By the time the shuttle settled back onto Yavin IV, the sun was high and the air had thickened into the kind of warm humidity the jungle wore like a second skin. The ramp hissed as it lowered, and heat rolled in like a tide, carrying the scent of wet leaves and the faint musk of blooming vines.

  I stepped out with my satchel held close. The crystal’s quiet pulse matched the beat of my footsteps as I crossed the landing pad and made my way toward the workshop corridors at the side of the Great Temple. The halls were cooler inside, the stones releasing the night’s stored chill in slow breaths. I expected chatter, footsteps, clatter — something. But this early in the day most of the Praxeum was either in training blocks or out on tasks.

  Good. Forging wasn’t something I wanted an audience for.

  Kirana Ti met me halfway down the hall, arms crossed, expression unreadable in that way she had mastered. She studied me for a long moment before nodding once.

  “You found it,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Any trouble?”

  “No.”

  But that wasn’t quite true. My trial hadn’t been trouble, but it hadn’t been simple either. The cavern’s questions still lived somewhere near my ribs, quiet now, but present.

  Kirana gestured down the hall. “Come.”

  We passed two more branching corridors before she stopped at the threshold of the forging chamber. It was shaped like a half-circle, with a central workstation and an array of tools arranged in perfect, almost ceremonial precision. The air felt warmer here. Not uncomfortably so, just… expectant.

  Kirana stood at the doorway, arms folded. “I’ll oversee, but I won’t intervene unless you ask. This is your path.”

  I nodded.

  She stepped aside, and I crossed the threshold.

  The room welcomed me with a hush that felt almost reverent. The training saber I’d used for months lay disassembled on a side table, pieces arranged neatly in the order I’d left them before Kessel pulled me away. I set my satchel down and removed the crystal, placing it gently on the soft cloth pad in the center of the workbench. Its blue-white glow brightened faintly—as if recognizing the space. I took a slow breath.

  And began.

  ? ? ?

  First came the disassembly: taking apart the training saber completely, stripping it down to its core components. Wire by wire, plate by plate. The motions were familiar, practiced, soothing in their precision. My Father would have approved of the clean angles and methodical patience, though he would have insisted on more efficient tool placement. I didn’t think about him directly while I worked, but something of his presence threaded through my hands all the same. Accuracy. Order. Focus.

  But my Mother was there too, with her calm, her gentle way of shaping intention into meaning. Her voice, which could turn even a scientific concept into a lullaby when she wanted. Both sides of me lived in this work, whether I admitted it or not.

  Once the old parts were stripped down, I began assembling the new ones: fresh plates, a stabilized focusing lens, a modern emitter, and small internal adjustments Luke had taught us specifically for first sabers — solutions learned from the Praxeum’s earliest mishaps.

  The room’s temperature rose slightly as I worked. My breath stayed even. The hum of the crystal sat at the edge of my awareness, patient but present.

  I reached the midpoint of the process, the part where the crystal had to align with the frame. The part that required not skill, but resonance. I placed my hands on either side of the workbench and closed my eyes. The crystal’s hum answered instantly. Soft, steady, familiar. I steadied my breath. Inhaled. Exhaled. Matched the rhythm. The air seemed to thicken, as though the walls leaned closer to listen.

  And then—

  Warmth brushed the edges of my awareness.

  ? ? ?

  Meral.

  The darkness behind my eyelids softened into amber.

  Neither light nor an image. A temperature of thought. Humid earth. Warm stone.

  Breath echoing through tight spaces made of layered sediment and carved passageways.

  The bass-deep hum of the underground, shaping every step into a quiet drumbeat. It was that kind of warmth the Force carried to me, dense and grounding. I felt Meral’s presence brushing along the edges of my conscience, not pushing, not pulling — almost embarrassed to be there at all, like she hadn’t meant to bump into my awareness but couldn’t quite hide the emotional glow surrounding her.

  Her anxiety wasn’t sharp like Toran’s moment of doubt. It was quiet. Coiled. A fear of getting it wrong, of not living up to something she hadn’t named aloud. The cave around her —wherever she was— held its own breath. The impression of it seeped into me: stone that remembered hands shaping it long ago, soft chanting vibrating through walls, torches casting shifting patterns that echoed warmth more than light.

  Ryloth.

  I didn’t see it. But I felt its rhythm.

  Deeper in the resonance, something trembled. Not danger. Something internal.

