Barriss stood at the edge of the Trial Chamber's ancient stone archway, her hands clasped before her in the traditional meditation posture. The archway itself was a relic from the Temple's earliest days, carved from a single piece of stone that had witnessed countless Jedi pass through its threshold over millennia.
The corridor behind her was silent. Her friends had been escorted to a waiting chamber where they would remain until her trial concluded. She was alone now, truly alone, in a way she hadn't been since the five of them had bonded on Ilum.
The absence of their presence felt like a physical weight. Then footsteps echoed down the hall, measured and graceful.
Master Luminara Unduli approached, her green skin luminous in the soft temple lighting, her traditional Mirialan tattoos marking her face with geometric precision. Her expression was serene but warm, her dark eyes holding centuries of wisdom despite her relative youth among the Council.
"Youngling Offee," Luminara said, her voice carrying the musical quality common to their people. She stopped a respectful distance away, hands folded within her sleeves. "This is your trial. I cannot tell you what lies beyond that door. I cannot guide your steps or ease your burden."
She paused, and something shifted in her expression, a softening, a glimpse of the teacher beneath the Master.
"But know this: the Force is with you. It has always been with you, even when you doubted yourself. Trust it. Listen to it. And most importantly..." Luminara's lips curved into the faintest smile. "Trust yourself, Barriss. You are stronger than you know."
Barriss bowed deeply, her heart swelling with gratitude and determination.
"Yes, Master. Thank you."
Luminara inclined her head, then turned and walked away without a second glance, her robes whispering against the polished floor. The sound faded into silence, leaving Barriss alone before the archway.
She took a steadying breath. I can do this. I must do this.
She had only her initiate robes and her lightsaber hilt at her side. No backup or friends to lean on. Just herself and the Force.
She closed her eyes and reached inward, finding the calm center she'd cultivated over years of meditation. Her heartbeat slowed. Her breathing deepened. The anxiety that had been coiling in her chest began to unwind, thread by thread.
There is no emotion, there is peace. The words of the Code settled over her like a familiar blanket.
I am ready.
She opened her eyes and stepped forward.
The archway responded to her presence. Ancient mechanisms hidden within the stone groaned to life, and the massive door, seamless, carved from the same piece of stone as the arch—began to slide open. Darkness yawned beyond, absolute and impenetrable.
Barriss didn't hesitate. She crossed the threshold. The door sealed behind her with a sound like finality itself. The darkness was complete.
Not the comfortable darkness of a meditation chamber or the soft shadows of evening, this was the darkness of absence. No light. No sound. No sense of space or dimension.
Barriss stood perfectly still, resisting the instinctive urge to ignite her lightsaber. Using it as a light source would be a mistake. She knew that with the same certainty she knew her own name.
This is a test of trust. Trust in the Force. Trust in myself.
She knelt where she stood, folding her legs beneath her in the meditation posture Master Yoda had taught them years ago. The stone floor was cold beneath her knees, but she welcomed the sensation, it grounded her, reminded her she was still here, still real.
She closed her eyes, unnecessary in the darkness, but the gesture helped—and reached out with her feelings.
At first, there was nothing. Just the void and her own breathing. Then, slowly, she felt it. The Force.
It moved through the chamber like a living thing, ancient and patient, waiting for her to listen. It didn't push or pull. It simply was, flowing around her like water around a stone. Barriss let herself sink into that flow, releasing her fear, her doubt, her desperate need to prove herself worthy.
I am enough. I have always been enough. The thought came unbidden, but it felt true in a way few things ever had.
Minutes passed. Or perhaps hours. Time felt strange here, elastic and uncertain. Then she heard it.
A voice.
Not spoken aloud, but carried on the currents of the Force itself—a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"Come."
Barriss's eyes snapped open. The darkness remained, but now she could feel a direction. A pull. A path forward that hadn't existed moments before.
She rose to her feet and began to walk. The transition was instantaneous and disorienting. One moment, Barriss was walking through absolute darkness, her hand trailing along cold stone walls.
The next, she was standing in the middle of a battlefield. The change was so abrupt that she stumbled, her senses overwhelmed by the sudden assault of everything, light, sound, smell, the oppressive weight of death hanging in the air like a shroud.
No. No, this isn't—
But it was.
The sky above was choked with smoke, thick and black, blotting out the sun and casting everything in a sickly gray twilight. The ground beneath her feet was scorched earth, grass burned away to reveal cracked, blackened soil. Fires still smoldered in the distance, sending up columns of acrid smoke that stung her eyes and throat.
