The temple’s outer gardens were not gardens in the way we used the word on Yavin — with soil under fingernails and the smell of damp green things you had to keep alive or feel guilty about later.

  Kiffu didn’t do soft. It didn’t even pretend.

  The Echo Garden was carved into the canyon wall, a long terrace of tiered stone courtyards filled with plants that survived by being stubborn rather than beautiful. Tough-leaved shrubs with silvered edges. Spindly trees with bark like braided cords of charcoal. Low mats of thorny vines that curled tightly against the ground as if daring predators to try something.

  But there was life in it. Life that shook off storms and kept going.

  Meral walked between Toran and me, shoulders still tense but breathing more even, color slowly returning to her face. Every so often she touched the edge of a leaf or the trunk of a tree, lightly, the way someone tests a tooth that used to hurt to see if it still does. Tionne followed a little behind us, hands folded, posture relaxed in that deceptive way she had—like she could pick up the whole planet and set it down again if she had to, but would rather let it be.

  Talon kept near the railing overlooking the canyon floor. His hands drummed absently on the stone, a restless rhythm that sounded like Ranger nerves running low on sleep.

  The sky above us was clearing, slow streaks of blue reasserting themselves between storm-battered clouds. The air smelled faintly metallic still, but the ozone bite had eased.

  “I can’t believe that worked,” Meral said suddenly.

  “What worked?” Toran asked, kicking a pebble into the shrubs.

  “The focus thing. Following one echo. I thought—” She hesitated. “I thought maybe I was too far gone.”

  Toran bumped her shoulder with his. “If you were too far gone we’d have to put you in a box and label it ‘haunted.’”

  Meral huffed, then shot him a sideways glare. “You’d keep me in a box?”

  “A nice box,” he said. “Decorated. Maybe with a ribbon.”

  I snorted. “That’s not helping.”

  “It’s helping me,” Toran said cheerfully.

  Meral surprised me by laughing. Not loudly. But enough that her chest lightened.

  “I can still feel the stone,” she admitted after a moment. “Not like before. Not stabbing. More like… the memories are curious. Like they’re watching to see if I can hear them properly.”

  Tionne stepped closer. “That is how it begins,” she said softly. “The echoes learn to trust you as you learn to trust them.”

  “That sounds backwards,” Meral said.

  “It is the only way psychometry works,” Tionne replied. “It is not a power you force. It is a dialogue. And you had been hearing only the shouting, not the speaking.”

  Meral nodded, letting that sink in.

  Talon turned from the railing. “Shouting’s usually from people who want attention,” he said. “Old memories are the same. The calmer ones wait for you to slow down.”

  “You sound like you live here,” Toran said.

  Talon shrugged. “I’ve run patrols near the Darrun canyon before. Never went inside. But Rangers hear enough stories.”

  “And the stories say… what?” Meral asked.

  “That this place teaches you what you’re scared to admit you already know,” he said.

  She stared at him for a long second—like she was seeing something new in him she hadn’t noticed before.

  Her voice softened. “Is that what it feels like to you?”

  Talon’s mouth twitched. “Maybe.”

  He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.

  We found a shaded alcove where the stone overhang protected the walkway from the sun. Toran collapsed dramatically onto a bench carved into the wall.

  “My feet hurt,” he announced.

  “You’ve been sitting for half an hour,” I said.

  “They still hurt.”

  “You need sturdier boots,” Talon said.

  “You need manners,” Toran said.

  Talon smirked. “Don’t have those either.”

  Meral sat beside me, shoulders relaxing by degrees. Something about the quiet of the temple—structured quiet, shaped quiet—was helping her find her center again. Not balance. Not yet. But a surface to stand on.

  I nudged her gently. “How’s the noise now?”

  She closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth.

  “…like the world lowered its volume,” she whispered. “Like someone finally remembered to shut a window.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  She nodded. “But it’s not gone. Just not demanding. More like… waiting.”

  “For what?” Toran asked.

  “For me,” she said simply.

