Jalen remained standing.
Not out of defiance, and not out of ceremony. He stayed on his feet because sitting would have implied comfort, and he didn't feel comfortable here.
Across the low table, Arin watched him with steady attention. There was no impatience in the boy's posture, no strain in the way he held himself. He sat as though he had learned long ago that stillness invited honesty.
Jalen felt the land before he understood it.
The room was quiet, but the silence carried weight. It pressed softly against his awareness, the same way the jungle had pressed against him outside the settlement. The sensation did not come from the boy. It came from beyond the walls, from roots sunk deep into the soil, from something old and attentive that had accepted a promise.
Understanding settled slowly.
Arin had made a pact.
Not with words spoken aloud or symbols carved into stone, but with intent sharpened by grief and offered without hesitation. The forest had answered that intent by dulling aggression at its source, thinning violent impulse before it could harden into action. Malice did not vanish here; it simply failed to gather momentum.
The boy had never meant to bind anyone.
He had meant to protect them.
Jalen's expression tightened. The pact was elegant. It was devastating. And it had been made by a child who did not yet understand how much of a person could be lost without a single blow being struck.
Arin gestured again toward the space opposite him. "You don't need to stand," he said. "This isn't a trial."
"I know," Jalen replied. "Old habits."
Arin accepted that answer and folded his hands on the table.
"You're passing through," the boy said. "You and the others are heading west."
"That's right," Jalen said. "We're trying to leave the jungle without damaging it."
"That matters," Arin said. "Force only teaches the land to resist harder."
Jalen studied him. "Someone here understands that well."
A faint smile touched Arin's mouth. "Places respond to how they're treated. People do too."
Jalen let the statement pass without comment.
"And after the jungle?" Arin asked.
"We're looking for people who were scattered," Jalen said. "Friends."
"And after you find them?"
Jalen hesitated only briefly. "A man named Kullen."
The boy did not flinch, but the air in the room shifted subtly. Jalen felt the forest's attention turn, like a weight redistributing itself.
"Kullen brings violence," Arin said calmly.
"Yes."
"Then he won't come here."
"That was never my intention."
Arin nodded. "Good."
Jalen exhaled slowly. "You've built something remarkable," he said. "But I need to ask you something before we go further."
Arin inclined his head. "Go ahead."
"What does freedom mean to you?"
The boy considered the question carefully. He did not rush to answer, and he did not look away.
"Freedom," Arin said at last, "is being able to live without fear."
"And if fear comes from other people?" Jalen asked.
"Then the source of that fear has to be addressed," Arin replied.
"By taking away choice?" Jalen asked.
Arin met his gaze. "By preventing outcomes that destroy lives."
Jalen folded his arms loosely. "You're shaping people's emotions."
"I'm preventing them from turning into weapons," Arin said. "My parents died because someone decided their anger mattered more than anyone else's safety."
Jalen felt the weight of that settle between them.
"You've narrowed the human experience," he said. "You've decided which feelings are acceptable."
"I've decided which ones get people killed," Arin replied.
"And when someone wants more?" Jalen asked. "When they want to leave, or feel rage, or love recklessly, even if it hurts?"
"Then they're choosing to bring suffering back with them," Arin said. "I won't allow that here."
"That isn't your decision to make," Jalen said.
Arin frowned for the first time. "Someone has to make it."
"You're a child," Jalen said quietly.
Arin's expression hardened, not with anger but with certainty. "I've buried my parents," he said. "I've watched this village survive because violence no longer finds purchase here. I know exactly what I chose."
Jalen's voice softened despite himself. "You made that choice while grieving."
"And you abandoned the world while grieving," Arin replied. "Was that freedom, or was it fear?"
The question struck deeper than Jalen expected.
"You know what this pact does," Jalen said. "And you intend to keep it."
"Yes."
"And you know who I am."
Arin nodded. "You are the one who believes freedom must include the right to fail."
Jalen studied him carefully. "And you believe the cost of that failure is too high."
"Yes."
Silence stretched between them, filled by the quiet persistence of the forest beyond the walls.
"You asked me what freedom means," Arin said. "You asked as if you expected my answer to reveal my guilt."
Jalen kept his voice level. "I asked because your peace has a cost."
Arin nodded once, accepting the phrase the way he accepted most things: as data. "Then I'll ask you something," he said. "And I want you to answer without hiding behind divinity."
Jalen didn't respond.
Arin's gaze moved, briefly, toward the door. "Bring them in," he said.
There was no raised voice, and there did not need to be. A few moments later, the door opened and Kuromi stepped in first, eyes already scanning corners and sightlines. Vexa followed, expression caught between curiosity and irritation, as if she resented being pulled into a room that smelled too clean.
Kuromi's stare landed on Arin, then on Jalen. "You called?"
Arin rose from behind the table. His feet still did not quite meet the floor when he stood, and he still carried himself like someone older than grief should have allowed.
"I did," Arin said. "This conversation won't be useful if it's only Jalen speaking to me. He trusts himself too much when he is alone."
Vexa snorted. "That's generous."
Kuromi didn't smile. "Why are we here?"
Arin looked at Jalen again. "Because I want to understand the shape of his freedom," he said. "And because he thinks my peace is oppression."
Jalen's eyes narrowed slightly. "Arin—"
"I'm not finished," Arin replied, still calm, still precise. "You want to judge what I've built. That means you think you know what harm looks like."
Arin stepped away from the table and moved closer. He did not invade Jalen's space; he simply placed himself where Jalen couldn't ignore him.
"The forest tells me things," Arin said. "Not stories. Not history the way adults recite it. It gives impressions. Fear. Heat. The sound people make before they die. The shape a decision leaves behind."
Vexa's expression shifted. "So you've been… watching us?"
Arin didn't deny it. "I've been listening. I listen because listening keeps people alive."
