From the peak of the mountain the stars seemed close enough to touch. Faintly back-lit by the glow of the Transitory Mists, the stars filled the night sky's dome in all directions. When he looked down, Tenel Ka could see the lights of Fountain Palace in the far distance, but the land around them was totally empty and dark.
A few torches, burning atop pikes stuck in the ground, provided the only illumination for those gathered around the pyre. Tenel Ka stood with Allana pressed against her side. Leia had her arm linked to Han Solo's and Luke Skywalker stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Ben stood at Jacen's feet with his hands stuffed in his pockets, looking at the body faintly visible in the dark.
Lastly there was Jaina. She stood right beside the corpse, close enough to bend over a plant a kiss on her brother's head. She didn't. Tenel Ka's mind flashed back to Anakin Solo's funeral on this same mountain-top all those years ago. Jaina had been delivered by Kyp Durron from the ball hosted by Tenel Ka's grand-mother, Jedi robes hastily thrown on after changing out of the tight gown Ta'a Chume had provided. Now she wore a plain black tunic and jacket; her hair was pulled out of her face into a braid down her back and the flickering torchlight highlighted the white bandages on her forehead and made her whole face look narrow, gaunt.
Last time they'd also been surrounded by all the survivors of the Myrkr mission, and others who wanted to pay their respects. They'd taken turns and spoken of all the different ways Anakin Solo had saved their lives.
They could, in theory, have done the same about Jacen, but far more vivid now were the scars left by the man who'd become Caedus. They could go in circles forever, probably, listing the pain he'd caused them in the end, pain that now eclipsed all the good he'd done and probably always would.
As she allowed herself to look at the body of the man she'd loved Tenel Ka allowed herself the hope that, through fire, they could expunge some of those had memories and perhaps even give back life to some of the good ones. She knew it could never be, but she still hoped.
Jacen's face looked gaunt like his sister's in the torchlight; gaunt, but somehow peaceful. Her mind flashed back to the times when she'd laid in bed beside him, watching his sleeping face, so different from his waking one. Waking Jacen, in all his forms, had been alert, inquisitive, restless. There had always been a spark in his brandybrown eyes, and so often his forehead had been creased and lips pressed tight in contemplation of one great matter or another. Sleep had always made Jacen look younger.
He didn't look younger now. The awful things he'd done, the dark powers he'd used and that had used him, seemed to have carved away the last softness from his face, leaving something carved, angular, harsh. But of course it would; in becoming Caedus he'd purged himself of all his old softness. Not even death could erase that stain.
They stood around the body for what seemed like forever before Jaina, finally, went over to one of the pikes and picked up the torch. She walked back to Jacen's body and held it high so the light shone over her, over him, over everyone gathered.
She paused, like she was waiting for someone to say something, but no one did.
No one had the words.
Tenel Ka watched as Jaina glanced toward her parents. Leia nodded, almost imperceptibly. Han gave no motion at all.
Jaina dropped the torch. Flame leaped up at once. Tenel Ka felt her daughter's hands claw into her leg as they watched the fire spread around Jacen's body. She reached out with the Force and tried to send wordless comfort to Allana; to tell her that Jacen was gone, that he could never harm her, that she was safe among family forever more and that she never needed to worry ever again.
She wanted to send comfort, but Allana pressed her head against Tenel Ka's thigh and began to cry. Her tears could barely be heard over the crackle of flame, but Tenel Ka was sure everyone else noticed them too.
Tenel Ka had never cried as a child. She'd never allowed herself to. She'd always tried to fashion herself into a hard, stoic warrior, like she'd thought had been her birthright. She could see now that, as a result, she'd never learned to trust her own feelings and had instead allowed them to well up inside her until they became like a cancer, one she never allowed anyone else to notice, not even the people she should have shared those feelings with. People like Jaina, like Zekk now gone, like Jacen burning in front of her.
Perhaps, if she'd learned better as a child, it could have all been different.
She reached down and gently stroked Allana's hair. It was better this way, she hoped. Allana could purge herself of what her father had been and, in the loving care of her grandparents, grow stronger and freer and truer to herself than her mother had.
Tenel Ka had to believe that. It was the only thing she had left.
She tilted her head back and watched the flames leap and flicker and dissolve into cool night wind, leaving only the distant pinpoints of stars.