Star Wars, page 20
“All shuttles have emergency supplies,” Leia said.
The old man craned his head around to look at her. Leia raised an eyebrow. She clocked the exact moment he recognized who she was—a slight widening of the eyes, a small parting of his lips—and she registered the moment half a second later when he remembered the true rumors that Leia had influenced the shift in the ship’s flight path. With a huff, he snapped his head back to D3-O9, but he didn’t protest any further.
“As Madurs was not a part of the original itinerary,” D3-O9 continued, “we will begin passing out thermal heat disks for personal use. Straffle wraps have also been provided for anyone who would like additional heat support.” The droid gestured to a crate at the front of the shuttle, which Leia presumed was full of cloth wraps made of the intensely thermal woven straffle material.
A server droid passed out thin thermal disks to everyone aboard. Despite her cloak, Leia took one—the severe cold on an ice planet required more than simple cloth, no matter how warm it was. The single disk strapped over her clothing, discreet but providing electric radiant heat to her core.
“Don’t need those on Synjax, either,” the old man muttered, pitching his voice purposefully loud enough that Leia was sure he wanted her to hear.
Han, who likewise wanted a beach more than an ice palace, started to get up, his hands bunching in fists. Leia pulled him down and patted his knee. He couldn’t fight every battle for her, and Leia had learned long ago that not every battle was worth fighting anyway.
D3-O9 concluded her introductory speech and moved to the shuttle doorway, sealing it closed and beginning the launch process. All around her, passengers chatted about the excursion. At least most of them seemed happy with the change in agenda. Madurs was fascinating from an artistic perspective, but several people in the shuttle hoped for a more adventurous ice fishing expedition.
Ice fishing…Leia should have looked closer at the ecological side of the moon’s resources. The Empire wanted Madurs for its carnium. Most of the galaxy knew it for its ice palaces. But fishing must surely be a prime food source for the people, which would absolutely affect the sociopolitical environment.
Leia’s hands clenched, her eyes staring at her lap, but she saw nothing. Ice fishing meant ice fishers. Where were they on the hierarchy of the society on this moon? What other food sources were there? There was too much at play here—Leia knew too little about this world, and that meant she wasn’t going to be able to come into her work as strong as she wanted. At least she was going to be there in person. True ambassadorship meant really being present, listening to what the people needed—the prime ministers and the fishers.
Injustice, inequity, and a lack of needs met for the lowest members of a society echoed like ripples in a disturbed pool of water into issues on a global level. An individual world that experienced troubles likewise spread out further and further into a galactic problem. Helping people was never as simple as just gifting money or supplies, which is what many of the world leaders requested. Leia had learned that the hard way. She’d saved a hundred refugees on Wobani when she was sixteen, but that hadn’t been enough. She had helped those few, but the planet itself had continued to deteriorate under the Galactic Empire, eventually only used as a labor and prison camp site. She hadn’t created the type of change she’d wanted to.
Leia needed to find a way to seek out the working people of Madurs, listen to the voices of those who weren’t commonly heard. But she had so little time—her status had afforded her and Han a spot at a banquet the prime minister of Madurs was hastily arranging to welcome the guests, but how much time could she angle with him to speak about these issues? Riyola had helped her with that, working in tandem with the prime minister’s people to ensure that he knew Leia wanted an audience to talk about a possible alliance. But would Prime Minister Yens be open to discussing the needs of his people and how the new government could help, or would he be antagonistic toward Leia? If she knew more—both about the man and the moon—she would better know what to say.
Han reached over, breaking her clasped hands and weaving his fingers through hers, giving her a squeeze.
She looked up and smiled at him. He wore an expression that told her he knew exactly what had been twisting her nerves. Leia felt herself relaxing as the shuttle broke into Madurs’s atmosphere. Leia was unprepared to meet with the prime minister not because she wasn’t a good diplomat but because she was on her honeymoon.
And being on her honeymoon meant she wasn’t facing this problem alone.
