Morning crept into the outpost the way dawn always does on Arkania—gray, grudging, and bitterly cold, leaking through the frost-streaked windows like a secret the night didn’t want to give up. I woke with a stiff neck and a memory I wanted to pretend belonged to someone else. It clung to me anyway. The Weaver’s final words still threaded through my dreams:

  You’ve walked these paths before. You will walk them again.

  ? ? ?

  I lay still, staring up at the metal ribs of the outpost ceiling, until the distortion of old pipes and half-frozen durasteel resolved into something sensible. My heartbeat was steady. My breathing normal. Functional. But my skin still prickled as if someone had whispered directly into my ear during the night.

  Whoever the Weaver was, whatever their place in history—those last words hadn’t been meant for them.

  They were meant for me.

  I shoved myself upright before those thoughts grew teeth, and padded across the room toward my boots. Tionne still slept, cocooned under an absurdly thick fur blanket that made her look like a half-buried snow hare. Even asleep she had that soft, luminous expression—as if she were listening to the galaxy hum through her dreams.

  I envied her.

  Everyone else had been assigned cots in adjacent rooms, so the quiet was absolute. The kind of silence you get only on worlds where the cold kills sound before it travels too far.

  I got dressed, rubbing the stiffness from my arms, and stepped into the hallway.

  The outpost felt different this morning. Warmer, somehow, though the temperature hadn’t budged an inch. Maybe it was knowing we’d survived the glacier. Maybe it was knowing the holocron had finally opened. Or maybe I was just grateful to wake up and not find frost forming on my eyelashes again.

  ? ? ?

  Following the smell of caf, I found Kyle and Toran already awake in an enclosed landing bay—Kyle leaning over a holographic schematic of the ship, Toran sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by spools of wire, insulation sheaths, and the kind of tools that looked like they belonged in both ship maintenance and torture dungeons. The ship rested behind them, looking like a gutted whaladon with most of its bottom hanging loose.

  Toran looked up the instant he sensed movement.

  “Kae’rin! Morning!” he said with the full brightness of a man who had been awake long enough to forget that mornings exist to be hated. “We’ve begun repairs, but don’t worry—our imminent fiery death is at least six hours away.”

  Kyle didn’t even look up. “What he means is: good morning.”

  I snorted under my breath and poured myself a cup of caf. “So what’s the verdict?”

  Kyle tapped at the schematic. “The rough landing knocked out two of the thrust-vector conduits and charred the primary control wiring. We can replace it, but it’ll take a few hours.”

  Toran waved a tool in the air dramatically. “Hours we have! Fingers we have! A complete disregard for safety regulations we have!”

  Kyle shot him a flat look. “We do have safety regulations.”

  “Yeah,” Toran said, grinning, “and a complete disregard for them.”

  I took a sip of caf to hide my smile. Despite myself, despite the Weaver’s voice still echoing in my chest, despite the frost and fear and exhaustion—this felt grounding. Normal. The kind of mundane disaster Jedi students were built for.

  Kyle gestured toward the storage chamber. “Tionne just woke up, too. I assume you’ll find her wherever Elarin is. Comparing notes, exchanging theories, whatever nerdy historians do when they have nobody to watch them.”

  That sounded exactly like them.

  I set the caf aside and crouched beside Toran. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” he said. Then he grinned wider. “Which means I get to show off.”

  Kyle grumbled, “He’s not wrong. The conduit insulation’s from the previous generation of Corellian freighters. It’s brittle. And way too old. We’ll need to replace half of it just to keep the ship from frying itself next time we hit atmosphere.”

  “And,” Toran said, lowering his voice as if confiding dangerous knowledge, “I happen to be the best conduit-wrapper on Yavin. Maybe in the whole Praxeum.”

  “You’re the only conduit-wrapper in the Praxeum,” Kyle said.

  “Exactly. Best by default.”

  Their squabbling brought a small warmth into my chest that had nothing to do with the caf. I’d needed this—normal people behaving like normal people. It pushed the Weaver’s whisper further into the shadows of my mind.

  I stood, stretching my arms behind my back until my shoulders cracked. “What can I do to help?”

  Kyle glanced over the schematic. “Two things. First, check on Tionne and make sure she hasn’t fallen into a historical fugue. Second—”

  “Don’t step on anything,” Toran said, gesturing at the tools.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “What happens if I do?”

  Toran solemnly lifted a long, spindly device that looked like it had been stolen off a torture rack. “You will detonate this.”

  Kyle snatched it from him. “It’s a power splitter, Toran. It doesn’t detonate anything.”

  “Not with that attitude,” Toran muttered.

  I shook my head, amused despite the fog hanging over my thoughts, and headed back into the common rooms.

