Every beat of her her heart pulsed in her temples - not like an incipient headache, only an invigorating awareness of her blood moving through her body. Her skin tingled, and Seris could feel every drop of sweat trickling through her hair, down the sides of her face. The Force, still a roiling tumble of tangled currents, slid through her mind, her body, her soul. Now, though, Seris had more than simple perception, she could feel how to wrap that power around her, within her. Through her blind eyes she saw not only how the Force moved through the world, how it carried the thoughts and wills and emotions of those it passed through, but how those same minds moved the Force in turn. In the sparkling, crystalline hyper-awareness brought on by their deadly situation, Seris knew the Force for more than simply the will of nature. She saw, with sudden, fierce clarity how to harness that power, how to move her mind so the Force flowed through her like a river filling its bed. There was no effort, no coercion, only a deep, flowing serenity. In that calmness, Seris thought that she understood, for the first time, the meaning of the Jedi's training, the endless months and years learning how to make the mind as supple and strong as the body. She wondered if this was how members of the Order felt all the time, and part of her marvelled at the idea.
She pulled in a long, deep breath. This feeling wouldn't last, it couldn't. She could already feel her mind flexing, bending under the strain of this awareness like a wheel moving too quickly on an axle. Seris hadn't trained herself in the right ways to channel that power and awareness indefinitely - but what time she did have, she intended to make the most of. With an effort of will, Seris gathered the Force around her, a well of power she could draw from to defend herself or the other Jedi with her as they moved through the Archives, toward the hidden tunnel network. Quite a crowd had drawn together, from children to Knights and Masters, though Seris wasn't sure how safe she felt. Even now, the Force shook as more of those fires faded, flickered, spun apart into sparks that joined the surging chaos filling the Temple.
Near one of the Archives' hidden corridors, Seris slowed, paused. She felt a beckoning, not distant but not strong, either. Few others had come to this part of the Temple - a fact Seris noticed with a certain grim foreboding - but when she turned and focused her attention, she felt an intensely familiar presence only a few walls away. He had wrapped the Force around himself like a cloak, masking himself against the turbid power all around him, but that disguise was fraying. She stopped, felt a lance of pain through her mind, a touch of the other man's desperation.
"I'll catch up," Seris said, and broke away from the group. She felt the others' eyes on her back as she ran, but she felt that beckoning pulse again. Not a compulsion, not a cry for help - a message meant only for her.
Her boots thumped against the stone Archives floor as she turned down one long hallway, then another. The bodies of more Clones, their limbs broken or hacked off, lay in groups as she moved. A last white-armored form lay in at the entrance of a large room, a hole charred in his chest, a broken rifle laying nearby. The Force moved around the dead clone in slow eddies, tendrils of the marks he'd made taking their time to dissipate. A few of those led further into the room, lines of causality, will, intent, action, and execution. Seris slowed as she approached the corpse, stopping as she came to the entrance to the room beyond.
Sparkling points of glimmering focus lined the walls of this room, every one brighter than a candle flame, nearer than a star. Each smoldered in the Force, the distant echoes of lives long gone flowing around them, filling the air with joy and exultation, despair and longing, desperation and triumph. Seris stepped through into the chamber, tilted her head up, enraptured at the tapestry of experience and memory. With each step, she realised the greater tumult of the Temple outside seemed quieter here, a sense of cool and calmness filling the room like water in pool. Seris took several steps into the room, and realised what the objects on the wall were - she was standing a room lined with lightsaber crystals, thousands of them. Relics from the Jedi's past, perhaps even the final testament that any of them may have left. The last resting place for endless stories.
She took another step, coming to the centre of the room. With another pulse, this one closer, she felt that presence again, and turned. A figure lay on the ground, propped against a table, or altar, in the center of the room, and with a gasp the Force-cloak flew apart into ragged tatters, leaving the man's spirit bare. Like other Masters, this one bent the Force around him like a planet bends gravity, an almost-painful flare of power and will against the gentle shelter the crystal chamber offered. But even as Seris watched, that fire grew dimmer, parts of the Master's vitality unwinding from him, flowing away into the Force.
