It had been years since Wil could remember suffering such excruciating pain. His head felt as though it had been split open, his heartbeat keeping tempo with each fiery, piercing stab penetrating him behind his eyes. Bile steadily rose in his throat from the intensity of his agony, but he somehow managed to swallow it down as he desperately sought input from the rest of his senses.

He heard his own unsteady breathing echoing about in his ears, but below that was the steady, low hum of a ship's engines that suddenly whined and powered down. He was aboard a ship that had just finished a hyperspace jump, his sluggish mind was able to process that much, but where had they jumped to? Whose ship was he on? How had he gotten on board?

His eyes fought vehemently against his command to open, tears streaming across his face before he could even perceive light. Finally looking about his surroundings, he could only barely make out the small, dark hold of a ship around him, and he was laying on his side on the floor just behind the cockpit. He couldn't see the pilot up ahead from his current position, so he forced his arms to move, lifting his upper torso from the cold durasteel while his head spun uncontrollably.

Nothing about his current state made any sense to him. He staggered and swayed as he got to his feet, gripping anything he could reach for stability as if incredibly intoxicated. As he moved, his vision blurred and swirled to the point of being completely useless, and all he could register up ahead of him was the contrast of motion within the light. A human form approached him while color drained from his sight entirely, his muscles giving up and no longer holding him upright. He sank to the floor in a heap, unable to even cushion his own fall as a soft, kind voice floated toward him in his daze before the darkness took over once more.

"Oh, Kaz, you've been d-dr-drinking again. Rest, rest. I will take ca-c-care care of you. W-we we will be home soon."

Directing the Shadow Nova to a landing platform nestled deep in the dark and misty Underlevels, Cordira kept a wary eye on Horatio seated beside her. He seemed suddenly confident and collected, a far cry from his nervous energy just an hour prior, and he looked well familiar with their surroundings as they landed. Having a clear direction appeared to have tempered his anxiety, but she couldn't share his focus.

"...are you sure this is the right place?"

"As sure as I can be," he answered her nonchalantly with a shrug as he powered the ship down. "I haven't been here in over a decade, but...this was the only place where I knew they'd be."

He stood and quickly exited the cockpit, already down the loading ramp before it had completely extended, leaving her to scramble to keep up with him. She held her blaster pistol in her hand once more but kept it at her side, scanning the dark building ahead, the fog-shrouded alleys to their left and right, and the buildings and windows above, mentally preparing herself for a threat from any direction. Though she had lived alone on Coruscant for more than six months years ago, she had never felt very secure among its trillions of beings. To someone like Horatio, though, she mused to herself, someone who had grown up in the Underlevels and knew their dangers well, perhaps the cramped city-planet was a kind of familiar comfort.

But the closer they stepped toward the main door in front of them, the slower Horatio walked. There were no visible lights within the structure that she could see, and it seemed to give him pause as he noticed, as well. He watched the windows for a long moment, scanning inside them with intensifying concern before finally speaking.

"Something's not right..." He waited a brief beat before calling out in a raised voice. "Ceyelle?"

Even further set on edge, Cordira tightened her grip on her blaster and lifted it, prepared to aim it at any flash of movement...

"Ceyelle?!"

The structure gave him no answer, though, remaining dormant and inhospitable before them. He began to pace the building's perimeter, panic setting in.

"They have to be here..."

Still on high alert, Cordira reached for him to settle his nerves. "Horatio, it looks abandoned, like there hasn't been anyone here for a long time - "

"No, I need them to be here, they know how to find Wil - "

"You got here faster than we anticipated."

Cordira whirled toward the alley to her left, aiming her blaster directly at a human man who was quietly stepping closer to them. His features were indeterminable until he stood just before a glowlamp on the wall, his hands empty and held aloft in a submissive gesture. Under clean cut but heavily gray hair, the man's distinguished hazel eyes betrayed no threat, and though his face was distantly familiar, Cordira was fairly certain she had never before met him. He wore nothing distinctive beyond a heavy jacket and utility belt, and he was calm and collected though she hadn't yet yielded her aim. Though elderly, he was comfortable among them, aware of who they were though he still hadn't identified himself to them. Before he could answer her unasked questions, though, Horatio was far more eager to interrogate their new guest.

"Where is she? Where's Ceyelle?"

The man appeared reluctant to respond, somewhat wary of Horatio's reaction as he lowered his hands. "She...passed, Mr. Sheridan, years ago. I'm sorry. I agreed to take over for her here when she asked me to. She insisted that it was of the utmost importance that one of us always be here, should you or Wil ever have need of us."

"And who are you?"

He answered Cordira just as reluctantly, as if unwilling to give away a secret. "My name is Veolar. I was a Banarecc Ghost Heir, until I retired here. Ceyelle, or Veomiin, as she was known before her exile...was my oldest sister."

Finally recognizing her Banarecc husband in the man who was Ethan's youngest uncle, Cordira managed to control her expression as she lowered her blaster back down to her side; she watched slow realization visibly wash over Horatio beside her, though. "Wait, she...she was a Ghost Heir, and an exile, too? That's why she helped Deilia?"

Veolar nodded to Horatio with a soft sigh. "She adored Deilia, and she loved Wil even more. Because of that, she got special permission from the Rys'tihn Ghost Heir to retain possession of this, something that was never to leave Rys'tihn hands, something that I know you came here for."

Reaching into a hidden pocket in his jacket, Veolar pulled out a small handheld scanner and readily gave it to Horatio as it powered up and began to steadily beep.

"He's here on Coruscant," Veolar confirmed its function as a tracker for the Rys'tihn Crest that Wil always wore. "You two weren't far behind. And he's in a sector not far from here, too. You shouldn't waste any more time; go."

Horatio was already sprinting up the loading ramp into the Shadow Nova, preparing to patch the scanner into the ship's systems to boost its power, but Cordira hadn't yet moved, earning a curious look from Veolar.

"Come with us," she offered softly, eager to get to know more of her husband's family, but Veolar shook his head with a faint sympathetic grin.

"I left field work a long time ago. But I offer you whatever support I can, from afar." As the engines roared to life behind them, Veolar firmly gripped her shoulder to send her on her way. "Go, Cordira. Wil needs you."

Though his words left her with a sense of dread, worried for Wil as she hadn't yet been, she nodded and jumped up onto the loading ramp that had begun to lift from the durasteel under her feet. She held Veolar's gaze as the Shadow Nova continued its slow ascent, briefly wondering to herself if her first encounter with her husband's Ghost Heir relative would be her last.