Luke didn’t give the words room to echo.

  “Jaden. Rosh,” he said, and his gaze moved past them as if he’d already filed the decision away where it belonged. “Kyle will take you.”

  Kyle made a sound low in his throat that could have been agreement, or a warning, or neither. He was already turning, one hand lifting in a brief gesture that meant follow or be left behind.

  Jaden Korr stepped in after him with the quiet certainty of someone who’d learned to move first and think while moving. Rosh Penin followed half a beat later, too upright, too eager to be seen doing the right thing.

  I fell in with Toran and Meral without thinking about it. We’d been walking like that for months. Not by rule, just by habit. The path down from the Temple was slick from rain, and the jungle on either side breathed warm and wet, leaves brushing shoulders when the trail narrowed.

  I caught Kyle’s brief look as he descended down to the entrance of the Training Hall, Rosh and Jaden in tow. We parted ways; while he and his new students entered the underground structure, we were headed outside — to the surface which, paradoxically, was the uppermost layer of the Training Hall.

  ? ? ?

  The Training Hall sat where Toran had buried his stubbornness into old Massassi architecture and made it cooperate. From the outside it looked like a scar in the stone, an opening reinforced with durasteel ribs and newly cut supports. From the inside it was a maze that shifted on command, corridors and chambers that could be made to teach the same lesson ten different ways.

  The entire structure was built underground, in what resembled a hollowed-out network of canyons and ravines, only if canyons and ravines were built by ancient Massassi people. The result was a network of corridors, halls, and tunnels that wove into a maze, crisscrossed each other at different levels, and sometimes folded back on themselves. The control station in the entrance hall could reconfigure the maze by closing off pathways, sliding walls open, or raising and lowering floors.

  Kyle was one of the people responsible for this madness, and I knew that he’d put his new students through their paces. Yes, I’ll admit — I was curious. Knowing Kyle, he’d end up with his new charges barely standing upright, and a massive grin on his face. Toran wanted to see the Training Hall —product of his hard work over the past six months— perform. And Meral just wanted a good laugh.

  The Praxeum behind us sounded different. The same stone. The same training shouts and footfalls. But there were new voices threaded through it, higher, rougher, uncertain. The Force carried them in a way my ears didn’t need. New presences pressed at the edges of the familiar pattern, untrained and loud in their own way, like candles set too close together.

  Kyle stopped at the threshold, palm on the control panel. The Hall woke fully. Lights bloomed in staggered lines. Panels slid. The low hum of systems readying themselves filled the air.

  “Separate entries,” Kyle said.

  He pointed left. “Jaden.”

  Then right. “Rosh.”

  “Same course,” he added. “Different paths. Don’t help each other. Don’t chase each other. You’re not racing.”

  Rosh’s mouth opened, maybe to argue the last part.

  Kyle didn’t look at him. “Go.”

  They went. The corridors swallowed them, each in his own direction. The Hall sealed behind them with a soft mechanical finality. Somewhere deeper, partitions shifted, locking their routes apart. Toran had designed it so that two trainees could run at once without meeting, unless the Hall wanted them to.

  We took the observation ledge. The upper walkway ran above portions of the course, broken sightlines and viewing slits cut into the stone. You couldn’t see everything. That was the point. Watching from above didn’t make it easier. It just let you see where someone lied to themselves.

  Jaden’s presence in the Force was contained. Not dim, not weak. Just organized. He moved like someone who conserved energy because he assumed he might need it later. When a floor panel shifted under him, he adjusted without complaint, feet finding the new angle as if he’d expected the Hall to misbehave.

  Rosh moved like someone who wanted the Hall to know he wasn’t afraid of it. Fast steps. Hard landings. He threw his weight at obstacles instead of learning their timing. When a light flare hit him, bright enough to whiten the corridor for a blink, his irritation spiked, sharp and hot. He pushed through anyway, shoulders tight, jaw clenched.

  Meral leaned her forearms on the railing. “He’s going to trip,” she murmured.

