The Imperial ship cut through space like a steel predator, its dark flanks streaked with starlight.
Onboard, the silence was only skin-deep. It brimmed with tension, with shadows, and with avoided glances.
Illaoï was in a cell.
Not just any cell—a high-security containment module, nestled in the very heart of the ship, just two corridors from the command deck.
Six guards stood watch at all times, fully armored. Elite soldiers, handpicked for their fearlessness.
And yet, they stood there, afraid of a woman with empty hands.
Her cell wall wasn't physical.
It was a laser grid, stabilized by a magnetic field strong enough to shred even an experienced Sith trying to pass.
No objects. No tools.
And, above all, not a single drop of water.
And yet… she didn't seem to mind.
She knelt in the center of the room, hands resting on her thighs, eyes closed.
Her breathing was calm. Slow.
She didn't speak.
She didn't sleep.
She waited.
The guards chatted among themselves. They always did once the officers left the corridor—out of boredom, nerves, or that animal unease gnawing at them after weeks aboard an Imperial cruiser under the watchful gaze of a Sith Lord who had executed a dozen of them without blinking.
— "Did you see her eyes?" one muttered. "That blue... never seen anything like it."
— "I saw her mouth. And her legs. Think they'll keep her? You know… for imperial services?"
— "You've spent way too long without regulation brothels, Korr."
— "No, seriously. She doesn't talk. She doesn't move. But just imagine what you could make her do with a tight collar…"
— "Shut it. The last guy who tried to touch her froze from the inside out. They found him with his guts iced over."
— "Yeah, before they drained all the water. Now? She's just... pretty."
They chuckled—sharp, nervous laughs.
The kind you fake to chase away fear.
Because, despite everything… she unsettled them.
Even without speaking. Even without moving.
She shook their balance.
Across the ship, in a temporary lab, a Sith researcher was flipping through her confiscated notebook.
A thin man, gloved hands, deliberate gestures.
He opened the journal like a surgeon—reverent, yet intrusive. A thief with a scalpel.
The writing inside didn't match any known script from the Republic or the Empire. Not Aurebesh, not Sith, not Rakatan.
But the pages were full of drawings.
Planets. Fauna. Faces.
He recognized a few places—the crimson plateaus of Jorgan V, a valley on Dxun, the stone arches of Baros.
But others escaped him entirely. Impossible jungles. Moons he had never seen.
He logged every detail into his datapad. Fascinated. Wary.
In the cell, days passed. So did interrogations.
She never spoke.
Cold.
Sleep deprivation.
Silence.
Again. Always.
Once, they forced her to her knees under harsh lights, drove electrodes into her neck.
Not a single scream.
She merely returned their gaze.
And that alone was enough to make one of the assistants step back.
Scourge, meanwhile, had finally left the field.
Enough of supervising idiots. Enough of writing ludicrous reports on "operational losses."
He'd retreated to his quarters to finalize paperwork, casualty lists.
Thirteen men he had killed.
And it meant nothing.
Nothing.
And yet, the next night, he dreamed.
He dreamed of her.
Not a woman.
Not a body.
But a presence.
He saw her in a room he didn't recognize.
She was singing. A strange melody—like water slipping over glass.
He didn't understand the words. He didn't understand why he could hear her.
Then she turned.
Looked at him.
And he... felt something.
The next night, he dreamed again.
But this time, she wasn't singing.
She was screaming.
Trapped in nightmares.
Fighting shadows.
He woke up gasping. Cold.
Shaken.
And he realized—it wasn't dreaming.
It was echoes.
Transmissions.
And she… barely slept anymore.
Then came the summons.
— "Lord Scourge," said an officer, standing stiff. "The Emperor demands results. She won't speak. She's weakening. We believe she's letting herself die. Perhaps… you might try."
Scourge looked up slowly. His expression remained neutral.
But a flicker pulsed—brief—inside his crimson gaze.
He stood.
— "Take me to her."
Meanwhile, in the sanctum of the ship, the Emperor sat unmoving upon his obsidian throne.
Silent. Still.
Beside him, a whispering advisor leaned close.
— "Her bond to the Force is… unique, my Lord. Unaligned. Unreadable through our usual means. Her mind is silence… yet alive. I have never felt such dissonance. She does not come from this galaxy. Or if she does… she was not born in our reality."
The Emperor said nothing.
The silence stretched.
The advisor hesitated.
— "Perhaps… the ritual? The Blood Well. It would reveal her inner structure. Possibly even—"
— "No," the Emperor murmured at last.
The sound was barely a breath.
Yet the walls trembled.
— "Not yet. Let the Fury enter. Let us see… if he is still capable of feeling."
In his quarters, Scourge sat in darkness.
Not from tiredness—he never tired.
Not from necessity—he had long transcended need.
But because he needed to understand.
And he hated it.
He had hunted, killed, observed.
He had seen death beg, heroes fall, kings shatter.
And never—not once—had he doubted.
Until her.
She didn't scream.
Didn't fight.
Didn't beg.
And in his dreams—if that's what they were—there was color.
There was sound.
There were emotions.
He closed his eyes.
And searched for her song.
Between two worlds.
In the silence of the cell, between waking and sleep, Illaoï felt she was no longer alone.
Something—someone—was watching.
Not with eyes.
Not even through the Force.
But a presence.
Distant. Burning.
Lucid.
It didn't touch her—but it saw her.
She curled slightly, palms pressing to the cold floor.
And within her mind, she dove—into the inner ocean.
That still place of water and resonance only she understood.
A calm sea under her skin.
But in that water… a memory surfaced.
His gaze.
Fiery red. Locked onto hers.
And an iron grip around her waist.
The precise, haunting sensation of him pressed to her back, in the wave.
She turned—inside her mind, inside the dream.
No one.
But she still felt the curve of his arm.
And in that same instant… Scourge saw.
A ruined world.
A sky black and scorched.
And her.
Standing in unknown combat attire, face streaked with soot, breath ragged.
Her saber—bloodstained—in her hand.
A man lay against her.
Dead—or dying.
Her blade still buried in him.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
She screamed.
Not in rage.
But in despair.
And for the first time in three centuries…
Scourge felt her grief.