Star Wars - Lost Tribe of the Sith 03 - Paragon

took Korsin aside. “Don’t you
dare
accept any of his people in my wards!”
    “You’re pretty when you’re territorial.”
    “Korsin!”
    He looked at her with piercing eyes. “You’re not living on Rhelg anymore. How long before you let go of the past?”
    Seelah let a smoldering look speak for her—butKorsin ignored it. Spotting something behind her, he grinned and turned to address the waiting crowd. “Sorry to cut this short, all of you—but I see my lunch companion has arrived.”
    Seelah turned.
    Adari Vaal waited at the edge of the plaza.

Chapter Two
    The Sith Empire of Seelah’s youth was a nest of star systems linked by common heritage, ambition, and greed. It was also, in a sense, a black hole from which little escaped
.
    The Stygian Caldera’s limiting effects on hyperspace travel were disproportionate, making it far easier for unlucky outsiders to wander into Sith space than for the Sith Lords to venture out. Those who found their way in seldom returned, becoming slaves to one princeling or another. The arrivals frequently changed hands over the generations, forgetting their homes completely. They, too, were of the Sith now
.
    Some Sith Lords, such as Naga Sadow, saw value in the work of the descendants of the original Tapani refugees. Where their tentacle-faced masters with lineages back to the Sith species were more interested in sorceries, Seelah’s people excelled at science. When allowed to practice, they did, forming the industrial and medical infrastructures for several Lords. Some even resolved problems of lightsaber-crystal fabrication and power generation that had eluded the Jedi of the Republic. Such feats were never heralded—no Sith Lord would share a new weapon. If failure was an orphan, success, for the Sith, was a secret love child
.
    The child Seelah had her own successes, serving on Rhelg with the rest of her family in the forces of Ludo Kressh, Sadow’s greatest rival. At thirteen, Seelah was already a talented healer, drawing both on the Force and the medical knowledge of her forebears. Devotion had already borne fruit
.
    “We are advancing in this movement,” her father had said. “You have done well, and it has been rewarded. Glory in the honor, Seelah—it is the greatest that can befall such as us.”
    She had been charged with the care of Lord Kressh’s feet
.
    They were out all afternoon again, the two of them. Tilden had told her that, and Seelah had other confidants who provided regular reports. Korsin and the Keshiri woman would stroll the pathways painstakingly carved out of the once treacherous mountainside, discussing—what? Not a blasted lot, as far as she could tell.
    Their walks dated from the beginning of Seelah’s own relationship with Korsin. Back then, there had been a need. The Vaal woman had discovered the Sith on the mountain, and had acted as intermediary with the Keshiri. But as years progressed and the need for a single ambassador ebbed, the walks continued, ranging ever farther away. After the birth of Seelah and Korsin’s daughter, Nida, the walks had become daily—including the occasional uvak-flight.
    Seelah knew enough from her sources not to suspect infidelity—as if she would care—but the native woman had taken steps to improve her plain appearance. She’d recently begun turning up in vor’shandi face markings, a decoration unheard of for a Keshiri widow of an uvak-rider. But eavesdroppers confirmed that the generally mindless substance of their discussions hadn’tchanged.
Where does the sun go at night, Korsin? Is air part of the Force, Korsin? Why are rocks not food, Korsin?
If she was a spy, she was pretty useless at it—but she did have command of a huge chunk of the Grand Lord’s time. And more.
    “She’s … really something, isn’t she?” he had asked in an unguarded moment after Adari flew back to Tahv one evening.
    “I think your standards for playthings have plummeted,” Seelah had responded.
    “Along with my ship.”
    And my real husband
, she had not said. Seelah thought back on that moment now as she stood outside the ward. Fifteen years with her beloved husband’s hated brother. Fifteen years with the man who had probably orphaned her son.
Let the old purple wraith have him
, she thought. The less seen of Yaru Korsin, the better.
    Korsin’s seduction of Seelah had not taken long at all, once she’d convinced him he’d be met with something other than a dagger. It was an acceptable arrangement on