In the scorched desolation of Mystery, the portal spat Zilla out like a piece of unwanted gristle.

She rolled through the ash-stained grass, but before she could draw breath, a shadow fell over her—broad, jagged, and smelling of old slaughter. Maul’s hand, a vice of scarred muscle, clamped around her throat and lifted her until her toes scraped the dirt.

“Worthy?” Maul roared, his voice a landslide of gravel and hate. He didn’t just want to kill her; he wanted to taste her terror. He pulled his fist back, the knuckles cracked and bloody. “You are a stain on the dirt, girl! A flickering candle I shall enjoy snuffing out!” He leaned in, his eyes two burning coals of madness. “I will peel the sanity from your mind before I touch your skin.”

“Enough, brother.”

The voice was a razor-thin wire of ice. Ventress emerged from the swirling mists of the Shadow-lands, her pale skin glowing with a sickly, ethereal light. She glided forward, her lips pulled back in a wide, artificial smile—a mask of love that didn’t reach her predatory eyes.

“Do not bruise my precious pet,” Ventress purred, reaching out to stroke Zilla’s matted hair with a hand that felt like a spider’s crawl. “She is the key to everything.”

Maul snarled, his grip tightening until Zilla’s face turned a bruised purple. “She is a tool! She needs to be broken to be used!”

“A master guides; a butcher only destroys,” Ventress hissed, her eyes flashing. She looked down at Zilla, her smile widening into something skeletal. “Get up, you wretched thing. The King is waiting.”

Zilla scrambled to her feet, her mind fracturing. She began to giggle—a high, jagged sound that spiraled into a manic cackle. Her eyes darted wildly. “The King… the King who sees all? You knew we were here, didn’t you? You’ve been watching us bleed the whole time!”

Ventress’s smile never wavered, but her fingers dug into Zilla’s cheeks, her nails drawing thin lines of red. “I see the rot in every heart in Hasar-Adar. And I see that King Anakin is drowning. He is obsessed with the ghost of Ahsoka. He is weak with grief, and a weak King is a dangerous one.”

She pulled Zilla close, her breath cold as a tomb. “You will go to him. You will wear the dead girl’s face. You will mimic her laugh, her touch, her soul. You will be the lie that keeps him sane.”

“No!” Zilla gasped, her sanity fraying like an old rope. “He’ll know! He’ll feel the wrongness of me! He’ll tear me apart when he realizes I’m not her!”

“He won’t see you,” Ventress whispered, her voice a poisonous lullaby. “He is so desperate for her return that he will hallucinate the truth away. But mark my words, little girl…” Her voice dropped to a threatening, guttural growl. “If you fail—if you let the mask slip for even a second—I will hand you back to Maul. And he has such exquisite plans for your skin.”

Zilla looked at Maul. He was watching her with a hungry, silent intensity, slowly sharpening a serrated blade against his own palm.

“Ahsoka is cold in the ground,” Ventress finished, her false warmth vanishing into a void of darkness. “Go now. Run to the Winter-land. Play your part, or become a ghost yourself.”

Zilla didn’t scream. She didn’t argue. She simply turned and ran into the freezing mist, her hysterical laughter trailing behind her like a shroud.