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He has become a true Master, Leia thought.

Momentarily overwhelmed by the emotions flooding through her, Leia began to move away from the transport landing platform, as if dazed. Han was suddenly beside her, his arm about her shoulders, leading her into a kind of glen.

“You okay?” he asked worriedly.

She took a steadying breath. “It’s just so much to take in.”

“I know.” He gazed around. “Some place.”

“Have you ever seen anything to compare to this?”

He took his lower lip between his teeth. “Well, there are some canyons on Luuq Two that are every bit as deep. Then there’s Kismaano for cliffside dwellings. And, of course, Kashyyyk for trees …” His words trailed off as Leia began to weep. “Hey, hey. What’s all this about? You should be happy about being here.”

She wiped away tears with the back of her hand. “I am happy, Han. This place—it’s the safe harbor I’ve been dreaming about for months now. But I’m sad—for so many things. For Anakin and Chewbacca, and Elegos. For my parents, my homeworld, so, so many friends …”

She cried softly against Han’s shoulder, and when she looked up into his face, she saw tears in his eyes.

“I feel like we’re coming to the end of a long voyage, Han, and I hate the fact that additional violence is the only thing that’s going to get us there. It’s like a final payment we have to make to conclude this thing, and to ensure that our children, and our children’s children don’t grow up with the threats we’ve been forced to face at every turn.

“I keep thinking that my father must have finally come to this point when he summoned the strength to save Luke from the Emperor. I know from her journal that my grandmother felt this way. And I have the strongest feeling that my mother must have also reached this stage—with war erupting all around her, her homeworld threatened … Is this what Jacen has been trying to tell us all along—that violence is never the answer, even if it seems the shortest and most direct path?”

Han shook his head. “I don’t know, Leia. But I know I’d die to give him and Jaina a better life than the one we’ve had.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Even though I wouldn’t change a day of it, because of you.”

Leia nodded. “I know. I know because I feel the same way, Han. But I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you. Especially after what I saw you go through on Caluula—”

“Come on,” he said, lifting her chin. “Look who you’re talking to.”

She smiled faintly, and sniffed. “If bluster counts for anything, you’ll outlive us all.”

“Leia! Han!” Luke called out. “I want you to meet someone.”

When they returned to the landing platform, Luke introduced them to some of Zonama Sekot’s tall and pale-blue-complected indigenous residents—Ferroans—including a middle-aged woman he called Magister Jabitha.

“Sekot has agreed to fashion living ships for some of the Jedi,” Jabitha told everyone gathered. “The process will require several days, but I promise you that it will be unlike anything any of you have ever experienced.”

“Only three Jedi have ever gone through the process,” Luke told Leia. “And only one of them ever piloted a Sekotan ship—Anakin Skywalker.”

Our father! Leia realized.

Her astonishment and elation endured for only a moment before the sadness returned. Ships, she told herself. Then it was to be war, after all. She had persuaded herself that Luke had found some other way to end the conflict. But she should have known better. The dark side was strong, and right thinking alone wasn’t enough to abolish it. She struggled to resign herself to what lay ahead.

For Luke, she forced a brave smile.

Her brother’s expression promised even greater surprises to come. “There’s someone else I want you to meet,” he said for everyone to hear.

Turning to the Ferroans, he called one of them forward—a tall man, who lowered the hood of his cloak as he approached, revealing a face of tattoos and scars, a hint of nose, a sloping forehead …

Leia felt Han tense beside her.

“This is Harrar,” Luke said. “A high priest of the Yuuzhan Vong.