Prologue
My name is Tishmaly Ashron – Kallig. I am a slave. All of my past, even to the most distant memories I have, attests that I am. My earliest recollections of childhood are of a woman, who I called "Ma", caring for me and trying desperately to survive in harsh and violent circumstances, only to fail and leave me alone. She was a slave, my Ma, and by that, I was as well. She called me Tishmy. I was raised in a world of struggle and need on the planet Ziost in the heart of the Sith Empire. How did I survive when my Ma did not? That is a question that haunts my quieter thoughts. If I had to give a quick answer it would be that I was shy and pretty. My master fancied his little housemaid in training, as did some of his henchmen.
That I survived to adulthood, despite multiple near-death experiences, starvation, and sickness, is a bit of a mystery. Some people get uncomfortable about things like fate or destiny, especially when connected to the supernatural, but I don't have any other explanation. There is the Force, and my connection to it. Looking back, it was a major reason why I persevered, but I did not control it. Something helped me when I was helpless. I could sense things, and sometimes move a split second before or faster than harm could touch me, but I did not understand why or know how to control the abilities. Somehow, they appeared and worked to my advantage when otherwise I would have ended up like my mother. Survivor's guilt haunts me, and sometimes that deep empty hole in my soul feels like it will swallow me. It is something I fight but cannot change.
When I reached the confusing time of puberty, that empty hole in my soul turned into a seething cauldron of bitterness and hate. All of the fake affection, unwanted touching, and my pointless existence coalesced inside me like a black hole, the mass of which pulled more of my being in with each passing day. It was a crushing, twisting, dark core that could not be contained and eventually led to my detection by the Sith recruiters. They lifted me out of my forlorn existence, and for a moment I had hope, like the light of matter shining brightly as it swirls into the event horizon. I was sent to Korriban and the Sith Academy to be trained.
What I soon realized is that the Sith training was merely a higher stakes game of "survival of the fittest". I was thrown into competition against other hapless acolytes with the sole purpose of staying alive longer than them. I excelled because I had to; it had become my purpose to outlive those who harmed me and the only defiance I could openly present to the world around me. I exist, and one day you will fear me! Even completing my training and being selected as Darth Zash's apprentice did not stop the conflict.
During my journey to become a Sith, I was put in a position to harm and even kill people, and I did, assuming it was part of what it meant to be a Sith. I tried to avoid pointless cruelty, but when fighting, I thought "better them than me." That sense of callousness began to fade, and eventually, I found myself avoiding and even abhorring death. I began having nightmares about the people I killed, sometimes even seeing my face on their dead bodies.
It was a sick and harmful existence. As I watched my life succumb to the black hole that was consuming me, I realized that in the end, I would lose; that now I was a slave to something consuming me from within. Somehow, to be truly free, I had to find a way to defeat myself.