“It’s been four weeks now. What news? Will they be coming on your invitation or not?”
The voice rang out hollowly, yet it retained its terrifying potency, striking immediate fear into anyone who heard it.
“Lord Sidious,” Nella began, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.
The man had made his way into her chambers by gods know how.
The doors had been bolted tight, yet here he stood—tall, cloaked in absolute black, with only his pale lips and chin visible beneath his hood.
That voice alone had paralyzed her, catching her just as she was about to undress.
“Things like this take time. One can never be too sure,” she stammered, trying to steady her breathing.
“A ship to Braavos might take weeks on end to reach its destination. It is still too soon.”
“False,” Palpatine scoffed.
“That scum’s ship is perhaps the fastest in this part of the world. He should be able to reach Braavos in two weeks and return in the same time, if not less. I equipped him with the means to do so. You assured me he could be trusted, but it seems I was mistaken. Should he fail to return within the week, there will be consequences. For both of you.”
To ensure such swift travel, Palpatine had condescended to work alongside a traveling scholar, Maester Luwin, and a local blacksmith to devise a primitive magnetic compass.
As a politician, pilot, alchemist, philosopher, and Master of the Dark Side, constructing a basic tool of navigation was child’s play—especially for someone from a galaxy where magnetism and advanced technology were universal constants.
In his youth on Naboo, long before he became the architect of a galactic empire, he had been an unruly genius.
Under Darth Plagueis, that raw intellect had been sharpened into something lethal.
The galaxy at large often mistook him for a creature purely of politics, unaware that he was a polymath whose brilliance extended into countless hidden fields.
He simply preferred to let others dirty their hands for him.
Why shouldn’t he?
But stranded in this primitive world, that luxury was no longer a guarantee.
“We came to an accord that you would serve and prove useful to our prosperous future. But it seems I misjudged both your ambition and your value,” the Dark Lord of the Sith said, his voice sinking into a menacing purr.
Suddenly, she was choking.
It felt as though an invisible iron gauntlet had clamped around her windpipe.
She clawed desperately at her bare neck, gasping for air, but her fingers found nothing but smooth skin.
Looking up at the man she had served, she watched the faint, cruel smile on his lips twist back into a cold scowl.
“Correct your mistake, mistress. I need those individuals. Should they fail to arrive…” He left the threat hanging in the air, a chilling echo of warnings he had given her before.
The invisible grip snapped shut and then vanished.
Nella collapsed to the floor, coughing violently as air rushed back into her burning lungs.
In that terrifying, breathless moment, the truth clicked into place—this was precisely how Erena must have died.
The Sith Lord said nothing more.
He turned and walked toward the door, unbolting it with a heavy click before slipping out into the corridor.
The individuals he desired so dearly were not kings, knights, or men of noble blood.
They were men of modest occupations but valuable ones: a master builder, an alchemist, a jeweler, an agronomist, and a glasswright.
Some of them could be found in the north, even down south in the riverlands, but Lord Sidious wouldn’t accept that; he wanted better and more experienced ones.
The last would be the most difficult to acquire, she had told the man, but he was relentless nonetheless on said matter.
The glass trade was heavily controlled and closely supervised, and for good reason.
Glass was expensive, difficult to produce well, and valuable enough that any skilled craftsman who knew the art would be watched carefully by guilds, merchants, and patrons alike.
Securing even one man who properly understood the trade would require a mountain of coin.
But Sidious had already accounted for that. This story is hosted at g.com.
The glasswright would not be bargained with.
He would be taken, basically kidnapped and carried across the sea, and forced into service if necessary.
At least, that was what Sidious had told her.
There had been other instructions as well.
The pirate had also been tasked with purchasing new slaves from Lys for the brothel, women young enough and beautiful enough to replace some of the older workers whose presence had begun to dull the establishment’s appeal.
Now that the business had changed hands, expansion was inevitable.
Fresh faces, exotic features, foreign accents, and the kind of beauty rarely seen in the North would draw wealthier patrons through the doors.
It was a cruel calculation, perhaps, but was business ever kind.
It was something Erena was reluctant to do, but she didn’t have the same mindset.
Nella doubted many Northmen could claim to have seen a Lysene beauty in the flesh, with pale hair, soft skin, and the practiced manners of the Free Cities.
To men with heavy purses and dull lives, novelty alone was worth coin.
And Sidious, if nothing else, understood the value of novelty.
He possessed a supernatural grasp of human desire, understanding a person’s wants just as intimately as he did their weaknesses.
To Nella, his vision was clear: the brothel was not merely meant to earn coin and serve as a hub for gathering information but to become an intermediary for underground dealings.
It was an enterprise he wanted her to control and one she had already begun to build.
Interacting with the pirates and slavers of White Harbor was more than enough to see her hanged at the gallows, forcing her to move with absolute, agonizing caution.
Her life and her head were on the line.
Murderers and bounty hunters were next on the ledger; she was already poised to forge links with other unsavory factions who possessed highly useful, if entirely illegal, skill sets.