[Legacy Of The Force] - 03(13)

Mara let out her breath in exasperation. “When could Jacen have prepared him?” she demanded. Luke had intentionally summoned Ben at a time when Jacen would be tied up in a meeting with Cal Omas and Admiral Niathal “And you’d better not be telling me you wouldn’t sense an act in your own son.”

“No, he wasn’t acting.” Luke stood and led the way toward the exit. “But I’d still like to see Ben apprenticed properly. His training is suffering.”

“That’s true,” Mara said. While Ben’s self-defense skills might be adequate, his sparring had shown a lack of confidence in his control. “But has it occurred to you that Ben might be right? Maybe you should make Jacen a Master.”

Luke stopped at the door and scowled at her as though she were a fool or a traitor-or both.

“Come on, Skywalker,” Mara said. “You can’t dispute Jacen’s Force knowledge. And being a Master might pull him back into the Jedi order. It might give you some control over him-at the least, you’d have a formal means to oversee how he’s training Ben.”

The disapproval vanished from Luke’s face. “There’s something to what you’re saying, but I just can’t do it. Jacen isn’t ready to be a Master … and I don’t think he ever will be. The sooner we get Ben away from him, the better.”

He started through the door toward the changing rooms, but Mara caught him by the arm.

“Actually, Luke, I’m not so sure of that.” She told him about the profound sense of certainty she had experienced earlier, about how convinced she was that the Force had drawn Ben to Jacen for a reason. “Whatever is going on with Jacen, we need to be careful about interfering. I think his destiny and Ben’s are linked.”

Luke’s face grew clouded, and Mara could sense that while he did not doubt what she was telling him, he was having a hard time accepting it. Jacen was walking very close to the dark side-even Mara had to admit that-and yet here she was, telling him that their thirteen-year-old son had to walk that line with him.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” she said. “But everything I feel is telling me that we have to let Ben learn from his own experiences-even if those experiences involve Jacen. If we don’t, Ben is going to grow resentful and withdraw again-from us and the Force.”

Finally, Luke nodded, but his expression remained clouded. “Okay, as long as he keeps sparring with me.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. It was his idea.” Mara continued to hold Luke in the door. “But I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Luke frowned. “I’m not sure how it relates.”

“But you think it might?”

He nodded. “My dream has been getting worse,”

“I see,” Mara said. For some time now, Luke had been having dreams about a faceless, cloaked figure that he believed to be Lumiya. “Define worse.”

“She’s sitting on a throne,” Luke said. “Sitting on a throne and laughing in a man’s voice.”

Mara swallowed. She couldn’t dismiss what Luke saw in the Force any more than she could deny the certainty of what she had felt just a few moments earlier. “Did you see…” Her throat closed with dryness, and she had to try again. “Was Ben…”

“No,” Luke said. “Nobody else was there. Just her-him, it, whoever-looking down and laughing.”

“But it has something to do with Ben?” Mara pressed. “That’s why you wanted to test him today?”

“It’s why I wanted to test him, but I don’t know how much the dream has to do with him,” Luke said. “I’m beginning to feel that it’s bigger than Ben and Jacen.”

“Well, that’s a relief-sort of,” Mara said. “I don’t like that throne, though. It smacks of empire.”

“It certainly does,” Luke said, nodding. “So I think it’s time to break out my shoto.”

Mara raised her brow. The shoto was a special half-length lightsaber that Luke had built after nearly losing his life the first time he encountered Lumiya’s lightwhip. The shorter blade allowed him to fight in the Jar’Kai style - with a weapon in each hand-which counteracted the advantage of the lightwhip’s dual-natured strands of energy and matter.

“So you’re going after her?” Mara asked.

Luke nodded. “I think it’s time to find Lumiya and get to the bottom of this.”

“Then I’d better build a shoto, too,” Mara said. “Because you’re not going after her alone.”