  “Maybe not,” Toran said. His voice was flat, but his fingers flexed against the rail. He didn’t like seeing his work treated like a toy. He also didn’t like seeing people get hurt on it.

  Kyle watched without expression. He didn’t coach. He didn’t call out. He let the Hall speak.

  The two paths spiraled down and in, as designed. Different corridors, different turns, but the same rhythm of problems: a sudden drop into darkness, a narrow beam over a shallow pit, a burst of training remotes that forced footwork and timing. The Hall wasn’t meant to be a duel. It was meant to expose how you handled being alone with your own choices.

  Jaden handled the remotes like they were questions. He didn’t swing until he’d read the pattern. He used small cuts, minimal motion. He gave ground when it was smart, then took it back when the remote overcommitted.

  Rosh attacked them like they’d insulted him. He broke two quickly, overpowered them, then nearly ate a beam when he stepped too far into the momentum of his own strike. He recovered, but his breathing got louder. His focus narrowed. You could feel his impatience scraping against the Hall’s timing.

  They converged toward the central chamber.

  ? ? ?

  Toran had built that room wide and high, daylight filtering through a broken dome reinforced with braces. The floor there was open enough to tempt speed. The sound carried. A mistake could be heard. A raised walkway with a central platform bisected the room — high enough to allow a standing person comfortably cross the room under the walkway.

  Rosh entered first. His eyes swept the room, looking for direction, traps, or more unexpected surprises. And they landed on a control panel at the top of the central platform. Jolted from his momentary pause by fast approaching sound of Jaden’s boots, he leaped up at the central platform’s wall, hauled himself up, and rolled onto it with a grunt.

  A wave of relief poured out from him in the Force as he leaned over the control panel.

  “Wait… Oh no—” I heard from the left of me. Toran was leaning over the edge of the observation path, his hands gripping the railing — on the verge of leaping down. But before he could make a move, Rosh’s palm landed on the control panel just as Jaden crossed the threshold of the room.

  A compartment below the platform opened with a smooth hiss.

  ? ? ?

  E.C.H.O. unfolded from its cradle, plating sliding into place, optics warming from dull amber to alert gold. It was just human-sized — smaller than a battlefield droid and also quicker on its feet. Toran had designed it to be. Its outer casing was scuffed already from months of testing and from the most recent showdown against Luke, and scratches along the forearms showed where Toran had swapped parts and adjusted joints.

  After its unfortunate spar with Luke, Echo was shut down and hauled away into its housing — which happened to be this very room. Thankfully the forced shutdown also automatically locked Echo’s protocols to basic difficulty. I could tell by the way it moved. The deeper adaptation protocols weren’t fully awake. Toran had locked most of them down after Luke’s first sparring session had ended with the Praxeum dead in the water, Luke laughing, and Toran quietly horrified at his own creation.

  Echo stepped forward, the lightsaber it was using during its spare with Luke still in its hand.

  Jaden turned, blade lifting. Rosh backed away immediately, already pivoting toward a corridor opposite to the one he’d come from. He didn’t even pretend he was staying to see the result.

  “This should be enough to delay you,” he said, and there was something pleased in it, like he’d found a clever trick in a book. Then he ran. His boots faded into the right-hand corridor, sprinting toward his own route and whatever finish lay ahead.

  Jaden didn’t chase. He couldn’t. Echo was already inside his space. The droid attacked without flourish. A short step, a jab, a feint, the kind of pressure that didn’t try to break you fast. It tried to make you misplace your feet. Jaden gave ground in a tight arc, keeping his shoulders square, blade snapping up to intercept.

  Echo’s strikes were precise, but basic. It didn’t predict far ahead. It didn’t rewire its approach on the fly. It still punished hesitation.

  Jaden didn’t fight pretty. He fought like someone solving a problem in real time.

  He let Echo drive him toward a pillar, then dropped low and rolled, coming up on one knee, blade already moving. He cut at the droid’s ankle joint instead of the torso. Sparks spat. Echo adjusted, shifting its weight off the compromised leg.

