Chapter 14: The Wound Opens
Part 1: Echoes of the Fallen
The Force did not scream. It didn't need to. It pulled.
In the vast quiet beneath the Jedi Temple, Kade Sorn stirred from meditation. The ancient stone chamber, hidden far below the spires and sanctuaries of the Temple, had been his place of silence for years now — unspoken, unshared. But today, something tore across the deep threads of the Force.
Marbs whirred softly from the shadows, scanning an incoming encrypted signal.
"It's happening," the droid said. "Reports from Geonosis. Jedi forces engaged. Council members on the front lines. Several casualties already."
Sorn opened his eyes. The tremor had already reached him before the signal. He felt it ripple through the marrow of the galaxy — a lurch in the great cycle, the wheel staggering as too many souls passed into the next life at once.
He looked toward the shaft of dim light that slanted down from the far corner of the chamber — a hidden passage that led to the Temple's lower halls. He didn't need permission. He didn't need welcome.
He rose without a word.
---
The Temple above was quiet, but not still.
In the lower levels, a few Knight Guardians remained. They kept watch over the youngest initiates — the younglings too early in their path to join combat. Dozens of children, seated in clusters in the training halls, now clung to each other in stillness. Their instructors had gone. Some to battle. Others never returned.
And they felt it. The children trembled. Not because anyone told them what had happened — but because the Force whispered its grief.
Then the door opened.
Kade Sorn stepped through, silent, shadow-wrapped, but radiating presence.
Immediately, two temple guardians moved to block him. Their hands did not reach for sabers — not yet — but tension rippled in their posture.
"Who are you?"
Sorn didn't answer with his name. Names were irrelevant here. Instead, he opened his palm — not with violence, but with quiet command. The Conqueror's Force unfurled around him like invisible pressure, a tidal presence that settled not with fear, but calm.
The two guardians stiffened — not from pain, but from the sheer density of will in the room.
"I'm not here to fight," Sorn said. "I'm here to keep them safe."
He stepped aside, and Lera entered behind him, her presence still masked, invisible in the Force. The guardians didn't see her — they couldn't — only a momentary flicker in the corner of the eye, a trick of the light. Marbs followed next, scanning calmly, one hand raised with an embedded holo-signal bearing emergency clearance codes intercepted from Temple transmissions.
Then… he nodded.
"Very well. But the children are unsettled. The Force has been… erratic since the fighting began."
"I know," Sorn replied. "That's why I'm here."
---
The meditation chamber was wide, quiet, domed in marble, etched with long-forgotten runes of balance and breath.
Now, it became a shelter.
Sorn knelt among the younglings — not as a teacher, not as a Jedi — but as something else. A center of stillness. A scar that refused to reopen. He reached into the space between breath, and the Force pulsed outward.
Not to dominate. Not to command.
But to soothe.
The younglings exhaled all at once. Their tiny hands unclenched. Their tears stopped. Not because sorrow had ended — but because something in the room told them they would not face it alone.
Lera watched from the corner, still cloaked in Conqueror's Force, eyes wide, feeling what it meant to carry others in the Force. Not just protect them, but anchor them.
Marbs spoke quietly into Sorn's earpiece.
"Battle is escalating. Jedi losses mounting. General Kenobi confirmed wounded. Skywalker still active. Master Yoda has entered the field."
Sorn kept his eyes closed. "The wound is open."
A pause. Then Marbs: "What do we do?"
Sorn opened his eyes.
"We remain."
He looked toward the high ceiling of the Temple, sensing the vast spire of the Force spiraling upward.
"And if the darkness follows the trail of blood back to this place… we'll be here."
---
In the highest chamber of the Temple, the holotable flickered — Council transmissions fading in and out. Only a few senior Masters remained behind: Master Cin Drallig, the Temple's battlemaster; Tera Sinube, ancient and watchful; and Jocasta Nu, already deep in the vaults.
Drallig's brow furrowed.
"Something's wrong."
Sinube stirred faintly. "The tremor grows."
They both turned — for only an instant — sensing something strange beneath their feet. A presence not hostile, not familiar… but old. A wound made flesh.
Sinube said quietly, "He's here."
Chapter 14: Part 2 — The Quiet Teachings
The great halls of the Jedi Temple still carried echoes of loss. In the aftermath of Geonosis, the Temple's stillness felt heavier — a mourning not just for the Jedi who had fallen, but for the innocence that died with them.
