Lord Tyrannus was furious. His knuckles were white because of how hard he was gripping the armrests of his throne, and his brows were turned so far inward they were making a right angle. It might have been comical if the Eighth Brother was not the only one in the room for the Lord of the Sith to lash out at. Technically speaking, the Eighth Brother was not to blame for his fury, but that did not mean he was in the clear.

He was only glad he didn't have to make eye contact at the moment. While in the kneeling position, he could get away with staring at his master's feet.

The Eighth Brother had returned to the Lord Tyrannus before Lady Jadis had, so it had been his duty to report to the Emperor what had happened. None of it pleased him.

"The Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister?"

"Dead," he answered, trying not to panic. "I believe they were slain by Maul."

"Maul was aiding the Jedi?"

"Yes, master."

He didn't know why that infuriated Tyrannus more than anything else that happened on Malachor, but the Brother didn't dare ask. At any rate, it was taking attention away from his own shortcomings, which paled in comparison to that of Lady Jadis, for some reason.

"Is there any hope of reclaiming the temple of Malachor?"

The Eighth Brother thought quickly. "Maul and Jadis fell from the temple before it closed. A Jedi had to have taken the holocron from the temple. To activate it again, the holocron must be reclaimed. Providing the explosion did not significantly damage the temple, it may be reopened once the holocron is in our possession."

Tyrannus growled. "The Jedi will not be so careless as to leave it lying around. Skywalker will not take chances, not if he saw the capabilities of the temple."

Behind the Brother, the chamber doors opened. He couldn't turn around to see who had walked in, but the icy cold presence he felt in the Force told him who it was regardless. Lady Jadis had returned. The Brother wasn't sure that was a wise decision on her part.

Standing up, Lord Tyrannus did not wait for Jadis to walk to him. He descended the steps leading to his throne and swept past the Brother, who didn't move a muscle. He couldn't, not until he was specifically ordered to.

"Master-"

"You have one opportunity to explain yourself," Tyrannus threatened his apprentice, his voice low. "Maul lives. Despite your past claims that he was killed by Shaak Ti on Dromund Kaas, it seems that his wounds were not as fatal as you suggested. I will forgive your mistake and blame it on the foolishness of your youth if you redeem yourself now. Where... is... Maul?"

He couldn't see Jadis's face from his kneeling position, but he knew that she would be fine. Jadis had been Lord Tyrannus's faithful apprentice since the Jedi Purge. He would never-

"On Malachor."

The Brother clenched up. That wasn't the answer that would make Lord Tyrannus happy.

"Dead?"

"...no."

She didn't kill him? He forgot his place and turned around to look at her. He was behind Lord Tyrannus, so he didn't see him move, but the Brother needn't have worried. Tyrannus had all but forgotten about him.

If he had come back with a report like that, he would likely have been tortured by one of the Sith. If he was lucky, they would have killed him quickly. It had happened to many of his brothers and sisters in the past sixteen years. Lady Jadis was different, though. She was irreplaceable; she was valuable, much more valuable than an Inquisitor. The Brother wondered what her punishment would be.

When he looked back at her, though, she was slowly rising in the air. The terrified look on her face suggested that it was not her doing. The Brother glanced at Lord Tyrannus and saw his gnarled hand squeezing tightly into a fist. No, the Brother thought, realizing. No, you can't do that to her! She's his apprentice. He wouldn't do that to his apprentice!

The Brother was wrong. He would.

Crackling, blue lightning splayed from his fingertips, arching toward Jadis and finding their victim. Jadis screamed, her body spasming under the pain. Her yell snapped the Brother back into his place, looking forward and not back at the Sith. He didn't want to watch anyway.

He thought there would be mercy for her. He thought Tyrannus was fond of the woman who had served him so faithfully for all these years. The Brother thought that all her work meant something to the Emperor, but one slip up, and she was another mule that needed to be disciplined. Perhaps technically, it was two; apparently, there was some history that the Brother didn't know about, but two mistakes seemed to be enough to condemn Jadis despite sixteen years of otherwise complete obedience. No one was safe, not even her. Betrayal had no place in the Empire.

Tyrannus stopped, letting Jadis fall to the ground in agony. The Brother could imagine what it looked like. He didn't need to see it again. "You let him live," Tyrannus snarled, towering over his apprentice. "You let him go a second time."

"Yes," she gasped, trying to catch her breath, "but there will not be a third. There will never be a third."

"I can't trust your word."

"This isn't that type of promise," she corrected, seething. The Brother wondered if she was avoiding eye contact or staring her master straight in the face. "I will never kill Maul. Not if I come across him by chance, not if you send me to murder him, not if I must suffer because of it."

"YOU DARE PROTECT HIM?"

"HE NEVER PUNISHED ME FOR MY FAILURE!" she shouted back, and out of the corner of his eye, the Brother saw Tyrannus be thrown across the hall. Jadis was resisting him! "He believed in me! He had faith in me! He loved me as you never have! He-"

Jadis stopped short, and the Brother knew why. He saw Tyrannus make a squeezing motion in front of his body. He was choking her with the Force. "You don't deserve belief! You don't deserve faith! You don't deserve love, Jadis!" He threw her against the wall, not enough to kill her but more than enough to seriously injure her. The Brother could have sworn he heard a bone crack.

