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.

Ton need to know there's nothing else, absolutely nothing, that you can do to save Jacen.

Mara needed to confront him one last time. If anyone could stop him at the brink—the final one, anyway—then it was her, because she'd crossed from the other direction. She didn't think it would work, but she owed it to Leia —and Han.

She was planning to take Jacen from them, and they'd already lost Anakin. There was only so much pain a family could take.

chapter sixteen

The government of Bothawui is prepared to pay twenty million credits per month for the exclusive services of a Mandalorian assault fleet with infantry. We would also be greatly interested in acquiring a squadron of Bes'uliik assault fighters and would be prepared to pay a premium to have exclusive purchase rights to this craft.

—Formal offer to the government of Mandalore

SENATE LOBBY, CORUSCANT

"There you are," said Mara, ambushing Jacen as he stepped out of the turbolift. "Glad I caught you." He registered genuine surprise, and that gave her more satisfaction than he'd ever know. No, he hadn't felt her presence when it mattered. Thank you, Ben. Nice trick.

"Hi, Aunt Mara. What can I do for you?" Jacen tried to do that act of dithering on the spot, the carefully calculated body language that said he really did want to stay and talk, but duty was dragging him away.

What an actor. She could act, too, but this wasn't the time for it. "I'd love to catch up over a drink," he said, "but it's late and I've got an appointment first thing tomorrow. Can we fix a time for when I'm free?

Say in a couple of days?"

"It won't take long, Jacen. It needs to be now."

Now it was her turn to take over the choreography, stepping in his way so that if he wanted to pass, he'd have to make a deliberate and rejecting sidestep. And Jacen wouldn't be that blatant, not to her. It would make her suspicious.

Too late. You've already done that, Jacen. But for Leia's sake, for Han's sake, I have to try this.

"Okay," he said.

There was something deeply unsettling about a Force-user—about anyone, really—who gave off no Force presence. It was like standing next to someone who wasn't breathing and had no pulse, a little too close to death for Mara's liking. It also pressed all those paranoid and defensive buttons, like someone whispering behind his hand in someone else's presence. It said guilty, unnatural, and secret. If the Yuuzhan Vong had been the kindest and sweetest beings in the universe, Mara knew she would have mistrusted them anyway because they didn't show up in the Force as being alive and there.

She steered Jacen over to an alcove. Psychologically, he might have felt more vulnerable being confronted with his acts in the middle of the lobby, where everyone could hear and see them. On the other hand, the alcove could make him feel cornered if she maneuvered him to stand with his back to the wall. Either way, she was going to get a reaction out of him. She couldn't outstrip his Force powers, but the tricks of flesh and blood put her on a more level playing field.

"You don't fool me," she said. "Not any longer, anyway."

He tried his baffled-little-boy grin. "What am I supposed to have done?"

"Remember what I was?"

"You've lost me, Aunt Mara . . ."

"This is about Lumiya. It stops here and now. You've turned into something vile, and you're too smart to be conned into that even by her.

Beyond dark. See, I've been both sides, and I know."

"Well, I don't know what you mean. I really don't."

"Wrong answer. I'll deal with Lumiya in due course, but I know what you've been doing, I don't buy the excuses that your poor parents make for you every kriffing time. So I'm going to set you a test."

"Mara, are you okay? You're not well, are you?"

"Don't even think about trying that one. If you acknowledge the terrible things you've done, and whatever's left of Leia's son is still functioning, then come with me right now to the Temple. We'll get the whole Council together and we'll deprogram you."