And the bodies. They were everywhere.
Scattered across the battlefield like broken dolls, twisted in the final moments of their deaths. Some wore armor, Republic soldiers, their white plastoid stained with blood and char. Others wore robes, Jedi robes, brown and tan, now torn and filthy.
Barriss's breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her hands trembled. This isn't real. This is a vision. A test.
But it felt real. The heat of the fires. The smell of blood and burnt flesh. The awful, oppressive silence that came after battle, when even the dying had stopped screaming.
She recognized some of the faces. There, a Padawan she'd seen in the Temple halls, a Twi'lek boy with kind eyes. His lekku were scorched, his body still.
There, a Knight she'd sparred with once, a human woman with a fierce smile. Her lightsaber lay broken beside her outstretched hand. Barriss felt bile rise in her throat. She forced it down, forced herself to breathe, to center.
This is a test. Focus. The Force brought me here for a reason.
She closed her eyes and reached out, searching for that pull she'd felt in the darkness, the voice that had called her forward. And she found it. A presence. It was faint. Like it was dying.
There. Her eyes snapped open, and she ran.
She found him beneath the wreckage of a collapsed gunship, its hull twisted and blackened from an explosion. Heavy durasteel beams pinned his legs and torso, and blood pooled beneath him, dark and spreading.
He was a Jedi Knight, human, middle-aged, his face pale and slick with sweat. His breathing was shallow, labored, each exhale accompanied by a wet, rattling sound that made Barriss's heart clench.
"Hold on," she said, dropping to her knees beside him. "I'm here. I'm going to help you."
His eyes fluttered open, brown, unfocused, glazed with pain. "Padawan..." he rasped. "You... shouldn't be here..."
"I'm exactly where I need to be," Barriss said firmly. She placed her hands on the largest beam pinning his chest and reached into the Force.
Lift. Gently. Don't crush him further.
The beam groaned, resisting. It was heavy, far heavier than anything she'd lifted before. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she poured her will into the Force, feeling it flow through her, around her, into the beam itself.
Slowly, agonizingly, it began to rise. The Knight gasped as the pressure eased, his chest expanding with a desperate, shuddering breath. Barriss guided the beam aside, then moved to the others, lifting them one by one until the Knight was free. She collapsed beside him, panting, her muscles trembling from the effort.
But there was no time to rest. She placed her hands on his chest, feeling for the damage beneath. Broken ribs. Punctured lung. Internal bleeding. His heart was struggling, each beat weaker than the last.
I can stabilize him. Slow his heart rate. Buy him time.
She reached into the Force again, this time with a healer's touch, gentle, precise, guiding the living energy into his body. She felt his heart respond, its frantic rhythm slowing, steadying. The bleeding slowed. Not stopped, but slowed.
It wasn't enough. He needed a medkit. Some bacta patches. Until he could get surgery.
The Knight's eyes focused on her, clearer now, and he managed a weak smile. "Thank you... Padawan..."
"Don't thank me yet," Barriss said, her voice shaking. "Just stay with me. Stay awake."
He nodded, then his expression shifted. "There's... another," he gasped. "Enemy... wounded. Ran... that way..." He gestured weakly toward the tree line. "Please... don't let him... die alone..."
Barriss's heart clenched.
Another.
"I'll find him," she promised. "But I need you to stay here. Stay calm. I'll be back."
The Knight nodded, his eyes already drifting closed. Barriss rose to her feet and followed the trail.
The blood trail was easy to follow,dark droplets on scorched grass, smeared handprints on tree bark where the wounded had braced themselves. It led her deeper into the forest, away from the battlefield, into shadows that felt too quiet, too still.
And then she found him. A Zygerrian.
He lay propped against a tree, his legs twisted at unnatural angles, burns covering half his body. His armor, ornate, decorated with the symbols of a slaver clan, was cracked and blackened. His weapon, a whip-staff, lay broken beside him.
And next to him, half-buried in the dirt, was a medkit. The Zygerrian's eyes widened when he saw her. He raised his hands trembling, weak, no threat at all.
"I surrender," he gasped, his voice raw. "Please... no more..."
Barriss stared at him. He was a slaver. A Zygerrian slaver. She knew what that meant. The Zygerrians were infamous across the galaxy for their cruelty, their trade in sentient beings, the suffering they inflicted without remorse. To innocent people, to people like Anakin and his mother.
