Of Love and War Book 4: When Darkness Falls

Chapter 11: Eyes Always Watching

Not for the first time in the past fifteen or so years, Sidious found himself fuming over Zelina Du'ahn. Once again, she had managed to slip through his fingers, and Sidious was starting to find the anomalies in his plans that consistently showed up around her to be the bane of his existence. He had not expected that Council of Jedi idiots to actually rally to Du'ahn's defense and refuse the Senate a Military Tribunal. After what happened with Skywalker's Padawan, it was clear that they valued their ties to the Republic more than one Jedi, and yet they let those ties be threatened for this damn child.

Of course, the Jedi's relationship with the Republic was already destroyed, no matter what they thought, though they at least had the illusion of thinking they still had some semblance of good standing with the public.

Still, their blatant refusal kept Sidious from manipulating the trial to assure Du'ahn's execution kept the girl in the playing field for Skywalker longer. It also denied Sidious the ability to sever Skywalker's last ties with the Council while simultaneously pushing the boy over to the dark side.

No matter, he had other plans—while he detested the setback, he wasn't unprepared. He had other plans in motion to turn Skywalker, and if the public or the Senate didn't lash out demanding blood, she'd perish when the Jedi Temple burned.

This was not a loss—simply a setback. Plus, the Senate was furious that the Order had denied their request for "A fair trial against a perceived Republic threat." The Council would be feeling the pressure for their protection of Du'ahn—they would see just how committed they were to standing beside the girl. Sidious was willing to wager that once the pressure became too much for the Order, Du'ahn would end up under Republic control anyway, with the Order's image permanently and irreversibly damaged.

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"Control your emotions, Du'ahn, do not use them! There is a distinct difference between the two, and you keep slipping over that line. Vaapad requires you to channel darkness into the duel, not into yourself. You accept your opponent's darkness only enough to redirect that energy into the duel to power your own assault. If you give into your emotions during the battle, then you are fighting as a Sith, not a Jedi."

"Yes, Master Windu."

"You have improved, your threshold before you give into your emotions has increased, but that threshold should eventually become non-existent. That will be when you can safely use the form, when you begin to reach mastery. You control your emotions, the form, the darkness in the battle, but it does not control you. Even after mastery of the form, you must remain consistently vigilant, or you will fall to arrogance and pride, and the form will consume you."

"Understood, Master Windu."

"Take a moment to recollect yourself, and we shall try again."

"Yes, Master Windu."

Considering the restricted nature of Vaapad, whenever Zelina and Windu trained, it was in a dojo that had been reserved specifically for their lessons, behind a locked door so no one could interrupt and observe Windu's teachings. By now, Zelina was used to the secretive nature of the training, and hadn't been against it due to her extensive experience in keeping secrets, mostly curtesy of Anakin.

As Windu said, she was struggling with the concept of channeling without using her emotions in lightsaber combat. It was a fine line to walk, but she'd been practicing vigorously to master the aspect. It was a concept in Vaapad training that she actually admired—harnessing one's emotions without being controlled by them. She could act on protectiveness without being blinded to a threat or blocked from the insight needed to perceive a danger because she managed to retain her focus through her control of her emotions.