Sacrifice

"Exactly."

"You can't see yourself taking a lightsaber to a fourteen-year-old boy."

"Maybe it won't be so literal. I'm sending him to assassinate Dur Gejjen when he meets Omas to do his deal. It's a job that needs doing, it tests Ben's skills and commitment, it's far easier for a teenage boy to get past Gejjen's security, and . . . perhaps it will put him in real mortal danger." Jacen reached out to the low table nearby, leaning on one hand to stretch and pick up one of the candles in its transparent blue holder. "Now, is that a consequence of the task, or is that why I'm sending him? Am I sending him to his death?"

"Let it play out," Lumiya said. "Stop rationalizing and let it happen."

She stood up to take the candle from him. She could see he wanted to play that brinkmanship game again of how long he could hold his hand in the flame. Some men would do it out of bravado after too many drinks, but Jacen was testing himself, a private struggle rooted in his experience of pain at Vergere's hands and his lingering doubts that he could stay the course and make himself do something he wanted to run from.

"I need your help," he said. "I need you to distract Mara for a while."

"Whatever you wish."

"She's taken the Brisha story to heart. Nothing like killing someone's child to guarantee a blood feud, is there?"

"I thought that story might tie her up and explain my presence. In an ideal world, I would have avoided all contact with the Skywalkers."

"So . . . why did you offer your hand to Luke instead of taking his head off? "

Lumiya was still considering that. She might not have meant Luke any harm, but she didn't have to hate someone to kill him in the line of duty. Did