith. Vikous didn't know what this man meant to her, but he felt this was the quickest way to find out. When it came to challenges, he always emerged victorious.

"Games are like lives: fragile things, and life often dashes expectation to the ground," he mused, fingers steepled in the air, as if holding a miniature Daphnis between them.

The Darth relented, not on Daphnis, but on his overall demeanor, taking a seat behind him and fixing his undivided attention upon the woman before him. Finally, a smile crept up his pallid face, hard bluffs softening increasingly for a grin that barely crinkled the corners of his eyes. His free hand angled inward, a pointing finger carefully settling upon the fanged woman. "Are you sure you want to play?"

 

[Seraphia]

Unknown Planet - Destroyed Jedi Temple

My gaze tracked his hand as it made that impatient gesture. His movements seemed to be tied to mine. To that thread I had detected long before he had made his entrance. I showed no reaction to the deafening quiet that had been summoned at his behest, but I marked it. Just as I marked his movements.

The only answer I offered in response to his question was a sultry smile. One that seemed to beg without words for challenge lingering just beyond the edges of our conversation. His fingers curled upwards, and my hips squirmed unabashed in my seat as a swell of power filled the room. I did not turn to see what he was summoning, only waited. Waited with bated breath as he taunted and teased the climax we both knew we were rushing towards.

When his shoulders slumped, and he relaxed into the seat at the other end of the table, I was on the edge of it. The edge of everything, as he dangled satisfaction between us. It was that grin that held me there; and that finger, those words, that finally pushed me over.

I laughed loud, and long, and unabashed. The sound of it a melodic cacophony against the silence his power had levelled on the world. I even went so far as to throw my head against the back of the chair, stretching until the hollow of my throat flashed white against a sudden streak of mute lightning. The galaxy was full of amusement for me. I found it most in the hunt for my prey. The fear in their eyes, the thrum of their hearts, the sound of their screams fading to quiet, desperate begging, but nothing so funny as this. Nothing so amusing as coming across a creature so exactly like me.

The laughter cut as quickly as it had begun, drenching the room in quiet tension.

I leaned forward, placing my palm on the table and tilting my head down until I was looking at him between the gaps in my eyelashes. My shoulders swayed subtly, back and forth, like a cat preparing to pounce. "I don't think I've ever been so sure of anything in my life…"

My body snapped up suddenly, the bright spark in my sea-glass gaze bursting with excitement. "But we must do this properly. Don't you think?" I tilted my head as if waiting for an answer, though the question was rhetorical. I moved before I had finished speaking. My fingers had already begun the intricate work of summoning my power, knitting together the force until it bent to my will. "This won't be much fun if you're playing with an empty shell."

It was then that I finally turned my attention to Daphnis, the challenge and the game, who throughout the entire ordeal had remained as stone-faced as ever. A soft breeze announced my arrival at his side, ruffling the folds of his coat and the shabby brown hair atop his head. "I hadn't planned on giving this back to you for quite some time," I muttered as I reached out with my free hand to settle his lapel, resting it there when I was finished. "Aren't you lucky?" In my other hand, clutched in a delicate grasp one might have used for a newly hatched chick, Daphnis' heart thrummed at break-neck speed.

There was no fear on his face, but you could taste it in the silence. You could hear it in the staccato rhythm that sounded more at home on the battlefield than in this decrepit, quiet temple. "Before we proceed, I think you should thank the kind Lord for his ingenious idea. Without him, you wouldn't have seen this for… oh? Centuries." I patted his chest gently, as you would pat the head of a puppy. "Thank the Lord, Daphnis."

His body moved stiffly, jerking and twitching as if the soul inside were fighting the order. I tutted quietly, the fingers of my right hand flexing around the fleshy mass between them. His head jerked one final time before his gaze came to rest on the Sith behind me. "Thank you, my Lord." His head inclined once, sharply, before it turned back to me, ticking away like the hands on a clock. "Good boy," I was tall, but I still had to push myself onto the tips of my toes to press a kiss onto his pallid cheek.

Then something echoed in the chamber, something wet and squishy and sticky followed by a deep, hollow thud that made the furniture tremble. I stepped back, one calculated graceful footstep as Daphnis came crumbling to the ground. "There," I dusted my hands off as an empty scream began to build from the man hunched on all fours in front of me. The sound of it did not seem to bother me, nor did the words that had begun to form amidst it. The where am Is and the who are yous and the what have you done to my families. I'd heard it all before. The only irritation I seemed to show was when he reached out for the hem of my cloak. To which I swatted him idly away.