Tyrannus let loose another surge of Sith Lightning, and Jadis started screaming again. "I will not be undermined by another child! You will learn obedience, Jadis! If you serve him over me, then you will suffer as his disciple!"

When the Lightning stopped, Jadis didn't move. She wasn't quite dead, not yet, but the Brother had no doubt that her suffering was far from over.

"Brother."

He panicked, fearing that he was next. He braced himself, but only words came at him. "Let Jadis serve as yet another example to you what happens to those who betray me. She was foolish enough to return, but even if she evaded my wrath, there is nowhere in this galaxy that she could hide from me. Your performance on Malachor is disappointing, but better to fail than to betray my good graces."

Oh, thank god. He wasn't in the clear yet, but he wasn't going to suffer the torture that was surely coming for Jadis.

"The next Inquisitors, how old are they?"

"The oldest among them will be fifteen soon," the Brother answered, but his heart rate spiked. What did his master have planned for them?

"Drag Jadis onto my ship," he ordered, striding out of the hall. "Better for them to learn this lesson by watching her than for them to suffer the same fate."

"Yes, my Lord," he said, rising to pick up Jadis's limp body. He kept his head down, though. Making eye contact with Lord Tyrannus was not a good idea right now.

Only when the Emperor left the room did he relax. He levitated Jadis's body off the ground with the Force and carefully maneuvered it out of the hall. The Brother felt bad for Jadis, he really did. Jadis, not Tyrannus, suggested the survivors of the Jedi Purge ought to be made into agents of the Empire. It was her, not Tyrannus, who trained the Inquisitors. It was her who helped them overcome their bias against Sith and the Dark Side. She taught them about the flaws of the Jedi Order and why it had to be destroyed. She was strict and ruthless and had as little tolerance for disobedience as her master did, but she had empowered the Inquisitors. She had advocated for their safety and their survival after the Jedi Purge, whereas Tyrannus might have executed them all otherwise.

As long as he obeyed, as long as he did not fail Tyrannus again, the Brother would be safe. The Empire would not hunt him down, his masters would not hurt him, and he had nothing to lose. He hated that Caleb and Master Skywalker resisted the Empire, but the Brother couldn't protect them without risking his own safety and security. If it were possible to escape the fate that must come about every Jedi, whether it was by the hand of a clone trooper or a stormtrooper, the Brother would try. All he wanted was to never worry for the well-being of those close to him again, but there was only one way for that to happen: he had to join the Empire and make sure his friends were on the same side.

It didn't seem like Caleb would do it. Caleb had allied himself with Maul before he stopped fighting the Empire. The Brother could handle it if Skywalker didn't bend the knee. Skywalker was a good Jedi, and even Jadis understood that. It wasn't his fault that all Jedi had to die. The galaxy simply had no place for them anymore.

Caleb, though? Caleb had been such a good friend, especially after Gallia had died. He and O-Mer had been the only constants through his life after losing Kalifa, Tano, and Gallia. He had been farther along in his Padawan studies at the time, despite being younger. He never tried to brag or flaunt his experience, though. Caleb understood that he and O-Mer had been stranded for over a third of their lives and helped them, just like Tano had. The three of them had been inseparable. The Brother had forced himself to accept that they were gone now, except now Caleb wasn't. He was alive, and if the Brother ever saw him again, he was going to have to kill him.

Would he be able to do it? If Jadis hadn't been able to kill Maul when she had the chance, twice, would the Brother be able to kill Caleb? He glanced down at Jadis, who was still unconscious. Why had she done it? How could she spare Maul when she knew the consequences she would suffer for it? Was it worth it, in the end? Would she regret it, or would she stand by her claim in the chamber?

He gently rested her body in a cell onboard Lord Tyrannus's ship. With one last look, he walked out and locked the door, then walked to his quarters before Tyrannus chided him for standing in the hallway. They had a long jump ahead of them, and the Brother wanted to sleep anyway.

Something Lord Tyrannus said rang in the Brother's mind: 'I will not be undermined by another child!' He never said who the child was, but the Brother had a feeling he knew who the Emperor was talking about. When they first became Inquisitors, Lord Tyrannus told them the story of the First Sister, who betrayed Lord Sidious at the height of his power and set back the efforts of the Sith. The Brother remembered the story from when he was a Padawan, but at the end, Lord Tyrannus had warned him and his brothers and sisters: 'If I so much as suspect that you will follow in her footsteps, if you lift a single finger in betrayal, I will strike you down before you get the chance. The First Sister died for her mutiny. I will make sure you suffer a fate far worse than death.'

The Brother didn't want to know what that meant. He thought the warning had only been meant for the future Inquisitors, but apparently, it applied to Jadis too.

He wasn't in danger. He had never betrayed the Empire, and he didn't plan to. As long as he remained loyal, he would be safe.

Yet as he considered the image of Jadis's mangled body, he wondered if any of them were safe. He wondered if, at that moment, Caleb was safer than him.