The Shiraya Sanctuary lay quiet in the embrace of early dusk, its marble colonnades softened to rose-gold beneath Naboo's sinking sun. The air smelled faintly of water lilies carried on the breeze from the far-off lakes, but nearer still at the heart of the courtyard burned the ceremonial fire. It was no ordinary flame. It rose in tall, steady pillars of silver-blue and ember-red, a forge of purification fed by ancient alchemical oils the Gungan shamans had tended for generations. The fire crackled and hummed with a resonance Katarine could feel in her bones, like the Force whispering through heat.
Katarine Ryiah stepped into the courtyard alone. Her robes were light, simple, and stripped of rank markings. They rustled softly about her ankles. She had left her outer cloak folded by the sanctuary door, as tradition required: all burdens at the threshold, none carried inward.
The wind tugged gently at her dark hair as she moved toward the flame. The closer she came, the more her breath steadied.
The Barash Vow was not exile.
It was surrender.
She exhaled, slow and deliberate, and felt the lingering ghosts of her past ripple through her, faces from investigations, crimes half-solved, pain half-buried, echoes of her brother Daxium's turmoil tugging at the edges of her perception. The dyadic bond between them quivered like a plucked string, faint but present, even now.
But this vow demanded silence.
Stillness.
A turning inward deep enough to risk being lost inside herself.
Katarine stopped before the fire. Her hand slid to her belt and hesitated. The lightsaber hanging there was old, its metal worn to a soft sheen, the etchings along its hilt made by her own hand during her Padawan years under Master Jessari Tanelorn. It had seen her through war zones, hidden temples, investigations that had taken her to the loneliest corners of the galaxy. It had been her voice when diplomacy failed, her protection when the shadows grew too long. But the vow asked for severance from all attachments of identity, including the weapon that had shaped her life as a Knight, Master, and Investigator.
She unclipped it slowly.
The weight of it settled into her palm, familiar as breath. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, the world narrowed to the thrum of energy in the kyber crystal inside, a crystal that had once sung with her, resonant and bright. Now, it felt muted. Distant. Reflective of her own fracturing spirit.
"Forgive me," she whispered not to the Order, not to the galaxy, but to herself, for not knowing who she was beneath all that she had been asked to carry. The fire roared softly, as if inviting the offering. Katarine opened her eyes. She lifted the lightsaber to her brow in a final gesture of respect… then drew a steady breath and extended her arm. The fire's heat wrapped around her like a living presence.
And she let go.
The lightsaber dropped into the flames with a hiss that cut through the sanctuary like a breath sharply drawn. For a heartbeat the metal held its shape, then wavered, liquefying, dissolving, pulled apart by alchemical fire until nothing remained but sparks rising into the darkening sky. The kyber crystal cracked with a soft, crystalline chime. A sound like a soul exhaling.
Katarine lowered her head. A vow born in silence settled over her shoulders. The fire burned on, unchanged, but she felt… lighter. Untethered. A Jedi severed from duty, turning inward to face the truth she had long avoided. It was now time to find her place in this new galaxy and to truly understand what the Force willed of her.
The Barash Vow had begun.
