I recorded the message three times before my voice finally stopped sounding like someone else’s. The little holocam perched on the edge of my desk blinked a soft blue—patient, judgmental, unblinking—like a tiny star.

  I cleared my throat, sat up straighter, and hit record again.

  “Dear Mother, Father…”

  I paused there, again. It didn’t feel right. It felt rehearsed — taught, drilled. That wasn’t who I was. Not anymore. I cleared my throat and mind, and looked straight into the lens.

  “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.”

  My voice came out steady this time. Calm. Almost bright. You’d never guess I’d fought howlers, climbed a hundred-meter cavern wall, or opened a holocron older than most civilizations.

  “I know it’s been a while since my last message,” I continued. “Things have been… busy. Good-busy. The kind where you’re exhausted but in a way that makes sense. The kind where you fall asleep smiling.”

  I paused, letting that be true for a moment.

  “I wanted you to know that I’m okay. Better than okay, really. I’ve made friends—good ones. Meral is still the speed-talking trouble magnet you’d adore if you met her, and Toran…” I hesitated, coughed lightly. “Toran is… Toran. Loud, irritating, Corellian, smarter than he pretends, and somehow always covered in engine grease.”

  A faint smile tugged at my mouth. The holocam didn’t care, but it still felt like something worth recording.

  “I’ve been training hard. Every morning we wake before sunrise. We run drills until our arms feel like molten lead and then run them again. Kam has this way of correcting your stance that’s somehow encouraging and humiliating at the same time. And Kyle says I ‘overthink my footwork,’ which is funny coming from a man who disassembles and reassembles his lightsaber just to make a philosophical point.”

  I brushed a strand of white hair behind my ear, suddenly aware of how much older I looked in the holocam’s viewfinder. Not physically—just in the eyes.

  “And the debates… you’d love them. Luke — Master Skywalker — hosts them in the evenings, or other instructors do when he’s away. We sit in the great hall, candles everywhere, and argue about what the Force is, what it wants or doesn’t want, or whether that question even makes sense. Sometimes I say things that surprise even me.”

  I breathed in. “Don’t worry. Nothing too weird. Just… insights. Moments. Like I’m remembering things I never learned.”

  I winced immediately. That wasn’t what a mother would want to hear. I softened my tone.

  “But it’s not scary. I promise. Just… interesting.”

  I shifted in my seat.

  “And you’ll be proud of this: I helped with a search-and-rescue. A boy from Wetyin’s Colony wandered off into the jungle—long story—but we found him. Alive. Mostly unhurt. His dog is a hero. We guided him home. I left out some details because… well. They’re just details, and we all returned back fine. Really.”

  I let the silence breathe for a beat.

  Then: “About the blue cube.”

  That part made my chest tighten.

  “I know you probably didn’t expect me to take it apart—figuratively speaking. I didn’t either. But it reacted to me, Mom. It sang.” My fingers curled unconsciously, remembering the vibration deep in the bone. “It tried talking to me for as long as I can remember. And I think I was meant to hear it.”

  I leaned closer to the holocam.

  “We brought it to Arkania a few weeks ago. To the place where… it all started. And we learned a lot. About our heritage, Mom. About the Offshoot program. Our bloodline, the Luminarae, and why it shouldn’t have ever been created to begin with. An even though you couldn’t have known, I think you and Dad were right, in a way, to always look at the thing like it was both treasure and trouble.”

  My voice softened.

  “I know you kept it from me to protect me. I didn’t understand back then, and I’m not angry. I think I do understand now, more than I’d like to. The bloodline isn’t what I thought it was. It isn’t just a mutation or a clever genetic tweak. It’s… it’s a philosophy. A belief. A way of listening to the Force that came long before us. All because of a very, very old holocron.”

  I swallowed.

  “And the person who created it? The ancient Jedi, or something like it, who made the holocron… They weren’t the beginning of it. Weren’t working alone. They had teachers. They wrote about older principles—things that feel familiar to me when they shouldn’t. Like echoes in the corners of my mind.”

  I trailed off, staring at the blinking holocam light.

  “When we opened the holocron, it—” My voice caught. I steadied it. “It showed me a memory. Not mine. But it felt… connected. Like I was seeing the world through someone who came long before me. Someone who touched the same ideas. Someone who understood the Force differently.”

  I forced myself to smile again, gently, so they wouldn’t hear the tremor.

  “I’m fine. Really. I’m just… realizing there’s more to our family than even you knew. And that’s exciting. Terrifying, yes, but exciting. It makes me feel like I was meant to come here and begin understanding.”

