Samael Ozriel
8343

Castle Tarentum
Samael’s Personal Quarters
Modern Time

The room was cast in shadows, darkness embracing everything with its velvet touch. In the center of the room was a couple of leather couches surrounding a holorecorder, the legs of a sprawled out Umbaran laying over it. Gloved fingers hit against the panel, and soon an explosion of blue light burped outward. The image of another Umbaran, female and beautiful by Umbaran standards, stared into the eyes of the Sith with cold acknowledgement. Hatred burned behind them, venom swimming in their gaze. His aunt, fallen and broken from the machinations of political failings, was the last contact within the Shadow Nebula that Samael kept in touch with.
Samael didn’t speak, but he could feel her presence within his mind. It was weak, faint, quiet, but it was there. The Sith welcomed it, laughing at how miserable and meek it felt within the tempest that was his own. He was strong, potent, powerful. She was mud on his heel that he allowed to be there. His lips touched against a red liquid, glowing in the darkness of the room as it disappeared into his mouth.
“You know why I’m calling.” was all that the woman managed to say, her gaze refusing to meet the Sith’s any longer.
“Another dead relative? Another failed assassination? Political intrigue that I no longer care about?”
“Your mother has been killed.”

Shadow Nebula
Basement
Four Years Ago

The figure stood over the woman, opal eyes glaring at the cornered Umbaran with satisfaction. She was battered and bruised, a laceration snaking its way up her arm as she held it in a defensive position. She was pleading, blood dripping from her mouth caused by a broken tongue. She inched backward, hoping to escape this nightmare. Hoping something would save her.
The figure held out a knife, the silver metal catching what little light was in the room. It flashed inside the eye of the Umbaran lady, the sight of the instrument of pain evoking memories of a past long repressed. Family had been toppled, loved ones murdered, clans destroyed. Her life was just one more blood bag greasing the wheel of their society. The figure covered in shadows reached out with his hand and wrapped her hair around it, tugging upward with ferocity as he brought her ear to his mouth.
“Never again.” he whispered, placing the knife against her chest and dragging it upward. Blood bubbled from the incision, and the female gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t scream, wouldn’t utter a single acknowledgement that she was afraid. But her fear swam inside her mind and outward into the figure’s own, he tasted the terror spewing from her heart as the knife lifted off her skin and repeated its action over and over. Blood saturated her clothes, and the pain grew with every incision. Again the knife entered her body, drinking in the blood as her flesh wrapped around the blade. A quick jerk here and a tug there, lifting the blade out slightly and dragging up, splitting more flesh. Crimson liquid gushed from the wound, and a weak arm tried to pry the blade out. The figure grabbed the hand, fingers covered in blood and trembling from pain and fear, and placed the digits in her mouth. She winced as she tasted her blood, asking for him to please stop.
“This is his doing. If he had succeeded, you wouldn’t need to do this,” she whimpered, “I’m not the one you should be doing this to.”

Castle Tarentum
Modern Day
Samael’s Quarters

“Your mother has been killed.” repeated the recording, skipping at the usual location.
Samael basked in the glory of the memory. Loved every second of reliving the death of his mother, tasting her fear and bathing in her terror. It haunted his dreams, her screams and begging, and often he would awake with a smile on his face.
“Your mother has been killed.” it repeated.
“And every day I pay the penance for it.” he spat, “Every day I wake up, bathed in light and far from my throne. Every day I fight to be remembered, to rebuild what was wrongfully taken from me. And for what? Because our society demanded it be so.”
He looked at the recording in anger, knowing it couldn’t reply to his tirade but hoping it would. He sipped at his beverage again, the warmth of it spreading through his system.
“We’re not sure who it is, but I suspect you do.” she said bitterly, “Just keep an eye out. Who knows what hell could be on your way.”
“What hell? Yridia II, that’s what hell. This is my prison, and being stripped of my station is my sentence.”