The city of the Shadow Eternal. Kaas City.

Above, the slate-grey clouds roiled, an ever-storm, always threatening to break and sometimes doing so with great glory – blinding the twilight creatures with the harsh white glare of lightning flashes, the bolts unerringly seeking the tallest of the city's spires, their thunderous retorts the barks of a divine colossus. But for all the whip lashes of blood-warm rain, the storm never cleared over the homeworld.

Jhresh walked the streets, his head bowed in thought. He could have just as easily taken one of the waiting skytaxis but he had no destination in mind and more he found the act of moving conducive to thought. He would be restless otherwise, prone to pacing as he had during his studies in the Temple libraries. Besides, despite himself, he liked Kaas City. The kilometres-high towers, the cool, strong lines of the architecture, the monuments that proclaimed the glory of the Sith Empire. He even liked the sky. The way the clouds boiled and shifted, ever-changing, their patterns and chaos clinging to the cusp of being laden with meaning – looking up, Jhresh felt it was the world trying to talk to him, if only he could hear it.

It helped that life was easy in the city. Yes, he was alien and thus even the lowliest imperial retained a sense of superiority when dealing with him but he was also Sith, and there was no class higher. As he walked, people parted around him, mindful of his robes and the ever present threat of the lightsaber on his hip. He was privileged here, scion of the Emperor's own house. But it did not stop him from feeling a twinge of disloyalty. He knew what he should be thinking. Ease makes you soft boy. The untested warrior dies in his first battle. Even the dense Dromund Kaas jungles, stuffed full with vicious predators, could not compare with the most gentle of Ratattak's environs. Jhresh's homeworld was lethal, every lifeform, every geological shape seemingly designed to murder and maim, and it bred a lethal people. A people who prided themselves on their toughness.

Because they have to!

Jhresh argued with himself often and chided himself for it. Surely no other Sith was so riddled with doubt! It would make him weak, clumsy with the Force if he was not careful. He knew what he should do. He should keep spouting the hollow words he did not quite believe and hope that someday he thought them true.

A minor matter in the grand scheme of things. Somewhere out there was a person unknown plotting against him. It truly beggared belief. Try as he might Jhresh could not think of anyone he had wronged so greatly to merit such a reaction – and certainly not anyone with the resources to commit the apparent deeds.

He thought suddenly of Tomat, a wiry Twi'lek who had taken against him in the slave pits. Once or twice, Jhresh had been sure he had seen murder in the Twi'lek's eyes and the back wash of emotion from his burgeoning Force sensitivities had certainly terrified him. Still, Tomat was toiling at the foot of some stone construction, or more likely, dead and forgotten. A slave's hatreds were castles of sand, fragile and ephemeral in the face of time and larger forces.

The only thing that came to mind was Jhresh's position – his apprenticeship to the Sith Lord. Could it be that someone coveted his place, or perhaps worked to strike through him at his master? It was indeed possible, but why so convoluted a method?

Jhresh stopped up short.

Could it be that they fear ME?

He chuckled and shook his head. Now that seemed unbelievable.

His meanderings had taken him past the Faceless Colonnade, a wide avenue lined by the restored statues of Sith Lords recovered from Korriban. As the plaques informed, the archaeologists had been unable to discover the identities of the fearsome masters – so their miens, stern with weathered age, remained unknown. For reasons lost to the midst of time, city planning and demographics, the Colonnade marked the entrance to Kaas City's financial district, where office blocks two miles high housed corporations that stretched their grasping fingers across the light years of interstellar space. Planetary economies were sized up and a magic more mysterious than the darkest corners of the Force was worked by quants and accountant-engineers.

But it was late in the night and even in the capitol, the gears of commerce turned slower when the office lights were off. Jhresh moved from spot light to spot light, a figure of death emerging from the darkness, black-hooded and white-faced. He picked his route and random, leaving the main thoroughfare with barely a glance upwards and turning down a side street that might have been a cave, so narrow was the strip of sky above.

And much like a cave, it was home to its own dangerous denizens. Jhresh was not aware of the movement as a shape slide out to block the end of the street, but he sensed the hatred that radiated from the figure and his head snapped up, his fist clenching in his gloves with a creak of leather. Slowly, keeping his gaze on the unmoving figure for as long as he was able, he turned his head to look over his shoulder.

Ah yes, the most rudimentary of traps

Behind him, covering his "escape" was another person, arms crossed over their thin chest, a hint of a smirk all that could be seen of their face. A cruel pleasure dripped from this one – they were keenly looking forward to this.

So, this was it then. The culmination of all those murders. Jhresh could not help but feel disappointed. The ambush lacked the finesse he had expected and the actors were crude, blunt – a man in a rubber monster suit rather than a creature of slithering dread. Jhresh examined his emotions, found he was not feeling anything like the fear he had anticipated. He would face them down and these predators would not find him an easy kill.

