A flickering blue hologram pulsed like a dying star, casting long, skeletal fingers of light across the face of the King. From a rift in time and space, a voice like grinding stones echoed:

«Henceforth, thou will be known as… as…» it died out.

«Thank you… master,» Anakin rasped. The words were heavy, dripping with a newfound, oily devotion. He knelt, his royal robes pooling around him like a spill of dried blood, bowing low to the phantom that reached across dimensions to claim his soul.

In the tent’s slit, a sliver of moonlight caught a pale face. Zilla.

She stood frozen, her breath hitching in a throat that suddenly felt lined with needles. She had returned from her long trek across the wastes, her mission to bring back Ahsoka a failure, only to find a far greater horror. Her stomach churned. The “Humble King” was gone. In his place sat a hollowed-out god.

Anakin’s head snapped toward her. It wasn’t a human movement; it was the jerky, predatory twitch of an owl. When his gaze hit her, Zilla nearly screamed. His eyes—once a warm, commanding blue—were now twin pits of molten sulfur, glowing with a sickly, rhythmic yellow light.

«Master?» she whispered, the word trembling like a leaf in a gale.

Anakin’s face didn’t soften. It curdled. A grim, terrifying stillness settled over his features as he extended a gloved hand. He pinched his thumb and forefinger together, a gesture so small, yet it carried the weight of a falling mountain.

Suddenly, the floor vanished. Zilla’s boots kicked empty air as she was hoisted upward by an invisible noose. Her windpipe collapsed. The sound of her own frantic, wheezing gasps filled her ears, rhythmic and wet.

«You should not have seen this,» Anakin’s voice boomed, vibrating inside her very skull. «Nor should you have heard…»

The world began to fray at the edges. The gold embroidery of the tent turned into writhing snakes; the yellow of his eyes expanded until it was all she could see. Darkness, cold and absolute, rushed in to claim her.

Zilla bolted upright, a silent scream dying in her parched throat.

The air was stagnant. She was in a different tent, draped in heavy silks that felt like burial shrouds. Her mind was a fractured mirror—shards of memory cutting into her consciousness. She felt wrong. The walls seemed to pulse with a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.

Anakin sat in the corner, silhouetted against the torchlight. He looked like a statue carved from grief and iron.

«What did you do to me?» she shrieked. The sound was jagged, the voice of someone who had stared into the abyss and felt it blink.

Anakin rose slowly, his shadow stretching across the ceiling like a looming monster.

«What are you talking about, Zilla?» His voice was a terrifying velvet, soft and smooth, hiding the jagged edges beneath. He drifted toward her bed, his movements ghost-like. «I found you. You were wandering the dunes, speaking to ghosts. I think you must have hit your head.»

Zilla stared at her hands. They were shaking—no, they were vibrating. She could feel the madness scratching at the back of her eyes, a frantic bird trying to escape its cage.

«No…» she stammered, her eyes darting to the corners of the room where the shadows seemed to move on their own. «I saw you… the Sith… the yellow…»

Anakin leaned in. His hand settled on her shoulder, cold as a tombstone. He leaned close, his breath smelling of winter and ozone, his presence a crushing weight that demanded her total submission.

«Whatever you think you saw, Padawan,» he whispered, his eyes boring into hers, searching for any last spark of rebellion to extinguish. «It was only in your head.»

As he smiled, Zilla realized with a jolt of pure, unadulterated terror that the yellow glow hadn’t left his eyes. It was just waiting for the lights to go out.