Sacrifice

reasonable job of disguising it.

"I believe you, Ben."

"Maybe I did imagine it."

"You didn't." No, he certainly couldn't imagine Lumiya having a friendly chat with Jacen, dissecting their run of triumphs, and deciding when Niathal would no longer be useful.

And discussing their lies. No daughter to avenge—and wiping out Ben's memory of what happened to Nelani.

Ben had the useful ability to recall things he'd seen or heard with nearly complete accuracy. Mara's scalp had tightened and tingled as she heard her son, her precious kid, relating the exact words of that Sith cyborg and her accomplice, like an innocent possessed by a demon.

Accomplice.

Mara realized she'd shifted her position by a few parsecs. Not a vain, conceited, naive victim of a manipulative Sith: an accomplice.

Jacen wasn't weak-minded enough to fall that far and that fast unless he wanted to.

"I haven't told anyone else and I don't want to," Ben whispered.

"Not Dad, either. I mean, you can tell him if you really think he needs to know, Mom, but I don't want to see the look on his face when he finds out what a moron I've been."

But I defended Jacen. When did I get stupid? "No more of a moron than the rest of us, sweetheart."

"What are we going to do?"

"I won't ask you to do anything." Mara had let her drink get cold.