Convinced that Serena Butler’s personal acceptance of the peace accord would send precisely the right signal to Omnius, the Jihad Council and the League Parliament approved her request. They were overjoyed that she had turned her passion to the cause of peace, so that humans and machines could coexist in harmony. Celebrations overflowed the streets of Zimia.

Her plan terrified Xavier Harkonnen. He suspected immediately that she had not truly changed her mind, but he also knew that no one would listen to him. Especially not now.

The Parliament offered the Priestess a small, fast diplomatic ship. She would be accompanied by five of her chosen Seraphim as an honor guard, but she had refused any other security detail or entourage. “Omnius will not be impressed by pomp, and if the machines intend outright treachery, what difference would a dozen guards make, or a hundred, or even a thousand?” Then, she had added with a rueful smile, “Besides, why bring soldiers if I am on a peace mission? That sends entirely the wrong signal.”

Exhausted from nearly four decades of bloody fighting, the people were delirious at the prospect of reconciliation. They lionized Vidad and his fellow Cogitors. They launched exuberant victory parades, imagining how their lives would now be different, without the fear of awful machine raids. They desperately wanted to believe in the possibility of a safe future.

Xavier thought they were all fools for trusting the promises of Omnius. Serena must feel that way herself, so he could not fathom what she really had in mind.

Dressed in a formal crimson-and-green uniform, adorned with every insignia and medal he had ever received, the old Primero took a military groundcar to the arched gates of the City of Introspection. At the apex of the main arch, a stylized image of the angelic child— his own son— watched over the compound.

Deferring to the high-ranking officer, the jihadis stepped aside, but the white-robed women remained where they were. Sunlight gleamed off their golden skullcaps. “The Priestess of the Jihad does not receive visitors.”

“She will see me.” Xavier squared his shoulders and lifted his gaze to the idealized icon of the innocent murdered child. “I demand it in the name of my son Manion Butler.” This caused the Seraphim to falter, and Xavier pushed through the gate into the walled religious retreat where Serena had sequestered herself for so long.

Smiling and expectant, she met him near the garden fishponds. Long ago, this was where she had summoned Xavier and Vorian to recruit them as her greatest officers of the Jihad. When Xavier saw her in this peaceful place, an avalanche of memories assailed him, and his knees felt weak.

For a moment he stood without speaking, and Serena took the initiative. “My dear Xavier, I wish now that we had spent more time together as friends. But the Jihad has consumed us for so long.”

“We could have more time now if you refused to go to Corrin.” His voice carried a gruff edge. “The thought that you would willingly cease all hostilities against your mortal enemies is as false as a robot’s grin.”

“Machines have rigid programming, but one of the strengths of humanity is that we are able to change our minds. We can alter our opinions. We can even be… capricious when it suits us.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” He wanted to embrace her or just stand closer, but she remained where she was, and he stood as stiffly as a statue.

“Believe what you wish,” she said with a bittersweet smile. “You used to be able to see into my heart. Come, follow me.” She led him along a gem-gravel path toward a sheltered, private area.

As he walked beside her, Xavier said, “I wish things had been different, Serena. I mourn not only my lost son, but the love you and I should have had, the years of contentment together.” He sighed. “Not that I would ever change a moment of my life with Octa.”

“I love you both, Xavier. We must accept the present no matter how we wish we might have changed the past. I am glad you and my sister found a measure of happiness in the midst of this tempest.” Serena stroked his clean-shaven cheek, gazing at him with a determined expression. “We are defined by our tragedies and our martyrs. Without little Manion, humans never would have had the incentive to rise up and fight Omnius in the first place.”

His heart skipped a beat when he realized where she was leading him. He had not visited the primary shrine for many years, but now saw the crystalline coffin, the plaz-walled crypt that contained the remains of their dead son. He remembered taking the child’s preserved body from the Dream Voyager, after Vorian Atreides had escaped from Earth with Serena and Iblis.