  ? ? ?

  Tionne and Elarin sat across from each other with a half-unrolled scroll between them. The parchment glowed faintly under a thin layer of frost-diffused sunlight. Tionne traced a line of text with her finger while Elarin listened as if digesting a story told across centuries.

  Tionne glanced up at me. “Good morning, Kae’rin. Sleep well?”

  “Mostly,” I said. “You two started early.”

  “We couldn’t help it.” Her eyes sparkled. “Elarin was telling me about pre-Hyperspace War Arkanian oral histories. And the parallels with Je’daii Archive fragments are remarkable.”

  “It’s… nice,” Elarin said softly. “To speak of these things with a Jedi again. It’s been a long time since anyone wanted to listen.”

  Listening. Remembering. The Weaver’s voice flickered again—another stitch tightening inside my ribs. I crossed my arms to hide the involuntary shiver.

  “So,” I said, “what’s the plan for today?”

  Tionne gently rolled the scroll closed. “We leave as soon as Kyle and Toran finish repairs. The sooner we take the holocron back to Yavin, the sooner Luke can study it. Whenever he returns.”

  “And the sooner I can stop freezing,” I muttered.

  Tionne gave me a knowing smile. “Is something else troubling you?”

  I hesitated. My mouth opened, closed again. I wasn’t ready to speak the truth out loud—not when I didn’t understand it myself.

  “Just tired,” I lied.

  Tionne didn’t push. She nodded once, quietly, like someone making space for a confession without forcing it. I breathed out, grateful.

  From the distance, tools clattered, followed by Toran yelping, “I meant to do that!”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I should probably go make sure they’re not electrocuting themselves. Or each other.”

  ? ? ?

  By the time I returned to the bay, the ship’s side panel lay open wide like the hull had peeled itself back in embarrassment. Kyle knelt beside it with a laser cutter, carving out the charred insulation, while Toran lay half on his back, half wedged under a cluster of conduits, humming something off-key and aggressively cheerful.

  “You two doing alright?” I asked.

  “We’re doing great,” Toran said from under the tangle of wires. “Perfect. Inspired. I’m basically a genius. Maybe the greatest mechanic of our generation. Maybe all generations.”

  “That’s because you’re upside-down,” Kyle said dryly. “Gravity’s draining the delusions straight to your brain.”

  Toran made a wounded sound. “Master Katarn—your cruelty wounds me. Your low opinion of my greatness stabs me. Your—hey! Don’t yank that yet!”

  “I wasn’t yanking anything,” Kyle said.

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  “You were thinking about it.”

  I couldn’t resist smiling. “Need an extra set of hands?”

  Kyle gestured at a bowl full of fresh insulation fibers. “You can prep these. Strip the backing, reinforce them with the adhesive resin, hand them to Toran as he fits the conduits.”

  “On it.”

  I sat beside the panel and reached for the fibers. My hands still felt colder than they should’ve—probably a lingering echo of the glacier—but the mechanical rhythm helped. Peel the backing. Coat with resin. Press the edges so they bond. Hand them over. Repeat.

  Toran’s hand periodically emerged like some kind of excitable, oil-stained creature demanding tribute. I placed the prepared strip into his waiting fingers.

  “Thank you kindly,” he said each time, as if accepting dessert from a restaurant server.

  Kyle cut another ruined conduit free. “Kae’rin, hand me the replacement line?”

  I passed it to him. The steady teamwork knitted something warm inside me—something safer than the Weaver’s whisper.

  Toran’s voice drifted up, muffled. “Hey Kae’rin, did you sleep okay? I mean, after… you know.”

  My fingers paused. “The glacier?”

  “That. And the holocron. And the… you know.”

  I swallowed. The memory flickered like a torch behind my ribs. “I’m fine.”

  He heard the lie. I could tell by the way his boots stilled against the floor. But to his credit, he didn’t push.

  “We’ll get you home soon,” he said quietly. “Whatever that thing showed you… you don’t have to deal with it alone.”

  Kyle glanced at him, one eyebrow rising. It was subtle, but it held approval.

  I cleared my throat. “Thanks.”

  Toran resumed humming aggressively off-key, as if sensing the moment was about to get too soft.

  I worked through the next batch of insulation. Then the next. And slowly, the hollow feeling in my chest loosened.

  ? ? ?

  The last conduit clicked into place with a satisfying metallic snap. Toran wriggled out from under the cluster like a triumphant lizard, streaked with grease and grinning widely.

  “And that,” he said, wiping his hands on his shirt, “is how you prevent catastrophic planetary impact. You’re welcome.”

  “It’s how we prevent catastrophic planetary impact,” Kyle corrected.

