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Ezra was suspiciously quiet behind him as Kanan entered the rendezvous coordinates into the Phantom’s nav computer. Auto pilot engaged, Kanan leaned back with a sigh. He’d played it cool for Ezra’s sake, but sending his padawan into the Temple alone had been nerve wracking to say the least. Had Master Depa felt like that when it had been Caleb’s turn? She probably hadn’t needed Master Yoda to remind her not to rush in like an impatient idiot.
Kanan turned to check on Ezra only to find him curled up on the jump seat with his knees pressed up against his chest. “Everything alright?” Kanan asked as he took a seat across from him.
“I’m glad you took me and I’m excited about the lightsaber crystal but—” Ezra hesitated “I saw things in there, Kanan. Terrible things.” He pressed his face into his knees.
That sounded about right from what Kanan remembered. “I know,” he said, squeezing Ezra’s shoulder. “These things can be pretty intense. At least it was for me when I got my crystal on Ilum.”
“Ilum?” Ezra asked, looking back up.
“It’s another temple, one built over a cave full of kyber crystals. A trip there was an important right of passage for a young padawan.” Kanan shook his head. “It was pretty harrowing as field trips went.” At least they hadn’t been in danger of freezing to death if Ezra hadn’t passed the temple’s trial. Not that dying of dehydration or whatever would have been much better.
Ezra uncurled. “Are they all like that then? The temples?”
“I haven’t been to all of them.” Just three now, counting Lothal. Not that Ezra needed to know that. “According to the holocron, a lot of these smaller outposts were designed as trails and lessons.”
“What about the one where you grew up? Was it like this one?”
“That temple was nothing like this one. It wasn’t a test. It was a community. Tens of thousands of Jedi, hundreds of different species, living together in a complex bigger than Lothal’s Capital City.”
“Woah! It must have been enormous!” Ezra leaned eagerly forward. He was always eager for whatever stories Kanan was willing to share. That didn’t make them any easier to tell.
“It was,” Kanan nodded. He had only seen the temple from the outside a few times, but he could still picture it clearly. “It was a massive pyramid with over a hundred floors. There were dormitories, classrooms, communal dining halls. Most of our food was grown in the terraced gardens and the Hall of a Thousand Fountains. The library was bigger than the main market on Lothal.”
Ezra’s eyes grew wider and wider as Kanan talked. In truth, there was so much of the temple that Kanan had never had time to explore, just as he’d never had time to meet all who had lived there. The temple still stood. It was the imperial palace now. Without the Jedi who had made it their home it was little more than an empty shell. Or maybe a cursed graveyard.
Kanan ground the heels of his hands into his eyes as he was hit with a wave of grief too intense for words. He missed them. He missed his master, his crèche-mates, the younglings he had helped with their studies, and the teachers who had scolded his him for his questions. He missed the strangers he had passed in the hallways whose names he’d never learned and the boy who cut in line for the fresher every morning. There was a reason he never spoke of his childhood. He missed them all too much.
“They’re gone now, aren’t they? The Jedi. Them Empire killed them all.”
The anger in Ezra’s voice made Kanan lower his hands. He took a deep breath and exhaled his grief into the Force. “Yes, everyone I knew back then is dead, but the Jedi aren’t gone.”
When he was growing up, the Force had sung with the Light of the Jedi. Then it had screamed as their song ended. For so long the Force had been cold and silent, but it was humming again now, warming up for a new song. Ezra was part of that song. Kanan could feel it.
“The spirt of the Jedi lives on. It’s in the temples, in me, and in you, Ezra.”
Ezra flushed and looked down at the crystal in his hand. “You really think so?” he asked, his voice small.
“You chose to be a Jedi, Ezra. And there’s your proof the Jedi chose you back.” Kanan clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome aboard.”
Kanan just prayed it wouldn’t get him killed.