Anakin felt his own breath leave him. "My mother?" Titi looked at him sadly before rushing on. "I don't know."
Without another word, Amee took off toward her own dwelling. Anakin ran, his heart bursting, his legs pumping. He charged into his home. He looked around wildly.
Everything seemed the same. But where was Shmi?
Then he saw her in the corner. Her knees were drawn up against her chest, her head buried. As he started toward her, she jerked her head up.
For a moment, he saw sheer terror in her face. Shock paralyzed him. He had never seen his mother afraid. For him, she was the image of calm strength. She held all the terrors of life at bay for him.
As she took in his expression, the wild look in her eyes instantly disappeared. The warm light he knew so well came back. She held out her arms to him, and he rushed to her.
"I didn't know where you were," she said.
He felt her strong arms surround him and buried his face in the familiar scent of her clothes. She rocked him gently.
"You're shaking," she said. "Hush, Annie. We're both safe."
Somehow he knew that the terror he'd seen on her face was not just because she could not find him. It was because of what she had seen. Of what had almost happened to her.
But that fear, the fear that his mother could disappear, that she could be hurt or killed, that she could be at the mercy of her own terror, was just too great for him to face. He pushed the thought of her anguished face away and breathed in her warmth, felt the strength and gentleness of her hands soothing him. Instantly, the shaking stopped. He told himself he had not seen her vulnerability. His mother could not be vanquished. She could not be taken. She could not be hurt. The core of her was strength.
She could keep them both safe. That was his reality. Somehow Anakin knew that if he acknowledged Shmi's fear he would close the door on his own childhood. He wasn't ready to do that. He was seven years old. He needed her too much.
Outside, they heard voices. A deep voice calling, trying to override a high, frightened one.
"Amee! Come back!"
"Where's my mother?"
Anakin looked up. "It's Amee."
Shmi's grip on him tightened. "Hala was taken by the slave raiders."
He looked into her face. The terror was gone, but sadness was there now, deep sadness and compassion, and also something else, something remote that he could not decipher. As though she knew something he did not, and would not tell him — he did not want or need to know.
"It is a terrible thing to be a slave on Tatooine, Annie," Shmi whispered. "But it could be far, far worse for us."
She pushed his hair off his forehead. The remote look left her eyes.
"But you are safe," she said in a firm voice. "We are together. Now, come.
Let us do what we can to comfort Amee and her father."
Anakin rose. He stood on the threshold of his dwelling for a moment, watching Shmi cross to console Amee and her father. Owners were now walking among the milling beings, checking on the slaves. Anakin saw Hala's owner, Yor Millto. Millto was checking off something on a datapad.
"A nuisance, to lose Hala," he said to his assistant. "This will cost me. But she wasn't highly skilled. Easy to replace."
Anakin's gaze went to Amee. Her face was buried in Shmi's robes, and her thin shoulders shook with her wracking sobs. Hala's husband sat nearby, his face in his hands.
Easy to replace…
Pain tore through Anakin, pain he did not want to face.
He made a vow. He knew he had an extraordinary memory. Organization and learning came easily to him. He would use that power to sear this memory into his mind and heart. When he needed this, he would recall every detail — the exact shade of blue of the sky, the heartbreaking quality of Amee's uncontrollable sobs.
There was only one thing he would train his mind not to recall, one thing he never wanted to see again, even in memory — the terror he had glimpsed on his mother's face.
Chapter 1
Six years later…
Obi-Wan Kenobi squinted through the viewscreen of the small, sleek craft, a transport on loan from the Senate. Mist swirled around and below him. He could not see a landing site.
"Anything?" Anakin asked. With zero visibility, his Padawan was using instruments to pilot the transport. That, and his sure connection to the Force. At only thirteen years of age, Anakin was already an expert pilot, even better than Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan would be the first to admit it.
"Not yet. The mist will clear in a moment." He hoped. He knew that the craggy peaks of the ice mountains were close. The trick was to find a landing site.
"And then will you tell me why we're here?" Anakin asked.
"All in good time." Obi-Wan noted that the mist was beginning to thin.
Patches of a lighter gray streaked through the clouds. Suddenly, as the craft lowered, the icy peaks appeared, looming out of the clouds, a flash of silver against a sea of gray.
Obi-Wan consulted the coordinates for his destination, then searched the crags for a likely landing spot. All he could see around him was the blinding white of ice and snow. He knew that the seemingly sheer mountainsides concealed ledges and hidden caves. Sheets of ice made for treacherous possibilities.
At last he spotted a ledge that was protected from the wind. It was clear of snow and he saw only isolated patches of ice. It would be a tight fit, and there was always the danger the craft would slide on the ice straight off the ledge, but he knew his Padawan could do it "There," he told Anakin, and gave the coordinates. The boy looked at him, surprised. "Really?"
"You can do it."
"I know I can do it," Anakin said. "I'm just wondering why you want me to."
"Because it's an easy climb to our destination from there."
Anakin flipped switches to begin the landing procedures. "And I know better than to ask what that is."
Obi-Wan sat back and watched in admiration as, with cool nerves and a steady hand, Anakin expertly maneuvered the ship into the tight space. He set the ship down as gently as if their landing pad were a nest of kroyie eggs. There would be just enough room to activate the hatch and clamber out.
Anakin looked out the viewscreen at the sheer icy cliffs surrounding them. "Can you tell me what this planet is, at least?"