The desert night was not a silence; it was a cold, predatory hum. The temperature had plummeted, turning the scorched furnace of the day into an obsidian tomb. Deep within a jagged "rock-sink," a natural crevice shielded from the scouring winds, the four fugitives huddled together.
The dryness was a physical weight. Every breath felt like inhaling powdered glass. Anastasia's throat was a parched desert of its own; her "naive" lips, once as pink as Caladan coral, were now cracked and pale.
Jia moved with a frantic, obsessive energy. She had managed to salvage a single, half-empty literjon of water from the 'thopter wreckage. With a trembling hand, she pressed the nozzle to Anastasia's mouth.
"Drink, Little Star," Jia hissed, her yandere-level focus entirely on the girl's swallowing reflex. "Do not worry about the rest of us. You are the only one who matters. If the sand wants moisture, it will have to take it from my veins before it touches yours."
"It tastes like... like dust, Jia," Anastasia whispered, her voice a fragile rasp. She looked up at the towering rock walls, her eyes searching for the stars she used to name. "Is Papa coming soon? I want to tell him about the twins. I want to ask him why they were so angry."
No one answered. Lady Jessica sat against the far wall, her eyes closed, her body forced into a metabolic trance to conserve every drop of moisture. She couldn't look at her daughter yet. The grief for the Duke was a cold blade in her chest that she had to keep sheathed, or it would bleed her dry.
The Sleep of the InnocentEventually, exhaustion—deep and bone-shattering—claimed the "Goddess." Anastasia curled into a ball on the hard stone, her tattered bridal silks acting as a pathetic blanket. She slept fitfully, her petite hands twitching as she dreamed of sea-songs and gardens that no longer existed.
Jia didn't sleep. She sat at Anastasia's feet, her crysknife drawn, her eyes scanning the mouth of the cave with a murderous, possessive vigilance.
Paul crawled away from the sleeping girl, beckoning his mother and the maid toward the edge of the moonlight. The "naive" light was gone from his face, replaced by a cold, calculating mask of spice-blue shadows.
The Council of the Dead"He's gone," Paul said, his voice a low, vibrating chord that didn't stir the sleeping girl. "The Duke is dead. Yueh's tooth... it didn't kill the Baron. But it took the house. We are all that's left of the Atreides name."
Jessica opened her eyes. They were wet, but her voice was steel. "The Baron will hunt us. He cannot allow the 'Gem' to remain free. To the rest of the Imperium, she is a symbol. To him, she is a hostage that can break your father's ghost."
"He won't find her," Jia hissed, her voice a jagged promise. "I will lead her into the deepest sieve. I will feed her my own blood before I let a Harkonnen shadow touch her again."
"No," Paul interrupted, his gaze turning toward the south—toward the Great Flat where the Fremen lived. "The city is a tomb. We have to go into the deep desert. We have to find the people 'Stasia waved at from the 'thopter. The ones who called her the 'Water-Bringer.'"
"The Fremen?" Jessica whispered. "Paul, they are a hard people. They cull the weak. They will look at Anastasia—her fragility, her 'naive' heart—and they will see a burden. They will want her water, not her songs."
Paul looked back at his sleeping sister. He saw the way the moonlight caught the diamonds still tangled in her hair—the remnants of a world that had betrayed her.
"They don't know her Influence yet, Mother," Paul said, his voice thick with a dark, brotherly obsession. "They think they are the masters of the desert. But they've never met a Goddess. We will lead them to the south. We will turn their sietch into her palace. And if they refuse to bow..."
Paul's hand tightened on the hilt of his blade.
"Then I will show them why the desert should fear the Atreides more than the worm."