Chapter Text
The silence on Malachor wasn’t just the absence of sound. It was dense—oppressive—as if the whole planet had taken a deep breath and never exhaled. The air itself trembled under the weight of long-forgotten pain and power that once flowed here—wild and unchecked. The temple, buried deep in the cracked surface of the land, looked less like a place of worship and more like a tomb—massive, broken, left to rot. Its walls had been torn open by the explosion from their last visit, revealing new passageways, hidden hollows, and dark corridors that hadn’t felt footsteps in ages.
Ezra stood at the edge of a wide fissure, staring down into the gloom where light and shadow twisted together. In his hands, he held the holocron—the same one that had once nearly destroyed everything he believed in. And yet, it had brought him back here.
Back on Atollon, he’d had a vision—blurry, fragmented, but powerful. The temple was calling to him. He heard a voice—female, desperate, urgent. At first, he’d believed it was her. That somehow, Ahsoka had survived and hidden herself away. But deep down… he knew it wasn’t her. The voice wasn’t quite right. And still—it pulled him back. Something—or someone—was waiting. And if it wasn’t Ahsoka, then maybe it was something just as important.
Now, standing again at the temple’s entrance, he clenched his jaw. The vision had shown him something buried deep within the structure.
Kanan stepped up beside him, voice low. “You still think this was a good idea?”
Ezra didn’t look away. “I don’t know. But something’s down there. Something important. I can feel it.”
Sabine picked her way down the rubble behind them, moving carefully. “That explosion opened up whole sections of the temple that were sealed off before. According to my scans, there’s a massive labyrinth underneath.”
“Visions aren’t always what they seem,” Kanan warned. “And this place is a trap. We barely made it out last time.”
But Ezra didn’t move. The Force stirred around him—thick, almost tangible. It wasn’t hostile—but it wasn’t calm, either.
“Maybe,” he said quietly. “But what if it really is Ahsoka? We can’t just leave her behind.”
Their footsteps echoed faintly through the temple, muffled by the thick layer of dust and ash that blanketed the stone floor forgotten shroud. Crumbling pillars lined the main hall, some half-collapsed, others split by fresh cracks—some thin as knives, others wide enough for a person to slip through. Something radiated from one such opening. Not warmth, not cold. Something else… a presence.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Sabine muttered, running her scanner over the opening. “It’s deeper than it looks. There’s something down there. Something… big.”
Ezra drew a steady breath, then jumped first. He landed lightly, soundlessly, as if he didn’t dare disturb the tomb-like quiet. Kanan followed close behind, then Sabine, and finally Zeb. Hera and Chopper stayed higher up near the Ghost, ready in case things went sideways.
The passage they descended didn’t feel like part of the original temple. It felt older—or perhaps separate. As if it had been carved beneath the temple long before it was ever built. The walls were smooth, etched with ancient markings that caught the green glow of Ezra’s lightsaber like reflections on wet stone. The air was damp and carried a faint burnt smell, though nothing here had burned in a long time.
“I don’t like this place,” Kanan said quietly. “The Force down here… it’s restless.”
Ezra walked ahead, focused, eyes half-closed as though listening to something beyond sound. It was like a whisper—not heard with ears, but with instinct. It tugged at him, pulling him deeper—around corners, down half-buried corridors, past rusted fragments of machinery that clicked softly beneath their boots.
Zeb grunted under his breath. “You all feel that, right? This place is wrong. Feels like… something’s watching us.”
Sabine swallowed. “The carvings… these walls… they’re not from the Empire. Or the Republic. This is older.”
“Maul said there was knowledge buried here,” Ezra murmured. “From thousands of years ago—stuff no one remembers but… What is this place?” he asked, just as the tunnel suddenly opened into a wide chamber.
The walls and floor were made of heavy stone, black as obsidian. At the center stood a large, ancient carbonite block, flanked by worn monolithic walls. Above it, strange antigrav structures hovered, pulsing faintly with traces of power long faded. The light in the room was strange and deceptive, casting shadows that seemed to dance with every flicker.
Sabine stepped toward the chamber and said, “Ezra… this looks like… a tomb.”
At the base of the carbonite block was a stone altar. Resting on it were two lightsabers—one simple but elegant, its red crystal exposed, the other rougher, like it had been hastily built. Beside them sat a small, heavy datapad and a simple pendant holding a shard of what looked like golden metal, its edges sharp and fractured. Everything looked deliberately placed, like funerary offerings—and yet… nothing had been disturbed.
Ezra moved closer until he was almost touching the block. Beneath the surface of the carbonite, he could see the form of a young woman—perfectly preserved, like a statue frozen in time. He didn’t know her face. But something about it stirred a strange sense of compassion in him.
