The jungle had a way of sweating even when it rained. By midmorning the training yard steamed, the flagstones slick with moss. Blaster-practice echoes tangled with birdsong. Someone shouted, “Deflect! Don’t swat!” Metal rang, laughter followed.

  ? ? ?

  Kirana Ti’s voice carried over the clatter. “Again! Flow, don’t fight.”

  We were learning the deflection kata, half balance, half dance. My borrowed saber vibrated against my palm; the smell of ozone bit at my nose.

  “Imagine the bolt already passing you,” Kirana said. “You’re only guiding what wants to move.”

  The circle cleared, the previous victim of Kirana’s training remotes rubbing his thigh, trying to keep some dignity.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” she said, motioning towards the open space. I stepped forward. She stepped back to yield the space to us, the combatants.

  ? ? ?

  I told the training remotes to keep it simple this time.

  They ignored me, obviously.

  The first bolt snapped toward my ribs before I’d even finished settling into stance. It wasn’t fast, not really — not lethal fast — just a bright, annoyed flicker slicing through the shadows of the courtyard. I twisted left. Not a dodge, not exactly, more like letting the air re-arrange around me while my feet moved of their own accord.

  The bolt brushed the hem of my tunic, close enough to sting my skin with leftover heat.

  “Okay,” I muttered. “So that’s the mood today.”

  Three more remotes drifted outward in their loose triangle, humming softly. They were about the size of melons and twice as smug. One pulsed red, winding up.

  “Don’t even think ab—”

  It fired.

  ? ? ?

  I didn’t block. My arm rose instinctively, but instead of meeting the bolt, the saber angled down and in, describing a tight spiral that felt pre-drawn into the air. The bolt flicked past my wrist as if redirected by a hand I didn’t control. The second remote fired from behind at the exact same moment.

  I ducked, but it wasn’t a duck so much as a folding — spine loose, knees fluid, my body collapsing like a hinge in a mechanism someone else invented. The bolt parted my hair.

  Then the rhythm snapped open fully.

  A third bolt, bright and sharp, whipped toward my cheek. My saber swept up in a rising arc, not blocking but inviting, using the blade’s humming edge to shepherd the bolt aside. The motion curved through the air, carrying my shoulder with it, pulling my hips into a half-turn.

  My feet moved the same way currents shift under water: subtle, tight swoops, micro-steps that never broke contact with the stone floor.

  Zha’ka — the Opening Spiral — whispering through my muscles.

  I wasn’t supposed to know Zha’ka.

  ? ? ?

  The remotes seemed to pick up on my shift, because their fire changed — faster, more aggressive, less predictable. One shot for my collarbone while another tried to catch me mid-turn. A third dropped low and pinged a shot toward my ankle.

  I flowed around them.

  Not beautifully. Not gracefully. But efficiently. At the back of my mind a part of me marveled at how inevitable some movements felt. Like I wasn’t choosing them but remembering them wrong, like a song I’d heard a thousand times played on slightly broken instruments.

  A bolt streaked toward my sternum. I stepped inside the line of fire, turning my body sideways to it, and felt the heat brush past my back. My saber was already rising, drawn into an upward crescent that existed before I consciously thought it.

  Eth — the Breath Between.

  ? ? ?

  One remote swooped lower to flank me. Another rushed in from above, trying to overwhelm my centerline. I didn’t think. My weight dipped into my back foot, hips cutting sharply to the right. The saber flashed down in a chopping arc — not at the bolts but at the space between the remotes, at the fulcrum of their movement vectors.

  That changed everything.

  Both remotes shifted course, confused for half a second. Long enough for me to pivot through them, letting the saber’s hum carve a sliver of safety between bright streaks of energy.

  I exhaled — long, steady — and my next motion was a widening circle, palm opening, blade trailing like a tail of light.

  Vath — the Guiding Arc — surfacing like a memory that didn’t belong to me.

  ? ? ?

  The remotes adapted quickly, switching to a bracketing pattern. They fired in alternating bursts — one-high, one-low, staggered — a pattern meant to trap a defender into choosing wrong.

  I didn’t choose.

  I slipped through the gap before it formed.

  My body angled forward, weight committing, knees softening to absorb momentum. The bolts tore through the air where I should have been and collided with each other instead, scattering sparks like fireflies thrown off rhythm.

  I laughed — a short, surprised bark. “You’re getting slower,” I teased the nearest remote.

  It shot at my face.

  Fair enough.

  I snapped my head to the side, and the bolt sliced past, grazing the braid that had escaped down my neck. I could smell singed hair and burned dust. Before I could roll my eyes at myself, the fourth remote — the one I’d forgotten — zipped behind me.

  Its hum changed pitch.

  It was about to fire at point-blank.