  I leaned back, letting my body fall into the familiar curve of the chair.

  “Anyway, I didn’t want to send you a long, dramatic message. I just wanted you to know I’m safe. I’m learning a lot. I’m helping people. I’m growing.”

  A swallow. “And I miss you both.”

  After a breath:

  “I’ll send another message soon. I promise.”

  I reached out and hit end recording.

  The holocam blinked twice, saving the message into the system. The quiet of my room closed in around me like a blanket—warm, but too heavy to ignore.

  I stared at my hands for a long moment.

  So many answers. And somehow even more questions.

  Questions that reached into times before the blood in my veins.

  Before the Luminarae.

  Before Arkania.

  Before even the Gray Holocron.

  I pressed my palms together, grounding myself the way Tionne taught me, breathing through the tightness in my ribs.

  “Deep breaths,” I whispered to no one. “One thing at a time.”

  Outside my window, Yavin’s jungle pulsed with soft, patient life.

  I wasn’t sure if it was listening.

  But I knew I was.

  ? ? ?

  The hallway outside my room felt louder than it was. Just footsteps, distant voices, the low hum of generators and jungle breath bleeding in through the stones—but after three days mostly holed up inside four walls, it all pressed in a little too bright.

  Three days of food runs, quick showers, dodging questions with half-smiles.

  Three days of pretending the Weaver’s last words hadn’t hooked into the back of my skull like barbs.

  I’d just sent the holo to my parents. I’d smiled. I’d lied. I’d told the truth, too, in carefully measured doses. And now the walls of my room suddenly felt too close, like they were leaning in to hear more secrets, so I stepped out before they could ask.

  The Praxeum’s main corridor curved ahead, open to the inner courtyard in a series of broad arches. Damp air drifted in, thick with the smell of moss, stone, and something sweet blooming just out of sight. I followed it.

  ? ? ?

  I didn’t get ten meters before I heard running.

  “Kae!”

  Meral launched herself at me like a small, fast-moving asteroid. I barely had time to brace before she slammed into me in a hug that knocked the breath out of my lungs.

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  “Stars, you’re alive,” she said into my shoulder. “You still have limbs and everything.”

  I laughed, choking a little. “It was Arkania, not a rancor pit.”

  “Cold is just a slow rancor,” she said, stepping back enough to look me over. Her amber eyes scanned my face, searching for cracks. “You look like you stopped sleeping and started thinking instead. Again.”

  “That’s just my face,” I said.

  She snorted. “Liar. Come on.”

  She hooked her arm through mine and dragged me toward the courtyard, her grip casual and absolute, like she thought if she let go I might vanish back into my room.

  The courtyard was busy in that half-organized way the Praxeum had on good days. A couple of younger students practiced levitating stones near the far wall; Streen sat cross-legged under a tree, eyes half-lidded, feeling the wind like it was telling him a joke. Kam stood near the center, supervising a group moving through slow lightsaber forms with training blades.

  Near the steps, Toran leaned against a pillar, fiddling with something metallic that probably used to be part of a perfectly functional device. His head snapped up when he saw me.

  “Well, well,” he said, pushing off the pillar. “Look who finally emerged from her cave. Did the mysterious Force ghosts grant you leave, or did you dig a tunnel out?”

  “Good morning to you too,” I said.

  He gave me a quick once-over—not lingering, not invasive, just… checking. “You look slightly less haunted. I call that progress.”

  “Wow,” I said dryly. “High praise.”

  He grinned, then glanced at Meral. “You see? I told you she’d come out eventually. You owe me three rootcakes.”

  Meral rolled her eyes. “No, you bet she’d come out yesterday. You lose on a technicality.”

  “There are no technicalities in Corellian betting,” Toran protested.

  “There are only technicalities in Corellian betting,” I said.

  Meral squeezed my arm. “Ignore him. We’re just glad you’re out here and not communing with the ceiling.”

  They didn’t say we were worried. They didn’t ask are you okay in that slow, careful way people do when they’re afraid of breaking you. They just stood there, flanking me like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  It helped more than I wanted to admit.

  ? ? ?

  Kam noticed us and waved us over with one hand, the other still correcting the stance of a younger Rodian student.

  “Good to see you up and about,” he said when we reached him. His tone was casual, but his eyes were measuring. “I was starting to think we’d have to send Streen to float you out of your room.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. It came out less defensive than I feared.

  “Good,” he said. “Because we’re short staffed, and I need someone who can count to four without getting creative.”

