It was a huge pit: easily thirty meters deep and almost
a kilometer across. Mighty columns stretched up into the sky, reaching for the planet that hung in the blackness like an overripe fruit about to fall. Around her on the ground were a number of ships, some secured in their birthing bays by restraining carapaces, others just lying on the ground in various stages of disrepair and decay.
She knew the place to be an old spaceport—one that
was both comfortingly familiar and disconcertingly alien.
She wanted to climb into one of the derelict spaceships
and fly off to the planet up above—for she knew that here,
at least, she might be safe—but the dilapidated condition
of the ships told her that this simply wasn’t an option.
The spaceport and all its craft had lain unused for many
years. It was abandoned, just like the world beneath her
feet—as abandoned as she felt herself to be.
Someone was standing behind her. She turned, startled,
and found herself staring at a distant reflection of
herself. Only it wasn’t her at all. This person had scars
across her forehead. Reaching up, she realized she didn’t
carry any such scars. The only scars she carried were the
ones on her arms, and they felt completely different. Her
reflection’s scars stood out boldly, proudly, and had been
carved into the flesh with
purpose. Hers, on the other
hand, were a product of anger and an intense desire to
remove something she’d thought she had seen lurking
beneath her skin . . .
“There’s nowhere left to run,” the ghostly reflection said.
In the distance came the howl of the lizard beast.
“Not for you, either,” she pointed out.
Despite obvious effort to hide it, there was fear behind
the reflection’s gaze.
“Why do you want to hurt me?” she asked it.
“Because you want to hurt me.”
“I want to be left alone! I want only to be free!”
“As do I.”
“But I
belong here!”
The reflection surveyed their surroundings, then faced
her again. “As do I.”
The howl of the creature sounded again, louder this
time, and closer.
“It can smell us,” the reflection said. “It can smell my
fear, and it can smell your guilt.”
“I have nothing to feel guilty for.”
“No, you don’t. And yet there it is, nonetheless.”
She looked into herself, then, and saw the guilt of
which the reflection spoke. It had always been there, she
knew; she just hadn’t wanted to see it. But now the amorphous
and neglected emotion took shape, forming into
words that rose in her thoughts, in her throat, finally demanding
release:
Why am I alive when the one I love is dead?
And with this came a deafening roar from the lizard
creature. It was a roar of anger, of remorse, and of regret;
it was a bellow whose echo called back to her out of the
dark over and over again, fading each time until it be-came
little more than a far-off whisper, a distant speck in
the dark . . .
Tahiri . . . Tahiri . . .
“Tahiri?”
The hand shaking her shoulder did more to dispel the
dream than the sound of her own name being spoken.
She blinked, then looked around vaguely at her surroundings.
The walls so close around her seemed small
in comparison to the dreamscape she’d just left—so much
more restricting.
“Come on, kid—snap out of it.”
Han’s voice was rough and hard, like the hands shaking
her. She looked at him through tear-stained eyes and
saw his worried and fatigued expression. Leia stepped
between them, her gentle features smiling reassuringly at
Tahiri.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m awake,” the girl mumbled hazily. Then, realizing
she hadn’t answered the question, she nodded and
added: “I think I’m all right.”
Her head was pounding, and the harsh light felt like a
naked sun burning into her eyes. She winced, blinking
back more tears as she tried to sit up. She felt strange,
confused—and this confusion was only magnified when
she saw where she was: lying on the bed in Han and
Leia’s suite.
“What happened?” she asked. Even as she spoke the
words, she knew the answer: the same thing that happened
before, on Galantos and elsewhere. The illusion of
ignorance was her only defense. “What am I doing
here?”
“You don’t remember?” Leia asked.
Both of Anakin’s parents were standing over her,
dressed in their night robes.
“I—” she started. How could she tell them the truth
when she herself wasn’t even sure what it was? “I was
looking for something.”
