Sacrifice

hers through. She studied him with her head on one side for a while, eyes disturbingly green and not unlike Mara's, and then she walked away into the icy fog.

He meditated for an hour or so to hasten the healing process, and then set off for Coruscant—via Hapes.

FOUNTAIN PALACE, HAPES

"Luke . . . Luke? Luke." Tenel Ka had to repeat his name three times before he could manage to lift his head to look at her. The elegant brocade sofa felt as if it were swallowing him whole, and maybe that would have been for the best.

There was an insulating gauze of numbness holding Luke together, and it took triple repetition to penetrate it—the first to stop him thinking that he hadn't even said good-bye to Mara and was asleep when she left; the second to stop him racking his brains for the last words he'd said to her, which he couldn't recall; and the third to stop him seeing in his mind's eye her scribbled note that he'd balled up and used to plug a hole in his cockpit console, and that he had now lovingly smoothed flat and would keep with him for the rest of his life.

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

"Luke, Jaina's here."

"Thank you, Tenel Ka . . ."As long as he stayed numb, Luke felt he would function. He would gather his thoughts, see that the rest of the family was coping, and then he'd act—when he knew what to do. "I can't thank you enough."

"Luke, I have all my guard deployed searching the cluster."

Jaina walked in briskly, face grim and eyes a little swollen. She dropped down on her knees and pressed herself into Luke's lap, cuddling him in silence. He hadn't really needed to call: they'd all felt it.