  Her heart. Carrying the weight of a thousand little worries she never voiced.

  I felt her reach out. Not in a physical way, but in the way someone reaches for balance in the dark. An instructor —the impression of Tionne’s calm, patient presence— flickered softly on the periphery. A warm steadying note. Meral exhaled in the echo. A slow breath. A centering breath.

  And my own chest mirrored it without meaning to. The resonance softened. Warmth deepened. The hum around my crystal shifted into a stable, low, glowing tone. Meral’s courage wasn’t loud or dramatic. It was quiet. Internal. Precise. Like something delicate being set into place with steady hands.

  The amber impression lingered for a few heartbeats longer, holding me in that underground calm, and then it loosened.

  ? ? ?

  I opened my eyes.

  The forging chamber looked unchanged.

  My hands still rested on the table.

  The crystal glowed steadily before me.

  But Meral’s warmth stayed in my chest, like a candle carried cupped in both hands. I inhaled once more.

  Then continued the forging.

  ? ? ?

  The components of my saber lay arranged in a careful ring, metal gleaming under the soft forge-lights. The crystal rested at the center like a quiet pupil in an eye of tools and half-assembled plates. My hands moved without needing to think, adjusting the emitter bracket, aligning the focusing chamber, threading two delicate wires through the inner frame.

  But beneath the mechanical rhythm, the resonance kept pulling gently at my awareness. Not like Toran’s, a sharp tug, abrupt and electric. Meral’s was more like a tide. Steady. Warm. Insistent only in the way water insists. Quietly but inevitably shaping the stone it touches.

  When I reached the part of the build that required aligning the focusing lattice, her presence pressed a little closer. Not forcefully. Almost apologetically.

  I set my tools down and let my palms rest on the frame, fingers lightly touching the metal that would soon become part of something alive.

  I inhaled.

  ? ? ?

  The chamber around me blurred again, softening at the edges. The hum inside the crystal dipped low, like it was bracing for a deeper echo. And then the stone-warm impression of Ryloth returned, but this time there was movement in it. Uneasy movement.

  The underground space around Meral felt tighter now: narrower passages, sharper angles hidden beneath shadows cast by torchlight. The air carried more weight, as if layered with too many stories pressed into too little space. And full of noise. Psychometric noise. Too quiet to be a sound, too vague to be a memory. Something between emotion and information, a faint ripple of what an object or place remembered — not in words, but impressions.

  Meral walked deeper into it, and the resonance around her trembled with how overwhelming it felt.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Anxiety prickled along the echo. A thin, taut thread, vibrating with every step she took. She felt the walls around her — not physically. She felt their history, like a hundred whispered thoughts brushing against her mind at once.

  Voices that weren’t voices. Breaths that weren’t hers. Echoes of hands that had shaped the tunnels, carved symbols, wept in fear, whispered vows, or clung to the warmth of hope as the darkness pressed close. Meral’s gift, her psychometry, didn’t engulf her and overwhelm her like before, but it was still there. A faint instinctual ability she’d just recently learned to control, flaring stronger under the pressure of a place with so many layered memories.

  Her breath faltered. Not a panic breath. Just a startled one. I felt the echo of her hesitation so cleanly that my own shoulders tightened. The walls pressed closer. The chanting deepened. The torchlight flickered. And through it all, that low hum, the same one that guided me here on Dantooine, wove through her path as if to say: Follow. Keep going.

  But the noise grew louder. Not sound, pressure. The weight of too many impressions trying to enter at once. Her pulse quickened. The warmth around her dimmed. She almost turned back.

  Almost.

  And then—

  A hand on her shoulder.

  Tionne’s presence carried through Meral’s emotion. More of an emotion, a calming influence that spread through the echo like cool water poured over overheated metal. Gentle. Steady. Enough.

  Meral’s breath deepened. Her pulse steadied. The psychometric noise settled into the background again, still present but no longer scraping at her nerves. She inhaled once. Twice. Then stepped forward.

  Through the echo, her thought brushed faintly against mine; not as a message, not even a full thought. Just the emotional shape of it: I can do this.

  But softer than Toran’s version. More fragile. More intentional.

  I felt the shift in her. Courage that wasn’t loud. Courage that didn’t shove fear aside, but walked with it anyway. The underground warmth returned, pulsing slowly, like a heartbeat syncing back into a calmer rhythm. The resonance eased. The echo softened. The cavern around her widened again.

