**Esstran Sector

Cotelin-class Star Destroyer Justice

In the Days After the Battle of Rhelg**

Telaris Cantor breathed deeply and considered the future. The familiar triangular viewports of Justice's bridge held for him both the stars near Rhelg, and portents of things yet to come...and things that may yet never be. To the Prophet’s left was a victorious Taldryan at the end of the Crusade; the spoils of war plenty and their influence over the Brotherhood once more assured. To his right, the fortunes of others rose while that which he created, once a Clan and now but a House, suffered further.

But the image that troubled him most, the one he least understood, lay in the center.

Before Telaris there was a future as different from what he could imagine as night is to day. What he saw there at once troubled his conscience and eased his concern the same. For what he saw amid the flame and ash of a galaxy was not the Brotherhood triumphant, nor even ascendant. In the swirling mists of this future, the Brotherhood indeed did not exist at all.

And while it was not the Way as prophesied, it was a Way. One, Telaris imagined, few breathing now on this ship would care for at all.

The once-Chamberlain exhaled the breath he held and the visions retreated back behind the stars. The bustle of the bridge-deck came back into sharper focus as his mind returned to the present.

“What did you see?” Rathus Marr inquired.

Marr had risen quickly. So much so he had come to Telaris' attention and become his Apprentice. The arrangement as much to keep an eye on the rising star as to guide him. Without turning from his quorum with the stars, Telaris answered the Force-young Human.

“The end.”

**Rhelg

Esstran Sector

In the Days After the Battle of Rhelg**

The wind told stories here. Some were the whispers of recent events. Others were as old as Rhelg itself. Raken tried to listen as he looked out across the vast expanse of snow-covered land. Here and there a crimson blemish marred the white-silver. Mounds abounded under recent powder that had nothing to do with the terrain and everything to do with why the Brotherhood had come to this world.

Following the bodies and blood led to the black-snow further up the plain. Here the fighting had been heavy. The ground had been churned to mud and the pristine white was no more. Blood and shit had darkened the mixture until all was dyed the black of coal.

In the distance a shuttle lighted away from the battlefield and rose into the heavens to disappear from Raken's sight. Above, invisible, a giant metal triangle moved by fire and hatred waited to swallow the craft and continue on to the next world. The next target.

Here, in the ice and death, seated on his haunches, Raken pondered, listened, and considered the whispers in the wind.

Rarely did he face indecision. Conscience did not enter into his calculus. The beast killed as he breathed. A matter of course. Not debate. Nor was is it indifference. Raken was less man than element. More storm than sentient. His actions were that of the river. He flowed from one point to the next. Lives ended in his wake. Nature was like this.

His purpose though was something other.

Difficult to measure. Who could say what the hurricane sought? Was it random? Or did the dark glee of some god guide its path? Did it matter either way? To Raken it did not. Nor did it to those whom he felled.

Before him was a choice.

On one hand the Dark Eye and his squabbling sycophants. Bags of blood waiting to be let. Muz was Dread Lord...for now. On the other hand, the one called Hett. Another Lord. Another cult. Both were flawed. Both fought their life's course. Both had become immensely powerful in doing so. But like many things for Raken, the answer was time. As the mountain waited and judged, so would he.

One man was the past. The other the future. Raken had seen it. Muz would exit. By his hand or another's. On this day, or a thousand from now. Either way, the future was absent Ashen. That bloodline was dead. Nature had already seen to it. Hett's was just beginning. Time was the answer. There was always a past. But there was not always a future.

Despite the logic of it, Raken too sometimes fought his course. Like a river attempting to turn back on itself. A difficult thing, but not an impossible one. For in Hett's future, Raken served. But in the future Raken would make for himself...

He ruled.

**Khar Delba

Stygian Caldera

Naga Sadow's Citadel**

The lightning ended. Victims of the ritual fell to the floor and lay still.

Darth Ashen opened his eyes. In them, the liquid-black evidence of power few had ever known. Here, kneeling on a stone floor still bearing hints of arcane design, Muz looked up through the open roof of the citadel at the stars beyond. Long ago, another powerful Sith Lord had attacked this place and reduced to rubble what he thought to be Naga Sadow's seat of power.

Sadow.

Ironic. Here Muz, disciple of a sect bearing Sadow's namesake, followed in the footsteps of one of the Sith Lord's greatest enemies. But here too would he diverge from the path trodden by so many onto one tread ever but by a few.

Two, in fact. Ashen would be the third. And the last.

The wind picked up and howled some through the exposed structure of the ancient palace's ceiling. The threnody was somber, muted, though some threatening notes peaked here and there. It reminded him of his Apprentice, the one some called the Ironskin.

Many had thought Muz a fool elevating the monster to his side as ShadowHand. The creature was unpredictable. More beast than man. Though now that the Crusade had launched, his value was clear. War requires warfighters and Raken was nothing if not that.

Not all concern had been vanquished though. Despite the beast's prowess on the battlefield and the fanatical devotion of the Force-deaf soldiers who followed him, questions persisted. Chiefly among them were the Hand's ties to the very group they sought now to exterminate. Indeed, some had even suspected the Elomin of involvement in the very attacks that had precipitated the Crusade.

Muz had done nothing to quell such concerns. Let them fear and wonder.

The red man was his to guide and control as a missile before striking its target. When Muz's enemies were subdued, then Raken's time would come to an end as all who had served the Dread Lord had learned. If the monster indeed held any remaining loyalty to Hett or his proxies, if he intended anything other than Muz's will, well, that too would be addressed.

Ashen closed his eyes. The lightning began again. The dying bodies surrounding him once more stood at rigid attention as if being inflated toe-to-head by the lightning coursing through their emaciated forms.

Heads were thrown back with the sound of shattering bone to meet the gaze of the stars. Energy snaked its way from the dark Lord in their midst into their feet, up through their bodies to issue forth from unnaturally gaping mouths and hollowed eye sockets. Flesh burned. Muscle tore. Ligaments popped free of their moorings.

The unfortunates danced in the palace of Sadow for the Lord Muz Ashen until they had nothing left to give.

More would be needed.

**Antei

Executor-class Star Dreadnought Suffering

In the Time of the Dark Crusade**

The former Avenger II hung above Antei like a glittering splinter of iron. Across the cityscape of its surface tiny showers of sparks bloomed in the darkness as work continued on the new flagship's refit. Metal and flesh worked feverishly to bring the Grand Master's new weapon to bear on the One Sith. And it would be ready.

For Korriban.