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  Echo pressed again. Jaden jumped, caught the edge of a low ledge, swung back into range and used the momentum to cut across the droid’s forearm. The cut was shallow, not enough to sever, but enough to expose wiring.

  The fight lasted longer than it looked like it should. Echo kept its pressure. Jaden kept refusing to panic. He breathed through his teeth, sharp inhales, controlled exhales.

  Finally after more than a dozen exchanges that forced him to give ground, he stepped in. Not a lunge. Not a leap. A simple step timed between Echo’s feint and follow-through. He drove the blade straight into the actuator housing under Echo’s chest plate. Echo froze.

  The hum wound down into silence. Its optics dimmed, gold fading to dull amber and then to nothing. Jaden yanked the saber free and ran. He didn’t look at the wreckage. He didn’t hesitate to check that Echo was really down. He bolted into the corridor Rosh had taken, breath ragged now, anger bright in the Force as he resumed the chase.

  For a moment the chamber was empty except for the droid’s cooling casing and the faint curl of smoke rising into the light.

  Toran didn’t drop in yet.

  He waited, fingers gripping the rail tight. If looks could kill, Rosh would’ve dropped dead the moment he reached for the activation control. All I could do was lay my hand on his forearm and give him a light squeeze. Toran huffed an exasperated breath, but his shoulders loosened a little.

  Meral shifted beside me. “Do we go?”

  “Not yet,” Toran said quietly.

  The Hall’s internal sensors tracked movement. Panels slid. Somewhere above, a tone sounded, distant and brief, the kind of alert that meant a runner had cleared a checkpoint. Then another. I didn’t know which belonged to which path, and I didn’t care.

  ? ? ?

  We heard footsteps again, not in the central chamber, but above and farther away, toward the exits. Two sets, separated by time. One heavier and more frantic, one more measured but still fast. They were both running now, pushing for the finish, and the Hall’s systems responded by tightening a few late obstacles, sliding a wall here, extending a beam there.

  Rosh had wanted delay. He’d gotten it. He’d also forced Jaden into a fight and turned the last section into a sprint. Toran’s fingers tightened on the rail again… waiting, counting the chimes. Another tone sounded. Another checkpoint cleared. The Hall’s hum shifted as it began resetting behind them.

  Only then did Toran drop in.

  His boots struck stone hard. It wasn’t anger. It was shock, like someone hearing a piece of their work crack. I followed, and Meral with me, our steps lighter. The central chamber felt emptier without the noise of a fight. Echo lay in pieces, more broken than disabled. Jaden had gone through it with the decisiveness of someone who didn’t want it following him.

  Toran knelt beside the wreckage immediately. His hands moved fast, gathering, assessing. He lifted a forearm casing, turned it, stared at the exposed wiring like it had betrayed him.

  “That’s…” he started.

  He stopped. Swallowed.

  Then, quietly, “That’s thorough.”

  He didn’t sound impressed. He sounded bruised.

  I crouched and picked up a fractured sensor array, setting it carefully on the repulsor sled Toran had hidden behind a column. The casing was warm under my fingers. The warmth was already fading, bleeding into the stone. Meral collected smaller parts without speaking. Her expression was flat, but her eyes were sharp, tracking Toran’s hands, tracking the kind of damage that couldn’t be repaired by simply swapping components.

  Above and beyond the chamber, Kyle’s voice cut through the corridors. It was annoyed. Disappointed. Controlled. Not loud enough to be theatrical, but sharp enough that the tone carried through stone. Rosh answered once, louder, defensive.

  I couldn’t make out the words. The walls swallowed most of them. I didn’t try to chase them. The meaning was already in the sound. Toran didn’t look up. He kept sorting parts with a care that felt almost personal.

  We loaded Echo onto a sled parked in the same compartment. The repulsor field hummed as the weight settled. Toran adjusted the balance twice, hands not quite steady.

  “I can fix this,” he said.

  It wasn’t a question and it wasn’t a promise. It was a statement of fact he needed to believe.

