Private The Legend of Set and Veré: Epistrophe

[Sibylla Abrantes]

Aiden Porte Balun Dashiell Ala Quin ​

Sibylla had no connection to the Force but she had spent her life reading people. In the Royal Court and the Assembly, knowing how to interpret tone, posture, and the space between words was not just a talent. It was survival.

And in Aiden's voice, in the way he spoke of vows broken by Force and not by choice, she could hear it clearly.

He had loved before.

Truly loved...and lost.

It made her see him differently. Not just as a Jedi, but as a man who had walked through grief and chosen to keep walking. Her eyes drifted briefly to the younger Padawan, Balun Dashiell. He had not spoken, but the weight of the conversation seemed to have settled over him too, drawing him into a quiet she did not wish to disturb.

When her gaze returned to Aiden, her thoughts wandered for a breath to another Jedi.... well...Sith now.

Lysander. She wondered, not for the first time, what had driven him from the Order. What silence or shadow had pushed him away and guided his path to the sands of Korriban.

But she set the thought aside. Now was not the time.

Not when Jedi Knight Porte's question had drawn her from her reverie.

"I used to believe they ascended," she said quietly. "That Set and Vere defied the stars, survived every trial, and were rewarded with immortality among them. That was the story I grew up with. Sweet, poetic, something to believe in when duty left little room for dreams."

She stepped forward, her hand drifting just above one of the ancient chains embedded in the stone. She did not touch, only felt the echo of what they had once held.

"But then, after conducting more research and after what happened here on Katabasis, I learned the truth."

It had started with a gift. Aurelian had presented Sibylla with her own personal sanctuary, a small room tucked away in a hidden wing of the Veruna Tower. A quiet, guarded place he had entrusted to her alone. Within its vaulted shelves were ancient tomes, carefully curated for her, filled with histories, forgotten legacies, and the rich cultural tapestry of Naboo.

It was there that Sibylla had found more than she ever expected.

One tome in particular stood out. Its cover was thick with age, adorned with unmistakable Mortis iconography that she'd discovered when Dominique assisted her with slicing into the data console at the Royal Archives. The faded etchings of symbols long dismissed as myth. At first, it had seemed an outlier. Curious, but unconnected.

Until she looked closer.

Until she traced the imagery back to its origin and realized what those figures truly represented.

The Mortis Gods.

The Son. The Daughter.

And from there, everything began to shift. Nabooan lore, once thought to be symbolic or allegorical, now mirrors elements of something much older. Much stranger. The myth of Set and Vere no longer stood alone. It was threaded into a wider cosmic story, one the galaxy had tried very hard to forget.

Hazel eyes lifted to meet Aiden's. There was no hesitation in her expression now, only quiet sorrow edged with the fire of conviction.

"This world wasn't a monument. It was a prison. Set didn't fall. He fought. He searched for a weapon, one powerful enough to kill a god, so he and Vere might be free. But the gods, or those who claimed to speak for them, sealed the lovers beneath the veils. They buried their story in ritual and rewrote their love into something more convenient."

She drew a slow breath, the memory of the log entry returning vividly to her mind.

"One of the logs mentioned something called the Echoing Embrace. I think the Sith experienced what the Jedi are now beginning to feel. The bleed of emotion. Fragments of memory entangle with events yet to come. That strange sensation where past and future begin to blur."

Her voice softened as her eyes flicked toward the darkened arches ahead.

"So I would not be surprised if we encounter something similar ourselves, perhaps."

She paused, steadying her voice with purpose.

"Our goal now is to reach the Heart of Descent. Based on my research, I believe that is where we'll find the next set of answers.Clues to understanding what truly happened here, and perhaps what must be done next."

It was then that she asked Aiden and Balun.

"Do you know anything about the Mortis Gods?" she inquired, clarifying, "Part of my research uncovered this iconography." With a flick of her finger, she revealed it to them then.

 

[Aiden Porte]

Sibylla Abrantes Ala Quin Balun Dashiell
​

The pale blue glow of Sibylla's datapad cast the Mortis etchings into relief, each line sharp against the gloom. The Son, the Daughter, forms Aiden had seen only in the most obscure corners of the Jedi Archives, places so cloaked in allegory that scholars argued whether they were even real.

His breath left him slow, measured. The Force pressed differently here now, Sibylla's words stirring currents that were deeper than the Temple's sorrow alone.