Kuromi's hand drifted closer to her weapon. "Listening isn't the same as knowing."
"That's true," Arin said. "Which is why I ask questions."
He turned back to Jalen.
"You say freedom is protecting choice," Arin continued. "You say you don't pick sides. You say you stop cages and call that mercy."
Jalen held his gaze. "That's what I said."
Arin nodded. "Then explain something for me."
He lifted his chin slightly, and his voice stayed even, but the question landed heavy.
"Eight years ago," Arin said, "you destroyed a kingdom."
Kuromi's eyes snapped to Jalen. Vexa went very still.
Jalen did not deny it.
Arin watched him closely, not for guilt, but for recognition.
"The forest remembers fire," Arin continued. "It remembers stone breaking apart all at once. It remembers a place where fear multiplied faster than people could run. It remembers a voice declaring freedom while the ground turned to ash."
Jalen's jaw tightened. "You're talking about Stabilous."
Arin nodded. "The name came later. The feeling did not."
Vexa let out a slow breath. "You leveled an entire city?"
Jalen answered without looking at her. "Yes."
Kuromi's voice was sharp. "Why?"
Jalen finally turned. "Because the problem wasn't just the king."
Arin tilted his head slightly. "That is what I want you to explain."
Jalen faced him again. "Stabilous was built on control. Debt. Fear. Even before I got there, people lived boxed in by rules designed to keep them desperate. When the system cracked, it didn't try to fix itself. It locked everyone inside and called it safety."
"And so you decided it couldn't exist at all," Arin said.
"I decided it would keep doing harm if it survived," Jalen replied. "King Drow ruled through violence and humiliation. Leaving him alive meant rebuilding the same structure with a different coat of paint."
"You killed him," Arin said.
"Yes."
"You executed him after he was beaten," Arin continued. "After the people he ruled were already free."
Jalen didn't flinch. "Because freedom that leaves its source intact isn't freedom. It's a pause."
Kuromi's brow furrowed. "Jalen, that doesn't mean you erase everything."
"It did then," he said. "I didn't have the luxury of subtlety."
Arin stepped closer, close enough now that Jalen could see the faint shadows under his eyes, the kind that came from too many nights spent thinking instead of sleeping.
"The forest remembers something else," Arin said. "It remembers that you did not ask the people what they wanted next."
Jalen's expression hardened. "They were slaves."
"And when they were no longer slaves," Arin asked, "who decided what replaced that life?"
Jalen opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Vexa crossed her arms. "You're saying he took their choice away."
"I'm saying," Arin replied calmly, "that he chose for them."
Jalen exhaled through his nose. "I chose to end a system that would have crushed them again."
"And I chose to prevent one from forming here," Arin said. "You call that oppression."
Kuromi's gaze moved between them. "This isn't the same."
Arin looked at her. "Isn't it?"
He turned back to Jalen. "You believe freedom includes the right to fail."
"Yes," Jalen said.
"Stabilous failed," Arin replied. "And you destroyed it so it could never fail again."
"That's not the same thing," Jalen said. "I removed the root."
"So did I," Arin said quietly.
The forest outside seemed to lean closer, not pressing, not intruding, simply present.
"You think my pact cages people," Arin continued. "But it does not tell them what to believe. It does not tell them where to go. It only stops one thing."
"Violence," Jalen said.
"Intent to harm," Arin corrected. "The moment it forms strongly enough to act."
Vexa shook her head. "That's still control."
Arin looked at her. "So is fear. So is hunger. So is a man with enough power to erase a city because he believes it's necessary."
Jalen felt that one land where it was meant to.
"You didn't know Stabilous," Jalen said. "You didn't see what it did to people."
"No," Arin agreed. "But I see what you did to it."
Silence stretched, but this time it wasn't the forest filling it. It was the weight of comparison.
"You asked me what freedom means," Arin said again. "To me, it means children growing up without learning the sound of screaming crowds. It means grief not turning into weapons. It means never needing someone like you to decide whether we deserve to exist."
Kuromi inhaled sharply. Vexa looked away.
Jalen's voice lowered. "And when someone wants to leave?"
"They can," Arin said. "The pact does not chain feet."
"And when they want to fight?" Jalen asked.
Arin met his gaze without hesitation. "Then they will need to do it somewhere else."
"You're shaping people," Jalen said. "You're narrowing what they can become."
Arin nodded. "So did you."
Arin watched him for another moment, then glanced toward the window, where the light had begun to change. The sun was sinking behind the canopy beyond the village, and the quiet rhythm of evening was settling in.
"This conversation has reached a point where continuing it like this will not make it clearer," Arin said. "I would prefer to continue it after a break."
He stepped back from the table and gestured toward the door.
"I would like to continue our discussion over food," he said. "Please return for dinner. All of you."
Vexa blinked. "We were actually hoping to leave by now."
Arin turned to her, his expression calm and unoffended. "You are free to do so."
Then his gaze returned to Jalen.
"But I believe your friend would like to finish this conversation."
Silence followed.
Kuromi looked to Jalen, searching his face for a cue. Vexa did the same, her earlier impatience fading as she took in his expression.
Jalen did not speak.
He remained standing exactly as he had throughout the discussion, his posture rigid and controlled. Whatever emotion stirred beneath the surface did not reach his face. His expression had gone still, set in a way that made it clear he was holding something back rather than letting it pass.
Arin inclined his head slightly. "The invitation stands."
He turned and left the room, his footsteps light and unhurried as the door closed behind him.
Jalen did not move.
The irritation lingered, contained but unmistakable, sitting behind his eyes and tightening his shoulders. Whatever answer he had not received, whatever certainty had been challenged, had not been dismissed.
It had been deferred.
And it was clear to everyone still standing there that he intended to return.