Tein did not move.
The ritual ground lay sunken into the earth like a wound that had never healed. Black stone formed a shallow basin, its surface smoothed by centuries of use rather than erosion. Standing stones jutted at irregular angles, their bases half-swallowed by fungal growth that pulsed faintly, reacting not to light but to proximity. Old sigils—scraped away rather than erased—left shallow scars in the rock, grooves that caught shadow and refused to release it.
The air still held the ritual's aftertaste.
Iron-sweet ichor. Burnt sigil. The copper tang of power that had been forced through flesh and stone and then cut short. Beneath it lingered something subtler—the pressure of a pattern that had been broken instead of finished, like a held breath that had never been exhaled.
Green haze drifted low across the basin, clinging to depressions in the stone before thinning again, then returning. It did not behave like smoke. It tested. It lingered where it sensed heat, where it sensed life.
Talzin's hand remained extended.
Not reaching.
Offering.
The coven stood in a loose arc around the basin's edge, staffs grounded, boots planted with deliberate symmetry. Their shadows overlapped unnaturally, pooling together even where the light should have separated them. They watched as statues might watch—utterly still, eyes fixed, attention unbroken. Not waiting for permission.
Waiting for inevitability.
The boy watched too.
He stood apart from the circle, chains looped through a stone anchor darkened by age and residue. The links lay slack for now, but Tein saw how they were threaded—close enough to tighten instantly, arranged so that even collapse would be contained. The stone beneath his feet was stained darker than the rest.
Old fear.
Tein kept his face unreadable. He let no emotion reach his eyes, no impulse reach his hands. His blade was off. His body was ready anyway.
"Power shaped by this world," Talzin said, as if confirming something long settled.
"Knowledge your Order refuses to name… because naming it would mean responsibility."
Tein held her gaze.
"I'm not here for you," he said.
Talzin's smile did not fade.
It narrowed.
Like a blade turned sideways.
"Ah," Talzin said mildly.
"Still you behave as though intention did not bring you."
The coven did not react.
But the space did.
The basin felt smaller. Sound thickened, as though the air itself had grown heavier. The haze drew inward by degrees, curling closer to the center where Tein stood.
Talzin took a slow step. Her boots whispered against stone polished smooth by ritual traffic, a sound so soft it should not have carried.
It did.
"You came to watch," Talzin said.
"To weigh. To decide what must be endured and what may be erased — then return home and call that restraint."
Tein's jaw flexed once.
He didn't deny it.
"Measure, then," he said.
Talzin tilted her head, studying him with open curiosity. The green haze parted around her but never fully left, as though unwilling to lose contact.
"A watcher who admits he watches," Talzin murmured.
"That is rarer than honesty."
Tein said nothing.
Talzin's gaze moved—not to his saber, not to his hands—
To his face.
To the discipline etched too deeply into it.
"You are Zabrak," Talzin said. Not a question.
"But you do not smell of Dathomir's life."
A pause.
"And yet Dathomir felt you."
The coven's stillness deepened. Staff tips pressed more firmly into the ground. The standing stones seemed to lean inward by degrees too subtle to measure.
Talzin's voice softened, almost intimate.
"Do you know," she asked,
"what it is to be taken while the land still knows who you are?"
Tein felt something tighten in his chest.
He did not let it rise.
"You're wasting time," he said.
Talzin's smile flickered.
Recognition.
"Mm." She circled him slowly, each step subtly reshaping the geometry of the space. The stone beneath her feet darkened momentarily, then returned to its former shade.
"Then you move in service of a machine," she said.
"One that feeds on fear while pretending it is order."
Her eyes narrowed.
"You do not wear their robes."
Tein's mouth didn't change.
"I don't advertise," he said.
"And yet you carry their discipline," Talzin continued.
"The kind that starves itself and calls the ache virtue."
Tein kept his breathing even.
His eyes did not go to the boy.
But his stillness shifted—so slight it would have meant nothing to anyone else.
Talzin caught it anyway.
"The boy isn't part of this," Tein said.
Something like amusement warmed her expression.
"The boy," Talzin echoed.
"Already you have placed weight where you pretend there is none."
Tein did not look at the chains.
He didn't need to.
The haze thickened anyway.
It was a mistake.
Not because Talzin noticed.
Because the land did.
Several witches adjusted their footing in the same instant, tightening the arc without looking at one another.
Talzin's tone remained mild.
