Hello, everyone. This is a prequel to my story Beyond the Glass, Through the Rain. However, you do not have to have read that story in order to read this one; I've written Praying for Rain under the assumption that the reader is not familiar with Beyond the Glass. The only thing to know going in is that this is set in an AU in which Anakin becomes the emperor instead of Palpatine. For those of you who are following Beyond the Glass, please know that I am still working on it, but I just couldn't get this story out of my head. Whereas Beyond the Glass is Ahsoka-centric, this story will be Padmé-centric, so if you are a fan of Padmé Amidala (and/or her handmaiden Sabé), you're in the right place. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please remember to favourite/follow/review. :)

TW for vague descriptions of torture.

An hour before her world ended, Sabé picked up her hallikset.

It had been a long time since she had held the instrument, but the idea had opened to her in a dream and now she couldn't let it go. She had awoken with the soft impression of music, bubbling through a meadow, stirring a woman's gentle smile. And now that she was pacing the hall of her decrepit apartment, alone, the image floated after her like a ghost.

Within minutes, she found herself crouching before the living room closet, removing the seven-stringed hallikset from its case. The curves of the instrument were peppered with dust. She brushed one finger along its rounded body, gathering the dust on her fingertip, and blew it away like dandelion seeds. The faint huff of her breath was quickly soaked up by the silence. Her apartment was so quiet that the quiet had become a sound of its own.

Even as the power of her instrument lay dormant, its wood body thrummed beneath her touch. To hold something capable of cleaving silence was a great privilege. She had failed to understand that as a child, when she had studied hallikset at Theed Conservatory. She liked to think she appreciated it now.

One by one, Sabé worked over the tuning pegs of the instrument. It was a bizarrely soothing ritual, a moment of dissonance before the notes wove together as one. When she was finished, her fingers found the melody on their own. She closed her eyes and let the song of a dreamworld fill the room around her.

Then the whine of her comlink hacked through the music.

Sabé glanced at the chrono on the wall, surprised to find that she'd already been practicing for fifty minutes. She stood up, deposited the hallikset on her chair, and checked the comlink's caller ID.

It was her mother.

Her heart started to beat a little faster. Her mother never called.

With trembling hands, she accepted the call. A miniature hologram of her mother blinked into view. Normally, she was an impeccably groomed woman, a product of her years of training as a professional musician. Today, a few stray hairs peeked out of her bun. Anyone else wouldn't have given it a second thought, but Sabé recognized the omen for what it was. "Tsabin," said her mother, "are you on Coruscant?"

"No, Mama, I'm home. In Theed." Sabé's heart thumped louder. Her mother's use of her birth name didn't bode well. "Why? What's happening?"

Her mother should have scolded her for staying in "that dingy little apartment" instead of with her family. She didn't. "I just…wanted to make sure you weren't with Senator Amidala."

"Padmé!?" Sabé's blood ran cold. "Why? W-what happened to her?"

Her mother's brow creased. "Have you not seen the holofeeds?"

"Clearly not!"

"Tsabin, please, try to relax. We're all a little on edge." Sabé's mother fiddled uncharacteristically with the peplum of her tunic. "I'm not sure how to put this, exactly. It seems that the Galactic Republic…is now the Galactic Empire."

Sabé's mouth dropped open. Well. She was a little angry, sure, but mostly relieved. It was all a joke, then. A big joke. Her parents were getting back at her for coming to Theed and not staying with them. "Very funny, Mother."

"Have you ever known me to kid, Tsabin? Especially about something this serious?" It was true; to this day, Sabé wasn't convinced that her mother even had a sense of humour. But this—this empire—it couldn't be true. It just couldn't.

