Lava fields sprawl beneath the ledge, molten rivers gouging obsidian valleys, their fire-glow searing the twilight sky into a haze of ash and blood.
Sulfur bites my throat, vibro-blade sharp, heat warping the air until it scrapes my leathery skin raw through the slits of my mask. Fortress Vader looms at my back, spires clawing the haze, sconces pulsing along the dark stone in dying pinpricks. The Ritual Grounds throb below me. The trial deck, three meters wide and threaded with cortosis weave for the worst nights, gleams under the blue-green glow of the kyber-fueled pyre, flames roaring with a hunger I know better than my own. Bone-scorched ash dusts my phrik armor, the crimson rune across my chest plate smoldering with the oath I cut into it the day Revan humbled me.
My vibro-scythe rides weighted across my back. A meter and a half of phrik-edged ruin, obsidian haft bleeding into my silhouette, its hum a reaper's hymn that would sing if I let it. I don't. Not tonight.
I stand on the ledge above the kriffin' crucible. Trial of the Eternal Flame. A forge to temper initiates into steel or burn the chaff out clean. The air's thick, sulfur and molten metal welded into one taste, the pyre's heat licking my plate with a slaver's sting. The Chamber of Equilibrium hulks across the grounds, carved from dark stone, scaffold ribs dripping forge smoke, walls etched with Je'daii runes that catch the firelight in long jagged lines. The kyber crystal at the pyre's heart, fist-sized and Force-bright, hums into my bones, a second pulse. More, the dark whispers under it, the same voice that's been with me since Krynnar's red sand and the Yrashu boy's slit eyes.
Revan's Gray code holds it at bay. His vision shaped me into the Sentinel of Fire, protector of the order. The whisper can wait.
The Twi'lek initiate stands on the platform. The same one I almost broke in the training pit weeks back. The one who put her sparring partner's ribs through his lungs because I pushed the fear in too deep. She's earned the trial. Her robes are frayed from spars, blue skin slick with sweat, lekku coiling and twitching. Her eyes are half-closed. Her lips move on the Code. "There is no dark side, nor a light side…" Voice thin but fierce. The Force shield she's pulled around herself shimmers under the heat, a frail veil buckling where the flames lick closest, inches from her flesh. Without control this trial reaps. Revan's echo of his own stand against the Sith Emperor sifts the worthy from the chaff, and fifteen percent don't walk off this platform. Their final test, their stamp on the path of the gray. They earn Knighthood or they earn ash.
My Vanguard of Balance encircle the grounds. Cortosis pikes glinting. Matte-black armor swallowing the firelight. Visors hiding their eyes. Silent as tombs. Loyalty to Revan held at my back, vibro-blade flat between my shoulders. The Je'daii code is my center, not my chain. There is only the Force. Revan showed me that path the day his violet and red sabers carved my pride down to its frame on this same volcanic stone. The initiate's resolve wavers, flames surge, and my gauntlet tightens near the haft. Her fear spikes my blood. I master it. The code my anvil. The hunger shaped into clarity instead of harvest.
Tyree, the Ritual Warden, stands at the platform's edge. Grizzled. Human. Trial-scarred armor marked by burns I haven't watched and burns I have. He grips the Bow of Balance, rune-etched metal strung with crystal filaments, and blue arcs of Force-energy crackle along the bow's spine as he draws. The shots release skyward. Illusions weave from them on contact with the kyber's field. A throne of kyber rises above the platform, pulsing with dark promise. A village burns on a horizon I don't recognize. Screams knife across the heat-haze with blaster-bolt force. The Twi'lek's lekku quiver. Her chant falters. "There is PASSION, yet PEACE." She catches it. The shield against chaos flickers but holds. Tyree's voice holds steady, hyperspace-beacon sure, rolling under hers in counterpoint. "Through struggle, balance is earned." Sanctifying. The Bow's shots land with sniper precision and they mean nothing to me, just another tool beside my scythe to carve away what's weak. The pyre roars. The crystal's pulse vibrates my armor through the seals. The initiate's sweat sizzles where it hits the platform, her breaths jagged and desperate. I lean forward. The mask drags hard against my face. Dark brown eyes boring into her through the slits. My Force sense probes her resolve. Her fear pulses there for the taking, a harvest I could pull in one breath, but I'm not after the fall tonight. I'm after the fortitude. She's worthy or she's cannon fodder, and I'm the reaper who'll render judgment.
