Same system — later that night
El-Je came back quietly.
The door to the rented room slid open without ceremony, the sound almost swallowed by the hum of distant pumps and the soft knock of water against pylons below. He paused just inside the threshold, hand still on the frame, as if deciding whether the effort of crossing fully into the light was worth it.
Tein looked up at once.
His eyes went first to El-Je's face — pale, tight around the mouth — then lower, catching the way his right arm hung just slightly wrong.
"How bad," Tein said.
El-Je shrugged with his uninjured shoulder. "It's nothing."
Tein crossed the room in three steps and caught El-Je's wrist before he could pull away. He didn't squeeze. He didn't scold. He simply turned the arm, lifted the sleeve.
Blood had already dried in dark streaks along the fabric. Beneath it, the skin was angry and raw where heat had kissed too close.
Tein exhaled through his nose.
"Sit."
El-Je hesitated.
Then he did.
Tein knelt, efficient and silent, pulling a med-patch from his kit and activating it with a practiced motion. The cool hiss of the seal broke the tension between them only slightly.
"Blaster," Tein said. Not a question.
"And a knife," El-Je admitted. "Just a graze."
Tein didn't respond immediately. He pressed the patch into place, fingers steady, the Force moving beneath his touch with a careful restraint that spoke of experience earned the hard way.
"You should have left," he said at last.
El-Je's jaw tightened. "I did. Eventually."
That earned a look — sharp, assessing, not angry.
"Tell me," Tein said.
So El-Je did.
Not all at once. Not cleanly. He spoke in fragments at first — being watched, the overpass, the way the mist had closed behind him. Tein listened without interruption, expression unreadable.
When El-Je reached the fight, his voice grew quieter.
"They weren't amateurs," he said. "They knew how to move. How to box me in."
Tein nodded once. He already knew.
"And after," El-Je continued, "I followed them. Just enough to hear."
He swallowed.
"They mentioned a name."
Tein's gaze sharpened, but he didn't prompt.
"Earis Kaul."
The name sat between them, heavy and unresolved.
Tein straightened slowly.
"I heard it too," he said.
El-Je looked up. "You found something."
It wasn't a question.
Tein held his gaze for a moment — long enough for the weight of what wasn't being said to register — then inclined his head.
"I went where answers tend to collect," he said. "And I listened. Briefly."
El-Je frowned. "And?"
"And Kaul is involved," Tein said carefully. "But not in the way fear usually announces itself."
He turned back to the med-kit, resealing it with a soft click.
"When I reached for him in the Force," Tein went on, "I didn't find malice. No hunger. No satisfaction."
El-Je absorbed that. "Then why stage the murders?"
"I don't know yet," Tein replied. "But I felt fear."
El-Je looked up sharply. "The same kind?"
"No," Tein said. "Different. Directional."
He hesitated, then added, "As though he's bracing for something he believes is coming."
Silence settled.
Below them, Deyross Haven continued its uneasy breathing — pumps, water, wood, the quiet refusal to stop.
Tein glanced at the wrapped obelisk where it rested near his pack.
It had been quiet for some time now.
Too quiet.
Once, that silence would have reassured him.
Now it only made him listen harder.
"El-Je," he said.
"Yes."
"You stay out of public sight for a while."
El-Je stiffened. "Because I got hurt."
"Because you were seen," Tein corrected. "Using the Force. Using a blade. And because you need time to heal."
El-Je's hands curled into his knees. "So I'm benched."
Tein turned fully toward him. "You're protected."
"It feels like punishment," El-Je shot back, the words escaping before he could stop them.
For a heartbeat, Tein said nothing.
Then, quietly, "This isn't about trust. It's about risk."
He softened his tone — just slightly.
"Kaul is speaking publicly tomorrow afternoon. To the whole town."
El-Je looked up. "Then I should—"
"No," Tein said.
The word landed firm and final.
"You won't attend," he continued. "Not this time."
El-Je's shoulders sagged, anger and frustration bleeding into something younger, less controlled.
"So I hide," he said. "While you—what? Watch?"
Tein met his eyes.
"I listen," he said. "And you recover."
El-Je looked away, jaw working.
