Same system — two days later
Morning never quite arrived in Deyross Haven.
Light tried. It crept across the water in thin, uncertain bands, catching on the edges of boardwalks and hulls, glinting weakly off wet planks. But the clouds pressed down with quiet patience, flattening the attempt until day became nothing more than a brighter shade of gray.
The town rose anyway.
Pumps engaged with dull, familiar thumps. Nets unfurled and were checked by hands that knew their shape by memory. Boats nosed into the canals like animals reluctant to leave shelter, engines murmuring low as if hoping not to be noticed.
Fear had learned the rhythm here.
Now it played along.
Tein and El-Je stepped onto the main boardwalk as the settlement exhaled into waking life. They wore no insignia. No robes. Nothing to invite questions except the gravity that followed Jedi like weather—unseen, but felt.
Tein paused, letting the town wash through his awareness.
People moved with purpose, but their eyes kept straying to edges and corners, to reflections in water and the spaces between buildings. No one looked directly afraid. They simply looked prepared—like those who had learned that panic wasted energy better spent surviving.
"El-Je," Tein said quietly.
His Padawan turned.
"We split today."
It wasn't a command. The decision had already been weighed, turned, accepted.
"You walk the perimeter. Outskirts. Watch who avoids questions. Listen for the stories people tell when they think no one is listening back."
El-Je nodded once. "And you?"
"The center," Tein replied. "Where rumor becomes record."
He hesitated then—just long enough for the moment to matter.
"If anything feels wrong," he added, "not dangerous—wrong—breathe. Then leave."
El-Je's mouth twitched, almost a smile.
"That sounds like you."
Tein didn't answer.
Because it had not always.
They separated at the market ring, two currents dividing while remaining aware of where the river would eventually force them to meet again.
⸻
El-Je
The outskirts of Deyross Haven felt older than the rest of the town, as though construction had pushed outward until courage thinned and then stopped out of respect.
Boards creaked beneath El-Je's boots, their complaints softened by years of water and weight. Nets drifted half-submerged in the shallows, pale and slack, like ghosts without the decency to vanish. A gull screamed somewhere beyond the fog and failed to finish the sound, as if even it had reconsidered drawing attention to itself.
El-Je walked without hurrying.
Civilians. Quiet.
He let his presence settle—not hidden, not announced. Just another young man passing through with nowhere urgent to be. He noted faces, patterns, the way fear carved its own language into posture and breath.
A fisherman whose hands shook only when they stopped moving.
A girl who refused to cross bridges alone, even in daylight.
A medic who spoke too quickly in quiet hallways, as if silence itself might answer.
He listened more than he spoke.
And because he did, the town began—slowly, unconsciously—to trust him without knowing why.
From above, the men watched him longer than they needed to.
Alone. Young. No escort. No badge. No presence that made passersby step aside.
In their eyes he was the easiest kind of target—one disappearance the town could file away as tragedy instead of problem.
"That one," a voice breathed from somewhere in the lattice. "No one'll ask questions if he ends up laid out right."
"Kaul wants fear," another answered, low and matter-of-fact. "Public. Clean."
A faint, ugly amusement. "Then we give him something they can't stop talking about."
He stopped at the edge of the south lagoon and leaned against a mooring post as though deciding whether to cross. Water lapped gently against hulls, the sound steady enough to pretend at calm. Mist thickened, softening distance until the far shore became suggestion rather than fact.
That was when he felt it.
Attention.
Not from the Force.
From people.
Somewhere above. Somewhere behind. In the lattice of walkways and rooftops that stitched the outer ring together.
He did not look up.
He didn't need to.
He allowed a flicker of fear—the kind that tightened the chest and sharpened the world without overwhelming it.
And in that instant, something noticed him back.
The presence that had followed him since the dreams did not arrive in words.
It arrived in temperature.
Very soft.
Very cold.
You do not have to be afraid of them, the not-voice breathed.
Make them afraid of you.
El-Je swallowed.
He did not answer.
He simply pushed off the post and walked on.
Above him, boots shifted on wood. Metal clicked softly. Someone exhaled—the sound of a decision completing itself.
The hunt had chosen him.
⸻
They followed him with patience that spoke of prior work.
Three of them, though they moved as if they were more. Former mercenaries by their gait and spacing, gear worn down but maintained with professional habit. One watched angles. One watched exits. One watched El-Je—really watched him—and felt something he didn't like.
"Something's off about that one," the watcher muttered.
The leader sneered. "Small. Alone. That's what's off."
But the watcher kept the thought anyway.
Quietly.
For later.
They moved ahead of El-Je, slipping into the tangle of elevated walkways that spider-webbed between storage towers and repair sheds. When El-Je reached the narrow overpass beyond the lagoon—little more than planks bolted onto older planks—the mist had already sealed the way behind him.
No retreat that wasn't forward.
He stopped.
The Force stilled—not absent, simply waiting.
"All right," El-Je murmured. "Then here."
They dropped from above and behind, boots thudding onto wet wood. Blasters rose. Knives caught what little light remained. The leader grinned—not cruelly, but with relief, like someone glad the moment of indecision had finally ended.