  There was something in that answer—both terrified and certain—that made the back of my throat go warm.

  We spent another few minutes in the alcove before Tionne stretched her arms and said, “We should explore the outer trail. The keepers told me the far terrace should be safe to walk before sunset.”

  “Safe how?” Toran asked suspiciously.

  Tionne gave him a sideways smile. “Stable ground, no sheer drops, and only minimal chance of lightning pockets.”

  “Minimal chance,” Toran repeated. “Notice how she slips that in casually.”

  Tionne raised an eyebrow. “Would you prefer I not tell you?”

  He made a face. “No… but also yes.”

  Talon laughed under his breath.

  We took the path that curved along the canyon wall.

  The trail wound upward for a while, hugging the cliff in a way that made my stomach tighten if I looked down too often—but Talon led with careful steps, and I trusted his read of the terrain. The plants thinned higher up. Sand collected in drifts along the windward side. The stone here had been carved smooth by centuries of storms, its surface polished to something like glass in places.

  The air shimmered. Not heat. Not light. Something else.

  Meral stopped suddenly. Her hand lifted—palm hovering out toward nothing.

  “Meral?” I asked.

  “Do you hear that?” she whispered.

  We all fell silent.

  I didn’t hear anything. Just wind, stone, maybe a far-off bird.

  But she stepped forward—slow, careful steps—and approached a break in the canyon wall where a narrow cleft opened into a secondary ravine.

  The air here felt different. Cooler. Denser.

  “This place remembers,” Meral said. “Not the way the temple does. Not… shaped. This is older. More wild.”

  Talon frowned. “This cleft wasn’t on the map.”

  “It wasn’t on the cliff either,” Meral said. “Not until recently.”

  She meant the storm.

  Tionne approached the entrance, fingers brushing the air just shy of the stone. “It’s safe,” she said. “But I feel… something.”

  “A memory site?” Talon guessed.

  “A remnant,” Tionne said. “Perhaps.”

  Toran grinned. “Field trip.”

  I glared at him. “No.”

  “Yes,” Tionne corrected gently. “But carefully.”

  Meral turned to her. “My lesson is done for now… but if this place is connected to echoes, shouldn’t I… try?”

  Tionne’s face softened. “Not alone. But yes. If you feel called to it, we can explore.”

  Talon stepped past us into the cleft. “Stay behind me. Paths like this can collapse.”

  Meral followed him, and we moved deeper—into shadow, into cooler air, into a place that felt like it hadn’t seen sunlight in years.

  And something waited for us there.

  ? ? ?

  The cleft narrowed enough that the four of us had to walk single-file—Talon in front, then Meral, then me, then Toran bringing up the rear with the quiet determination of someone who would die before admitting he was spooked.

  The air changed as we moved. Somehow it smelled... older. Like walking into a room untouched for so long the dust has learned to settle into its own kind of peace.

  The walls of the cleft were smooth in places, jagged in others, carved by wind and water and static storms in century-long arguments. Fine cracks glowed faintly—leftover charge from last night’s storm, threading through the stone like veins.

  Meral slowed, fingers hovering near the rock without touching it.

  “It’s thick here,” she murmured.

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  “Echoes?” Tionne asked behind us.

  Meral nodded. “Not loud. Just… present.”

  “What kind?” I whispered.

  “All kinds,” she said. “Happy. Angry. Afraid. Focused. Lost. Like… layers.”

  She took one more step and inhaled sharply.

  “What?” Toran asked immediately.

  “It’s not dangerous,” she said quickly. “It’s just—there’s something ahead. Something that remembers very clearly.”

  Talon gave me a look over his shoulder—subtle but unmistakable: watch her.

  I nodded.

  The cleft widened abruptly, opening into a narrow bowl-shaped valley tucked between three sheer stone walls. Sunlight reached it only partially, slicing through in angled bars that made dust float like drifting sparks.

  But the center of the space drew every eye.

  A stone platform. Circular. Carved with concentric rings, each ring etched with symbols half-worn into obscurity.