  And the tone beneath everything —the Force guiding her— brightened.

  ? ? ?

  I opened my eyes.

  The saber frame in front of me came back into focus.

  The forging chamber breathed quietly around me.

  But Meral’s courage lingered at the edges of my awareness, a steady thread that warmed my chest.

  I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  “You’re okay,” I whispered. Not just to myself.

  And the hum of the crystal answered with the faintest pulse, as though acknowledging that Meral had stepped through something important. I picked up my tools and moved to the next stage.

  The forging had its own rhythm now. My hands working, the crystal glowing softly, and a quiet warmth in the air that didn’t belong entirely to me.

  ? ? ?

  The emitter assembly clicked into place with a satisfying snap, the kind that resonated through my fingertips and up my forearms. I paused, letting the vibration settle, then reached for the final internal thread — thin enough to look breakable, but forged to withstand far more heat and stress than its delicate form implied.

  I eased it into position. The crystal on the cloth beside my hands glowed faintly, its inner light softening from pale blue-white to a gentler radiance, like a candle being shielded from wind.

  Something in the air shifted. My breath slowed. The crystal’s hum stretched outward, threading through the space around me, brushing lightly over the metal plates, the tools, the walls, and —finally— my own pulse. It asked nothing. It demanded nothing. It simply aligned. And with that alignment came the next echo.

  It rose like a ripple across the surface of still water, gentle, warm, steady, and carried me with it.

  ? ? ?

  Ryloth’s underground warmth returned—but not the anxious, pressing warmth of tight passages or the weight of too many impressions. This was the warmth of a sheltered chamber. A space carved intentionally, shaped by careful hands, smoothed by generations of footsteps and low, steady chanting.

  Torchlight flickered against soft stone. Not harsh like a flame. Gentle, like a firelight, casting elongated shadows that swayed like slow-moving dancers across the walls.

  Meral’s presence pulsed at the center of it. Her heartbeat felt slower now, steadier, guided by the anchor she’d found earlier. The psychometric noise around her dimmed, receding into the cavern’s cracks and crevices like a tide pulling back from shore.

  In the echo, I felt her exhale. A real one. Relieved. Centered.

  She stepped forward. I didn’t see her feet. I didn’t see the chamber. But the impressions unfolded around me:

  A soft green glow blooming in the hollow of a stone cradle.

  A sound—not audible, but felt—like a soft chord being plucked by gentle fingers.

  A pulse of warmth, blooming outward, not hot but alive.

  Meral’s emotions brushed against my awareness, tentative at first, then swelling into something brighter, something softer, something that felt like a knot loosening in the center of her chest. Recognition.

  The crystal had chosen her. Not because she was fearless or flawless, or loud, or powerful. It chose her because she reached for it with honesty. With quiet determination. With the kind of steadiness that only comes from facing a fear and stepping through it anyway. Her relief carried through the resonance in a low wave that warmed my sternum.

  And then, another flicker.

  A pale-yellow spark.

  Smaller, quicker.

  A second crystal.

  The impression was faint, almost shy, like a little light blinking from within a shadowed corner.

  Meral reached toward it. The echo of her hand —not the physical hand, but her intention— extended carefully, reverently. And the crystal brightened in answer, its glow dancing lightly between green and gold.

  She had found both. Two lights waiting for her. Two notes humming softly with her own. The emotional chord blossomed, not loud but complete.

  ? ? ?

  When the resonance released me, it did so gently, like being set down from a warm embrace onto solid ground. My eyes opened slowly.

  The forging chamber came back into focus. The tools, the plates, the hum of the environment stabilizers. But the warmth remained. Meral had succeeded. In her own way; not by force or bravado but through insight. Quiet insight. The kind that glows in the dark and waits patiently for someone to notice. I pressed a hand lightly over my chest.

  “Good,” I murmured. “You did it.”

  The crystal on my workbench pulsed once, as if agreeing.

  I reached for the final components of my own saber. The crown, the part where the crystal must be seated, aligned, embraced by the frame. The forging was nearing completion. And through its harmonics, I could feel the beginning of something new forming, waiting.

  ? ? ?

  The glow of Meral’s acceptance lingered like a warm ember at the base of my sternum. A steady, comforting presence—not intrusive, not pulling attention away from my work, just… there. Quiet but unmistakable. It felt right. Not just because she had succeeded, but because she had done so in a way that was entirely hers.

