Local night — first cycle on-world.
The scream never reached the air.
It happened somewhere smaller — behind the teeth, inside the lungs — where terror closes tight enough that nothing escapes. By the time the wind moved through the settlement, there was nothing left to carry.
Only quiet.
The wrong kind.
Tein recognized it before he reached the alley. Not because of the body — he had seen too many of those — but because the Force had gone thin here. Thinned the way skin thins around an old wound.
He walked without haste.
Haste makes fear louder.
El-Je followed half a step behind. Cloak drawn. Presence small. Boots whispering across wet planks. The river moved beside them in steady, indifferent sound — a boundary that refused responsibility.
Windows glowed here and there.
People had learned not to give the night too much to notice.
They rounded the bend.
Tein stopped.
The woman sat where she had been left. Back against stacked crates. Head tilted slightly — as though still listening for something that had finished speaking. Her hands rested open in her lap.
Her eyes—
They had tried to close.
They had failed.
El-Je breathed once through his nose. Held. Released.
No saber.
No flinch.
He stayed.
Violence without motion demanded more courage than blood.
Tein knelt.
Not close enough to disturb.
Close enough to witness.
He did not touch her.
He let the Force remember.
Fear clung to the air the way heat clings to stone after sundown — faint, but real. Not panic. Panic scatters.
This had direction.
Someone had spoken to her.
Not in sound.
In presence.
Patient. Waiting. Letting the mind lean toward it on its own.
For a moment — only a moment — Tein felt the echo of Dathomir at the back of his awareness. Not the world itself. Not ichor.
Just the sensation of being regarded by something that knew your fear better than you did.
He shut that door.
Now was now.
Behind him, El-Je shifted his weight.
A decision. Not a movement.
Tein didn't turn.
"Tell me what you see."
El-Je crouched opposite. Careful. Respectful.
"No struggle," he said softly. "No surprise. She knew it was there — and she didn't run."
A swallow.
"And she didn't fall here. She was… guided. Then placed."
Tein let that settle.
Because it was true.
He opened himself — only slightly. Listening through a door instead of entering the room.
There it was:
A whisper-shape.
Not words.
Not language.
Intention.
An invitation into the soft places inside a person:
Come.
Just for a moment.
Let me show you.
Tein withdrew before the echo became empathy.
Compassion guided him.
Clarity kept people alive.
The settlement administrator waited at the alley mouth — hat twisting between tired hands. Hope and dread shared his eyes.
"Is it—?"
"Yes," Tein said quietly.
The man nodded once. Acceptance that still wished to be refusal.
"Will it stop?"
Tein did not lie.
"It will."
A beat.
"When we find the cause."
Not when we punish.
Not when justice is served.
When we understand.
Hands that knew kindness carried the body away. The alley emptied.
The night did not.
Tein turned toward the river. Cloak tugged by cold air. The Force pressed lightly against him — not warning. Not pain.
Attention.
"El-Je."
"Yes."
"What do you feel?"
El-Je closed his eyes.
He didn't reach.
He allowed.
"There's… pressure," he said. "Not on us. On the world. Like something leaned close enough to breathe."
Tein's jaw tightened — for a heartbeat.
Because yes.
Six months ago, a reflection in a river had stopped belonging to him.
And the artifact had gone silent.
Not contained.
Silent like a locked room with nothing left inside.
El-Je watched him.
"You're thinking about the artifact."
Not fear.
Not accusation.
Just gravity, spoken aloud.
Tein didn't deny it.
"I'm thinking," he said softly, "that whatever was bound no longer needs the binding."
The river slid past stone.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then:
"Rest," Tein said. "You'll see more clearly when you wake."
El-Je didn't move.
"You won't rest."
A statement.
Tein inclined his head.
Agreement.
El-Je left — near enough for safety. Far enough for trust.
Tein stayed until the sky thinned toward morning.
Not meditating.
Listening.
And somewhere — not in space, not in distance, but in the hollow place between heartbeats where terror chooses its shape —
something ancient,
disciplined,
and exquisitely patient
leaned closer.
Not hungry.
Not yet.
Interested.
—
Local morning — second cycle on-world.
Daylight washed the night out of the settlement.
But it did not clean it.
It only thinned the shadows — made them quieter. Easier to ignore if you worked hard enough.
Mist hung low over the river. The planks were still wet beneath boots that had learned caution. People moved with purpose, because purpose left less room for fear.
Conversation was brief.
Laughter — when it appeared at all — ended quickly.
Tein and El-Je were led toward the administrative module — a weathered prefab inland of the docks, braced against years of storms that had never stopped arriving.
The building wasn't important.
The decisions made inside it were.
Harven waited.
The same man from the alley. Hat in his hands. Lines in his face older than his years.
Not age.
Responsibility.
He nodded once in greeting.
"Thank you for coming."
As though they had not already walked through the night with him.
Tein returned the nod.
"We'll need to understand as much as we can."
Not command.
Not reassurance.
Alignment.
El-Je stood slightly to his right — listening, not intruding. The room smelled of damp paper and recycled air. A console hummed quietly in the corner.
Fear didn't leave in daylight.
It learned to behave.
Harven exhaled slowly.
"We've gathered what we can. Names. Places. Times."