  Toran’s grin softened. “Yeah. We make a good team, don’t we?”

  Kyle didn’t answer right away. He just looked at Toran—the kind of long, evaluating stare that meant something was shifting under the surface. Respect growing roots, maybe.

  Then Kyle said, “You’re reckless, loud, and you make questionable engineering choices.”

  Toran blinked. “Wow, thanks—”

  “But you’re good. Really good. Better than I expected.”

  Toran’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you complimenting me?”

  “It won’t happen again,” Kyle said.

  “Should I… frame this moment? Immortalize it? Write it on the hull?”

  “Please don’t.”

  I watched the exchange from beside the doorway—and something bloomed in my chest. Light. Warmth. Hope.

  Then Toran spotted me and immediately switched back to his usual volume.

  “Oh! Kae’rin! Don’t worry, we’re safe now. I prevented our untimely demise out of pure, unparalleled skill.”

  I scoffed. “Yes, I heard. Several times.”

  “I’m just making sure all the facts are properly documented.”

  Kyle groaned. “Please stop talking.”

  ? ? ?

  We’d gathered our gear. Repacked the holocron. Cleaned up the work area. The outpost hummed with the subdued energy of departure.

  Tionne sat with Elarin near the central hearth, trading stories and songs in low voices—half lilting, half whispered. Their conversation felt older than the glacier outside. Like an echo of two eras finding each other again.

  Kyle checked the flight systems inside the cockpit. Toran fiddled with a few leftover tools, then drifted toward me with all the subtlety of a crashing landspeeder.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  Silence stretched between us. Not uncomfortable—just charged. Different from before.

  “So,” he tried again, “are you… okay? Really okay?”

  His voice was softer this time. Less theatrical. The grease smudged across his cheek made him look younger. More earnest.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think so. I’m still sorting through it.”

  “That’s fair.” He nudged my shoulder lightly with his. “Look, whatever it was, and whatever it means… you don’t have to figure it out all at once.”

  “I know.”

  “And if it ever gets… too much, you can talk to me. Or yell at me. Or throw a rock at me. Just—maybe avoid the head?”

  I huffed a laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He smiled—small, genuine. Not his usual grin. Not the flashy, performative one. Then, suddenly flustered by his own sincerity, he cleared his throat too loudly and pointed at the ship.

  “We should, uh. Go. Before Kyle leaves without us.”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  Toran leaned close. “He might. One day.”

  I snorted. “Come on.”

  We walked together toward the loading ramp—close, but not touching.

  Not yet.

  ? ? ?

  The outpost’s landing bay doors groaned open with the reluctance of ancient metal. A rush of frigid air swept in, sharp enough to make my teeth ache. Arkania’s sky hung low and heavy—gray-blue, as if the whole planet had been carved out of seawater and left to freeze.

  Kyle stood at the base of the ramp, hands on his hips, surveying the ship with a captain's distrust. Toran hovered beside him, equal parts pride and readiness to defend his repairs against any insult. I walked up behind them with Tionne.

  Elarin waited near the doorway, wrapped in furs that made her look like she’d stepped out of an old holovid about pre-Republic explorers. In her hands she held a sealed container: the holocron.

  “It’s strange,” she said softly as we approached, “to see it leave this place again. So much time passed with no one to hear it.”

  Tionne placed her hands gently over Elarin’s. “We will listen—and honor it.”

  Elarin nodded, though her eyes flicked to me with that same quiet, searching curiosity she’d had since yesterday. The way people look at things that don’t fully make sense yet. Things they aren’t sure they should fear. I offered a small, steady nod. Not reassurance, exactly. Just honesty.

  She exhaled, then handed the holocron to Tionne.

  “May the Force guide your steps,” Elarin said.

  “And yours,” Tionne answered with a musical warmth that seemed to soften even the cold air around us.

  Kyle jerked his head toward the ramp. “Let’s move. I’d like to get off this iceball before something else tries to kill us.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Toran said brightly.

  He bounded up the ramp like he’d been born on starships, leaving Kyle to mutter something uncomplimentary under his breath. Tionne followed, then Kyle. I was the last to turn toward the ship—and Elarin reached out lightly, stopping me with a touch to my sleeve.

  “You carry something in you,” she said.

  I froze. “What do you mean?”

  “Master Tionne told me. Or rather, it’s what she didn’t tell. The holocron spoke to you. Not with words.” She studied my face, her breath misting between us.

  A beat. A pulse. Something inside my chest tightened like a string being plucked.

  “I don’t know what it meant,” I said honestly.

  “I don’t think it meant to frighten you,” she said. “But secrets kept too long can grow sharp edges.”

