Sacrifice

Luke grunted again, and his eyelids twitched. Mara debated whether to give him a little Force-touch deep in his mind and see if she could get him to smile in his sleep, but decided she was pushing her luck, and Jacen probably had a head start on her. Lumiya definitely did.

Mara paused at the doors and left a flimsi note stuck on them.

Gone hunting for a few days. Don't be mad at me, farmboy . . .

There was no need to say who the quarry was. She'd have a hard enough time explaining when she returned.

SITH MEDITATION SPHERE, PERLEMIAN TRADE ROUTE

Hush," Lumiya said aloud. "I have no idea if he can hear you." The meditation sphere had developed an annoying habit of asking her questions. It wanted to know why there were so few. Lumiya wasn't sure where to begin with such a vague question. The ship had been buried on Ziost for more time than it wanted to remember, it told her, and now it was curious to know where all the dark ones had gone.

"It's a long story," Lumiya said. "We haven't been in the ascendant for a long time. Jacen Solo will change all that."

What about the others?

"Oh, Alema?"

She comes and goes, broken, but sometimes very happy.

It was a good description of Alema's almost bipolar moods—murderous, bitter obsession punctuated by highs of . . . murderous triumphant obsession. The sphere was very attuned to feelings, it seemed.

Maybe it could sense darkness anywhere, like a homing beacon, so that it could go to the aid of Sith in difficulty. "I told her to tail Jacen, but I should have known better than to rely on a psychiatric case. But who else is there? Apart from me, that is."