Down below, in a quiet chamber beneath the training levels, Kade Sorn sat cross-legged on smooth stone. Around him, a dozen younglings sat in a loose circle — some still in shock, some whispering to each other, and a few simply watching him with wide, uncertain eyes.
They had not returned to formal training yet. There were too few Masters left, and too much pain. The Temple was a wounded place.
Sorn had not come to fill that void as a Jedi — he was never one. But the Force had brought him here. Not to fight, but to steady the ground beneath frightened feet.
Beside him, Lera demonstrated a slow, fluid motion — shifting her weight from foot to foot, arms spiraling like wind through tall grass. She didn't speak, but the younglings mimicked her instinctively.
Sorn spoke softly. "You don't need to reach for the Force. You only need to remember you are part of it."
The children listened.
"This is the Way of the Force," he said. "Not a Code. A rhythm. A breath. Everything that lives follows it, whether it knows or not."
He held up one hand, palm upward. "Inhale," he said. "Feel where you are. Exhale. Let it pass."
A few of the younger ones fidgeted. A Mirialan girl wept quietly, her fingers curled around her robe.
Sorn didn't shush her. He only nodded. "Even fear belongs. Even sadness. They pass, too."
---
Marbs hovered nearby, his sensors sweeping slowly across the room. The faithful droid's outer shell was scuffed, but his holoprojector was intact. With a flicker, he projected a wide image into the air — an ancient grove, trees bent by wind, leaves falling endlessly into mist.
"From Ossus," Marbs explained gently. "A Jedi grove, three thousand years ago. This is where Force practitioners once learned balance."
The younglings watched, entranced.
Sorn used the moment. "The Jedi are not the only ones who knew the Force. Others lived by it. Farmers. Healers. Warriors who never needed sabers. They listened instead of commanding. That's what I'll teach you."
Lera stepped beside the projection and held out her palm.
The air around her shimmered faintly — a focused pressure wrapped around her skin. "This is Armament Force," she said. "Not armor, not attack. It's the part of the Force that says, 'I am here, and I will not be moved.'"
One boy tried to copy her. Then another. One fell down. He laughed.
The laughter made Sorn smile — the first sound in the Temple today that felt like life.
---
Not far off, a temple guardian stood by the doorway. She was silent, observing, arms crossed. Her robe bore light stains of medkit paste — she had been in the infirmary just an hour earlier.
She stepped in slowly.
"You're not a Master," she said.
Sorn looked up. "No."
"You're not a Jedi."
He didn't flinch. "Never was."
The woman glanced at the children. Her voice softened, barely. "Then why are you here?"
Sorn rose to his feet. "Because they're afraid. Because the ones they looked up to left for war, and not all of them returned. Because they don't need the Code right now. They need breath. Balance. Stillness."
The guardian looked to Lera — a child herself, yet calm, balanced, quietly powerful. She looked at Marbs, projecting another soft holo now: waves rolling over sand.
Then she turned back to Sorn.
"You're not teaching rebellion," she said at last. "That's something."
"I'm not teaching anything new," he replied. "Only what's been forgotten."
The guardian left without further comment. She didn't tell him to stop.
---
Later that night, after the younglings had returned to their rooms, Lera sat beside Sorn in the empty hall. She leaned against him, quiet.
"They're still scared," she murmured.
"They will be," he said. "Fear passes, but not all at once."
"I was scared, too," she admitted.
Sorn looked to her. "Of what?"
"That the war would come here. That… we wouldn't be enough."
Sorn nodded slowly. "That's the part they never tell you. No one is ever enough alone."
She closed her eyes. "Then I'm glad we're not alone."
Marbs chimed faintly. "I have recorded 17 minutes of emotional progress. Would you like a summary?"
Sorn smiled faintly. "No, old friend. Just stay close."
---
And somewhere above, far above them in the spires of the Temple, the Jedi who remained gathered around holotables and spoke of troop movements and wounded knights.
But below, beneath the foundations, something else stirred. Not war. Not doctrine.
A different rhythm.
A new kind of strength.
One that waited. One that listened.
One that endured.
Chapter 14 – Part 3: A Meeting of Paths
The air within the Jedi Temple was heavy — not with noise, but with absence.
Wordless corridors bore echoes of footsteps never returning. The survivors of Geonosis had returned: injured, wearied, and changed. Not all came back. The names of fallen Masters hung like incense in the meditation halls.