CHAPTER 31
HAN
THE SPACEPORT OF MADURS HAD seen better days. Leia had told Han about the Imperial Art Expo several years ago, and Han doubted the docking bays had had much upkeep since then. The shuttles had docked near the front, and there’d been some obvious effort to clean up, but even he could tell that the port was well below most Halcyon guests’ standards.
When the guests stepped outside, though, all grumbling about the spaceport disappeared in the face of the glittering, frozen moon.
Han knew Madurs was ice-covered. He had been expecting something akin to Hoth—harsh winds that cut through his coat, snow that crusted in his eyelashes, tiny ice crystals that mercilessly cut into any exposed skin.
Instead, he was met with a world that was mostly silent. There was cold, yes, but no wind. As his feet walked across the thick ice, there was barely the crunching sound of snow beneath his boots. Rather than growing louder as more and more people stepped out onto Madurs, the crowd grew quieter, speaking in hushed, nearly reverent whispers.
Han hated it.
It was the brutality of Hoth that had made it bearable. This silent, soft cold was far too similar to the cold of being frozen in carbonite. Han shuddered at the memory. The creeping silence and darkness still haunted him, the claustrophobic feeling of being utterly trapped in his own body. His vision blurred, and he vividly recalled the moment he realized he had become temporarily blind from the process, the terror at being lost under his own skin.
Leia slipped beside him, tucking herself under his arm. She had been the one who had come for him, who had saved him. And for all that she was the one who had dragged him to this blasted cold moon, she was also the one who stood beside him now.
“It’s beautiful,” Leia said, nodding to the sky.
Cresting the horizon, the big gas giant planet Madurs orbited rose like a pale-lavender sun. Its colors were muted through the wisps of clouds and thready, gray-blue sky, creating a ghostlike image.
Nearby, others were marveling at the ground. Under a dusting of snow, the thick ice was clear as glass. Deep, dark-blue water shone through the ice, and, distantly, there were darker, moving outlines of massive sea creatures beneath their feet.
An earsplitting crack echoed through the otherwise silent ice plain. Several guests screamed in startled surprise or ducked, looking for the source of the noise. In the echoing wake of the splintering sound, a low rumble drew everyone’s attention. They could see a group approaching quickly—a mix of individuals each riding some sort of machine and groups in sleds pulled by large, four-legged animals. They were far enough away that Han wasn’t able to see any individual’s face, but the smooth, flat horizon of the ice plain meant that they were visible even from a distance.
In moments, the welcome committee arrived. Ice-zippers sped by first, spraying snow and bits of ice in arcs, an impressive display that made those closest screech in delight, young and old. The little ice-zippers had curving refracting lasers as blades, cutting razor-thin tracks through the thick ice. Each one had a platform that could hold a driver and one passenger, and several of the guests, especially the younglings, clamored to claim one.
Behind the ice-zippers, regal sleds approached next. Each one was pulled by an enormous white pronged beast. The animals—one of the locals called one a proose—had legs that were roughly as long as Han was tall, with relatively slender bodies covered in silky white fur. Their graceful—for they were graceful, despite their disproportionately large size—bodies were strapped to heavy, corded ropes that were woven over their backs and threaded into reins. The prooses’ narrow faces ended in slightly pointed muzzles, with long, draping ears beneath elaborately twisting white horns. Everything about them, from their fur to their hooves, was solid white. Except their inky black eyes. It should be eerie, Han thought, but there was a gentle kindness to their gazes. Despite being so large, they tapped the ice softly, scratching their hooves over the snow in a way that could only be described as prancing.
Leia let go of Han’s arm, and she approached the closest beast with her eyes full of wonder and not a trace of fear on her face. One of the locals jumped down, offering her little white cubes to feed to the proose. It lapped at her fingers with its split-lip muzzle, leaving a long strand of sticky drool on her palm. Leia laughed, completely charmed, the sound somehow rising above the excited chatter of the other guests. The proose was so tall that it could easily arch its long neck over Leia’s head, resting its chin on the small of her back, its breath coming up in pale clouds. Leia reached up, petting the proose.
