Er, what seems to be a glitch in the system is preventing me from getting a picture of Kreia. So, I have used a picture of Atris, as Darth Traya, instead.

"The last, is a creature of betrayals, who has been betrayed, and will betray in turn..."

So says Kreia, Darth Traya, the Dark Lord of the Sith, the deadliest of the three Sith Lords I've been discussing.

We know more about Traya than either Sion or Nihilus, yet at the same time she remains the most mysterious. She was the first and last mentor of Darth Revan, before he led the Republic and rogue Jedi in the Mandalorian Wars.

Traya was an unorthodox mentor, with an unfortunate track record of students going to the dark side. She trained Revan, long before he became a Sith Lord. Revan left her and trained under Master Zhar Lestin, of whom Traya deeply disapproved. While training under Zhar, Revan encountered Malak, the man who would go from his closest friend to his greatest enemy. As the Mandalorian threat grew, Revan returned to his most trusted mentor: Traya. Her teachings resulted in his journey to Malachor V, to combat the Mandalorian threat. There, he and Malak encountered the true power of the dark side in the Trayus Academy, and became powerful Sith Lords.

Although Revan was Traya's greatest pupil, the destruction he and Revan wrought in the Jedi Civil War caused Traya to be exiled by the Jedi Council. Although this was not the beginning of Traya's contempt for the Jedi, their teachings, and the Force itself, Traya felt betrayed, and her contempt evolved into a deep hatred of the Jedi and the Force.

After Darth Revan destroyed his nemesis, Darth Malak, Traya began searching for her former apprentice, and her search led her to Malachor V, and Trayus Academy. There she met two other Force Sensitives who had journeyed there in search of knowledge: Sion and Nihilus. The trio of exiles and rejects, each with a grudge against the Jedi Order, became Sith Lords, and took on the Sith title of "Darth."

Darth Traya, Darth Sion, and Darth Nihilus remained in the Academy, where Traya first discovered the "echoes" in the Force, and developed the theory that she could kill the Force itself by creating the right echo. This became her ultimate goal as she took Sion and Nihilus as apprentices. But - and this is simply a theory I've been discussing in these blogs - Traya had ruined the lives of her apprentices, teaching Sion of pain and Nihilus of hunger. Sion and Nihilus, though as brutal and ruthless as any Sith Lord, were not prepared to help Traya destroy the Force. They attacked Traya in the Trayus Academy, inflicting deep wounds both physical and mental, and left their master to die in the heart of Malachor V. So, as the master had taught pain and hunger to her apprentices, the apprentices taught betrayal to their master.

Sion, Nihilus, and Traya separated and sank into the shadows. Traya became an old woman known as Kreia, and began her plans to destroy the Jedi, the Sith, and eventually the Force itself. In the five years between KOTOR I and II, the three Sith drove the Jedi to the very brink of extinction. Meanwhile, Kreia sought out a very particular exiled Jedi, a living wound in the Force, whom she believed to be the key to creating an echo that would kill the Force. She tracked the Exile to the Peragus II mining facility, and helped him escape, along with a shady prisoner by the name of Atton Rand, and a utility droid which once belonged to Darth Revan himself, T3-M4. During the escape, Kreia encountered Darth Sion. Kreia stalled Sion to keep him from reaching the Exile, but lost her left hand for her trouble. However, the Exile felt the pain as well as Kreia. The Exile had formed a Force Bond with Kreia.

Kreia, Darth Traya, Dark Lord of the Sith, used the Exile as a puppet. She became his (I say "he" because I'm a guy, same with Revan) mentor, and trained him to become greater than her. She used him to gather and destroy the Jedi Order. She used him to expose the corruption of Jedi Master Atris. She used him to lure her enemies Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus into the open so that he could destroy them. And in the end, Traya betrayed the Exile, just as she had been betrayed, just as she had betrayed so many times.

Darth Traya turned Atris to the dark side, and a new Sith Lord was born; Their was Kreia, Darth Traya of the past, and Atris, Darth Traya of the present. The Exile dueled Atris, who, when defeated, led him to Malachor V, the heart of the Sith.

Along his journey to a final encounter with Darth Traya, the Exile destroyed Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion. The Exile faced Traya in a fierce lightsaber duel, which resulted in Traya's death. Or did it? Many fans believe that Kreia became a Force ghost, like Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin in the Star Wars films, or like Ajunta Pall in the KOTOR saga. It is likely that a KOTOR III is in the works, and we'll just have to wait until then to find out.

Kreia, Darth Traya, Dark Lord of the Sith was the greatest manipulator of the Star Wars universe - other than Emperor Palpatine, of course - but from the very first betrayal, this Sith Lord's fate was more than sealed.