Time no longer existed.
It had stopped meaning anything to her.
In the warm darkness of the Kolto tank, Illaoï floated—suspended between two worlds, between two thoughts.
Her body survived, maintained by Imperial technology.
But her mind... her mind fought.
She no longer knew how long she had been there.
A day? A century?
Sometimes, fragments surfaced—voices, faces, gestures.
And always… him.
The Sith. The Wrath.
He returned. Tirelessly. Day after day.
She could feel his gaze on her. His presence—unyielding—like a blade planted just beyond the edges of her consciousness.
He didn't try to hurt her. He summoned no pain. He asked for nothing.
But he was there. Always there.
And she couldn't understand why.
He had completed his mission. She was captured.
He had delivered his prey.
And yet, he returned.
He stayed.
He lingered.
And that disturbed her more than she dared admit.
Each day, she used the last shreds of her lucidity to push him back.
To protect the memories—the pain, the names, the screams… the secrets.
But there was one memory she could no longer keep from him.
It surfaced. Again and again.
The same fragment. Always that one.
A night. A blade.
A breath fading away.
The man she had loved.
The final heartbeat against her chest.
The weight of his body collapsing onto hers.
The warm blood between her fingers.
And his last words—whispered into her ear in a language no one else would ever understand.
She had carved them into her silence. For him. For always.
And now… even that barrier trembled.
She screamed—inside. But in this suspended world, no sound ever passed her lips.
And then... he was gone.
Silence.
Emptiness.
She remained alone.
And for the first time in a long while,
she wept without tears.