The tension didn't break.
But it did settle.
Outside, the mist thickened against the window, blurring the lights of Deyross Haven into soft, watchful smears.
Somewhere in the town, Earis Kaul was preparing his words.
And something older — something patient — was paying attention to who would speak next.
———
The following afternoon, Deyross Haven gathered itself.
Tein left the rented room alone, moving through the town with deliberate normalcy. El-Je remained behind—resting, healing, and quietly resenting the order even as he obeyed it. Tein felt that resentment linger like static at the edge of his awareness, but he did not turn back. Some lessons required distance to take root.
The square filled slowly.
Deyross Haven did not gather all at once — it never had. People arrived in cautious increments, pausing at the edges, watching who else chose to step forward before committing themselves. Walkways creaked under collective weight. Boats idled along the canal, their operators lingering longer than necessary, pretending errands justified their presence.
Fear preferred crowds.
But it trusted them only when they formed reluctantly.
Tein stood near the back, hood low, posture unremarkable. He let the Force flatten around him, not hidden, not sharp — simply another mind among many, present without insisting on importance.
The stage had been assembled against the council hall's outer face: a raised platform of reinforced planks, flanked by temporary rails and backed by the building's weathered stone. It wasn't grand. It wasn't meant to be.
It was meant to be seen.
Earis Kaul stepped onto it without ceremony.
Tein felt the attention shift before the man spoke.
Kaul was Zeltron — unmistakably so, though age and restraint had muted the brighter excesses of his species. His skin bore a muted rose tone, dulled by years under open skies and hard suns, crossed by faint scars that spoke of real violence rather than ornament. His hair was dark, pulled back simply, streaked with gray at the temples. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with the kind of build that suggested strength earned rather than cultivated.
He did not wear armor.
He did not wear robes.
Just a plain coat, dark and practical, clasped at the throat — the clothing of a man who expected to be outside when things went wrong.
Behind him stood three clone troopers.
They were impossible to miss.
White armor, once pristine, now bore the story of too many fights: scorched scoring along the chest plates, hairline cracks repaired with visible sealant, a shoulder pauldron replaced with mismatched plating. Their helmets were on — black visors unreadable — but their stillness spoke of discipline rather than display.
They did not scan the crowd like sentries.
They watched like survivors.
Tein studied them carefully.
He had seen clones before, at a distance — glimpses in Temple hangars, armored figures moving in formation through spaces not meant for contemplation. He knew what the Order said: accelerated soldiers, loyal, efficient.
But these three…
They stood closer to Kaul than guards usually did.
Protective rather than procedural.
Kaul rested his hands lightly on the rail and waited.
The murmur died on its own.
"When people start dying," he said, voice calm, carrying easily across the square, "the first thing fear tells us is that no one is in control."
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't posture.
He spoke as if continuing a conversation already in progress.
"I won't insult you by pretending this hasn't shaken us," Kaul continued. "It has. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't been paying attention."
A ripple moved through the crowd — not agreement, but recognition.
"These murders," he said, "were not accidents. They were not random. And they were not ignored."
He gestured once, subtle, toward the council hall behind him.
"Every resource we have is focused on stopping this. Patrol routes have been expanded. Night safety measures are already in place. No one is being left to face this alone."
Tein felt the Force stir — not sharply, not darkly.
But tightly.
Fear, yes.
Concern.
Responsibility.
Kaul's gaze swept the crowd, unhurried, landing briefly on faces that needed to be seen.
"I've stopped threats before," Kaul said. "Here on this world. And I will stop this one too."
That drew a stronger reaction — not cheers, but something steadier. Trust born of memory rather than hope.
Tein watched closely.
There was conviction there.
But also strain.
Not the strain of deceit.
The strain of someone holding a line they were no longer certain would hold.
Behind Kaul, one of the clones shifted his weight slightly, armor whispering against armor. The others adjusted in near-perfect synchronicity — not drilled, Tein realized, but practiced together long enough to anticipate one another without thought.
Interesting.
Kaul continued, "If you hear something. If you see something. You bring it forward. We face this together, or we don't face it at all."
He let the words settle.
