So’lek carried his losses the way the forest carried scars—quietly, permanently.

The Resistance knew him as a blade: precise, relentless, forged by fire and grief. But she knew the pauses between his breaths, the way his gaze lingered on places that no longer existed. She never tried to fill his silence. She stood within it, steady as stone, letting him choose when to step closer.

When he finally claimed her as mate beneath the bioluminescent canopy, it was not ceremony that bound them, but trust—earned in battles survived and nights endured. For the first time since the sky people took everything, So’lek did not feel like he was only fighting to protect the past.

With her, he was choosing a future.