Glancing back to Vikous, whom my attention was now focused on, I cocked a brow and curled my lips into that same, sultry smile. "Now the game can truly begin."
​

V Vikous​

 

[Vikous]

Upon that forsaken man came the brunt of Vikous's malintent, a cacophony of terror that only he experienced, that of which strangled the terror from his body in a desperate plea; pleading that was impossible to decipher. The room itself convulsed, reverberating with something sinister, prickling, like ice had fixed itself to every atom in the room, and throbbed in tandem with Daphnis' heart. Where a slave may have taken tooth and nail to their jailor, this victim could only lament in suspension, fettered by bonds utterly unbreakable.

"The Dark Side is a powerful thing to wield... or deny." Vikous remarked, his attention wholly upon the fanged woman beside him.

The Sith didn't move; only observed her. She was a mystery still, something to be studied, uncovered... enjoyed? Her connection to the Force was unmistakable, and thus the Darth found himself revelling in its intoxicating effects. He felt it form and reform around him, like a war drum beating in the distance, constant and rhythmic.

"Red-drink, razor-fed." He started, beginning to piece together her nature. "Daybreak is far from a friend for you, is it?"

Up into the air the fresh-hearted victim soared, too high to reach, arms and legs splayed like marionette strings had accidentally twisted. The shadow-choir that Vikous inflicted upon Daphnis' mind never relented, and so pressure saw blood spill inky red rivulets down his cheeks and jaw, fleeing the pressure encompassing his head.

"What if I promised you more sporting quarry? Quarry like me."

 

[Seraphia]

Unknown Planet - Destroyed Jedi Temple

Taking a seat on the edge of the table that Vikous now sat before, I turned my attention to the servant who had been with me for years now. The symphony of darkness that was about to assault him did not render me pitiful. I felt no empathy for him, believing instead that he should have found himself grateful. Whatever this dark Lord planned to do to him to display his power would surely be a far kinder, swifter death than he would have had at my own hands. The room swelled with it. That dark power. To bursting point. It sent the pace of my heart speeding again, the hairs on the back of my neck to stand, as I savoured the sensation.

I felt Vikous’ gaze lingering on my face and turned to meet it with a cocky grin. “Powerful indeed,” I was certain I had more to say, but there was something about the look on Vikous’ face that gave me pause. I could see the gears in his brain moving slowly to piece together something. I could feel the unbridled pleasure he took with each deafening crack and creak Daphnis’ body made. I could smell it. The bewitching claws of power curling its fingers around us both until we were wrapped so sweetly in its unforgiving embrace.

I squinted at his revelation, my gaze turning a little colder in the light of them, and though I provided no answer my silence was answer enough. It wasn’t often that someone guessed my lineage just from looking. Nor was it often that someone spelt out one of my weaknesses with such banality. I folded my arms across my chest, wrapping my spindly fingers around my waist until they closed the fractures in my armour that his words had created. Yet still, I did not answer. The only thing that had any hope of capturing my attention was the pitter-patter of fresh, stark red blood dripping from Daphnis onto the floor. It was truly an effort not to turn and look at it. Not to inhale the scent of it so deeply my lungs burst with it, but I was practised enough.

I licked my lips again, the salt and iron taste in the air filled my mouth with saliva. My concentration, however, had been stolen. By the promise he so rashly threw about the room. There was no folderol to it. It was not a promise dressed up in finery or frills. It was not the same as sitting in a room filled with politicians and their empty promises they had no intention of fulfilling. It was so simple and cutthroat I almost believed that he could do it. I almost believed that he could provide better than I could.

But I was no fool.

“Hmm…” I pushed myself off the edge of the table. “I don’t think you understand what you’re offering. Do you know what it means to be hungry like I am?” I inched closer to Vikous. As close as he would allow me. Close enough to smell the sweat on his skin, feel the heat from his body. My gaze was unrelenting and spoke far more of the desperation of hunger than my words ever could. “Do you know what it means to crave something so intrinsically you can neither think nor feel anything else? To be a slave to an instinct so base and powerful that nothing can ever truly satisfy it?”

Now that I was so close the temptation to reach out and touch him was overwhelming, but I resisted. Instead, I paced slowly around the back of his seat. Each footfall steady and sure. My fingers trailed along the splintered wooden arm of his chair, my touch as light and gentle as a breeze.

“Can you truly promise me that?” I pointed towards Daphnis. Though I did not even seem to flinch at the limp body of what had once been my servant as its limbs, twisted and gnarled as the roots of a tree, flailed in the air. “Can you promise to sate my hunger in ways that I can’t?” As I glanced at Daphnis, there was doubt laced in my tone and I did not appear to care that it was obvious. Insatiability was a word that came hand in hand with my hunger. It was primal, as much as the need to breathe or blink. Ingrained in me so deeply that it was tangible. I could feel it pulling at my senses even now. The scent of Daphnis in the air only egged me on, bidding me to lessen the tiny gap that now remained between myself and the well of dark power sitting so still in front of me.​

V Vikous​