Solna focused on the fragment of the beacon stone and let herself grow dangerously quiet to inspect it. No breath. No beat of her heart. No flow of blood. No noise in the Xah at all as she searched for some final, faint trace of the link to the beacon’s mate.

But there was nothing.

“It’s just a rock now,” she said, opening her eyes to find an audience of the living and the dead awaiting her. “It definitely was part of the beacon stone, but someone who knew what they were doing destroyed it.”

“Tovos,” Rassi said. “They would have sent Tovos and his team after Nix.”

“Really? He seemed immature and unseasoned,” Ravas said.

“No one’s done a mission like that since I’ve been alive, but Tovos dreamed of it,” Rassi said. “If they didn’t send him, he probably would have gone on his own.”

“The Elders definitely sent him though,” Solna said. “They cleaned the encampment out too well and too thoroughly to not have known things were going to happen.”

“I’m unclear on why they would have wanted to kidnap Nix if they also planned to disappear?” Kelda asked. “If they’d simply moved with all of the Enclave members, they wouldn’t have had to leave behind a beacon stone and Nix and Ayli wouldn’t have been able to find them at all. And that’s assuming that either of them even gave the Silent Enclave another thought.”

“I believe you said Nix did some damage to the High Elder, this Donol person?” Monfi asked, looking at Rassi who nodded in confirmation. “In which case I suspect he, and possibly the other Elders, felt they had to apprehend her. If their authority is never meant to be challenged then suffering a defeat like that and making no reply leaves them looking weak, and tyrants who appear weak do not retain their power very long.”

“Which would be why they wanted her brought back alive,” Ravas said. “Ruling through fear requires that the masses be keenly aware of what awaits them if they step out of line. Her corpse could have been the result of anything. A public execution on the other hand is very definitely the will of the rulers being brought to bear on those they dislike.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience talking,” Hendel said as he escorted a returning trio of Praxis Mar ghosts back into one of the carrying crystals they were using to venture the stars.

“It is. Both theoretical and practical,” Ravas said. “The only reason those ghosts aren’t haunting me here and now is that the Force is merciful and has given them the rest they deserve.”

“That seems to largely be the case with those who were slain at the tradeport as well,” Lasha said. “The ravages of the Death Shadows have left scars on this place and holes in the community, but there is no supernatural element to the sorrow and grief they left behind.”

“If there had been, could we have used that to track where they went?” Nulo asked.

“Tracking the Shadows wouldn’t be that helpful,” Ravas said. “Kelda or I could do that now, but the Shadows are searching as well. It feels like they found a trap or a misdirection and hunting once more.”

“Following them might lead us to the Enclave, if they can find it though, no?” Monfi asked.

“They’ve supposedly been searching for the Enclave for a thousand years and only found us a handful of times,” Rassi said. “So it could be a long wait if we tag along after them.”

“Maybe forever if no one else calls them,” Solna said.

“What do you mean?” Kelda asked.

“It might be our fault that the Death Shadow’s found the Enclave,” Rassi said.

“My fault,” Solna said.

“Our fault, or maybe even just mine,” Rassi said.

“And you would this why?” Ravas asked.

“I didn’t know that I was calling Nix to us, but it seems like that’s exactly what I did,” Solna said. “If I could call her, then  what’s the chance that I didn’t also call the Death Shadows here?”

“Or me,” Rassi said. “Solna wanted to help me, but I had a lot more reason to want to hurt Primus Dolon.”

“And did you?” Ravas asked. “Hurt Dolon? If the desire was there, you are certainly strong enough with the Force to lash out with it. Windpipes in humanoids are frighteningly easy to crush, but often anger can be turned to bloodier ends. Force Lightning is a bit beyond you yet, but I imagine you could have broken a rib into his heart if you were properly motivated.”

“What? No! I never did anything like that.”

“I expected not,” Ravas said, not looking disappointed, but still disturbingly calm about the mayhem she was describing.

“While it is always good to be mindful of our thoughts and feelings, thoughts and feelings alone carry no weight of virtue or guilt,” Kelda said. “A rage you feel and put aside before acting on it will not lead you to the Dark Side.”

“But if we can corrupt…I mean if we can use the Force without intending to, how can we know if we’re hurting people with it?” Solna asked.

“The Force arises from life,” Monfi said. “Killing, or even harming, things with it is an act against it’s fundamental nature. It’s not easy to do by mistake and there’s a resistance which is quite noticeable.”

“Noticeable if you’re not engulfed in rage,” Ravas said.

“Or drowning in sorrow, or otherwise deeply unbalanced,” Lasha said. “It’s not impossible to do as you fear, and its why those who are talented with the Force should be trained, but it is not trivial to make a mistake like that either. If you had sat brooding and silently raging for years focusing only on destroying the Primus, then you could have called something like the Death Shadows to him, but you would not be unsure of your role in their summoning once it was done.”

“There is also the small point to consider that there were other notable events which played out within the Enclave recently,” Kelda said, gently pointing out the glaringly obvious element Solna hadn’t considered. “Nix mentioned that the Primus tried to ‘Expunge’ her, correct? That sort of action is an abomination in the Force and if anything was going to attract the attention of the Death Shadows, it would most certainly have been that.”

“But they’ve expunged people before,” Solna said, her guilt at the destruction of her former home not quite willing to give up the fight just yet. “If the Shadows could sense that they’d have come years ago.”