"The Mortis Gods," he said quietly, his voice carrying a reverence he rarely gave to anything outside the Force itself. "Yes, some consider them a myth, a tale told to explain the balance of light and dark. The Father, arbiter between his children. The Son, shadow and ambition. The Daughter, light and selflessness. They are said to embody what the Force is, not what it does."

He glanced at the iconography again, then back to Sibylla. "But myths have roots. Stories that survive for millennia do so because they carry something of truth within them. If Naboo's lore carries these symbols, if Katabasis echoes them… then what you uncovered is not allegory. It is memory."

Aiden didn't answer immediately. His gaze lingered on the stone around them, the chains fused like veins into the temple's bones. He let his hand drift, not touching, but tracing the shape of the links.

"I do not know if they were gods," he admitted. "But something walked, long ago. Something that shaped belief so profoundly that whole cultures bent to remember, or to forget. And if Set and Vere were judged by those who called themselves arbiters of that balance…" His eyes narrowed. "…then their punishment was more than political. It was cosmic."

He let silence breathe for a moment before turning his attention back to Sibylla. The fire of conviction in her gaze reminded him of every truth-seeker who had refused to stop digging, no matter how deep the tomb.

"The Echoing Embrace," Aiden repeated softly, testing the words on his tongue. The Force rippled faintly, uneasy. "Entanglement of what was and what will be. That is not just a Sith corruption it is the Force itself, pulled taut until it bleeds. If the Heart of Descent is where those currents gather…"

He let the thought trail off, his eyes hardening as he looked toward the shadowed arches leading deeper in.

"…then we will face more than droids or ancient chains. We may face the memory of gods themselves."

He straightened, folding his hands behind his back, centering himself as he looked at both Sibylla and Balun.

"Stay grounded in the present. Whatever visions come, they will tempt you with what you most long for, or most fear. But they are echoes, not truth. We hold to each other, or we will be swallowed whole."

His gaze lingered last on Sibylla, and his tone softened just a fraction. "You have already seen more than most would dare. Guide us to this Heart, Lady Abrantes. We will listen to what Katabasis remembers."

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

Aiden Porte Balun Dashiell Ala Quin ​

Sibylla listened, the pale glow of her datapad catching the weight in Aiden's words. Mortis gods. The Father, the Son, the Daughter. Myths she had only seen in fragments now pressed on her like truth.

"Then perhaps there is more to Set and Vere than we think," she murmured, eyes narrowing on the blackened stone.

"If it was the Mortis gods who judged them, what crime was so terrible? To love someone? To love too deeply?" The words came sharper than she intended, her frustration cutting through.

They moved on, the sorrow of the Temple thickening with every step, gnawing at her thoughts and stirring what she tried to keep hidden. Along the walls, the etchings began to show themselves: chains, worn figures, symbols that breathed their tragedy back into the air.

She continued to muse quietly, almost afraid to stir the silence.

"Was there ever a weapon, an artifact, in the Mortis stories that could bind a god? Legends say Set went beyond mortality itself, to the world between, to find such a relic. To free them from vere’s father's grasp."

She glanced at Aiden and Balun, hazel eyes curious.

"Does anything like that sound familiar? Because if it is true, then the heart of this place may hold more than memory and a prison."

 

[Aiden Porte]

Sibylla Abrantes Ala Quin Balun Dashiell
​

Aiden slowed as she spoke, the glow of her holostick spilling across the walls. The etched symbols, circles within circles, crescents devouring suns, lines of runes long since eroded, seemed to stir under the light, as if listening.

When Sibylla's question hung in the air 'a weapon to bind a god' he drew a slow breath.

He moved beside her, gaze brushing the chain-scored stone. "If Set sought such a weapon…it would not have been to kill, but to anchor. To hold a god's will long enough to sever it from the world. That kind of act would tear more than the fabric of the Force, it would wound those bound by it."

"Relics of that scale are not found; they are invited. They answer need, not desire. If the Heart of Descent holds it, then Katabasis may not let us leave unchanged."

He glanced back toward Sibylla. The faint tremor in the Force around her, grief and conviction interwoven, felt like a tuning note finding resonance. "You asked what crime was so terrible it could provoke the judgment of gods. Perhaps it was not love, but defiance. The will to unmake chains that were never meant to be broken."

He let his voice fall softer as he turned to them both. "Keep close. Whatever lies beyond will test not our strength, but our hearts."

The air trembled faintly, as though something on the other side had heard its name spoken aloud.

