The beam hit him before he saw it coming.
Duncan went down hard, armor doing nothing against that much weight. The air punched out of his lungs in one violent gasp. He tried to rise. Had to rise. Egg was still in there, somewhere past the flames, and Duncan had one job. Just one.
Protect the king.
His legs wouldn't answer. Nothing would answer. The smoke was everywhere now, thick and black, tasting like copper and char. He could hear screaming. Couldn't tell if it was his brothers or the building itself coming apart.
Get up.
He couldn't.
The heat built. The darkness closed in from the edges, creeping like spilled ink across parchment. Duncan's last thought wasn't particularly noble or poetic. It was just... tired.
Sorry, Egg.
Then nothing.
No white light. No gods. No judgment or reward or anything at all.
Just gone.
The next thing Duncan knew, he was screaming.
Except it wasn't his scream. Too high. Too thin. The sound of an infant having the worst day of its extremely short life, and Duncan would've stopped if he could've figured out how to make his body obey. Any part of his body. But everything was wrong. Too small. Limbs that didn't move right. Eyes that wouldn't focus.
Panic hit like a warhorse to the chest.
Hands lifted him. Gentle, but Duncan thrashed anyway, or tried to. His body spasmed uselessly, newborn muscles doing absolutely nothing he wanted them to do.
A voice. Soft. Speaking words he didn't understand but that carried warmth underneath the syllables. Duncan forced his eyes open.
A woman's face swam into view. Dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Sharp features that looked carved rather than born. Eyes that saw him, really saw him, with an intensity that cut through his confusion.
She smiled.
Duncan tried to ask where he was, what had happened, why everything felt wrong, but all that came out was another wail. The woman pulled him against her chest, and the warmth there, the steady beat of her heart, did something to the panic. Didn't kill it. Just... muted it enough that Duncan could think.
He was alive.
Shouldn't be, but was.
A man appeared beside the woman, face lined with exhaustion and wonder in equal measure. He reached out, brushed one finger across Duncan's impossibly small hand. The touch was reverent. Careful. Like Duncan was something precious.
The man said something. The woman laughed, the sound watery, and held Duncan closer.
Parents.
The understanding settled cold in his gut. These people thought he was their son. Looked at him with love so naked it hurt to witness. And Duncan was... what? A dead knight wearing a baby's skin? Some kind of spirit that had hijacked an infant's body?
He wanted to pull away. Couldn't. Didn't have the strength or coordination.
The woman started humming. Low and tuneless, but soothing in a way that bypassed thought entirely. Duncan's infant body relaxed despite his mind screaming at it to stay alert, stay ready. His eyes slid closed.
Through the window, if it was a window, lights blazed. Not torches. Not candles. Just... light. Everywhere. Colors that didn't exist in nature painting the darkness in shades of artificial day.
Not Westeros.
Not anywhere Duncan knew.
Sleep dragged at him, inevitable as a tide. He tried to fight it, tried to stay conscious long enough to understand what had happened, but his body had other ideas. The woman's heartbeat was a drum, steady and safe, and Duncan found himself drifting despite everything.
His last thought before the darkness took him was simpler than the first time he'd died:
What the hell is going on?
Time passed weird when you were a baby.
Duncan figured that out over the first few weeks. Days blurred together, defined only by the cycle of feeding and sleeping and screaming when his body needed things his adult mind found humiliating. He couldn't control anything. Couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't even see properly beyond a few feet.
It was torture.
But he learned. Watched everything, filed it away with the desperate focus of someone who'd died once and really didn't want a repeat performance. The woman was Sarila. The man was Joran. They spoke Basic, he eventually realized, though it took his infant brain time to start processing the sounds into meaning.
They lived in a dump.
Not being cruel. Just accurate. Three rooms stacked on top of each other, walls stained with years of neglect, floors that squeaked under bare feet. But Sarila kept it clean despite the grime that seemed to seep in from outside. Joran fixed things when they broke, which was often.
And they loved him.
Duncan didn't know what to do with that.
In his previous life, he'd served. Protected. Given everything to people who valued him for his use. But Sarila and Joran looked at him like he hung the moon, like his existence alone justified theirs. When he cried, they came. When he was hungry, they fed him. When he just needed to be held, they held him.
It was... new.
The apartment had one window. Through it, Duncan could see the city.
Calling it a city didn't do it justice. Nar Shaddaa, he heard Joran call it. The Smuggler's Moon. Buildings climbed toward a sky he never quite saw, stacked on top of each other in defiance of sense or safety. Neon signs blazed in languages Duncan didn't recognize, advertising things he didn't understand. The air smelled like ozone and cooking meat and chemicals, all mixed into a scent that burned his nose until he got used to it.
Ships flew past the window. Actual ships. Metal crafts that moved through the air like birds, except louder and trailing exhaust that glowed.
Magic, Duncan's first thought.
Except Joran and Sarila treated it all like it was normal. Expected. The lights that needed no flame, the food that cooked in metal boxes, the voices that came from nowhere when Joran activated certain devices.
Not magic.
Technology.
The word floated up from somewhere in his new brain, knowledge that belonged to Duncan Synn rather than Duncan the Tall. This world ran on machines and science, not sorcery. The impossible was just... how things worked here.
It should've broken him. Probably would've, if he'd had time to dwell on it. But babies didn't get time to dwell. They got hungry every few hours and needed changing and cried for reasons Duncan's adult mind found beneath his dignity but his infant body insisted were critical.