And Seris knew him. Older now, but not so old anyone would mistake him for a grandfather, his short hair plastered to his skin with sweat and blood. On one side of his chest, near an arm that draped uselessly, a blaster wound the size of a fist, the fabric of his robe still smouldering. Skin that had felt the touch of a thousand suns, a soul that carried the stories of innumerable students. A man who believed in the Order to his bones - but though he had been unwavering, he had never been unquestioning. Seris remembered an afternoon years past, in a cave far from here, where this man had shown her secrets and placed a trust in her that she held more valuable than any weight of gems.
"Oh, thank the stars," the Master said, his voice a hoarse, ragged whisper, "Isn't that what your people say?" He smiled, coughed, "Though it sounds better in your language."
Seris rushed over, knelt, one hand moving to hold the Master's head up. "Of course that was you," she said, "I should have guessed." She felt the man's chest shake - not a cough, she realized, but a laugh so quiet that she couldn't hear.
"I knew you'd hear," the Master said, and his head was very heavy against Seris' hand, "No, no. I trusted that you would." He looked up at her, his dark eyes fixing on Seris' blind, white orbs, "Listen to me. Listen to me, Seris. This isn't the end. Not for you, not for the Order, not for the Light."
Seris swallowed, "I...I'm having a hard time believing that," she said, her voice tight.
"I know," the Master said, and he coughed, a sound like cracking wood, "There are trials ahead of you, more than you can know. But you're ready, Seris." His hand rose, his palm pressing against hers, his fingers curling to hold their hands tight against one another, "You have to be. The Order needs you. The future needs you." He coughed again, and the strength in his hand faded.
Seris watched as the Master pulled his hand back. His face flickered with a grimace of pain as he moved, strong, sturdy fingers reaching into his robe. Seris felt a streak of dampness on her cheek, her eyelids fluttered.
"I promised you something," the Master said, his voice now nothing but a breathy wheeze, "I wish there were a better time, but..." He pulled a lightsaber hilt out of his robe, his fingers almost fumbling with the smooth metal. At the base, a short length of braided leather cord hung, and Seris saw another familiar splinter against the Force there, wraped in fine wire and bound into the cord like a charm.
"This is yours," the Master said, and he tapped the crystal hanging off the end of the saber hilt, "And...now...this is yours too." He pressed the weapon into Seris' hands, wrapped her fingers around it. The shape felt wrong, the contours wrong for her hands, and she shook her head.
"Make it..." He coughed, "Make it yours. Learn. And when you're ready..." He pulled in another breath, his eyes closed, and his last words came out as a sigh, "When...you're ready...teach."
Seris watched as the Master's life ended. His essence, his soul, like the Jedi girl's, unraveled and flowed away from him, becoming part of the endless, shifting patterns within the Force. She thought she could hear echoes, not of his voice, but of his experiences, his life, resonate around her for a moment. She closed her eyes, doing nothing to block out the Force, the sensations of the chamber, the feel of the Master's weight against her hand. Gently, she lowered him to the ground, laying him out with as much dignity as she could. Then she stood.
The saber in her hand felt heavy, awkward, strange. It didn't belong to her any more than a Master's title did, not yet. She knew enough of the Jedi's saber forms to know that she would only hurt herself if she tried to use it, even with the best of intent, but she also knew that if she survived, she could change that. Swallowing back tears, Seris tucked the hilt into an inside pocket of her jacket, pulled in another deep breath. She felt the Force flow through her mind, and in the relative quiet of this chamber, she felt herself center. Not free from emotion, not above her own thoughts and feelings, not enlightened - but calm enough to carry on for now.
And there was suddenly no time. The rest of the Jedi would be further along the tunnels, and their numbers were their only advantage now. She leaned forward, kicked off from the floor, and left the Master behind, hurrying to catch up with the others.
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