  A memory-site.

  Old.

  Abandoned.

  Untouched long enough that sand had drifted halfway up its edges.

  “What is this?” Toran breathed.

  Talon crouched near the edge of the platform, brushing away dust. “An imprint circle,” he said. “Old Kiffar practice. Before temples like Darrun existed. Travelers and clans left memories here for future generations.”

  “So like a… communal diary?” Toran asked.

  “More like a map of who you were and what you wanted remembered,” Tionne said. “But this one is very old.”

  Meral stepped onto the platform before any of us could stop her.

  “Meral—” I said, reaching out.

  She didn’t touch anything.

  She just stood there, breathing.

  Then her eyes softened in that way they did when she heard echoes—not the harsh, overwhelming kind, but the gentler ones, the quieter ones.

  “They left stories,” she whispered. “So many. Families passing by. Rangers reporting safe paths. Artists carving poems no one remembers anymore.”

  She turned slowly, gaze sweeping the rings carved into the stone.

  “…and something deeper.”

  Talon straightened. “Deeper how?”

  “There’s a second memory layer under this,” she said. “Hidden. Compacted. Like something older was buried and overwritten.”

  “Storm did that?” Toran asked.

  “No,” she said quietly. “Time did.”

  The wind shifted, sweeping dust across the platform.

  Meral walked to the far edge… where the ground sank into a fractured slope leading into a collapsed passage.

  What had once been a stairway spiraling downward had caved in—partially exposed, partially eaten by time and gravity.

  She crouched.

  “I don’t like this,” Talon muttered. “That drop isn’t stable.”

  “I’m not going down,” Meral said. “I’m just listening.”

  She closed her eyes, fingertips hovering over the broken stone — but not touching.

  Her breath caught.

  “Meral?” I said softly.

  “There was a structure under here,” she murmured. “Not a memory-site. Something else.”

  “What kind of something else?” Toran asked.

  “The stone doesn’t know. The memories are too old. Too decayed. But…” Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “I feel… fear.”

  “Fear?” Talon repeated.

  “Not like someone ran away,” she said. “Fear like… they locked something away and prayed the ground would hold.”

  I felt a chill crawl up my spine.

  Tionne, beside me, inhaled slowly—sharp but steady.

  Talon straightened, eyes narrowing as he surveyed the collapsed passage. “We’re leaving,” he said.

  Meral opened her eyes. “I’m not scared,” she said defensively.

  “You don’t have to be scared,” Talon replied. “I’m scared enough for both of us.”

  Toran touched Meral’s shoulder lightly. “You don’t have to prove anything. Not here.”

  She hesitated, then rose.

  But before she stepped off the platform, something caught her eye—half-buried in the sand, caught between two cracked stones. She knelt again, brushing sand away…

  And revealed a small object. Light flowed over it like metal, but also shone through and broke into playful beams, like a crystal would. Too small to be a datacore, too large to be nothing. Something like a bead, but not quite. A sphere of polished stone no bigger than a fruit pit, marked with faint spiral patterns that echoed the rings on the platform.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “A memory bead,” Tionne said softly. “A very old one.”

  Meral picked it up with both hands—carefully, reverently, the way someone handles a sleeping creature. The bead hummed—so faint I felt it more than heard it.

  Talon stiffened. “Is that safe?”

  Tionne stepped closer, inspecting the bead without touching it. “It is… dormant,” she said. “But not empty.”

  “What does it hold?” I asked.

  “I cannot tell,” Tionne admitted. “Some memory-beads hold residua of entire bloodlines. Others hold one single moment someone felt mattered enough to preserve. But this one is… older. Much older.”

  Meral cradled it in her palms. “It feels… calm.”

  “You should wrap it,” Tionne said. “Cloth, preferably. Do not touch it directly for long.”

  Meral nodded and slipped it into a small pouch on her belt—still cautious, still gentle.

  Talon frowned at the collapsed passage again. “We shouldn’t stay here.”

