Jaden Korr came back to Yavin with sand still in his seams. Not literal sand —Kyle would have thrown him into the river for that— but the look of it sat on him anyway. In the way his eyes stayed slightly narrowed, like he’d spent a week staring into glare. In the way his shoulders carried that dry, tired tightness you got when your nights were short and your sleep came in pieces.

  He walked into the training hall like it was just another day. That was the first thing people noticed, and the first thing people didn’t like.

  Rosh was with him, two steps behind, jaw set, posture stiff. Rosh moved like he wanted the room to see him and didn’t want the room to have any opinion about it. He looked at Jaden once, then away, then at Kyle — who trailed them like a shadow that could talk.

  Kyle looked pleased in the quiet, predatory way he sometimes did when he’d watched someone learn something painful. Meral leaned near my shoulder as they crossed the hall. “He’s alive,” she whispered.

  “Tatooine didn’t want him,” Toran murmured, and there was a faint relief under the joke.

  Jaden spotted us and nodded once — simple, contained. He didn’t grin. He didn’t posture. He just came over, like this was where he meant to land.

  “Kae’rin,” he said.

  “Welcome back,” I replied.

  He glanced at Toran and Meral. “You three didn’t burn the Temple down?”

  Toran’s mouth twitched. “We brought home a ship.”

  Jaden blinked. “You what.”

  Meral’s eyes gleamed. “Long story.”

  Kyle drifted closer, arms folded. “If you’re going to swap war stories, do it somewhere you’re not in the way. Briefing room. Five minutes.”

  Rosh’s gaze snapped to Kyle. “We just got back.”

  Kyle didn’t blink. “And you’re still breathing. Congratulations.”

  Rosh’s nostrils flared.

  Jaden’s attention flicked between them, then he exhaled slowly, as if he’d already decided how much energy he was willing to spend on this.

  “Five minutes,” Jaden said, calm. “Fine.”

  ? ? ?

  We moved to the smaller briefing hall off the training wing, the one with battered chairs and a table scarred by a thousand datapads. The air smelled faintly of old sweat and stone dust. A place where the Order handled things that didn’t fit neatly in training schedules.

  Kyle didn’t sit. He leaned against the wall like gravity was an optional inconvenience. Jaden dropped into a chair with a quiet thump, then set a small pack on the table. It looked heavier than it should have. He unlatched it and pulled out a flattened piece of droid plating, scorched and pitted, edges cut clean.

  “What’s that,” Toran asked immediately, leaning in like he couldn’t help himself.

  Jaden rotated the piece so we could see the melted insignia on one side.

  “Recovery,” he said. “Not mine originally. It was one of the ‘secondary objectives.’”

  Kyle snorted. “He means I made him carry junk.”

  “It’s not junk,” Toran muttered, eyes scanning the metal like it was a poem.

  Jaden ignored the comment and continued. “Tatooine was… dry.”

  Meral gave him a look. “You don’t say.”

  Jaden’s mouth twitched. “I’m serious. Dry in the wrong way. Like the air was stripping things down to their bones. People too.”

  He glanced at Rosh briefly. Rosh didn’t look back.

  “We got a tip about mercenaries operating out near Anchorhead,” Jaden said. “Not officially hired. Not tied to Republic security. Private work. The usual.”

  Kyle’s voice cut in. “And the ‘usual’ is how people vanish.”

  Jaden nodded once, accepting the interruption. “We tracked them. Nothing dramatic. No big firefight in a cantina. Just… patterns. Ships coming in at odd hours. Credits moving through the wrong hands. Locals too afraid to ask questions.”

  He tapped the droid plating. “And droids.”

  Toran’s eyes sharpened. “What kind.”

  Jaden hesitated, then said, “Old combat models. Not new issue. Rebuilt. Reprogrammed. Someone was testing them.”

  Meral folded her arms. “Testing for what.”

  Jaden’s gaze went distant for a moment, like he was staring at heat haze again. “For obedience,” he said.

  The words landed heavier than they should have for a simple mission report. Rosh shifted in his chair, impatience and nervous energy rolling off him in waves. “It was just mercs,” he said. “Kyle’s making it sound like—like some big dark thing.”

  Kyle’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m not making it sound like anything. I’m listening to what your partner is saying.”

  Rosh’s jaw tightened. “You keep acting like we’re going to screw up,” he snapped. “Like we’re idiots. Like someone has to watch every breath we take.”

  Kyle didn’t move. “Because I do.”

  Rosh’s hands clenched into fists on his knees. “We’re not children.”

  “You’re not Knights,” Kyle replied, and his voice was flat enough to be cruel without trying. “And you’re not dead. That’s the point. You want less attention? Give me fewer reasons.”