“She’s… still alive,” he whispered. “I can feel it. Maybe we could—”
Kanan rested a hand on his shoulder, his voice low with caution. “Ezra… if even the Sith locked someone away like this, they probably had a damn good reason. We should be careful. We have no idea what happens if we wake her up.”
But Ezra shook his head slowly. “This doesn’t feel like a prison. It feels… different. Like she’s not the danger. Maybe she’s just… a victim.”
Sabine, still scanning the chamber, suddenly held her breath. “This place is way older than we thought. The inscriptions—this chamber is more than three and a half thousand years old.”
Zeb blinked, clearly baffled. “Three thousand years? That can’t be right. Carbonite wouldn’t last that long…”
Ezra slowly reached for the pedestal where the two lightsabers rested. His fingers hovered just above one of them—the hilt was heavy, foreign, and yet… strangely familiar. With a mix of hesitation and undeniable curiosity, he picked it up.
For a moment, he simply stared at the weapon, holding it like some ancient relic from another world. Then, he pressed the activation switch with his thumb. With a soft hiss, a red blade ignited—sharp, brilliant, almost tangible. Its crimson light bathed the walls in a restless glow, flickering like living fire.
“Knowledge buried for thousands of years…” Ezra repeated Maul’s words quietly, eyes locked on the glowing blade. Then he turned his gaze back to the girl sealed in carbonite. “I can feel something through the Force. Like it’s telling me we can’t just leave her here.”
A tense silence followed. It was Kanan who finally broke it. His voice was calm, but held a warning.
“Ezra… echoes in the Force can be deceiving. You know that. You trusted a Sith once—and we almost didn’t make it out alive.”
Ezra sighed and looked at him. There was conviction in his voice… but also a flicker of doubt he was trying hard to ignore.
“I know. But this feels different. I don’t sense hatred from her—or anger. Just… loneliness. And sorrow.”
Sabine, leaning against the edge of the chamber, glanced down at a display and started tapping something quickly into her datapad. “If my scanner’s not broken, she’s older than anything we’ve ever seen. Maybe older than every Sith we’ve ever heard of—combined.”
She looked up at the rest of them and gave a small shrug. “She might have knowledge that could help us fight the Empire. Stuff a holocron would never reveal.”
Just then, Hera’s voice crackled through Kanan’s comlink. “The Sith have never been allies. And even if she’s not a threat… she won’t have any idea where—or when—she is. If she’s been frozen for three thousand years—”
“—then she might know things that have been lost to history,” Ezra cut in. “And she’s going to need someone to help her adjust. Maybe we’re her only chance.”
They all stared at him for a long moment. Sabine finally glanced at Kanan, who gave a silent nod.
“Alright,” Hera said slowly. “But if this goes sideways… this one’s on you, Ezra.”
He gave a small but sincere smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll look after her.”
Sabine smirked. “Let’s hope this ancient Sith appreciates us waking her up after three millennia.”
Zeb raised an eyebrow, muttered something unintelligible, and crossed his arms with a look that clearly said, ‘I told you so.’
Sabine stepped up to the control panel beside the carbonite block and took a deep breath. “Okay… here goes nothing,” she muttered, fingers flying over the controls as she activated the thawing sequence. The panel blinked, a deep hiss filled the air, and vapor began to escape from the edges of the slab as the block started to warm.
The girl’s body began to tremble. Her fingers twitched, her eyelids fluttered. They all watched in tense silence as she suddenly opened her eyes—golden, ringed in red, burning like fire in the dark. Her breath was sharp and rapid, her body seizing in violent spasms, like the Force itself was reluctant to let her go.
The carbonite cracked and broke apart. As the mist cleared, the girl collapsed forward. Ezra lunged and caught her before she hit the cold stone floor.
The young girl had white hair braided into two long plaits and a pale face marked by a thin scar running across her right eye. There was something peaceful in her features—but not innocent. Ezra held her gently and whispered, “It’s alright… you’re safe now.”
She gasped for air, her eyes unfocused, darting across the room in confusion. “Master…?” she breathed, barely audible.
Ezra froze, glancing up at Kanan and Sabine. “You’ve been in carbonite for a long time. But you’re out now… Can you hear me?” he asked softly, like speaking to someone half-awake from a dream.
She blinked, her eyes still lost in the void. “Master…? You look… weird. Since when do you wear orange? We’re gonna be late for the Council… they’re gonna be pissed…”
Kanan stepped forward carefully. When she looked at him, something flickered behind her eyes.
“Dad…? You came for me…?” Her voice cracked. “Why did you leave me…?” she whispered, before her body gave out once more and she slipped back into unconsciousness, her head resting against Ezra’s shoulder.