Han took a moment to appreciate the image. His wife, in a white gown, with a white cloak flowing down her shoulders, the hood barely covering her hair, reaching up to pet the enormous—but gentle—creature.
“The ears are soft!” Leia called to Han. She was so joyful in the moment, almost childlike in her excitement over the beast. All Han could do was smile in return as Leia stroked her fingers over the proose’s drooping ears. When she stopped, the animal nudged her with its head—a gentle motion, but its weight was enough to make Leia stumble.
Han caught her before she slipped on the ice. She giggled up at him. “Oh, they’re so dear,” she said.
Han forgot about the bitter cold of Hoth, the even worse cold of being frozen in carbonite. His anger at the ship’s diversion and Leia’s ridiculous focus on work evaporated. She was happy in a way that showed him that for a moment she’d forgotten about the war, their problems. She saw only a beautiful animal with soft ears that nuzzled her when she petted it and fed it, and she was content. And so was he.
“Are you ready?” the local guide said. She was a petite human with two long braids of hair sticking out under a woven knit hat. Han looked around and realized that nearly all the other sleds were taken—this guide and her proose were the last one, and some of the others had already departed, cutting a neat line behind the chaotic ice-zippers across the frozen plain.
The girl introduced herself as Nah’hai, and she helped Leia up into the sled first. While Leia snuggled under the heavy blanket, reclining in the back of the sled, Han took the chance to examine the vehicle. It used regular metal blades, dulled to even out the weight, but although the proose was more than capable of pulling it, there was also a propulsor built into the undercarriage so that it could be operated without animal aid.
“The prooses get mad if we don’t use them,” Nah’hai told Han as she gestured for him to sit beside Leia.
Beyond her, the proose strapped to their sled tossed its head, flappy ears audibly slapping against its neck as it huffed impatiently. All the other prooses and sleds had taken off.
“How fast can they go?” Han asked.
“Oh, you like fast?” Nah’hai said, a gleam in her eye Han recognized.
Before Han was fully sitting, Nah’hai ululated, a deep, resonant sound bursting from her lips. With a snort of excitement, the proose kicked up snow and ice, setting a fast clip over the plain. Han stumbled, partly falling on Leia before she pulled him under the blanket and onto the seat next to her.
Nah’hai set their proose on a path circling wide out, away from the others. “Over there!” she called, pointing to the right.
In the distance, the smooth, flat plain was broken with jagged cliffs that stuck straight up, like a vertical wall of ice. Han hadn’t noticed it before; the gray-white-blue of the ice faded into the gray-white-blue of the sky.
“The ice fishers,” Leia muttered. Squinting, Han could see the slightly dark spots in the ice—horizontal ledges cut into the wall, leading to round holes that must indicate doorways to dwellings.
“Think we can go there?” Leia shouted through the wind to their driver.
“Why?” Nah’hai said. “It’s just cliff dwellers.” She made a loud call again, her voice haunting, and the proose diverted, roughly curving back toward the others.
They could see the main ice palaces now. The ice-zippers had already arrived, but a few—those who had been commandeered by some of the older kids, Han suspected—were spiraling in tight loops in a way that made his stomach churn, despite some of the more chaotic moves he’d done on the Millennium Falcon. The largest palace, the one where the other proose-pulled sleds were already pulling up, towered above the others. It was easily seven stories high, reflecting light so that it looked silver in a way that reminded Han of one of Leia’s necklaces, the one she had worn after the Battle of Yavin.
From this distance, Han could truly appreciate that the ice palaces—there were roughly a dozen, but only three large ones—were truly architectural works of art. They were lavish and almost ostentatious. Unlike the cliff dwellings, there was no attempt to blend into nature. No, these ice palaces demanded to be seen, to be recognized as human marvels, not natural wonders. They rose as if by magic from the ice field, jutting straight up and glistening in the cold air.
