2

He was her protector and her only living family. When they were young, his eyes had been bluer than the skies of Chandrila and his hair the white-blonde of a mother's wistful memory. Now, his eyes were steel grey and his hair the colour of hallway shadows. He was master at hiding. He hid his strength. He hid his feelings. He acted as though he hid her, but she knew he couldn't, knew that they watched her and it didn't matter for he trusted no one, not even her. His lips had once been warm on her cheek and now they felt like ice on her mouth.

He showed up in the middle of the night and she could feel the surge of potency within him before he even arrived. It woke her, throbbing deep inside her chest as though it belonged to her. He had a keycard, but she still slipped on a robe and met him at the door.

He was a real man are despite his slight-ness and the subtle sense of power he exuded was tangible to both force-users and the force-blind. It buzzed like an incessant pulse of solar energy, vibrant and static. Tonight he was drunk, but not on spice, alcohol, or anything chemical that she could name. Adrenaline. Power, perhaps. A recent victory. A death.

She knew better than to inquire, so she embraced him and reminded herself that she must never think of betraying him in his presence. Never.

"How are you?" he asked.

"I'm well enough."

"I woke you." He picked up her arm and lightly ran his fingertips over the tender skin between her elbow and wrist. "Were you dreaming?"

"Some."

"About what?"

"The night Iolu died." She pulled away and went to sit on the conform lounge. He was in a good mood. She should take advantage of it, use it. "May I ask you something?"

"You can ask me anything you like," he said, settling into the couch beside her.

They both knew it wasn't true.

"Have you learned anything about who might have killed him?" she asked.

The air in her living room quietly compressed. "You know I haven't."

Leia gazed toward the large window beyond which several skylanes passed. She broached the next question carefully. "Maybe you're afraid to tell me the truth, of how I'd react?"

"I swore I would never hurt you," he said.

Again is what he meant.

"I don't share my suspicions with you because it wouldn't do any good. You would fret and obsess and make yourself miserable. If I knew anything substantive, you know I wouldn't hide that from you. Haven't we been through this before?" he insisted. "When I got back from Yinchorr you were distraught. Do you think I would have wished that purposely on you?"

"No." In her mind, that year was fuzzy, like a long, drugged sleep brought on by an overdose of sweetblossom. For all his faults, for all he hid from her, she sensed that he was being mostly truthful. "What would have happened when you came back?" She looked at him. "You never say?"

"Nothing." His hands were cool against her neck, playing with the edge of her robe, sliding it from one shoulder. "I would have done nothing." His voice softened. "It was the dream. Or are you troubled about something more?"

She shook her head. "That was it."

Luke's eyes shifted like the undertow beneath the surface of the ocean, toward her bedroom, and Leia didn't look away. She'd learned that if she pretended in the beginning, eventually it felt real and he couldn't tell the difference. And if she hated herself in the morning, it wouldn't be the first time.

When they were little children, they had discovered that they could communicate in secret and shut out all adults. They'd invented imaginary homes on distant planets, with normal, real parents, where they could swim and have felinxes and flying aiwhas as pets and eat sugar-covered sunfruit andPyollian cake. Their twin silence disturbed their caregivers at the 'home' so greatly (not disturbed, Leia recognised when her childhood is over, but alerted them) that the Emperor was summoned and after that came a battery of tests. Even then, Luke had been eager to please everyone, including the Emperor; he was always like that. Leia had been the stubborn and suspicious twin; she'd failed tests on purpose that she could easily have aced.

This was when they were five, and shortly afterward Luke had been taken away.

She sensed that he was in the mood to be gentle. "All right," she said, knowing they were the last words she would speak until tomorrow.