The throne illusion shifts. A shadow crowned with spikes offers power I'd have seized at her age, power I would have torn the galaxy open for, the same offer Ren made me on Varnak with the same hooked teeth. The candidate ain't me. Her lekku steady. Her chant rises. "I will do what I must to keep the BALANCE." I growl. My jaw unlocks a fraction. Her control makes her resolve into steel, and she's fighting for it with every breath drawn through that veil.
The pyre surges, blue-green tongues clawing higher, the crystal hammering with starship-core pressure. The trial deck glints with the scars of past trials, shattered will, burned flesh, the maps of weakness etched deep enough to read by torchlight. The Chamber's runes glow on the volcanic rock, Je'daii sigils carved when Revan rebuilt this order, each line carrying the same cut as the violet-red blades that opened my pride. Forge smoke curls from the scaffolds, its tang welding into the sulfur, and the Vanguard's pikes stand rigid, their silence louder than the inferno's roar. The candidate's front buckles. Flames graze her robes. Fabric singes black along the hem. Her head-tails thrash, a scream choking off in her throat, but she digs in, knees locked, the Code spilling faster now, every word a bucket against a holed hull. "There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish." My scythe throbs against my back, eager. I stay rooted. My authority in this hellhole is the watch, not the swing, not tonight. She tempers her own destiny under my eye.
Tyree steps to my ledge. Bow slung. Gray eyes calm, kyber-edge piercing. "She's grown, my Sentinel," he says, voice low. "The Force within her is raw and unfiltered, but still caged." My snarl tears free. "A connection with the Force is meaningless without control, Warden. She'll sharpen her will or she'll become just a number for us." He doesn't flinch, kriff him. Just tilts his head a fraction. The candidate stills, sweat steaming off her shoulders in thin pale veils, and the illusions shift again. The burning village fades. A shadow warrior wields a crimson saber where it stood, taunting defeat in a voice cribbed from every dead enemy she's ever been afraid of.
The dark side purrs at my edges, the hunger stirring up out of its leash for one slow breath. I redirect it. Revan's lessons run under my pulse like rebar. His path my strength, not my cage.
The candidate's chant rises again. "There is SERENITY, yet EMOTION." Voice cracking but fierce. Fire burns in her eyes, hotter than the blaze licking her ankles. The heat warps the air between us, the crystal rattling my bones, and I lean closer while volcanic ash settles in slow black flakes on my faceplate.
Minutes grind to a halt. The trial's hour drags Hutt-slow. The platform gleams under it all, alloy scarred by failures I've seen too often, charred robes, broken spirits, the residue of those who came up short. The Vanguard hold their line, pikes steady, but I can hear their murmurs forming behind closed doors before the words ever leave their masks. Trial's too harsh, they'll whisper, when peace seems like the only reality. Let them. Revan's Je'daii needs warriors, not weaklings.
The Twi'lek holds. Her will roars against the trial's oppressive tests, illusions hammering away at her deepest skeletons. Her jaw tightens. She stands. The Code spills blood-clean from an opened wound. "There is CHAOS, yet ORDER." My fingers twitch on the haft. The dark tempts. Her fear a harvest I could unleash to quell my own hunger in one cold drink. I master it. Revan's words forged in my skull. The flames surge in a final roar, the crystal deafening, fire licking the platform's edge.
The candidate stands star-bright in the haze. Her voice rises. "I am the wielder of the flame, the protector of BALANCE." Tyree fires a last Force-energy shot. Blue arc slicing the air clean. The kyber dims. The flames pull back from the platform's edge, leaving blackened metal and steam.
The new Knight stands. Unburned. Robes singed but whole. Head-tails still. Eyes blazing triumph. "I am Je'daii," she declares, voice ringing over the grounds, a defiance pitched at every Vanguard mask in earshot. The Vanguard lower their pikes. Tyree slings the Bow. Silence settles with ash-weight, sulfur lingering in my seals while my own tempered hunger waits to be fed.
I don't move. Boots rooted. The scythe drags across my back more than I let it show. Armor grinds into my bones as I shift my weight an inch. Her triumph reaches deep. Her drive mirrors mine when I was raw, first kneeling to Ren's creed. Freedom, he called it, voice a dark hymn, and my mind slips, Ren's eyes burying themselves into my reverence.