“What are those?” Leia asked, pointing past the city. Han hadn’t noticed the other ice palaces, the ruins. Giant blocks of ice had cracked and tumbled, smashing into the thick ice plain. They were barely visible, caught in a nether region between the cliffs and the beauty of the other crystalline buildings to the left.
Nah’hai slowed the proose. She didn’t otherwise acknowledge that Leia had asked a question, and when Han opened his mouth to repeat Leia’s words to the driver, his wife put her hand on his knee under the blanket, shaking her head at him. Nah’hai stared out at the broken ice palaces as if she were…sad. It was a look of mourning on her face, but so stoic that Han almost didn’t recognize it.
Even the proose was silent as they gazed at the broken ice palaces. Han counted them—thirteen grand buildings, with remnants of the metal underpinnings that kept the ice blocks in place twisting up. They had been larger and more elaborate than the current ice palaces, with some lacy filigree edging still glittering along one broken roof.
Leia strained her eyes, leaning forward in the sled to see better, ignoring the way their cover fell to the floor, letting the cold wash over them. “Nah’hai?” she asked tentatively, so soft that their guide could have easily pretended not to hear. Instead, Nah’hai’s shoulders slumped. She looked back at her passengers.
“The old city,” she said, her gaze distant. “It’s the nature of ice. It’s not permanent. Ice melts, it breaks, it cracks. Our art is temporary, and all the more precious because of that.”
Leia pulled the cover up and settled back into Han’s arms as Nah’hai clucked at the proose and their sled approached the main—new—city. Han dropped a kiss on the top of Leia’s head, but he could not help but recall the way Nah’hai’s voice was so deeply sad as she spoke about the way the art she so clearly loved simply could not last forever.
CHAPTER 32
LEIA
HAN AND NAH’HAI WERE SILENT as the proose pulled the sled away from the broken ice palaces. Nah’hai turned her head away from them; Han couldn’t take his eyes off them. But Leia was looking past them, through the cracked and crumbling ice of the shattered palaces, to the long black tower rising over the horizon.
“Nah’hai!” she called as the wind picked up. “What is that?”
Nah’hai did not stop the sled. In fact, she turned sharply away, slapping the reins against the proose’s rump to make it go faster. Leia stood, and Han reached for her—to pull her back down, she thought, and make her sit again, but no—he was offering her a steadying hand on the swift sled. Leia leaned over, using Han for support, and grabbed the back of Nah’hai’s fur drape.
Reluctantly, Nah’hai pulled up the proose. The animal stomped its cloven hooves, snorting clouds of white breath. Nah’hai’s shoulders slumped, but Leia couldn’t quite tell why—was that guilt? Slowly, the girl turned around. “Yes?” she asked. From the tone, it was clear that Nah’hai was trying to make it seem as if she were in a hurry, and perhaps she was as the others had all already arrived at the grandest ice palace in the city, but there was something shifty about the way the driver wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“What is that?” Leia said, getting directly to the point. She swung her hand toward the black tower, still visible through the cracked and broken ice palaces.
“I told you, the old city—” Nah’hai started, but Leia shot her such a withering look that the girl’s words died on her lips.
For a moment, the two women glared at each other. With her dual braids and round face, Leia had been thinking of Nah’hai as a girl, but the stubborn set of her jaw made it clear that she was not a naïve youngling. Leia respected her attitude, but she also wanted an answer.
Because this stank of the Empire.
She had seen it before. People hated the Empire, but the Empire didn’t care. They came to worlds regardless of invitation, forcing their presence on people. Ignoring the Empire was easier than fighting it. And so the Empire’s flag decorated the city square, stormtroopers patrolled the streets, Imperial rules superseded traditional practices, and, like a black ink stain spreading over white cloth, the Empire seeped into the world.
And the people looked down. They kept their eyes on their own work, their own lives, trying valiantly not to think too much about how the circle of their previous life was shrinking and shrinking, their gazes narrowing smaller and smaller.