This man, this thing, had likely enslaved dozens, maybe hundreds. Had torn families apart. Had caused untold suffering. And now he was dying, alone and afraid, begging for mercy. A voice spoke then, cold, emotionless, echoing through the Force itself.
"Only one can be saved. The Jedi Knight or the slaver. The medkit has supplies for one. Choose now."
Barriss's breath caught. No. No, that's not....But the voice was implacable, final.
"Choose."
She looked at the medkit. Opened it with trembling hands. Bacta patches. Pain suppressants. Coagulants. Enough for one person. Maybe.
Her mind raced. The Jedi Knight was her ally. A protector of the innocent. A servant of the light. He deserved to live. The Zygerrian was a slaver. A monster. The galaxy would be better off without him.
The choice was obvious. Wasn't it?
But then she thought of Cain. Not his voice, but his words spoken aloud or through the Force.
The bond they'd forged, the connection that linked all five of them, thrummed softly in the back of her mind. And through it, she felt him, not as a person, but as a conviction.
Don't let yourself be trapped on a path chosen for you by others. Find the courage to make your own path, no matter the outcome.
She remembered his words in the Temple, when he'd defended Anakin against the other younglings.
Love and compassion aren't weaknesses. They're the most powerful forces in the galaxy. She remembered the way he'd walked into Anakin's Force storm without hesitation, without fear, because someone needed him.
I won't abandon anyone. Not if I can help it. Barriss looked at the Zygerrian. At his burns. His broken legs. His terrified eyes.
She looked at the medkit. And she made her choice. She levitated the Zygerrian with the Force, gently, carefully, ignoring his gasps of pain, and carried him back to the Jedi Knight.
She placed them side by side. Then she opened the medkit and divided the supplies. Half the bacta patches for the Knight's chest wound. Half for the Zygerrian's burns. Pain suppressants split between them. Coagulants for both.
It wasn't enough. She knew that. The voice had been clear: supplies for one. But she didn't care.
She wrapped the Zygerrian's legs as best she could, applied the bacta patches to his worst burns, administered the pain suppressant. He stopped gasping, his breathing evening out. Then she returned to the Knight, reinforcing the patches on his chest, giving him the coagulant to slow the internal bleeding.
And then she knelt between them, placed a hand on each of their heads, and reached into the Force.
I will save them both. Or I will die trying.
The voice spoke again, colder now, almost angry. "You cannot save both. Choose one, or both will die."
"No," Barriss whispered. She closed her eyes and dove into the Force.
It was like plunging into an ocean.
The Force surged around her, through her, into her, filling every cell of her body with living energy. She felt the Knight's failing heart and poured strength into it, willing it to beat, to keep beating. She felt the Zygerrian's burns and guided the Force to soothe them, to heal them, cell by cell.
Minutes passed. Or hours. Time had lost meaning. Sweat poured down her face. Her muscles trembled. Her vision blurred.
The voice returned, insistent, demanding. "You cannot save both. Pick one."
"No."
"You will fail. Both will die because of your pride."
"No."
"Choose!"
"No."
And then, through the haze of exhaustion and pain, a thought crystallized in her mind. I must let go. Not of them. Not of her determination to save them. But of the fear.
The fear of not being good enough. The fear of failure. The fear that she would never measure up to Cain, to Seris, to Anakin, to the impossible standards she'd set for herself.
I am enough. I have always been enough.
She thought of her friends. Of the bond they shared. Of the moment on Ilum when they'd become one, five lights merging into a single radiant whole.
I am not alone. I have never been alone. I have them and I have the Force.
And she let go. The fear dissolved like mist in sunlight. And the Force answered.
It surged through her like a tidal wave, vast and overwhelming and alive. Her body began to glow, soft at first, then brighter, until jade green light radiated from her skin, her hands, her very being.
The Knight gasped as his wounds began to close, flesh knitting together, bones mending. The Zygerrian's burns faded, new skin growing where there had been only char.
Barriss felt herself lifted, suspended in the Force, a conduit for its infinite power. And then, as suddenly as it had come, the vision shattered.
The battlefield dissolved. The bodies, the smoke, the fires, all of it vanished like a dream upon waking.
Barriss found herself kneeling in darkness once more, but this time it wasn't empty. A figure stood before her. Tall, elegant, draped in dark robes that seemed to absorb the light. Her face was pale, ageless, framed by long dark hair. Her eyes were sharp, knowing, ancient beyond measure.
