Rassi hadn’t know how to make Solna believe that the Death Shadow attack wasn’t her fault. All the words and convincing arguments that should have been there were missing, and Solna knew why.

Because Rassi couldn’t be sure.

Oh, Rassi knew for certain that Solna wouldn’t have specifically called the Death Shadows down on the Silent Enclave. Even when Solna was busy denying the rage that had been building in her for years, she had a core of kindness that would have balked at the kind of collateral damage which had occurred.

And, for as much as they were both coming to understand and hate how they had been treated and how the Silent Enclave treated others, Rassi knew neither of them were so deep in their hate to willing murder anyone.

They’d seen what that level of corruption looked like.

What the Dark Side allowed and required. 

But Solna was right. The Force could be moved by unspoken desires, even ones the conscious mind turned away from.

Had she and Solna been angry and wished ruin upon Primus Dolon and the whole structure of the Enclave’s society? Yes. Definitely. Rassi couldn’t even claim that had changed, or that she didn’t wish it even more strongly than she had before.

That in turn left open the question of whether that unvoiced rage had been what had called to the Death Shadows. 

And whether they could indeed call them again.

“I don’t think we should tell anyone about this,” Solna said.

“You think they’ll blame us?” Rassi asked.

“The Horizon Knights have a mandate to hunt down people like the Death Shadows, and Force users who work with them,” Solna said. “I think they’d at least have to lock me up. Or worse.”

Rassi caught a flash of the future Solna was envisioning. A future marked by blood and pain.

But it wasn’t a real future. If was wrapped in shadows. A lie born of fear.

“They won’t,” Rassi said. “If this is something they’re familiar with, they can probably tell us whether it’s possible that we did this or not, and if we did, I know they’ll be able to teach us how not to do it again.”

“But will they trust us with that?” Solna was quiet, her awareness turned inwards, searching for some confirmation of what she feared she’d done.

“If we go to them? I think so,” Rassi said. “Think about Nulo and Muffvok. Lasha has been raising them since they were little and they’re not fanatics like we were.”

“I don’t know if we can judge that all that well,” Solna said. “I think they look more reasonable because they agree with the things we’ve been learning. We haven’t tried to go against their wishes at all so far.”

“They trusted us to call us in against the Lich,” Rassi said.

“Okay, yeah, that’s true,” Solna said. “But it still scares me.”

“Me too,” Rassi said. “How much of that is just inside us though? I mean, this was our home. We knew this place and it’s gone now. And we have broken all kinds of rules so far. Maybe this whole idea is just guilt over that?”

Solna closed her eyes and breathed in and out, slowly and regularly. Rassi kept her eyes open but made a similar effort at centering herself. 

“Maybe this is just guilt over leaving the Enclave,” Solna said at last. “I can’t feel where that guilt ends and the guilt over summoning the Death Shadows begins.”

“We’re too close to it,” Rassi said. “The Enclave was wrong about a lot of things, but some of their stuff just makes sense – I think it had to or nothing would work. When Honored Jolu taught us about getting an external perspective on feelings that seemed too big to manage, that’s probably a good idea.”

“Okay,” Solna released more than just the breath she’d drawn in. “But we need to make something clear if we’re going to let anyone know about this idea.”

“What’s that?” 

“I’m the one who might have done this. Not you.” Solna’s expression had gone adamantine in its resolve.

Rassi pulled her in to close hug.

“We absolutely do not know that,” Rassi said. “If this is something we did without knowing it, then I’m much more likely than you to have been responsible.”

“Why? And how? I’m already responsible for Nix finding us, that make me the most likely to have been bending the Xah for other things.”

“I don’t think so,” Rassi said. “You called to Nix because you wanted us to be rescued, to find a way out of the Enclave. I was the one who wanted it all to burn down.”

“I’m also the prodigy though right?” Solna said, clearly not believing the claim but still more than willing to use it to win the argument.

“And I’m the one who can copy the prodigy,” Rassi said. “Maybe while you were calling to Nix, my fear and anger were calling to the Death Shadows?”

“I do not want them to blame you for this,” Solna said. “I can’t let that happen.”

“This isn’t going to be about blame,” Rassi said. “It’s about understanding, whether either of us could have done this and, if so, what we need to do to make sure we never do it again.”

Solna leaned into the hug, which felt so good Rassi considered tossing away all other cares and simply staying like they were, hidden in one of the still standing buildings, away from everyone’s eyes.

“I hope you’re right,” Solna said. “I don’t think I would have gotten through this without you.”

“I think we belong together,” Rassi said, which wasn’t a particularly daring thing to say, they’d talked about presenting a united front to the world a lot of times. In this case though, Rassi felt like she was asking for something more than that. Something that maybe they already had but hadn’t ever named? 

“We do,” Solna said before drawing in a fortifying breath and pulling away from the hug at last. “And you’re right. This is something we should talk to people about. Hiding it would just be stupid and make everything worse.”