"Easy," he said. "No need to—"
The not-voice brushed El-Je's thoughts again, warmer now, almost pleased.
Yes.
Show them.
Fear surged like a hand closing around his throat.
And for one heartbeat, his control slipped with it.
The first shot came fast.
The bolt snapped past his temple close enough to leave heat behind, and the second followed before the first had finished echoing.
They fired in staggered rhythm—one forcing movement, one punishing stillness, one waiting for the angle that would end it.
El-Je moved because stopping meant dying.
El-Je moved. His blade flared gold, clean and efficient, deflecting the bolt into fog. He pivoted, kicked the nearest attacker into the railing, used the Force not as spectacle but as leverage—small, precise bursts of momentum and balance.
The mercenaries didn't charge blindly. They worked him.
One pressed from the front with controlled shots, stepping in only when El-Je's blade was committed.
Another climbed higher, boots thudding on a cross-walk, blaster angled downward to herd him into narrower planks.
The third circled wide with a knife, patient as hunger, waiting for El-Je to choose a direction and make it a mistake.
A knife slashed.
He twisted late.
Pain bloomed along his upper arm as the blade grazed skin. Sharp. Immediate. The copper taste of adrenaline filled his mouth.
The not-voice purred.
Pain is only useful when others feel it.
Another bolt screamed toward him.
He parried—barely.
The impact rattled up his wrists. His grip held, but it held like a door held against a flood.
He vaulted backward onto a crate stack, kicked off before it could become a trap, and landed hard on the next platform—wood splintering under his boots.
He shoved with the Force—not to throw them, but to break timing—and the front shooter staggered half a step. Half a step was all El-Je could afford.
The leader advanced with practiced aggression, not clever but relentless. One bandit climbed onto a crate stack and fired from above. El-Je vaulted to cover, shoved outward with the Force—not enough to break bone, enough to break position—sending the shooter stumbling.
The leader swore.
The third bandit circled wide.
El-Je's breath hitched.
Fear narrowed the world.
And when it did—
The Force dimmed.
Just a fraction.
But enough.
A bolt tore across his shoulder, grazing, burning, driving him back into the railing. Pain flared down his side like live wire. He hissed, vision swimming.
The presence leaned closer.
See?
Power answers those who accept what they are.
For a heartbeat, the thought tempted him—not as desire, but as efficiency. Faster. Cleaner. Over.
He almost shouted back.
Instead—
He remembered Tein's voice.
Breathe.
Do not fight the fear first.
Make room around it.
El-Je closed his eyes for half a heartbeat.
One.
Two.
Three.
He did not banish the whisper.
He quieted himself beneath it.
And in that silence—
The Force widened.
Returned.
Not louder.
Clearer.
The next bolt struck something that wasn't wood and wasn't air.
Pressure rippled outward as a translucent shimmer bloomed around El-Je—uneven, flickering, bending mist and sound alike. The impact rang through his bones without breaking them, the Force Barrier holding by intention rather than strength.
All three bandits froze.
Then—
El-Je moved.
Not cruelly.
Not triumphantly.
Precisely.
He shattered the crate stack with a focused shove, sending the elevated shooter crashing down—dazed, alive. He stepped into the leader's advance, turned the man's balance with a pivot learned from Tein, and drove him hard to the boards. The third bandit hesitated just long enough to regret it; El-Je angled his blade in warning, humming inches from the man's throat.
"Leave," El-Je said quietly.
Not a threat.
A conclusion.
They listened.
Retreat came fast—boots hammering planks, curses dissolving into fog. Blood warmed his sleeve. His shoulder screamed. His heart remembered, finally, how to slow.
The not-voice lingered.
So cautious.
So very careful.
Then it withdrew—not defeated.
Interested.
El-Je sagged against the rail, breathing hard. He bound his shoulder with a strip torn from his cloak, fingers steady despite the ache, then slipped into the fog after the retreating bandits—not closing the distance, not pressing.
Following.
The mist swallowed sound quickly. He moved when they paused, stopped when they spoke, keeping himself just outside the range where certainty could form. The wound burned, but it was clean. Manageable. A reminder rather than a warning.
They gathered near a half-collapsed storehouse, boards warped inward like ribs around a hollow chest. El-Je flattened himself against a support beam and listened.
"…tell Kaul," the leader hissed. "Another Force-user in town. We don't need any Jedi interference where it is not needed".
Earis Kaul.
The name settled into El-Je's mind with unnatural clarity.
The watcher—the one who had noticed—said nothing. His silence felt heavier than the others' fear, like a thought deliberately set aside.
El-Je memorized the cadence of their voices, the direction they took when they scattered, the way the fog seemed reluctant to let them go.
Then he withdrew, slipping back into shadow before curiosity could harden into pursuit.
⸻
Tein
Tein walked the spine-streets of Deyross Haven like a man following an echo.
Every corner carried it—the weight of recent death. Not loud. Not screaming. Just present, like pressure behind the eyes.