I was scrawny. Barely twenty. Tattered tunic soaked with sweat. Vibro-knife trembling in my grip not from fear of using it but from how much I wanted to. My dark brown eyes, predator-sharp, darted to the shadows. Paranoia clawed my gut the way it had since the awakening at nine, when the Yrashu boy's blood first stained my hands and the More first whispered in my chest. The Unknown Regions spaceport, Varnak, they called it, thrummed beyond the alley. Cantinas spilled raucous laughter. Speeders whined past on cracked thoroughfares. Spice dens choked the air with their sour tang. I'd killed the thug for a stolen credit chip. Enough for a meal or two. The dark side whispered More anyway, a cold fire in my veins. Footsteps crunched. Slow. Deliberate. My pulse hammered. I crouched, vibro-knife raised, the blade's hum a faint comfort against the alley's din. Four figures emerged from the haze. Matte-black armor swallowing the neon. Weapons glinting tooth-bright. The leader, broad and scarred, wore a dented mask, his crimson lightsaber unlit but load-heavy at his belt. Ren, they whispered in the cantinas. A shadow who carved his own path. The others flanked him, hulking and silent, one with a vibro-axe, another with a blaster slung low, their presence a blade laid flat against my throat. I snarled. Force instinct spiked. A raw push hurled crates against the alley wall, durasteel screeching its complaint. Ren tilted his head. The mask's slits glinted. His voice rasped, low and cutting. "The darkness clings to you, boy."
I froze. Vibro-knife steady. My chest tightened. The dark side's pull sweeter than spice. "What do you want?" I spat. Voice raw. Cornered-rat wary. Ren laughed. A guttural sound that stirred my hunger. He stepped closer, boots scuffing blood-soaked durasteel. "You kill to live," he said, "but you could kill to be. Join us, wield true power." The words punched through me with blaster-bolt force. They promised everything I'd craved since Ma vanished into the spice dens and left me the vibro-knife with the faded crest. Power. Belonging. A blade sharper than hunger. The Knights of Ren, their reputation. Took what they wanted. Feared no Jedi, no Empire. Freedom, they called it, and I wanted it. Kriff, I needed it. Paranoia gnawed under it anyway. Nothing came free in this galaxy. "What's the cost?" I growled. Knife twitching. Ren's mask tilted, as if amused. He gestured to the cantina across the street, neon sign flickering Black Nebula in red. "Prove your worth as payment," he said. "The Rodian with the scar there. His enforcers guard him, but your focus is only on the spice trader." His lightsaber hilt caught the cantina's glow. "Do it, and enter our ranks, one more squire added to our numbers." The dark side surged. A tide of cold fire. My Force fear instinct clawed to be unleashed. I glanced at the others. Silent. Vulture-still. Ren's offer was not only a temptation. It was the promise of power, of a family of actual belonging, the first one anyone had handed me without taking it back. I nodded once and slipped into the shadows. Blood's iron tang already in my mouth in anticipation of what I would do. The cantina's air punched the breath out of me. Thick with spice clouds and sweat. The hum of a jizz-wailer band drowned the clink of credits. Patrons crowded sabacc tables, humans, Twi'leks, a hulking Besalisk, their laughter broken-glass sharp. The Rodian dealer sat in a corner booth, scar slashing his green snout, three enforcers looming, vibro-blades at their belts.
My boots scuffed the metal floor. The vibro-knife stayed hidden in my tunic. I wove through the throng, heart pounding, the dark side purring louder with every step. My Force fear spiked. Cold blade sinking into the enforcers' minds. One, a human, clutched his throat with both hands, eyes bulging, choking on his own spit. Another, a Zabrak, stumbled, vibro-blade clattering loose against the floor. The Rodian's head snapped up. Blaster drawing. I was on him already, too fast for him to catch, the vibro-knife flashing across his throat with a wet woosh of motion. Blood sprayed and steamed on metal, and the cantina froze around me while screams cut through the band's wail with blaster-fire force. I stood. Chest heaving. The dealer's corpse slumped in the booth, credits spilling across the table edge in a gutpile scatter. The dark side roared. It filled the hollow where hunger lived, and I grinned beneath the haze of my own ragged breath, teeth bared while I watched his life drain out into the crimson pool that gathered under his snout.
Ren's boots echoed as he entered. Knights flanking. Their armor cut through the patrons in a black tide without a word. Fear hung spice-thick. Ren's mask fixed on me. His rasp cut the silence. "Well done, boy." He skidded a crate over to me, etched metal weighted with jagged sigils. I caught it. Opened it to a crude mask, knife-cut slits, and armor plates laid out like promises. He handed me a vibro-scythe. Durasteel. Blade a meter long. Humming with ultrasonic death. "You are now my Knight Reaper," Ren declared. Voice a dark hymn. "Death's cold answer when debts come due." The words burned. A brand on my soul. I donned the mask, and the load of it muffled the snarl I didn't know I was making. The scythe's hum sang in my blood, already waiting for me. Cardo stepped forward. Vibro-axe slung. Growled. "Move, squire or bleed from my blade." He shoved me toward the alley where the blackness devoured us.