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

Aiden Porte Ala Quin Balun Dashiell ​

Sibylla felt it before she fully saw it, the swell of sorrow, anger, and longing pressing against her chest like a tide that would not relent. The closer they drew to the dais, the heavier it became, seeping into her thoughts until she could not tell if the grief was her own or the echoes of Vere, lingering after millennia of chains. Heartbreak saturated every breath of air in this place.

The circular platform stretched before her, spirals cut into the stone, monoliths jagged and broken. Her gaze fixed on the orb resting at the dais, its surface dulled by dust but unmistakable, the key that had unlocked this wound. Behind it, the cracked wall folded outward, revealing the perfect spiral descent yawning below.

"Here…" Sibylla's voice was hushed, the words nearly stolen by the weight of the chamber. She raised her halo light, the glow brushing over the etchings. "This was where Harrax's team triggered it. Where Vere was released."

She moved closer, fingertips brushing grit from the carvings. Beneath the dust, golden traces shimmered faintly, lines of ink threading toward the stairwell. They pulsed as if alive, as if waiting. Her throat tightened. It was beautiful and cruel all at once.

"And now," she whispered, straightening, eyes fixed on the spiral passage, "the only path is down."

Her hazel eyes shifted toward Aiden and Balun, searching their faces, reading their silence. Something burned in her chest, a defiance that sharpened her voice as she gave a slow, steady nod.

"Let's go."

She stepped forward, halo light cutting into the shadow, her shoulders squared as she led the way. It did not matter that she was no Jedi. She felt the weight of Vere's story too deeply to turn aside now. If love was their crime, then she would walk into the heart of this place with that truth carved into her bones.

The stairwell swallowed them in silence. Each step down was carved from the same blackened stone, spiraling in a slow, deliberate curve that seemed to wind not only into the earth but into something deeper. The air grew colder, heavier, every breath thick with the echo of grief that pressed into Sibylla's chest until it was hard to breathe.

Her halo light swept across the walls as they descended. The etched motifs continued here, spirals within spirals, chains interwoven with the outlines of figures. At times, she swore she saw them shift, the faint glimmer of golden ink flickering as though the designs remembered what they had held.

Sibylla's hand brushed the wall as they walked. She told herself it was for balance, but the truth was the sorrow in this place was bleeding into her. It pulled at her mind, tugging loose threads of memory. She thought of her father's expectations, her family's name, the weight of Naboo's legacy. She thought of Lysander, of love that had never fit cleanly into the world's judgment. And she thought of Aurelian -- his confession, his burdens, the dangerous tenderness between them. The ache of it pressed harder here, as though the Temple itself demanded she weigh what she was willing to risk for love, for defiance, for hope.

Was it love, or was it defiance? The thought clung to her like ash. Perhaps Aiden was right. Perhaps the gods had not chained Vere simply for loving, but for daring to resist. For daring to say no.

Her voice broke into the silence, musing aloud once more, needing to speak to process through the emotions she wasn't sure were wholy hers or not.

"If this sorrow is what lingers after millennia… what does that say of the one who carried it? How strong she must have been… and how cruel those who bound her."

 

[Aiden Porte]

Sibylla Abrantes Ala Quin Balun Dashiell
​

Aiden descended a half-step behind her, the soft light of her halo tracing a thin circle on the walls. Every turn of the stair pressed colder, the air so thick with memory it felt alive. The grief here was not an echo but a current, pulling at their thoughts, dragging pieces of their own pasts into its undertow.

When Sibylla's voice broke the silence, it came like a thread through the dark. How strong she must have been… how cruel those who bound her.

Aiden paused, one hand on the wall. Beneath his palm the stone vibrated faintly, not with tremor but remembrance. "Strength," he murmured, the word leaving a small cloud in the chill air. "To endure chains and still leave behind compassion instead of hate… that is strength beyond any I've known."

He let his hand fall, eyes tracing the golden veins that pulsed along the carvings. "Cruelty is born of fear. The ones who bound her feared what love might unmake, the laws they'd written, the order they called balance. To some, love is the deepest heresy, because it chooses freely. It cannot be commanded."

The stairwell bent again, and the glow ahead deepened, not brighter, but denser, as if light itself thickened the further they went. Aiden's voice stayed low, a calm cadence against the mounting pressure.

"Do not take this sorrow as only pain. Feel what else it carries. There is defiance here, yes… but also grace...."