  “Wow,” Toran murmured. “That’s almost affectionate.”

  Kam’s mouth twitched. “We’re just finishing warm-ups. If you want to join in, stretch first. I don’t want to explain to Master Skywalker that one of my students folded herself in half trying to impress her friends.”

  “I don’t try to impress them,” I said automatically.

  Meral and Toran both made the same disbelieving noise at the same time.

  Kam raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

  I took a breath. The notion of diving into saber forms and sweat and exertion sounded good—simple. Clean. But before I could decide, someone else called my name.

  “Kae’rin!”

  The voice was deeper, slightly rough around the edges, like it had been used for shouting and arguing more than singing.

  I turned.

  Dorsk 81 strode toward us from the temple steps—broad-shouldered, tall, his lanky Khommite frame wrapped in a dark training tunic that somehow made him look even taller. His face lit up when he saw me; it always did, like someone had switched on an internal lamp.

  “Hey,” I said, smiling despite myself. “They roped you into helping out already?”

  He nodded. “Kam had me running the younger ones through remote drills this morning. They’re getting better at not zapping themselves.”

  “Always a plus,” Toran said.

  Behind Dorsk 81, another figure followed at a slower pace.

  I’d seen him before, of course. In still holos, grainy images from the distance that weren’t very accurate, and in gossip that very much was.

  Dark hair, longer than most of the students wore it, shadows under his eyes like he hadn’t slept properly in months. There was a quiet intensity in the way he walked, like every motion had been thought about and weighed before it happened. When his gaze lifted, I felt the weight of it even without the Force.

  Kyp Durron.

  ? ? ?

  “Oh,” I said before my brain could catch up with my mouth. “Hi.”

  Brilliant. Master of eloquence.

  Dorsk 81 grinned. “Kae’rin, this is Kyp. Kyp, Kae’rin. She’s the one I told you about—the one who hears things in the Force the rest of us only get half of. And this is Meral, who talks faster than blasterfire, and Toran, who… does things to engines.”

  “Hey,” Toran protested. “I fix engines.”

  “Sometimes,” Meral muttered.

  Kyp’s mouth twisted in the faintest suggestion of a smile. “Good to meet you,” he said. His voice was softer than I expected. Less dramatic than the stories.

  Up close, the weariness on him was more obvious. Not just physical exhaustion. Something deeper, settled behind the eyes. Guilt, carved in fine lines.

  “Dorsk’s talked about you,” he added.

  “Only good things, I hope,” I said.

  Dorsk 81 coughed. “I may have mentioned your little… ghost dance in the training yard.”

  Kyp’s eyes flicked to my hands, to the training saber at my side, to my face again. Evaluating. Not unkind, but cautious.

  “He also mentioned you went off-world recently,” Kyp said. “Arkania.”

  “Word travels fast,” I said.

  “Not really,” he replied. “Dorsk travels fast. His mouth, especially.”

  Dorsk 81 made a wounded noise. Meral snickered. Toran looked personally offended that anyone else was stealing his bit.

  I studied Kyp for a moment. The one time I’d seen him, he’d been a storm passing through the Praxeum—anger and brilliance and guilt all braided together. Then he’d left, sent on some mission by Luke that no one wanted to talk about much.

  “You’ve been gone too,” I said carefully. “Off on… business.”

  His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Something like that.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” I added quickly. “I’m just… glad you’re back in one piece.”

  He let out a small breath, some of the tension easing. “So am I.”

  Dorsk 81 clapped a hand on Kyp’s shoulder, easy and familiar. “Luke sent him out there to… I don’t know. Make peace with himself. Or at least stop trying to carry an entire star’s worth of guilt alone.”

  Kyp shot him a look. “Dorsk.”

  Dorsk 81 held up both hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. No details. Just… he’s back. That’s all.”

  Kyp rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There was a smuggler. And a con artist. And some very stupid choices. A few of them mine. A few not. I’ll tell Luke more when he’s here.”

  He glanced at the empty dais where Luke usually meditated before training. “It’s… actually nice that he’s not, for once. Gives me time to breathe before I have to explain.”

  I nodded. “I know the feeling.”

  His gaze sharpened. “Yeah. I heard about the holocron.”

  Of course he had. Tionne wasn’t exactly quiet when she was excited, and the Praxeum had its own way of spreading news. Not maliciously. Just… through shared curiosity.

  “I didn’t do much,” I said. “It just… recognized something. That’s all.”