The old man craned his head around to look at her. Leia raised an eyebrow. She clocked the exact moment he recognized who she was—a slight widening of the eyes, a small parting of his lips—and she registered the moment half a second later when he remembered the true rumors that Leia had influenced the shift in the ship’s flight path. With a huff, he snapped his head back to D3-O9, but he didn’t protest any further.
“As Madurs was not a part of the original itinerary,” D3-O9 continued, “we will begin passing out thermal heat disks for personal use. Straffle wraps have also been provided for anyone who would like additional heat support.” The droid gestured to a crate at the front of the shuttle, which Leia presumed was full of cloth wraps made of the intensely thermal woven straffle material.
A server droid passed out thin thermal disks to everyone aboard. Despite her cloak, Leia took one—the severe cold on an ice planet required more than simple cloth, no matter how warm it was. The single disk strapped over her clothing, discreet but providing electric radiant heat to her core.
“Don’t need those on Synjax, either,” the old man muttered, pitching his voice purposefully loud enough that Leia was sure he wanted her to hear.
Han, who likewise wanted a beach more than an ice palace, started to get up, his hands bunching in fists. Leia pulled him down and patted his knee. He couldn’t fight every battle for her, and Leia had learned long ago that not every battle was worth fighting anyway.
D3-O9 concluded her introductory speech and moved to the shuttle doorway, sealing it closed and beginning the launch process. All around her, passengers chatted about the excursion. At least most of them seemed happy with the change in agenda. Madurs was fascinating from an artistic perspective, but several people in the shuttle hoped for a more adventurous ice fishing expedition.
Ice fishing…Leia should have looked closer at the ecological side of the moon’s resources. The Empire wanted Madurs for its carnium. Most of the galaxy knew it for its ice palaces. But fishing must surely be a prime food source for the people, which would absolutely affect the sociopolitical environment.
Leia’s hands clenched, her eyes staring at her lap, but she saw nothing. Ice fishing meant ice fishers. Where were they on the hierarchy of the society on this moon? What other food sources were there? There was too much at play here—Leia knew too little about this world, and that meant she wasn’t going to be able to come into her work as strong as she wanted. At least she was going to be there in person. True ambassadorship meant really being present, listening to what the people needed—the prime ministers and the fishers.
Injustice, inequity, and a lack of needs met for the lowest members of a society echoed like ripples in a disturbed pool of water into issues on a global level. An individual world that experienced troubles likewise spread out further and further into a galactic problem. Helping people was never as simple as just gifting money or supplies, which is what many of the world leaders requested. Leia had learned that the hard way. She’d saved a hundred refugees on Wobani when she was sixteen, but that hadn’t been enough. She had helped those few, but the planet itself had continued to deteriorate under the Galactic Empire, eventually only used as a labor and prison camp site. She hadn’t created the type of change she’d wanted to.
Leia needed to find a way to seek out the working people of Madurs, listen to the voices of those who weren’t commonly heard. But she had so little time—her status had afforded her and Han a spot at a banquet the prime minister of Madurs was hastily arranging to welcome the guests, but how much time could she angle with him to speak about these issues? Riyola had helped her with that, working in tandem with the prime minister’s people to ensure that he knew Leia wanted an audience to talk about a possible alliance. But would Prime Minister Yens be open to discussing the needs of his people and how the new government could help, or would he be antagonistic toward Leia? If she knew more—both about the man and the moon—she would better know what to say.
Han reached over, breaking her clasped hands and weaving his fingers through hers, giving her a squeeze.
She looked up and smiled at him. He wore an expression that told her he knew exactly what had been twisting her nerves. Leia felt herself relaxing as the shuttle broke into Madurs’s atmosphere. Leia was unprepared to meet with the prime minister not because she wasn’t a good diplomat but because she was on her honeymoon.
And being on her honeymoon meant she wasn’t facing this problem alone.