"You did not come for him," she said.
"And now the land will not let you leave him behind."
Tein's voice went colder.
"You already know what you want," he said.
Talzin stopped in front of him.
Close enough that the haze brushed his boots, coiling lazily around his ankles like something curious about shape.
"I wished you elsewhere," Talzin said calmly.
"Distance preserves many useful lies."
Tein's eyes narrowed.
Talzin's smile sharpened.
"The skies above my world are never empty," she said.
"Your kind mistakes distance for ignorance."
Understanding slid into place like a blade.
Tein didn't give her the satisfaction of outrage.
"Your pilots," he said. Just the word.
Yes.
The coven's approval rolled outward—not sound, not motion, but pressure. The ground beneath Tein's boots responded, settling just enough to register agreement.
"You were felt long before you crossed the veil," Talzin continued.
"Not by sight. By direction."
Tein's muscles coiled.
He didn't answer.
Talzin let the silence do the speaking, then tilted her head slightly.
"The pilots," Talzin said, watching him,
"were reaching for shadow they did not understand."
Tein's gaze didn't change.
"They were," he said. No more.
Talzin's expression held.
"They mistook need for power," Talzin continued.
"Fear binds more faithfully than devotion — but it always collects its due."
Tein's hand shifted—controlled, minimal—toward the Force.
Talzin observed the movement without interest.
"I did not intend your death," Talzin said.
"Only your delay."
"I sent them," she continued,
"to keep you away."
A beat.
"Because you are trained to hesitate," Talzin said.
"And hesitation is useful."
Talzin studied him again, more carefully now.
"And yet," she said,
"you came anyway."
Tein's eyes flicked to the standing stones—just once.
Not to escape.
To map geometry.
"Your door didn't hold," he said.
"Of course it didn't."
No shame.
No surprise.
Acceptance.
"They were a threshold," Talzin said.
"You crossed it."
Tein didn't ask the obvious question.
He let the silence demand the answer.
Talzin's gaze dropped briefly—to his hands.
"You survived," she said.
"And you did not announce yourself. You did not call for help. You did not fill the sky with your Order's noise."
She looked back up.
"That restraint," Talzin murmured,
"is not common in those who wear their certainty loudly."
She turned toward the boy.
"He does not belong to this soil," Talzin said.
"Which is why it has not finished with him."
A murmur stirred in the coven.
"A child taken from a world too small to be remembered," Talzin continued.
"Which makes him ideal."
The boy did not flinch.
Talzin's voice remained calm.
"Our sons burn," Talzin said.
"This land gives strength freely… and demands payment all at once."
Tein's jaw tightened.
"You're telling me this," he said quietly,
"because you want me to hear what you've already decided."
Talzin's smile sharpened—pleased.
"I intend," Talzin corrected,
"to temper him."
Her voice lowered.
"Not to enlarge him.
Not to drown him."
Tein's gaze stayed on Talzin.
Not the boy.
Not the coven.
"A vessel," he said, letting the word hang. "For what."
Talzin's eyes gleamed.
"A weapon," Tein added a heartbeat later, as if it were his conclusion, not her confession.
"A continuation," Talzin replied.
"Answers end. Currents do not."
Tein's expression didn't change.
"You don't fear the Jedi," he said. "You measure them."
"I account for them," Talzin said simply.
Her gaze swept the basin.
"They rename what they take," Talzin said.
"That is how theft learns to sleep."
She looked back at Tein.
"You are proof."
The haze thickened again.
Not smoke now.
Structure.
It rose and hardened, coiling around Tein's boots, his calves, his knees—pressure without heat, restraint without pain.
He reached for the Force—
And found the space already owned.
A net.
Not pushing.
Claiming.
Talzin watched with calm interest.
"You do not know how our bindings listen," Talzin said gently.
The coven reinforced the pattern without moving.
Talzin leaned closer, her voice dropping to something almost kind.
"Your life is not in question," Talzin said.
"Your patience is."
Tein's gaze remained steady.
"You don't need words," he said. "Your world already answered for you."
"I think time will."
She lifted her hand.
"You will remain," Talzin whispered.
"Until the truth you avoid finishes speaking."
Her eyes flicked to the boy.
"Whether you witness what he becomes," Talzin said softly,
"or pay the cost of refusing to."
The hold did not loosen.
Talzin stepped back.
The coven parted.
The haze thickened.
And Dathomir listened.