An'ya Kuro. The Dark Woman.
"Who are you?" Barriss asked, her voice hoarse. "How long have you been here?"
An'ya smiled, a genuine, warm expression that transformed her severe features. "I have been here the entire time, child. Watching. Waiting. Witnessing."
She stepped closer, her movements graceful, deliberate.
"You showed extraordinary courage, Barriss Offee. Not many Jedi, let alone younglings, could have done what you did. You faced an impossible choice and refused to accept it. You chose compassion over pragmatism. Mercy over expedience."
Barriss's throat tightened. "I... I didn't know if I could do it. I thought I might fail."
"And yet you fought anyway," An'ya said softly. "That is true courage. Not the absence of fear, but the willingness to act despite it."
She placed a hand on Barriss's shoulder, and the touch was warm, grounding.
"Your connection to the Living Force is extraordinary. I felt it radiate from you like sunlight. You didn't just heal those men,you became the Force, if only for a moment. That is a gift few possess."
Barriss felt tears prick her eyes. "Do you think... do you think I passed?"
An'ya's smile widened. "If it were up to me alone, you would have passed the moment you refused to choose. But..." She glanced toward the wall beside them, smooth, reflective, like polished obsidian. "The old traditionalists get the final say."
Her tone was wry, almost teasing. "But I believe they will see things my way."
She gestured toward a door that had appeared behind her, glowing softly with golden light.
"Go, child. Your friends are waiting."
Barriss bowed deeply. "Thank you, Master."
An'ya inclined her head, then turned toward the reflective wall.
"Was that enough for you all?" she asked, her voice carrying a note of challenge.
Barriss didn't wait to hear the response. She walked toward the door, her heart light, her spirit soaring. In the hidden observation chamber, five Masters stood in silence.
The room was small, austere, carved from the same ancient stone as the Trial Chamber itself. A large viewport, one-way, enchanted with the Force to allow observation without detection, dominated one wall, showing the now-empty chamber where Barriss had knelt.
Master Plo Koon was the first to speak, his voice resonant through his mask. "She chose the harder path, knowing the chance of success was nearly impossible. Most Jedi would have saved the Knight and justified it as wisdom. As pragmatism."
Master Shaak Ti nodded, her lekku shifting gracefully. "She chose mercy over allegiance. Mercy over Jedi loyalty. That is..." She paused, searching for words. "Extraordinarily rare. And extraordinarily dangerous, if misapplied."
"But she didn't misapply it," Master Mace Windu said, his arms folded across his chest. His expression was thoughtful, almost impressed. "Her conviction was absolute. She didn't suppress her doubt, she mastered it. She let go of her fear and trusted the Force completely."
Master Fay smiled, her ancient eyes glowing with approval. "She listened to her soul. The Force resonated with her because she was true to herself, true to her nature. That jade light..." She shook her head in wonder. "I have seen few Jedi shine so brightly."
Master Yaddle, the smallest of them, spoke last. Her voice was slow, deliberate, carrying the weight of centuries.
"Her connection to the Living Force grows stronger with each passing day. And her compassion..." Yaddle's large eyes glistened. "It knows no boundaries. No limits. This is what the Order needs. This is what we have forgotten."
Silence fell over the chamber. Then Mace Windu nodded once, decisive. "She passes."
The others murmured their agreement.
Back in the grand hall, the four of us waited.
Anakin paced, his energy restless. Seris stood perfectly still, her silver eyes fixed on the door. Derren sat cross-legged on the floor, meditating, or trying to. I could feel his anxiety through our bond. And I stood in the center, my arms crossed, my heart pounding.
Come on, Barriss. You've got this.
Then the door opened as Barriss stepped out. She felt... different. Her dark blue eyes were brighter, clearer, as if she'd seen something profound and been changed by it. Her posture was straighter, more confident. And there was a faint glow still clinging to her skin, jade green, barely visible, but there.
She didn't speak. She just walked forward, straight toward us, and wrapped her arms around me. I hugged her back, feeling the tremor in her shoulders, the exhaustion and relief radiating off her in waves.
Then Anakin joined the embrace. Then Seris. Then Derren. We stood there, the five of us, holding each other in silence.
Through our bond, I felt what she'd experienced, not the details, but the essence. The impossible choice. The refusal to accept it. The moment she let go of her fear and became something more.
She did it. She really did it.