#15
Chapter 3: The Way of the Sith (#1)
The lights came back on.
Anakin froze.
The dark figure in the chair – it was Chancellor Palpatine, it was, and there were no droids to be seen, and his heart should have leapt within his chest, but–
Palpatine looked bad.
The Chancellor looked beyond old, looking ancient like Yoda was ancient: possessed of incomprehensible age. And exhausted, and in pain. And worse–
Anakin saw in the Chancellor's face something he'd never dreamed he's find there, and it squeezed breath from his lungs and wiped words from his brain.
Palpatine looked frightened.
Anakin didn't know what to say. He couldn't imagine what to say. All he could imagine was what Grievous and Dooku must have done to put fear on the face of this brave good man–
And that imagining ignited a sizzle in his blood that drew his face tight and clouded his heart and started again the low roll of thunder in his ears: thunder from Aargonar. From Jabiim.
Thunder from the Tusken camp.