  Rosh leaned forward. “You don’t trust me.”

  Kyle’s gaze didn’t waver. “Trust is earned. Not demanded.”

  The room felt smaller all of sudden, with too much tension to hold.

  Jaden’s voice stayed steady. “Rosh.”

  Rosh snapped his head toward him. “What.”

  Jaden’s expression didn’t change. “This isn’t helping,” he said quietly. “We did good work. We found something. Don’t turn it into—”

  “Into what,” Rosh demanded.

  Jaden held his gaze. “Into a fight you can win because it’s safer than the one you can’t.”

  Rosh went still. The words weren’t a lecture. They were a knife placed gently on the table. For a moment, even Kyle looked almost impressed. Almost.

  Meral let out a slow breath. Toran shifted slightly in his chair, shoulders squaring like he was ready to step between people if it turned physical. I didn’t move. I watched.

  Rosh swallowed, eyes bright with anger and something under it that was worse because it was softer. He looked away first, staring at the droid plating like it had personally offended him. Jaden continued, as if the tension was just another environmental hazard to navigate.

  “We tailed the mercs to a storage site,” he said. “Found a drop. Parts. Droids. A few crates of equipment with no markings. Someone scrubbed the data tags clean.”

  Kyle spoke without looking at him. “And you found a cult sign.”

  Jaden’s eyes flicked up. “We found… symbols,” he admitted. “Carved in a wall. Burned into a panel. Not Sith. Not any official Order. More like… a group imitating what they think darkness looks like.”

  Meral’s mouth tightened. “The ones who hit the shuttle.”

  Jaden nodded once. “Could be connected. Could be copycats. But the feeling in the room wasn’t mercenary work. It was… belief.”

  Toran’s fingers traced the edge of the droid plating without touching it, as if he could hear it speak if he got close enough. “Did you recover anything else,” he asked.

  “A few datapad fragments,” Jaden said. “Mostly wiped. Kyle has them.”

  Kyle’s voice was dry. “I have dust and disappointment, yes.”

  Jaden ignored him again. “We didn’t find the main organizer,” he said.

  “We didn’t find the buyer. The mercs scattered when they realized they were being watched. But… the activity is real.”

  He leaned back slightly, fatigue showing now that the report was out. “That’s it.”

  No grand ending. No triumph. Just information, delivered clean. The room stayed tense anyway, because information didn’t erase the feeling of being watched by something that didn’t want you looking.

  Kyle pushed off the wall and stepped closer, grin sliding into place like he’d been waiting for his moment.

  “Well,” he said, looking around the room at us like we were a set of trainees who’d wandered into a fire. “Nice heartwarming reunion. Go get a shower, food, and some R&R — in that order. And no more doubting yourselves today.”

  Rosh snapped upright. “We weren’t—”

  Kyle held up a hand. “I don’t care what you weren’t. I care what you are. And right now you’re five people standing around a table like you’re auditioning for a tragedy.”

  Meral’s eyebrows rose. “That’s rich coming from you.”

  Kyle’s grin sharpened. “I don’t audition. I commit.”

  Toran snorted.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Jaden’s mouth twitched again. “What’s next,” he asked.

  Kyle shrugged. “Whatever Corran posts. And whatever the galaxy thinks it can get away with.”

  He turned to leave, then paused. “And Kae’rin.”

  I looked up. Kyle’s eyes were narrow, assessing. “Try not to drag another ship home,” he said.

  “I’ll make no promises,” I replied.

  He harrumphed and left.

  ? ? ?

  The debrief ended the way most things did lately — without resolution, just dispersal. Jaden and Rosh went with Kyle, not side by side, but close enough that the distance between them felt like a rope pulled tight. Meral disappeared toward the training wing, probably to hit something until her mind stopped spinning. Toran lingered with me in the corridor outside the briefing hall.

  “You feel it too,” he said quietly.

  “The tension,” I asked.

  “The pull,” Toran replied.

  My throat tightened slightly.

  He didn’t mean the Force in the abstract. He meant the way the last few days had started stacking direction on direction. The way the mission board had become a door that only opened outward. The way Durgen’s Star had ripped the idea of “simple missions” into something bloodier. The way my own body was moving like it was being tuned to a note no one had taught me.

  “I feel something,” I said carefully.

  Toran studied me for a long moment. “You going to tell me what Luke showed you,” he asked.

  I could have lied. Toran would have let me.

  I didn’t.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Not because I don’t trust you. Because I don’t trust myself with it.”

  Toran nodded slowly, accepting the difference.

