Sacrifice

death by death, a change so gradual and incremental that he hardly noticed its passage until—

Until now.

He wasn't the same Jacen Solo who was shocked when Lumiya had told him he was destined to be a Sith Lord.

If he looked back far enough, Jacen saw its beginnings in Vergere's oddly concerned avian eyes as he suffered physical torment that had changed him forever, showing him that there was nothing he couldn't endure and pass beyond if his will wanted it.

And he'd killed not a person he loved, but something precious whose absence he was going to find very hard to handle. It was already searing a hole in him. It had mattered. And it still had the appearance of being alive, but it was walking dead.

What he'd loved and yet killed was Ben's admiration and devotion to him. Jacen had grown to love that adulation—and he had loved robbing Luke of the role of adored father and mentor.

He will immortalize his love . . . where immortalize means "dead."

And Ben—he knew Ben well enough to realize that he would never rest until his beloved mother's killer was caught, and that she would always be that perfect icon of beauty and courage to him.

Ben's love's immortal now. It'll last as long as he lives, unchanging, like his vision of Mara. And—like the hatred and vengeance he'll feel for me when he learns what I did. That'll live forever, too.

Jacen got up and looked at his reflection in the mirror on the bulkhead again. He'd studied it as if looking for changing symptoms, hour by hour, to see if his Sith status were manifesting itself in his flesh.

He didn't look any different.