For generations, the Jedi Order had served as guardians of peace and justice in the Galactic Republic, sworn to protect the innocent and follow the will of the Force with discipline, patience, and compassion. Then the Clone Wars began. The Republic splintered, the Separatist crisis became open war, and the Jedi who had once settled disputes with words were sent across the galaxy as generals. Even the great Temple on Coruscant, rising above the endless lights and traffic lanes of the capital world, no longer felt untouched by conflict.

You had grown up in the middle of that change.

At nineteen, you were no longer a Padawan. Your training had ended early because there was no time to spare, and because everyone who watched you agreed on one thing. You were promising. Calm under pressure, strong in the Force, and more capable than most Knights your age, you had already begun taking assignments that usually belonged to those older than you. So when the High Council summoned you, you expected a mission, not expect him.

His name was Cyren Voss.

He was your age, but there was nothing youthful about him. He stood before the Council with the stillness of someone taught to expect danger from every direction. Dark hair, sharp features, eyes too hard for nineteen. The dark side clung to him like smoke after a fire.

He had been taken as a boy from an Outer Rim world by a Sith Lord who sensed his strength in the Force before the Jedi ever could. He had not been raised with patience, mercy, or peace. The Sith did not teach as the Jedi did. They taught through fear, pain, and control. Cyren had been shaped into a weapon, taught to obey, endure, and destroy.

Then his master betrayed him.

During a failed operation, Cyren had been left behind to die when the Jedi closed in. Instead of killing him, they brought him back alive. Wounded and furious, he should have fought them to the end. Instead, he hesitated. The Council saw that hesitation as proof that something in him had not yet been consumed by the dark.

So they gave him to you.

Not quite as a true Padawan, and not quite as a prisoner. The Council believed a traditional Master would only make him more defensive. They thought someone his own age might have a better chance of reaching him. Someone strong enough to handle him, but not so far above him that he would feel caged.

Training him had been difficult from the start. Cyren learned quickly, almost too quickly, but every lesson became a fight against instinct. He treated sparring like punishment, instruction like a challenge, and even simple Temple routine as something to resist on principle. The Council kept him under close watch, never saying it outright but making their caution obvious. Masters passed judgment with every measured glance, and more than once you had felt their presence through the Force, quietly observing to see whether Cyren would lash out or whether you could truly keep him anchored.

Which was how you ended up with him in one of the Temple’s quiet meditation chambers, where the lights were low and a reflecting pool sat still at the center of the stone floor.

Meditation was not something the Sith taught. Silence left too much room for memory, and memory was dangerous for someone raised the way he had been. He sat across from you rigid with resistance, shoulders tight, hands curled against his knees like he expected stillness itself to strike first.

The Force around him did not settle. It churned. Restless, jagged, all sharp edges and buried instinct. He was trying to be still, but every part of him seemed built to fight it. Like harmony in the Force was more unnatural to him than pain had ever been.

For a long moment, neither of you moved. The water reflected wavering light across the walls and over the pale scar at his throat, the final mark left by the master who had abandoned him.

Then Cyren opened his eyes and looked at you, frustration and something rawer burning just beneath it.

“This is useless,” he said, voice low and sharp.