For one thing, it didn't make any sense, and for another, Padmé was the ultimate champion of democracy. She would be one of the first targets of a newly established empire. She had Moteé and Ellé with her, at least, but they weren't as well equipped to protect her as Sabé was. "Okay, okay, okay…," Sabé whispered under her breath, clutching her face in one hand. Once she'd finally pulled herself together, she looked up to meet her mother's eyes. "If there's an empire," she said very slowly, hoping her desperation didn't show through her voice, "then who's the emperor?"

Her mother pursed her lips. An apology glinted behind her eyes. "A former Jedi General. I believe you mentioned once that you knew him. He used to be called, uh, Anakin Skywalker—"

No. No, no, no, no, no.

Before the inevitable panic had time to set in, Sabé seized her hallikset and made for the bedroom, tresses of loose hair streaming out behind her. "What are you doing?" her mother cried.

"I'm going to Coruscant." She pulled a suitcase from her bedroom closet and threw it to the ground, forcefully enough that it bounced open.

"Tsabin! No!" Sabé ignored her, ripping clothes from hangers and tossing them into the suitcase. "Come home, to your family! We've all been worried sick about you, Tsab—Sabé, and now you're going to charge into the eye of the storm? As if we mean nothing to you? As if you mean nothing to yourself?"

Sabé dipped her head to hide the tears in her eyes. She imagined returning to warmth and familiarity and home, to her brothers and her parents and her childhood memories. Her spirit lifted with the easy thrill of securing her own safety, even as the rest of the galaxy went to hell. Then she thought of Padmé, abandoned to the mercy of the maniac she'd chosen over Sabé. "I'm sorry, Mama," she said in a whisper.

"Wait! Sabé, don't you d—!"

She hung up.

There was nothing to do now but bear the yolk of an empty silence. She was leaving her home, her family, her planet, and in doing so risked never seeing them again. Sabé pushed through her grief, tore through her room, scooping up shoes, toiletries, holobooks—anything she could think of that she might need. Her comm rang. Her mother. She silenced it and tossed it into her suitcase. Back to her closet. More clothes. More shoes. Coats and scarves for Coruscanti winters. She felt at her neck for the locket Padmé had given her when they were girls, right before the Battle of Naboo. Naboo. Beautiful Naboo. If only she had more time to appreciate it. If only she'd appreciated it more when she'd had the time. She was trading in her beloved homeworld for a Coruscant that wouldn't even look as she remembered it when she arrived.

Was she crazy?

A shiver went down Sabé's spine as she looked around her room, stripped empty in the span of a few minutes. Normally, she held no particular affection for her Theed apartment, but now, she relished it—relished being somewhere, anywhere, that was on Naboo. She had the sinking feeling that she wouldn't be back for awhile.

Lightyears away, Padmé stood on the balcony of her Coruscanti penthouse, staring past a tapestry of speeders and lives and into an amethyst sky. She didn't quite know it yet, but she was waiting on the edge of a moment for her world to end.

PART I: DAMNATION

Chapter 1

Ahsoka was screaming.

Padmé stood, paralyzed, in the hallway of the newly-minted Imperial Palace. Just a little over twenty-four hours ago, it had still been the Jedi Temple. Her handmaidens, Moteé and Ellé, huddled a few feet away, powerless under the watch of a dozen clone troopers. Padmé, too, was framed on either side by her so-called bodyguards, their blasters locked and loaded. They weren't poised for an attacker. The guns were for her, to keep her from running. In a day, she had gone from carrying her future child to the heir of an empire.

Her husband's heir. Anakin's heir.

Padmé's guards had tried, multiple times already, to escort her to her makeshift chambers. She had refused. But too much stress wasn't good for the baby! Then shut it down, she'd wanted to yell. Go into that room and force Anakin to stop torturing a seventeen-year-old girl! Of course, that wouldn't have worked. They didn't care about Ahsoka, just wanted to keep the royal baby-making machine intact.

From down the hall, Ahsoka's screams clawed up octaves. She had long ago lost the strength to beg for mercy or death. Anakin's promise to his wife, thick with dark intent, echoed in Padmé's head. One way or another, Ahsoka is going to be our guest at the palace for quite a long time…I'm thinking the rest of her life.