All in all, something of a let down.

The figure in front approached him, resolving into a hooded human, her lower jaw replaced by brute cybernetics. She flicked back her hood with an angry gesture and her flashed with fury. Her hair had been hacked short and Jhresh, who even had a preference for hairless women, thought the style did not suit her face. She pointed a metal finger at his frown and opened her mouth but before the words could emerge, Jhresh butted in.

'Why?' he asked. At the very least, if he was going to kill two people or be murdered by the same, he wanted the answer to that question. It seemed to throw off his ambusher though. Her brow furrowed and she bared teeth, her lower metal set shaped into vicious fangs. Like she could feel her momentum slipping away, she shook her head and jabbed her finger into Jhresh's chest.

'Stuff it slave. You have one chance to answer before we start hurting you.' Behind him, Jhresh could hear the other stalking closer. He absorbed the "slave" jibe – that he would burn as fuel later. Call him slave would they? Time enough for them to regret that.

'Where is the artefact now?'

Jhresh's shoulders slumped.

Ah

'It's not in your chambers, nor the Darth's. Who has it? Where is it?'

So mundane. There were not the invisible assassins of his friends and patrons but merely the proxies of Sith politicking. No doubt some rival Lord or Darth had heard of his recent find and wanted to steal the history for themselves. Jhresh chuckled, a reaction that made his ambusher shy back warily. He did not care one wit for these creatures but he supposed that he had to at least make the effort.

'Who sent you?' he asked imperiously. The cyborg woman growled her reply, reaching to her waist to draw and activate her lightsaber. The ruby blade gave everything a bloody cast that seemed eminently suitable given the circumstances.

'Last chance filth. WHERE is it?' The lightsaber swung up to point at Jhresh's chest, hissing as it vaporised the moisture in the air. To most it was the deadly threat that heralded the end of life but to Jhresh it spoke of other things. Knowledge. Trials. Ascension.

He sighed and brought his hand up to his face, rubbing his fingers across his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. His other hand gestured dismissively.

A shadow detached from the wall and broke down into a lattice of tessellating hexagons drawn in a blue-white glow. The other ambusher barked a shocked warning as the stealth field collapsed but it was already too late, Agent Anlinam was punching her vibroknife through the back of the Sith's skull and into her brain. Her eyes rolling back, the cyborg crumpled into heap of flesh and metal, robotic parts twitching as cybernetic neurons tried to make sense of the dying signals. Quick as a pouncing vine cat Jhresh spun, marshalling his power even as he moved. At the culmination of his turn he unleashed it, fingers spread wide, joints creaking with the strain.

A storm of lightning crashed into the ambusher, writhing and spitting bolts of power that smashed him back, forcing him into the air to slam him into the ground a good forty yards back, screaming the whole way. Purple and blue arcs traced burning lines along the walls of the street and the few small windows shattered along its length.

Jhresh cut off the flow of the Force and let the tension seep out of his body. His hands smoked and it felt like he had seared the nerves from his finger tips to his shoulders. But he was used to that. No power came without a price – that was the lesson of the Sith.

Anlinam moved up to his shoulder. He had been aware of her shadowing him since he had left the Tung estate, attuned as he was to her presence. For once he was glad of her stalking and how readily she interpreted his motions. These were not the first Sith he had killed, but they always went down easier when they were surprised.

'A most impressive demonstration my lord,' said the agent, wiping her blade clean on a cloth. Jhresh nodded, in this instance it appeared that Alnilam genuinely was impressed – it would not do to preen about that though, he should act as if that did not please him, that it was his due as a master of the mysterious Force.

'Check that one. If he still lives find out who their master is.' He pointed to the still smoking body.

'As you command my lord. Should he...' the agent paused, licking her lips as she searched for the appropriate words. '...survive the encounter?'

Jhresh hesitated. The ambusher was helpless now, as thoroughly disarmed as anyone could be, a danger to no one. In the same position, Jhresh knew he would pray that his life would be spared. But there was no room for mercy in the politics of the Sith and more there had to be a price. One could not challenge him and hope to walk away from defeat, else there would be no end to it. He hardened his heart.

'He shall not.'

To her credit, the agent betrayed not a flicker of fear as she approached the Sith to torture him.

It must be like poking a wounded rancor for her... he thought, watching her. And then, with a last stretching of his fingers, he turned from the scene, lifted the hem of his robe and stepped daintily over the robotic corpse at his feet.

His night had a strange symmetry to it – four bodies made, a pair each side. Once again Jhresh felt that Dromund Kaas, secret sanctuary of the dark side for so long, was trying to speak to him.

He opened his mind and strained to hear.