CHAPTER 31
HAN
THE SPACEPORT OF MADURS HAD seen better days. Leia had told Han about the Imperial Art Expo several years ago, and Han doubted the docking bays had had much upkeep since then. The shuttles had docked near the front, and there’d been some obvious effort to clean up, but even he could tell that the port was well below most Halcyon guests’ standards.
When the guests stepped outside, though, all grumbling about the spaceport disappeared in the face of the glittering, frozen moon.
Han knew Madurs was ice-covered. He had been expecting something akin to Hoth—harsh winds that cut through his coat, snow that crusted in his eyelashes, tiny ice crystals that mercilessly cut into any exposed skin.
Instead, he was met with a world that was mostly silent. There was cold, yes, but no wind. As his feet walked across the thick ice, there was barely the crunching sound of snow beneath his boots. Rather than growing louder as more and more people stepped out onto Madurs, the crowd grew quieter, speaking in hushed, nearly reverent whispers.
Han hated it.
It was the brutality of Hoth that had made it bearable. This silent, soft cold was far too similar to the cold of being frozen in carbonite. Han shuddered at the memory. The creeping silence and darkness still haunted him, the claustrophobic feeling of being utterly trapped in his own body. His vision blurred, and he vividly recalled the moment he realized he had become temporarily blind from the process, the terror at being lost under his own skin.
Leia slipped beside him, tucking herself under his arm. She had been the one who had come for him, who had saved him. And for all that she was the one who had dragged him to this blasted cold moon, she was also the one who stood beside him now.
“It’s beautiful,” Leia said, nodding to the sky.
Cresting the horizon, the big gas giant planet Madurs orbited rose like a pale-lavender sun. Its colors were muted through the wisps of clouds and thready, gray-blue sky, creating a ghostlike image.
Nearby, others were marveling at the ground. Under a dusting of snow, the thick ice was clear as glass. Deep, dark-blue water shone through the ice, and, distantly, there were darker, moving outlines of massive sea creatures beneath their feet.
An earsplitting crack echoed through the otherwise silent ice plain. Several guests screamed in startled surprise or ducked, looking for the source of the noise. In the echoing wake of the splintering sound, a low rumble drew everyone’s attention. They could see a group approaching quickly—a mix of individuals each riding some sort of machine and groups in sleds pulled by large, four-legged animals. They were far enough away that Han wasn’t able to see any individual’s face, but the smooth, flat horizon of the ice plain meant that they were visible even from a distance.
In moments, the welcome committee arrived. Ice-zippers sped by first, spraying snow and bits of ice in arcs, an impressive display that made those closest screech in delight, young and old. The little ice-zippers had curving refracting lasers as blades, cutting razor-thin tracks through the thick ice. Each one had a platform that could hold a driver and one passenger, and several of the guests, especially the younglings, clamored to claim one.
Behind the ice-zippers, regal sleds approached next. Each one was pulled by an enormous white pronged beast. The animals—one of the locals called one a proose—had legs that were roughly as long as Han was tall, with relatively slender bodies covered in silky white fur. Their graceful—for they were graceful, despite their disproportionately large size—bodies were strapped to heavy, corded ropes that were woven over their backs and threaded into reins. The prooses’ narrow faces ended in slightly pointed muzzles, with long, draping ears beneath elaborately twisting white horns. Everything about them, from their fur to their hooves, was solid white. Except their inky black eyes. It should be eerie, Han thought, but there was a gentle kindness to their gazes. Despite being so large, they tapped the ice softly, scratching their hooves over the snow in a way that could only be described as prancing.
Leia let go of Han’s arm, and she approached the closest beast with her eyes full of wonder and not a trace of fear on her face. One of the locals jumped down, offering her little white cubes to feed to the proose. It lapped at her fingers with its split-lip muzzle, leaving a long strand of sticky drool on her palm. Leia laughed, completely charmed, the sound somehow rising above the excited chatter of the other guests. The proose was so tall that it could easily arch its long neck over Leia’s head, resting its chin on the small of her back, its breath coming up in pale clouds. Leia reached up, petting the proose.