But what could he possibly want from her? Revenge for leaving the Jedi Order—leaving him? As far as Padmé could tell, that was his only motive. She struggled to hold her wrist steady enough to check her chrono. 0112. The torture had started at 2438. How much more of this could—?

The screaming stopped.

One of the troopers cleared his throat from behind his helmet.

Ellé and Moteé's comms chimed simultaneously. Ellé paled. "He wants us," she rasped, her voice barely audible. Moteé slipped her hand into Ellé's and gave it a reassuring squeeze, though she too had lost some of her usual colour.

The guards formed a tight path for the handmaidens, all but crowding them into the torture chamber. From the opposite hall rose the lonely wail of a construction drill. Padmé clenched her hands protectively over her belly, trembling in anticipation of what she might be about to see.

At last, Moteé and Ellé resurfaced, carrying Ahsoka between them. Her head was bent back against Moteé's shoulder, her lips parted thirstily, as if she were bursting from an ocean or a lake to come up for air. Padmé scanned Ahsoka's body. Apart from her unconscious state, she looked physically unscathed. Padmé knew better than to be relieved. Sometimes the worst trauma was invisible, and she still couldn't begin to fathom what Ahsoka's was.

"Your Majesty," one of the troopers addressed her. Your Majesty. It was going to take some getting used to that one again. Guilt and wooziness hit her at the same time. No, she shouldn't be getting used to it, shouldn't be comfortable at even the thought of getting used to it. "Forgive me for saying, Your Majesty, but you look unwell. Allow me to escort you somewhere quieter so that you can get some rest."

As if they hadn't just spent thirty-four minutes listening to a teenage girl scream herself raw. Padmé laughed a little deliriously, swaying on her feet. The trooper caught her by the elbow. Rest. Sure. Maybe she'd wake up and this whole nightmare wouldn't ever have happened. Maybe then she would feel like less of a monster.

Even in the earliest hours of morning, the Imperial Palace was anything but quiet.

Padmé lay on a bed in her makeshift chambers, the roar of construction tools drilling into her ears. A day under house arrest in her senatorial apartment obviously hadn't been enough time to transform an entire temple into a palace. The mattress itched her back through the silk of her nightgown. This room had once belonged to a Jedi Padawan, no doubt. Whoever they were, they were probably dead now.

She rolled onto her side to check the chrono next to her bed. 0513. She had spent half the night dry-heaving in the 'fresher and the other half struggling to fall asleep. It wasn't until a tear slipped over her nose that she realized she was crying.

What she really wanted was to scream. She had to bite her lip and smash a pillow over her face to keep that from happening. Gods, she was such a coward, so afraid of her own husband that she wouldn't even let her grief be heard. But what was she supposed to do? Anakin had control over the entire clone army. One transmission from me, he had told her, and all of your family and friends could be dead.

And then there was the matter of her child. She was about to bring a child into this world, a brand new human being whom she would love and cherish with everything she had. What better leverage could Anakin secure against her?

Padmé sobbed silently into her pillow. Once she'd finally pulled herself together, she hauled her pregnant body off the bed—it was becoming harder by the day—and slipped on a floral robe. Then she rapped her fist on the door. A clone trooper answered right away. Though she couldn't see his face behind his helmet, displeasure oozed off of him in waves. "Empress Amidala. His Imperial Majesty has made it very clear that you are to be sleeping."

"I want to see Ahsoka," she demanded. "Then I'll sleep."

"Emperor Vader has prohibited anyone from visiting the Princess Ahsoka except for her designated medical team."

"The—the Princess Ahsoka?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," the guard responded pointedly. "Your sister-in-law."

Padmé laughed. The guard didn't. "I'm sorry, I'm confused," she said. "Ahsoka is—"

"The sister of the emperor. Your Majesty, are you feeling all right?"