  “I know,” I said.

  He nodded once, grateful for the lack of argument.

  ? ? ?

  We pushed the sled out of the central chamber and up the service corridor Toran had built for exactly this kind of thing. The Hall’s air changed as we climbed, cooler near the deeper stone, warmer as we approached the entrance. The jungle smell returned in thin threads: wet leaves, earth, something faintly sweet from flowers that never looked like they should survive in this heat.

  Near the exit, Kyle stood with his arms crossed, shoulders loose, expression unreadable. Rosh was in front of him. Flushed. Breathing hard. Jaw set like he was preparing to fight the air.

  Jaden was not there. He’d finished and gone. Or he was somewhere out of sight, catching his breath in silence. Either way, he wasn’t standing in front of Kyle. Kyle’s gaze flicked to the repulsor sled, to Echo’s broken casing, to Toran’s hands on the handle. Then he looked back at Rosh.

  “Go,” he said.

  Rosh hesitated, eyes darting toward the Hall behind us, then to Toran, then away. For a second it looked like he might say something. He didn’t. He turned sharply and walked off, boots biting into the path like he wanted the jungle to move out of his way. Kyle waited until Rosh was out of earshot. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

  The sentence came flat, almost bored, which made it worse. “You don’t leave someone with a live opponent.”

  I think that was the most disappointed I’ve ever seen him — even Toran’s craziest stunts haven’t darkened Kyle’s eyes like this one selfish act. He didn’t say Rosh’s name. He didn’t have to. The words hung there anyway, meant for anyone who thought cleverness was the same as skill.

  Then he shifted his attention to Toran.

  “Your droid held together longer than it had any right to,” he said.

  Toran’s mouth tightened. “It wasn’t meant to be used like that.”

  Kyle made a short sound that might have been a laugh if he were a different person. “Nothing ever is.”

  He looked at me and Meral in turn. His eyes lingered on Echo’s broken optics, then on Toran’s clenched fingers.

  “We’ll talk later,” Kyle said, and I couldn’t tell whether he meant about Echo, about Rosh, or both.

  He stepped aside and let us pass.

  We pushed the sled back toward Toran’s workshop, the jungle path uneven beneath our feet. The Temple loomed ahead through the trees, stone pillars dark with moisture. The Praxeum sounds filtered through again: training shouts, laughter, the dull thud of practice sabers meeting.

  ? ? ?

  Inside Toran’s workshop, the air was cooler and smelled faintly of metal and oil. Tools hung where they always did. Half-finished projects sat on benches, orderly chaos. Toran guided the sled to the central table and locked the repulsor field down.

  For a moment he just stood there, hands on the edge of the table, staring at the broken pieces as if he could will them back into their proper shape.

  Meral set a handful of smaller components in a neat line.

  “You want them sorted by function or by damage?”

  Toran blinked, as if he’d forgotten we were there.

  “Function,” he said. “Always function.”

  He started moving then, the way he always did when he didn’t know what to feel. He took Echo apart further, stripping casing panels, checking servos, testing connections. His hands regained steadiness with every familiar motion. I watched without interfering. Toran didn’t need help with repairs. He needed space to decide what the break meant, and he would do that on his own time. Meral leaned against a cabinet, arms folded, gaze on Toran’s hands. Her presence was quiet. Not supportive in a sentimental way. Just there.

  A few minutes later, Luke’s presence touched the edge of the workshop doorway before his footsteps did. He stepped in, expression neutral, but his eyes went straight to the table.

  “Toran,” Luke said.

  Toran didn’t look up. “I’m busy.”

  Luke accepted that without offense. “I know.”

  Kam Solusar stood behind Luke, arms folded, face unreadable. He had the stillness of someone who’d once been forced to obey a voice in his head and learned the hard way to never waste stillness when it was offered.

  Luke’s gaze moved to me and Meral. “Could you give us a moment?”

  It wasn’t a command. It also wasn’t optional.