There was a soft crackle on the comlink, then Hera’s voice came through, dry but tense. “Didn’t know you had a kid, Kanan.”
“Yeah, hilarious,” Kanan muttered without smiling, “We have no idea what we’re dealing with. And we still need to be extremely careful.”
Ezra simply nodded, holding her a little tighter before standing up. “I know. But… something tells me she deserves a chance. Whoever she is, we can’t leave her behind.”
Ezra held the girl carefully in his arms as they made their way back to the surface. The corridors of the temple felt tighter now, the walls closer, the beams of their lights dimmed against the returning darkness like a heavy blanket. No one spoke. They moved in silence, as if all of them sensed they had just pulled something from the depths that perhaps was never meant to be awakened.
Zeb took the lead, clearing the path. Sabine walked just behind, carrying the girl’s weapons and datapad. Hera joined them only once they reached the ship, ready for takeoff. No one asked what would happen next—at least not yet.
Moments later, the Ghost was slipping through hyperspace, heading back toward the base on Atollon. In Ezra and Zeb’s quarter, the girl from Malachor lay motionless on a narrow bunk. Her breathing was shallow and uneven, a thin sheen of sweat on her brow. Now and then she murmured something in her sleep—disjointed fragments in a language or time that didn’t belong here.
Ezra sat beside her, watching her closely. The longer he looked, the more he realized how wrong his old ideas of the Sith had been. There was no hatred in her, no fury. Just exhaustion. And a strange, quiet sorrow that he couldn’t describe—only feel.
“We can’t… not now… important…” she whispered, lips barely moving.
Ezra leaned in slightly, curious what she meant. He wondered what her dreams looked like—what world her mind wandered through. Was it the one she came from? Or the one she’d fallen into?
The door slid open and Hera stepped inside. Kanan followed, leaning against the doorway with a conflicted expression. Sabine stood opposite, arms crossed, silent.
“Ezra,” Hera said softly. “We need to talk.”
He nodded, not taking his eyes off the girl. “I know.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Kanan broke the silence, his voice low but firm. “I still don’t know if this was the right call. Maybe it would’ve been better to leave her somewhere safe—where she couldn’t put us, or the whole rebel cell, at risk.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ezra shot back, finally looking up. “It’s not fair to treat her like a threat right away. She doesn’t even know where she is. We have no reason to assume—”
“Alright,” Hera interrupted gently but with authority. “Then tell me—what exactly do you plan to do with her? If she really is a Sith, and from thousands of years ago… what happens when she realizes what kind of world she’s woken up in?”
Ezra fell silent. Only now did the full weight of the situation truly hit him. Everything the girl had known was gone. Everything she believed in, erased. She’d been ripped out of time—and he was the one who had pulled her back.
“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “But if we just leave her somewhere, what happens if the Empire finds her first?”
Sabine nodded. “And if they figure out who she is—or what she knows—they’ll want her. No questions asked.”
Kanan sighed, his face still tense. “Alright. Let’s say we keep her. What if, once she regains her strength, she turns on us? What if she decides we’re better off dead?”
“She won’t,” Ezra said without hesitation.
Kanan raised an eyebrow. “You sound awfully sure about that.”
Ezra looked back at the girl sleeping beside him. “Her presence in the Force… it’s different. She’s not like Vader. Or Maul. There’s something else. She’s broken… but she’s not dark.”
Kanan didn’t respond right away. After a long pause, he simply shrugged.
Hera gave Ezra a measured look. “Alright. She stays. But if this goes south… you won’t be the one making the final call. Understood?”
Ezra gave a silent nod, though deep down he hoped it would never come to that.
Just then, the girl stirred. Her lips parted and she whispered in a strained, dreamy voice, “Emperor… Valkorion… fleet… they’ll land…”
Sabine arched a brow and smirked. “Great. We just woke up the oldest Sith in the galaxy.”
It didn’t take long before the girl suddenly opened her eyes—wide, sharp, as if she had just snapped out of a nightmare. Her gaze darted across the ceiling of the small cabin, confused and unfocused, until it finally landed on Ezra, still seated at her bedside, watching her closely.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence between them was taut, broken only by the uneven sound of her breathing.
“Where…?” she rasped, her voice hoarse. “Who are you?”
Ezra moved slowly, raising his hands to show he wasn’t a threat. “It’s alright,” he said gently, with a calm smile meant to reassure her. “We found you frozen in carbonite—on Malachor. I’m Ezra Bridger… What’s your name?”