The memory fades. Ren's rasp and the scythe's hum vanish into Mustafar's sulfurous haze. I stand on my ledge, boots grinding stone, the Ritual Grounds pulsing below me with the last twitch of a butchered thing. The three-meter trial deck, its cortosis weave glinting, steams where the pyre burned. Blue-green flames gutter low. The fist-sized crystal sits dimmed, its pulse banked under ash and still working through my bones.
My vibro-scythe rides across my back, phrik edge warm against my plate. The same blade Ren handed me on Varnak. Different oath now riding it. The new Knight stands before the platform. Robes singed but whole. Blue skin slick with sweat. Lekku still. Her eyes blaze with the fire that carried her through the trial. Her triumph stirs Varnak in my chest, Ren's creed branding my soul as his Knight Reaper, but this ain't Varnak's blood-soaked alleys. This is Fortress Vader. The Chamber of Equilibrium looms nearby, rough-hewn walls etched with Je'daii runes, scaffold ribs leaking gray haze into the thermals. My Vanguard of Balance encircle the grounds, pikes lowered now, matte-black armor swallowing the firelight, their silence still a blade laid flat at my back. Tyree, the Ritual Warden, stands at the platform's edge. Bow of Balance slung. Gray eyes calm and piercing, watching me, not her. Always me. I step forward. Armor clanking. The faceplate hangs heavy, its dent from Kylo's betrayal at Exegol catching the dim glow. Dark brown eyes boring through the slits. The air clings, heat and brimstone fused on my tongue, the pyre's warmth a fading press against my leathery skin. Her fear's gone, replaced by a pulse I sense even from here, steel forged in flame the way Revan's sabers forged mine on this same kriffin' ground. The Je'daii code, my anvil, shapes my hunger into clarity, not chains, and I'll forge her the same way. "Knight," I growl, voice raw, unmodulated, a vibro-blade's edge, "recite the code. Bind your soul to balance." She straightens. Poised. Voice fierce despite the trial's toll riding her shoulders. "There is no dark side, nor a light side," she begins, the words ringing over the grounds, "There is only THE FORCE." She continues. Unwavering. "I will do what I must to keep the BALANCE. There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish." The kyber hums softer now, its pulse syncing with her chant, and I nod while something shifts behind my sternum, a fault line under load.
"There is PASSION, yet PEACE," she says, eyes locked on mine, "There is SERENITY, yet EMOTION. There is CHAOS, yet ORDER." The code scalds my tongue even now when she's the one saying it. Its duality a forge for the dark side's pull, and her fire mirrors it, raw and barely controlled. She finishes, voice rising. "I am the wielder of the flame, the protector of BALANCE. I am the holder of the torch, lighting the way. I am the keeper of the flame, soldier of balance. I am a guardian of duality. I am Je'daii." Silence falls, ash-dense. The lava's hiss sounds distant somewhere beyond the spires. Tyree's gaze lingers on me, his calm chafing my tempered patience, but I ignore him. The new Knight has done her part. Her oath binds her to the Je'daii Order the way mine bound me when I declared us Remnant Knights as Revan's, kneeling on this same volcanic stone with my mask cracked from Exegol still in my hands. I unhook my vibro-scythe. Phrik blade gleaming. Dark haft warm from my plate. The Vanguard stiffen, pikes rising slightly along the perimeter, but I'm no debt collector for Death here. Not today. I step to her. Boots scuffing the trial deck. The platform scarred by old trials under my soles. Her eyes widen. Chin dips. She holds. I raise the scythe. Its hum a low chant. I swing it slow, for honor, the blade's edge grazing the air above her shoulders, first left, then right. The motion's deliberate, a reaper's grace forged by the Je'daii code, no longer bound to Ren's bloodlust. The scythe stills. I plant it. Haft thudding against the deck, the sound cracks through the stilled air with blaster-shot force. "Rise as Je'daii, protector of balance," I declare, voice booming over the grounds, a war drum forged in flame. She stands, chin high, eyes blazing. A Knight of Revan now, her Je'daii path burns brighter.