The Halls of the Dead were an appropriate place for Jayce to be. After all, his life was over. He stood over the body of his master, laid out beneath a spotless white cloth alongside the other Jedi who had not survived Geonosis. Around them were the memorials of a thousand jedi masters who had come before, and Jayce knew he would never join them.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

The words were meaningless, now. He wanted to rage, to shout, to cry, to kill. He wanted to die. Instead he slumped to the ground and rested his horns on the side of the stone table. His master would have wanted him to stay at peace.

"I'm sorry, to disappoint you, Master," he whispered to the empty room as a single tear ran down the patterns on his cheek.

Footsteps answered. Jayce looked up in time to see flowing jedi robes turn the corner, and the woman who wore them. She was tall, with dark hair running in rivers over her shoulders. Her eyes swept over the room and the fallen jedi, then rested them at last on Jayce.

Jayce stood and surreptitiously wiped the tear from his face. Not that it mattered, she could feel his emotions.

"I thought you might come here," she said.

"Is that allowed, Master Jedi?" The way he said it, the honorific held little respect. "Or am I to leave the grounds at once?"

Master Na-Meh stepped across the room. Her boots echoed against the stone walls as she approached the dead. "I was hoping you were still here. There are things I wish to discuss in private."

"Why?"

She stopped next to the covered corps of Master Sorro Tem. The white cloth had slid off his hand, revealing the cahtar's golden fur. Master Na-Meh reached out as if to adjust the cloth, but pulled back and looked up at Jayce.

"Have you decided what you'll do next? Where you'll go?"

Jayce's silence was his answer.

"Perhaps I can help."

Now Jayce was angry, and he no longer cared if it showed. "The time to help me wes back in the council chambers! Before they did this to me! But you were silent, and now it's a little late."

"I'm sorry," she said, and she sounded like she was. "But nothing I could have said would have changed their decision. In truth," she looked back down at Master Tem's body, "it was inevitable the moment your master died. Perhaps I can help you, now, to find your new destiny."

"Don't talk to me about destiny," the young zabrak spat. "My whole life you people have told me my destiny was here, in the temple, as a Jedi Knight. Since before I can remember, that's all I've ever wanted! That's all you ever let me believe was even possible! Now you've taken that from me, what do you think you can replace it with? I'm not staying here to be your mechanic or farmer."

Jayce fell silent. His breathing was heavy and his hearts pounded in his chest. Master Na-Meh watched him with that always calm, infuriatingly calm, expression that betrayed no reaction.

"Yes," she said when it was clear he was finished. "You made your opinion on that matter quite clear to the council. And burned a lot of bridges in doing so."

Jayce's anger shifted slightly towards embarrassment. "I am... sorry about that. I don't know what came over me."

She nodded appreciatively. "I will convey your apologies to the Service Corps. Unless you prefer to tell them yourself."

Just like that, she had taken all the wind out of his anger. He was left defeated. But he wasn't going back on his decision. The council had declared he could not become a jedi knight, and so he would leave.

"Do you still want to help the Republic?" Master Na-Meh asked. "There are ways to do that outside the order. We are now at war, and there are so many paths that will do good. I came here to tell you that I hope you find one of them."

Jayce shrugged. "What, I should become a soldier, or a pilot? Don't you have clones for that?"

"I'm sure someone with your skills would have no trouble gaining admittance to the Naval Academy. But I don't mean to suggest one such path over another, just that you be on the look out for opportunities." She let a small smile grace her face, then turned away. She was halfway to the door when she stopped.

"Oh, and I wanted to give you this. The council may disagree, but I believe it is yours by right." She held out a hand. In it was the hilt of a lightsaber. His lightsaber.

Jayce stared at it but didn't move to take it. "Why would you give that back to me? That's the weapon of a jedi, and I'm not one anymore."

"You built it with your own hands," she said. "It's a part of you and belongs with you."

"But I'm sure you've heard I was a disappointment to every saber master I had."

Another smile. "That's how I know you'll not get into too much trouble with it." When he still didn't move, she set it on the edge of a stone plinth and glided out the door.

Jayce stared at the hilt for long minutes after she was gone. Then he closed his eyes and reached out for it with the Force. He took deep breaths in an effort to relax, and broadened his awareness to the room around him. The stone of the altars, the empty seats of the gallery, the monuments to the fallen, they were all connected.

As was the lightsaber. In the cold, dead room it was the only thing that seemed to have a spark of life. After a moment he could feel it sitting there. Then he called to it, pulled at it, willed it to meet his outstretched hand.

It twitched. Just enough to fall off the plinth and clatter to the floor. It was a final affirmation that Jayce didn't belong here. Whatever the Jedi seekers had sensed in him as a child that made them to bring him to the temple, it wasn't enough even for this. Whatever Master Tem had seen to take Jayce on as a padawan, it had been seen by him alone.

Jayce took one last look at his master, and turned to go. He stepped past the fallen saber, then stopped, and went back and picked it up. With it tucked safely away, he walked out of the Jedi Temple for what he was sure would be the last time.