  I reached forward and lifted my own crystal between my fingertips. Its blue-white radiance flared faintly in response to the movement gentle, accepting, acknowledging. The hum beneath my skin shifted again, subtly changing from the soft echo of Meral’s warmth into something more internal. A returning-to-self, but not in isolation.

  The resonance had woven itself into a triangle now:

  My crystal.

  Toran’s harmonic echoes.

  Meral’s quiet warmth.

  Three notes. But here, in the forging chamber, only one mattered. Mine.

  I brought the crystal toward the focusing lattice nestled in the core of the saber frame. My hands steadied, forearms loosening into a practiced rhythm I didn’t have to think about.

  The moment the crystal neared its chamber, the air around my fingertips tingled — that fine static-charge sensation unique to kyber. The crystal didn’t resist. It aligned itself. A soft click sounded as its irregular facets settled into the lattice. Not mechanical. Natural. The sound vibrated through the chamber like a soft bell.

  I exhaled slowly. The hum inside my chest pitched upward, rising like a breath drawn through a flute. The chamber’s temperature shifted again. Imperceptible to anyone else, maybe, but clear to me. I couldn't tell if it was warmer or cooler, it just felt more aligned. More focused. Like the room itself leaned forward.

  The forging process wasn’t done — not yet. The crystal had to be harmonized with the internal components. The emitter matrix needed calibration. The energy conduit plates required alignment. But everything felt smoother now. Clearer. My hands moved with absolute certainty. Not haste, not confidence-for-show — but a kind of quiet precision that made my father’s lessons and my mother’s teachings overlap in ways I’d never expected.

  Fine-tuning.

  Adjusting the gyroscopic balance.

  Testing the feedback loop.

  Aligning the primary focusing lens.

  Each motion felt heavier with meaning than the simple mechanics implied. When the time came for the first resonance calibration, I paused.

  Kirana Ti stood silently at the threshold, arms crossed, watching with the kind of attentiveness that could feel like scrutiny from anyone else. From her, it felt like witnessing.

  “You’re doing well,” she said quietly.

  The words were simple. But coming from Kirana, who offered praise rarely and strategically, they struck like a tightening around my ribs.

  “Thank you,” I murmured.

  She nodded once, then let the silence return.

  The calibration required bringing the crystal’s harmonic frequency into alignment with the focusing matrix. It was part engineering, part intuition, part Force-awareness. The kind of task that demanded presence. I closed my eyes briefly, feeling for the crystal’s hum.

  There. A soft, layered vibration. Not perfectly smooth, with a faint spiral-shape to its resonance like something that rotated gently around its core.

  I adjusted the inner channel.

  Shifted the alignment by half a millimeter.

  Listened.

  The hum brightened.

  I made another small adjustment — a fraction of a turn on the calibration ring. The hum brightened again, rising into a clearer note. Then another adjustment, bringing the emitter’s focusing rail closer by the smallest hair-width. This time, the crystal’s hum slid cleanly into tune with the frame’s vibration.

  The two tones locked together. A harmonic click —soft, but unmistakable— echoed through the chamber. It felt like setting a bone into its proper place. Like the final brushstroke on a pattern that had been waiting for completion. Like a truth sliding into alignment with itself. I opened my eyes. The saber was not finished yet. But it had begun.

  The crystal was now part of the hilt. Not just seated in it, harmonized to it. A small, involuntary breath escaped me. Relief, excitement, stillness — all overlapping.

  Kirana Ti stepped closer, but not too close.

  “You feel it,” she said.

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “It fits.”

  “Your saber is more than a tool. More than a symbol.” Kirana’s tone softened into something faintly reverent. “It is a reflection. Of who you are. Of who you are becoming.”

  My fingers brushed the hilt. It felt warm beneath my touch, as if holding its own tiny ember inside. I swallowed.

  Through the quiet resonance of the crystal, faint after-echoes of Toran and Meral still lingered. No longer active impressions, but memories of them, like the warmth left behind after someone steps out of a room. They would forge their sabers soon. Or maybe they already were. The Force didn’t show me that. It didn’t need to. All I needed to know was that their chords had been struck. Now it was time for mine.

  I picked up the focusing lens assembly and turned it over in my hands.

  “Let’s finish this,” I said quietly.

  The crystal pulsed once — as though agreeing, a little amused, and simply listening.

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