When the true motive is love, there are no other explanations. Searching for them is like chasing grains of sand in the wind.

—Fremen proverb

Along with the wedding preparations, construction work continued at great speed to erect magnificent new temples to show the glory of St. Alia as well as Muad’Dib. Towering in a public square, a tall statue depicted the Janus figure, the duality of brother and sister, two visages facing opposite directions—the future and the past—Alia and Paul.

Newly minted coins bore the profile of Alia on one side, Madonna-like over two small babies, surrounded by the faint image of Paul-Muad’Dib, like a benevolent spirit watching over them; the flip side bore the Atreides hawk crest embellished with imperial styling and the words ALIA REGENT. Alia seemed to have learned the power of mythmaking from the example of her brother; even during Paul’s reign, the girl had made herself into a powerful religious leader on Dune.

Despite the anticipated joy and excitement of the wedding, Alia quietly asserted that there was danger all around—and Jessica could not discount her fears. Such a spectacle would indeed be a tempting time for someone to commit violence. A team of amazon guards never left the Regent’s side, and a Fremen troop led by Stilgar remained stationed outside the entrance to the conservatory where the twins were held. All offworld ships were searched thoroughly, every passenger questioned, each cargo deep-scanned.

Alia’s inner-circle priests carried the brunt of the expanded protective measures, with the Qizara Isbar proudly accepting a much more important role than he had held before. Jessica had not liked the fawning man when he’d come to Caladan to deliver the news of Paul’s death. Now, the more Isbar insisted that he was helping Alia, the less Jessica approved of him.

When she received a secret coded message revealing an assassination plot spearheaded by Isbar, even Jessica was surprised at the audacity of it. She studied the secret message again and again, listened to the surreptitiously recorded conversations that revealed Isbar’s plan in all its detail. Then she summoned Gurney Halleck to her quarters.

“‘Beware the viper in your own nest.’ ” Gurney’s scar flushed. “Didn’t Paul’s man Korba attempt something similar?”

“Yes, and that’s why he was executed. Korba wanted to make a martyr out of Paul so that the priesthood could use his memory for their own ends. Now, these people mean to do the same with Alia. If they remove her as Regent, they will have only the baby twins to worry about.”

“You might be on their target list yourself, my Lady. And Irulan. ‘Ambitions grow like weeds, and are as difficult to eradicate.’ ” The big man shook his head. “Are you sure of the information? Who provided it? I don’t like this anonymous source.”

“The source is not anonymous to me. I believe it to be unimpeachable, but I cannot reveal the name.”

Gurney lowered his head. “As you wish, my Lady.” She knew she was asking a great deal from him, but she expected his full acceptance. Jessica had come to Dune to honor Paul, to strengthen the name of their Great House, and to revere a fallen leader—her son. But she could do no less for her daughter. Alia was as much an Atreides as Paul.

Jessica tapped the scrap of spice paper and the words she had written there. “These are the three names. You know what to do. We can’t trust anyone, even those in Alia’s inner circle, but I trust you, Gurney.”

“I will take care of it.” His fists were clenched, his muscles bunched. As he departed, Jessica let out a long, slow sigh, fully aware of what she had set in motion.

That evening, after Isbar completed his service in the Fane of the Oracle, celebrating St. Alia of the Knife, the priest bowed to the cheering congregants, raised his hands in benediction, and stepped back behind the altar. His skin gleamed with scented oils. Isbar’s neck had begun to thicken with soft flesh, a plumpness that resulted from unlimited access to water for the first time in his life.

Parting the rust-orange curtains of spice-fiber fabric, he entered his private alcove and was surprised to find a man there waiting for him. “Gurney Halleck?” Recognizing him, Isbar did not call for the guards. “How may I help you?”

Gurney’s hands moved in a blur, fingers clenched around a thin cord of krimskell fiber, which he flashed around the priest’s neck and yanked tight. Isbar flailed and clawed at the garrote, but Gurney’s grip remained firm. He twisted and pulled tighter, and the cord swiftly cut off the priest’s breath, broke his hyoid bone, and silenced his larynx. As Gurney sawed deeper with the cord, Isbar’s eyes bulged; his lips opened and closed like a beached, gasping fish. In a fleeting thought, Gurney wondered if the desert man had ever seen a fish.

He spoke quietly into the priest’s ear. “Don’t pretend to wonder why I am here. You know your guilt, what you intended to do. Any plot against Alia is a plot against all Atreides.” He jerked the garrote tighter still. Isbar was beyond hearing, his throat nearly severed now. “And therefore it must be dealt with.”

Outside, the worshippers continued to file out of the temple, some still praying. They hadn’t even seen the hanging fabric panels stir.

When he was absolutely certain the traitor was dead, Gurney let him slide to the dusty floor. He peeled the krimskell fiber out of the deep indentation in the priest’s neck. Coiling the strand once more into a neat loop, he left silently through the back entrance. He had two more men to visit this night.

When she learned of the murders of her three supposedly loyal priests, Alia was outraged. Without being summoned, Jessica came into the Regent’s private office, ordered the amazon guards to wait outside, and sealed the door.

Seated at her writing table, Alia wanted to lash out at some target, any target. She had laid out a pattern of the new Dune Tarot cards, though the reading had not gone as well as she’d hoped. When her mother entered, Alia scattered the cards on the table, a panoply of ancient icons modified to have relevance to Dune—a Coriolis storm of sand, an Emperor resembling Paul, a goblet overflowing with spice, a sandworm instead of a dragon, and an eerie Blind Man, rather than Death.

Jessica withstood the brunt of her daughter’s buffeting rage, then spoke calmly. “Those priests are dead for good reason. Gurney Halleck killed them.”

That stopped Alia in midsentence. The willowy girl raised herself to her feet from behind the desk, the clutter of tarot cards before her. Her face turned pale, her eyes widening. “What did you just say to me, Mother?”

“Gurney only followed my orders. I saved your life.”

While her daughter listened, astonished and scowling, Jessica revealed the full details of the plot that would have assassinated both Alia and Duncan at their wedding ceremony. She extended the recordings, letting her daughter listen to the schemes of Isbar and the other two priests. There could be no denying their guilt. “It seems your priests would rather speak as surrogates for dead prophets than for live rulers.”

Alia sat down heavily, but after only a moment’s pause, her mood shifted once more. “So you’ve set spies on me, Mother? You don’t trust my security, so you have your own inside sources?” She jabbed a finger at the surreptitious recordings and her voice grew louder, more shrill. “How dare you secretly keep watch on me and my priests? Who among my—”

As Alia began to lose control of her temper, Jessica took a step closer and slapped her like a mother disciplining an unruly child. Calmly. Once, hard. “Stop this nonsense and think. I did it to protect you, not to weaken you. Not to spy on you. Sometimes it is beneficial to have an independent set of sources—as this proves.”

Alia rocked backward, shocked that her mother had struck her. Her lips tightened until they turned pale; the red mark stood out on her cheek. With great effort, she composed herself. “There are always plots, Mother. My own people would have uncovered this one in time—and I would much rather have publicly executed the traitors, rather than killing them in secret. The wedding ceremony would have been an obvious opportunity for someone to move against me, and I’ve already taken security measures—measures that even your ‘sources’ don’t know about.”

“I am not your enemy, nor am I your rival,” Jessica insisted. “Can you fault a mother for wanting to prevent harm to her daughter?”

Alia sighed and tossed her hair back behind her shoulders. “No, Mother, I cannot. By the same token, don’t fault me for saying that I will feel less . . . unsettled, when you return to Caladan.”