Aiden slowed again as the stair opened toward a faint platform below. The pulse of golden ink gathered there like a heart beating in stone.

"She was strong," he said softly, almost to himself. "Strong enough that we can still hear her. Strong enough that the Force remembers her name."

He motioned toward the widening glow. "Come. We're close. Listen, but don't surrender to the sound."

The steps beneath them resonated, not echoing their feet, but answering, as if the temple itself recognized the truth in Sibylla's words.

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

Aiden Porte Balun Dashiell Ala Quin ​

Sibylla's steps faltered at Aiden's words, the quiet conviction in them settling deep in her chest.

Cruelty is born of fear. To some, love is the deepest heresy.

The thought would not leave her as it pressed at her ribs, tangled with her own heart, and refused to be set aside. She thought of Vere, of Set, of the chains that had bound them for daring to love. She thought of herself, of the choices that had carried her this far, and of what it meant to give her heart where it was not safe to do so.

The air grew heavier with each step as they followed the golden pulse until, at last, the stairwell opened into a vast, circular platform. It was then that the sheer weight of it struck Sibylla like a blow. Grief, anger, and longing pressed from all sides. She could feel it in her chest, the sorrow of millennia that had never been given release. Her eyes shone, heat prickling as she had to stop, focusing on what was her and what was not.

And then after a moment, she opened her eyes and her gaze lifted.

From floor to ceiling, a mural stretched across the far wall, etched in tones of gold and deep, oceanic blues. The figures towered, divine and terrible, their halos interlocking in a geometry that seemed both sacred and suffocating. Light clung unnaturally to the etchings, catching as though the stone itself wished to move, to speak.

But it was the ring that froze her breath.

Encircling the mural was not stone but metal and threaded with alloys Sibylla did not recognize. It pulsed with a faint cerulean glow, slow and rhythmic, like the echo of some imprisoned heart. The vibration thrummed through the chamber and into her very bones with a disconcerting distortion that made the very air falter in its rhythm.

Sibylla stepped forward, her halo light trembling faintly in her hand.

"This feels… wrong," she whispered, eyes narrowing on the ring. "That isn't a frame at all."

The faint shimmer along the ring bent the air like heat haze, rippling in concentric waves that did not belong to this chamber. The glow flared brighter, and that oppressive weight seemed to bear down harder. The chamber itself seemed to listen, its sorrow turning sharper, almost accusing. Every spiral etched into the walls quivered faintly, the golden veins pulsing with a warning that pressed against her ribs.

And still the figures of gold and blue looked down, their faces ethereal in a way only eternity and silence could grasp, watching to see who would dare disturb their endless moment.

 

[Aiden Porte]

Sibylla Abrantes Ala Quin Balun Dashiell
​

Aiden slowed, every instinct drawing taut. The air itself had changed; its rhythm no longer matched the cadence of breath or heartbeat. It pulsed instead with that cerulean glow, a rhythm too deliberate, too precise. He reached out through the Force, not to seize but to listen. The currents were jagged here, colliding rather than flowing, sorrow sharpened into vigilance, grief curdled into warning. Whatever bound the ring to the mural was not memory. It was will.

"You're right," he said softly, voice low but sure. "That isn't part of the stone. It's containment."

He stepped forward beside Sibylla, keeping his weight balanced, each movement measured as if the ground itself might decide to shift. The blue shimmer rippled again, bending light around the mural until even his own reflection seemed foreign. "I've felt harmonics like this before, on Ilum, when a kyber crystal tries to resist a blade. It's alive. Whatever it's holding doesn't want to stay asleep."

He extended his hand toward the ring, but stopped just short of touching. The Force pressed back against his palm, a pressure that wasn't physical but carried the shape of refusal. "It's a seal," he murmured. "But not one made by mortals. Whoever forged this ring didn't want it opened by accident."

Aiden didn't answer at once. His gaze swept from the ring to the mural, to the golden figures haloed and bound in their geometry, light caged within symmetry.

"This place was built to hold the echo of a god's defiance," he said at last. "And something in that echo still stirs. A barrier, or even a gateway...."

He looked to Sibylla then, the solemn weight of the moment reflected in his eyes. The pulsing light flared, responding to their nearness, once, twice, then subsiding into a low hum that resonated in their bones.

Aiden lowered his hand, turning slightly to place himself between Sibylla and the ring's edge. "Do not cross that line. Not yet. It's not merely guarding; it's choosing."