  “You’re right,” Tionne said. “This place was uncovered by the storm. The ground may shift again.”

  Meral took a last, lingering look at the ruined passage. There was something in her eyes—an echo of curiosity, but also something heavier. Something contemplative. Something that would linger in her long after we left.

  Tionne rested a hand on her shoulder. “You found what you were meant to find,” she said. “Not what lies below. That is not for today.”

  Meral nodded.

  We left the memory-site, dust rising in small, swirling puffs with every step.

  Behind us, the collapsed passage breathed out a faint draft of cool air—almost like a sigh from the stone.

  Almost like something resting.

  Or waiting.

  We emerged back into the garden terrace, the canyon widening around us, sunlight brushing the stone like warm paint.

  Meral kept one hand pressed to the pouch at her belt. She didn’t speak. But her eyes held a question she wasn’t ready to ask yet.

  None of us did. Not yet.

  ? ? ?

  By the time we returned from the memory site, the canyon had begun to glow. This time, instead of stormlight it glowed with sunset.

  Kiffu sunsets aren’t gentle. They don’t ease themselves across the sky. They strike, proud and bold. Bands of orange and red —bright as smelted metal— lit up the canyon walls until they looked carved from molten ore. Shadow and light sliced across the terraces in long, uneven stripes.

  The Darrun temple absorbed all of it, its stone drinking the color until the whole fa?ade looked like a living ember.

  Meral stopped halfway up the terrace path, visor pushed back, watching the sky with that same gaze she’d had after her first lesson—quiet, listening, hungry for the world to make sense.

  Tionne let her stand there.

  I did too.

  Toran nudged me lightly with an elbow. “Important question,” he whispered. “On a scale of one to ‘Kriff this,’ how worried are you about whatever is under that memory site?”

  I exhaled slowly. “Somewhere between ‘concerned’ and ‘not tonight.’”

  He nodded. “Good. I’m somewhere between ‘please no’ and ‘definitely no.’”

  Talon smirked as he passed us. “Don’t go looking for trouble.”

  Toran glared at him. “I never look for trouble.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Okay, I sometimes look for trouble,” he admitted.

  Talon snorted. “Kiffu will give you plenty without you asking.”

  We climbed the last set of steps and crossed into the temple’s outer hall—the cool, stone-scented air immediately wrapping around us like a heavy cloak. The distant sound of soft chanting drifted from one of the side corridors.

  A keeper in gray robes approached and bowed.

  “Your ranger rests,” they said. “His pain has eased.”

  Talon’s expression shifted—barely, but meaningfully. Relief threaded through the tension in his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said.

  The keeper inclined their head. “He sleeps now. You may see him later.”

  They turned to Meral next, studying her with the kind of attention that made you feel seen in ways you hadn’t agreed to.

  “Your steps are lighter,” the keeper said.

  Meral blinked. “I—am trying.”

  “You are succeeding.”

  It was not a compliment; it was a statement. Simple. Precise. Weighty in a way that made Meral stand a fraction taller.

  Tionne touched Meral’s arm. “We should rest before your evening lesson.”

  “Lesson?” Toran echoed. “Already?”

  “Meral’s training begins immediately,” Tionne said. “Psychometry strengthens as it is used. The keepers will want to reinforce what she learned today.”

  Meral nodded, though a flicker of nerves returned to her eyes.

  We followed a winding corridor that opened into a quiet residential wing—small chambers carved into the stone. Not rooms so much as niches: wide enough for a sleeping pallet, a low table, and little else.

  But they were peaceful.

  Our room overlooked the canyon—its far wall glowing deep red where the last rays of sun struck it.

  Tionne stepped inside with the gentle tiredness of someone who had organized three crises and still had enough left in her to hum while she worked. She loosened her hair, unfastened her robe, and placed her lute on the low table as though setting down a living thing.

  Toran flopped onto one of the pallets with the exaggerated dramatic sigh of someone entirely pleased to still be alive. “I could sleep for a week,” he declared.