  I didn’t have time to turn conventionally, so I let my whole torso collapse sideways again in that odd hinge-movement, my left foot lifting, toe barely scraping the floor. My right arm swung across my chest in a flat circle.

  Nheh, the Returning Coil — bringing the saber horizontal as the bolt fired.

  ? ? ?

  The blade intercepted it with a crackle. The rebound knocked the remote backward, buzzing in agitation.

  “That’s right,” I said between breaths. “Be angry. I dare you.”

  All four remotes repositioned at once.

  Here it comes, I thought.

  The room tightened. The air felt electric. I felt every bolt before it fired — like static crawling up my arms, like anticipatory shivers threading between my bones.

  Then they opened fire.

  A full volley. Twelve bolts in three seconds.

  I moved.

  Not faster than thought — faster than doubt. Block, step, spiral, collapse, rise, redirect. I became a knot of motion — not clean, not polished, but continuously adapting.

  Each strike came from a slightly different angle. I let my saber weave a pattern that wasn’t defensive so much as conversational.

  The remotes said: attack.

  I replied: no.

  They insisted: attack.

  I countered: redirect.

  They demanded: fall.

  I whispered: flow.

  I didn’t realize I was smiling until a bolt barely grazed my shoulder and I felt heat but no fear. My body reacted on its own — slipping under another shot, sliding sideways, blade catching one bolt and flinging its energy into the path of another.

  It wasn’t stylish. It wasn’t even textbook. But it was mine.

  And something older than me, something deeper, hummed under my skin, guiding each pivot and spiral with a familiarity I had no right to possess.

  ? ? ?

  Then, just as suddenly as it began, the remotes powered down and floated backward.

  The courtyard fell quiet.

  My breathing sounded too loud, the only rough, human thing in a space that still felt charged with leftover energy. I let the saber drop to my side. My arms trembled — not from strain, but from the aftershock of something that felt too big for my bones.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I stood there in the silence, sweat cooling at the base of my neck, and only one thought formed clearly:

  That wasn’t me.

  But it was.

  ? ? ?

  My knees were still buzzing when I powered down the saber. The hum vanished too abruptly, like someone yanked a note out of a song.

  A slow clap broke the quiet.

  “Well,” Kirana Ti said, stepping into the circle, arms folded, tattoos on her cheek dark against the bronze glow of her skin in the overhead sunlight. “That was… something.”

  I nearly dropped the saber.

  “Relax, Kae’rin. I’m not upset.”

  That was good, because I was pretty sure my legs would fold like wet paper if she demanded push-ups right now.

  She walked toward me in that smooth, Dathomiri way—quiet, balanced on the balls of her feet, like the air parted for her instead of resisting.

  “What form was that?” she asked.

  “Uh… form?”

  She cocked her head. “Yes. The thing you were doing. The… spiraling hurricane of problematic grace.” Her mouth twitched. “You didn’t invent that on the spot.”

  “I didn’t—” I started. Then realized technically I didn’t know what I had done at all. “I mean… I wasn’t trying anything.”

  Kirana circled the remotes, inspecting the scorch marks on their housings, the odd angles of their hover-stabilizers.

  “That,” she said, gesturing in a wide arc around the circle, “wasn’t any form I know. It wasn’t anything we taught you.”

  ? ? ?

  The gaggle of curious students dispersed at her gesture. I caught a glimpse of Meral’s raised eyebrows and thought, Oh she will be so annoyed with me.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I said. “Just reacting.”

  “No. You were redirecting,” she corrected softly. “Turning Force back on itself. Moving through trajectories that shouldn’t have been connected, but somehow were.” Her gaze sharpened. “You fought like water learning to be a blade.”

  The phrase hit something under my ribs, and I had no idea why.

  Before I could respond, a draft of cooler air shivered through the doorway as someone else arrived. The drapes on the far wall moved, though no breeze reached them.

  “Streen,” Kirana said without looking.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, stepping inside, boots scuffing like he wished he could apologize to the floor too. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “You didn’t,” she replied. “You sensed it, didn’t you?”

  He nodded, slow and uncertain. His eyes drifted toward me, not meeting mine directly—Streen never met anyone’s eyes directly—but studying the space around me, like I had left a trail of invisible dust motes.

  “It felt… old,” he said. “Not Dark. Not even Light. Just… old. Older than either of the two.”

  Great. Nothing unnerving about being described like a forgotten basement.

  ? ? ?

  He rubbed his arms as though chilled. “Like watching someone cast a stone into a pond and the ripples go the wrong way.”

  “That’s a strange metaphor,” I said.

  “Sorry,” he whispered.

  “No, it’s okay. Just… strange.”

  Kirana stepped closer, and I straightened automatically.