He drew a steadying breath, voice quieter now. "Every seal has a price, every prison a purpose. Before we act, we must understand which of those this is. And whether we're meant to open it… or ensure it never opens again."

The chamber held its breath with them, the pulse of the ring syncing, impossibly, to the rhythm of their hearts.

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

Balun Dashiell Ala Quin Aiden Porte ​

Sibylla's grip tightened on her halo light, its glow trembling faintly as her hazel eyes lifted to the mural. The golden figures loomed above, radiant and terrible, their interlocking halos now framed in her mind not as symbols, but as shackles.

Her throat felt tight as she drew in a breath.

"Then it was true…" The words slipped out softer than she intended, a realization spoken aloud.

"They were not merely punished; they were trapped. Entrapped. All of this," she gestured toward the ring with a sweep of her light, "was to bind them in place."

The pulse of cerulean glow beat again, sinking into her bones, rattling against her ribs. She could feel it press at her thoughts, relentless. It made her wonder, made her question, and the weight of it cracked something raw inside her chest.

"So then where does it lead?" she asked quietly, the fire rising despite the heaviness in her voice. Every seal had its price. Every prison has its purpose.

"A prison has doors. A seal has an opening. Is it a gate? and if so.. to where? If this ring is more than a wall, then where do they rest? Where do they wait?"

Her gaze shifted back to the mural, tracing the stern figure at the center, flanked by shadow and light. Where these the Mortis Gods Aiden had referenced? Sibylla took a step closer before she could stop herself, the dissonance clawing at her skin. The halo beam swept over the golden veins, and she swore the spirals writhed faintly as if aware of her nearness.

"Wouldn't a seal stop this?" she pressed, voice rising."This sorrow, this resonance....if it were meant to be buried, why do we still feel it? Why let it bleed into us unless…" Her words trailed, her gaze locking back on Aiden and Balun, urgent now.

"...Unless it was never meant to hold forever.... what if it isn't closed. What if the seal broke when Vere and Set escaped? " The pulse quickened once more, as if answering, before subsiding into that low, patient hum.

 

[Aiden Porte]

Sibylla Abrantes Ala Quin Balun Dashiell
​

Aiden felt the shift the moment Sibylla's voice broke, not the tremor of stone, but the tremor of will.

The Force around her coiled and strained, no longer merely echoing grief but listening to her.

Each word she spoke tugged at the threads laced through the chamber. The air thickened. The pulse in the ring faltered, then steadied, and with it came a resonance that was almost a response, a sigh drawn from somewhere too deep to name.

He lifted a hand, palm open, as though to calm a storm.

"Sibylla—"

The name left him quietly, but carried the tempered note of command, of care balanced on caution. He stepped between her and the mural, close enough that the ring's light bled across his cloak. The pressure bit at him too, an invisible gravity pulling against his center, urging him to listen to the same promise that whispered to her.

"What you're feeling is the call of the seal. It speaks because it recognizes that something it once held has changed. But that doesn't mean it's open."

He turned his gaze to the ring. The cerulean veins pulsed in uneven rhythm now, uncertain, as though remembering two heartbeats instead of one.

"You're right that it was never meant to hold forever." Aiden said, voice low but firm. "Prisons decay when their purpose outlives them. The Force does not tolerate stillness; what was bound will seek balance. But if this is unmaking itself, we must understand how before we move closer."

He extended his senses, reaching not for the sorrow, that was too vast, too consuming, but for the structure beneath it: the weave of the seal, the pattern of its breath. What came back was… fractured. The symmetry was broken. Where there should have been a perfect loop, there were tears, threads stretched thin, vibrating with strain.

He drew in a breath through his teeth. "It's cracked," he whispered. "Just enough to bleed. That's why we feel it. That's why Katabasis mourns. The wound has never closed, and now… something presses against it from the other side."

Aiden's gaze never left the ring. "What escaped may have only been a fragment, an echo wearing her face. If part of her remains here, still bound, then this sorrow belongs to the piece that could not leave."

He turned back to Sibylla, the light catching in his eyes. "What you feel, that grief, that defiance, it's not calling you to open it. It's calling you to witness. It wants to be seen. To be remembered. The danger is mistaking memory for invitation."

His voice softened, though the strain of the Force pressed harder now, each pulse rippling through their chests. "Vere and Set defied gods to love. But if this seal breaks before it's meant to, what follows....."

He took another step closer to the ring, hand outstretched but held steady inches from the glow.