So Anakin had tortured Ahsoka, then immediately turned around and made her a princess? Why? Why torture her if that was his plan? It would make it that much harder to get her on his side when she woke up. "I…I need some air," Padmé stammered. Anakin had an endgame, she was sure of it, but she had no idea what it was and she needed out of this cramped little room before she could figure it out.

"I don't think—"

"I do think." She glared at him. "The last thirty-six hours have been…overwhelming, to say the least. If you want me to continue to cooperate, you'll grant me this one small favour."

He hesitated. "Of course, Your Majesty. Though on behalf of the emperor, I must insist that you, uh…change into some proper clothes."

As if she hadn't thought of that herself. "Thank you," Padmé said curtly. "I'll be out in a moment."

The guard nodded and pressed a button on the wall to close the door. Padmé shuffled over to the closet. It was so small that it fit only three of her gowns, plus a few nightgowns and a robe. The rest of her wardrobe—her arsenal—had been carted off to gods-knew-where. She wondered if Anakin's men had searched her clothes for blasters and tech. Maybe they actually had, because anything she could have used to fight or hide a weapon was missing. All that remained were delicate tulle confections. She chose the most practical of the bunch, a midnight blue empire-waist—the irony was not lost on her—with a gold-appliquéd bodice and ombré skirts.

Once she'd finally wrestled herself into the gown, she appeared outside to find a full security detail waiting for her. "Your Majesty," said one of the men, offering her his arm, "please allow me the honour of escorting you." She obliged him. Of course she knew it was a strategy to keep her close, but what other choice did she have?

The royal procession travelled wordlessly through the palace. Padmé glanced around as subtly as she could, trying to construct a mental map of her new residence, but the hallways all looked more or less identical: rosy marble walls and windows swathed in black velvet sky. At last, her designated guard released her arm, bowed, and opened a door leading into the crisp outside air. Padmé strode onto the balcony, closing her eyes to relish a gust of wind on her face. When she opened them again, she almost lost her breath to the view.

Coruscant was laid out at her feet like a rug, its motif of lights winking up at her through the darkness. She felt as if the world had been flipped upside down, as if a starry sky had been unfurled in the space beneath her. Padmé paced the balcony—the widest balcony she'd ever seen, stretching for miles in either direction—and sighed to herself. At least there was this, something to remind her that the galaxy could still be beautiful. She had always loved this time of day, the quiet countdown to dawn when the planet's hum seemed to exist for her ears alone. She could hear it, Coruscant's hum, between blasts of construction noise: speeders whizzing, music drifting, people laughing and chatting and crying. It was all still there, as if a living hell hadn't just consumed the galaxy. Even an empire couldn't silence this planet.

"It sort of makes you miss Naboo, doesn't it?"

Padmé's head snapped around. No. It couldn't be. She knew that voice like she knew her own. It essentially was her own, just a fraction of a pitch deeper.

Sabé.

Who was standing in the threshold like an angel, a valise in one hand and a hallikset case in the other.

Before she had time to question whether she was hallucinating, Padmé ran to Sabé and collapsed into her arms. Full-bodied sobs unlocked to rack her frame, leaving her gasping for air against Sabé's shoulder. "It's okay," the handmaiden murmured. Something heavy clattered to the ground beside them, and Padmé felt Sabé's fingers through her hair. "It's okay, Padmé. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

"But, Sabé, no…no, you're not supposed to be here!"

"It's okay…"

"You should be on Naboo…you should be safe on Naboo…"

"Nowhere's truly safe." Sabé's hand drifted down to cup Padmé's cheek. "Besides, have I ever been one to shy away from danger?"

"You don't understand. You didn't see the look in his eyes when…" Padmé froze, suddenly all too aware of the guards' oppressive presence. "Never mind. Just…sit with me, please? I'd like to watch the sunrise."