Some hours later, in a room in the mid levels of Coruscant, Jayce sat on a thin matress wondering where his life would go from here. The initial shock had worn off, and he realized he still had good options. He could do as Master Na-Meh suggested and apply to the military academy. The bulk of the Republic's new army was filled with clones, but there were still plenty of roles left for the rest of the Republic.

He could even find his original family, the ones the Jedi Order had taken him from. He had no memory of them and didn't eve know where they lived. Iridonia, he guessed, but there were just as many zabraks scattered throughout the galaxy than on their homeworld. His family might even be here on Coruscant for all he knew.

Before he did anything else, though, he decided he was going to take some time to do nothing. He'd heard about 'days off,' but as a padawan had never really gotten to experience any. The credits the temple had given him on his departure would last a while, and he intended to spend most of that time doing all the useless activities he'd missed out on. Sleeping in, lazing about, meandering through the city, and having breakfast for dinner.

That plan lasted until about noon on the first day. He woke up at the exact time he would have if he were still studying in the temple, and all his attempts to sleep in were useless. He tried lazing about, but couldn't get the hang of it so instead went walking about the city.

The problem with exploring Coruscant was that even though there was a near infinite amount of city to explore, it was shockingly uniform. The same coffee shops appeared at predictable intervals, separated by the same apartment buildings, trinket shops, and city parks, with the occasional cantina thrown in the mix. The only variety appeared to be the planet of origin around which the diners' cuisines were centered.

After hours of uninspiring exploration, Jayce found himself back in his temporary abode. He just wasn't used to downtime, and couldn't figure out how normal people did it. For the first time in his life, he was bored out of his mind.

The evening sun was setting over the temple, with just a silver of the view making it through the buildings to where he sat. Jayce drew out his lightsaber and considered. There was enough room in the small apartment to practice some forms. Even a non-jedi could benefit from being able to wield a good weapon. He stood in the center of the room, planted his feet in the beginning stance of Form 1, and ignited the saber.

Nothing happened.

He tried the switch again. The blade did not appear. He sat down at the small table and looked it over. It was a simple hilt with a black-wrapped handle capped on both ends with durasteel, and a durasteel band in the center around the switch. Not nearly as elegant or fancy as many of the weapons of his previous peers. But it was his.

And it always worked. That was one of the few successes of his career at the temple, his saber had come together in his hands immediately and naturally, faster than anyone else in his expedition to Ilum. It had worked the first try, and had never failed him.

Jayce carefully disassembled the pieces and laid them out on the table. The problem was immediately apparent. The kyber crystal was missing. Of course Master Na-Meh wouldn't have given him a working lightsaber, that should have been obvious. But why hadn't he sensed the crystal's absence before? And without the crystal, why had she given him the saber at all? And why in the slot where the little green crystal should have been was there a small datacard?

Jayce teased out the datacard and slotted it into the terminal built into the table. A holograph of Master Na-Meh appeared over the table. It wavered slightly, then steadied as she spoke.

"I'm sorry for this. It must seem a cruel trick," the jedi began. "But kyber crystals, even those of ex-jedi, are closely guarded within the temple. The mundane pieces that make up the rest of the lightsaber are not. I never would have been allowed to return the crystal to you, but no one could fault me for giving you a non-functioning memento of your time at the temple."

Jayce let out a weary sigh and leaned back. It was another little gut-punch reminding him of what he'd lost.

"And there was no better way for me to give you this message without prying eyes seeing. Within the temple, someone is always watching. And it would serve us both poorly if anyone heard what I had to say."

Jayce perked up. Things had suddenly gotten interesting.

"I want to be honest with you, Jayce. I agree with the council's decision. At least I would if it weren't for Master Sorro. He believed in you, though he may have been the only one. I knew him well, we were younglings together, and for his sake, I believe you should be given a chance. It was wrong of the council to deny you even an attempt at the trials. If you still have a wish to be a Jedi Knight, and I would understand if you don't, then we must show them what you are truly capable of.

"The assaults by these...Independent Systems... provide an opportunity to do that. There are many tasks that need doing and not enough Jedi to do them. If you prove that you can do the work of a Jedi, then you will prove that you deserve to be one.

"On this disk are the details of one such task, and access to an account with the funds necessary to accomplish it. If you decline my offer, take the credits as my gift to you in the name of a friend we both shared. Start a new life. If you accept, and if you succeed, you will earn yourself allies within the order. And with enough allies, even the council may be swayed into reconsidering their decisions. But if anyone at the temple were to discover that I was helping you, it would go badly for us both.

"Farewell. And whatever you decide, good luck."

The message ended. Master Na-Meh faded away to be replaced by the image of a planet, a lush world of hills and rivers and plains. This is what she had meant, the opportunity Jayce was meant to be on the lookout for. He was left dumfounded and conflicted.

But he also had a ray of hope. He could still be a Jedi Knight.