"So tell me boy, from what system do you hail?"

Fell stared up at the ceiling. The incandescent light bounced off his face much like Mandalore's words. They were in the warlord's private chambers now, Fell, Mandalore, and the droid, who was set aside in a dark corner like a hunk of scrap. Guards were stationed at the door, their blue cloaks draping so widely that they blocked it from view as they coalesced in a wall of blue linen.

Fell kept silent. He recalled one of Cinder's earliest lessons, though the first rule had been to avoid capture in the first place. Though, since she too had been captured and sent down to Malastare inside the shell of a war droid, he figured she would permit him this slight. Anything Mandalore wanted from him would go to his grave.

"Just making conversation." When Mandalore shook his head, the light melded with the two colors of paint on his helmet. He was sitting on the edge of his hammock, still clad head to toe in his armor. I suppose the helmet never comes off. He had removed his cape earlier and his guards had taken it away, along with his staff and shield.

He pushed himself to his feet. "If I were trying to gain intel," he started towards Fell, who continued to stare up at the ceiling. "I have more effective methods. I ask again, Sith, from where do you hail?"

Fell continued looking up despite his curiosity. "Ord Mantell," he forced out the words with a snarl. "What's it to you?"

"It is the first question I ask all of our initiates." Mandalore turned around and paced. "Though I must admit, I mistook you for a native-born son of Concord Dawn. What of your parents?"

"What parents?" Fell scoffed and looked down. He watched Mandalore pace back and forth, the latter cocking his masked head towards Fell at those words. "Darth Cinder is the closest thing to a mother I have."

"And when she dies, where shall you go?"

When she dies. The words cut through him more than he would have liked to admit. Against all odds, Cinder seemed immortal. Every time he had tried killing her himself, he was thwarted, by circumstance or by Cinder herself. He had even expected her to die in the hangar on Korriban, keeping The Ashen One in place out of morbid curiosity despite her orders to leave. Seeing her eviscerate that Jedi had been just as thrilling. If I cannot kill her, what chance do you have? was what he wanted to say.

"I don't know."

Mandalore stopped pacing and turned on his heel to face Fell directly. "I can tell you would be a great warrior, maybe even a fine field commander in my ranks." He stepped closer and gave Fell another once over, head to toe. "You seem to be of pure Mandalorian stock at least somewhere down the line. That gives you a head over most initiates, to be sure. When did the Dark Lady take you in?"

"Six standard years ago."

Fell recalled how she found him in the Scraplands on a day like any other. He was hiding from his cantankerous foreman as he was wont to do, and a lady chanced upon him. At first he thought her one of the legendary angels of Iego (and still at times he wondered), but was more surprised to see a Jedi had actually deemed it fit to speak with him. The others that even bothered to venture out to the slimeball of Ord Mantell ignored him, or at worst treated him like the slave he was. But he and this Jedi, who introduced herself as Countess Quay of Bläncz-Ut, spoke for hours as friends.

Then, as they made their way back to the shipyard, they were accosted by a group of pirates and scavs. He expected this countess to compose herself as a Jedi, to throw some pointed quip at their assailants or attempt to convince them of the error of their ways. Instead, she fell upon them savagely. Assassin droids were crushed into balls of barbed shrapnel and tossed into the throng of pirates. The few who stood, bleeding, she fell upon with her lightsaber, their blood invisible against its scarlet blade. As the pirate captain started to run back to his skiff, she dragged him back with a well-placed Force grip around his ankle. She jabbed the toe of her boot into his stomach, lowering the heel towards his manhood with a sickening crunch. The screams echoed in Fell's brain to this day, just as the way he silenced them. He remembered stretching out a few fingers and hearing the man gag, wheezing for air. When it was done, the countess looked down at him and beamed with approval. Next thing he knew, he was traveling with her to Ossus.

"I was a boy back then. I had struggled in thirteen years of slavery, trampled by the Jedi who were supposedly sworn to protect me. She came and she took me when no one else would. She realized what I was and nurtured my power."

Mandalore bowed his head. Fell couldn't tell if it was approval or contempt. "She trained you in the ways of the Force, yes. In her religion. But did she teach you how to fight? The art of the kill? The ways of war?

"That leader of yours, that damnable craven Ruin." Mandalore approached Fell and stalked around him in a circle. "He has trapped you in a war that none of his followers know how to fight. He calls upon me for aid. Your master seems woefully similar."

"I think my master is more than capable of fighting her own wars." Fell rolled his eyes. "Just as she has her own reasons for trying to supplant Darth Ruin's reign."

"Do tell, boy. Maybe I shall pay him a visit and make an end of it myself." A grumbling sigh rattled out when Fell did not deign to reply. "Do you not see that I want your master on the Sith throne? Should she win her little bout with Ruin's envoy, I will heed her offer - to an extent. I will pillage the Core to my heart's content, though I will not settle it and grow fat and lazy as she hopes. But I will go to Wild Space as she requested and test my mettle there.

