[Legacy Of The Force] - 05(119)

“How’s Han taking it?”

“Not well, to say the least. He veers between wanting to disown him again and talking about getting together to talk him around. You know, sometimes I think it’s going to kill him.”

Mara found that it wasn’t certainty of Jacen’s guilt she was looking for: it was any excuse to say that it was all Lumiya’s doing, and that by removing her, Jacen could be brought back to his old self.

Whatever had happened to Jacen over the years—and that five-year “sabbatical” was still largely a blank sheet—there seemed nothing of that old self left to recover.

If this wasn’t my nephew, and Leia’s son, would I still be trying to find a reason not to do something about him?

No.

“You sure you’re feeling okay, Mara?”

Leia was one of the few people Mara had ever truly admired. She was pretty well the only person other than Luke who Mara knew would never fall apart, however bad things got. But she still couldn’t bring herself to sit Leia down and give her the full catalog of Jacen’s crimes.

Yes, they were crimes. There was no other word for it.

“I’m going to ask you something, Leia, and if you never want to speak to me again afterward, I’ll understand.”

“This isn’t going to end in a punch line, is it? You’re serious.”

“You have no idea how serious.”

“Then stop dragging it out.”

“Okay, do you think Jacen is susceptible enough to be controlled by Lumiya?”

I should have put the list to her first. I should have told her about Nelani, and making Ben kill Gejjen, and his little chats with his Sith buddy, and the fact that he seems to think my son is expendable.

And apprentice—what kind of apprentice would Lumiya be talking about? Mara faced the inevitable and hated herself for refusing to see it earlier.

“No,” Leia said at last. “He’s stubborn and he’s his own man. She could make the difference between him doing something and hesitating, but she could never make him act totally against his will. I’ve had to come to terms with that, but he’s still my boy, and I still love him.”

It was the last thing Mara wanted to hear. She wanted to hear that Jacen was a kid who went along with the others, who got into bad company but was a good boy at heart. She wanted a reason to go after evil Lumiya and rescue deluded Jacen, because that was easy, black and white, palatable.

Wrong.

If it hadn’t been happening within her own family, she’d never have hesitated. For a moment, she wondered if she was set on this—this didn’t have a name yet, not a word, but she knew what this was—because it was her own son at most risk. My son or yours. It could have been selfish maternal priority, just using the rest of Jacen’s actions to justify lashing out to save her child.

She tried to imagine Ben dead, and how she’d feel then. She could have stopped Palpatine, and didn’t. History had taught her a lesson about hindsight, and it wouldn’t give her a second chance; what was happening to Ben would happen to other people’s sons, too.

“Mara, I think you should have spent a few days in bed after the fight with Lumiya,” said Leia, and slipped her arm through hers. “You’re not yourself at all. Let’s find a stupidly expensive restaurant and forget the fat content. Take it easy for a few hours. Because I can’t run on adrenaline and anxiety twenty-four hours a day like you seem to.”

Leia, I’m so sorry.

I’m going to have to stop Jacen. I have to. I’m going to have to kill your son, because that’s the only way of stopping him now.

“Okay, but my treat.”

“You’re on.”

Part of Mara was appalled that she could even think it, and part was telling her that this was what happened when she forgot that Force-users’ highs and lows weren’t just family spats, but dynastic battles that could shake the whole galaxy. They didn’t have the luxury of small stakes.

“I like the Fountain,” Leia said. “They do a dessert called the Fruit Mountain. Takes two hungry women to tackle one.”

“Sounds good.”

It was surreal. They sat on opposite sides of the table, blue-white diya wood set with iridescent transparent tableware, and a pyramid of

multicolored fruit held together by golden spun sugar and dusted with real citrus-flavored snow was placed between them. There was a point at which Mara’s eyes met Leia’s as they attacked the dessert with a spoon each, and it would be a frozen moment of horror in Mara’s mind forever: Leia smiled, the look in her eyes pure compassion, and Mara knew that she couldn’t see the truth behind hers. She felt like dirt. She hated herself.