His fingers tapped the edge of a datapad. Then stilled.
Tein didn't reach for it.
"Tell us."
And the day began.
———
Local morning — second cycle on-world.
Harven didn't sit.
Leaders rarely do, when sitting means admitting something is larger than them.
"There have been three," he said.
Not loudly.
Truth didn't need volume.
Tein waited.
"In six weeks," Harven continued. "Different quarters. Different shifts. No connection we can name. No history. No threats. No enemies worth the word."
His jaw tightened.
"And none of them… fought it."
The datapad lay untouched between them. The room felt smaller than its walls.
Tein spoke at last.
"Names."
"Mara Deyl," Harven said. "Healer. Forty-three. Kind. Stayed late because no one else would."
A breath.
"Jano Pell. Dock runner. Nineteen. Fast. Laugh that made supervisors pretend not to hear it."
Another breath.
"And last night—"
Silence.
A boundary of respect.
Tein didn't force the word.
Harven swallowed.
"Serin Vol. Teacher. Primary school."
El-Je looked down.
Only once.
Tein's voice stayed level.
"No signs?"
Harven shook his head.
"They slept. Or walked. Or… paused. And then something happened to them that left nothing for our medic to name."
Not poison.
Not trauma.
Not disease.
Just—
nothing.
"And before?" Tein asked.
Harven hesitated.
"There were… complaints."
El-Je listened carefully.
People rarely call fear by its right name.
"Night unrest," Harven said. "Fatigue. Headaches. Losing track of time. Talking to no one in hallways. Staring at the wall too long. Then saying they felt foolish."
He ran a hand over his face.
"None of them thought they were in danger."
That part mattered.
Deeply.
Tein nodded once.
"We'll need to speak with those who noticed the changes," he said.
Harven's relief looked almost guilty.
"They're waiting."
⸻
They began with the medic.
Because healers saw more than blood.
The infirmary sat near the center of the settlement — a single prefab lined with equipment that had all been meant for larger, better-funded worlds. The smell inside was sterilizer and recycled air and the faint memory of sleep deprivation.
The medic was younger than Tein expected.
Dark-eyed. Steady hands. A voice that tried not to tremble with responsibility it hadn't asked for.
"I examined all three," she said.
"Tell us what you know," Tein replied.
She nodded, grateful for the distinction.
"No toxins. No neural trauma. No blood imbalance. No pathogens. Every measurable system intact."
A pause.
"Except the autonomic response profile."
El-Je tilted his head slightly.
"How was it different?"
She looked at him, seeing the student in the Jedi without underestimating him.
"They didn't die slowly," she said. "Every marker shows the same pattern — a spike. Instantaneous, overwhelming fear response."
Her fingers tightened together.
"Then nothing."
Not recovery.
Not collapse.
Extinguishing.
Like something had reached in and switched off the part of them that believed tomorrow existed.
El-Je felt the back of his throat go cold.
Tein asked:
"And before death?"
The medic hesitated.
"REM disruption," she said quietly. "All three. Nightmares severe enough that normal sedatives made it worse."
"How worse?" El-Je asked.
"They reported… layered perception," she said. "Seeing the room. And something else. Something behind it."
A shadow inside reality.
Patient.
Observing.
She swallowed.
"And each described the same sensation."
Tein didn't move.
"What sensation?"
Her voice thinned.
"Being chosen."
Silence.
Not heavy.
Cold.
Tein inclined his head.
"Thank you."
She didn't ask if he could stop it.
Some people already know the answer isn't ready yet.
⸻
Witnesses followed.
Neighbors. Coworkers. Friends.
None hysterical.
That made it worse.
Small details accumulated the way dust accumulates under furniture — quiet and undeniable.
Mara, the healer, had begun checking doors twice.
Then three times.
Then… forgetting she had checked them at all.
Jano had stopped laughing. One day at a time. Like someone gently dimming a light.
Serin had begun avoiding mirrors.
"They made her jump," a colleague whispered. "She said sometimes she didn't like what looked back."
El-Je listened without writing anything down.
The Force carried enough.
Tein asked only one question, again and again:
"When did you first notice the change?"
The answers aligned.
Night.
Always night.
Not storms.
Not river winds.
Not superstition.
Just darkness — quiet enough that a whisper no one else could hear became the loudest sound in the mind.
⸻
They stepped back into daylight.
Wind off the flatlands.
Voices at a distance.
Life trying very hard not to look afraid.
El-Je exhaled slowly.
"This isn't random," he said.
"No," Tein replied.
"It approaches," El-Je continued. "Tests. Watches. Then—"
His throat tightened.
"Then it decides."
Tein didn't argue.
Because the pattern now had shape.
It didn't stalk.
It didn't chase.
It entered dreams.
Softly.
Patiently.
It found the thread in a person where fear and longing touched.
Then it pulled.
And when the mind bent far enough toward it…
the body stopped needing to be alive.
Not rage.
Not hunger.
Control.
Tein looked out across the settlement.
He didn't reach for the artifact at his belt.
He didn't need to.
He already knew
they were no longer standing between the danger and these people.
They were standing inside it.
And somewhere,
far from this world,
but nearer than breath,
something that had learned the shape of terror
listened back.