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He had forgiven her. Perhaps she had been right. Perhaps Marilith was a monster after all and Pardock's courage had saved his soul, though the pain he'd endured at her loss was unimaginable. As he sat down to eat the Nether Day feast with his sister and her family, his heart entered a long period of dormancy, of numbness. Marilith, his Zen-La, was gone, now an enemy at arms though he loved her still. In the years ahead he had his occasional romantic encounter, the momentary distraction for his broken heart, but they never lasted or provided any real comfort. He looked to his to his duty, and eventually to his command to provide relief, for seventy years—ever the Elder, his face not aging, his body remaining strong and fit, but his heart laboring in a battered cage of hidden sadness. He was an old, wounded soul in a young, healthy body.

He could not have known, could not have expected, that seventy years later, an emergency call to combat a Xaphan-snaring operation on a drab, backwater world would see the end of all that.

Perhaps he should have listened more closely to Countess Monama, that huge woman in black who loved to thump her chest and tell him as a boy that "evil" dreamed of him from afar. Perhaps he merely assumed the evil Countess Monama had seen was simply Princess Marilith—an easy assumption to make. He could not have known that, one day, Princess Marilith was to have a similar vision—that someone, or something evil dreamed of him from afar, and that her vision, like Countess Monama's, held true. Something dark and terrifying would one day come for Captain Davage, Lord of Blanchefort—something with a soul as lonely and wayward as his own.

And there was no running from that.

2

The Sisterhood was adamant. The creature in the
Seeker's
brig—the Black Hat—must die. She was all that was left of a dark, invisible party caught snaring a Vith chapel on Poteete, a small planet of on fringes of the League. After a short but fierce battle, the Black Hat was captured. Her guard of Hulgismen had been slaughtered by the 5th Marines in an up-close action, her contingent of two Black Hat Painters savagely slain by the Sisters, their brains scrambled, their bodies crushed. She also should have been killed, but at the last moment, she covered herself in a complex, twisting Shadow tech cocoon, one that took the combined power of the Sisterhood days of exhausting work to slowly unravel. She sat in the
Seeker's
brig, surrounded on all sides by the Sisters in adjacent compartments.

The Black Hat sat alone … not moving, not saying a word.

The Sisterhood of Light, powerful and influential, wasn't in the habit of asking the League for anything. They did what they pleased. They were ages old, the League's oldest and most powerful sect and, some said, the real power behind its continued success. In the time of the Elders, the League served the Elders faithfully, faring the stars for them in ships of their design. The Elders, twenty-five in number, celestially huge and powerful, required starlight to survive and their beloved adopted children—the League—located suitable stars for them. And they were kind, sharing the starlight with all. The Elders loved their League children and rewarded them with Gifts—the gift of youth and health, the Gifts of the body, and to a select few, the Gifts of the Mind, turning them into mortal gods.

And then the Elders faded and died and the League was all alone … alone with their mighty Gifts.

The Sisterhood of Light was formed ages ago to investigate the Gifts and determine their potential benefits and possible dangers, and as their knowledge grew, so too did their power and influence. It was said the Sisters were no longer Elder—that they had evolved into something else, something strange. It was said in hushed whispers that the Sisters had a hand in deciding who lived and who died in League society … and in Xaphan society too. Any who lived to see the next day, they say, was by the Sisters leave.

Stories for a dark, windy night, no doubt.

The Sisters and the Black Hats were ancient enemies. Once Sisters themselves, the Black Hats, proud, rebellious—evil—were prone to studying forbidden things simply because they were forbidden. They broke away, laughing in the Sisters' faces, taking all their knowledge and power with them, and became Xaphans. The Black Hats, using the Mass—the infamous Phantom Hand—could kill any they chose to, even millions of miles away. Only the Sisters could turn the Mass, could prevent the Black Hats from killing at a thought. As such, the Sisters and the Black Hats were continually at odds, locked in an unending battle of the mind, their power intertwined forever with the Black Hats, their hated enemy. It wasn't uncommon for a Sister to suddenly die, sometimes in their hidden places, sometimes when they were walking down the street, killed by a lurking Black Hat light years away, unable to fight any longer.