  Meral pushed off the cabinet immediately, already moving toward the door. I followed, pausing only long enough to set a salvaged optic lens on the table within Toran’s reach.

  Toran didn’t thank me. He didn’t need to.

  Outside, the corridor air felt warmer. The Temple’s stone held heat differently than the workshop. Meral walked a few paces, then stopped near a window slit that looked out toward the jungle. We didn’t talk. Not because we were brooding, but because there was nothing to say that would improve what was happening behind that door.

  The voices inside were too low to make out. Luke’s tone rose once, not in anger, but in emphasis. Toran’s voice replied, clipped and fast. Kam spoke briefly, his voice deeper, slower.

  I didn’t try to listen. It wasn’t my conversation. A trainee ran past the corridor mouth, laughter trailing behind them. The sound didn’t reach the workshop.

  The Temple knew how to swallow noise when it wanted to.

  ? ? ?

  After a while, the door opened. Toran came out first.

  He wore a grin that looked like him again. It didn’t quite reach his eyes though. Just like something he put on to stop the world from asking questions. Luke followed, expression composed. Kam stepped out last, gaze briefly meeting mine, then shifting away.

  “Toran,” Luke said, and there was a quiet firmness in it. “You’re sure?”

  Toran’s grin tightened. “If I’m wrong, I’ll be wrong somewhere productive.”

  Luke nodded once. “All right.”

  Toran looked at me then, and at Meral. “Don’t give me that look.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Meral replied.

  “You were thinking it,” Toran said, and his grin flashed wider, more genuine for a second, like he’d found a joke that actually landed. He turned and walked away before the moment could settle.

  ? ? ?

  The rest of the day went on. Training resumed. Meals were eaten. New students got lost in corridors and pretended they hadn’t. Jaden and Rosh didn’t cross my path again. I heard their names once in the dining hall, whispered by a pair of younger trainees with the kind of excitement that always followed new arrivals. I didn’t join in.

  By evening, Echo was still spread across Toran’s table, half disassembled, parts tagged with small notes. Toran hadn’t touched it again after the meeting. He’d been elsewhere, moving with purpose and secrecy that was almost playful. He’d disappeared into storage rooms. He’d spoken to one of the mechanics. He’d come back smelling faintly of engine grease.

  When I saw him late, near the Temple steps, he was carrying a small case and pretending it wasn’t heavy.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  He paused as if considering whether to answer honestly.

  Then he smiled. “Wetyin’s Colony.”

  Meral’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”

  Toran shrugged, too casual. “Because I can.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Meral said.

  “It’s the only one you’re getting,” Toran replied.

  He looked at me like he expected a lecture. I didn’t give him one.

  “Be careful,” I said.

  He blinked, then nodded once, as if surprised by the simplicity. “Yeah. I will.”

  He started down the path toward the garage, and then turned back just enough to add, “And don’t touch my droid.”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  Meral snorted. “I wasn’t planning to.”

  Toran pointed at her anyway, like she’d been the main suspect. “Especially you.”

  He walked off, the case bumping lightly against his leg. His presence in the Force was steady and intent, the kind of focus he usually saved for building.

  “This is either going to be a glorious invention or a world-ending disaster,” Meral said with a huff.

  “Statistically, Toran lives where those two meet.” Serrin quipped from a hiding spot neither of us noticed. He was getting good.

  “Yeah. And Luke knows he can’t stop it, only steer it where it causes the least damage.” I added as I watched Toran pull a battered landspeeder to the workshop.

  ? ? ?

  The next morning he left before the heat fully settled into the stone.

  I was on the Temple terrace when I heard the speeder start, the engine note rising through the jungle. Meral stood beside me, hands clasped behind her back, expression unreadable. We watched the landspeeder slip between trees and vanish down the path toward the clearing, then lift and angle away, heading toward open sky.

  Whatever Luke had told him remained between them. I didn’t ask what Toran had decided to build or fix or prove. I only knew that the Praxeum felt different after the Training Hall incident, and different again with Toran leaving.

  Different, not broken. Changing.