A Love That Turned Evil
Chapter Three
The Amulet
The memory burned against Padme's brain as she remembered the amulet.
"You can keep it to remember me by."
She looked at her left hand, adorned by a simple ring. She had a lot more to remember Anakin by.
Padme looked again at the mirror. Was she gaining weight?
Anakin pulled out her chair and Padme sat down, smoothing her regal dress under her. "Oh Ani, thank you for bringing me here. It's so lovely."
The restaurant was, indeed, lovely. It looked almost like Naboo, except she could hear the buzzing of speeders outside the window.
Padme reached her hand deep into her pocket. Her fingers wrapped around the smooth amulet and caressed its ridges lovingly. She drew it out and showed it to Anakin.
"Look, Ani. It's the amulet that you gave me, remember? When we were heading for the Jedi Temple on the spaceship. You told me it would bring me good fortune, and it has."
Anakin looked at the amulet, and his eyes grew cold. His mother had given him that piece of wood; she had found it for him. And the sand people had killed her, his loving, gentle mother, slaughtered.
"Anakin. Anakin, is something wrong? Ever since I showed you the amulet, you've been acting…well, cold. I hope I didn't upset you."
They stood by the window in their room, looking out across Coruscant. Anakin could see the Jedi Temple in the distance. Was Obi-Wan there now?
"It's just…" Anakin sighed.
Padme grasped his hands. "Ani, we're married. You can tell me anything."
"When you showed me the amulet, my mother's image flashed before my eyes, I keep seeing her dying over and over, I see it in my sleep, I see it in the day. I can't escape it. I didn't save her."
"Oh, Ani!" Padme buried herself in his arms. "That wasn't your fault, there was nothing that you could have done! Nothing in your power could have saved her."
"That's the point!" Anakin pushed her away from him and turned away. "I wasn't powerful enough." He spun around and grasped Padme's shoulders so hard that it hurt. "I promise you, I swear on the Jedi Order that I will never let any harm come to you. I will be the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy. I would have been able to save my mother." Anakin's nose wrinkled up and he looked like he was almost going to cry. Padme knew that he would hate that.
"Ani, Ani. Calm down, shh. It's all right."
"I'll be the most powerful Jedi. The most powerful Jedi in the galaxy."
Across the galaxy, Count Dooku placed a hologram on the table and paced around it. He felt a great stir in the Force.
The hologram showed the greatest battle station that would ever be built.
It would be able to destroy whole planets in one blast.
It would be called the Death Star.
"Can you feel it too, Master?"
"Feel it, I can." Yoda wriggled his ears at Master Windu. "In turmoil, the Force is."
"I sense great danger." Mace lightly touched his lightsaber handle.
"Danger, you sense. But the beginning, this is. Only the beginning."