Sacrifice

"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.