Leia would’ve protested that she knew what true freedom would look like, as did Kier and probably most of her other friends. That was something you could recognize even when you’d never seen it before. But she wanted her parents to get used to talking about this with her in their presence before she jumped in.
Rising from her chair, Breha paced the length of the terrace. The dark red caftan she wore was cut just low enough in front to reveal the soft glow of her pulmonodes, which had replaced her heart and lungs after the long-ago accident that had so nearly killed her. Most people who’d received pulmonodes kept them visible only temporarily, until they went through the bacta sessions necessary to encase them in new flesh and skin. However, Leia’s mother wore hers proudly. It reminds me that I lived, she’d told Leia once. That I cannot be so easily stopped.
“Do you think this will finally make the others see what I’ve seen?” Breha continued gazing out toward Aldera on the horizon, hugging her arms against her chest. “Do you think they’ll finally accept that the Empire will only be defeated through direct action? Are they ready to take up arms?” When her husband didn’t answer right away, she added, “You still see it, don’t you?”
Bail nodded as he leaned back in his chair, and a squat little droid took the opportunity to refresh his Chandrilan tea with hot water. “I meant what I said a few months ago. While I still don’t think such conflict is inevitable—I accept now that it’s likely. Even advisable. Mon Mothma believes so, and she works even harder on me than you do.”
Breha smiled ruefully. “Good for her.”
“You must see that what happened on Christophsis makes things harder for us,” he said. “Getting everyone on board after something like this will be difficult.”
Leia could remain silent no more. “Standing up to the Empire means taking a risk. A big risk. Everybody has to have known that already.”
Her mother returned to the table, though her attention was for her daughter rather than the meal. “Of course they knew before now. But there’s a great difference between knowledge in the abstract and the concrete reality of dead bodies and destroyed cities. We have to live with the absolute certainty that our freedom from the Empire can’t be bought only with information, resources, and money. In the end, the price will be blood.”
Hardly able to believe she dared, Leia said, “What if that means the blood of the people of Alderaan?”
Sharing a stricken look, her parents gazed at each other for a few long seconds before Bail said, “If we’re to be true to Alderaan’s ideals of justice, dignity, and peace for all peoples, then we must share equally in the necessary risks.”
His words resonated inside Leia, ringing true to everything she believed. Yet she couldn’t forget what Kier had said, either. “We’ve created justice, dignity, and peace here. One place in the galaxy where people can live the way they should live, not kneeling at Palpatine’s feet. We have to protect that, don’t we?”
Bail rose to his feet, a move so sudden that it rattled the table and made both mother and daughter jump. “I thought we raised you better than this, Leia. You’re not a selfish girl, and you’re not a cowardly one. So stop acting the part.” With that he turned and stalked off the terrace without looking back.
Leia stared down at her plate. Her mostly uneaten meal blurred with tears she refused to shed, and she bit down on her lower lip, hoping one pain would erase another.
“Sweetheart. It’s all right. He shouldn’t have said that.” Breha came to her daughter’s side and took one of Leia’s hands in her own. “You’re not the one he’s angry with.”
“That’s not what it sounds like.” Leia blinked back the tears just in time.
Her mother shook her head. “What you’re saying now isn’t so different from what he was saying last year. After the Clone Wars, your father hoped never again to see a larger galactic conflict. He accepted this only with great difficulty, and I think hearing you make those same arguments—it forces him to confront just how serious circumstances are, that this is what we have to contemplate.”
Larger galactic conflict. That could mean a number of things, none of them good. “What exactly are we contemplating?”
Breha pulled back; Leia had finally found the new boundary of what her parents were willing to reveal. “Let us be the ones to worry about that.” She ran one hand over her daughter’s braids. “I’m sorry we’ve burdened you as much as we have already.”
“The truth isn’t a burden.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Breha’s smile was sad. “If only that were so.”
That night, Leia was distracted for a brief time by a video Kier had sent her, a time-lapse image of the candlewick flowers in his family’s garden opening to the night; he’d chosen beautiful music to go with it, and she felt almost as though he’d given her a bouquet.
Even that thrill faded quickly when she thought back on everything that had happened that day. Her father’s harsh words felt like lash strokes that would take a long time to heal; even that wasn’t as bad as remembering the fate of Christophsis. Grand Moff Tarkin’s chilly satisfaction in the deaths of so many people—
So much for sleep, Leia decided, throwing off her coverlet. By this time the palace would be silent and still. Her parents and the human staff were probably asleep, and the majority of the droids would, like 2V, stand dormant in their charging stations.
In other words, it was the perfect time to sneak around.
Slipping on her blue robe, Leia tied her long hair back in one tail before tiptoeing into the hallway. Although the ancient stone walls could muffle any number of sounds, she trusted the silence that surrounded her. No light shone beyond a few candledroids hovering every few meters. Her heart thumped as she hurried along, checking each new room as she went. It felt almost absurd to be so worried about moving around her own home, particularly since no one but her parents would dream of stopping her, and she’d never been forbidden to go into the queen’s private stateroom when her mother wasn’t present.
But the fact was, she intended to snoop.
Breha had said, Our freedom from the Empire can’t be bought only with information, resources, and money. That suggested their allies were already pooling funds. All those hours her mother now spent huddled over the ledgers and accounts—Leia suspected that wasn’t just the usual work of handling the crown’s purse. The extra time could well be attention the queen was giving to the monies for whatever great effort her parents had in mind.
Breha’s private stateroom was a smaller space, bordered on one side by the vast chamber of the public stateroom and on the other by the library. One of the oldest areas of the palace still in common use, the room had stone walls, exposed wooden rafters, and a fireplace so enormous it stretched nearly the entire length of the room and was deep enough to walk into. The thick hand-woven rugs kept the chill of the stone floor at bay. So cozy was the ambiance of the space that her mother occasionally abandoned the queen’s offices to work in here, in the light and heat of a real fire.