"With a Sith Empire helmed by Dark Lady Cinder controlling this galaxy, I'll lead my people to a new frontier. Perhaps there, I can carve out a new, proper home, without interference." Mandalore stopped his pacing for a moment, then leaned into Fell's ear. "Ideally, with you in my ranks, perhaps at my side."

"You're too late for that, Mandalore," Fell said flatly. "My allegiance is to my master and our future empire."

There was the rattling of armor as Mandalore shook his head and resumed his pace. "Your master will be dead if she does not kill the whelp. Our basilisks will tear her apart. Though, would killing her free you of your perceived loyalty?"

"My loyalty is not 'perceived'." Fell felt the whole of him prickle with gooseflesh and he grew stiff. "Darth Cinder is my master and I will follow her until the end, until my time comes to take her place."

"Just as someone will kill me for this mask." Mandalore seemed to ponder that for a moment. "It seems we are not so different, our orders. Perhaps Lord Revan poached that from us."

"'Lord' Revan? Cinder taught me that Revan was a woman."

"Was she? It makes no difference." He waved his hand. "Revan's lineage is what ties you Sith together, what makes you formidable. 'Tis why the nascent Sith pretenders of the last millennium barely clung to power. Why yours, despite being smothered in the crib, still clings desperately to life.

"I do not believe in omens and superstition, boy, but that droid of yours is the closest to a portent as I have ever seen. While I have no doubt Ruin has attempted to link himself to Revan's line, his cowardice betrays his deception. HK-47, and his apparent liking to your master, seem to spell that Dark Lady Cinder is heir apparent to the Sith."

Could this be true? Fell's eyes squinted in thought. There had to have been a reason he, Cinder, and the droid had survived all this time. All hope of a new Sith Empire had seemingly been destroyed with the citadel on Korriban, and it was clear that Ruin's order not only commanded no prestige, but was actively disintegrating. Are we the heirs to the Sith?

He recalled the holocron that he found next to his incapacitated master on Ossus and wondered what was inside. Cinder had told him it was none of his concern. Oh, but it is. Perhaps she feared for his safety as she so strangely did, or perhaps it was some kind of secret that could have given him an edge over her. More than likely, it was just another artifact for his master's collection. No, that is too simple, he thought. It must contain knowledge of our order. Of its reconstitution.

"I want your name, boy," Mandalore said as he came to a stop right in front of Fell.

"Darth Fell," he said without hesitation.

Mandalore chuckled. "Close enough. Lord Fell, you will come with me as my right hand."

"I have already told you I cannot-"

"Let me finish, Lord Fell." Mandalore shushed him with a metal finger. "When the time comes for you to assume command of the Sith Empire, you shall go and kill the Dark Lady and fulfill the second part of her bargain."

"What?"

"You will seize the mantle of Dark Lord and heir apparent to the Mandalorian clans. I cannot give up my crown for you, so I will take my own horde to Wild Space for a great crusade. You will be the Mandal'or of this galaxy. Just as she wanted: a Mandalorian-Sith alliance, though not the one she expected."

Fell couldn't help but smirk. "That's a cunning ploy. I can't help but admire it."

"I don't need your admiration, I need your acceptance. What do you say?"

Fell felt his teeth clamp down against his lip. The offer was sorely tempting, but the thought of betrayal deeply stung his heart. He swallowed hard and readied his decision.

No sooner did he get out the word "I" before the door to Mandalore's chamber hissed open and the white-armored Mandalorian from before stepped through, his prismatic compatriots following close behind. He and Mandalore exchanged words in Mando'a. It was like listening to frogdogs bark.

"My cape!" Mandalore growled. The blue-clad guards clamored forward to fasten it at once. Another came forward with his armaments before he even asked, fastening the burled shield to his left arm. It had been freshly and painstakingly polished; Fell saw his own reflection in the metal and his beard caught him off guard. He jumped when Mandalore thrust the butt of his staff into the ground with fury and stormed towards the door barking more orders, the crimson cape billowing from the force of his strides.

"Our alliance begins when I return." He heard Mandalore's voice behind him and looked over his shoulder. Whatever the warrior-king's expression was, it was concealed by his helmet.

"Our alliance?"

"Congratulations, Dark Lord. It seems you will be emperor sooner than you thought."

There was the ceaseless clatter of metal on metal as the Mandalorians filed out, all but the guards, followed by the whispering hiss of the door. Fell looked over at HK-47, who glared back. All he could move was his head, as the restraining bolts coiled each of his joints like metal snakes.

"Admiration: A most cunning ploy indeed, meatbag."