When she sensed him drawing back, Serena urged him forward. “This Jihad is for our son. Everything I’ve done for decades has been to avenge him— and all the other sons and daughters of captive humans on every Synchronized World. You heard the shouting in the Hall of Parliament. The League wants to accept the ridiculous peace proposal. If I don’t go to Corrin, someone else will— and that will lead to an even greater disaster.”

She and Xavier stood close together, looking down silently at the innocent boy who had been murdered by the robot Erasmus. On various League planets, Xavier had seen hundreds of shrines and memorials to this revered child, bedecked with orange marigolds and loving paintings. At the recollection, his throat felt as dry as tinder, and his sense of personal outrage and deep loss increased with each passing moment.

He grumbled. “But if we give up without a resolution, it will be like our first strike on Bela Tegeuse. Before long, the machines will come back stronger than before, and all of our battles, the sacrifices of our fallen heroes, will have been for naught.”

Serena’s shoulders drooped. “Unless I can inspire them to a greater fervor, the Jihad will fall into the gutter of history.” Her lips turned down in a frown, and her haunted eyes showed depths of unspeakable disappointment— an expression she never revealed to her cheering public. “What else can I do, Xavier? The Cogitors offer an easy way out, and everyone wants to leap at the chance. My Jihad has failed through the lack of human will.” Her voice was so quiet that he could barely hear her. “At times my shame is so great I can barely hold my head up and look at the sky.”

The sun reflected like a flare off the crystal coffin’s polished surface. Amazed at the high quality of facial and bodily reconstruction, Xavier bent to look closely at the peaceful face of the little boy, the son he wished he had known. Manion looked so peaceful.

Then, at the base of the boy’s chin, he saw a fold of what looked like flesh-toned polymer, a tiny glint of metal wire, and lines of adhesive that seemed to be sagging after decades of Salusan sunlight magnified by the prismatic chamber. He realized that this could not be the mangled child who had been brought back from the riots on Earth. It was a facsimile, a sham!

Serena looked into his face, noted Xavier’s questions and doubts, and spoke before he could say anything. “Yes, I discovered the ruse years ago. No one else comes here and looks as closely as I do… or as you just did. Iblis created what was necessary at the time. His intentions were noble.”

He responded in a hushed voice so the Seraphim would not overhear. “But this is a fraud!”

“It is a symbol. I did not notice the fake until the people had already rallied around Manion the Innocent and sworn to fight the Jihad. After that, what would I gain if I exposed the ruse?” She arched her eyebrows. “Surely, you don’t believe that all the artifacts in all the shrines and reliquaries across the League Worlds are real?”

He frowned. “I… never gave it much consideration.”

“This is a shrine to our fallen son, who was slain by the evil Erasmus. That is real enough and cannot be denied.” She traced her fingertips on the slick crystal, her face distant and wistful. Then she rallied her determination and looked directly at him. “It doesn’t make any difference, Xavier. What I believe— what the people believe— is the only thing that matters. A symbol always has more power than reality.”

He accepted only reluctantly. “I don’t like this deceit… but you’re right: it doesn’t change what truly happened to our child. It makes no difference to our reasons for hating Omnius.”

She put her arms around him, and as he embraced her, he longed for the decades they had lost. “If all my devotees were like you, Xavier, we would have defeated Omnius in a year.”

He hung his head. “I’m just an old battle-scarred soldier now. The other commanders are much younger. They’ve forgotten the determination that made the Jihad such a fierce struggle. They’ve known nothing else, and they see me as just a grandfatherly figure who tells old war stories.”

Serena smoothed her silk-trimmed robes. “And now I need you to look to the future, Xavier. I intend to go to Corrin and face Omnius, but you must stay here and continue my fight. Iblis has already promised me that. You, too, must do whatever is necessary to guarantee that we will not lose everything we have fought for.”

“There’s nothing I could say to stop you from going, is there?”

Her smile was distant. “I must do what I can.”

Xavier left the City of Introspection, feeling a leaden sense of foreboding. Something in Serena’s eyes, in her tone of voice, told him she intended to do a terrible, irrevocable thing, and he would not be able to stop her.