So he lived in the moment. Watched. Learned. Grew.
And remembered.
Summerhall burned in his dreams. Every night, the same images. Egg's face. The flames. His brothers screaming. The crushing weight of failure settling over him like a shroud. He'd wake up crying, which as a baby was at least age-appropriate, and Sarila would be there. Always there. Holding him until the panic faded.
She never asked why. Just held him.
By the time Duncan was six months old, he'd accepted it. Whatever had happened, whatever cosmic joke had landed him here, he was alive. Had parents who loved him. Had a second chance at... something.
He couldn't waste it.
The first time he moved something without touching it, Duncan was almost two.
Sarila was cooking. Or trying to. The apartment's excuse for a kitchen was smaller than a horse stall, everything crammed together in a way that made cooking more combat than craft. She had her hands full with something that sizzled in a pan, and a container started sliding off the counter.
Duncan saw it falling. Knew it would shatter. Knew they couldn't afford to waste food.
He reached out.
Not with his hands. With something else. Something that lived inside him but had no name, no shape. Just... will, made manifest.
The container stopped mid-air.
Hung there for a heartbeat, suspended by nothing.
Then settled gently back onto the counter.
The silence that followed made Duncan's stomach drop.
Sarila turned. Slow. Controlled. Her face was blank in a way that screamed danger louder than any expression could. She looked at the container. Looked at Duncan. Back to the container.
"Joran," she called, voice steady. Too steady. "Come here."
His father appeared in the doorway, took in the scene, and went very still.
Duncan wanted to explain. Wanted to say it was an accident, that he hadn't meant to, that he'd just... reacted. But his words were still mostly babble, and even if they weren't, what would he say? That he was a forty-something knight crammed into a toddler's body who apparently had magic powers now?
Yeah. That'd go over well.
"We need to talk," Joran said quietly. "After Duncan's asleep."
They put him to bed early that night. Duncan pretended to sleep, but his hearing was better than it should be. Some gift of whatever his mother's heritage was, he'd figured out. Half-Echani, he'd heard her say once. Whatever that meant.
The walls were thin. Their voices carried.
"You saw it." Sarila's voice was tight. "That wasn't chance. He moved it."
"I know."
"He's Force-sensitive, Joran. Strongly so, to manifest this young without training."
A pause. "The Jedi—"
"Will take him if they find out. You know they will. One test, one scan, and we lose him."
"So we hide it." Joran's voice had gone hard. Determined. "Teach him to control it, keep it quiet, and we don't let anyone who matters get close enough to notice."
"That's not hiding, that's lying. To people who can read minds, who have a thousand years of practice finding Force-sensitives."
"Then we make sure they never look." A sound like a hand hitting the wall. "I won't lose my son, Sarila. I don't care who they are or what authority they claim. Duncan is ours, and he stays ours."
Silence. Then Sarila, softer: "He'll need training eventually. The Force isn't something you can just ignore."
"Then we teach him ourselves. You've got sensitivity, limited but real. And we can find resources, information. Enough to keep him from hurting himself or others."
"And when he asks why he's different?"
"We tell him the truth. That the galaxy is full of people who'd use him for their own ends, and we love him too much to let that happen."
Duncan pressed his face into his sleeping mat, something hot and uncomfortable building behind his eyes. They were protecting him. Risking everything, defying forces they clearly feared, just to keep him safe.
He didn't deserve it.
But he'd honor it. Whatever this power was, he'd learn to hide it. Control it. Make sure their sacrifice meant something.
In the darkness, Duncan made himself a promise. He'd been Lord Commander once. Had sworn oaths to protect a king and failed when it mattered most.
He wouldn't fail his parents.
Not this time.
The years crawled by, each one marked by growth that seemed normal until you stepped back and saw the whole picture.
Duncan shot up. By age three, he was the size of a five-year-old. By five, he looked eight. His body remembered being tall, and apparently it was determined to get back there as fast as genetics allowed.
Sarila taught him to move. Not just walking. Fighting. She called it Echani, a martial art that focused on reading bodies, predicting intent through muscle tension and weight shifts. Duncan absorbed it like a sponge, his adult mind grasping concepts that should've taken years to understand.
His mother noticed. Didn't say anything, but she noticed.
Joran taught him the streets. How to fade into crowds. How to watch without being watched. Which people to avoid, which you could trust, and how to tell the difference at a glance. The skills of someone who'd survived on the margins and intended to keep surviving.
And Duncan taught himself control.
The Force whispered constantly now that he knew to listen. A background hum connecting everything, singing harmonies he couldn't quite hear but felt in his bones. He practiced in secret, when his parents slept or worked. Moving small objects. Sensing emotions off people nearby. Pushing his body faster, harder, beyond what muscles alone should manage.
He got better.
Life settled into rhythms. The apartment was small and shabby, but it was home. Sarila and Joran worked jobs Duncan didn't ask about, bringing in enough credits to keep them fed and housed. Sometimes barely. Sometimes not even that, and they'd go hungry so Duncan could eat.
He hated those nights.
But he grew. Learned. Became someone who could navigate Nar Shaddaa's lower levels without getting killed. Someone who helped neighbors when he could, who fixed broken tech for people who couldn't afford repairs, who stood between bullies and their targets when the odds weren't too stupid.
He wasn't Duncan the Tall anymore. That man had died at Summerhall.
But Duncan Synn was starting to figure out who he might become.