The town center was wider, better maintained, but the fear here was no thinner. It simply wore cleaner lines. Storefronts opened on schedule. Notices were posted with careful symmetry. People paused to talk only when they could see both ends of the street.
The fear Tein felt and saw from the people made him begin to think of the earliest time he experienced fear at the temple on Coruscant.
Of the stone corridors beneath the Archives, where Initiates went when they were ready to face reflections shaped from their own doubt. The Trial of Spirit.
There had been one simulation spoken of rarely, always in lowered voices.
Phobos.
He had been younger than El-Je was now.
His Master had stood at the threshold, a calm presence wrapped in ocean tones. Master Nahl Vesk—Quarren, patient, his green blade always carried low, as though meant to illuminate rather than threaten.
"You do not conquer fear," Vesk had said, tentacles folding gently, the motion steady and grounding. "You make room within yourself wide enough that it cannot crowd you from your own center."
Tein had nodded then, too young to fully understand what the words would one day cost him.
The simulation had unfolded like a corridor that refused to stay straight—stone walls breathing inward, shadows bending in ways geometry did not permit. Voices had bloomed from nowhere, wearing the sound of his own thoughts but twisted just enough to wound. Doubt. Failure. The quiet certainty that he would disappoint everyone who believed in him.
He had nearly broken.
Not from terror—but from the temptation to flee it.
Vesk's hand had rested at his shoulder, solid and present.
"Anchor," his Master had murmured. "Then proceed."
Tein had breathed.
He had made room.
He had passed.
The memory faded as the boards beneath Tein's boots changed pitch, bringing him back to Deyross Haven's present. The site of the group murder lay near the main canal—open space, visible from three walkways, chosen deliberately.
The bodies were gone now.
The absence remained.
Tein slowed, letting the Force read what the eyes no longer could. The wood held impressions: scuffed heels, staggered steps, the sharp imprint of panic pressed deep enough to leave a residue. Fear here had not been sudden. It had been arranged.
Public.
Observed.
Encouraged.
This was not the same hand that had taken Vera Lonn.
This was imitation.
Fear pretending it understood itself.
Tein circled once, then again, widening the radius. His gaze dropped—not to the obvious marks, but to what people had overlooked. Something pale caught between two boards, softened by damp but not yet dissolved.
Paper.
He knelt and coaxed it free with care.
The ink had bled, but the words endured.
Attendance Required — Deyross Council Hall
Speaker: Earis Kaul
Topic: Security Measures and Night Safety
The date was the day before the murders.
Tein folded the paper slowly.
Fear had begun leaving signatures.
And then the Force tightened.
Not danger. Not threat.
Recognition—like a thread pulled just hard enough to show where it had been knotted.
The name on the paper disturbed the current of the town, a subtle shift that did not belong to grief or rumor. Intent, not instinct.
Tein exhaled once, slow.
Kaul knew more than a civic notice should contain.
And he would not tell it to a stranger who walked up and asked.
Outsiders were heard politely in Deyross Haven—then forgotten. Whatever Kaul was building here lived behind familiarity, behind trust, behind rooms where doors stayed closed.
Tein could announce himself as Jedi. He could demand answers.
Fear would hear the uniform and change its shape.
Kaul would give him nothing but the version meant for visitors.
So Tein chose the Shadow's way: not confrontation—information.
If there were truths in this town, they would surface in places allies spoke freely, not where outsiders were welcomed.
He straightened and looked toward the heart of the town, where the Council Hall stood with the stubborn dignity of an old structure that believed order was still possible if one simply followed the right steps.
Tein turned toward it.
⸻
Night poured itself across Deyross Haven with the patience of spilled oil.
Tein moved with it.
Rooftops bowed beneath his weight but did not betray him. Shadows welcomed Jedi Shadows, recognizing something familiar in the way he did not demand space but occupied it anyway. He waited when footsteps passed below. He breathed when walls narrowed. His presence in the Force dimmed until it became something incomplete—an idea that never finished forming.
The Council Hall doors were locked.
The upper windows were not.
He slipped through a maintenance vent and emerged onto a high interior walkway, remaining part of the dark rather than cutting through it. Below him, the chamber stretched wide—benches arranged in civic order, the seal of Deyross Haven carved deep into the far wall.
Voices carried upward.
Tein stilled.
"…fear will create the opportunity we need," a man said. Calm. Measured. Certain.
Earis Kaul.
Another voice followed—rougher, impatient.
The mercenary leader.
"The next display," the man said. "You want it clean?"
"Clean," Kaul replied without hesitation. "Visible. Close to the heart of the town. Fear must arrive as revelation, not rumor."
Tein closed his eyes.
There it was.
Not the killer.
But the architect.
He withdrew the way he had entered, leaving nothing behind but a faint displacement in the air that would be gone within seconds.
Outside, mist kissed his face like a warning.
The pieces began to arrange themselves—not all at once, but with the inevitability of something that had already decided its shape.
And somewhere across town, a boy with blood drying on his sleeve returned to a rented room, having learned—at cost—how to quiet the scream inside his own mind.
The Hunt was no longer merely pursuit.
It had become a conversation.
And fear was very interested in who would speak next.