First, aboard the Vessel, they carefully transferred each of the idols to an antigravity floater. Then Orla led their procession from ship to station. Her job was to make sure no one accidentally blundered into the “closed” area, while the other Masters followed behind to keep the most careful watch on the idols.

Dozens of people stood in side corridors, not so much watching as waiting for their pathway to be cleared. However, as Orla led the statues forward, the restive onlookers would hush and go still, until the only sounds were their footsteps and the low hum of the floaters. Even those few civilian guests who couldn’t sense the Force would be struck by the ornate carvings and the sinister cast of each idol’s face.

As for those who could sense the Force? The protective hold they’d placed on the idols back at the station remained strong; there was no immediate danger. But the hold itself prickled uneasily at the edges of Orla’s consciousness. It was rather like the feeling of knowing, without turning around, that someone has entered a room that was supposed to be locked.

They were, in fact, about to enter a place that had been effectively locked for a long time—one kept apart from the Temple at large, hidden from the Jedi themselves: the Shrine in the Depths.

Currently, the shrine on the very lowest levels of the Temple was covered by a meditation area, which had been hastily disassembled upon the Vessel’s arrival on Coruscant. Orla’s heartbeat quickened as they slowly walked through the large, darkened room, over what remained of the floor, until they reached the square dark pit at the center. Stairs had been carved in the stone long before, long enough for the edges to have been blunted. So long before, in fact, that Jedi had not been there at all.

Few people knew that the Jedi Temple had been built atop a Sith shrine.

A vergeance in the Force existed there—a nexus of power and energy that could be put to many uses, both worthy and wicked. Vergeances rose of their own accord; they could not be created, only discovered. In the far distant past of the Old Republic, back during the ancient Sith Empire, Sith and Jedi had often warred for control of these vergeances. The Sith had held this one first.

Maybe, Orla thought, the idols are coming home.

She was being melodramatic. The Jedi had controlled this vergeance for thousands of years—first through their own shrine, then through the construction of the Temple.

Still, it was the Sith who had carved the steps.

Orla led the way down, holding up the hem of her white robes as she entered the darkened shrine. They were underground, and she could feel the damp coolness that forever permeated the space. The air even smelled of dirt.