Even when I feel love, it is so complex that others may not recognize it as such. While I admit this freely, I do so only on these pages that are for me alone.

—LADY ALIA, private journals, intentionally written in a style to imitate Princess Irulan

When yet another of Bronso’s manifestos appeared only days before the wedding, Alia reacted swiftly and angrily, ordering the destruction of all copies. She demanded that anyone who was found distributing, or even carrying, the document be executed without further ado.

Deeply concerned and hoping to mitigate any damage, Jessica rushed to meet with her daughter in private. “Such bloodshed will backfire on you. In two days you and Duncan will be married—do you want the people to hate and fear you?”

After expressing her disgust at the situation, Alia relented. “All right, Mother—if only to appease you. Amputating the perpetrators’ hands should be harsh enough to get the message across, I suppose.” Her mother departed, not entirely satisfied.

Alia spent the rest of the day in the throne room, then left through a guarded doorway and pushed aside a Fremen wall hanging, just as she had seen her brother do many times. It was difficult to believe he was gone. She churned with a feeling of helplessness that only made her angry. Why had he left her with such a messy state of affairs? Did Paul expect her to act as the mother of his twin babies? Or perhaps Harah could do it? Or Princess Irulan? Or Jessica? How could the most important man in the known universe simply turn his back and . . . leave?

She wished her brother could be here now.

A terrible sensation of sadness and longing threatened to make her cry, but Alia had not shed tears for him, and doubted she ever would, especially on Dune. Yet she had loved Paul in life . . . and might love him even more now in death.

His presence was like a supergiant star whose gravitational pull affected everything that came within his sphere of influence. Paul shone so brightly that he blinded all other individual stars and constellations. The Emperor Muad’Dib, the Fremen messiah Lisan al-Gaib. He had overthrown an Emperor, conquered a galaxy, and used a Jihad to sweep aside the clutter of ten thousand years of history.

But without his charismatic personality dominating the daily workings of government and the Atreides family, Alia was beginning to see her brother from a different perspective, actually getting a chance to know and respect him in new ways.

After Chani’s water was mysteriously stolen—and no blackmail threats had ever emerged, thankfully—she had sealed off Paul’s private quarters in the Citadel, and allowed no one into these rooms. Alia liked to come here alone, just to think, imagining that he might still be there.

Paul-Muad’Dib had left a remarkable legacy, and she was its custodian as Regent and as his sister. That was not a duty she took lightly. Given time and the proper circumstances, Alia might stand one day as the equal to Muad’Dib in the histories. She already had chroniclers compiling records of her achievements, just in case.

Standing on stone floor tiles just inside the room’s entrance, she smelled the lingering odors of the former inhabitants, a bit of staleness in the air. Not so long ago, Paul and Chani had filled these rooms with their personalities, their dreams, their hopes, and secret words for each other. They had made love here and conceived the twins, Leto and Ghanima.

Oil murals painted on the walls depicted common Fremen scenes: a woman counting water rings for her hair, children out in the sand catching sandtrout, a robed Naib standing high on a promontory. Everything was exactly as the occupants had left it, Chani’s shoes and clothing were laid about casually as if she had expected to come back, just like any other day . . . but Paul’s clothes were neatly put away. Seeing this, Alia felt a chill, wondering if her brother had known he would not return.

Ultimately, Alia contemplated what to do with these private quarters. The hallowed place reached beyond her own feelings of devotion for her brother. She felt the sacredness in the still shadows of the sietch-like suite with its austere wall tapestries, the bed Paul and Chani had shared, the jasmium spice-coffee service that had once belonged to Jamis.

After long deliberation, Alia decided that she needed to share this place with others. But with whom? A place limited to herself and a few invited guests, only those who had been close to Paul, and to Chani? What about a museum that only Fremen could visit . . . or should it be something more accessible that drew pilgrims from all over the Imperium?

Valefor’s voice called to her from the other side of the closed door. “Regent Alia, your mother requests entrance.”

Alia pushed past the wall hanging, opened the door and saw her chief amazon guard standing next to Jessica. “Of course.”

Her mother entered, the first time she’d ever been inside these rooms. She said nothing about the crackdown, or Bronso’s writings, or any of their previous discussions as she walked around the chamber, sadly inspecting the extra stillsuits, the filmbooks that Paul or Chani had been reading, the holophotos. She wiped a finger across a tabletop, came away with a thin layer of dust; she took several deep, agitated breaths.

“This is not easy for you, is it, Mother?”

“No.”

In the sleeping quarters, Jessica paused to look at a detached wooden headboard that featured carvings of a leaping fish and thick brown waves . . . a piece that had been salvaged from the original Arrakeen Residence. That headboard had once concealed a hunter-seeker used in a Harkonnen attempt to kill Paul. Later, after becoming Emperor, Paul had kept it as a reminder never to let down his guard.

Moving on, Jessica paused to examine the contents of a table by a filterglass window, a pottery jar set all by itself as if in a place of special reverence. Her gaze flickered over to her daughter, asking an unspoken question.

“It’s the jar Chani sent me to fetch after Count Fenring stabbed Paul. It held the Water of Life that stopped his heartbeat long enough for us to control the bleeding.”

Jessica stared at the pottery. “After what we observed in the bazaar the other day, it heartens me to see authentic objects here. I think I should collect a few keepsakes of my own.”

Alia felt a rush of enthusiasm. “Yes, Mother. After our conversation, I instituted a close watch on the black marketeers with their phony relics. The memory of Muad’Dib should not be cheapened by counterfeits.” She smiled, hoping her mother would approve. “I have decided that the only way to prevent the fraud is to create a seal of approval, an official mark that reassures buyers—the faithful—that a particular object has been authenticated as the original. All additional profits shall go into the government treasury.”

Jessica’s brow furrowed. “But the demand will be far higher than the amount of items available.”

“Yes, and since copies will be made anyway, we will manufacture our own replicas and sell them as such, blessed by the Qizarate. Official facsimiles, rather than fakes. I’ll be on a consulting board, and I’d like you to act in that capacity as well.”

“Remember, I’m going back to Caladan soon. I’ve seen enough . . . scraps of Paul’s life.” She took another long look around and then slowly left. “Yes, I’ve seen enough.”

Afterward, Alia lifted a seashell fragment from the table and held the broken piece up against the light from the window. It was an object from Mother Earth, if Whitmore Bludd’s story about it was true. He’d given it to Paul as a token of allegiance from Archduke Armand Ecaz. But the seashell, like Bludd’s promise, was broken.

She put the artifact back down in exactly the same position. Then on impulse, she spun the piece around so that it faced the other way. Making her own mark. These objects were not really sacred, though she would continue to act as if they were. They were just . . . things.