  “Okay,” he said. Then, softer, “Just don’t carry it alone.”

  I didn’t answer. Not because I disagreed.

  Because agreeing would have made it real in a way I wasn’t ready for.

  He stepped closer, touched my shoulder briefly, then walked away toward the training wing with his hands in his pockets like he was trying to look casual. I stood in the corridor for a moment, listening to the Temple’s hum, the distant clack of practice sabers, the jungle’s noise outside the arches.

  Then I started walking without deciding where.

  That had been happening more often lately. My feet taking me places I didn’t choose. A path forming under me like the Temple itself was guiding my steps. Coruscant sat at the edge of my thoughts like a city-shaped itch.

  By night, the itch had turned into a quiet pressure behind my eyes. I tried to ignore it. I trained. I ate. I spoke when spoken to. I went to the med wing and checked on the rescued pods from a distance, watching Tionne’s people move around them like careful hands around a wound.

  But every time I stood still long enough to hear myself, that current returned. Not as a voice. Not as a command. A direction.

  When the Temple quieted and most students drifted toward sleep, I found Tionne in the archive wing. She was alone at a table piled with datapads, the room lit by a single lamp that cast soft light on paper and stone. She looked up as I entered, and the guilt in her eyes hit me like a physical thing.

  “You’re awake,” she said.

  “So are you,” I replied.

  Tionne’s mouth tightened. “That’s not new.”

  She gestured to the chair opposite her. “Sit?”

  I sat. The chair was cold. The archive air smelled clean and old at the same time. We stared at each other for a moment, both of us avoiding the obvious.

  Tionne broke first. “You’ve been… distant,” she said.

  “I’m here,” I replied.

  “You’re present,” she corrected gently. “But you’re somewhere else.”

  Coruscant, my mind supplied, unhelpful and accurate.

  Tionne’s fingers tapped the edge of a datapad once, then stopped as if she’d caught herself. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “For what,” I asked, though I already knew.

  Tionne exhaled. “For how we handled the samples,” she said.

  “For the way it became… a decision made around you, instead of with you.”

  A small part of me wanted to lash out. Not because she was wrong. Because she was right, and the apology made it harder to keep my posture clean.

  “Walk with me,” I said instead.

  Tionne blinked. “Now?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “If I sit here, I’ll start thinking too loudly.”

  Tionne nodded once and stood, gathering her robe around her shoulders. We left the archive wing and moved through the Temple corridors, footsteps soft on stone. The Praxeum at night felt different. The jungle outside pressed in darker, quieter. The Temple’s lights were dim, casting long shadows that made familiar hallways look older.

  We didn’t speak at first. We didn’t have to. The Temple itself seemed to hold its breath around certain topics. We passed the training wing. The large hall was mostly dark, but faint light spilled from the gym adjoining it. The gym was never fully silent. Someone always stayed late — practicing, sweating, trying to outpace their own mind.

  Tonight it was a pair of older trainees, sparring in low light, blades humming softly as they moved. Their footfalls were quiet. Their focus was fierce. They didn’t notice us at the corridor threshold.

  Tionne slowed and stared into the gym like she’d walked into a memory she didn’t want.

  “That’s where it happened,” she said softly.

  I didn’t pretend not to understand. “Where you decided,” I replied.

  Tionne’s throat moved as she swallowed. “Corran brought the suggestion,” she admitted. “Mara supported it. Luke resisted. I… I made it possible.”

  Her hands tightened in her sleeves. “I told myself it was routine. That the med wing needed baselines. That we were building a library. All of that was true.”

  She looked at me then, eyes bright with a contained shame that didn’t ask for forgiveness. “And I still knew I wasn’t being honest with you.”

  The trainees inside the gym pivoted and exchanged, blades flashing pale in the low light. The sound was steady, a rhythm of discipline. I watched them for a moment, then looked back at Tionne.

  “I’m not upset with the Council,” I said.

  Tionne’s brows drew together. “You should be.”

  “No,” I replied. “I understand why you did it. If I were in your place, I might have done the same.”

  The words tasted strange in my mouth. Too adult. Too calm.

  I continued anyway. “I would have preferred honesty,” I said. “That’s all.”

  Tionne’s face tightened, then softened. “I know,” she whispered.

  We started walking again, passing the gym door and letting the hum of practice blades fade behind us. Tionne took a slow breath. “The Order is being built on ideals,” she said quietly. “Not just on survival. Not just on fear.”

  Her eyes were fixed ahead, but I could feel the weight of what she was trying to say. She wasn’t accusing Luke. She was warning herself.

  “We cannot let fear take control of our freedom,” Tionne said. The line was simple. It didn’t need embellishment.

