The Unseen Queen Read Online Free PDF

Nest fooled you once—”
    The air grew acrid with Killik aggression pheromones, and Raynar whirled on Han. “We are not the ones being fooled!” He glanced in Leia’s direction, then added, “And we will prove it.”
    “Please do.”
    Leia’s wry tone suggested she believed the same thing Han did—that it could not be done, because Raynar and the Unu
were
the ones being fooled.
    Raynar smirked their doubts aside, then turned to Mara. “When you were the Emperor’s Hand, did you ever meet someone named Daxar Ies?”
    “Where …” Mara’s voice cracked, and she paused to swallow. “Where did you hear that name?”
    “His wife and daughter came home early.” Raynar’s tone grew accusatory. “They found you searching his office.”
    Mara narrowed her eyes and managed to put on a good impression of collecting herself. “Only three people could know that.”
    “And two of them became Joiners.”
    Luke reached out to steady Mara, and Han knew she had
really
been shaken.
    “All right,” Han said. “What’s going on?”
    “Daxar Ies was a …” Mara’s hand slipped free of Luke’s, and she forced herself to meet Han’s and Leia’s gazes. “He was a target.”
    “One of
Palpatine
’s targets?” Leia asked.
    Mara nodded grimly. Recalling her days as one of Palpatine’s special “assistants” was not something she enjoyed. “The only job I ever botched, as a matter of fact.”
    “We would not call it
botched
,” Raynar said. “You eliminated the target.”
    “That was only part of the objective.” Mara was looking at Raynar now,
glaring
at him. “I didn’t recover the list … and I left witnesses.”
    “You let Beda Ies and her daughter live,” Raynar said. “You told them to vanish forever.”
    “That’s right,” Mara said. “As far as I know, they were never harmed.”
    “They were well protected,” Raynar said. “Gorog saw to that.”
    “Wait a minute,” Han said. “You’re saying these Ies women joined the Dark Nest?”
    “No,” Raynar said. “I am saying they
created
it.”
    Han winced, and Leia’s eyes flashed with alarm.
    “I thought we already knew how the Dark Nest was created,” Leia said. “The Gorog were corrupted when they absorbed too many Chiss Joiners.”
    “We were mistaken,” Raynar said.
    Han’s wince became a genuine sinking feeling. To broker a peace between the Colony and the Chiss, Leia had been forced to bend the truth and contrive an origination tale for the Dark Nest that would make the Killiks want to stayfar away from the Chiss. The Colony had readily embraced the new story, since it was less painful than believing one of its own nests could be responsible for the terrible things they had found in the Gorog nest. If Raynar and the Unu were trying to develop a new version now, it could only be because they wanted to renew their expansion toward Chiss territory.
    “Look,” Han said, “we’ve been through all that.”
    “We have new information,” Raynar insisted. He looked back to Mara. “Mara Jade told Beda Ies and her daughter to vanish and never to be found. They fled into the Unknown Regions and took refuge with Gorog—before it was the Dark Nest.”
    “Sorry, but this story won’t work for us,” Han said. “You should have brought the Ies women up last year.”
    “We did not know about them last year,” Raynar said.
    “Too bad,” Han said. “You can’t just make up a new—”
    “Han, I don’t think they’re making this up,” Mara interrupted. “They know too much about what happened—at least the part about the Ies women.”
    “So what if the Ies girls did become Joiners?” Han asked. He was beginning to wonder whose side Mara was on. “That doesn’t mean
they
created the Dark Nest. They could have joined some other nest, and the Colony would still know enough about them to put together a good story.”
    “The story we have put together is the truth,” Raynar said. “When Beda and Eremay became