“We don’t have to rush though,” Rassi said, missing the closeness of the hug already.

“I don’t want to risk losing my nerve,” Solna said and took Rassi’s hand.

It wasn’t a hug, but it was still good.

They found Nulo first, following the sound of young Hutt’s hover platform to find her surrounded by ghosts.

They weren’t exactly friendly ghosts, but they were friendly enough under the circumstances.

“Oh hey,” Hendel the skeleton said. “We can’t find anymore of the Shadows lingering around here, so we’re thinking we’ve chased them off and people are safe now?”

“I don’t sense them either, but I wanted to find you and see what you thought,” Nulo said.

“They can probably hide better from us than from anyone,” Solna said.

“Yeah, if they’re used to hunting people from the Enclave, then they’d have to know how to hide from us,” Rassi said, considering for a moment just how terrifying the attack on the Enclave must have been.

They’d been told that the Death Shadows were a group of corrupted Xah users – frightening but still tangible and mortal. From what the ghosts of Praxis Mar had reported though the creatures they fought were very definitely not living beings.

“I was thinking about that,” Nulo said. “We haven’t found bodies in the Enclave, but we did find them in a tradeport. That means the Enclave members had to have evacuated before the Shadows got here, right? Which means the Enclave must have known they were coming, somehow, so maybe the Shadows aren’t ambush predators. They may be more like pack hunters, with only enough stealth to get in close to their prey.”

“Except in this case, the prey was able to spot them. That does seem to make sense,” Solna said.

“And if you’re right that they evacuated then there should be a beacon stone somewhere around here.” Rassi cast out her sense, both searching for any lingering traces of the Death Shadows and to see if she could find the beacon Honored Jolu had told them should be there.

“Beacon stone?” Nulo asked. 

“The Silent Enclave has survived as long as it has through anonymity and mobility,” Solna said, reciting one the lessons all children in the Enclave were taught. “We lived in tents and impermanent dwellings so that we could flee on a moment’s notice, and take as much with us as there were time for.”

“Which could be nothing,” Rassi added, since that point had always been stressed.

“The one thing the Enclave would not leave behind though was its own members,” Solna said. “Whenever the Enclave has to relocate, they’re supposed to find an unremarkable pair of stones and quiet the Xah in them both.”

“They showed us how to do it and it makes the stones almost unnoticeable,” Rassi said. It had been one of the rare assignments she’d done well with and had enjoyed. The other children had ruined it for her, but by that point it had hardly been a surprise.

“One stone is left behind and the other is taken and dropped on the planet the Enclave moves to,” Solna said. “By holding one, you can sense where the other is, supposedly even across the stars.”

“Wouldn’t that let whoever was following you just find you again though?” Hendel asked.

“There are traps setup around where the stone that’s taken along with the Enclave is hidden,” Solna said. “Anyone who follows the stone’s guidance must pass through the traps to find the Enclave. If you’re a member, they’ll know you when you show up and let you through. If not…”

“Then they kill you?” Nulo guessed.

“Or send you back believing that the stones led to a dead end,” Rassi said. “Dissuading people from finding the Enclave was supposed to be the Great Will of the Xah and anything and everything that supported that was automatically judged to be free of corruption.”

“So how do you find this stone if it’s unnoticeable?” Hendel asked.

“We were supposed to take three days centering ourselves, listening to the silences around us for the one which was too quiet,” Solna said.

“What if you were being pursued too though?” Nulo asked.

“In that case you’re not supposed to look for the Enclave,” Rassi said.

“The duty of anyone outside the Enclave when it moves is to be certain they are not followed back to it,” Solna said. “If that meant spending a week hiding out, you did it. If it meant spending a year hiding, you did it. If you had to die to be sure no one could follow you back, them you died. The safety of all was supposed to matter more than any personal safety.”

“That’s a fairly common stricture to find in hidden cults,” Kelda said, appearing beside Nulo.

“It sounds noble, and it enwraps the members into a community where intense devotion is expected to be the norm,” Ravas said, appearing on Nulo’s other side.

“That’s the Enclave,” Rassi said.

“The people in the tradeport are putting in a call for Republic assistance,” Kelda said. “They seem to be out of danger for now and they’re going to need help rebuilding this place.”

“And they would all feel more comfortable if we stayed around to make sure the Shadows don’t come back after nightfall or something,” Ravas said. “So you should have plenty of time to look for this beacon stone.”

“I don’t think they’ll need that much time,” Monfi said. “Unless I miss my guess, this was the beacon stone that you were talking about?”

In his hand, Monfi held the shattered pieces of a stone which had no noteworthy features.

Rassi could feel the chaotic scramble of the energy in the stone. It wasn’t alive, and had never been alive, so it shouldn’t have been part of the Force, but all matter resonates with the Force and the stone was no different.

If it had ever been connected to another stone however, that was completely lost, and with it any trace of where the stone’s twin might have been taken.