Ziost - Crown of the Sith Empire

Secluded, Moyr initiated a holocall to her Master over a secure channel, and waited.

Darth Jadus answered, “Lord Bellious, I did not expect to hear from you. Your performance has been quite exceptional and costly.”

"While I didn't expect this particular sacrifice to be exacted from me, Master, I had assumed I would not pass the process without them. Years of planning and commitment being unraveled has mounted my hatred, and thus has made me personally stronger. On a strategic level it was a loss. But it makes sense in the prism of the lesson you imparted by telling me about your wife's death. I will find a way to have an even better device of my will."

She paused. "I believe you might be your lesson as well. If one source of power becomes unwieldy and too obvious, one should invent another, unexpected one."

"It is usually the unexpected that is our end," he replied in his normal modulated calm voice.

"I suppose your time for surprises is coming tomorrow, then?" She arched her tattooed-on brow a bit. "And you probably have good reasons to keep me out of it, Master?"

“You have your path and I have mine, ou have been my apprentice but your path will be your own and what happens tomorrow is more out of necessity than scheming,” he said with some disdain.

“Do you feel resentment?”

"I do not, Master. You are the Master of Secrets and if I manage to take a glimpse of any of them, it is a credit to my own merit as well as the quality of your teachings."

She paused. "I realise that my aspirancy as well as dipping into his power in the process have resulted in increased exposure and me being intimate in any of the plans would be a liability to you. Many claim that knowledge is power, but I think power lies less in its acquisition and more in how it is being distributed. But because of that trojan I may not be the only one that suspects. The team of Colonel Moraal of Military Intelligence has dug deep into the matter."

She looked at him. "But then, anyone can be the Eagle. Rumours say I am." She smiled wryly.

“I had considered ordering you to obstruct them but then thought better to have them pursue it, to keep your hands clean. The Eagle is who I need them to be, they are a tool, and then they have lost their usefulness they are replaced by a better tool and so it goes,” he said.

“Knowledge without application is useless; one could know everything there is to know and still be nothing. It was not the wisest primitives that formed nations; it was those who took the wisdom they needed and applied it that made lasting powers.”

"What about the others with a similar idea to yours, to act at this fulcrum in time? I have reasons to assume you are not the only one on the Dark Council and among key Sith Lords and Darths who has seen through the veil and has decided on contingencies. Are they a nuisance, or a part of your plan?"

She paused. "And is there room for failure in this case? I mean, is it our last conversation?"

“The Dark Council is not omniscient, quite the opposite, our power shields us from a great many things. Those that see through the veil will pretend they saw nothing because it could threaten their power or fear that they will be purged and lose everything they have gained. In this they show their true weakness,” he replied.

“There is always room for failure that is the curse of ambition.”

He mused lightly with a rare chuckle, “Moyr, every conversation could be the last conversation. First or last is irrelevant to me, only what was gained or lost. For now survival should be your primary concern.”

"Advise me on my survival then, Master."

“The People’s Tower will be the safest place and also the most dangerous to weather this storm… you could leave… there is no shame in cowardice despite what may Sith believe,” he replied calmly.

“The greatest threat to your survival may be your own ambition, it has undone many a great dark lord before you.”

"If I flee now, I feel my whole life shall change into being a fugitive. I lived such a life before, I know what it entails. But patience and humility... I might find it in myself. The seat is a cage. So perhaps a way for me is to find a blind spot in the maelstrom..." She had long trained to be undetectable in the Force, to be forgotten, ignored, to slither out of hostile attention and influence. She wondered if those talents had any used against the Emperor.

"You will find a way through a storm, or you will die... I trust you know the better option of the two," he said.