He had failed to save his mother. He had failed to save his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano.
The weight of those losses was a physical pressure, a phantom limb that throbbed in the silence of the night. Even the warmth of Padmé’s breath or the soft cries of his children could not mend the jagged hole in Anakin Skywalker’s chest. He didn’t just want them back; he needed to control the very threads of fate that had snatched them away. He wanted to rule, to impose order on a chaotic galaxy so that nothing could ever be taken from him again. To be a King was not enough—he wanted to be a God over destiny itself.
As he lay in the royal bed, the darkness of the room felt like a living thing, feeding on his resentment. He stood up in the oppressive silence, casting one final, lingering look at Padmé. She slept like an angel, the only light in his increasingly shadowed world. Then, he slipped out the door, a wraith in his own palace.
Outside, the biting cold of Winter-land clawed at Zilla as she sprinted through the frost-laden forest. Behind her lay the shadow of Asajj Ventress; ahead lay her only hope for survival.
She reached the towering spires of Anakin’s castle and pulled the hood low over her face. Zilla wasn’t just hiding; she was transforming. Her mind, fractured and flickering with a half-mad desperation, clung to the role she had to play.
I am Ahsoka. I am the warrior. I am the lost Padawan.
Zilla knew the real Ahsoka was out there somewhere—a jagged, survivor of a thousand battles, a woman whose soul was as scarred as the battlefields she walked. Zilla was her twin in blood, but a broken mirror in spirit.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she reached the massive front doors. If she failed, she was dead. If Anakin saw through the lie, she would face a darkness far worse than Ventress. She hesitated, then pushed. The door groaned open.
The interior was a cathedral of power: crystal chandeliers dripped like frozen tears from the ceiling, and silent guards lined the walls like statues. At the far end of the long corridor sat the throne, elevated, cold, and demanding.
Zilla stepped inside, the click of her boots echoing. The guards’ eyes followed her, cold and unblinking. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to drown out the frantic whispers in her head.
Focus. Ventress told you everything. The last words, the last look, the way they parted.
It had been years. Memory is a fickle thing, even for a man as powerful as Anakin. He was haunted by ghosts; surely he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a ghost and a girl wearing its face.
She took a breath, letting the “madness” settle into a mask of stoic, warrior-like. She began to walk toward the throne, praying that the man who wanted to rule the world wouldn’t notice the trembling of her hands.
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