  Kyp’s eyes lingered on mine a second longer. He didn’t push. Just said, “Sometimes that’s the most dangerous part,” and let it sit there.

  Kam called from the center of the yard. “All right, enough loitering. If you’re standing, you’re stretching. If you’re stretching, you’re training.”

  Students started drifting toward him.

  “I’ll catch up,” I told Meral.

  She squeezed my arm again in silent understanding, then trotted off with Dorsk and Kyp, Toran jogging at her side, complaining loudly about cold muscles and ungrateful instructors.

  ? ? ?

  I watched them go, feeling something loosen more. Like a knot I hadn’t realized I’d tied around myself.

  A familiar presence approached behind me.

  “Kae’rin,” Tionne said.

  I turned. She stood at the edge of the archway, wrapped in light fabric despite the humidity, her silver hair braided back. She held a datapad and that distant look she got when her mind was halfway across the galaxy in some archive.

  “How’s the holocron?” I asked.

  “Stubborn,” she said, with a little laugh. “It responds to you, flickers a bit for me, and sulks for everyone else. I’ve managed to coax a few more fragments of its indexing structure, but nothing substantial since Arkania.”

  “Sorry,” I said reflexively.

  She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. Some records were never meant to be easy.”

  She stepped closer, her voice lowering. “I wanted to let you know—I’ve sent a formal request to the Office of the Chief of State. To Leia.”

  I blinked. “For… what?”

  “Access to the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant,” Tionne said. “Or what’s left of it. The main library was damaged when the Empire took over, and what remained was… altered.” Her mouth curved in a small, unhappy line. “But some documents survived. Some were moved. Some are still sealed under Republic and Temple security protocols.”

  “And you think they might have something on the Gray Jedi?” I asked. “On the holocron’s creator?”

  “It’s a possibility,” she said. “The Temple kept strange things. Dangerous things. Beautiful things. If any second-hand reference to that Gray philosophy exists, it could be there. Names. Fragments. Even marginal notes in old codices.”

  “Will Leia say yes?” I asked.

  Tionne smiled faintly. “If anyone understands the value of the past, it’s her. But even if she agrees, it will take time. Approvals. Clearances. Someone will have to escort us. The Temple hasn’t been fully restored, and the New Republic is still busy trying to hold itself together.”

  A breeze moved through the courtyard, stirring the vines on the stone. In the distance, I heard Kam’s voice calling out corrections, the snap-hiss of practice blades igniting.

  “So we wait,” I said.

  “For a little while,” she agreed. “We have enough to study here in the meantime. The holocron. Your family archive. Your… resonance.”

  Her eyes softened on that last word.

  I looked out across the courtyard, watching Meral laugh at something Toran said, seeing Dorsk and Kyp fall into a familiar sparring rhythm as they took their stances. Ordinary and extraordinary, all at once.

  “I thought going to Arkania would give me answers,” I said quietly. “And it did. Sort of. But now it feels like we just opened a door into a hallway full of other doors. And every one of them looks older than the last.”

  Tionne’s smile held both sympathy and excitement. “That’s what real history feels like,” she said. “And real destiny, too, I think. You learn one true thing, and it reveals the shape of ten more questions.”

  “That sounds exhausting,” I muttered.

  “It is,” she said warmly. “And wonderful. You don’t have to rush through those doors, Kae’rin. They’re not going anywhere.”

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

  “Okay,” I said. “One door at a time.”

  “Exactly,” she replied. “For now, your door is there.”

  She nodded toward Kam’s group, where Meral was waving both arms at me like a semaphore flag, and Toran was very obviously trying to look like he wasn’t staring in my direction to see if I’d join them.

  I huffed a small laugh. “Subtle.”

  “Not even a little,” Tionne said, amused.

  “You’ll tell me if Leia answers?” I asked.

  “I will,” she promised. “And if she says yes… we’ll walk into the Temple together. With open eyes.”

  The idea sent a tiny shiver through me—fear and anticipation knotted together. Another door. Another echo. Another path I apparently had walked before, and would walk again. But not today.

  Today there was just the training yard, the familiar weight of my saber, the sweat and ache of movement. Friends who didn’t know all of it and didn’t need to—not yet. Teachers who watched without prying. A jungle that hummed in the background like a patient drum.

  I drew in a deep breath of warm, green air.

  “Okay,” I said again, more firmly this time.

  I stepped down into the courtyard, toward Meral’s waving hands and Toran’s badly concealed grin, toward Kam’s watchful gaze and the burn of practice.

  The questions would wait. At least for today, my feet felt solid on the stones.