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fill in instead.”
    “This one is not afraid!” Saba knew he was manipulating her, but she also knew he was right—refusing would not be worthy of Mara’s memory. “She just doesn’t know what to say.”
    Kyp nodded sympathetically. “So does that mean you want me to do it?”
    “No!” The last thing Mara would have wanted was Kyp speaking at her funeral. While he had been fairly supportive of Master Skywalker’s leadership of late, there had been a time when that was not so—and Mara had been a woman with a long memory. “This one will do it.” She turned to Kenth. “What does she say?”
    “Just speak from your heart.” Kenth gave her a gentle Force nudge toward the speaker’s lectern. “You’ll do fine.”
    Saba swallowed hard, then returned to Master Skywalker’s side and spoke into his ear. “Leia and Han were delayed,” she said. “This one will start.”
    Luke’s gaze rose to the top of the pyre and locked on Mara’s face, and he said nothing. The shadows beneath his hood were almost deep enough to hide the red bags beneath his eyes, but even drawn in on himself, his Force aura beamed anguish.
    Ben leaned out from behind Luke and nodded. “That’s good,” he said. “Mom would like that.”
    A stream of warmth flooded Saba’s heart, and her anxiety about speaking in front of so many dignitaries vanished. She turned toward the audience and straightened her robes, then stepped up to the lectern. A silver hovermike rose to float before her throat, but she deactivated it with a flick of her talon and returned it to its charging socket. When she spoke about Mara, she would not need a voice projector to make herself heard.
    The courtyard quickly fell silent. Saba took a moment to make eye contact with Tenel Ka, Admiral Niathal, and many of the other dignitaries in the audience. Then, using the Force to carry her voice to the farthest edges of the courtyard, she began.
    “We have come to this sacred place to say farewell to our dear friend, to a fierce warrior and a noble dispenser of justice. Mara Jade Skywalker was one of the brightest starz of the Jedi Order, and we will miss her.”
    Saba shifted her gaze to the Jedi Knights kneeling in the front row of the audience. “Her light has been taken from the galaxy, but it has not been extinguished. It lives on in us, in the times we shared the hunt, in the lessons she taught us as a Master.” She turned and spoke directly to Master Skywalker and Ben. “It lives in the love and counsel she gave as a mate, in the sacrifices she made as a mother. As long as our hearts beat, her light lives inside us.”
    Master Skywalker finally tore his gaze from the pyre. Though his expression was not exactly peaceful, there was at least a hint of gratitude in his eyes, and she could tell that her words were reaching him. It was harder to tell whether she was being any comfort to Ben. His attention was fixed on the slatstones beneath his feet, his brow furrowed in concentration, his Force aura swirling with pain and confusion and a rage that Mara would have found very frightening.
    As Saba contemplated what she might say to quell that rage, a low murmur arose from the audience, starting from the back of the courtyard and rippling slowly forward, growing louder and more animated as it drew closer. Saba turned back to the listeners, wondering if her words could be generating that much excitement, and found the entire audience craning their necks to look back toward the entrance.
    Striding up the central aisle was a black-clad figure in knee-high boots, with a long shimmersilk cloak rippling from his broad shoulders. His face was somber and his eyes sunken in shadow, his bearing brusque. Once it grew reasonably apparent that every eye in the audience was on him, he raised a black-gloved hand in a gesture that was half apology and half greeting.
    “Excuse my tardiness,” Jacen Solo said. “I was detained by urgent matters of state. I’m sure everyone