  “Kae’rin,” she said, voice gentle but solid. “Movements like the ones you used tonight don’t come from improvisation. They come from training. And you haven’t been trained in anything like that.”

  I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “I didn’t think. I just… did.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Your instincts followed a map your mind doesn’t know.”

  Streen nodded rapidly. “Yes. Yes, that’s it. A map. Lines. Currents. Like she was tracing something drawn long ago.”

  Kirana shot him a look. “Do you feel we should be concerned?”

  He hesitated. His eyebrows knit together. “Concerned? No. Watchful? Yes. She wasn’t pulling from anything malevolent. But there is… resonance. Like an echo of something too far away to hear.”

  My heart thudded once against my ribs.

  Kirana’s gaze softened—not pity, not suspicion, something more like frank curiosity.

  “Kae’rin,” she said, “has anyone in your family taught you combat movement? Dance? A martial tradition you might be copying without realizing?”

  “No,” I said immediately. Then, after a beat: “Not that I know of. My parents are scientists. Not… twirlers of blades.”

  “Then this comes from somewhere else.”

  The silence stretched, heavy as the humid evening air outside.

  Finally Kirana inhaled and gave a decisive nod. “All right. We monitor, not restrain. You keep training. But you also keep talking to us.”

  “That makes it sound like you think I’m dangerous.”

  “I think you’re changing,” she said simply. “And people who change fast—faster than they understand themselves—need support, not suspicion.”

  “That’s… surprisingly comforting,” I said, blinking.

  “Don’t get used to it,” she replied, deadpan.

  Streen smiled faintly at that. “If you don’t mind… may I watch your next session?” he asked me. “Not to judge. Just to… understand the currents.”

  “Uh… sure,” I said. “If Kirana says it’s okay.”

  She nodded. “Observation only. And Kae’rin—”

  “Yes?”

  “Next time, tell the remotes not to aim for your eyes.”

  “I did.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Then say it with more authority.”

  Streen added softly, “Maybe don’t taunt them.”

  “I didn’t taunt—”

  I paused.

  “…okay, maybe once.”

  Kirana sighed in the long-suffering way of someone mentoring twelve teenagers and one cosmic riddle disguised as an Arkanian girl.

  “Go cool down. Stretch. Then meditate. And if anything like that happens again—”

  “I’ll tell you.”

  “Good.”

  She turned to leave.

  Streen lingered, eyes still tracking invisible lines in the air around me.

  “It’s like watching an old riverbed remember where the water used to flow,” he said, then blinked as if surprised he’d said it aloud. “I don’t know why that came to mind.”

  “Doesn’t sound flattering,” I said.

  “No,” he murmured. “But it is beautiful.”

  And then he drifted away, like he always did, carrying too many sensations for one person to reasonably hold.

  I stood alone in the salle again. Sweat drying. Muscles still trembling. Saber cooling in my hand.

  I inhaled once, long, steady.

  Old riverbeds.

  Resonance.

  Maps I didn’t remember reading.

  Whatever the movements had been in the past, whatever hand had etched them into me before I was even born—

  —I had just stepped into it by accident.

  And somehow, the echoes of it still hadn’t stopped humming under my skin.

  ? ? ?

  Afternoons belonged to Luke’s seminars. We sat in the shade of the east colonnade while the jungle drummed around us. Kam took over, since our celebrated Grandmaster was still gallivanting across the galaxy.

  “Is the Force separate from life, or is life simply the Force reflecting itself?” he asked.

  Dorsk 81 said it was gravity for souls. Meral argued it was intent. I listened until their words started circling, then spoke without meaning to.

  “It’s neither pull nor purpose,” I said. “It’s resonance—motion meeting motion until both remember they’re part of the same sound.”

  Kam’s brow furrowed, curious. “Resonance?”

  I nodded. “Everything that exists hums, even silence. When two hums meet, they can clash or harmonize. The Force is the space where they choose.”

  Tionne smiled faintly. “That sounds almost like music theory.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But music is just people imitating the universe.”

  ? ? ?

  Night on Yavin IV always comes in two parts.

  First the hush — the way the jungle seems to lean in, listening.

  Then the chorus — the hoots, chirps, distant roars, and the soft wet rustle of leaves turned restless under the moons.

  Inside the Great Temple’s common study chamber, though, the only sound was the faint chime of cooling tea cups. Some students created their own circles, others rested in solitude near the outer walls. The heart of the debates was in the center, with all of our instructors.

  Kirana Ti sat cross-legged on the floor, elbows on her knees, studying one of Tionne’s unrolled datapads. Streen perched in a corner, quiet as stone, listening harder than he pretended to.

  I sat on a cushion, legs pulled up, still a little sore from training earlier. I expected this to be about saber forms or meditation technique or how I really needed to stop baiting the training remotes.

  It wasn’t.