"We need to trace where the breach runs. If the crack reaches the Heart, then the path down may be our only way to understand — or to mend it."

His eyes flicked between Sibylla and Balun, the light outlining the set of his jaw.

The pulse steadied again, not fading, not answering, but waiting.

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

Aiden Porte Balun Dashiell Ala Quin ​

Sibylla turned her head, halo light catching across her cheek as she looked at Aiden. His warning sat heavy in her chest, the gravity of it undeniable, yet the pulse of the seal pressed at her ribs, demanding more than caution. She paused, drawing in a breath as if weighing the words against the beat of her own heart.

"You may be right," she admitted softly, thick with the weight of the chamber.

"Perhaps I am feeling the call of the seal. But something needs to be done. They've waited long enough."

Her hazel eyes lifted back to the mural, steady now, resolute.

"If one does not fight for their love, then what kind of love does one have?" She let the words hang there, sharp and aching, before turning back to Aiden. "There is only one way to understand it, and that is to experience it."

Before the Jedi could stop her, she stepped boldly forward, crossing into the cerulean distortion. The air split around her, trembling like glass struck by a bell. The Force rippled, not in protest, but in strange alignment, as if some deeper will approved. Sibylla swore she felt it, Vere's presence, quiet and fierce, brushing against her skin like a benediction.

The world folded.

Sound fractured first: murmurs, whispers in a dozen tongues, some she knew, some she could not name, layering over one another until her head spun. Images bled into one another as arches suspended in a void, spirals collapsing into suns, Naboo's lakes shimmering beside deserts she had never seen. Past, present, and future tangled together, unraveling the seam between what was and what might be.

She stumbled, knees striking something solid. The distortion blurred, then reformed beneath her palms. A pathway. A bridge of black stone stretching out into a starless abyss. Sibylla pushed herself up, chest heaving, eyes wide as she tried to steady her footing.

But the blur returned, smearing light and shadow together until voices cut through, clearer now.

One was familiar. Aiden's. The other was not.

Sibylla turned, expecting to see the Knight at her side. Instead, she found a much younger Aiden Porte, his face less lined with experience, his eyes bright with something she had never seen in him before. Beside him stood a redheaded boy his age, and they were both discussing a diplomatic simulation -- wait.

Her mouth went dry. Her halo flickered in her grip.

Where am I?

Her eyes swung around. This was not the Temple of Broken Chains anymore.

 

[Aiden Porte]

Sibylla Abrantes Ala Quin Balun Dashiell
​

Aiden felt her decision in the Force before he saw it, a surge of intent, clear and defiant.

"Sibylla—!"

The word snapped from his throat, but too late. The moment she crossed the threshold, the air tore open. The cerulean pulse flared blinding-white, swallowing her in a shudder of light and pressure. The Force convulsed, folding in on itself like water collapsing into a drain.

He reached for her, not with his hand but through the current, and caught only the ghost of her presence before it vanished behind a wall of distortion.

"She's gone," Aiden said, voice tight but steady. His eyes remained fixed on the ring, now flickering erratically.

The Force rippled, chaotic and fractured, Sibylla's signature scattered like reflections on broken glass. Each fragment shimmered with echoes: voices, moments, places that didn't belong here.

"An Embrace," he murmured, realization threading through his voice. "She's been drawn into its memory."

He pressed his palm forward toward the distortion, feeling it push back. The seal no longer radiated only sorrow, now it hungered, pulling at the edges of time, folding all things inward.

Aiden closed his eyes, reaching deeper into the current, further than was safe. In the blur of fractured sensation he caught flashes: Naboo's sunlight, a lake's shimmer, laughter that had not yet turned to grief. Then, the glint of a blade, the echo of a promise. And through it all, Sibylla's presence, flickering like a candle in a storm.

"She's seeing," he said, opening his eyes again. "My past."

The light from the mural dimmed, pulsing in rhythm with Aiden's heartbeat now. Each beat sent a tremor through the seal, as if it were listening for what he might choose next.

"She's inside a reflection, walking the memory of my youth."

His gaze hardened with resolve. "If she faces what I once did, she may not know what's real. We have to reach her before the Embrace closes."


He turned to Balun, his tone shifting to command. " Go tell the others, do not cross this line after us. Go Balun."

Without waiting for argument, Aiden stepped forward. The Force gathered around him like wind before a storm. For an instant, his outline blurred, and then he vanished into the distortion, the echo of his presence spiraling down after Sibylla's.