This is supposed to be the citadel?

Ruin trawled vast fields of ice and snow to be greeted by a mammoth tower falling in upon itself. The shattered remnants of a copper bell lay amidst crumbled cobbles and splintered wooden paneling. A misshapen splinter granted him entry. Mockery at my expense.

The floorboards groaned underfoot as he made his way to the pile of rubble in the tower's center. Stained glass windows limned with rime sat in the walls beside, each wearing a thousand hairline fractures in their colorful panels. Had it been morning, the silver rays of the sun would have created a vivid rainbow of light. But now it was dark, and all Ruin could see were vines of frost that crackled across the glass as the night came creeping.

A chill wind accosted Ruin from behind as he met with Eradicus on the other side of the rubble. More shards of the bell were scattered at their feet. The squire kicked them as they made their way down an aisle, flanked by rows of pews.

"This is the whole of it, master," the boy said. He sounded more thrilled than glum. "It's a relic of a time long gone."

Ruin's mouth slipped open, but the only thing that passed his lips was his frosty breath. He sends me on a fool's mission, then mocks my supposed weakness? Ever since Cronos left him battered and bloody, Ruin spent his days trapped in ceaseless ruminations His thoughts drifted aimless and tumultuous. His failure gnawed at him like rats teething on his flesh. The idea that he was useless, that he deprived himself of his vision due to his own stupidity, that he would be destroyed by his own apprentice... It had almost been enough to push him from the ledge.

He was sitting on his throne, deep in thought, when Eradicus arrived to clean his boots. All he was ever good for. Eradicus had arrived on Korriban too dull to sharpen into a spy, too dimwitted to forge into a diplomat, and too clumsy to hold a lightsaber. That was why Ruin took him as squire and not apprentice. Yet, if Cronos spoke true, the boy was the last one standing. How fitting indeed.

"Boy," Ruin said, his head down in his hands. "It is time. Bring me to this citadel."

Eradicus forgot himself and shined no boots, but Ruin forgave the slight this once. Seeing the crumbling tower in place of the citadel he expected, however, was enough to bring back his ire. His wroth would have to be his strength; how fortunate it was that he had so much now to hate. All his apprentices dead, the Sith Empire smothered in the crib, his Shadow Hand lost to the winds, the voice in his head that once promised him power beyond measure gone. The fault of it all laid squarely at his feet. And how he hated it.

Cronos called him weak. Ruin saw no reason to deny it; he was more husk than man now, and crippled to boot. He had passed sixty-one standard years some time ago; he felt that in his bones. These impending twilight years threatened to consume him in a maw of misery and woe. Nonetheless, his life had been a full one: Learning ancient knowledge, claiming the secrets of ancient artifacts, meeting the lost tribes of the Sith and unifying them once more. The girl had been by his side the whole time.

She stoked the flames of his hate, too. He had all but raised her from maiden to woman grown, with no thanks for his efforts. She spurned him as she was wont to do. Phanius had given her everything; Ruin had given her all that and more. Lysara Synder wanted no part of him, and Darth Cinder proved no more receptive. Almost twenty years she spent by his side, and now she was gone. All that remained were the insolent stillborn blooms of unrequited desire.

She will be here any moment.He lied to Cronos before when he said he was ready. The apparition saw right through the ruse. But it was no matter. Cronos was gone now from his mind and sight alike, trapped in his tomb until he himself deemed it fit to head out into the world. Ruin would sooner bury the ziggurat again than let the spirit free. She will be here soon. And then, we will bury him together.

Ruin put the past behind him and turned to the long slab of pure stone before him. It was a drab grey, pocked where it had been carved and honed into shape. Its corners caught glints of light, turning them into smooth-cut grey teeth. At least two meters long and half as wide across, the slab wore a distinctive imprint across its surface. Man-shaped.Ruin set his hand upon it. The stump of his right arm stretched reflexively with it, and the phantom pain nagged at him.

"Is there a reason you are showing me this, boy?" He turned to Eradicus, who was staring sullen at the gaping hole in the ceiling. The black night sky poured through, turned a brighter shade of purple by the reflection of the snow below.

"Showing you what?" Eradicus' nose and face crinkled. "I'm here for my training. 'Twas you who stopped here, my lord." He placed his hands on his hips. His metal gloves clapped against the cuisses of his dark armor, creating an echo that sailed out across the horizon.

Ruin blinked and shook his head. "Yes, of course." He reached into the inside of his robe and found his lightsaber. He must have had his reasons for not taking my good arm. The hilt was slim and small. He traced over the gilded filigree that ran from the pommel to the emitter, encircling the red-painted ignition switch in-between. The decorations were a relic from his time in the Jedi Order, where in bygone days masters added gold to their lightsabers as they made the journey from master to grandmaster. He left the order one short, never attaining the golden emitter.

"Kneel." The blade sprung to life and bathed the night in scarlet. Eradicus was encumbered by his armor, but soon enough recalled how to kneel in poleyns. The boy kept his eyes to the ground as Ruin turned to face him. He leveled the blade of his lightsaber just above Eradicus' shoulder. One stroke is all I need to be done with him for good.

He had fought with himself a while over doing this. But Eradicus was all that remained, and he needed a Sith by his side, not a squire. One fit for more than polishing boots, Ruin had rationalized. And when she comes, I have an excuse to be rid of the final thorn in my side.

"You are on your knees before me as a boy. A pathetic mongrel and a whelp. No more." Ruin carefully moved the blade from shoulder to shoulder, tracing as close as he could to Eradicus' throat as he did. "You are henceforth Darth Radix, Shadow Hand to the Dark Lord of the Sith, and heir apparent to the Sith Empire."

"Oh, thank-" Eradicus hushed when he saw Ruin's blade pointed at his throat.

"There is no passion," Ruin began.

The boy hesitated. Ruin arced his saber sideways and was about to send it running through his neck when...

"There is solely obsession!" Eradicus screamed the answer with the blade singing the hairs on his neck.

Ruin grinned. "There is no knowledge." He inched the blade closer until he could no more. Much as Ruin wanted to be rid of Eradicus here and now, he could not bring himself to finish it.

"There is solely conviction."

"There is no purpose."

"There is solely will."

"There is nothing."

"Only you."

Ruin raised an eyebrow. "You were so close." He left his lightsaber waiting at the boy's neck.

"No, master," Eradicus said sullenly. "I am correct. At the end of this, there will be only you. Bugger the spirit. Let the past stay dead."

Ruin let out a small chuckle. "Where's the fool to whom I have grown so accustomed?"

Eradicus looked up at him, his expression blank. "You killed him."

"Bah, spare me." Ruin shut off his saber and returned it to his robe. "Rise, Darth Radix." He started walking past the rubble. "We return to my throne and chart course for the future of our empire." Mine and Lysara's empire. One you will not live long enough to see, whelp.

Ruin was halfway to the door when he turned around and saw the boy still standing there like an armored fool. Why do I waste my time? "Alert the officers. I wish to hold court."

"In the throne room or-"

"Here, you imbecile." Ruin kept his eyes on the horizon. "Tell them to meet us here."

Ruin went out the open door, headlong into the frigid wind. The gale howled and pelted him with snow, forceful enough it felt it would rend the flesh from his aching bones. He clutched at his robes for warmth.

Eradicus joined him on the terrace in a few moments. Radix, I must remember that, regardless of how short a farce it is.

"They are on their way," Darth Radix said as he took his place at Ruin's side, "though Corporal Orbus says that General Loram's condition has worsened."

I don't care. The bureaucrats were the least of his concern. "Good," he said. "We wait." For my apprentice's return.