He knelt and cradled Eleena in his arms. She remained warm, breathing. The puckered blaster wounds Zallow had given her looked like black mouths in the skin of her shoulder and chest. She appeared to have no broken bones.

“Eleena. Open your eyes. Eleena.”

Her eyes fluttered open. “Veradun,” she whispered.

Hearing her pronounce his name before other Sith surprised him, and his hand closed into a fist so tight it made his knuckles ache. She must never—never—behave familiarly with him in front of other Sith.

She must have sensed his anger for she blanched, cowered, staring at his closed fist, her eyes wide.

That she understood her transgression diffused his anger. He unrolled his fist and extended his hand.

“Can you stand?”

“Yes. Thank you, Master.”

He lifted her roughly to her feet, heedless of her wounds. She winced with pain and leaned on him. He allowed it. Her breath came in pained gasps.

“Summon a medical team from Steadfast,” he ordered Adraas.

Adraas’s eyes narrowed. No doubt he thought the task beneath him.

“You heard Darth Malgus,” Adraas said to a nearby Sith warrior. “Summon a medical team.”

“No,” Malgus said. “You do it, Adraas.”

Adraas stared at him for a moment, anger in his eyes, before he pulled a curtain over his irritation and turned his face expressionless. “As you wish, Darth Malgus.”

From outside, explosions like thunder sounded, the steady drumbeat of intense bombardment. Angral’s fleet had begun its attack on Coruscant.

“I signaled to Darth Angral that the Temple was secure,” Adraas said, the faintest hint of defiance in his tone. “You seemed … preoccupied with other things at the time.”

Adraas’s gaze fell on Eleena, then returned to Malgus.

Malgus glared at Adraas, one fist clenched, and fought down the flash of anger. He would not allow Adraas’s borderline insubordination to diminish the rush he felt at his victory.

“I will forgive your arrogation of power this once, but do not overstep again,” Malgus said. “Now remove yourself from my sight.”

Adraas colored with rage, his mouth a thin line of anger, but he dared not say another word. He gave a half bow and stalked off.

Malgus made his grip on Eleena gentler as they turned to look outside. The ruined entrance of the Temple, widened by the drop ship crashing through it, opened onto clear sky. Together, he and Eleena watched Imperial bombers streak out of the orange-and-red clouds and light Coruscant aflame.

“Go see it, Master,” Eleena whispered to him. “It is your victory. I am fine. Go.”

She was not fine and he knew it. But he also knew that he had to see.

He left her and walked the hall until he reached the shattered entranceway. The statues of the Jedi that had lined the processional lay toppled, broken at his feet. He looked out on the culmination of his life.