She eyed him warily at first, as if trying to decide whether he was an enemy or something else entirely. Finally, after a brief pause, she spoke softly. “Nixelle… Nix.” Her brow furrowed slightly. “I’m from Dromund Kaas…?”
The last part sounded more like a question than a statement. Ezra tilted his head, puzzled. “Dromund Kaas… is that a planet?”
Nix ignored the question and instead asked her own—this time more urgently. “And what are you, Ezra?”
Ezra hesitated for just a second before answering. “I’m a Jedi—”
“Jedi?!” Nix cut him off, eyes flaring wide with alarm. Panic set in quickly. “No, no… that’s not right. I can’t be a prisoner of the Republic. We’re not supposed to be fighting each other right now—what happened to the Empire? Where’s my master? Satele could explain this… or someone from the Dark Council… I—” Her voice cracked, and she abruptly tried to stand.
“Wait, slow down!” Ezra called out, reaching for her, but she was already on her feet.
The moment she stood, dizziness overtook her. Her body betrayed her, and she collapsed hard onto the floor before Ezra could catch her.
“Are you alright?” he asked, rushing to her side and offering his hand.
Nix stared at the outstretched hand for a moment, then took it slowly and let him help her up.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just… needed a little rest. Y’know—on the floor,” she said dryly, trying to mask the embarrassment of her fall with humor.
Ezra blinked at her, unsure if she was serious—until she gave a weak laugh. He couldn’t help but smile back. “You really should be more careful.”
“It’s called a joke, you know. You Jedi don’t do those very much, do you?” she said with a crooked grin. “But seriously… where’s my master? Is there anyone who can tell me what’s going on? Satele? Anyone?”
Ezra paused. “Honestly… I don’t think that’s possible. We found you frozen in carbonite, and according to our scans, that carbonite is about three and a half thousand years old.”
Nix gave a short, incredulous laugh—almost a reflex. But the humor drained from her face the moment she saw Ezra’s expression. “Wait… you’re not joking, are you?”
Ezra shook his head slowly, his voice steady but full of empathy. “It’s true. You’re basically in the future now—about three and a half thousand years from the time you remember.”
Nix looked around the small cabin, eyes scanning the unfamiliar devices and lights. Everything was foreign. After a moment, her gaze returned to Ezra and she whispered, “No. That… that can’t be real.”
“I know it’s hard to understand,” Ezra said gently. “But I swear—I didn’t want to scare you.”
She let out a quiet, broken sigh and sat back down on the bed, as if the weight of the truth might pull her under. For a moment, she sat in silence, staring into nothing. Then she looked back up at Ezra.
“So… what happened to the Sith Empire? To the Jedi? The Republic?”
Ezra sat beside her and began to explain—slowly, carefully—the things that had changed. He told her about the Galactic Empire, about a small group of rebels he was part of. He spoke of their fight, the crew of the Ghost.
Nix listened without interrupting, her golden eyes fixed on him. She nodded occasionally, but her face was an unreadable mask, making it hard to tell how much of his story she was truly processing. The fall of the Republic, the rise of the Empire, the near-extinction of the Jedi… To her, it must have sounded like a madman’s tale. Yet, she remained unnervingly still, absorbing the weight of three and a half thousand years of lost history.
When Ezra finished, a heavy silence settled between them. He hesitated for a moment, then asked softly, “What about you? What’s the last thing you remember?”
Only then did her composure seem to flicker for the first time. She looked away, down at her hands. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm, almost clinical. Like a soldier reciting a mission debriefing. She told him about her master, Darth Elkazar and about a betrayal by an Emperor she called Valkorion. But as she neared the end of her story, the clinical tone began to fray, and her voice faltered.
“When the Emperor betrayed us… everything started falling apart. And then… nothing. Just silence.” Her voice had gone quiet, almost hollow. “I don’t remember anything after that.”
The room went still. Only the soft hum of the Ghost's engines broke the silence.
When she looked back up at Ezra, her expression had changed. It was softer. Less guarded. For the first time, it felt like she wasn’t interrogating him—but truly talking to him.
Another silence followed, but it felt different now. Not empty—just heavy with the weight of what they both understood.
Nix let out a breath and met his eyes. “So it’s all gone…”
Ezra nodded. But he added gently, “You’re not alone. I’ll help you find your place in this new world.”
He didn’t really know what to make of her yet. She was a Sith. But she looked shattered. Lost. And something inside him wanted to be the one who helped her.
“I don’t know why…” Nix said softly, studying him, “…but I have a strange feeling about you.”
Then, at last, a faint, honest smile touched her lips. “I think… I can trust you, Ezra Bridger.”
Ezra smiled back—and in that moment, the ship gave a soft jolt as it dropped out of hyperspace and began descending toward Atollon.