  “We have enormous gaps in our knowledge,” Tionne said, sounding frustrated in the gentlest way possible. “Twelve thousand years of Jedi doctrine, and we barely have enough to reconstruct a beginner’s curriculum.”

  Kirana huffed. “Try rebuilding your martial traditions from one book, some cave paintings, and a crowd of annoyed spirits. Be grateful for fragments.”

  Tionne smiled faintly but shook her head. “Improvisation only takes us so far. We’re trying to rebuild an Order whose foundation we can’t even see.”

  Streen murmured, “The old Jedi understood the Force differently. More rigid. More structured. And we’re trying to build on echoes.”

  Kirana stopped pretending she wasn’t waiting for an opening. “Speaking of echoes… we should talk about earlier today.”

  My stomach tightened.

  She looked straight at me. “Kae’rin — you weren’t improvising with those remotes. Not the way the others do. You were following something.”

  Streen opened his eyes fully now. “We talked about it,” he said quietly. “It was… old. Not dark.”

  “It was something we don’t know,” she shot back.

  Streen diminished, sipping tea thoughtfully.

  Kirana focused back on me. “While you moved today, you said something. Out loud. I don’t know if you realized.”

  My head snapped up. “What did I say?”

  “Zha’ka.”

  “Eth.”

  “Vath.”

  “Nheh.”

  She spoke the words softly, with a wobbly intonation, but they vibrated in the air like struck glass.

  Tionne frowned. “Those do sound old.”

  Streen rubbed his arms. “Older than anything in the archives. Like names spoken when language was still raw.”

  They all looked at me.

  “I… didn’t know I said them,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “That’s the point,” Kirana said. “They came from instinct. Which means they came from somewhere.”

  Tionne leaned in gently. “Kae’rin, what do the words feel like to you?”

  I swallowed. “Zha’ka feels like the first moment before action. The instant everything balances on a thread and hasn’t committed yet.”

  My hand rose unconsciously, hovering in the air.

  “Eth is… the space between breaths,” I said quietly, my hand dipping in a graceful swoop. “The quiet place between two impulses, where choices thin out and sharpen.”

  Streen shifted, listening with his whole body.

  “Vath is the heartbeat of balance. Not stillness — poise. Like the wheel turning but not rolling yet.” My hand painted the sensation of reaching equilibrium before a rebound.

  “And Nheh?” Kirana asked softly.

  “Nheh is the letting go,” I said, spreading my fingers and letting my arm fall. “The moment you stop holding the blade, and the motion finishes itself.”

  Silence settled over us.

  Streen finally said, “Those aren’t names of techniques. They’re principles.”

  “Philosophies,” Tionne agreed. “Not like anything in the Old Republic or Jedi records.”

  Kirana exhaled. “Foundations. But nothing I’ve seen before.”

  Streen closed his eyes. “They feel elemental. As if someone named the phases of movement back when the galaxy was still figuring out how everything worked.”

  Tionne, unable to help herself, asked, “So what do we call them?”

  “The Four Primals,” suggested Meral next to my ear, startling me. I didn’t even know she was listening.

  Streen whispered, “The Four Currents.”

  Kirana said, with typical practicality, “The Four Motions.”

  I stared at them. “You’re naming them? But I don’t even know where they came from.”

  “That’s exactly why,” Tionne said gently. “Sometimes knowledge returns through people.”

  Kirana nodded once. “Especially people who fight like they’re remembering something older than the Temple.”

  “I just… I don’t want to sound like I think I’m special,” I said quietly.

  “You don’t,” Kirana replied. “You sound like someone carrying something. That’s different.”

  “And carrying something,” Streen added, “doesn’t make you special. What you choose to do with it does.”

  Tionne rolled up her datapad. “We’re not asking you to define these words now. Only to notice them. To tell us when you feel them again.”

  “And to train safely,” Kirana added, shooting me a pointed look. “If you’re going to dance with old ghosts, do it under supervision.”

  I groaned. “It wasn’t ghost-dancing.”

  “You were absolutely ghost-dancing,” Meral poked my ribs.

  The hour turned late, and as most of us gathered our belongings, the jungle outside released a soft, sweeping roar — like the night itself agreeing with them.

  And those four strange words still echoed in my mind, humming under my skin —

  Zha’ka.

  Eth.

  Vath.

  Nheh.

  —waiting for the right moment to surface again.

  ? ? ?

  Later, lying awake, I whispered the four words again and again and again. They rolled through me like the rise and fall of waves. Outside, the jungle replied with its own chorus—creatures calling, leaves hissing, water dripping from unseen heights. For a moment all of it aligned: breath, heartbeat, memory, world.

  The Force wasn’t a single voice tonight; it was a thousand faces turning toward me, whispering: Welcome back.