  “You slept on the outpost floor,” I reminded him.

  “That wasn’t sleep,” he mumbled into the pillow. “That was survival unconsciousness.”

  I shook my head and set my pack down. Meral sat beside me, hands resting on her knees.

  “Are you tired?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “But also… no.”

  “How does that work?”

  She hesitated, searching for words. “My mind is tired. My body is tired. But the noise is quiet enough that it feels wrong to waste the quiet.”

  I understood more than I could say.

  Tionne sat across from us. “Tonight’s lesson will be gentle,” she said. “The elders will test your ability to separate yourself from the echoes. Not through touch—through recall.”

  “Recall?” Meral echoed.

  “You will remember the echoes you followed today,” Tionne explained. “And you will hold them still, without letting them flood you.”

  Meral exhaled shakily. “That sounds… hard.”

  “It will be,” Tionne said. “But not as hard as what you did this morning.”

  Toran lifted his head enough to say, “And not as hard as dragging a ranger up a canyon wall.”

  Meral shot him a small, grateful smile.

  Tionne rested her hands in her lap. “You may take some time to breathe before going. The elders will call you when they are ready.”

  Meral nodded, then looked out toward the canyon. The last light faded by slow degrees, orange fading to pink to purple, until the sky above was a deep bruised blue.

  “You know,” she said softly, “when I was little, I hated Kiffu’s sunsets.”

  Toran blinked. “Why?”

  “They felt too big,” she said. “Like the planet was swallowing the sun. Like anything could disappear in that light.”

  “And now?” I asked.

  She toyed with the edge of her sleeve. “Now… I think the light is big enough to hold everything.”

  The admission landed in my chest like a stone dropped into a pond—rippling outward.

  Tionne smiled quietly. “Growth,” she murmured. “Hard-earned and worthy.”

  A soft bell chimed from deeper in the temple.

  The sound was delicate, made of something that felt like glass and memory and breath. It lingered in the air long after the vibration ended.

  Meral stiffened instinctively.

  “The summons,” Tionne said gently.

  Meral nodded, rising slowly—every motion deliberate, like someone testing the weight of a new limb.

  Talon appeared in the doorway then, leaning on the frame. “The keepers said I could escort you,” he said.

  Meral blinked. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “They said you’d want a familiar face before walking in.”

  Toran whispered to me, “He didn’t volunteer. He ran.”

  I elbowed him without looking away.

  Meral hesitated only long enough to take one breath.

  Then she stepped toward Talon.

  “Ready?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” she said honestly. “But I’m going anyway.”

  “That’s enough,” he replied, and for the first time since we’d met him, Talon’s voice held something like warmth without humor behind it.

  They walked out together—Tionne following at a respectful distance.

  Toran watched them go.

  “…he likes her,” Toran said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “You think she likes him back?”

  “I think she doesn’t know yet,” I said.

  Toran stretched out again, hands behind his head. “You’re usually annoyingly perceptive. What’s your read?”

  “My read,” I said, “is that Meral has enough to carry without anyone deciding for her.”

  He nodded slowly. “Fair.”

  Silence settled between us—not empty, not tense. Just evening silence. The kind that lets your bones finally loosen the grip they’ve had all day.

  “You think she’ll be okay?” he asked after a while.

  “She already is,” I said. “She just needs time to realize it.”

  The canyon outside darkened by slow degrees. The first stars emerged—sharp, white sparks against a deep indigo sky. Thunder murmured far away, like an echo of a memory the storm hadn’t finished telling.

  Toran closed his eyes. “Hey, Kae?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When this is all over,” he said, voice soft with near-sleep, “we should go somewhere without rocks.”

  I snorted. “There’s no such place.”

  “Then somewhere with less rocks.”

  “We’ll see.”

  He drifted off, breath evening out.

  I sat beside him, watching the stars.

  Somewhere deeper in the temple, Meral was sitting cross-legged before a circle of elders, learning how to carve silence out of noise.