The hatred between the two sides was tangible, palpable.

And so, the Black Hat prisoner sitting in the brig.

In a normal situation, the Sisters simply seized the Black Hat by the mind and mercilessly shredded it, dealing the Xaphan wretch a slow, slobbering death. But they were aloft in space in a Fleet vessel, and the Fleet did not allow executions without Command approval. Fleet regulations normally meant little to the Sisters—they acknowledged no authority other than their own. To them, the Fleet and their Captains were nothing more than transportation.

This particular situation was problematic for them, however. This was the
Seeker
, and its captain was Davage, Lord of Blanchefort. The Sisterhood had a long-standing friendship with the Lords of Blanchefort over the ages, in particular with Sadric, Davage's late father. He was an Elder whom they openly admired and admitted into their counsel. The mighty Grand Abbess of Pithnar, it was said, admired him very, very much. The Sisterhood, not wanting to cause a stir or slight Sadric's son, decided the best thing to do in this situation was to be courteous; they shall "ask" for permission to kill the Black Hat. Besides, the Sisters found that they liked Davage too, as they had his father. They didn't want to snub him or damage his honor.

A small Sister, adorable in her little winged headdress, white robes, and small, light blue cloak, came into Davage's office and speaking through Lt. Kilos, politely asked Captain Davage if she could execute the Black Hat. The Sisters, so awash in their formidable mentality, could barely speak audibly; instead, they communicated with a complex form of empathy and relied on trained Marines to speak for them to non-Sisters. When they did try to speak with their mouths, it was strange and halting, in a rough, unplaceable accent.

Captain Davage's first officer was Lt. Kilos, a Marine of the 12th Division. The Fleet and the Marines were often at odds with each other—the Fleet considering the Marines brutish and undisciplined, the Marines considering the Fleet an arrogant pack of louts with expensive toys. As such, Kilos was the only Marine first officer in the Fleet. Her promotion to the posting created a minor scandal throughout the service, for Kilos was not only a Marine, she was a Brown too—a commoner, a "peasant" in a uniform. She was rather saturnine by nature, being quiet, often sullen and brooding. She carried her trademark Brown cynicism around like an honor badge. She was notoriously slow in making friends, was rather intimidating by nature, and she had a nasty temper, which had led to her being a frequent resident of brigs and work details wherever she went in her early days in the Marines. Her back had seen the most lashings with the sonic whip in recent memory.

An untrained observer, seeing the captain and Lt. Kilos at work together, might well come to the swift conclusion that she was unpleasant and unruly at best, insubordinate and toxic at worst. Such, however, was not the case. There were few firsts in the Fleet as loyal to their captains as Ki was to Dav. They made a great team, their various strengths complimenting each other perfectly. And Ki wasn't a completely dour person—if given the right circumstance, if allowed to flourish in a positive atmosphere, she was a capable soldier, loyal to the end, devoted to her captain, and steadfast in a fight. Given the right circumstances, she opened up like a big, tough Marine daylily and could be funny and mercurial, her brown eyes filling with laughter and delight. She and Davage often bickered about the most trivial of things, sometimes fighting to the extent of settling their issues in the gym. Yet, at the end of the day, they were best friends and shared a familiar bond that few captains enjoyed with their firsts, Davage appreciated her frank gruffness, her "Brownness," her stark, relentless manner of speaking. Dav rarely ever had to issue her an order. She could usually predict what he wanted without him having to say a word.

Kilos was from Tusck on the nearby world of Onaris, and she looked like it—she had the standard "Tusck Look." She was tall, over six feet, with large, soothing brown eyes. Her hair was long and thick and the color of tree bark. If she spent any time in the sun, her hair transformed into a golden blonde and her skin tanned to deep bronze.

Like Dav, she had spent a good portion of her childhood hungry, but for different reasons. Being a Brown, and being from Tusck, her family was destitute beyond measure. To eat, she and her many brothers and sisters, every day, had to go out and find food, work for it, steal it, or sometimes fight for it. Ki was known for being a dead shot with her huge Marine SK pistol. Her skill came mostly from killing birds on the wing with a simple sling as a girl. Ki often brought home sacks full of them, where they went into a stew pot. Each day presented a new series of obstacles and challenges. Dav was a prisoner of his wealth and standing, Ki, a prisoner of her wrenching poverty.