Han took a moment to appreciate the image. His wife, in a white gown, with a white cloak flowing down her shoulders, the hood barely covering her hair, reaching up to pet the enormous—but gentle—creature.
“The ears are soft!” Leia called to Han. She was so joyful in the moment, almost childlike in her excitement over the beast. All Han could do was smile in return as Leia stroked her fingers over the proose’s drooping ears. When she stopped, the animal nudged her with its head—a gentle motion, but its weight was enough to make Leia stumble.
Han caught her before she slipped on the ice. She giggled up at him. “Oh, they’re so dear,” she said.
Han forgot about the bitter cold of Hoth, the even worse cold of being frozen in carbonite. His anger at the ship’s diversion and Leia’s ridiculous focus on work evaporated. She was happy in a way that showed him that for a moment she’d forgotten about the war, their problems. She saw only a beautiful animal with soft ears that nuzzled her when she petted it and fed it, and she was content. And so was he.
“Are you ready?” the local guide said. She was a petite human with two long braids of hair sticking out under a woven knit hat. Han looked around and realized that nearly all the other sleds were taken—this guide and her proose were the last one, and some of the others had already departed, cutting a neat line behind the chaotic ice-zippers across the frozen plain.
The girl introduced herself as Nah’hai, and she helped Leia up into the sled first. While Leia snuggled under the heavy blanket, reclining in the back of the sled, Han took the chance to examine the vehicle. It used regular metal blades, dulled to even out the weight, but although the proose was more than capable of pulling it, there was also a propulsor built into the undercarriage so that it could be operated without animal aid.
“The prooses get mad if we don’t use them,” Nah’hai told Han as she gestured for him to sit beside Leia.
Beyond her, the proose strapped to their sled tossed its head, flappy ears audibly slapping against its neck as it huffed impatiently. All the other prooses and sleds had taken off.
“How fast can they go?” Han asked.
“Oh, you like fast?” Nah’hai said, a gleam in her eye Han recognized.
Before Han was fully sitting, Nah’hai ululated, a deep, resonant sound bursting from her lips. With a snort of excitement, the proose kicked up snow and ice, setting a fast clip over the plain. Han stumbled, partly falling on Leia before she pulled him under the blanket and onto the seat next to her.
Nah’hai set their proose on a path circling wide out, away from the others. “Over there!” she called, pointing to the right.
In the distance, the smooth, flat plain was broken with jagged cliffs that stuck straight up, like a vertical wall of ice. Han hadn’t noticed it before; the gray-white-blue of the ice faded into the gray-white-blue of the sky.
“The ice fishers,” Leia muttered. Squinting, Han could see the slightly dark spots in the ice—horizontal ledges cut into the wall, leading to round holes that must indicate doorways to dwellings.
“Think we can go there?” Leia shouted through the wind to their driver.
“Why?” Nah’hai said. “It’s just cliff dwellers.” She made a loud call again, her voice haunting, and the proose diverted, roughly curving back toward the others.
They could see the main ice palaces now. The ice-zippers had already arrived, but a few—those who had been commandeered by some of the older kids, Han suspected—were spiraling in tight loops in a way that made his stomach churn, despite some of the more chaotic moves he’d done on the Millennium Falcon. The largest palace, the one where the other proose-pulled sleds were already pulling up, towered above the others. It was easily seven stories high, reflecting light so that it looked silver in a way that reminded Han of one of Leia’s necklaces, the one she had worn after the Battle of Yavin.
From this distance, Han could truly appreciate that the ice palaces—there were roughly a dozen, but only three large ones—were truly architectural works of art. They were lavish and almost ostentatious. Unlike the cliff dwellings, there was no attempt to blend into nature. No, these ice palaces demanded to be seen, to be recognized as human marvels, not natural wonders. They rose as if by magic from the ice field, jutting straight up and glistening in the cold air.