"I won't promise miracles," he said. "But I promise this — what's happening here will end."
Tein felt the crowd absorb that.
Not as certainty.
As permission to breathe.
Kaul inclined his head once, stepped back from the rail, and the square slowly, cautiously, began to loosen.
The clones remained still until Kaul left the stage.
Then they moved with him — not flanking, not herding — but close enough that distance itself seemed unwelcome.
Tein stayed where he was.
Watching.
Listening.
The Force around Kaul did not scream.
It did not hunger.
But it did brace — like a man standing in rising wind, convinced he could hold if he simply leaned hard enough.
And for the first time since arriving in Deyross Haven, Tein felt something that complicated the hunt.
Doubt.
Not of what Kaul was doing.
But of why.
———
Night settled over Deyross Haven without ceremony.
The square emptied the way it had filled—slowly, cautiously, people peeling away in ones and twos, conversations kept low and unfinished. Boats slipped back into their moorings. Walkways creaked less under thinning weight. The town did not relax so much as re-brace, adjusting itself for another night of listening.
Tein did not leave with the crowd.
He waited until Earis Kaul did.
The Zeltron moved through the side access of the council hall, accompanied closely by the three clone troopers. No escort detail fanned out ahead of him. No crowd-control formation snapped into place. They walked as a unit that trusted one another's positioning without needing to think about it—tight spacing, overlapping awareness, the clones' armor catching stray lamplight in dull, scuffed flashes.
Tein followed at a distance that did not feel like pursuit.
He crossed when they crossed. Paused when they paused. Let his reflection blur in canal water and windowglass. The Force remained muted around him—not hidden, not sharp—simply… forgettable.
Kaul spoke quietly as they walked. Tein could not hear the words, but he felt the cadence of them—measured, controlled, purposeful. The clones responded rarely, mostly with subtle shifts in posture or angle, the kind of acknowledgments soldiers used when speech was unnecessary.
They did not look afraid.
But they were alert.
Kaul led them along a route that avoided the narrowest walkways and the most crowded junctions. Practical. Defensive. The kind of path chosen by someone who had learned where danger actuallycame from.
Tein noted it.
They reached a modest residence set back from the canal—reinforced doors, good sightlines, nothing ostentatious. One clone checked the perimeter while the others remained close, their movements overlapping without collision. Kaul paused before entering, said something low.
One of the clones nodded.
Only then did Kaul go inside.
The troopers took up positions without discussion.
Tein watched from shadow long enough to understand the shape of it.
These were not ceremonial guards.
They were survivors protecting the only thing they had left.
He withdrew before curiosity became pattern.
⸻
Tein returned to the rented room later, moving by routes that doubled back on themselves, listening for footsteps that never came. El-Je slept when he arrived—restless but breathing evenly, the med-patch dull against his skin.
Good.
Tein stood at the narrow window and looked out over the water.
Everything he knew arranged itself again, slower this time.
The murders were real.
The fear was real.
Something sinister was fueling itself off of the fear.
But Earis Kaul…
Kaul did not carry malice.
He did not savor what was happening.
He feared it.
Not the way victims feared death.
The way men feared inevitability.
Kaul was shaping fear, yes—but shaping it like a wall, not a blade. Creating pressure where he believed something would eventually strike. Drawing attention. Forcing revelation.
A man trying to control a storm by standing in its path.
Tein's thoughts drifted—unwelcome—to the wrapped obelisk resting near his pack.
Still silent.
Still inert.
Too quiet.
The artifact had reacted to fear before. Subtly. Patiently. It always had.
But now…
Now it waited.
As though listening instead of feeding.
Tein folded his hands behind his back and let the Force move through him without direction.
Earis Kaul was not the monster here.
But he might be opening the door.
And somewhere beyond the careful order of Deyross Haven—beyond staged murders, beyond public speeches and well-meant lies—something watched with interest as fear learned new shapes.
Tein remained at the window until the water stilled and the town's sounds thinned to their barest necessities.
Tomorrow, Kaul would continue to prepare.
And Tein would continue to listen.
Because the hunt had changed.
It was no longer about finding the killer.
It was about understanding who believed they could stop one.