We build our own prisons with our conscience and guilt. Exile is in the mind, not in the location, and I’ve come to realize that I can make my plans here on Salusa Secundus as well as anywhere else.

—COUNT HASIMIR FENRING

As a Bene Gesserit, Lady Margot Fenring had learned to endure. After spending years on Arrakis when her husband was Imperial Spice Minister, Margot did not see that this exile on Salusa Secundus was any worse. Now, conditions were improving by degrees as ambitious Imperial planetologists continued to work on the barren planet, resuscitating ecosystems that had been knocked flat by atomics millennia ago. Even with Muad’Dib himself gone, their work continued apace.

She and Hasimir could make do here, for now. And as soon as the ghola armies were ready, the Fenrings would be able to leave again and thrive in a new Imperial court. On Kaitain, she assumed—certainly not Arrakis.

Years ago, after the failure of their assassination plot using the sweet but murderous Marie, Lady Margot had expected to be summarily executed, but Paul had sent the Count and his Lady into exile instead—as Duke Leto the Just might have done. Unfortunately, the Fenrings were now forced to share the company of Shaddam IV, whom Hasimir had grown to despise.

The oblivious fallen Emperor still thought the two men were partners, working together for the restoration of Corrino glory, but Hasimir no longer regarded Shaddam as the rightful Padishah Emperor, nor even as a friend. The disgraced man was merely a tool, and Margot knew the Count would be happy to discard him at the appropriate moment. First and foremost, the Fenrings were survivors, always survivors.

Though the couple’s movements were restricted on Salusa, offworld travelers could still visit them. When Margot received word that a transport had come bearing a delegate from Wallach IX, she was pleased to know that the Bene Gesserits still remembered her. Instead of a large delegation, the Sisterhood sent only one old and hard woman, the Reverend Mother Stokiah. Margot did not know her well, but she was intrigued about why she had come.

Hearing about the visitor, Hasimir raised his eyebrows. “Would you like me to join you, my dear? Hmmm?”

“I keep no secrets from you, my love, but a Reverend Mother may be uncomfortable having you participate.” She knew he would listen in anyway, from a discreet hiding place.

Alone in her rooms, Margot prepared spice coffee and spread small pastries on an otherwise bare side table, an intentionally meager buffet to emphasize their frugal situation. The Reverend Mother glided in, wearing traditional black robes that made her look even older than she was.

Margot had never accepted the role of dowager witch; she preferred to maintain her beauty. Thanks to melange and Bene Gesserit biochemical control, the willowy, golden-haired Margot was still quite lovely to look at; Hasimir had certainly never tired of her. The two were compatible in all ways.

She greeted the other woman with a gentle bow—enough to show respect, but well short of deference. Margot had been so long removed from the inner politics of Wallach IX that she didn’t even know if the woman outranked her. “Reverend Mother Stokiah. I’ve been hungry for news of the Sisterhood. We are so cut off here, so isolated.”

Stokiah ignored the refreshments and refused the weak spice coffee. “The Sisterhood has been persecuted for years, stripped of power. During his reign, Muad’Dib cut us off and crippled us, and now his Abomination sister continues that policy—primarily because of your foolish attempt to kill Paul.”

“Because of me?” Margot chuckled. “Come now, Reverend Mother, Paul Atreides held a grudge against the Bene Gesserit all the way back to when Mohiam tested him with the gom jabbar. When has the Sisterhood ever done anything to earn his goodwill?”

“Nevertheless, your foolish assassination attempt against him had little chance of success, and its failure had terrible repercussions. Alia still bears a personal grudge against you, and against us. You may have been exiled here for the past nine years, but the rest of the Sisterhood has been rendered impotent. The Regent seems to hate us even more than her brother did, if that’s possible. We have never been so weak in ten thousand years! You, Sister Margot, may have single-handedly brought about the downfall of the Bene Gesserit order, which has endured since the end of the Butlerian Jihad.”

Annoyance rose within her. “That is absurd.”

When something changed in Stokiah’s demeanor, Margot went instantly on guard. The old woman’s voice became more resonant, her eyes flared, and tendrils of psychic force seemed to ooze from her, insinuating themselves like wet tongues into Margot’s ears and around her chest.

“You must feel the guilt . . . the oppressive weight of the crime you have committed. The Sisterhood sent me here as a guilt-caster to make you feel the horrific consequences of your actions.”

Margot raised her hands and squeezed her eyes shut as the pounding shame and guilt hammered her mind. “Stop! This serves . . . no purpose!”

“Our purpose is punishment, and you must crumble. Your mind will collapse into itself under the weight of what you have done . . . the shame. You shall live in a screaming hell of retribution, from which you will never be released. The Bene Gesserit have little left but our punishments, which we reserve for the likes of you.”

In the years since she’d last had direct contact with the Sisterhood, and since the failure of little Marie’s assassination attempt, Lady Margot Fenring had continued her private studies. But she did not have the same abilities as one of the fabled and highly secretive guilt-casters, did not understand what Stokiah was doing . . . Margot rallied a weak defense to silence some of the screaming voices inside her consciousness. But only temporarily.

The guilt-caster bared her teeth and continued to concentrate, slamming wave after psychic wave against Margot’s mind, battering her crumbling defenses. Margot knew she would fail soon; she had neither the power nor the training to resist this for much longer. Her legs turned to water and she fell to her knees, reeling, struggling. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to scream.

Suddenly the psychic waves crackled and skirled, and the invisible mental hammer seemed to fall to the floor, discarded. Reverend Mother Stokiah raised her hands, clutching her fingers into claws. Her eyes bulged.

Standing close behind the black-robed woman, Count Fenring drove his dagger in harder, then twisted it, withdrew, and stabbed the old woman again, plunging it deep into her heart. Not even a Reverend Mother with control over her internal chemistry could survive such extensive damage.

“Hmmm,” Fenring remarked, gazing at the blood on his hand with interest rather than revulsion. “You appeared to be in a bit of difficulty, my love.” He jerked out the knife, and Stokiah collapsed to the floor in a puddle of black robes and red blood.

“She caught me off guard.” Margot struggled to catch her breath. “It seems the Bene Gesserit would rather turn against their own than develop an appropriate plan to regain their power and influence.”

Fenring pulled a fold of black fabric from Stokiah’s body, used it to rub the blood from his hand and his dagger. “So much for their vaunted skill of visualizing long-term goals. We can no longer consider the Bene Gesserits to be our staunch allies.”

Margot leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. The last echoes of imposed guilt faded from her like ghosts in the wind. The couple stood together and regarded the inert body. “A pity,” she said. “The Sisters could have been helpful when Shaddam finally decides to launch his ghola army.”

“Aaahh, hmm. A pity.” He nudged the dead Reverend Mother with his toe. “You know we will have to send a message to Wallach IX. If we hurry, we can package the body and ship it back before the Heighliner leaves again.”

They decided not to waste time on any sort of embalming or fixative; instead, they wrapped Stokiah’s corpse in airtight packaging. Margot then signed a note, which they affixed to the Reverend Mother’s chest: “I don’t need any more guilt, thank you.”

Low-wage handlers came to pick up the package and deliver it to the shuttle, where Stokiah would be stored in the Heighliner’s cargo hold and eventually returned to the Mother School. The roundabout delivery from Salusa Secundus would take some time, and when the Sisters on Wallach IX opened the package, they would likely be treated to quite a stench.