“What are those?” Leia asked, pointing past the city. Han hadn’t noticed the other ice palaces, the ruins. Giant blocks of ice had cracked and tumbled, smashing into the thick ice plain. They were barely visible, caught in a nether region between the cliffs and the beauty of the other crystalline buildings to the left.
Nah’hai slowed the proose. She didn’t otherwise acknowledge that Leia had asked a question, and when Han opened his mouth to repeat Leia’s words to the driver, his wife put her hand on his knee under the blanket, shaking her head at him. Nah’hai stared out at the broken ice palaces as if she were…sad. It was a look of mourning on her face, but so stoic that Han almost didn’t recognize it.
Even the proose was silent as they gazed at the broken ice palaces. Han counted them—thirteen grand buildings, with remnants of the metal underpinnings that kept the ice blocks in place twisting up. They had been larger and more elaborate than the current ice palaces, with some lacy filigree edging still glittering along one broken roof.
Leia strained her eyes, leaning forward in the sled to see better, ignoring the way their cover fell to the floor, letting the cold wash over them. “Nah’hai?” she asked tentatively, so soft that their guide could have easily pretended not to hear. Instead, Nah’hai’s shoulders slumped. She looked back at her passengers.
“The old city,” she said, her gaze distant. “It’s the nature of ice. It’s not permanent. Ice melts, it breaks, it cracks. Our art is temporary, and all the more precious because of that.”
Leia pulled the cover up and settled back into Han’s arms as Nah’hai clucked at the proose and their sled approached the main—new—city. Han dropped a kiss on the top of Leia’s head, but he could not help but recall the way Nah’hai’s voice was so deeply sad as she spoke about the way the art she so clearly loved simply could not last forever.
CHAPTER 32
LEIA
HAN AND NAH’HAI WERE SILENT as the proose pulled the sled away from the broken ice palaces. Nah’hai turned her head away from them; Han couldn’t take his eyes off them. But Leia was looking past them, through the cracked and crumbling ice of the shattered palaces, to the long black tower rising over the horizon.
“Nah’hai!” she called as the wind picked up. “What is that?”
Nah’hai did not stop the sled. In fact, she turned sharply away, slapping the reins against the proose’s rump to make it go faster. Leia stood, and Han reached for her—to pull her back down, she thought, and make her sit again, but no—he was offering her a steadying hand on the swift sled. Leia leaned over, using Han for support, and grabbed the back of Nah’hai’s fur drape.
Reluctantly, Nah’hai pulled up the proose. The animal stomped its cloven hooves, snorting clouds of white breath. Nah’hai’s shoulders slumped, but Leia couldn’t quite tell why—was that guilt? Slowly, the girl turned around. “Yes?” she asked. From the tone, it was clear that Nah’hai was trying to make it seem as if she were in a hurry, and perhaps she was as the others had all already arrived at the grandest ice palace in the city, but there was something shifty about the way the driver wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“What is that?” Leia said, getting directly to the point. She swung her hand toward the black tower, still visible through the cracked and broken ice palaces.
“I told you, the old city—” Nah’hai started, but Leia shot her such a withering look that the girl’s words died on her lips.
For a moment, the two women glared at each other. With her dual braids and round face, Leia had been thinking of Nah’hai as a girl, but the stubborn set of her jaw made it clear that she was not a naïve youngling. Leia respected her attitude, but she also wanted an answer.
Because this stank of the Empire.
She had seen it before. People hated the Empire, but the Empire didn’t care. They came to worlds regardless of invitation, forcing their presence on people. Ignoring the Empire was easier than fighting it. And so the Empire’s flag decorated the city square, stormtroopers patrolled the streets, Imperial rules superseded traditional practices, and, like a black ink stain spreading over white cloth, the Empire seeped into the world.
And the people looked down. They kept their eyes on their own work, their own lives, trying valiantly not to think too much about how the circle of their previous life was shrinking and shrinking, their gazes narrowing smaller and smaller.