  I nodded once.

  “I’ll remind Luke,” she added, voice firmer. “And Corran. And Mara. If we start treating our own like problems to manage, we’ll become something else.”

  I glanced at her. “Do you think they’ve forgotten?”

  Tionne’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “No,” she said.

  “But people remember ideals best when someone says them out loud.”

  We reached an open archway that overlooked the jungle. Night air drifted in, damp and cool, smelling of leaves and soil and living things. The stars above Yavin were sharp points, distant and clean. I stood at the archway and let the air touch my face. Tionne waited beside me, patient.

  Inside, I was waging a war against myself on multiple levels. Luke had previous —not too pleasant— experience with the Empire’s genetic experiments, and I could understand where his concern about me was coming from. He did his best to trust me and not press for answers but that did little to quell his worry when reading my medical report. I could have— should have told him that I remembered well. That I could recall every detail as if it was yesterday…

  ? ? ?

  A large oval of glass framed in metal, carved into the floor like a crystal sarcophagus. The first time he lifted me into it, I remember thinking it looked like a coffin for someone too pretty to die. The glass was always warm — warmer than Father’s hands — and it glowed with a soft blue light that made my skin look translucent, like milk poured thin.

  Mother would stand nearby with her arms folded over her chest, as if holding herself together. She never spoke during the procedure, never tried to soothe me or distract me. She just watched Father work with a tense, desperate stillness, as though any sudden motion might shatter her resolve.

  There was always a moment, right before the lid came down, when Father would lean close to my face. He didn’t kiss my forehead — the Empire frowned on unnecessary affection in its laboratories — but his eyes softened in a way I didn’t see anywhere else. “You’ll sleep for a little while,” he’d say, voice low and tight. “When you wake, you’ll feel stronger.”

  The lid would seal with a sighing sound, and then the lights would change.

  Liquid warmth spread around me, heavy and comforting and wrong, like sinking into syrup. Something prickled at the edges of my spine — not pain exactly, more like the feeling your foot gets when it falls asleep, except everywhere. I tried once to count the drifting blue motes that danced above my head, but I always fell under before I reached ten.

  ? ? ?

  …but I wasn’t sure that would make things better. I knew with absolute certainty that whatever Father had done, he’d done out of love and to prepare all of us for any eventuality. I wasn’t naive enough to think that our family had been safe — we just provided enough of a value to be tolerated.

  But there was no way for me to share this with anyone. Words were insufficient, hollow. And the only proof I had was in my heart — the conviction and trust built not only by actions but by being a family. Kirana would ask how. Kyle would ask why. And Corran — he would choose to distrust everything I said unless he had a tangible proof.

  I couldn’t control what they thought. I could only control what I chose to let them know. And look for answers myself, for now. And all I knew for now was, I was changing. Whatever Father did was slowly waking up, years after he’d finished. Unless I wanted to confront him directly, there was only one thing I could do.

  “I need to go,” I said. Tionne didn’t ask where.

  “Coruscant,” She murmured.

  I nodded.

  The pull in my chest eased slightly the moment it was named, like a muscle relaxing.

  “I don’t know what I’ll find,” I said.

  “You’ll find layers,” Tionne replied, thinking of the other mystery we’ve been trying to solve. “Records. Archives.”

  I stared out into the jungle darkness. “And labs.”

  Tionne’s breath caught faintly as she understood my thoughts.

  “If you want answers about your body,” she said, “that’s where they are.”

  I looked at her. “Will Luke allow it.”

  Tionne’s gaze met mine, steady. “Luke doesn’t own you,” she said. “But he will worry. And he will try to do it carefully.”

  “And you,” I asked.

  Tionne hesitated, then nodded once. “If you want me to come,” she said, “I will.”

  The offer landed warmer than I expected.

  I didn’t answer immediately. I let my thoughts settle, listening to the jungle, feeling the Temple behind me like a shelter I didn’t want to leave and couldn’t stay in. Finally I said, “Yes.”

  Tionne’s shoulders eased, a small release. “Then we’ll plan it,” she said softly. “Quietly.”

  Quietly. Contained. Like everything else lately. I stared up at the stars again, and for a heartbeat I could almost taste Coruscant’s air — dry, metallic, layered with engines and millions of lives. The city wasn’t in my sight. It was in my bones.

  The pull wasn’t dramatic. It was worse than that. It was steady.

  I turned from the archway and walked back into the Temple with Tionne beside me, our footsteps soft, our shadows long. Tomorrow would be routine again. Training. Reports. Meals. People pretending the galaxy wasn’t changing.

  And underneath it, a door had opened. I could feel it.