  Before I could respond, Kyle called from the ramp. “Kae’rin! Let’s go!”

  I stepped backward, releasing Elarin’s touch. “Thank you—for everything.”

  “Safe travels,” she said.

  I turned and jogged up the ramp, the cold biting my ankles as the landing bay doors sealed shut behind us.

  ? ? ?

  The warmth of the interior embraced me like a friend returning from a long absence. Frost steamed off my clothing. The engines hummed with a deeper, steadier thrum now—Toran’s work.

  Kyle strapped into the pilot’s seat, fingers flicking methodically across the controls. Tionne settled beside him, the holocron secured in her lap as if it were a child. Toran dragged a crate over to the systems console, still wiping grease off his hands.

  I took a seat behind Kyle, buckling in.

  “Everyone ready?” Kyle said.

  “As I’ll ever be,” Toran chirped.

  Tionne smiled. “The sooner we reach orbit, the sooner I can warm up properly.”

  Kyle’s hands danced across the startup sequence. Outside, the wind howled—one last protest as the repulsors lifted the ship off the pad. The hull shuddered, but the thrusters held. The repairs were clean.

  Toran leaned toward him, smug. “Handled beautifully, don’t you think?”

  Kyle didn’t look away from the viewport. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “Too late,” Toran whispered to me.

  I smirked. “It was already there.”

  He shot me a mock-wounded expression. “Et tu, Kae’rin?”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “What exactly did you expect?”

  His grin widened. “Fair point.”

  The ship cut through Arkania’s cloud cover like a blade through silk. Light spilled in—the first honest sunlight we’d seen since landing—and the frost melting off the hull caught it in shimmering streaks.

  We climbed into the upper atmosphere, icy clouds peeling away. My breath steadied. My heart settled. For the first time since the Weaver’s vision, I felt like myself again. Or the self I pretended to be. Because the whisper still lived somewhere deep inside me. Not loud. Not insistent. But present.

  I closed my eyes and tried—really tried—to believe it was nothing more than an echo.

  ? ? ?

  The ship settled into hyperspace with the stretch-and-snap sensation of a slingshot releasing. Kyle and Tionne were still talking through the scanner readings and star charts up front when Toran flopped into the seat beside me with all the grace of a half-stunned bantha.

  “So,” he said.

  I waited.

  He kept staring.

  I raised an eyebrow. “So… what?”

  “So what happens now? We found your holocron thing. We didn’t die. Kyle complimented me—which is probably a sign of impending apocalypse—and you’re sitting here like someone politely borrowed your soul.”

  I stared at him. He looked back with quiet, genuine concern—so unlike the theatrical confidence he wore like armor. I inhaled slowly.

  “I’m just thinking,” I said.

  “About the vision?”

  A beat. “Yes.”

  He leaned back, resting his arms behind his head. “Well… whatever it was, you handled it better than I would’ve.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Oh, it absolutely is. If a giant mystical Force ghost whispered ancient cosmic secrets into my head, I’d probably run around screaming about prophecy while Kyle tranquilized me.”

  A short, involuntary laugh escaped me. “I actually want to see that.”

  “You and me both,” he said, grinning. Then, quieter: “I meant what I said earlier. You can talk to me. About anything.”

  My throat constricted for a moment—just a little. I wasn’t used to someone offering that kind of space. Not as a joke. Not as a test. Just… honestly.

  “I know.”

  He nodded once, like that was enough. Then he kicked his boots up on the engineering console—and immediately knocked over a diagnostic device, sending it skidding into Kyle’s forgotten cup of caf. Dark rivers cascaded across the metal. Breakers sparked.

  “Oops—”

  “Toran!” Kyle barked from the cockpit.

  “Sorry!”

  “You’re cleaning that later!”

  “Yes, Master Katarn!”

  He mouthed oops at me again, making me snort.

  The tension in my chest loosened another notch. And for the first time since the Weaver whispered into my bones, I felt something warm rise through the haze.

  Not quite understanding.

  But balance.

  ? ? ?

  Hours later, while Kyle piloted and Tionne cataloged the holocron’s recorded resonance, I stood at the viewport. Stars stretched into lines beyond the glass. Hyperspace hummed like a distant choir.

  I pressed my palm lightly against the transparisteel. In the reflection, my face looked like mine. Young. Arkanian. A girl with messy white hair and a thousand questions. But for the first time… I wasn’t sure if it was the only face I wore.

  The Weaver’s whisper drifted faintly through memory—soft as breath, cold as starlight.

  You’ve walked these paths before…

  Behind me, Toran’s light footsteps approached.

  “You okay?” he asked gently.

  I didn’t turn around. But I nodded.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think so.”

  And for now, it was true.