“Do they ever Expunge people publicly? In the Enclave?” Monfi asked.

“No. It’s usually people who are trying to get away,” Rassi said.

“And they let them get far enough away that tracking back from where they are to the Enclave is difficult to impossible I would imagine?” Monfi said.

“I don’t know, maybe?” Rassi said.

“They didn’t wait for that with Nix,” Ravas said. “But she did make him a little desperate.”

“And they left this location immediately afterwards,” Kelda said. “Which suggests Monfi is correct. They knew what they did would call the Death Shadows, they were just used to calling them to the isolated locations where their victims were.”

“I like these people less with everything I hear about them,” Lasha said.

“I though they told you that the Death Shadows were some kind of rival organization though?” Nulo asked. “What we saw were people. They were something else.”

“The wraiths we saw were supposed to be the weapon the Death Shadows used. At least in the stories they told us,” Rassi said.

“But they didn’t feel like weapons,” Solna said, thinking back to the raw screaming frenzy in the Force she’d heard from the Death Shadows.

“It’s possible they’re both,” Ravas said. “There are many things the Dark Side can be used for, and raising spirit vessels of pain and torment is certainly on the list. In this case however, I don’t think that’s what we’re seeing.”

“The Shadows weren’t summoned,” Monfi said. “Part of our training as Horizon Knights is to listen for the connections between servitors and masters. It doesn’t do much good to hunt down an abomination of the Force only for the one who created it to simply call forth another one.”

“Then what we were told was a lie,” Solna said. “Which is not exactly surprising at this point.”

“What if it wasn’t though?” Rassi asked, her gaze going distant and unfocused.

“What do you mean?” Monfi asked, his voice soft to not disturb Rassi’s focus.

“There are echoes here,” Rassi said. “Both from the Shadows and the Enclave. The animosity goes back to a long, long time ago, and it doesn’t feel like the Death Shadows started it. They’re unnatural, even as bits of the Dark Side. Aren’t they?”

Solna listened and could hear the echoes of conflict and battle that Rassi was referring too. There were layers to them, with the loudest being the most recent assault, but underlaying though were centuries of hostility in ever quieter ripples from an event too far back for her to hear.

“They are,” Ravas said. “I can’t sense a connection to a summoner anymore than Monfi can, but the Shadows did not arise on their own.”

“What if that’s because their summoners are all long dead?” Rassi asked. “Would the Shadows have to fade away with them?”

“Generally summoned spirits depart the moment those who call them return to the Force,” Kelda said.

“But there are exceptions,” Hendel said, being one such exception not exactly in the flesh, since he was still entirely skeletal, but exemplary of the idea nonetheless.

“Special cases abound,” Kelda said. “Your situation, and that of the other ghosts of Praxis Mar is likely quite different from the Death Shadows though. They seem to be intent on a singular purpose and bound only by that.”

“Whereas we were just bound by how much Praxis Mar sucked,” Hendel said.

Solna had only experienced Praxis Mar in its “recovering” state and even that confirmed Hendels words. It had a density of misery to rival a black hole and Solna had breathed a sigh of relief the moment Goldie managed to escape the atmosphere and return to space.

“Sadly, however they came into being, it doesn’t seem that the dead can lead us to the living who we seek,” Lasha said.

Moffvok whuffed and Nulo translated for him, “How do the Death Shadows track the Enclave at all?”

“They would need to have some connection to it, a personal relationship would be the easiest to exploit, but unlikely given the Enclave’s refusal to use the Force,” Ravas said. “It’s also possible that the process which created them also forged the link to the Silent Enclave as a whole.”

“Why destroy the tradeport too then?” Monfi wondered aloud.

“Because they can’t sense us,” Solna said. “Or at least not that well. Whether they were built with it, or just learned over the years, they have to know that we can hide ourselves really well. If they showed up here after the Expunging, expecting to find the Enclave and the place was empty, their only choice would be to lash out at everything and hope to catch someone in the blast.”

“So they can sense the Enclave, but not us individually?” Rassi asked.

The Force pinged in Solna’s awareness.

“Oh! Yes. That’ exactly it!” she said, carried along on the rush of intuitive understanding. “The Shadows can see the Enclave because it’s still what it was. All the old traditions, all the old techniques and skills and everything. Everything except us. We’re not the people who were in the Enclave when the Shadows were created. We have a connection to those people but after so many generations its weak. We’re still part of the Silent Enclave, but we’re not the people they’re looking for. Not exactly.”

“Tell men,” Ravas said. “Is there a story of the first attack the Death Shadows made on the Silent Enclave.”

“Yes,” Solna said. “They killed half the Enclave before the rest vanished and fled to the stars.”

“And how long was it before they attacked again.”

“Two hundred years,” Rassi said. “The Enclave held tight for two hundreds until the Nameless led the Shadows back because they refused to listen to the Elders.”

“Which means they never caught the ones they were created to search for,” Ravas said.

“And they are using only the most tenuous of connections to find the Enclave now,” Kelda said.

“We need to find how they were made,” Solna said. “If we can learn how a link was formed between them and the Enclave, we can make it work for us since we do know the people of the Enclave.”

“We’ll need to backtrack the Enclave across all the systems they’ve lived in until we find the one where the first attack happened,” Rassi said.

“And then we can backtrack the Shadows to find out who made them,” Solna said, already heading back to Goldie.