"Of course, my—Your Majesty." Sabé's hand met Padmé's lower back, steering her toward the nearest bench, where Padmé sat and pulled Sabé down beside her. Their old dynamic had resumed so seamlessly, it was almost as if they had never been apart. Almost. Something new hung between them, underscored by the swan song of a dying night. Sabé's eyes fluttered closed, and Padmé knew that she could hear it, too, the same way they used to listen together to the echo of Theed's waterfalls.

"To be honest, I'm so relieved you're here," Padmé whispered. Sabé's eyebrow shot up, and Padmé laughed a little through her tears. "It's selfish, I know, but I'm grateful all the same."

"It's not selfish," Sabé said. "No one wants to be alone."

Padmé swallowed hard and glanced away. "Why did you come back?"

"Because you're here, Padmé. Wherever you go, I go. Always."

"But at the start of the war—you said—"

"I know what I said." She took both of Padmé's hands in hers, the same way she had before she'd left her all those years ago. "You didn't need me then. You do now. So I'm here."

There was so much Padmé wanted to say to her that she couldn't in front of the guards. She wanted to ask Sabé about the state of affairs on Naboo, to cry to her about the tragedy that had befallen Ahsoka, to brainstorm with her about what Anakin's grand plan could possibly be. Instead, she settled for squeezing her hand. Sabé squeezed back, sending bubbles of warmth through Padmé's chest.

At last, a trickle of pink suffused the horizon. Padmé turned to look at Sabé, who was gazing out in wonder at the blush of dawn. "It all looks so peaceful from up here," she breathed, as if afraid to disturb it. Padmé nodded her agreement, though a pang of sadness seized her heart. A new day was so tender, so delicate, flushed with hope and potential. She dreaded the moment she'd have to witness its corruption.

Still gripping one another's hands, they watched in silence as the sun broke out between two skyscrapers. Padmé felt the urge to rest her head on Sabé's shoulder. She didn't know what was stopping her; she and Sabé had always enjoyed an intimate relationship that permitted—even encouraged—physical contact. Something about it felt different, this time.

Instead, she scooted a little closer and said, "I'm scheduled to see an obstetrician this morning. Would you like to come?"

A flash of surprise crossed Sabé's face. "I—I would be honoured."

"Good." Padmé's hands were growing sweaty in Sabé's. She removed them self-consciously, lacing her fingers together in her lap. Then she started to worry that that had sent the wrong message. "Um, how's Tonra?" she said before she could overthink the issue. Sabé had enjoyed an on-and-off relationship with the royal guard for awhile now, and it was the first innocuous conversation topic that came to mind.

"I wouldn't know." Sabé examined Padmé with a hint of suspicion. "I haven't seen him in awhile. Not in that way, anyway."

Oh. For no discernible reason, a flood of relief washed through her. It almost reminded her of that time when, early on in her reign, she'd gotten between Sabé and this girl who'd been courting her, Harli Jafan. Padmé hadn't ruined their relationship on purpose—of course she never would have done that—but she hadn't exactly been devastated when it didn't work out. Harli simply wasn't good enough for Sabé. The same must be true for Tonra, Padmé reasoned, though even she wasn't sure where that conclusion was coming from. Anyone with eyes could see how much he adored Sabé. He would probably lasso Naboo's sun for her, if she only asked.

Padmé felt suddenly ill. She shied away from Sabé, stuffing her trembling hands into the folds of her skirts. "What is it?" Sabé asked.

"Nothing," Padmé replied, too quickly. "Morning sickness."

"Really? This far along?"

No. "Yes," Padmé ground out through her teeth.

Sabé recoiled at Padmé's abrasive tone. Padmé reached to set a hand on her shoulder, but before she could, another clone trooper materialized in the doorway. Her hand dropped guiltily into her lap. "Empress Amidala," the trooper greeted with a bow. The next words out of his mouth made her heart plunge. "You have been summoned to meet with His Imperial Majesty Emperor Vader. Effective immediately."