The training chambers of the Imperial Citadel on Coruscant were filled with shadows, and within them moved the heirs of the Sith's new empire. Leia and Luke Skywalker twins born of prophecy, shaped by the fire of war wielded their crimson blades under Vader's watchful gaze. Each motion was precision. Each strike, merciless. The dark side flowed through them as naturally as breath.
But not all was well.
Leia had begun to feel the cracks. Not in the Force no, that river remained strong but within herself. Her brother, too, moved with slightly dulled purpose, his usual intensity faltering. They spoke less between sessions, and their meditation felt colder, less whole.
In their moments alone, when Vader was not guiding them, Leia found herself pacing the Citadel's black marble halls. Her thoughts returned to a face she barely knew her mother's. Padmé Amidala moved like a phantom through the corridors, never speaking, never engaging. She watched them sometimes, eyes full of distance.
Leia had tried to speak to her once. "Mother," she had whispered. "Do you remember us?"
Padmé hadn't answered. She simply turned and walked away.
That silence carved something into Leia that even the dark side could not smooth.
Luke, too, was troubled. In the meditation chambers, he stared into the holocrons left for him by Vader echoes of Darth Bane, Malgus, Nihilus but they offered only hunger, rage, power. None spoke of love, of hope, of why he still dreamed of stars and laughter.
And so, the seeds of doubt began to bloom.
Vader stood atop the Citadel tower, gazing at the city-world below. The wind screamed, but within his helm, there was only silence. Behind him, Padmé watched. Her presence was subdued, dulled, but it still pricked at the remnants of Anakin Skywalker's soul.
"They are wavering," Vader said at last.
"She is," Padmé responded softly.
Her voice was a whisper of the past, like a ghost resisting the current of time. Vader turned to face her, his black armor gleaming under the red twilight. "Palpatine will not tolerate weakness."
Padmé's gaze did not falter. "Then don't let them falter."
Within his private sanctum aboard the Death Star in orbit above Coruscant, Emperor Palpatine sat unmoving. The structure was nearly complete a new symbol of terror and order. His fingers wrapped around the hilt of an ancient Sith artifact, and his yellow eyes narrowed as another vision came.
He saw fire.
He saw his apprentice, his chosen one, standing above his corpse.
He saw the Ones the Father, the Daughter, the Son and beyond them, her.
Abeloth.
And in the darkness, a blade of impossible power the Mortis Dagger.
Palpatine rose. "No fate will bind me," he hissed into the void. "Not in this life. I will be power incarnate."
The Path of Ascendancy
With the Death Star's primary systems now fully operational, construction had entered its final phase. The exhaust vent a fatal design flaw discovered too late had been removed entirely. In its place, a labyrinth of redirected heat exchangers, quantum shields, and Sith-forged metals now protected the station's core.
"It has cost the Empire dearly," Grand Moff Tarkin stated as he walked alongside the Emperor. "But it is now impenetrable."
Palpatine nodded. "Good. It will be the blade that silences rebellion."
In the hangars below, new legions of loyalist stormtroopers prepared for deployment. Recruits had surged in the wake of Palpatine's widespread campaign of aid to the Core Worlds. His promise of security, stability, and supremacy had brought entire systems under his sway. Civilians, once wary, now stood in line to join the Empire's war machine.
The Rebellion, meanwhile, had gone underground. After the loss of several key worlds, and the leak of the Death Star plans, the rebels scattered like shadows before the sun.
On Mustafar, Vader knelt before a transmission relay.
"The plans have not been recovered," he admitted, his tone tight with controlled frustration.
Palpatine's image appeared, cloaked in red lightning. "Then find them. And if you fail again... there will be consequences."
Vader bowed low. "Yes, my master."
As the transmission ended, Vader remained kneeling for a moment longer. Smoke curled from the tips of his gloves residual arcs of Sith lightning from Palpatine's previous punishment.
But Palpatine's mind was already elsewhere.
Deep beneath the Sith temple on Exegol, he walked alone. The chamber walls glowed faintly with the etchings of Rakatan, Zeffo, and Sith languages lost to time. Here, within the ancient heart of darkness, he studied the recovered knowledge of the Ones.
The Mortis Dagger, he had learned, was real and it was the key to absolute control. Not merely of the Force... but of its will. If he could slay the Ones, even Abeloth herself might be subjugated.
He would become more than Sith. More than mortal.
He would become the axis of existence.
And so, the search began.
Droids, inquisitors, and ancient star charts were mobilized. Palpatine's secret fleet forged from parts smuggled and reconstituted by the Star Forge was dispatched across the Unknown Regions, masked from Jedi and Sith alike.
The time of subtlety was ending.
In the halls of rebellion, a new urgency rose. Mon Mothma and Bail Organa had begun pulling ships and weapons from Corellia and other sympathetic worlds. They knew what was coming a war not just of soldiers and planets, but of destiny itself.
In secret, they shared whispers of the twins.
They knew.
Not everything. But enough.
Hope, they believed, still lived in Luke. In Leia. And maybe even in the shadow of Vader.