* * * * *

Lt. Kilos, tall and resplendent in her red, black, and gold Marine coat, white pants, and tall boots, related the Sister's request to Davage. Both the Sister and Kilos expected Captain Davage to hear the request, thank the Sister for her courtesy, and then "grant" her permission to proceed with the execution. Then, smiling, curtseying, the Sister shall excuse herself, go to the brig, and viciously slaughter the Black Hat like an animal.

Davage thought about it. Outside, the stars moved past, the
Seeker
gliding through space effortlessly. The Cyclops eye of the main sensor made a huge beam of light that panned about this way and that.

Kilos and the Sister waited for his expected response.

Davage stood up and went to the window. He stood there a moment, looking at the stars.

"Sister," he said finally. "I am honored that you have taken the time to come here today and offer your request. I am humbled by this unexpected show of courtesy."

The Sister looked at him with her big blue eyes and smiled brightly. She spoke to Kilos.

"Dav, she says the Sisterhood has benefitted greatly from its long-standing friendship with the House of Blanchefort through the years—you and your family are well-favored, and they look forward to continuing that friendship with you, as the current Lord. And she says, as they are guests aboard your vessel, they won't think of executing a prisoner without first informing you and securing your blessing."

Kilos shook her head, unused to the Sisters being so … friendly. "Somebody out there must like you, Dav."

Davage was flattered by the Sister's courtesy, and he didn't want to upset her. He was about to grant the Sister's request and send her on her way.

Looking at the stars, the endless depths of them, he was reminded of Princess Marilith—he always thought of Marilith when he looked at the stars. Marilith, out there somewhere in the dark, empty space, tall, scheming, beautiful—planning his death even as she pined away for him.

His previous conversation with her entered his mind. Her warning, that "something evil" was coming for him, searching for him, calling out to him, rang through his mind.

Could this, this Black Hat in his brig, be what Marilith was talking about? Could the silent Black Hat, sitting there in an evil trance, be reaching out to him for some reason?

He wondered.

He turned and Sighted, looking all the way down to the brig. He wanted to have a look at this Black Hat, at the person he was about to condemn to death.

He supposed he owed it to her.

3

The Sight.

Captain Davage had inherited the Sight from his father. Of all the Gifts the Elders had given to the League ages ago, the Sight was the rarest and the least considered. It was a Gift that was hard to have in the first place: it had to be passed down through bloodlines. The Sight also was difficult to master and was seemingly limited in benefit— thus, it was largely forgotten. Other, easier Gifts were much more common and practiced throughout the League: the Cloak, the Stare, the Strength, and the Waft. Even the Dirge, which nobody really liked, was put to use more often than the Sight. It had vanished altogether in large sectors of League society and was thought to be a myth in others. Not even the Sisters, whose eyes were nearly useless, made much of a study on the Sight, not in thousands of years when they declared it a minor, odd, and mildly amusing Gift.

The Blancheforts traditionally had the Sight, it being passed down from Lords of old to the present. Lord Maserfeld, Davage's grandfather, once used the Sight to locate skulkers in villages he'd just sacked and slay them.

Davage had the Sight. He recalled as a tiny boy that his mother, father, and sisters sometimes appeared strange to him—normal one moment, nude, energy-laced, skeletal the next. He recalled playing in the Telmus Grove and looking up at the rising dome of Dead Hill where his family ancestors were entombed, he saw withered, forlorn faces looking down at him. For his sanity's sake, he spent years calming his Sight, controlling it, exploring its secrets, mastering its various intricacies. Certainly it was a given if you had the Sight you could see things in the dark, and maybe see things that were invisible—but as Davage discovered, there was so much more to see. He recalled, as a very young man, looking up from the tall towers of his ancestral castle, up toward the northern night sky, and using his Sight, he could see the small, blinking satellites floating about high above. He could see graceful Fleet vessels cruising in their orbits. He could see the maintenance dry docks as they passed overhead. Fleet dry docks parked at four hundred and fifty miles above the surface, and Davage, with his Sight, could see them like he was right there.