Kade Sorn watched from a quiet alcove above the main entry hall. Marbs hovered low, silent. Lera sat cross-legged nearby, eyes closed, breathing slow — steadying herself through the rhythm he'd taught her.
He didn't need to feel the Force to know the tremor that had rippled through the Temple's foundations. But he did feel it. Deeply.
Not a scream. Not even a storm.
A wound.
And the wound was not in the Temple — it was in the galaxy itself.
---
A Temple Guardian approached without hostility. His voice was neutral, but not cold.
"Grand Master Yoda requests your presence"
Sorn stood with quiet grace. He looked to Lera. "Stay here. Continue what we began."
She nodded. "I will."
He followed the Guardian through vaulted corridors lit by fading daylight. The Temple still functioned — healers worked, Knights moved in pairs, and younglings whispered — but the soul of the place had dimmed.
---
Yoda waited alone in a high meditation room, seated cross-legged upon a shallow cushion. The stained-glass window scattered pale light over his small frame.
Sorn entered without a word.
Yoda opened his eyes slowly, peering into him.
"You come not by invitation," Yoda said. "But not unwelcomed, you are."
"I come because the Force asked," Sorn replied.
"Hm. It does that. Rare ones listen."
Sorn lowered his hood. "I'm not Jedi. You know that."
Yoda gave a faint nod. "Know it, I do. A different path, yours is. But a path still."
Sorn stepped closer. "I saw it in the children. The fear. The uncertainty. I showed them how to breathe again. How to listen. Not to follow… but to feel."
"Simple truths," Yoda murmured.
Sorn's tone softened. "The wound has opened. And if healing does not walk beside the war, this will consume everything — even you."
The silence that followed wasn't silence at all. It was understanding.
Yoda tapped his claw lightly against the floor. "Stay, you may. Teach, if you must. So long as balance, you keep."
"I serve only the Force."
"Then stay until it sends you onward."
They bowed, not as Master and Knight — but as two who had chosen different steps on the same turning wheel.
---
In the medbay, Sorn moved quietly among rows of wounded. His presence calmed. His words were few.
He placed his palm gently against the wounded— a faint vibration passed through his fingers, reaching into the pain. Not a cure. But a stillness. A reminder of breath.
Another wounded trembled in restless sleep. Sorn sat beside her, whispering only: "You are still here. Breathe. The Force has not left you."
Marbs projected soft light into the corners. Lera moved among the injured, guiding small rhythms — breath in, breath out — and touching palms as Sorn had shown her.
No robes. No ranks. Just presence.
Even Jedi Healers watched without intervening.
---
Anakin Skywalker entered the medbay like a shadow in motion. His presence was strong, tightly coiled. His eyes scanned the injured he had fought beside.
When he saw Sorn, his brow furrowed.
"You're not Jedi."
"No," Sorn replied.
Anakin took a slow step closer. "But you're here. Healing. Teaching."
"I do what the Force asks."
"And if it asks you to fight?"
Sorn looked at him carefully. "Then I listen. But I don't answer with violence unless there is no other voice."
Anakin studied him. "You're strong. I can feel it. Why hide it?"
Sorn inclined his head slightly. "Because not everything the Force gives is meant to be used loudly."
Anakin narrowed his eyes. "You sound like a Temple archivist."
"I sound like someone who buried people once, thinking power would protect them."
That gave Anakin pause.
Sorn stepped a little closer. His voice dropped lower.
"You carry much."
Anakin raised an eyebrow. "Do I?"
"A name. A prophecy. A war. It's a heavy path," Sorn continued. "But the Force doesn't ask for weight. It asks for listening."
Anakin frowned — not offended, but thoughtful.
Sorn offered a calm nod, and added gently:
"Life gives. Death takes. Trust the Force to carry some of it for you. You're not meant to bear it all."
A long silence settled between them.
Then Anakin turned to go, pausing just once. "Maybe we'll talk again."
"Maybe," Sorn said, watching him disappear into the hallway.
---
That evening, in the quiet below, Sorn resumed his lessons with the younglings. No titles. No blades.
Only the rhythm of breath.
Marbs floated above, dimly lit.
Lera sat among the children, repeating the simple code Sorn had begun to share:
"There is breath in all things.
There is stillness in the turning.
Life feeds death. Death births life.
This is the cycle."
And far above them, the stars turned. The war had begun. But beneath it, something else stirred — steady and enduring.
A different kind of power.
A different kind of hope.