Leia held out the silver pendant. Its many-tentacled,
snarling visage seemed to mock her from its cradle of
soft, human flesh. “You were looking for this, weren’t
you?”
Tahiri nodded, embarrassed. “It—it calls to me. It reminds
me of . . .” She trailed off, unable to put what she
was feeling into words.
“Of who you are?” Leia suggested.
The words seemed to stab a sharp pain in her mind, to
which she responded with anger. “I know who I am! I’m
Tahiri Veila!”
Leia crouched down beside the bed to look up into the
girl’s face. Tahiri didn’t want to meet her eyes, but the
Princess was hard to resist. “Are you?” she asked in a
low, searching tone. “You don’t seem like the Tahiri I
once knew.”
“What are you talking about, Leia?” Han said, looking
equal parts exasperated and tired. “What exactly is going
on here?”
“Sometimes I think we forget what happened to her on
Yavin Four, Han.” Leia kept her warm, reassuring eyes
on Tahiri as she spoke. Then she stood and addressed her
husband fully. “The Yuuzhan Vong did something terrible
to her while she was in their hands—something we
can’t even begin to understand. They tried to turn her
into something other than human. You don’t just get over
that easily. It takes time.”
“But I thought she was given the okay. Wasn’t that
why she was invited to join us on this mission?”
The two kept talking, but Tahiri had stopped listening.
Although he probably didn’t mean it, there was a suggestion
of mistrust in Han’s words that was hurtful to her,
and for a brief moment she felt overwhelmed by grief—a
grief that was exacerbated by the way Anakin’s parents
kept talking about her in the third person, as if she
weren’t even there. It made her feel strangely removed
from what was taking place around her . . .
“I wasn’t asleep,” Leia was saying to Han in response
to something he’d said. “Jaina told me what Jag found
on Galantos; I was expecting Tahiri to come for it. That’s
why I instructed Cakhmain and Meewalh to stay out of
sight—to let Tahiri come for the pendant.”
As she said this, Leia gestured off to one side, and for
the first time, Tahiri noticed the Princess’s Noghri guards
standing there.
Han sighed. “I still would have preferred it if you’d
told me what was going on.”
“There was no need, Han. I wanted to see what would
happen.”
“So what’s causing this?” he asked. “You think it
might be Anakin?”
Leia shook her head. “It’s more than that; much more.
She’s hiding something—from herself as well as everyone
else.”
The accusation stabbed at Tahiri’s heart, making her
jump to her feet. “How can you say that?” she cried,
taking a step forward. But a single step was all she managed
before Cakhmain moved to stop her, taking Tahiri
by the shoulders to hold her back from Leia. She wriggled
in his slender hands but couldn’t break free. “I would
never hurt either of you! You’re—” She stopped, remembering
Jacen’s note back on Mon Calamari. “You’re my
family.”
Han stepped over to her, then, taking her hands. “Hey,
take it easy, kid.” He wiped at the fresh tears on her
cheek with the back of his hand. “No one’s accusing you
of anything, Tahiri. Just relax, okay?”
She did so, feeling oddly calmed by the large man’s
rough but friendly voice. She saw Leia motion to her
Noghri guard, who immediately released Tahiri and retreated
to the shadows.
Leia came forward. “I’m sorry, Tahiri. I didn’t mean to
upset you.”
Tahiri didn’t know what to say—she felt foolish and
ashamed at her outburst—so in the end just nodded her
acceptance of the Princess’s apology and said nothing.
“Tell me, though, Tahiri,” Leia said. “Do you have
any idea what’s been going on in your head these last
couple of years?”
“I-I—sometimes I black out,” Tahiri stammered awkwardly.
“I have these . . .
dreams that—”
“That tell you you’re somebody else?” Leia offered.
This brought her up defensive again. “My name is
Tahiri Veila! That’s who
I am!”
Leia took Tahiri’s shoulders in her hands and looked the
girl in the face with her penetrating brown eyes. “I know
this isn’t easy, Tahiri. But you must try to understand. I
want...
