Part 4 (1/2)

”We're Jedi. We married, so how much did we control all that?”

He wanted to believe her. Mara was as smart as they came: she would never have survived as the Emperor's Hand if she hadn't had a finely tuned sense of danger and the ability to put her own distracting emotions aside. She had to be able to see what was truly there, not what she wanted to see.

Her tone softened. ”Shall I tell you what I see? I see Ben becoming someone who's comfortable with his Force powers and not resenting us for making him a Jedi. We couldn't put him straight, but Jacen could, and we should be grateful to him for that.”

”Jacen plays fast and loose with his own powers. He projected himself into the future, and don't tell me that didn't worry you. I don't want Ben learning that kind of thing-and do we really know what skills Jacen learned while he was away? He's changed, Mara. I feel it.”

She pressed a cup into his hand and stroked his hair, but all he could feel now was a distance that shouldn't have been there, as if she was becoming wary of him-or wary of upsetting him. ”Jacen's grown up, too. He's taking a different path as a Jedi, that's all.

We don't have all the answers.”

”It's more than that. I'm having dreams and they're about a threat to us.”

”You really believe Ben's at risk?”

”I feel Jacen is at risk. I don't want Ben sucked into this with him.”

”The future isn't fixed.”

”Oh, but it is when Jacen tampers with it.”

”Whoa, let's not fight about this.”

”I want us to find another mentor for Ben.”

”Luke, did you happen to notice there's no line forming for the job?”

However strong her defense of Jacen, Luke didn't feel genuine certainty in Mara. He put the caf aside and pulled her to him, looking into her eyes. A few lines feathered from their corners, and there was a scattering of white in the ma.s.s of red hair framing her face, but she was still perfect as far as he was concerned, still his rock, still his heart.

And she was still wrong.

”Mara, I can't ignore this.”

”Fine.” He felt her shoulders tense. ”Go ahead and alienate Ben just when he's starting to settle down. So what if Jacen's explored some strange philosophies and communed with bugs?

We've both been into the dark side, and we came through it.”

”So you can feel the dark side.”

”No, I feel that Jacen's developing powers way beyond mine, and that he's good for Ben, and that he would never harm him.” She stepped back from Luke and he sensed she was shutting him out now, perhaps to stop the conversation from degenerating into an argument that would have no winners. ”That makes him a good influence. Without Jacen, we'd have a teenage son with strong Force powers who won't listen to us. Now that's really dangerous.”

She had a point. It seemed a good moment to concede. ”I can't argue with that.”

”But . .”

”I never said but.”

”I heard but and I felt but.”

. . but I'd be neglecting my duty if I didn't put some effort into finding out who or what this is in my dreams.”

Mara pursed her lips for a moment, looking to one side of him, and then managed a smile.

She knew when she couldn't s.h.i.+ft him from an idea. And he meant it. The dreams were too strong and insistent to ignore, even if it meant causing friction with Mara. She would come around in time; if he ignored his instincts, the consequences might be far worse than a few silent breakfasts and black looks.

Then the smile became broader, as if she knew that. ”I'm going to get some sleep. And so should you.”

”I'll finish my caf. Later.”

Luke took a long time draining the cup. He sat staring out the window, focusing on the bright green light of a distant illuminated sign to be sure that he was meditating and not dreaming. He tried to reach for the hooded man to make him show his face. The green light wavered and filled his field of vision: there were shapes within it, a feeling of familiar things in different guises and somehow unrecognizable, but the figure in the hood remained elusive.

And it was getting light now. Coruscant's towers and spires were silhouetted against a pink-and-amber sunrise.

Of all the dreaded things that came to Luke in those dreams and visions, the one that plagued him most was the feeling of familiarity.

He had felt something like this before. He just couldn't pin it down.

JACEN SOLO'S PRIVATE APARTMENT. CORUSCANT.

I wish you were here.

Jacen could reach out and touch Tenel Ka in the Force, and at that moment he would have given nearly anything to see her and his daughter, Allana, again. He closed his eyes and saw Tenel Ka-the same smile as when he had first left her, cradling the baby-and let his presence expand and merge gently with hers. He felt the warmth spread up from his stomach into his chest: she had felt him, and returned the touch.

Baby? Allana was four now; she was a little girl, walking and talking. Every time he sneaked a visit to see her, she'd grown a lot. Did she ask about her daddy? No, she was Hapan royalty, and even at that age she would have been schooled to remain silent about her parentage. How tall was she now? Was she aware of her Force powers yet? He had endless questions, the kind that a father who saw his daughter daily never had to ask.

I'm not there for her. I'm not seeing her grow up. I don't even have a holo of her.

It was much easier to reach out when he levitated like this, legs crossed, hands in his lap. Without the sensory distraction of a seat beneath him or the fabric of the chair against his hands, he could focus totally on the ebb and flow of the Force around and within him.

He let the warmth fade before it became a lasting beacon for . . . he wasn't sure yet. But Tenel Ka would understand that he had to be discreet even in the Force these days. He drew his touch back to the here and now. It felt like a final good-bye.

Jacen wasn't sure just how much Lumiya could detect, and his secret family had to be protected.

But the person he most wanted to have at his side then was his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, a man he had never known but who had stood where Jacen stood now-on the threshold of becoming Sith.

Once crossed, there was no return. It wasn't one of his explorations of Aing-Tii flow-walking or some other arcane Force skill that he could dabble in and withdraw from when it suited him. It was everything he had been raised to reject; and yet what Lumiya had shown him was so true, so inevitable, and so necessary that he had no choice but to believe it.

But can I believe Lumiya?

Her skills were prodigious. He'd been taken aback by the Force illusion in her asteroid habitat. Lumiya might well have been a true Sith follower fighting to prove to Jacen that history was a one-sided story written by the Jedi; or she might have been a clever, manipulative, and infinitely patient woman with her own agenda, seeing Jacen as a useful stepping-stone along the way.

But the part about the Sith way being a force for order and peace if used selflessly . . .

it's true. I feel it. I know it-and I wish I didn't.

But is it me?

Jacen still scoured his heart and soul for the slightest sign that his motivation was ambition. He could only feel fear and dread: he didn't want this burden.

That's why it's been given to you.