“Princess Leia.” He gave her his bloodless smile.
Smiling back was utterly beyond her, but she managed a pleasant nod. “Good day, governor. I’m afraid my father isn’t in.”
“I wasn’t calling for your father. I was calling for you.”
He would only have called her at this office if he’d had someone watching her, noting her movements. That troubled her less than the fact that he wanted her to know it. As cautiously as she would’ve approached a feral creature, she straightened in her seat and folded her hands in her lap. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“First I wished to offer my condolences on the death of your fellow apprentice legislator—a Mr. Domadi, I believe the name was. I understand he was a promising young man.”
Tarkin had to suspect the true conditions of Kier’s death, coming as it did just before the Empire’s unsuccessful raid on Paucris Major. The hazy version of events given in the official report had been sufficient to convince most people, but not Imperial agents. These “condolences” were his way of twisting the knife.
“Kier was one of the best of us,” Leia said smoothly. “Thank you for your kind words. I’ll pass them along to the family, if you wish.”
“Please do.” Tarkin turned his head to study her from a different angle. “Given our conversation a few days ago, I also wished to inquire as to whether you were well. Though of course you are. I’ve found you to be a young woman of great…composure.”
Translation: I know you lied to me. I know you lie very well. I know you’re a part of whatever your parents are plotting. And I know you’re the reason the ships at Paucris Major got away.
She met his eyes with ease, never glancing away. “I’m quite well, Governor. Believe me when I say I fully appreciate your concern.”
The office doors slid open to admit her father. Two steps in, Bail saw the spectral flicker of Tarkin’s holo and quickly moved into holo range. “Governor Tarkin. How can I help you?”
“No further help is required. Your daughter has answered all my questions.” Tarkin sharpened his smile for her father. “She’s become a charming young lady.”
The pride on her father’s face at that moment comforted Leia more than almost anything else had. “Yes, we’re tremendously proud of her. Thank you so much for your call, but if you’ll excuse us, we have work to do.”
Tarkin’s end of the call blinked out with no further goodbyes. Leia found she could breathe again. “He’s watching us,” she said.
“He always will be.” Bail’s broad hand squeezed her shoulder. “But there are ways to use his surveillance against him. Imperial agents tend to follow standard protocols, which means we have opportunities to show them what we want them to see. Give them information that leads to false conclusions. The trick is keeping ourselves protected while still making them believe they’re getting usable intel.”
The possibilities expanded within Leia’s mind, collided and combined, taking on levels of complexity she’d never guessed at before—but they made instinctive sense. It was as though her father had begun speaking to her in a language she hadn’t heard in years but had known since birth. “Will you teach me?”
Bail betrayed no sadness at seeing her plunge more deeply into the fight, only pride. “This was lesson one.”
The Apprentice Legislature session ended shortly afterward, and Leia returned home. She might’ve dreaded the thought of empty hours when either grief or fear could hound her—but she had important tasks to accomplish, and a challenge to fulfill.
The sun had reached its zenith just as she pulled herself up from her foothold to stagger onto the rock plateau. Sweating and panting, Leia blinked at the glare, vivid even through her protective goggles, until she’d fully taken in the view from the top of Appenza Peak. Smaller mountains and hills surrounded her, spiky and sharp, but beyond them in the far distance she could make out the green slope of gentle country. The vast royal palace, which in her childhood had seemed like a world unto itself, was too small to be more than a glint on the horizon.
We ought to have stood here together, Kier. You should’ve been with me.
At least she hadn’t had to make the climb alone.
The scrape of boots on rock prompted her to turn. Breha pulled herself onto the summit, even sweatier and more flushed than Leia herself. Her Alderaanian subjects might’ve been startled to see their queen like this—wearing military-issue all-terrain gear, dusty and disheveled, but aglow with satisfaction. To Leia, this was her mother at her most essential.
“It’s even more beautiful than I remembered.” Breha wiped her forehead with the back of her hand before going for her water bottle. “I should’ve done this again long ago. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s best I’m here with you.”
The next question had waited with Leia for years, but the time had finally come to ask: “Where did it happen?”
“We passed it some way back. Not that I know the spot exactly. It’s something of a blur, as you can imagine.”
“But—it was far up enough that they granted you the summit. Said you passed your challenge.”
This earned her a raised eyebrow from her mother. “Granted me the summit? Oh, no, indeed. I made this ascent fair and clear. What nobody tells you is that descents are even harder.”
All these years later, Alderaanians still spoke of “the accident” in hushed tones. It was the moment the monarchy nearly ended without an heir, the day when a beloved princess—even more beloved than Leia herself, as Leia well knew—had nearly died. Her mother had fallen while completing her Challenge of the Body; the resulting injuries could’ve claimed her life. She’d been saved through quick action by the guards observing at a distance, but some of the damage had been permanent. It was after the accident that Breha’s heart and lungs had been replaced by the pulmonodes that still glowed faintly in her chest. And it was due to the accident that her parents had elected to adopt a child rather than strain Breha’s body further.
Without that one terrible incident, Leia’s life might’ve been very different.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Breha studied her daughter as she spoke. “We look at our challenges—at our lessons—as things we master in order to achieve our goals. But the most important lessons in life sometimes have to do with what happens when we fail. How do we know when to surrender and walk away? How do we judge our own part in our failures? Is it something to learn from, or just bad luck? And how do we pick ourselves up again afterward?”
Leia looked back toward the horizon where she knew the palace lay. She remembered standing at Kier’s grave, head held high, her false promise to him heavy in her heart. The wind whipped around her and her mother, reminding them that the mountain would only welcome them for so long. Soon they’d have to descend.