The Deeper Verge wasn't a place — not in the way the Temple had been. It was a feeling. A descent into places where lights went to die and only silence remained. Old construction tunnels and forgotten fusion conduits twisted like veins through the bones of Coruscant's underbelly, lined with the rusting skeletons of broken droids and blinking holos of ads that hadn't been relevant in decades.
Ryen moved ahead with quiet purpose, his posture still carrying the precision of a Padawan, though his steps were heavier now. Slower. The weight of grief lived in his shoulders.
Eli followed without a word at first.
He didn't need to speak.
Every breath he took reminded him of what he'd lost. Of what he'd watched burn.
The Temple.
Tavi's quick laugh. Niyala's quiet focus.
Gone again. Always gone.
And yet… he was still here.
They reached a junction platform where the ferrocrete had cracked in jagged fault lines across the floor. A half-collapsed security booth leaned against one wall, the corpse of a uniformed enforcer still slumped inside. His armor was scorched, visor cracked — likely from a raid days ago.
Ryen crouched beside it, rifled through a few compartments, and pulled out two ration tabs and a half-full water capsule. "Not much, but it'll keep us going."
Eli nodded, leaning against the nearest pillar, eyes scanning the surrounding tunnels. "You know the way?"
Ryen gave a half-shrug. "Mostly. Master Tolar once arranged passage for a contact from Manaan. Said if I ever needed to disappear, this was the place."
"Disappear," Eli echoed. "Seems like that's all we're good for now."
"Better that than a lightsaber through the gut," Ryen muttered.
Eli turned away slightly, the corners of his mouth twitching downward. He didn't answer.
A beat of silence stretched between them.
Then, Ryen looked up, squinting through the half-dark. "You were one of the younger ones, weren't you? Still in the Initiate Clans?"
Eli gave a small nod. "Clan Bergruu. We were near the Hall of Balance when the alarms started. I took a corridor only the tech workers used. Got lucky."
"Or skilled," Ryen said quietly.
Eli didn't respond. He didn't believe in luck anymore.
Ryen sat down on a half-buried crate, wiping soot from his brow. "You said back there... you'd go back and save the Temple."
Eli paused.
"I will."
Ryen shook his head slowly, eyes distant. "You can't. It's already gone. Even if we had a whole fleet — even if the Jedi Council themselves rose from the ashes — it wouldn't change anything. The Republic made its choice."
Eli's jaw tightened. He looked away.
"You think it's hope," Ryen continued. "But it's not. It's a dream. And dreams like that get you killed."
"They already have," Eli whispered before he could stop himself.
Ryen looked up sharply. "What?"
Eli met his gaze — steady, cold. But the truth hovered behind his eyes like a shadow in the Force.
"I won't stop until I make them pay," Eli said. "Not the clones. Not entirely. The ones who gave the order. The ones who watched it happen. The ones who turned peace into a weapon. I'll find them."
Ryen stared at him. "You sound like… someone else."
"I sound like someone who's survived."
"And how many times will you try?" Ryen asked, frowning.
Eli said nothing.
They moved on in silence.
—
By the time they reached level 1410, the city felt more like a corpse than a place. The air was heavy with power discharge and burnt coolant, and the durasteel walls groaned from the pressure of age and neglect. Signs of life were there — distant shouts, scuttling droids, flickering lights behind makeshift doors — but it was all buried under layers of grime and fear.
Finally, Ryen stopped outside a sealed bulkhead covered in graffiti and weld marks. A sigil was painted onto the door in oily blue: a crescent shaped like a tusk, half-cracked. Selkath smugglers. Old trade routes.
Ryen reached into his robes, pulled out a small, flat code chip, and slid it into the terminal beside the door.
For a moment, nothing.
Then a low chime.
A voice rasped through the intercom: "This sector's closed. Crawl back to whatever rat hole you came from."
Ryen stepped forward. "Tell Bral Akk that Master Tolar's apprentice is calling in her favor."
Silence.
Eli glanced at Ryen, eyebrow raised.
"You sure about this?"
"No."
Then: a heavy hiss. The door slid open partway with a grating whine, revealing a narrow entryway and a tall, shadowed figure behind a rusted shield emitter.
The being was Selkath — tall, with mottled blue-gray skin and eyes like wet coal. His nostrils flared with displeasure.
"Tolar's brat," he said, voice thick with underwater modulation. "Didn't think you'd live."
"Neither did I," Ryen said grimly.
The Selkath's gaze shifted to Eli. "And the small one?"
"I'm not that small," Eli muttered.
"Smaller than me," Bral Akk grunted. "Which means more likely to fit in the cargo hold if things go sideways."
He stepped aside, waving them in. "Come on. Before the Imps sniff your scent."
Eli exchanged a glance with Ryen.
Inside the smuggler's den, the air was warmer. Packed with crates, deactivated droids, and dim yellow glowpanels. It felt like a holdout bunker more than a docking bay — but Eli recognized signs of preparation. Ration containers, burner transponders, hyperspace charts etched into plasteel plates.
This was real.
A way out.
And yet…
Eli's hand found the lightsaber at his side.
Leaving wasn't winning.
It was surviving.
But survival was the beginning.
Not the end.
He watched Bral Akk disappear into a back corridor and turned to look at the flickering map on the wall — a messy route plotted through the mid rim toward the Outer Systems.
His jaw tightened.
He would leave.
For now.
But he would return.
The Temple would burn in his dreams again and again.
And one day, he would stop it.
One day, he wouldn't have to wake up dead.